Das Andachtsbüchlein aus der Sammlung Bouhier

This small-size manuscript, probably produced in the second quarter of the fourteenth century in eastern central Germany, is here studied in depth for the first time. The manuscript is without any known parallels as regards its structure: illustrated with coloured pen-and-ink-drawings throughout, the manuscript consists of a sequence of images with German-language partial paraphrases of gospel pericopes, a festival calendar with pictorial abbreviations as well as an image cycle on the passion. As it is linked to Dominican liturgy as well as elements of folk tradition and was in use until the early sixteenth century, as later additions in the calendar section show, it is here interpreted as a meaningful document of the history of piety in the late Middle Ages.