Rare first and only edition (apparently one of two copies known to include the final quire R, with the Imperial privilege noted on the title-page) of the Dutch translation of devotional tracts and sermons by Johannes Chrysostomus (ca. 347-407), Archbischop of Constantinople and an important Greek Church Father and preacher, sometimes known in English as Saint John Chrysostom. After the title-page, table of contents and translators prologue follow the main work noted in the title and three additional works: Van die weder rechtinghe eens menschen, die ghevallen was; Hoe dat niement ghequetst en wort, dan van hem selven and Van vyantschap, toornicheyt, ende van niet te sweren. Although some of Chysostomuss works were published in the original Greek beginning in 1526, they spread earlier and more widely in Latin translation. The printer-publisher Syon Cock appears to have been the first to publish any of Chrysostomuss work in Dutch/Flemish and Anthonis van der Haeghen published a couple of his sermons in 1543, but all four works in the present first more extensive publication appear here for the first time in Dutch, translated from the Latin, by Antonius van Hemert. He was an Augustine regular canon at the Marienhage monastery near Eindhoven, which had come under the influence of the Windesheim monastery, where Geert Groote and his followers had introduced the Modern Devotion movement. All four works discuss morals, particularly repenting sins and living a good life according to high moral standards. Although the colophon appears at the foot of Q8v, it is followed in the present copy by quire R, containing the 6-page privelege granted by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V on 1 February 1545. We have located 8 other copies, but it appears that only the present copy and that at the Wissenschaftliche Bibliothek der Stadt Trier include this privilege at the end (quire R).
The work is not only rare and complete including the last quire R, but it is also bound in a remarkable 16th-century panel-stamped binding, the panel-stamp on each board showing medallion portraits of a man and a woman (busts in profile). The appearance of medallion portrait panel-stamps on bindings arises in the second quarter of the 16th century, with the heads in medallions (for example profiles of emperors, heroes, warriors, etc.) derived from antique coins or medals.
With an interesting contemporary owner's inscription on the verso of the last leaf and on the back paste-down: "Desen boeck hoert toe suster cornelya van gent" and "Dit boexke[n] hoert toe s.cornelya va[n] ghendt" respectively. This may be one of the sisters in the monastery of Anthonis van Gemert, who stated explicitly in his prologue that he translated this Latin work into Dutch for his brothers and sisters in the Augustinian order. Also with another inscription pasted on the front paste-down and with a 20th-century inscription on the first free endleaf by "J. D. Moerman. Wageningen 1915". Panel-stamps only very slightly worn, one of the leather straps with the bone button gone (with only a remnant of it at the front board), but otherwise in good condition, including quire R (lacking in many copies, probably most) and in an attractive contemporary panel-stamped binding. Anet (1 copy, without quire R); Belgica typographica 1627; KVK & WorldCat (8 copies including all noted elsewhere, apparently only 1 including quire R); Lourdaux & Persoons, Recueil de travaux dhistoire et de philologie, p. 20; Machiels J93 (without quire R); Netherlandish books 16905 (4 copies); USTC (same 4 copies, apparently all without quire R); UniCat (3 copies, apparently all without quire R); not in Adams; Baur, S. Jean Chrysostome et ses oeuvres (1907); BMC STC Dutch; STCV; for the panel stamps: cf. Luc Indestege, "Heads-in-medallion panels as binding decoration in the Netherlands during the sixteenth century", in: Studia in honorem H. de la Fontaine Verwey (Amsterdam 1966), pp. 276-296, type XV.