Fifteenth-Century Bible Study Aid

Petrus de Rosenheim (ca. 1380–1433).
Roseum memoriale.
[Rood Klooster monastery, near Brussels, ca. 1460].
Manuscript on paper. (BRMS 94)

A significant record of the essential role of memory in late-medieval piety, the Roseum memoriale provides summaries of each chapter of the Bible (omitting Psalms) in 1,194 short mnemonic verses. So as to insure memorization in the proper sequence, the first word of each verse falls neatly into alphabetical order. Bridwell Library’s manuscript of the Roseum memoriale probably dates from the years just prior to the first printing of the text at Cologne in 1470. The pages displayed here feature the first twelve of the twenty-one verses pertaining to the twenty-one chapters of the Gospel of John.