Noted Breviary and a Gospel Book with cantillation marks, in Latin, leaves from two decorated manuscripts on vellum

Estimate

1,500 - 2,000 GBP

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Description

2 separate leaves, (a) noted Breviary, a full leaf, 280mm. by 218mm., 27 lines, ruled in blind, written-space 200mm. by 148mm., written in dark brown ink in two sizes of an extremely fine slightly sloping romanesque bookhand, text from Wednesday to Friday of Easter week, headings in bright red and mostly in rustic capitals, initials throughout in dark red, sixteen lines of music in adiastemmatic neumes, slight wear but generally in fine condition, southern Germany (perhaps Augsburg), mid-eleventh century, in a green cloth folder, morocco title label gilt; and (b) Gospel Book, a full leaf (though margins cut away), 202mm. by 144mm., 24 lines, written in dark brown ink in a handsome rather clubbed romanesque bookhand, text from Matthew 27:21-46 (from the Ecce Homo to the death on the Cross), capitals touched in red, marked up for public performance in the Good Friday liturgy with the spoken parts indicated by the letters ‘s’ and ‘c’, perhaps ‘sacerdos’ and ‘cantor’, rather browned but clear, western Germany, late eleventh century, in a salmon-red paper folder, morocco title label gilt

Catalogue Note

Boehlen Collection, MSS.1004 ES and 1000 ES. The first leaf was Quaritch, cat.1315 (Bookhands of the Middle Ages, VII), 2004, no.57, pl. in colour and on front cover of the catalogue. It is of very high quality and well-preserved, very close in style to a Breviary fragment at Yale University, Beinecke Library MS. 481.23, written by a known scribe probably from the abbey of SS. Ulric and Afra in Augsburg (R.G. Babcock, L.F. Davis and P.G. Rusche, Catalogue, IV, 2004, pp.33-36). The second piece is notable for including the marks for the performance of the text in church, an annual public event in the liturgy which developed eventually into the late medieval staging of Passion plays, thus becoming the ultimate ancestor of modern drama.