Antiphonary, in Latin, monumental decorated manuscript on vellum [Germany (Rhineland, perhaps Cologne), fourteenth century (probably first half)]

144 leaves, 372mm. by 267mm., starts and ends imperfectly, collation: i-xviii⁸, mostly with 7 four-line red staves with music and text, rastrum 17mm., written in a gothic hand, capitals touched in red, rubrics in red, one-line initials in red or blue, line-fillers decorated in red, small initials either in brown and red ink with penwork decoration, the penwork often picking out charming if rustic details such as human faces or zoomorphic figures such as knights (for example fols.49v, 54v, 98r), dragons (for example fols.56v, 66r, 79r, 102r) and dogs (for example fol.57r), or in red or blue ink with reserved designs and contrasting pen-flourishing, occasionally small puzzle initials in red and blue with contrasting pen-flourishing (fols.101v, 111r, 114r), ten very large puzzle initials in red and blue with complex geometric penwork reserved designs, with elaborate decorated bar borders formed of alternate red and blue shapes or floral tendrils reaching far along margins of page (fols.1r, 16v, 30r, 41r, 42v, 51v, 63v, 75r, 86v, 109v), fol.113 cut down to a stub and reused as a mounting guard for 2 paper bifolia with music and text in a sixteenth-century hand, 2 small paper strips with corrections in the same hand added to the margins of fol.94rv, lower margins cut from fols.121, 125, 134 and 138-141, last leaf partly detached, otherwise in good condition with wide and clean margins, early binding of blind-tooled brown leather binding over wooden boards with two clasps, splitting to thongs and edges at spine, but strong in binding

This manuscript contains the Antiphons and relevant parts of the Offices for the year from the feast of Corpus Christi (Thursday after Trinity Sunday) to that of St. Valentine (14 February). The presence of the Office for the 11,000 Virgins on fol.102v points towards Cologne, and many contemporary liturgical volumes from that city share the same ornate red and blue penwork border extensions and swirls of tiny flowers (cf. Glaube und Wissen im Mittelalter, 1998, no.88-89, pp.423-43; Manuscrits enluminés d’origine germanique, I, 1995, nos.142 and 150, esp. pls.cxxxviii-cxxxix). The wealth of penwork faces and drolleries here adds great charm to the volume as the many red-cheeked human faces irreverently poke out their tongues at the reader and the portly woman with red lips on fol.88v glances back at the viewer as she reads from an open book, mirroring the reader’s actions.