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Cy commence une petite instruction et maniere de vivre pour une femme seculiere. Comment elle se doibt conduire: en pensees: parolles et oeuvres tout au long du iour pour tous les iours de la vie pour plaire a nostre seigneur Jesuchrist: et amasser richesses celestes: au proffit & salut de son ame.

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A gathering of very rare three devotional works in French from the press of Guillaume Merlin, including a guide to spirituality and daily religious practices explicitly meant for laywomen.

The guide is complemented by a set of extracts from the Church Fathers about the Eucharist and a work of meditations on the Passion, which are sometimes attributed to the Parisian preacher and theologian François Picart (or Le Picart, d. 1556), and are often found together, generally bound with books of hours. All texts had appeared in several printings earlier in the sixteenth century, mostly in undated editions, starting probably in the 1520s.

The Petite instruction et maniere de vivre pour une femme seculiere is a guide to piety that addresses the spiritual needs of contemporary lay women by closely referring to their duties and expectations in their daily lives. Written as a personal response to a lady’s plea for guidance, the author maintaining throughout the direct address to this lady as ‘my dear friend’ and ‘sister’, it was possibly the work of a member of the Franciscan order (he mentions the fifteenth-century Franciscan preacher as ‘our good saintly father, Brother Olivier Maillard’, singling him out for praise).

The premise, set out in an exemplum pitching a theologian opposite a woman of great religious fervour, is that theologians who regard women merely as ‘femmelettes’ incapable of spiritual pursuits are mistaken. Spiritual perfection, consisting of perfect knowledge and pure love of God, is attainable by women no less than by men. Daily exercises of prayer, meditation, and attendance of Mass follow, in harmony with daily rhythms (rising early, specific instruction for first prayerful minutes) and duties as a wife (this foremost being the facilitation of the husband’s own spiritual progress) and mother – with religious education of children taking pre-eminence, and a warning against the dangers of misplaced excessive attachment where this compromises the quest for perfect divine love. Duties owed to society at large are mentioned, too, with lines devoted to giving to the poor (and the ‘poor orders’). Contemplation of the lives of saints is recommended, particularly the legends of Cecilia, Elizabeth of Hungary, Lucilla, Natalie, and Barbara.

The ‘problem’ of the hearing of the Mass is tackled with particular dedication. The recitation of the liturgy of the hours during Mass (a widespread practice) is deplored. Instead, women should strive to adhere to the Sacrifice of the Altar by meditating on the Passion with full emotional participation, in a structured sequence of tableaux which mirrors the moments of the Mass. The same sequencing is then applied to the days of the week, each being dedicated to the prayerful meditation of one specific moment of Christ’s Passion. In the light of this insistence, the disassociation, in this volume, of two devotional guides on Passion and Eucharist from the traditional book of hours, and their association with this guide for lay women’s daily devotion, is particularly eloquent, showing Guillaume Merlin’s press responding to the demand of a female and lay market interested in the pursuit of personal, emotional involvement in the life of the faith rather than in the performative compliance with the set devotions of the daily hours.

Very rare: USTC lists just one copy of the first work, at the British Library (where it is bound with other devotional works printed by Merlin); two copies of the second and third works, one at the University Library of Amsterdam (where it is bound with six other similar works, including a book of hours, and the other two titles here present), and one in Bordeaux (similarly in a sammelband). OCLC further records a copy of the first work at the Bridwell Library, and the third work is also recorded in the Bibliothèque nationale de France; due to inconsistencies in the dating it is difficult to ascertain whether recorded copies of the titles and imprints could be this particular edition. French Vernacular Books records four Merlin editions of the third work (19570, 19571, 19573 and 43008).

Picart: USTC 2504; French Vernacular Books 42833; cf. Bechtel P-135 & P-136 (Merlin printings with different settings and different contents, dated to the 1570s) & IA 166.998. Devote meditation: USTC 88330 & 88701 (same title and collation, the first dated [1553], the second [1550]); French Vernacular Books 31043 & 31042; Petite instruction: USTC 88700 & 88331; French Vernacular Books 19570 & 19571.