Some comments on the found sections of the oldest manuscript codex from the Cistercian monastery at Łekno-Wągrowiec

• Main Author: Jakub Łukaszewski
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan 2015-12-01
• Series: Biblioteka
• Subjects: fragmenty rękopisu; starodruki; oprawy; Łekno; Wągrowiec; cystersi; paleografia.
• Online Access: http://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/b/article/view/4235
• ISSN: 1506-3615; 2391-5838

The article summarises the results of a query carried out in the Archdiocese Archives in Gniezno during which five old prints bound in parchment sheets that undoubtedly come from one and the same manuscripts were found. In addition, another query in the font MS “Fragmenty” surfaced the existence of yet two more pages (sheets) from the same manuscript that had been already taken out from the bindings. The codicological and paleographical analyses of the remains of the manuscript show that it must have originated in a Cistercian scriptorium at the end of the twelfth century. The content of the surviving seven sections indicates that they were part of a large-sized collection of homilies (de tempore, pars aestivalis). The four old prints with their bindings including the sheets from the manuscript were once kept at the former library of the Cistercian monastery in Wągrowiec. In conclusion then, it can be stated with a great deal of confidence that the manuscript itself, whose pages had been used for the bindings of the books, must have been included in the collection of the monastery’s library. The resulting conclusion is that the parchment fragments found in the bindings of the Wągrowiec old prints must be remnants of the oldest known manuscript codex from the old Łekno-Wągrowiec abbey.