The Eichstätt Missal of 1517 with Vellum Leaves Added by Bishop Gabriel von Eyb for the Augustinians of Rebdorf
Missale secundum chorum & ritum Eystetensis Ecclesie. Nuremberg, Hieronymus Höltzel for Gabriel von Eyb, 1517.
One of the most historically charged German Missals of the early Reformation period: the great Eichstätt Missal commissioned by Bishop Gabriel von Eyb in 1517, preserved here with additional vellum leaves personally inserted by the bishop himself and presented in 1520 to the Augustinian canons of Rebdorf.
More than a liturgical book, this Missal became an instrument of Catholic reform and ecclesiastical authority precisely at the moment when Luther’s movement began to fracture the religious unity of Germany.
Edition & Bibliographic Information
Printed in black and red throughout, with ten leaves on vellum including the Canon Missae and an additional vellum dedication leaf. Imperial folio (395 × 275 mm).
Illustrated with a monumental woodcut title, a full-page illuminated coat of arms of Bishop Gabriel von Eyb, a full-page portrait of Saint Willibald, a full-page Crucifixion, an illuminated T-initial, and a Volto Santo devotional image held by angels. The volume further contains numerous historiated woodcut initials illuminated in gold and colours, red lombards, printed paragraph signs, and musical notation printed in black on red four-line staves.
Contemporary pigskin binding from the monastery bindery of Rebdorf over wooden boards with blind-stamped decoration and the stamp “rebdorff” impressed three times on the rear cover.
Bishop Gabriel von Eyb and the Crisis of the Church
The Missal is inseparable from Gabriel von Eyb (1455–1535), Bishop of Eichstätt and one of the leading Catholic figures during the first years of the Reformation.
Commissioned in 1517, the very year Luther published the Ninety-Five Theses, the Missal already reveals deep concern over the state of the Church. In the inserted vellum leaves preceding the Canon Missae, Gabriel von Eyb addresses the clergy of his diocese directly in a pastoral letter lamenting the decline of liturgical discipline and calling for renewal and reform.
What makes the volume extraordinary is that these additional vellum leaves appear to have been inserted only after the beginnings of the Lutheran movement, transforming the book itself into a material witness of the Catholic response to Reformation theology.
Between Reform and Counter-Reformation
Gabriel von Eyb occupies a fascinating historical position.
Unlike later Counter-Reformation figures, he fully acknowledged the need for internal reform within the Church. The Missal itself demonstrates this clearly. Yet he ultimately became one of Luther’s earliest and most determined opponents.
It was Eyb who asked the theologian Johannes Eck to formulate objections against Luther’s theses. Those objections eventually contributed to the famous Leipzig Disputation of 1519, where the theological divide between Luther and Rome became irreversible. In 1520 Eck traveled to Rome and secured the papal bull Exsurge Domine threatening Luther with excommunication. Gabriel von Eyb became the first German bishop to publish it.
The historical tension of those years is physically embedded inside this Missal.
The Visual Program
The sequence of images preceding the Canon Missae forms a carefully orchestrated statement of ecclesiastical authority.
First appears the bishop’s own magnificently illuminated coat of arms, asserting hierarchical and worldly power. Facing it stands Saint Willibald, founder of the diocese of Eichstätt, shown reading from a book, presumably the Mass itself. Finally comes the Crucifixion, probably by Hans Burgkmair, functioning as the ultimate spiritual authority before the Eucharistic Canon begins.
The arrangement creates a striking hierarchy:
bishop, saint, Christ.
The illuminated historiated initials, many attributed to Hans Springinklee or Erhard Schön, continue the visual richness throughout the volume with scenes from the Fifteen Mysteries and other devotional imagery.
The Gift to Rebdorf
The book’s history becomes even more remarkable through its gift inscription.
On a prefixed vellum leaf appears a six-line calligraphic presentation inscription dated 1520 in which Gabriel von Eyb donates the Missal to the Augustinian canons of Rebdorf and explicitly instructs them to celebrate Mass from it: “ex eo missas legerint.”
The recipient community was led by Kilian Leib, a humanist scholar and close ally of the bishop. Like Eyb, Leib criticized corruption within the Church while fiercely resisting Lutheran theology. Under his leadership Rebdorf remained largely protected from Protestant influence.
The Rebdorf Binding
The contemporary pigskin binding was executed in the monastery’s own bindery, active between 1471 and 1544 and regarded as one of the significant monastic workshops of southern Germany.
Unlike luxurious court bindings, the Rebdorf binding is relatively restrained. The absence of elaborate metal fittings suggests that the Missal was intended above all for active devotional and liturgical use rather than princely display. The surviving leather page markers reinforce this impression.
Provenance
Gifted in 1520 by Bishop Gabriel von Eyb to the Augustinian canons of Rebdorf near Eichstätt. Mentioned in the Rebdorf library catalogue of 1790 as an “editio splendida” and “opus in ipsa Diocesi rarissimum.” After the secularization and dissolution of the monastery in 1806, the Missal passed through the hands of Bernard Quaritch, J. & J. Leighton, John Meade Falkner, Henry S. Borneman, and later Christie’s, London, 2007.
Literature
Not in Adams; BM STC German 512; Bohatta 82; Dodgson I; Geisberg; Meder; Muther; Panzer VII; Proctor 11016; VD16 M 5570; Weale/Bohatta 391; Kyriss 28.
For a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, number 20:
Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume I
