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Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis, vol. 328
Henricus Bitterfeld de Brega
De formatione et reformatione Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum
Anna Zajchowska-Bołtromiuk, Anna Ledzińska (eds)
- Pages: approx. lvi + 120 p.
- Size:155 x 245 mm
- Language(s):Latin
- Publication Year:2026
- € 135,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-62096-1
- Hardback
- Forthcoming (May/26)
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The oldest treatise on the Dominican Observant Reform by one of the most prominent representatives of the Prague milieu at the end of the 14th century.
Subject(s)
BIO
Henry Bitterfeld of Brzeg was a Silesian-born Dominican friar of the Polish Province, active at the turn of the fourteenth century. He spent most of his life in Prague, closely connected with its university, which at that time had become one of Europe’s leading intellectual centers. Bitterfeld authored numerous theological works that circulated widely across the continent and took part in the Church reform movement alongside Archbishop John of Jenstein of Prague.
Dr hab. Anna Zajchowska‑Bołtromiuk is a medieval historian at the Polish Academy of Sciences whose research focuses on mendicant orders, preaching, and ecclesiastical reform.
Dr Anna Ledzińska is a philologist at the Institute of Polish Language, Polish Academy of Sciences, specializing in medieval Latin lexicography and text editing.
Summary
Henry Bitterfeld of Brzeg’s De formatione et reformatione Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum was the first work of its kind written in support of the Observant Reform of the Dominican Order, which took off in the late fourteenth century. It was probably composed around 1388-1389 at the request of the Order’s Master General, Raymond of Capua, who formally launched the reform in 1390.
The treatise is organized into three parts: first, the principles of religious life in general; second, the causes of the crisis within the Order of Preachers; and third, the remedies by which it might be resolved. It concludes with a commentary on the prologue to the Dominican Constitutions.
Bitterfeld’s work survives in four manuscript copies, along with three distinct medieval abridgements. Taken together, these testify not only to the reception of the text itself but also to the spread of Observant Reform ideals both within and beyond the Dominican Order.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Henry Bitterfeld and his work
The De formatione et reformatione and the observant reform of the Dominican order
Ratio edendi
Editorial principles
Bibliography
Primary sources
Secondary literature
Textus
Conspectus siglorum et abbreviationum
Prologus
I. De religionum racionabili institucione
II. De defectu regularis obseruancie
III. De reformacione in generali
IV. Cause speciales circa materiam professionis
Indices
Index locorum Sacrae Scripturae
Index fontium
