A Medieval Missal Fragment
in Latin on Vellum
Reused
as the Early-Modern Binding Cover
for Erasmus Reinhold,
Prutenicae Tabulae (1585)

Mildred Budny

Reinhold (1585), Front Cover. Collector’s Photograph.

[Posted 25 February 2026, with updates]

In a Private Collection, we learn of an early-modern printed book on paper which reuses a medieval vellum binding fragment as cover for the card covers of its binding. Gladly we offer some first fruits of examining this evidence, in the process of work-in-progress process to learn about the original manuscript, the identity of its genre of book, its context, its reuse, and its fate within the printed book which ensured its survival, at least as a partial witness, to its former, intended, state.

With permission, we share the owner’s photographs of the ‘beginning, middle, and end’ of this specimen, or the ‘front, back, and side’.

I. The Printed Book

We introduce:

• Erasmus Reinholdus, Prutenicae Tabulae Coelestium Motvem (Wittenberg, 1585)

Opening the book reveals the title page facing an originally blank page containing multiple entries, mostly in ink, in hand-written additions by different hands. Principal among them is the full-page single-column entry relating to the book and its context.

About the book itself, the work of the astronomer Erasmus Reinhold (1511–1553), a summary appears on Wikipedia (currently):

The Prutenic Tables (Latin: Tabulae prutenicae from Prutenia meaning “Prussia“, German: Prutenische oder Preußische Tafeln), were an ephemeris (astronomical tables) by the astronomer Erasmus Reinhold published in 1551 (reprinted in 1562, 1571 & 1585). They are sometimes called the Prussian Tables after Albert I, Duke of Prussia, who supported Reinhold and financed the printing. Reinhold calculated this new set of astronomical tables based on Nicolaus Copernicus‘ De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, the epochal exposition of Copernican heliocentrism published in 1543. Throughout his explanatory canons, Reinhold used as his paradigm the position of Saturn at the birth of the Duke, on 17 May 1490. With these tables, Reinhold intended to replace the Alfonsine Tables; he added redundant tables to his new tables so that compilers of almanacs familiar with the older Alfonsine Tables could perform all the steps in an analogous manner.

— Prutenic Tables

The first edition was printed in Tübingen in 1551 (see the copy for sale via Swann Galleries and an online digital facsimile of another copy via Google Books).

The edition under our consideration appeared in 1585. It was printed in Wittenburg by Matthaeus Welack (see another copy: via Swann Galleries or Swann Galleries).

At the front of the copy, the first verso (the pastedown on the inside front cover) carries a page of annotations in ink and pencil, facing the title page. At the top and bottom of the margins on both pages there gather some sellers’ or owners’ marks, codes, or notations: for example, 1R, N27, F858, 454, apparently to identify the item, such as within one or other individual collection. We note that some of these marks are crossed out or erased. A full-page single-column entry on the pastedown closes with the date ‘1632’, approaching a half-century after the printing of the book.

Reinhold (1585), Opening to Title Page. Collector’s Photograph.

Title Page

Reinhold (1585), Title Page. Collector’s Photograph.

II. The Reused Manuscript Fragment

The reused vellum fragment reveals its characteristics only partly, because the presentation as the covering of the boards of a binding for another set of contents turns one side of the vellum sheet to the back, hidden from view. As it is presented on the front cover, spine, back-cover, and turn-ins of the boards, we might glimpse parts of two columns of text on each of two pages on a single bifolium, plus some of the margins, including the intercolumns, inner columns, and original gutter.

On the cover, the text of the reused sheet stands upright with relation to the printed book. Let us start with the Front Cover of the Printed Book, move to the Spine, and turn to the Back Cover. However, be it noted, taking the original text in columns reading from left to right on a page, let us observe that the reused sheet constitutes a pair of leaves, for which the text starts with the ‘verso’ of the first leaf of the bifolium on the back cover, turns to the portion overlying spine of the volume, and moves to the ‘recto’ of the second leaf on the front cover.

Front Cover of the Printed Copy:
Side 1 of the Reused Manuscript Fragment

Here, with added ties to close the printed book, appears part of a 2-column page of text written in ink, with enlarged 2-line inset initials rendered alternately in blue or red pigment, rubrication written in red pigment for headings, and added strokes of red pigment to mark and highlight in minor text initials within the columns. Red lines set out the rulings for the lines and columns of text.

Reinhold (1585), Front Cover. Collector’s Photograph.

Spine

Reinhold (1585), Spine. Collector’s Photograph.

Back Cover
Side 2 of the Reused Manuscript Fragment

Reinhold (1585), Back Cover. Collector’s Photograph

Details

Back (Middle): Column B, Inner Margins, Gutter, and Initial of Column A

Reinhold (1585), Back Cover, Midsection. Collector’s Photograph

Front (Middle)

Reinhold (1585), Front Cover, Middle. Collector’s Photograph

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The Medieval Fragment

The RGME offers to the Private Collector and the wider world a preluminary report on “The Reinhold Missal Fragment.” It is available freely for download on our website.

With thanks to our Research Consultant, Leslie J. French, its preliminary findings can be summarized thus:

The two visible pages are consistent with a Roman Missal containing texts near the end of the Temporale.  Another extant missal containing exactly the sequences on these pages has not been located, so it is not yet possible to determine for which Use the original might have been constructed.  The following texts have been identified and matched against missal entries in the Usuarium database (https://usuarium.elte.hu/).

See the report:

• Reinhold Missal Fragment

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Would you like to join the quest to discover more about the original manuscript, and if possible to identify its producers, place of origin, and audience? Please let us know.

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