«Hoc est tem pus ascendendi». The Printed Lenten Sermons of Vincent Ferrer: Notes on a European Bestseller

Abstract

Vincent Ferrer’s Lenten sermons printed in the late fi fteenth century represent a key component of the Ferrer receptus. This was the Ferrer known and used by generations of professional preachers to prepare their oral performances. The article frames these sermons within the broader fl ourishing of Lenten preaching as infl uential and widespread social practice. The discovery of two different printed versions of Ferrer’s Lenten cycle, both published in Cologne, sheds light on the complex relationship between this type of book and the previous manuscript tradition of his sermons. The article outlines the main characteristics of these sermons: their anchoring to the Bible, the breadth and fl exibility of their topics, the proposal of concrete forms of Christian life, the preacher’s self-fashioning as interpreter of the Scripture. These features were probably instrumental in the striking success of this sermon collection in the early printed book market. Fruit of a dynamic transmission and re-elaboration of Ferrer’s preaching performances, these printed sermon collections became an European bestseller and represented, on a textual level, the most lively and concrete legacy of the magister of Valencia in the tumultuous transition from the late medieval to the early modern periods.