Medieval missions to Muslim communities

[Martyrium sanctorum:] Tractatus de martyrio sanctorum. [Basel, Jacobus Wolff de Pforzheim, not after 1492].

First edition of a guide to proselytising Christianity among Muslim populations, thus then incurring risk or penalty of death (martyrdom). It includes significant quotation and discussion of the Qur’an. It is the longest Franciscan-inspired text to its time on the theory and practice of martyrdom (Langeloh). It was written in the 1430s by a humanist - possibly called Tommaso d’Arezzo - who had followed his literary passions to go to Constantinople to improve his Greek (chap. 18). There, he met three Franciscans, who inspired a new course.

After discussing martyrdom historic and modern, the author describes Qur’anic teaching on paradise (chap. 10); Muslim teaching on Christ’s divinity (chap. 11); and how Islam does not support debate with Christians (chap. 15). He then (chap. 17) discusses Christian conversion strategies when people don’t know your language. He advises to write a short confession of faith and hand it to the leader of the group you are trying to convert. They would have it translated. This technique had been employed by a famous group of Franciscan martyrs in Jerusalem, 1391, who are referred to here. The author explains how the statements should be written for the audience they are presented to and offers different compositional formulae according to the educational level of the recipients. The author ends that chapter with a gruesome account of the martyrdom of St James the Great, taken from the famous source for saints’ stories, the Legenda aurea.

Our publication, which has no imprint details, is datable because the printer is recorded giving two copies to Basel Charterhouse in 1492 (BMC). The present volume is from the great monastic library of Buxheim Charterhouse.

 Physical Description

One volume, 203 mm. x 150 mm. in binding, quarto, 58 unnumbered leaves, signed a-e⁸ f-h⁶. With final blank. Woodcut first initial. Types: 180, 108, 84. Greek printing (type 83) at sigs. c5v, e8v, f2r, and g4v, with a gap left for Greek at c8v. Printed side notes (type 65a). Occasional single wormholes, a clean, unrubricated copy, bound c.1700, possibly without endpapers, in tan half-sheep and speckled paper over boards, spine with two raised bands, brass initialed clasp (either of an old-fashioned style or reused from an older binding). Binding condition: rubbed and slightly worn with tear to head and tail of spine and worming to spine (mainly to top joint at tail). Binding loosening from text block at top hinge (see also break to head of text block by sig. h1).

Provenance

1. Occasional early underlinings in ink, ink numbers in margin at sig. c5v. Possibly from time in library of:
2. Buxheim Charterhouse. Early ink inscription to title-page, “Cart: Buxheim”, code in red pastel to same, “G288”, spine label of black ink on paper characteristic of Buxheim with same code, and characteristic mid 18th-cent. Buxheim library stamp to sig. a2r. 3.
3. Pencilled number 248 to title-page (possibly from a 19th- or early 20thcent. bookseller’s catalogue, as yet unidentified).

Bibliography

ISTC im00331000. GW M21464. BMC III 776.

Charterhouse Buxheim and its library, a project begun at Yale University in 1998, at https://buxheimlibrary.org

Johnson, Norman Scott, Franciscan passions: missions to the Muslims, desire for martyrdom, and institutional identity in the later Middle Ages. (PhD, University of Chicago, 2010).

Langeloh, Jacob, ‘Der Tractatus de martyrio sanctorum und der Islam’, in id., Der Islam auf dem Konzil von Basel (1431-1449) (Wiesbaden, 2019), 155-186.