STEPHANUS BEDOCIUS (?)
Liber de fructibus poenitentiae (The Fruits of Penance), in Latin, manuscript on parchment [Southern France, Provence, first half of 14th century]

Singular edition of a scarce, unedited Dominican penitential with sterling provenance including Abbate Celotti and Sir Thomas Phillipps.

i (paper) + 93 + i (paper) leaves, contemporary ink foliation on versos in arabic numerals up to 99 and continuing in roman numbers c–cv, supplemented with modern pencil foliation 1–92 on recto, fractionally cropped, lacking first quire, second quire misbound after the third, missing one leaf after f. 83 and first flyleaf of endmatter, else complete [collation: i12, ii12, iii12, iv12, v12, vi12-1, vii12, viii10+1], ruled in plummet in two columns of thirty-five lines each (justification: 100 mm × 75 mm), contemporary pen tests on f. 13, occasional glossing and maniculae in margins partially trimmed away, written in brown ink in a gothic textualis script, capitals in alternating red and blue ink, Lombard initials of three to eight lines alternating in red and blue with purple and red penwork flourishes extending into margins. Bound in eighteenth-century brown speckled leather over boards, the spine tooled in gilt with foliate ornaments and a black leather title-piece lettered in gilt “VIM. [sic] A. | BEDOCI | DE.FRUC | PCENIT [sic] | M.S. | X,” fore edge plain; boards slightly warped, with exposed edges, cracking at the joints, and minor losses at the head and tail, vellum exhibiting notable water damage, with stains and tidemarks to the upper margins, particularly in the first quires, many capitals and Lombard initials show significant smearing, occasional loss to the text, including substantial tears at ff. 36 and 80, cockling, smudging, and general soiling are present throughout, though the primary text remains largely unaffected. 125 mm × 95 mm.

Provenance
(1) A colophon following the explicit records that the text was “corrected and augmented” by Brother Stephanus Bedocius of the Provence of Provincia (i.e. Provence). It remains uncertain whether Stephanus acted as the scribe of the present manuscript or as the reviser of an expanded redaction of the Liber de fructibus from which this copy derives; in either case, the reference to Provence suggests a southern French origin for this recension, in juxtaposition to the better known Italian version that cites “the brothers of Lombardy” in the explicit (i.e. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 3481).

(2) Sotheby’s, A catalogue of the Hebrew, Greek and Latin Antient Manuscripts, the property of Abbé Celotti, 14 March 1825, lot 395, as “The Property of Another Foreigner.”

(3) Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792–1872); acquired very early in his collecting career: the first flyleaf with his “Sir T. P., Middle Hill” stenciled crest and handwritten number ‘997’; included in his Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum in Bibliotheca D. Thomæ Phillipps, Bart., A.D. 1837 (Privately printed), no. 997.

(4) Sotheby’s, Bibliotheca Phillippica: Catalogue of a Further Portion of the Famous Collection […] of the late Sir Thomas Phillipps, 5 June 1899, lot 1157; apparently unsold, and re-offered by Sotheby’s, Bibliotheca Phillippica: Catalogue of a Further Portion of the […] Manuscripts and Autograph Letters of Thomas Phillipps, 27 April, 1903, together with another manuscript, as lot 111.

(5) Private collection.

Text
ff. 1–93, Liber de fructibus poenitentiae (beginning imperfectly in chapter 3) “‘[…] non cesset, salutaris operatio perseueret”; “Explicit liber de fructibus poenitentiae compilatus per
fratrem [...] ordinis predicatorum, de provincia Lumbardie, et correctus, et adauctus, quantum ad titulos, materias et auctoritates, plures excerptus a Vincentio, per fratrem Stephanum Bedocii
de provincia Provincie.”

An extremely rare and possibly unique witness to the Liber de fructibus poenitentiae (also known as the Flores de penitentia or Summa aurea), this manuscript preserves a Dominican penitential florilegium compiled from authoritative patristic sources, including Augustine of Hippo, Ambrose of Milan, and Athanasius of Alexandria, among others, on the nature and ordering of penance. The text, generally dated to the first half of the fourteenth century, survives in relatively few witnesses, and the present manuscript may represent one of the earliest extant copies of this otherwise poorly documented compilation. The authorship and transmission of the work remain uncertain. A colophon in the present manuscript identifies Brother Stephanus Bedocius as having “corrected and augmented” the text, yet it significantly leaves blank the name of the original compiler, suggesting that even within the manuscript’s own milieu, the work circulated anonymously. Whether Stephanus was responsible for copying this manuscript or for revising an earlier redaction cannot be determined with certainty. The structure of the text, organized for practical consultation, with a concordance (now partially lost) and contemporary foliation, indicates its use as a reference tool, likely within Dominican communities for the instruction of friars and novices.

The work is preserved in only a small number of manuscripts and a single incunable edition. The principal comparative witness of approximately the same date is Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 3481 (second half of the fourteenth century), which transmits a related recension in fifteen books and attributes the compilation to a Dominican friar of the Lombard province. The present manuscript differs from this Italian tradition both in structure and, to some extent, in textual content. Notably, its reviser explicitly incorporates additional material drawn from Vincent of Beauvais, to whom the work continued to be attributed in later tradition. Early modern bibliographers such as Jacques Quétif and Jacques Échard instead describe it as an anonymous Dominican compilation derived from Vincent’s Tractatus de poenitentia. No modern critical edition of the Liber de fructibus poenitentiae exists. The text was first printed at Basel in 1498 by Michael Furter, in an illustrated edition that attests to a degree of late medieval popularity. Its transmission, though limited, was geographically broad: recent scholarship has identified multiple manuscripts in Bohemia alone. Modern references remain sparse; the prologue was edited by Louis Teetaert (1946), the text was indexed by Morton W. Bloomfield in Incipits of Latin Works on the Virtues and Vices (1979), and its manuscript tradition has been surveyed in more recent studies, including Pavel Krafl (2023). The work stands in close relation to other Dominican penitential summae, notably the Tractatus de poenitentia of Vincent of Beauvais and the Summa de casibus poenitentiae of Raymond of Penyafort.

LITERATURE
Published: Morton W. Bloomfield, Incipits of Latin Works on the Virtues and Vices, 1100–1500 A.D., Cambridge (MA), 1979, p. 426 no. 4996; Related literature: Jacques Quétif and Jacques Échard, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, 2 vols. Paris, 1719–1721, vol. I, p. 239; Louis Teetaert, “Le Liber de fructibus poenitentiae et ses sources,” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 41 (1946), pp. 321–24; Pavel Krafl, “Overview of Penitence Law in the Kingdom of Bohemia in the Middle Ages,” Transilvania 4 (2023), pp. 71–87 (especially p. 77).

We thank Senior Consultant Sandra Hindman and Peter Bovenmyer for their assistance in preparing this sale.

This lot is located in Chicago.

STEPHANUS BEDOCIUS (?)Liber de fructibus poenitentiae (The Fruits of Penance), in Latin, manuscript on parchment [Southern France, Provence, first half of 14th century]

STEPHANUS BEDOCIUS (?)
Liber de fructibus poenitentiae (The Fruits of Penance), in Latin, manuscript on parchment [Southern France, Provence, first half of 14th century]