{"id":863,"date":"2025-04-20T18:09:29","date_gmt":"2025-04-20T22:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/?p=863"},"modified":"2026-02-10T19:47:36","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T00:47:36","slug":"latin-missal-c-1350","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/latin-missal-c-1350\/","title":{"rendered":"Latin Missal (c. 1350)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"metaslider-id-856\" style=\"width: 100%;\" class=\"ml-slider-3-100-0 metaslider metaslider-flex metaslider-856 ml-slider ms-theme-default-base has-dots-nav\" role=\"region\" aria-label=\"Latin Missal\" data-height=\"700\" data-width=\"700\">\n    <div id=\"metaslider_container_856\">\n        <div id=\"metaslider_856\">\n            <ul class='slides'>\n                <li style=\"display: block; width: 100%;\" class=\"slide-860 ms-image \" aria-roledescription=\"slide\" data-date=\"2025-04-20 17:58:00\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1919\" src=\"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_7584-scaled.jpeg\" class=\"slider-856 slide-860 msDefaultImage\" alt=\"\" rel=\"\" title=\"IMG_7584\" style=\"margin-top: 12.51953125%\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_7584-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_7584-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_7584-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_7584-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_7584-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_7584-2048x1535.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><\/li>\n                <li style=\"display: none; width: 100%;\" class=\"slide-861 ms-image \" aria-roledescription=\"slide\" data-date=\"2025-04-20 17:58:01\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" src=\"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_7591-scaled.jpeg\" class=\"slider-856 slide-861 msDefaultImage\" alt=\"\" rel=\"\" title=\"IMG_7591\" style=\"margin: 0 auto; width: 75%\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_7591-scaled.jpeg 1920w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_7591-225x300.jpeg 225w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_7591-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_7591-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_7591-1536x2048.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" \/><\/li>\n                <li style=\"display: none; width: 100%;\" class=\"slide-862 ms-image \" aria-roledescription=\"slide\" data-date=\"2025-04-20 17:58:01\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" src=\"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_7592-scaled.jpeg\" class=\"slider-856 slide-862 msDefaultImage\" alt=\"\" rel=\"\" title=\"IMG_7592\" style=\"margin: 0 auto; width: 75%\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_7592-scaled.jpeg 1920w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_7592-225x300.jpeg 225w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_7592-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_7592-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_7592-1536x2048.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" \/><\/li>\n            <\/ul>\n        <\/div>\n        \n    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Title: Leaf from a Latin Missal<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Origin: Italy<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Estimated year of printing: c. 1350<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A missal is a liturgical book in the Roman Catholic church, containing all the instructions, prayers, and chants a priest would need in order to conduct a Mass.&nbsp; After several centuries of using simple collections of prayers, the first complete missals appeared in the 12th century. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This missal was handwritten by a scribe, likely over a period of several years, so every missal is a unique work of art.&nbsp; Written in Latin using a Gothic script, with brown and red letters, and ornate initials that range from 2- to 8-lines in size with flowering tendrils.&nbsp; This is written on parchment, an animal skin material that was popular before the introduction of wood-based paper. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At nearly 700 years old, it\u2019s impossible to precisely identify the scribe, year, or location of printing, but it can be roughly placed by comparing to similar examples in libraries and museums with known provenances.&nbsp; Of note here, the Gothic script is a specific subtype called Southern Textualis which was primarily used in Italy in the Late Middle Ages \u2014 identifiable by its curved letter \u201cO\u201d, which would have been made out of angled lines in the other dominant Gothic script, Northern Textualis.&nbsp; This script is different in many ways from modern Roman script (for example, \u201cR\u201d is a \u201c2\u201d), which makes it hard to transcribe, even if one knows Latin.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Historical context:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The 14th century was a difficult century.&nbsp; Part of the Late Middle Ages, it began with a famine which killed 10% of the European population, caused by a sudden and severe drop in temperatures, called the Little Ice Age, which greatly reduced food production.&nbsp; The middle of the century was dominated by the Black Death, a bubonic plague which killed a third of the European population.&nbsp; The century concluded with the Western Schism, where 3 different people claimed to be the true Pope, causing chaos within the Catholic Church, until Pope Martin V was decided to be the true Pope in 1417. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In terms of literature, Geoffrey Chaucer\u2019s <em>The Canterbury Tales<\/em> was published at the end of the 14th century.&nbsp; Written in Middle English, the book was instrumental in the popularization of English as a literary language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Further Reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.usccb.org\/prayer-and-worship\/the-mass\/general-instruction-of-the-roman-missal\/roman-missal#:~:text=The%20first%20true%20liturgical%20books,origins%20of%20the%20first%20missal.\" title=\"\">USCCB: Roman Missal<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Missal\" title=\"\">Wikipedia: Missal<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ica.themorgan.org\/manuscript\/page\/114\/76951\" title=\"\">Similar Latin Missal at The Morgan Library<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sothebys.com\/en\/buy\/auction\/2021\/antiquarian-books-and-manuscripts\/leaf-from-a-dominican-missal-illuminated\" title=\"\">Similar Latin Missal at Sotheby&#8217;s<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hmmlschool.org\/latin-gothic\/\" title=\"\">Hill Museum and Manuscript Library: Latin Scripts &#8211; Gothic Textualis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A 700 year old leaf from a handwritten Latin Missal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":857,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[42],"class_list":["post-863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-highlight"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1047,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863\/revisions\/1047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}