Incunabula and the Keio University Library Collection

This book provides explanations for the abbreviations used in ecclesiastical and canon law books. It is accompanied by an index, and was probably used as a reference book for reading law books. The author was for a long time unknown, but Victor Scholderer solved the mystery by discovering that the author's name, Werner of Schussenried, is hidden in an acrostic. Werner tells us in the text that he belonged to the collegiate church of St Germanus, in a suburb of Schreyer.

The first edition of this book was probably printed around 1475, and was successively published in Strasbourg, Nuremberg, Louvan, Paris and elsewhere. The Keio copy was published in Paris by Pierre Le Dru in 1495, and the online version of the ISTC records only three surviving copies of this edition, other than the Keio copy. On the title page and on sig. k4v of the Keio copy is inscribed the autograph of 'Robert Oldred'.

[Bibliographies]
  Scholderer, Victor, 'The Author of Modus Legendi Abbreviaturas', Library, 3rd ser. 2 (1911), 181-82

The present writer is grateful to Dr Yuichi Akae for his valuable comments.

(ST)