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Dear Hilmar Pabel: "A subita (et) eterna morte libera" is among the "ab/a" petitions in the Litany of the Saints. This sounds a far reach (chronologically), but I think you may find Michael Lapidge's edition of Anglo-Saxon Litanies of the Saints very helpful. He transcribed 46 Litanies, among which your petition appears in 19 It is vol. VI in publications of the Henry Bradshaw Society, London 1991, and includes an infinitely useful Introduction on the history and development of the Litany. It's lamentable that few of us know enough to do the art history of these manuscripts and the liturgy too. Particularly in private books of devotions and prayers, personal tastes and habits often colour contents of prayer texts as well as pictorial selections. The Lapidge volume should be readily available on interlibrary loan, if your library does not subscribe to the HBS series. Two topically related books you might also want to see for history, etc. of the Litany are: Knud Ottosen, The Responsories and Versicles of the Latin Office of the Dead. Aarhus University Press, 1993, and Sally Eliabeth Roper, Medieval English Benedictine Liturgy: Studies in the Formation, Structure, and Content of the Monastic Votive Office, c. 950-1540. Garland, 1993. Earlier, Maurice Coens did a number of studies of Litanies and their variations; these were collected in 1963, and published by the Bollandistes as no. 37, Subsidia Hagiographica: Recueil d'Etudes Bollandiennes, Brussels 1963. If the book, it would be worth a browse. Best wishes for your work, Nell Gifford Martin Hilmar Pabel wrote: > Dear Colleagues, > > In Erasmus' _De praepratione ad mortem_ (1534) he complains of people who > pray "a subitanea et improuisa morte libera nos, Domine." The annotation > both in the Amsterdam edition and the Toronto edition of Erasmus' works > refer the reader to the litany of the saints in the _Rituale romanum_. > This is misleading, however, since this _Rituale_ first appeared at the > beginning of the seventeenth century. > > My question is: Where would this petition have appeared at the end of > the fifteenth century/beginning of the sixteenth century? > > I don't doubt that it was part of the litany of the saints. My guess is > that it would be part of this litany as conatined in a Book of Hours. > Erasmus was critical of the practice of reciting offices from the Book of > Hours. If my guess is correct, how do I prove it? Out here in Vancouver > we don't have Books of Hours. The modern books that deal with the Books > of Hours tend to emphasize the illuminations and devote little or no > space to the texts that they contained. I was able to consult a book > displaying photographs of many pages from the Grandes Heures of the Duc > de Berry. Fortunately, I was able to see reproductions of the pages that > contained the litany of the saints. Unfortunately, the litany did not > include the petition quoted by Erasmus. Am I right in assuming that > there was no one stable version of the litany? > > I would be grateful for any advice and help, > > Hilmar Pabel. > > PS I checked the two books edited by Roger Wieck: _Time Sanctified_ > (1988) and _Painted Prayers_ (1997). Although they do contain texts from > the Books of Hours, they don't provide the text of the litany of the saints. > > -- > Hilmar M. Pabel > Department of History > Simon Fraser University > Burnaby, BC > V5A 1S6 > Canada > phone: (604) 291-5816 > fax: (604) 291-5837 > e-mail: [log in to unmask] > URL: http://www.sfu.ca/~pabel/