Incunabula in Communities of Canonesses Regular and Tertiaries Related to the Devotio Moderna Toward an ‘Inclusive’ Approach of Late Medieval Book Ownership in the Low Countries

This contribution discusses the hitherto overlooked ownership of the earliest printed books (incunabula) by Netherlandish female religious communities of tertiaries and canonesses regular connected to the religious reform movement of the Devotio moderna . Studies of book ownership and book collections in these communities have tended to focus on manuscripts. From the last decades of the fifteenth century onwards, however, these religious women increasingly came in contact with printed books, even though the involvement of the Devotio moderna with the printing press was limited. The discussion focuses on the channels via which tertiaries and canonesses acquired books produced by commercially operating printers, the ways in which incunabula affected what these (semi-)religious women read, as well as the ratio between printed books in Latin and the vernacular, and their function(s) within these communities. Thus the essay intends to sketch a preliminary image of the role of incunabula in female convents, and advocates a more inclusive approach of female religious book ownership.

printing press and the new dynamic of secular printing shops catering to a largely anonymous market affect the dissemination of texts in these communities? What can incunabula from female religious possession tell us about the channels of acquisition of the earliest printed books and about their mobility?
Although the direct involvement of the Devotio moderna with the printing press has not turned out to be as large as scholars expected -in the fifteenthcentury Low Countries presses in Brussels (1475-87), Gouda (c. 1486Gouda (c. -1521, and Schoonhoven (1495-1519) were run by male members of the movement (Brothers of the Common Life and canons regular) -that does not mean that incunabula produced by lay/secular printers and distributed via commercial channels passed by the houses that belonged to the circles of this influential reform movement.5 Ed van der Vlist recently demonstrated how printed books indeed formed an integral part of the book collections of male religious houses in the Low Countries toward the end of the fifteenth century. His survey of the library collection of the Carthusians in Amsterdam shows that at least eight incunabula owned by the monks are still extant.6 Thus far, however, the presence of incunabula in women's communities within the Devotio moderna has not received any specific attention. With this study, we carefully want to take the first steps to fill that gap. The essay intends to sketch a prelusive image of the role of incunabula in female convents, and intends to induce a more 'inclusive' approach of female religious book ownership in the last decades of the fifteenth century by including printed books into the analysis, and thus diminishing the dividing line between manuscript and print.
Almost twenty-five years after the publication of Stooker and Verbeij's pioneering study on monastic book collections, detailed and systematic information about provenances and late medieval and early modern ownership of incunabula, is still lacking.7 Our exploration is based on our own research projects into incunabula and late medieval female book ownership, and a survey of secondary literature, and of (online) library catalogues. Therefore, the present study is by no means exhaustive, and, as the acquisition of (printed) books in the late fifteenth century itself, to a certain extent dictated by chance. It can only reveal the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Nevertheless, the survey offers some significant indications with regard to the questions posed above. In the 5 K. Goudriaan, ' future, research should seek to include data about the acquisition of printed books from archival sources, such as financial accounts from female Modern Devout communities, if at all available, and take account of book lists explicitly stating the presence of printed books in these libraries. Such an exploration, however, is beyond the scope of this article. In the following we first aim to provide a general overview and a discussion of how individual books entered a particular convent. The second and third sections focus on the texts that were disseminated in communities of tertiaries and canonesses regular in incunabula and on the ratio between books in the Dutch vernacular and Latin respectively.

Printed Possessions
In our search for incunabula from houses of tertiaries and regular canonesses related to the Devotio moderna we have encountered 85 books printed in the period between 1472 and 1 January 1501. 37 of them were owned by 22 convents of canonesses regular: Amsterdam, (possibly) St Agnes (1) (1)). Both early printed books contain comparable rubrication, which seems to have been added already in Utrecht (the penwork in Dat boeck des gulden throens certainly stems from that region). The folio with the printer's mark in Dat boeck des gulden throens contains the following ownership inscription: 'This book belongs to the convent of Jericho and was left to us by the sisters Jordaens. Pray for them for God's [sake]' (f. cxcvij verso).13 This ownership inscription, mentioning the plural ghesusteren, seems to imply that both books, which entered the convent separately, were bound together before they were passed on to the convent, possibly after the death of Griete in 1519.14 The explicit inclusion of the purchase of incunabula in the accounts of the convent of Jericho and the survival of the very books mentioned seems to be unique. Adam Jordaens's role in procuring these incunabula is intriguing. He seems to have acted as a kind of intermediary. Unfortunately, it is unclear how he had obtained the books, but it is not unconceivable that there was a connection to a book seller in Louvain.
Other copies of Dat boeck des gulden throens were donated to convents by lay people. The canonesses regular of Jerusalem in Utrecht received their book (again a copy of the first edition) from a woman and her son: 'This book belongs to the convent of nuns in Jerusalem and came from our mother Truide and Tyman her son. Pray for them for God's sake' (Utrecht, University Library  (UB), E fol. 153 (1), flyleaf at the front).15 The 'onse moeder' seems to imply that the woman who donated the book was not only a lay woman (she has a son), but also that she was the mother of a nun or nuns in the convent. As in the example from Jericho, this book entered the monastic institution via family relations, although in this case as a gift rather than as an acquisition the sisters paid for.16 It seems that Truide and Tyman did not only give the canonesses Dat boeck des gulden throens. This is bound together with the Wech der sielen salicheit (Utrecht: Printer with the Monogram, 1480; Utrecht, UB, E fol. 153 (2)), creating the exact same combination as in the composite volume owned by the canonesses of Jericho, but in reverse order. The Brothers of the Common Life of St Hieronymus in Utrecht, who owned a large collection of incunabula themselves, bound both books, which have the same rubrication and penwork initials in a Utrecht style, in one binding.17 Another male bookbinder from an unidentified religious community was responsible for binding a copy of the second, Haarlem edition of Dat boeck des gulden throens, owned by the canonesses regular of St Anna in Delft (Wolfenbüttel, HAB, A: 523.1 Theol. 2o (2)). It was bound together with a copy of Der sielen troest, published by Jacob Bellaert less than three months before Dat boeck des gulden throens, on 9 August 1484. The note beneath the printer's mark at the end of Dat boeck des gulden throens (f. r9v) states that the book was bound by 'brother Dirck van Alcmaer' .18 The  November 2020]). As this apparently was a conscious choice -women's last names more often ended at this suffix, but seldom as systematically as in this house -it seems possible that we should read the 'our sisters' (in this ownership inscription as well as in the next one) as 'sisters of our community' and that they bequeathed the Otto of Passau's book to the convent in which they spent their lives. In that case, this ownership inscription should be translated as 'Sisters of the convent of St Maria within Haarlem in Sint-Jansstraat. Pieternel Direcksdochter and Marytgen Maertensdochter, our sisters, have given it by way of testament'].
f. oo6r).20 The change in hands seems to indicate that the book was indeed already in common use in the convent before the sisters' demise. A sixteenthcentury note beneath the colophon of another copy of the same edition indicates that the Boeck vanden leven Jhesu Christi was also in common use in the Brussels convent of Anne and Griete Jordaens: 'This book belongs to the monastery of Jericho at Brussels in the common library' (Paris, BnF, D-672, f. oo6r).21 It is unclear how the book made its way into the library, but before it was placed there, the sisters inserted a penwork initial on folio a6r in a style typical of the Jericho convent, which can also be found in the manuscripts produced by the women. By adding the initial the sisters incorporated the book printed by a commercially operating lay printer in Antwerp into their own manuscript/book collection. An unknown benefactor gave the sister of an unidentified female convent, Berbele Sthonts, a copy of the same edition of the Boeck vanden leven Jhesu Christi for shared use by the sisters of her convent (Mettingen, Draiflessen Collection, Liberna Inc 22). The intended use could not have been clearer: Berbele requested that the book should be always kept in the convent's church for sisters with a devotion to Christ's life to read on Sundays and Holy days: I, Sister Berbele Sthonts, have received this book for our sisters in common. Begging our reverend mother that it may always lie in the church so that on Sundays and Holy Days the sisters, who have love and devotion to the precious life of our dear Lord may read from it. Pray for me (f. oo6r).22 Other incunabula were also offered by individual canonesses and tertiaries for communal use: Sister Delyaen Pauwen, for example, gave a copy of the Psalter in Dutch ( The ownership inscription does not specify how the book was acquired, which is actually the case in the majority of incunabula in the possession of canonesses regular and tertiaries. How Berbele, Delyaen, Dierck, and Beatrix acquired the incunabula that they donated for common use is unclear. A family member might well have given these books to them. Apart from parents -see the case of mother Truide and her son Tyman above -godmothers and uncles also bequeathed printed books to tertiaries. The Amsterdam tertiaries of Elfduizend Maagden, who owned a copy of the Haarlem edition of Otto of Passau's work, received a copy of the Van den leven der heiligen vaderen (Dat vader boeck), the Middle Dutch translation of the Vitas patrum, published by Gerard Leeu in 1480, from Sister Dieue Aelberts' godmother. According to the ownerships inscription, she passed away in 1530 on the day after the feast the beheading of St John the Baptist (25 June). The different hands in, and alterations to, the note, suggest that the annotation was altered after Dieue's godmother died. happened by way of commemoration, but it is also possible that the book only entered the Amsterdam community after the godmother's demise, after which her note was changed by the tertiaries. The same binding, contemporary to the books but with a restored spine, also holds a copy of the Dutch translation of the Dialogus creaturarum, the Twispraec der creaturen (Gouda: Gerard Leeu, 1481). The great uncle of Katrijn Claes Vranckendochter, inhabitant of the Leiden tertiary convent of Roomburg, was Jan Philipszoon, city clerk in the same city and compiler of a varied collection of versified texts in manuscript (between 1472 and 1481).28 Around the time of his death in 1509, he donated a copy of the same edition of the Dutch version of the Vitas patrum owned by Elfduizend maagden in Amsterdam. Similarly to the canonesses regular of Jerusalem in Utrecht, who denoted Trude as 'our mother' , the note by the Leiden tertiaries indicates Jan Philipszoon as 'our uncle': 'This book belongs to Johannes Philipzsoon our uncle, secretary of the city of Leiden, and has given it by way of testament to the sisters of St Margareta on Roomburg' (Paris, Fondation Custodia, ob-0.11.6).29 Some incunabula thus only reached tertiaries and regular canonesses after they had lived a life in the hands of lay readers.30  1-2)).  (2), and the canonesses regular of Jerusalem in Utrecht (1) the number of extant books is doubled by the incunabula that we were able to trace. In some cases, incunabula are even the only kind of extant book(s) with religious works from a convent (for example the tertiaries of St Nicolaas in Utrecht).36 The 'impact' of incunabula in this sense, with regard to the numbers of books owned alone and based on the material presented in this article, seems to have been largest in communities of tertiaries. In general, they owned fewer manuscripts and in their acquisition of printed books they seem to surpass the canonesses regular. Nevertheless, even incunabula that entered into a larger collection could have a significant impact on the dissemination and availability of texts. Texts such as Otto of Passau's Boeck des gulden throens and the Wech der sielen salicheit were already available in manuscript in the Low Countries, but their dissemination was rather limited: (parts of) the latter text are contained in seven extant manuscripts and three manuscripts (of which the oldest dates to 1448) contain the full text of the Boeck des gulden throens independent of the printed editions.37 At least five manuscripts of the Boeck des gulden throens, however, are in fact copies from the incunabula editions.38 Other texts, such as the dialogue between Man and Lady Scripture in the Boeck vanden leven Jhesu Christi or the Dutch recension of the Dialogus creaturarum, did apparently not circulate at all in manuscript before they were published in print.39 The relatively recent translation of Thomas of Cantimpré's Bonum universale de apibus (1451), on the other hand, seems to have already been popular in handwritten form amongst religious females in the Northern Low Countries and tertiaries 35 The in particular. The surviving copies of the 1488 edition by Peter van Os suggest a continuation of this trend.40 Even works that were well-known and represented in ample numbers among fifteenth-century manuscripts owned by various communities of canonesses regular and tertiaries, were still in demand in print, even if the printed books did not immediately replace older manuscripts. The Dutch translation of Jacobus of Voragine's Legenda aurea, the so-called Passionael, is a good example. Our investigation yielded four copies of three different editions owned by canonesses regular and tertiaries. In a copy of the second edition of the Passionael (Gouda: Gerard Leeu, 1480), nowadays in the national library of France in Paris, about ten Saints such as Odilia, Victoria, Basiulius, and Concordius are added to the table of contents (written in the margin). Below the table of contents, the same person added the following instruction: 'The [ones] that are written here, search in the old passionael' (Paris, BnF, RES-H-172).41 The 'old passionael' was likely a manuscript of the Dutch translation of Voragine's Legenda aurea, which implies that this book was added to a (convent) library, and that (older) manuscript copies remained in use once printed recensions started to become available. Unfortunately, the copy has no ownership inscription, but the handwritten reading instructions in the Dutch vernacular, and clearly directed at a fellow user of the book collection, suggest that the book was owned by a (female) religious community. The penwork initials have been added in a style typical of Haarlem, which might point to reception in that city.

Latin versus Middle Dutch
The incunabula owned by women's institutions linked to the Devotio moderna also shed light on another aspect of the medieval library collections from convents of tertiaries and canonesses regular that has been understudied thus far: the share of Latin books in them. As a result of the focus of previous research on the Middle Dutch manuscripts from religious institutions in the Low Countries, it is unclear to what extent religious women had access to devotional texts in the language that is mostly considered to be reserved for men. Of the 32 manuscripts from Diepenveen, for example, at least five are written (or contain texts) in Latin. Our list of 85 incunabula shows that the share of Latin volumes in female houses was fairly substantial: no fewer than 32 (38%) were printed in that language. Interestingly, the tertiaries owned almost as many Latin (22)  Conversely, it is not unexpected that books that were printed in other regions in Europe found their way to the Low Countries. With six incunabula from the period between 1472 and 1484, the prolific and nearby printing centre of Cologne is best represented in our list; other books came from Strassburg (3), Nuremberg (2), Basel (3), and Venice (1). Interestingly, the Latin books in our corpus show a vast diversity: all of them are single copies of different texts. The printed books in Dutch owned by tertiaries and canonesses regular, on the other hand, are often copies of the same text: sometimes of one edition, for example Thomas of Cantimpré's Bien boec (3 copies); more often, however, they occurred in two or three editions. Cases in point are the already extensively mentioned Boeck des gulden throens (10 copies of two editions), the Boeck vanden leven Jhesu Christi, printed on 3 November 1487 by Gerard Leeu in Antwerp and a year later, on 20 November 1488, by his brother Claes (4 copies), and Die duytsche Souter, which was printed in 1480, 1487, and 1498 in Delft, by Jacob Jacobszoon van der Meer and/or Christiaen Snellaert (3 copies). Some of these texts clearly found their way to several religious communities and can be considered best-sellers.
Although our list reveals that some of the convents possessed incunabula in the vernacular only and others only Latin ones -the role of coincidence should not be underestimated here -the surviving books of the canonesses regular of Ter Lelie, the tertiaries of Elfduizend Maagden in Amsterdam, and the canonesses regular of Diepenveen show that both languages functioned alongside one another within female communities. The extant books from the last convent seem to indicate, however, that language had consequences for who would use the books. The Liber Bibliae moralis by the Benedictine author Petrus Berchorius (c. 1290-1362), printed by Richard Pafraet in Deventer in 1477, according to its ownership inscription belonged to the Diepenveen community in general: 'This book belongs to Diepenveen' (Deventer, Athenaeumbibliotheek (AB), 2000 E 53 KL, first flyleaf at the front).42 The same applies to the post-incunable that contains the Rosetum exercitiorum spiritualium by Jan Mombaer (1460-1501) that was printed in Paris by Jean Petit and Jean Scabelerius on 13 August 1510: 'In Diepenveen near Deventer in the order of Augustinian canonesses regular' (Deventer, AB, 113 B 8 KL, second parchment flyleaf at the front).43 The ownership inscriptions of the two incunabula with Middle Dutch translations of Jacob of Voragine's Sermonen op die evangelien van de zondagen door dat gehele jaer and Otto of Passau's Boeck des gulden throens, however, specifically mention that the books belonged to the 'external sisters' or 'the sisters outside the enclosure' , i.e. the lay sisters.44 Thus, the extant printed books brought together in the present study indicate that the reading of Latin was reserved for the professed canonesses and that there was a difference in the level of literacy between groups in the community, which also may reflect differences in social class between the sisters. 42 'Pertinet in Dyepeveen' . According to two other ownership inscriptions at the same flyleaf, the book at some point in time also belonged to the Crosiers in Emmerich. A third note mentions 'Yserloe' , which is the name of a small hamlet in the Achterhoek in Gelderland. Whether this is also the name of a person, or refers to the court of the  (1-2)).47 At first glance it seems that the confessors possessed theological treatises or glossaries in Latin that could help them to explain Scripture, whereas professed women had access to Latin texts with a more devotional and didactic character that facilitated individual study and meditation. Further research, however, is needed to get firmer ideas of what types of books -manuscripts as well as early printed bookswere intended for which groups within female monastic houses. The incunabula in Haarlem, Stadsbibliotheek mentioned in this article have been catalogued by G.J. Jaspers, De blokboeken en incunabulen in Haarlems Libry (Haarlem 1988). The idea that Latin incunabula were used by the confessors in the cura monialium of women religious is also apparent from the extant collection from the poor clares of Bethlehem in Brussels, who fall outside the scope of this article. Nineteen out of twentythree incunabula that are preserved from this house, were according to their ownership inscriptions part of the library of the confessors (Bibliotheca confessarii).

Conclusion
The exploration of incunabula owned by tertiaries and canonesses regular in the Low Countries indicates that the earliest printed books affected book ownership and access to texts significantly. We were able to trace no fewer than 82 incunabula from these two types of female houses only (for full details, see Appendix 1). Especially in communities of tertiaries, the incunabula traced in this article often represent a substantial increase in book ownership. The texts contained in these books were important additions to the women's library collections: some editions introduced 'new' texts (or at least new recensions of texts, such as the dialogic Boeck van den leven Jhesu Christi), while others provided texts that had already gained (some) popularity among these groups of women in manuscript form (for example Thomas of Cantimpré's Bien boec).
Printing, of course, eliminates the actual practice of copying of a text, which is how fifteenth-century (semi-)religious women often acquired manuscripts: they wrote their own books. Incunabula were either donated or bought, and this happened often through familial connections. Geographically, the reception of incunabula seems to concentrate in the Northern Netherlands, but this is also the region with the highest number of the type of communities under discussion here. Incunabula, and thus the texts contained in them -travelled interregionally: books produced in Utrecht were read in Brussels, and others produced in Zwolle found their way to communities in Amsterdam, Alkmaar, and Hoorn. The market in Latin incunabula was truly international, and the Latin books that found their way to tertiaries and canonesses regular in the Low Countries were probably acquired via agents (book sellers) and through confessors, as seems to have been the case in Weesp.
Our preliminary study clearly indicates that incunabula were fully integrated into the existing book collections and reading practices rather than taking a place in the communities and their libraries at the expense of manuscripts. They were used alongside manuscripts, decorated as manuscripts, and they even influenced manuscript culture in the sense that they served as copy for manuscripts (Boeck des gulden throens). Studies into late medieval book ownership among (semi-)religious women will undoubtedly benefit from likewise integrating printed books into research, giving them the place they deserve, and allowing manuscript studies to become -at least to a certain extent -influenced by our increasing knowledge about incunabula. More data about the ownership of incunabula will help book, literary, and art historians answer questions concerning the (changing) acquisition policy of books by convent sisters after the introduction of the printing press. Thus, we can come to a more complete understanding of how communities of religious women enjoyed intimate and dynamic connections to the (secular) world around them, not only via familial ties, but also via active intellectual interest and cultural exchange.