Psalmen Davids, nach Frantzösischer Melodey und Reymen art in Teutsche Reymen verständlich und deutlich gebracht durch Ambrosium Lobwasser, D.; sampt etlichen andern Psalmen und geistlichen liedern, so in den Kirchen und Gemeinden zu singen gebreuchlich

by Ambrosius Lobwasser

Herborn: Christoph Rab (Christophorus Corvinus), 1598

Fragment: 128; [66] p. | 8vo | A-H^8 c^8(-c1,8) d-f^8 g^8(-g4-8?) | 191 x 122 mm

An early edition of the German humanist’s popular metrical psalter first published at Leipzig in 1573. While VD16 only mentions this 1598 psalter as part of a larger Biblia, they would likely have been available separately—as they were at the Frankfurt Book Fair in the autumn of 1598. Either way, our copy is only a fragment.  ¶ Citing a source from 1804, a note penciled on the front paste-down calls this the second-oldest Nassau hymnal (zweitaltestes Nassauischen Gesangbuch). We encourage you to ignore this. Rab does appear to have been the first printer in what was once the County of Nassau—we find no earlier imprints, for example, from Nassau, Dillenburg, or Weilburg—and he was certainly the first in Herborn, where he issued his first book in 1585. But he published several songbooks prior to this: a 1586 Periocharum et hymnorum evangelicorum libri III (VD16 S4098); editions of George Buchanan’s Psalms in 1588, 1590, 1592, and 1595; and editions of Lobwasser’s present work in 1587, 1589, 1591, 1592, and 1593.  ¶ Lobwasser translated his work from the French psalter arranged by Clément Marot and Théodore de Bèze, 1551-1566. His German version circulated widely, sometimes to the chagrin of Lutheran Protestants, as it had strong Calvinist overtones. “While Lobwasser was nominally a Lutheran, he had Calvinist sympathies and has been variously described as a Philippist or crypto-Calvinist. His translation of the Huguenot psalter, prompted by both humanist and religious considerations, played an important role in the spread of Reformed ideas in Germany. Calvinists quickly recognized its propaganda value, just as Lutherans viewed the singing of Lobwasser’s psalms—the ‘siren song of Calvinism’—as a sure mark of confessional deviation” (Nischan).

PROVENANCE: Our chief interest is not simply that it’s been annotated, but that the index has been so heavily targeted for expansion—and the Register der Hauptlehren specifically, the thematic index of main lessons in the Bible and where to find them. Our early owner has not only added relevant chapter and verse citations to the original indexer’s themes, but he’s drastically expanded the topical headings themselves, cramming much of the little white space with his neat penmanship. A list of the Bible’s books in their proper order has been helpfully penned at end. This was an exceptional book user, one who developed his own rich reference tool, and we desperately wish we could see how he treated the rest of the book. If the owner had been a preacher heavily mining scripture to aid in sermon composition, for example, it’s easy to understand how the book simply fell apart from use. If we’re to have just a part of it, we’re happy to have such a generously treated index. It calls to mind Ann Blair’s comment on the relative scarcity of annotated reference books.  ¶ Early ownership inscription on an old rear fly-leaf (Andreas Walus Miller?). Ownership signature and stamp of Velky Béla, Tanitó (teacher?), on front fly-leaf, perhaps ca. 1900.

CONDITION: Perhaps a late 19th-century binding of embossed black cloth over boards, each board featuring a central Communion chalice; old red edges. Title within decorative border; printer’s device on title page; printed musical notation throughout. ¶ This is a fragment only. Several corners torn away and since filled, affecting some text, with several additional marginal repairs not affecting text; annotations trimmed; some light worming. Paper covering the hinges has split, though the cords remain firmly intact; spine lightly faded, its ends and joints moderately worn, with a millimeter of loss at the head.

REFERENCES: VD16 B2833 (the larger Biblia) ¶ Catalogus universalis pro nundinis autumnalibus de anno 1598 (Frankfurt, 1598), leaf B2r-v; Dictionnaire de géographie ancienne et modern a l’usage du libraire (1922), col. 622 (on Herborn’s first printer); Bodo Nischan, Prince, People, and Confession: The Second Reformation in Brandenburg (UPenn, 1994), p. 153; Claudio Bacciagaluppi, Artistic Disobedience: Music and Confession in Switzerland, 1648-1762 (Brill, 2017), p. 47 (on Lobwasser’s source); Ann M. Blair, Too Much to Know (Yale, 2010), p. 230 (“Tracking the impact of reference books in early modern Europe is particularly difficult. These books were expensive and were often owned by institutions, so that we have few records of the individuals who actually used them. Reference books were also less fully annotated than other genres, in part because they belonged to libraries that discouraged users from annotating books.”); Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen, Bookshop of the World (Yale, 2019), p. 131 (“Already in 1582 the church council of Dordrecht noted that ‘the common man…will often have four, five or more psalm books in his house,’” they were so commonly owned and brought to church)

Item #506