OLEARIUS, PAUL (= WIMPFELING, JAC.?) & JACOB HARTLIEB.

DE FIDE CONCUBINARUM IN SACERDOTES. QUESTIO ACCESSORIA CAUSA IOCI ET URBANITATIS IN QUOD LIBETO HEIDELBERGENSIS DETERMINATA A MAGISTRO PAULO OLEARIO HEIDELBERGENSIS.- DE FIDE MERETRICUM IN SUOS AMATORES. QUESTIO MINUS PRINCIPALIS URBANITATIS ET FACETIE CAUSA IN FINE QUODLIBETI HEIDELBERGENSIS DETERMINATA A MAGISTRO JACOBO HARTLIEB LANDONIENSIS. AUGSBURG, JOHANNES FROSCHAUER, 1505.

      2 parts in one. Small 4to. Later marbled boards. Two titles, each with an identical large woodcut. (24) lvs. (collation: a6, b4 ; c6, d-e4). Early post-incunable with two satirical texts, mainly songs and verses, criticising the lascivious clergy and usually published together. The VD16 lists 11 editions between ca. 1501 and 1509, our edition being the first dated edition! Other early editions were printed by Jac. Wolff at Basle and Ambr. Huber in Nurnberg in ca. 1501/2. The first part 'On the fidelity of concubines of priests' is attributed to Paulus Olearius (his name has been sometimes assumed as being the pseudonym of Jac. Wimpfeling (1450-1528)) from Heidelberg. The second text 'On the fidelity of prostitutes in their love affairs' is written by Jakob Hartlieb from Landau. Each part is preceded by a separate title with an identical woodcut depicting on the left a monk, a scholar and a canon; on the right two soldiers, one with scimitar, another drawing a sword and a peasant with flail; in centre a woman about to open a door leading 'ad infern(um)' these words being written on a scroll with some notes of music. On the back of the first title are verses by Joh. Gallinarius and Philippus Beroaldus, on the back of the second by Gallinarius and Joh. Speyser from Pforzheim. Ludwig Hohenwang Elchingensis is mentioned in the colophon: some scholars state he was the editor, others the printer or somebody who contributed some poems. The work is a very interesting example of pre-reformation critic on abuses in the Roman Catholic Church, written in the form of the so-called 'Quodlibet' disputations - in this case by the (fictitious?) "egregio magistro" Johann Hilt from Rottweil, in a mixture of Latin and German, with verses of Virgil, and Beroaldus. Some of the poems have lines, or even words, alternating in Latin and German, what makes these disputations also linguistically very important. On leaf B3 verso a list of books is recommended by the bishop to the priest, as Pretarca' De vita solitaria, Decretals, Homilies, Virgil, Cato & Varro, Gerson, De Celibatu, etc. "Hartliebs Rede gehoert zu jenen ergoetzlichen akademischen Scherzreden oder Quaestiones fabulosae seu facetosae, die, bis in die neuere Zeit herab nur als pseudonyme Pamphlete betrachtet, zu ihrer Zeit oeffentlich vorgetragen wurden und das (damalige) Universitaets- und Kulturleben wie wenige andere AEusserungen auf eine drastische und anziehende Weise zu charakterisieren geeignet sind. Und gerade Hartliebs Schrift gehoert ihres kulturhistorischen Inhalts wegen zu den interessantesten ihrer Art" (ADB 10, 669 f). Good copy.- (Misbound: second part is bound first; leaf A1 & C2 with small hole in margins; hinges weak, spine dam.). VD16, O-662 (only one copy); Goedeke I, 437, 3 & 437, 3; Cat. of early German books in the library of Fairfax -Murray, 440 (ed. Basle 1501); Hayn & Gotendorf, Bibliotheca Germanorum erotica et curiosa III, pp. 665-66 (1), p. 95 (2); Proctor 10624; STC German p. 661 (ed. Froschauer 1506); Adams O-146 (ed. Ulm, 1501); Weller 4065-73, 5 (cites 7 editions); Gay, Bibliographie de l'amour, I, 794.