Scriptores ordinis predicatorum
de provincia Dacie online
Fr. Mathias Ripensis OP and his Sermones de tempore
Transcribed and
edited by Johannes Schütz, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, 2013.
Introduction by J.G.G. Jakobsen, Centre for Dominican Studies of Dacia, 2014.
Introduction
A list from the 1320s of internationally acknowledged Dominican authors and
literary works knows the existence of five sermon collections ascribed to four
Friars Preachers from the province of Dacia: Fr. Olavus
Dacus, prior provincial of Dacia in 1286-1302, is
recorded to have written a Sermones de tempore;
Fr. Johannes Dacus and Fr. Conradus
of Sweden each authored a Sermones de sanctis; and Fr. Mathias Ripensis
is listed for both a Sermones de tempore and a Sermones de sanctis.[1] Only one of
these five sermon collections is extant: the Sermones de tempore by Mathias Ripensis. The
identity and time of activity for Fr. Mathias Ripensis
is not known with certainty, but it is generally assumed that he was a Danish
friar affiliated to the Dominican convent in Ribe
around the first quarter of the fourteenth century. He may be identical
to the “Fr. Matheus, lector Ripensis”
mentioned in the necrology of the Dominican convent in Ribe;
the necrology entry, however, only states the day of his death (3 March), not
the year, which to judge from the preserved transcript could be anything before
1450.[2] When
it, nevertheless, is possible to date his work more precisely to the early
fourteenth century, it is due to its appearance on the oldest version of the
abovementioned list, which was made around 1323; without much further evidence,
Scandinavian scholars have cautiously dated the sermon collections of Fr.
Mathias Ripensis to the decades around 1300.[3] Apart from
explicitly stating the authorship,[4] the preserved sermon collection adds just a little extra
knowledge about the background of its author, as he in one of his sermons
refers to Scandinavian language as his native tongue.[5]
In his Sermones de tempore, model sermons are suggested
by Fr. Mathias for almost every Sunday of the year, starting with Advent, and a
few other feast days, including two sermons for Easter, two for Christmas and
one for Corpus Christi. In two of the
extant versions, an extract from the Legenda aurea is inserted between the two Christmas sermons.
Whereas the first models of the collection are quite extensive and detailed,
they are increasingly shortened as it develops, obviously expecting its user to
be still more familiar with the practice. The common feature is to present the
basic structure of a Dominican sermon, show how to elaborate over a fixed
topic, and how to support the statements and argumentations with references to
the Bible, collections of exempla and
legends, and various types of encyclopedia stretching from history over natural
science to canon law.[6] The
preserved sermons of Fr. Mathias Ripensis place him
completely in line with traditional Dominican sermon collections of the
thirteenth century in regard of composition, form and content.[7]
The composition of the sermon is rooted in rhetorical practice reaching back to
antiquity with the goal to persuade the audience. Analogous to classical
speeches, Fr. Mathias composed his sermons in sections and according to elements
such as theme, prologue, division, confirmation and conclusion. The basic
source referred to in his sermons is the Bible, with numerous scriptural
quotations used to prove assumptions of his argumentation.[8]
The Sermones de tempore by Fr. Mathias Ripensis is transmitted in three different manuscripts, all
three preserved at the Uppsala University Library. The oldest
(Cod.Ups. C 342) is an incomplete version from
the middle of the fourteenth century, followed by two complete transcripts (C
343 and C 356) from the fifteenth century; they all contain minor differences
from the others. All three have been preserved through the extensive library of
the Brigittine Vadstena Abbey in Sweden, the two youngest even seem to have
been produced here.[9] The sermon collection has never been published until
now. All three versions have been transcribed by Johannes Schütz
for the use in his doctoral dissertation ‘Hüter
der Wirklichkeit - Der Dominikanerorden in der mittelalterlichen Gesellschaft Skandinaviens’ from
2013, and it is this transcript that Dr. Schütz kindly has offered for a web publication in the
series Scriptores ordinis predicatorum de provincia Dacie online (2014).
Notes for the introduction:
[1] “Frater Matheus
Ripensis da Dacia scripsit Sermones de tempore.
Item De sanctis.
(…) Frater
Oliverus provincialis Dacie scripsit (…) Sermones de tempore. (…) Frater Olavus Dacus scripsit
Sermones de tempore [erroneous repetition of the
former]. Frater Johannes Dacus scripsit
Sermones de sanctis.
Frater Conradus nacione Sweuus scripsit Sermones de sanctis.”
Samlaren vol. 12, 160-161. The list was compiled
by an anonymous friar in the early 1320s and later continued by the French
Dominican Fr. Laurentius Pignon
(†1449).
[2] “Marcius. (…) ∙v∙ Ns. Obiit frater Matheus lector Ripensis
(…)”. Kirkehistoriske Samlinger 1. ser. vol. II, 494.
[3] Schück 1891,
164; Riising 1969, 48.
[4] The Sermones ends with these closing
words: “Explicit opus sermonum
dominicalium per totum
annum compilatum per venerabilem
patrem fratrem Mathias Ripensem de ordine predicatorum. Deo gratias.” C 343 fo. 108r / C 356 fo.
89v.
[5] “..sancto Georgio qui in
lingua nostra Jurian vocatur…”
C 343 fo. 35r / C 356 fo.
2r. It is not possible from
the name form Jurian
to determine exactly which of the Scandinavian tongues Fr. Mathias was
referring to.
[6] Schütz 2013,
161-162.
[7] Riising 1969,
48-50.
[8] Schütz 2014, 222.
[9] Schütz
2013, 159 note 521.
Literature
referred to in the introduction:
Kirkehistoriske Samlinger (Copenhagen: Selskabet for Danmarks
Kirkehistorie, 1849 ff.)
Riising, Anne (1969): Danmarks middelalderlige
prædiken, Copenhagen.
Samlaren (Uppsala: Svenska litteratursällskapet, 1880 ff.).
Schück, Henrik (1891): ‘Svenska Medeltidsförfattare’, in:
Samlaren vol. 12, 154–170.
Schütz, Johannes (2013): Hüter der Wirklichkeit - Der Dominikanerorden in der mittelalterlichen
Gesellschaft Skandinaviens, PhD-dissertation in philosophy,
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen.
Schütz, Johannes (2014): ‘Dominican experts in medieval Scandinavia -
The Order of Preachers and the dissemination of knowledge in Northern
societies’, in: Monastic culture in North
Western Europe in the long thirteenth century, eds. L. Bisgaard
& T. Nyberg, Odense, 212-232.
The inserted folio numbers in bold brackets
[xxx] refer to folio breaks in the three extant versions (C 342, C 343 and C
356; note that only a part of the sermons are preserved in C 342).
Centre
for Dominican Studies of Dacia
Johnny
G.G. Jakobsen, Department
of Scandinavian Research, University of Copenhagen
Postal address: Njalsgade 136, DK-2300 Copenhagen, Denmark ● Email: jggj@hum.ku.dk