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[OWNERSHIP INSCRIPTION OF JOANNES TOR MOLLEN OF MÜNSTER]

Leaf with lengthy ownership inscription of Joannes tor Mollen, canon of the old St. Paul's Cathedral, Münster, recording his gift of the book this once attached to, to the Church of St. Laurentius in nearby Warendorf on 15 March 1547, in Latin, manuscript
[Germany (North Rhine-Westphalia, Münster)
dated 1547]
€300 - €500

Single sheet, once used as the pastedown of a large folio manuscript or early printed book, with eight lines of a finely written German bookhand recording the ownership and gifting of the once-attached book, capitals touched in red, date clause and final appeal in red, a later hand adding ""1547"" in a scrawl beneath the medieval numbers of the year, watermark of a complex crown with five circles around its brim, and an arch and a cross atop its body (very similar to Briquet nos. 4972-75, recorded in Germany in 1559-80), some holes in leaf and stains at edges from leather once folded over boards of later book, overall in good condition, 330 by 200mm

Johannes tor Mollen (Zurmühlen) appears first in the records of the old cathedral in Münster, in 1522, and rose through its ranks, serving as dean, then canon and finally cathedral-vicar, in which role he died in 1556. He was a substantial bourgeois book collector for his time and his will reveals that on his death he owned forty-three ""spannboke in bredden"" in addition to sixty-six books in parchment-bindings (see K. Scholz, Das Bistum Münster 6: Das Stift Alter Dom St. Pauli in Münster, 1995, pp. 288-90). However, traces of these have evaded our searches in the libraries of North Rhine-Westphalia, and apart from his will, this single leaf may well be the only remaining record of his library.

Manuscripts