La Confession

Olivier Maillard (c. 1430–1502).
La confession frere Olivier Maillard.
[Paris: Pierre Le Rouge, c. 1492]. (07052)

Bridwell Library holds the only recorded copy of this edition of an early vernacular text for private devotion composed by Olivier Maillard, one of the most popular preachers in fifteenth-century France. Commissioned by the citizens of Poitiers, the author composed the Confession as a series of prose and verse expositions on each of the Ten Commandments. The work begins by listing ten barriers to salvation and then offers a way to repentance through personal reflection upon the Decalogue. A short treatise on mortal sins follows, and the book concludes with a rendering of the Ten Commandments in verse. It is the earliest devotional text in French held by Bridwell Library.