US-CAh MS Typ 194

Harvard University Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass., United States

flyleaves: 12th century (with 15th century polyphony)

Archive Harvard University Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass., United States (US-CAh)
Shelfmark MS Typ 194
Surface Parchment
Numbering System None
Measurements 28 x 21 cm (staves occupy 22 x 18 cm) mm
Notations
  • black void mensural
Relationships
External Links
Provenance
General Description

Thin parchment flyleaves from the re-binding of a manuscript written in the twelfth century, probably in England, containing Rufinus, Historia Monachorum, and texts by St Jerome, St Athanasius and others. The flyleaves contain fifteenth-century music on some but apparently not all faces, in void mensural notation that appears to have been washed out, deliberately or by exposure to damp, and has become hard or impossible to read.

The flyleaves comprise two sets each of two nested bifolia (at the front fos. i–iv, at rear fos. v–viii). Ff. vi verso–vii recto seem to be linked by a custos so may have been the centre of a gathering.

Staves have been drawn freehand as needed, though the outer pages (i-iv, v-viii) seem not to have been ruled. Most of the visible notation seems to be from cantus parts in void mensural notation, even on rectos, with C1 or C5 clefs where visible. It all appears to be in the hand of the same fluent scribe. There are some changes of mensuration, suggesting local proportional passages. The melodic style strongly suggests that of English composers in general around 1430, and Dunstaple, in particular .No verbal text can be detected on any of the pages.

DIAMM, 2021
Physical Description

Traces of staves and notation (but too little to be identifiable) on i verso, ii recto.

iii r-v & iv recto, v verso, vi r-v, vii r-v & viii recto fully written with music but too faint to be recoverable unless by ultra-violet.

i recto, ii verso, iv verso, v recto, viii verso all apparently blank or at least contain no music.

DIAMM, 2021
Notation

black void mensural notation with many flagged minims, void and filled, and black coloration at the minim level.

Sean Gallagher and Hope Mayo, with notes by Margaret Bent, 2009
Ruling

Staves drawn freehand

DIAMM, 2021

7v

Images © Harvard University Houghton Library, Cambridge

denotes primary source study

[No Author] None. Illuminated and Calligraphic Manuscripts.

Stoneman, William. 2006. Of Current Interest: Recent Research on Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Houghton Library.  Harvard College.

Coates, Alan. 1999. English Medieval Books: The Reading Abbey Collections from Foundation to Dispersal.  Oxford.

Sharpe, Richard. 1996. English Benedictine Libraries: The Shorter Catalogues. Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues.  London. Pages: no. B71.72.

Dennis, Rodney G. 1992. A Twelfth-Century Manuscript in Reshaped Boards. Marks in the Field, 142-44.

Wolff, Barbara Maehrenholz. 1992. Music Manuscripts at Harvard: A Catalogue of Music Manuscripts from the 14th to the 20th centuries in the Houghton Library and the Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library. 52. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Library.

Faye, C U, and W H Bond. 1962. Supplement to the Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada.  New York. Pages: 269.

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