Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1980, Page 193

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small, late-medieval Book of Hours, with a Dominican calendar and the
Dominican responses for the Office of the dead. The two local saints
at the end of the litany, ‘Sancte Seruati, Sancte AdelffT, point to the
Low Countries as its place of origin. It probably emigrated to the
diocese of Strasbourg, as is shown by the early additions to the
calendar of 18/9 Richardis imperatricis, and 3/12 Athale v.
(1)
As regards the first prayer, directed to St. Peter, which is missing in our
manuscript, Zurich stands alone with a prayer - like the others - of penitential
character, ‘Sancte Petre princeps apostolorum aperi mihi ianuam celestis regni.
absolue uincula peccatorum meorum potestate tibi a deo tradita..(see
Leclercq, p. 141). Marturi, Alpirsbach, Morterner, Peterborough and
also Brit. Mus. Add. 37787, f. 116v, and Harley 211, f. 172r, all preferred a
well-known text, ‘Sancte Petre apostole electe dei, tu confessus es... confitear
domino’, the oldest witness of which is in the ninth-century Angers psalter; see
Gjerløw, Adoratio crucis, p. 137. After ‘Tu es susceptor animarum’,
Peterborough replaces the remaining part of the prayer with a long confession
of sins to its patron saint, ‘Igitur ergo ad te domine meus... mox saluus ero
prestante domino nostro’.
An Icelandic manuscript containing this prayer was known to Finnur
Jonsson, who printed it ‘ex codice pergameno antiqvo’ together with three
other prayers (2, p. 380; cf. p. 366) as an illustration of pristine piety. The text
rendered by him was adapted for a woman, ‘Sancte Petre Apostole electe
Dei... Tu es susceptor animarum, & ego misera & fragilis, & peccatrix, qvid
sim factura...’
Danish translations of the same prayer are found in Danish prayer-books of
the late fifteenth century: a longer version, beginning ‘Sancte pæder gutz
vtuolde apostell’ (MDB 2, no. 308), and a shorter version, beginning ‘O thu
hellige sancte peder then altzo mektistæ gud vtwoldæ’ (ibid. 4, no. 872).
A Swedish translation of the same text, though without the final invocation
‘Sancte Petre, Sancte Paule’ etc., is found in five Swedish manuscripts from
the late fifteenth and the early sixteenth century (SBM, no. 219, from a
Vadstena manuscript c. 1500).
Of the three other prayers printed by Finnur Jonsson, the first one is a private
prayer, directed to the Nidaros patron, St. Olav, and, apparently, not known
from other sources, ‘O Christi Martir Clare, tuos ad te clamantes audi
famulos, qvia tue predicationis gratia, qve nefandis cultibus ad veri dei cultum
nos revocavit... fac nos gaudere sine fine in sanctorum patria, & ut tecum,
Rex, mereamur videre Deum Regem omnipotentem (etc.)’. The second prayer
is the collect of St. Olav’s proper Mass, ‘Deus qui es regum omnium corona’.
The fourth prayer is directed to St. Mary: