PRECORDIALISSIMI ac imp[re] ciabiles de adve[n]tu d[omi]ni Sermones co[m]pleti a Revere[n]do patre D. Joan[n]e Cleree ordinis p[re] dicatoru[m] g[e]neral. magistro artiu[m] ac sacre pagle doctore Parrhissie aureo quide[m] ordle editi atque declamati ad dei honorem animarumque salute[m] nu[n]c primum in lucem emissi felicite incipiunt: Venundantur Parrhisiis, in vico Jacobeo, sub signo Pellicani ab Engleberto Marnefio bibliopola ad edem divi Yvonis commorante [1522],[ Daté d'après l'épître de l'éditeur du 4 des calendes d'octobre 1522 [i.e. 28 sept. 1522].

Paris: Jacobeo, sub signo Pellicani ab Engleberto Marnefio, 1522. Second edition. Signatures: a-g8, h6(h5-6 both blank, half of h5 missing and lacking h6) LXII f. Bound in original vellum limp binding with hand lettering on spine "Cleree sermones/aVerdu DNI/1522": name on first page "Thomas Stevenson/Edinburgh/183. very good copy of a rare sermon. John Clérée dominican friar, preacher of the Late Middle Ages, is a little and unjustly forgotten nowadays. He was however very well known in the time of the kings Charles VIII and Louis XII, whose he has been the confessor. This study is based on the Quadragesimale said of Valenciennes. Clérée, using always of the rules of the scolastic Ars Praedicamdi, is nevertheless able to innovate by introducing in his sermons some dramatic dialogues. He is an accurate witness of the difficulties and problems of the french society about 1500 : the increasing inegalities between rich and poor ; the heaviness of the royal fiscality and of all kinds of taxes ; the growth of the urban prostitution. As the others mendicant preachers, Clérée is very pessimist about the moral behaviour of his contemporaries.
Yet Clérée became famous and praised by his contemporaries. Philippe de Vigneulles in fact tells us in the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, relating an episode in the life of the orator, which he undoubtedly incorrectly situates in 1497: people, but not all.

"The malcontents were none other than the Questains, qualified without care for liars, relic sellers and public thieves. The message was so well received by the faithful that the hucksters were no longer successful, neither in Metz, nor in the surrounding villages *.