A Pair of Saints
[ROUEN.]
L’Office de Saint Godard, archevesque de Rouen, selon les rubriques du nouveau breviaire, avec l’office de l’octave de S. Romain. Rouen, ‘chez la veuve de Jacq. Jos. Le Boullenger’, 1735.
12mo, pp. [2], 168, [2]; woodcut arms to title, woodcut headpiece; tear to inner margin of title leaf without loss, marginal toning, sewing partly split at beginning; a good copy stab-stitched and laced into contemporary vellum wrappers; small holes to lower cover; contemporary ownership inscription to upper cover ‘Ce livre appartient à Mad. De St Anne(?) rue beauvoisine à Rouen’, juvenile pencil and pen trials to front free endpaper.
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L’Office de Saint Godard, archevesque de Rouen, selon les rubriques du nouveau breviaire, avec l’office de l’octave de S. Romain.
Rare office for the feast of St Gildard (or Godard) of Rouen, celebrated on 8 June, printed by Catherine Le Boullenger.
Gildard (c. 448–c. 525) was bishop of Rouen and supposedly the brother of St Medard. When his body was removed from Rouen to Soissons to rest with that of his brother, the people of Rouen strived to retain the saint’s head, offering the head and body of two other Rouen saints in exchange to seal the deal. Gildard’s lengthy office is here followed by a short one for the octave of St Romanus of Rouen (d. c. 640). Numerous legends are associated with Romanus, including his resisting temptation in the form of a demon disguised as a naked woman, and ensnaring a rampaging dragon with his stole.
This book was likely used by congregants at the church of St Godard in Rouen. An inscription to the front cover indicates that it belonged to a lady living on Rouen’s nearby rue Beauvoisine.
Catherine Le Boullenger (née Charité) married the printer-publisher Jacques-Joseph Le Boullenger in 1702 and took over his business following his death in 1731. The imprint here proudly displays her titles of printer to the King and to the Archbishop of Rouen. From around 1739 she worked in association with her son Jacques-Joseph-Nicolas-Adrien Le Boullenger, who in turn succeeded to the business in 1752. In addition to liturgical works, Catherine is recorded as printing a theatrical comedy and a ballet.
Three copies traced in the UK (BL, Bodleian, Lambeth Palace Library) and one in the US (Harvard).