Missale Aboense
Encyclopedia
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
. As its name suggests, it was a prayer book used for mass
Mass
Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...
. It follows the tradition of the Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
liturgy
Liturgy
Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...
, which around the year 1330 was adopted as the official liturgy of the see of Turku
Turku
Turku is a city situated on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River. It is located in the region of Finland Proper. It is believed that Turku came into existence during the end of the 13th century which makes it the oldest city in Finland...
. This poor bishopric could not afford to have its own missal printed, but its Dominican tradition came to the rescue.
At the same time as the Missale Aboense was printed, a simultaneous printing appeared for the Dominican order
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
's needs elsewhere in the Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
n countries. In the Missale Aboense the only main difference from this were the necessary local features of the Turku see in the calendar of saints.
At that time there were no printing shops in Finland. (The first one
The Royal Academy of Turku
The Royal Academy of Turku was the first university in Finland, and the only university in present-day Finland to be founded when it was still a part of Sweden. In 1809, after Finland became a Grand Duchy under the suzerainty of the Russian Tzar, it was renamed the Imperial Academy of Turku...
was established in 1642.) The Missale was commissioned by Bishop Konrad Bitz from the Lübeck
Lübeck
The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...
printer Bartholomeus Ghotan. Bitz dated his introduction to the book, Turku, 17 August 1488, and it was published in the same year. The Missale was printed on both parchment and paper. This firstborn of Finnish literature ran to some 550 folio pages. With regard to beauty of typography, it still competes successfully for a leading place among Finnish books. A facsimile edition of the work was brought out in 1971 and 1988.