Turku 1000
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1488

Missale Aboense: the first printed book for Finland

In 1488 a large book arrives from Lübeck. The Mass book of the diocese of Turku is the first book ever printed for Finland.

Late Middle Ages · Gothic
The big story

The first book printed for Finland

In 1488 a large book arrived from Lübeck: the Missale Aboense, the Mass book of the diocese of Turku. It was the first book ever printed for Finland, more than 150 years before anyone printed a book in Finland itself.

A book for every parish

  • What is a missal? A missal holds the texts and prayers of the Mass for the whole church year Well documented.
  • Copied by hand. Before printing, every missal had to be copied by hand. That was slow and costly, and copies could differ from each other Likely.
  • Ordered by the bishop. Bishop Konrad Bitz and the cathedral dean Maunu Särkilahti had the missal printed for the diocese Well documented.
  • The Dominican way. The diocese of Turku used the Dominican order’s form of the Mass, which had been official there since about 1330 Well documented. The printer made a Dominican missal at the same time, with largely the same typesetting Well documented.

Printed in Lübeck

  • No press at home. There was no printing press in Finland. The first one came to Turku only in 1642 Well documented.
  • Bartholomeus Ghotan. The missal was printed in Lübeck in Ghotan’s workshop. Its introduction is dated in Turku on 17 August 1488 Well documented.
  • A big book. It has more than 500 large pages, printed in red and black, on both parchment and paper Well documented.
  • Finland’s own saints. A woodcut of St Henry standing on his killer Lalli opens the book, and its calendar lists the saints’ days kept in the diocese Well documented.

What is left

  • To the parishes. An estimated couple of hundred copies were sent to parish priests Likely.
  • A few survivors. Only a few copies survive, most of them incomplete. Four printed on parchment are kept in Finland, Stockholm and Copenhagen Well documented.
  • Online today. The National Library of Finland has put the missal online, and facsimiles were printed in 1971 and 1988 Well documented.
How do we know?

The missal itself is the best evidence. Its introduction gives the place and date, and its woodcut shows who paid for it. After the Reformation, Latin service books were no longer needed, and many were cut up so that their parchment could bind account books. Thousands of such fragments survive in Finnish archives Likely.

IVAVELETDAS. HenricusDominica primain adventu domini.Introitus.Ad te levavianimam meamdeus meus in teconfido non eru-bescam: neque ir-rideant me inimicimei: etenim uni-versi qui te expec-tant non confun-dentur.Ps.Vias tuas dominedemonstra mihi.Oratio.Excita quesumusdomine potentiamtuam et veni: utab imminentibuspeccatorum nostro-rum periculis temereamur prote-gente eripi.Lectio epistolebeati pauli apostoliad romanos.Fratres: Scientesquia hora est iamnos de somno sur-gere.LübeckTurkuabout 200 copies?

The page text is the usual opening of the Mass for the first Sunday of Advent, used as an example. It is not a copy of a page of the missal.

Print a page in five steps. Pull the press for the black and the red, then click the parts of the page.Simplified drawing. The text is an example, not a copy of the missal.
Why it matters

Printing let one text reach every parish in the same form. Within a century the same tool changed the language of the Church: Mikael Agricola, headmaster of the Cathedral School, had the first books in Finnish printed in the 1540s (stop 13).

On the lighter side

A schoolboy at the Cathedral school

The boys who sang in Turku Cathedral went to its school. It is the oldest school in Finland, and it is still teaching today.

  • Since 1276? The Cathedral School is believed to have been founded in 1276. In 2026 it celebrates its 750th year Likely.
  • A school for the Church. Its purpose was to train boys for the Church: to sing at services and, for the best of them, to become priests Well documented.
  • Further afield. Young priests from the school went on to study at universities abroad Well documented.
  • A famous headmaster. Mikael Agricola, the father of written Finnish, was headmaster from 1539 to 1548 Well documented.
  • School songs. In 1582 Jacobus Finno, headmaster of the school, compiled Piae Cantiones, a book of 74 Latin and Swedish songs. It was printed in Greifswald, and the songs were sung in Finnish cathedral schools, above all in Turku Well documented.
  • Heard every Christmas. The tune of the English carol Good King Wenceslas comes from Tempus adest floridum, a spring song in Piae Cantiones. The English words were written in 1853 Well documented.
What we do not know

No timetable, school book or pupil’s diary from medieval Turku survives. The day in the picture below is pieced together from what is known about cathedral schools in general. Treat it as a good guess, not a record.

A day at the cathedral school
sunrisesunsetDawnABMorningLate morningMiddayAfternoonAll day
Latin lesson: match the words

Click a Latin word, then its meaning.

Follow a schoolboy’s day from dawn to evening, then take a Latin lesson.A typical day at a cathedral school. No timetable from Turku survives.

Sources and further reading

  1. Missale Aboense — overview.
  2. Missale Aboense — the parchment copy at the University of Jyväskylä library.
  3. Missale Aboense — two leaves at the Morgan Library, with notes on the printing.
  4. Missale Aboense — digitised copy (National Library of Finland, Doria).
  5. Cathedral School of Turku — overview.
  6. Katedralskolan i Åbo 750 years (City of Turku, in Swedish).
  7. Piae Cantiones — the song book of 1582.
  8. Good King Wenceslas — the tune from Piae Cantiones.

Spotted a mistake? Know more?

This site is open and free. Corrections and additions are welcome — every page lists its sources so you can check them.