Rupert of Deutz (c.1075/1080 - c.1129)
A bifolium from his commentary on the Song of Songs, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [Germany, 12th century].
A contemporary survival of Rupert of Deutz’s mariological commentary on the Song of Songs, a witness to show that the 12th century did not accept the dogma of the immaculate conception.

227 x 303mm (the bifolium). 30 lines in a rounded romanesque hand, written space: 183 x 110mm, the text of the bifolium not consecutive, corresponding to Rupertus Tuitiensis, Comment. In Cantica Canti., I, 377 and 380 (Migne, PL, CLXVIII, 845-846 and 852), from ‘[...] et letabimur in te. Quomodo in te?’ to ‘Maria autem mansit inquit evangelista cum illa [...]’ and ‘Vel quomodo in curribus Pharaonis’ to ‘incorrupta post partum’, prickings survive (recovered from a binding and consequently darkened and creased, but generally in good condition, a few wormholes, margins of the second leaf cropped but not affecting text). In a marbled card binding.

Provenance:
(1) Colker MS 97; acquired in 1965 from Maggs.

Rupert, Abbot of Deutz (Rupertus Tuitiensis), was an influential Benedictine theologian, exegete and author. His commentary on the Song of Solomon is nominally billed as a prophetical celebration of the incarnation of Christ, although it becomes in fact a mariological tour de force, in which the Virgin Mary is recast in the role of Shulamith, with all the complications that this entails (on this, see S. D. Moore, ‘The Song of Songs in the History of Sexuality’, Church History, 69 (2000), pp.340-1).

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