Textmanuscripts - Les Enluminures
i (parchment pastedown, partially lifted to reveal two small-format printed pates) +101 folios on parchment (rather stiff, with darker hair side), missing one leaf at front, perhaps a flyleaf, and perhaps five leaves at the end (collation i-iv8 v6 vi2 vii-viii6 ix-x8 xi4 xii2 xiii8 xiv-xv4 xvi8 xvii3 [original structure uncertain, but possibly a quire of 8, now missing the last five leaves]), one horizontal catchword f. 24v, no signatures, ruled very lightly in lead with top and bottom rules full across, and full-length vertical bounding lines, double on the outside, (justification 305-300 x 210-205 mm.) written in a formal rounded gothic book hand with five lines of script and five staves per page, music on red 5-line staves (rastrum 40 mm.), square notation, red rubrics, strapwork and red initials equivalent to one line of text and music, two large penwork initials with bar borders extending the full length of the page, f. 1v, elaborate parted red and blue initial, equivalent to two lines of text and musical notation, infilled with scrolling vines and flowers touched with violet infilled with red stippling, on a rectangular ground with scrolling vines and flowers on a background of purple stippling, framed with multiple fillets, alongside a bar border, full length of the page of scrolling vines and flowers in purple, flanked by narrow bands of red and blue, f. 41v, red initial, equivalent to one line of text and music, infilled with purple in the same style on a purple penwork ground, with a bar border extending the full length of the page, stains throughout, but especially ff. 1v-2 (stain f. 1v, impinging on the penwork initial), ff. 19, 20v-21, 22v-23, 35, 66v. 69, 70v-71, 84, 92v are mottled (stained? or original patterns in the skin), f. 4, very small hole (ink corrosion?), ff. 14, 16, 33 with repairs top margin, ff. 36 and 70, bottom outer corner repaired, some cockling, some dirt lower outer corners, overall good condition. CONTEMPORARY(?) BINDING of pasteboard covered with brown suede tooled with triple filets forming a central panel with floral tools, spine with four raised bands, once fastened front to back with straps of tawed skin, one remaining lower board ending in a knot, corners frayed revealing sheets of printed book(s) used for the pasteboard, top of the spine cover missing, revealing top set of cords and spine lining, overall sound and good condition. Dimensions 395 x 287 mm.
Holy Week was a particularly important period of commemoration in Spain, and its attendant rituals were rich and complex. This volume includes the chants of the liturgy of the Divine Office for Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, making it a Passional; each of these services include the liturgically and musically important readings from Lamentations that were a source of inspiration for many composers. Subsequent users of this volume made extensive changes to the musical notation, which deserve closer study.
1. Copied in Spain in the second half of the sixteenth century as indicated by the evidence script and style of the penwork initials.
2. Evidence of use includes changes to the musical notation; a significant number of passages here were erased and then rewritten: see ff. 7v-8, 10-14, 16v-20. The significance of these is a matter for further study.
There are additional signs of use throughout, including dirt and stains, and original and subsequent repairs, but overall, this is in better condition than many surviving Choir Books from this date.
Added fore edge tabs of silk (yellow, blue, white purple), affixed to squares of white paper: f. 1, f. 23 (tab mostly missing), second nocturn, f. 29 (tab missing) nocturn three, f. 35 (tab mostly missing) lauds, f. 41, feria sexta, f. 58 (tab mostly missing, nocturn two begins f. 57v), f. 65, nocturn three, f. 71, lauds, f. 75, Sabbato sancto, f. 94 (second nocturn begins f. 93v), and f. 99v (tertio nocturn).
3. Private Collection.
ff. 1-40v, [Holy Thursday], Feria quinta in cena domini. Ad matutinum. In primo nocturno. Antiphona, …., [ends top f. 40v];
ff. 41-75, [Good Friday], Feria sexta in parasceue. Ad matuninum. In primo nocturno. Antiphona, ….;
ff. 75-101v, [Holy Saturday], Sabbatho [sic] santo In primo nocturno, Antiphona, …. , [ending imperfectly in the versicle to the response 7 in the third nocturn] … R. vii, incipit, “Astiterunt reges …; Ps. Aduersus dominum; [f. 101v], V.,Quare fremuerunt gentes et populi meditate sunt//.”
Texts and music for the Divine Office at Matins and Lauds for Holy Week on the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday before Easter. The text includes three nocturns of Matins, but with lessons only for the first nocturn, Lauds, and the Benedictus and Magnificat Antiphons.
The biblical readings for the first nocturn of Matins on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, all from Lamentations, are copied here with musical notation. The treatment of the rubrics for these readings is of interest, since it provides proof that the rubric was also chanted, at least in some cases, during the liturgy. On f. 2v, Incipit lamentatio hieremie propheta. Aleph, incipit, “Quomodo sedit …”, the rubric is provided with musical notation; compare f. 42v, De lamentatione hieremie prophete Lectio prima, Heth, ….,” the rubric in this case is not noted, but another hand has provided the music below. On Holy Saturday the lesson begins on, f. 76, De lamentatione hieremie prophete lectio prima. Heth …,” and the rubric is not noted. (On the transmission of the Lamentations of Jeremiah in Iberia, see Hardie, 2007, pp. 11-22; and Hardie, 2003.)
Holy Week was an important period of commemoration in Spain, and its attendant rituals were particularly rich and complex. It therefore made sense to isolate this material in one more transportable volume (Hardie, 2007, pp. 12-13). Our Antiphonal, with the chants for Holy Week, is an example of the liturgical chant book known as a Passional or a “Passionarium.” Passionals, which were particularly popular in Spain and Portugal, typically contained all or some of the texts and music for either or both the Office and/or Mass from Palm Sunday to Easter Day. They often contain the Passion readings from the Gospels read during Mass, as their name suggests; our manuscript, however, only includes the text and music for the Divine Office, including the lessons from Lamentations at Matins for the three important days of Holy Week preceding Easter Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday.
This manuscript is thus a specialized type of Antiphonal, the liturgical chant book that contains the music for the Divine Office. In contrast to Breviaries, Antiphonals omit the spoken texts and include only the texts and music for sung portions of the Office. Many Antiphonals, like the book described here, were copied in large format so the text and music would have been easily legible from a distance by all the members of the choir.
Hardie, Jane Morlet. “Liturgical Books for Use in Spain 1468-1568: Puzzles in Parchment and Print,” Musica antiqua 9 (1991), pp. 279-319.
Hardie, Jane Morlet. “Salamanca to Sydney: A Newly-Discovered Manuscript of the Lamentations of Jeremiah,” in T. Bailey and A. Santosuosso, ed., Music in Medieval Europe. Studies in Honor of Bryan Gillingham, Aldershot, England and Burlington, Vermont, 2007, pp. 11-22.
Hardie, Jane Morlet. The Lamentations of Jeremiah: Ten Sixteenth-Century Spanish Prints, IMS Collected Works, vol. 22, Ottawa, 2003.
Harper, John. The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy from the Tenth to the Eighteenth Century, 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, tr. Madeleine Beaumont, Collegeville, Minnesota, 1998.
Light, Laura and Susan Boynton. Sacred Song; Chanting the Bible in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Les Enluminures, 2014, cat. no. 16.
University of Sydney, RB Add.Ms. 378 Deane, Passionarium, Burgo, 1599
http://hdl.handle.net/2123/14023
TM 1304
