BEES AS MORAL GUIDANCE
THOMAS CANTIPRATENSIS.
Bonum universale de proprietatibus apum.
[Cologne, Johann Koelhoff, the Elder, c. 1478–1480.]
4to, ff. [133] (of 134, without initial blank); [a–q]8 [r]6 (without a1, blank); gothic letter, initials, paraphs, and underlining in red or blue; cut somewhat close at head, recto of first leaf soiled with small repair at head, slight marginal staining to first few leaves, some soiling and staining elsewhere (heavy on f. [1]v and f. [2]r), some blue initials faded, otherwise a good copy; bound in early nineteenth-century roan-backed boards with pebbled cloth sides with narrow gilt border, flat spine with gilt bands and blind-stamped fleurons, edges speckled red; binding a little rubbed, joints cracked at head and foot; mid-nineteenth-century inscription on flyleaf of Frederick Harvey, ink stamps of Stonyhurst College on first and final leaves, small shelfmark label at foot of upper cover.
Second edition of this manual of moral theology structured around the behaviour of bees, composed in the 1260s. It was a popular work, surviving in over a hundred manuscripts.
Thomas of Cantimpré (1201–1272) was a Flemish Dominican preacher and the author of numerous hagiographical works. In this treatise of moral theology he used the nature and habits of bees to provide a framework for moral lessons to both the higher clergy and the laity, based on the hierarchical social structure and constant business of bees. As well as religious concerns, he also mentions various aspects of (medieval) life, from drunkenness, gaming and hunting, to usury, sex, and conflict between Christians and Jews.
‘We can draw extensively from the Bonum universale as a mirror of everyday life (but also the history of mentality), at least as perceived by Thomas, who responded to many different problems, or sins according to his opinion, in his society with stern warnings, though not without detailing what he had observed or been told as a confessor … Classical Greek and Latin sources, biblical text, hearsay accounts, and personal observations intricately merge in the shaping of the Bonum universale de apibus, though … bees hardly matter and only serve as metaphors with which the author structured his text’ (Classen, ‘Medieval everyday life reflected through the lens of a Dominican author: Thomas of Cantimpré’s Book of Bees as a source of cultural, legal, social and material history’, in Mediaevistik 35 (2022), 165–187, pp. 167–168).
HC 3644*; BMC I 223; GW M46647; Goff T347; BSB-Ink T-330; Bod-inc T-197; ISTC it00347000.
