Wadsworth Athenaeum

Wadsworth Athenaeum

Book of Hours, FOL 47

O intemerata (prayer to the Virgin and St. John), second half to near the end. Incipit: ego miserrima peccatrix. Explicit: Et post vite huius Gothic script, 14 lines, below top margin. Marginal decorations with red, and blue shapes, white and gold highlights, gold background, botanical elements. Recto and verso margin decorations appear to be mirror images. Sewing holes visible on binding edge, hair follicles visible on verso at bottom of leaf.

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O intemerata, devotional text of the Roman Catholic Church, commonly occurring in Books of Hours.  This prayer is identified as number 31 in Henri Barré, Prières anciennes de l'Occident à la Mère du Sauveur: des origines à saint Anselme (Paris: P. Lethellieux, 1963).

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late 15th century France or Flanders

Robin Weintraub
Katherine Philbin

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Latin

text

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illuminated manuscript
18 x 13

Transcription

recto
ego miserrima peccatrix co-
mendo hodie et cothidie cor-
pus meum et animam meam
in omnibus horis atque mo-
mentis vitae mee intus et ex-
terius firmi custodes et pii a-
pud Deum intercessores michi
existere dignemini. Credo enim
firmiter et fateor indubitan-
ter quia velle vestrum velle Dei
est et nolle vestrum nolle Dei est.
Unde et quicquid ab illo pe-
titis sine mora obtinetis. Per
hanc ergo tam potentissimam

verso
vestrae dignitatis virtutem. Pos-
cite queso michi peccatrici
corporis et anime salutem.
Agite queso agiste vestris sacris
orationibus ut cor meum
invisere et inhabitare digne-
tur spiritus almus gratia-
rum largitor optimus, qui
me a cunctis vitiorum sor-
dibus expurget virtutibus
sacris illustret et exornet in-
dilectione Dei et proximi per-
fecte stare et perseverare me
faciat. Et post vite huius

Translation (http://www.medievalist.net/hourstxt/suffrage.htm)

recto
I, a most wretched sinner, recommend this day to you two both my body and soul that at all hours and moments, inwardly and outwardly, ye would vouchsafe to be firm guardians, and before God devout intercessors: for I believe firmly and say without any doubt that he who wants to be yours wishes to belong to God, and he who does not want to be yours does not want to belong to God. Whatever ye ask from him ye obtain without delay. Therefore, by this so very influential power

verso
of your worthiness, petition I beseech on behalf of me, a sinner, for the deliverance of my body and soul. Procure, I beseech, by your sacred prayers, that the nourishing spirit, the best giver of graces, may vouchsafe to visit my heart and dwell therein, which may thoroughly purge me from all filth of vice, lighten and adorn me with sacred virtues: cause me perfectly to stand, and persevere in the love of God and my neighbor, and after the course of this life...