Benedictine Rule written by Maria Wivina de Montpesson, nun at Groot-Bijgaard.
[Manuscript] / [Nuns] / [Benedictine Rule] / Maria Wivina de Montpesson (scribe). Den Reghel vanden H: Patriarch Benedictus. Geschriven door Maria Wivina de Montpesson. Religieuse in d’Abdye vanden groote[n] Bygaerden. tot t’ghebruyck va[n] t’selve Abdye. 1656. Groot-Bijgaarden: Maria Wivina de Montpesson, 1656. [25.5 x 17.0 cm], manuscript on thick parchment consisting of [2] ff. (full-page title, coat of arms, and portrait of St. Benedict), 165 pp., [6] pp. table, [3] pp. blanks, 20 lines per page, early liturgical notes in French on front flyleaf, with numerous red initials, 3- and 4-line decorated initials in red and black, and a calligraphic tailpiece in red and black, chapter headings in red, arms with gold and silver pigments, the latter of which has oxidized. Quarter bound in contemporary reverse calf with leather over wood boards, brass corner plates, brass clasps and catches (bottom clasp missing), marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, retaining a few green silk fore-edge tabs, two green silk bookmarks. Rubbing, abrasion and edge wear to spine and covers. Cockling and subsequent dustiness to a few leaves, minor marginal hand-soiling, a few pencil annotations. Neatly written throughout.
$16,500
A fine manuscript of the Rule of St. Benedictine in Dutch (Flemish), written and decorated in 1656 by Maria Wivina de Montpesson, a nun at the Benedictine Abbey of Groot-Bijgaarden (also known as Saint Wivina Abbey), located some six miles northwest of Brussels. The manuscript includes a full-page portrait of St. Benedict and a full-page depiction a coat of arms, which according to a later pencil annotation, are those of the abbess of Groot-Bijgaarden at the time the time Maria Wivina de Montpesson produced the book.
Maria Wivina de Montpesson is known to have been the scribe for another liturgical manuscript from Groot-Bijgaarden, a Processional dated 1646 that entered the Bibliothèque royale de Belgique as MS 21138 in 1856 ( see J. van den Gheyn, Catalogue des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, vol. 1 [1901], pp. 410-11, no. 655; and M. Huglo, Les manuscrits du processional, vol. 1, p. 57, no. B-16). In that book she signed her name in Latin (“Scribebat domicella Maria Wivina Montpesson, religiosa Maioris Bigardiae”), while in our book Benedictine Rule she used the vernacular (“Geschriven door Maria Wivina de Montpesson Religieuse in d’Abdye vanden groote[n] Bygaerden”).
The provenance of this Benedictine Rule is uncertain, but documents handed down with the manuscript perhaps point the way. They concern a donation in 1905 of 3 books by a certain attorney Jean Moeur to the Noviciat des Frères des Écoles Crétiennes Grand-Bigard. He says that the books belonged to his great aunt, who was a nun at Groot-Bijgaarden. Our Benedictine Rule manuscript is not one of the three books listed, but another manuscript signed by Maria Wivina Montpesson is, namely a Latin Officium for the Feast of St. Benedict. I have been unable to trace that book.
Groot-Bijgaarden Abbey was founded in the 12th century by Saint Wivina and her friend Emwara. Other women soon arrived, and they formed a community according to the Rule of St. Benedict under the protection of the Abbey of Affligem. In 1796 the community was suppressed by the French, the abbey church was destroyed, and the rest of the buildings sold.