PERALDUS GUIL.

De fide et legibus.

      (Augsburg, Günther Zainer, 1475-1476). Small folio. Contemporary richly blind-stamped vellum over wooden boards, with two brass clasps, blue painted edges. With all initials supplied in red, rubricated throughout. (139) leaves. Editio princeps of a mediaeval work on Church Law by Guilielmus Peraldus, or Guillaume Pérault or Peyraud, doctor at the Paris University and bishop of Lyon (ca. 1190-1255). The work is mostly ascribed to Guillermus or Guillelmus Arvernus, bishop of Paris, and a very popular author, who died in 1248. In our copy the author is called: "Wilhelmi Epilugdunensis", and "doctoris parisiensis". The present, somewhat mysterious edition, was probably the only edition and published by the first printer of Augsburg, Günther Zainer. His first book, the "Meditationes" of Bonaventura was published in 1468 and Zainer died on April 13, 1478. Hain and Polain date the present work at ca. 1469, but other bibliographers date the work at ca. 1475-1476. The book is well produced, printed in a fine small Roman type, with 43 lines to a page, and is finished by hand and rubricated throughout. The first blank is lacking. On top of the first text-leaf a contemporary ms. note reads: "Cart. in Buxheim", and a small stamp of the "Bibl. Buxheim:" is present at the bottom. So the book originally belonged to the Carthusians at Buxheim in Germany. The publisher Zainer was after his death remembered for his gifts to the Carthusian Monastry at Buxheim, and our copy may have been one of these. The Monastry's library was sold in the 19th century. Our copy has also an interesting contemporary German binding. Fine large paper copy, with the additional bookplate of the Library of George Dunn of Woolley Hall, near Maidenhead.- (Binding sl. stained and rubbed). Goff G 711; Proctor 1556; BMC II 323; Hain-Copinger 8317; Polain 1807; Oates 883; IGI 4602; STC German p. 681.