Liber Usuum Fratrum Monasterii
Vadstenensis: The Customary of the
Vadstena Brothers [In English & Latin]
A Critical Edition with an Introduction

By Sara Risberg
December 2003
Almqvist & Wiksell International
ISBN: 91-22-02040-3
278 pages, Illustrated, 6 ¾" x 9 ½"
$79.50 Paper Original


This is a Ph.D. dissertation. Liber usuum - the Customary of the Vadstena Brothers - was composed at Vadstena in the middle of the 15th century. The text is written in Latin and contains regulations for the brothers within the Birgittine Order. The Liber usuum serves as a complement to the different matters of importance to the monastic life. The text is also a collection of some important parts of the previous regulative texts for the Birgittine Order. As such, the Liber usuum is an important source on how the brothers lived their lives within Vadstena Abbey, and may provide many medieval scholars of different subjects with new information. Except for a small part of the text, the Liber usuum has never been printed before. The present work consists of a complete critical edition, an introduction, appendices and indices. The introduction gives an account of the purpose of the edited text, its time of composition and a detailed summary of each chapter of the text. A minor comparison between the Birgittine Liber usuum and the customary of the sisters as well as the Cistercian customary shows that liturgical details are less prominent in the Liber usuum edited here due to a regulation in the regula sancti Salvatoris. The fourteen extant manuscripts and their interrelations are described and discussed. This has led to the establishment of a hypothetical stemma codicum. A medieval Vadstena manuscript has been used as the primary source for the major part of the edited text. A second medieval manuscript serves as the primary source for the remaining minor part.

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