Textmanuscripts - Les Enluminures
i (paper)+ 85 + i (paper) folios on parchment (some offcuts), original foliation in red arabic numerals, top outer margin on the verso, incomplete and bound out of order: 10-72, 80, 73, 76, 77, 75, 78, 178-183, 100-101, 130-135, 170, 175, collation impractical but certainly originally made up of regular quires of 8, no catchwords or signatures, ruled in lead or brown crayon, full-length vertical bounding lines, prickings outer margin ff. 21-24, (justification 190 x 160 mm.), written in a very regular rounded gothic bookhand with nine lines of text and nine musical staves, music on every page of square notation on four-line black staves with a yellow c-line and a red f-line, majuscules touched with pale yellow, red rubrics and original foliation, 1-line red initials, 22 large parted red and blue initials, equivalent to two lines of text and two musical staves, infilled with red and with blue pen decoration, overall in very good condition, bottom margins clipped (leaving text intact), ff. 1, 23, 24; initial cut out of f. 30, leaving a slit in the next folio as well, initials also removed from ff. 46v and 48v, some stains and thumbing lower margins, ff. 178-193v show more signs of use, with dirty lower margins, stain within the text on f. 181v, smudge on f. 182, and part of the text rubbed on f. 183v (still legible). Modern parchment binding, excellent condition. Dimensions 253 x 205 mm.
Of significant interest given its fourteenth century date and origin in Northern Spain, this Choir Book of relatively small scale survives as a different and less common type of Antiphonal than the hefty volumes more typical of the fifteenth century and later. A substantial fragment of a larger codex, this is a perfect book for the classroom, including interesting parchment, skilled script, reader’s aids, a complex and careful layout, musical notation, and colorful initials.
1. This was certainly copied in southern Europe given the type of parchment and the rounded Gothic script, in the fourteenth century. Looking closer at the evidence of the script, style of the initials, and details of the orthography, allow us to say that this was very likely copied in northern Spain in the middle decades of the fourteenth century, c. 1340-1380. The initials on ff. 14v and 17v, for example, are Spanish in style, with the infilling and their square grounds of packed scrolling pen decoration. We note Spanish abbreviations (“veit” for “venit,” “hoiem” for “hominem”), and orthography, including “octabas” for “octavas.” The scribe does abbreviate “qui” with a vertical line through the descender, a practice more common with Italian scribes, but not unknown in Spain. A general comparison with the script and layout can be made with a fourteenth-century Antiphonal from Barcelona, Biblioteca de Catalunya, E-Bbc, M 705 (Online Resources).
Liturgical evidence shows that this was made for use in a monastery (the text includes twelve responsaries at Matins; and there is at least one reference in a rubric to a feast of twelve lessons, both characteristics of the monastic Office).
2. Collection of Christopher William Surrey in the 20th century; his book plate, inside front cover, (“C. W. Surrey, Umbram fugat veritas”), no. 354. Although we have not uncovered many details about Surrey, he was certainly interested in the liturgy. He also owned a printed Sarum Missal, now in Lambeth Palace Library, given to Sion College in June, 1968, by the Rev. C. A. Surrey (his son?), and prepared the indices of the 1940 edition of the Martyrologium Exon by John Neale Dalton , Gilbert Hunter Doble, and Christopher William Surrey, Henry Bradshaw Society 79, 1940. It seems likely that he is the author of the detailed handwritten transcription of part of our manuscript that now accompanies it.
3. Catalogue clipping in English, inside front cover, lot 1447, where it is described as a Gradual, fourteenth century, 85 leaves.
4. Inside front cover, book seller’s notes in pencil; front flyleaf, f. i, in pencil, “266.”
5. Collection of Klaus Berger (1940-2020), a German academic theologian and Professor of New Testament Theology, University of Heidelberg.
Bound out of order, as described below (arranged in order, including ff. 10-73, 75-78, 80, 100-101, 130-135, 170, 175, 178-183):
ff. 10-72v, Temporale, beginning imperfectly in the First Sunday in Advent and concluding imperfectly in the Third Sunday in Quadragesima (that is Lent) [now bound out of order, but continuing below];
Including on ff. 19v-20, the Great Antiphons for the last seven days of Advent; and on f. 24v, Christmas, followed by the feasts of Stephen, John, and the Holy Innocents.
f. 80rv, Feria ii, de passione (the second weekday following Passion Sunday in Lent);
f. 73rv, Continuing from above with Dominca iii in Quadragesima (the third Sunday in Lent), followed by Offices for the weekdays (last three lines of f. 73 have been erased), and the beginning of Dominca iv (the Fourth Sunday in Lent);
ff. 76-77v, Continuing with the Fourth Sunday in Lent, followed by feria ii-Sabbato, and Passion Sunday;
f. 75rv, Fourth Sunday in Lent;
f. 78, Passion Sunday (the fifth Sunday in Lent); [bound out of order, but continuing from above];
ff. 178-183v, [part of f. 178v, erased], Offices from the Common of Saints, beginning with one confessor-pontiff (unius confessoris pontificis), one confessor-bishop, a Virgin, and continuing with Suffrages on f. 182v, Incipiunt sufragia ad laudes et vesperas et primo de sancta cruce, de sancta maria, de sancto iohannes, de omnis sanctis, f. 183, in festis xii lectionum;
ff. 100-101v, Unidentified; with a rubric for Dominica iii;
f. 130-135v, Holy Saturday, followed the Easter Vigil and Easter;
ff. 170rv and 175rv, Sundays (unidentified), but from the Sundays following Pentecost.
This manuscript is an Antiphonal (also sometimes called an Antiphonary), that is, the liturgical volume that contains the text and music for the chanted portions of the Divine Office. (The Office is the daily prayer of the Church, recited and sung throughout the day and night by priests and other religious, including canons, monks, nuns, canons, and friars). In contrast to Breviaries, Antiphonals omit the spoken texts and include only the texts and music for sung portions of the Office. Antiphonals were almost always organized according to the two simultaneous parts of the liturgical year, the Temporal, that is, Sundays and other feasts celebrating the life of Christ, many of them, including Easter, celebrated at varying times each year, and the Sanctoral, the fixed feasts of the calendar, including feasts in honor of the Virgin and the Saints, together with a third section, the Common of Saints, which supplied texts for less important saints not included in the Sanctoral, organized according to general categories. Our manuscript is a fragment, although a large one, of the original volume, and now includes only sections from the Temporal, as well as some pages from the Common of Saints.
This Antiphonal was made for monastic use; the twelve responsories for Matins, the long night Office, are immediately noticeable in its text, since they have been numbered in red roman numerals, added by someone after the manuscript was copied. Secular Antiphonals, used by ordinary clergy, canons and friars of the 13th-century mendicant orders (Franciscans and Dominicans), in contrast, contain nine antiphons and nine responsories for Matins.
The format of our manuscript is noteworthy; this is a relatively small volume, with nine lines of text and music per page. The text is extremely carefully laid out; this was copied by a scribe who was very expert in copying music, which was a specialized skill. The music is copied on four-line black staves, with two of the staff lines highlighted in yellow and red. This method of distinguishing the c-line and the f-line dates back to the invention of the musical staff by Guido of Arezzo in the eleventh century. Colors were used in this way in early musical manuscripts with staff notation, but it is less common to see them in a fourteenth-century manuscript, as here. Finally, we note that this manuscript also includes early examples of aids to the users, including original folio numbers in red Arabic numerals (here on the verso, rather than on the recto, as we are accustomed to), as well as cross references placed above abbreviated texts, using the folio numbers to direct the reader to the location within the volume of the complete text.
Harper, John. The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy, Oxford, 1991.
Hiley, D. Western Plainchant: A Handbook, Oxford, 1993.
Hughes, A. Medieval Manuscripts for Mass and Office: A Guide to Their Organization and Terminology, Toronto, 1982.
Huglo, M. Les livres de chant liturgiques,Turnhout, 1988.
Palazzo, Eric. A History of Liturgical Books from the Beginning to the Thirteenth Century, translated by Madeline Beaumont, Collegeville, Minnesota, 1998.
Plummer, John. Liturgical Manuscripts for the Mass and Divine Office, New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, 1964.
Barcelona, Biblioteca de Catalunya, M 705
Antifonari de l'ofici - Partitures (Biblioteca de Catalunya) - Memòria Digital de Catalunya (csuc.cat)
See also, E-Bbc, M 705, Musica Hispanica: Spanish Early Music Manuscripts
E-Bbc (Barcelona) E-Bbc, M 705 | Musica Hispanica
Pablo Alvarez, “Singing the Antiphonary,” University of Michigan, Special Collections
https://www.lib.umich.edu/online-exhibits/exhibits/show/singing-the-antiphonary--mich-
Susan Boynton and Consuelo Dutschke. “Liturgical books” (Introduction to liturgical manuscripts)
http://liturgical.columbia.edu
TM 1178
