Fifteenth-century Missal for the Use of Olmütz

[Missal. Use of Olmütz].
Missale Olomucen[se].
Nuremberg: Georg Stuchs, 1499.
(07080)

In contrast to missals made for Roman Use or the use of a particular monastic order, this book is the earliest printed missal in Bridwell Library designed for use within a particular diocese. The work is according to the Use of the Cathedral of Olmütz in Moravia, located in the current Czech Republic. A Catholic diocese founded on the eastern extremity of Western Christendom in 1063, Olmütz separated from the diocese of Prague, which also utilized a non-Roman liturgy. The volume was published for the Bishop of Olmütz in 1499 by Georg Stuchs in Nuremberg, some 280 miles to the west, as Moravia did not yet have printers who specialized in liturgical printing, which presented the technical complications of printing music and texts in both red and black inks. In this copy, additional manuscript notes in red ink in the margins directly concern the adjacent printed liturgical texts.