Lot 56

Gradual, in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [eastern France, first half of the thirteenth century]

Estimate

7,000 - 9,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

173 leaves, 227mm. by 157mm., wanting a few leaves from last gathering, else complete, collation: i-xxi^{8, xxii^{5 (first 3 leaves reattached to volume and bound in as singletons; last 2 a bifolium), single column, 8-9 lines of text in dark brown ink in a number of small and precise gothic bookhands, with music on a 4-line red stave, rubrics in red, one-line initials in red or touched in red, larger initials in faded red and green with penwork to contrast (mostly 2-line, that on fol.1r 65mm. high), some discolouration, scuffing and staining throughout, slightly trimmed with loss to marginalia and border decoration, overall in fair and sound condition, modern red leather over early wooden boards, one metal clasp}}

Provenance

provenance

1. Probably prepared for a monastic community in eastern France and perhaps later in the library of the Carthusian nuns of Mélan in the High Savoy (founded 1292 and suppressed in 1791): the Litany is sparse: the only monastic saint is Benedict, and the only French saint is Martin of Tours (fol.167v). Early additions include SS. Hugh and Bruno, both Carthusian saints, and St. Claude of Besançon, suggesting an eastern French provenance. By the eighteenth century the book was in the library of the Jesuits at Mélan: their bookplate on early endleaf interleaved at front, and it may have come from the nearby Carthusian nunnery.

2. Bergendal MS.76; bought by Joseph Pope in our rooms, 26 November 1985, lot 110: Bergendal catalogue no.76; Stoneman, 'Guide', p.176; Pope 'The Library', p.160.

Catalogue Note

text

This is a remarkably early musical manuscript. It comprises a Gradual, with the Temporal (fol.1r), from the first Sunday in Advent to the twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost; the Sanctoral (fol.136v), from the feast of St. Anthony, 17 January, to that of St. Thomas, 21 December; followed by votive masses and a Litany (fol.163r).