A small 13th-century noted Pontifical of 105 leaves, without illumination. It was used by a bishop of Coventry and Lichfield: the rite for the profession of an abbot (p.117) contains the words ‘Ego N. Ecclesie electus Abbas profiteor tibi , Pater N. conventrensis Episcope, et successoribus tuis canonice intrantibus, fidem et canonicam subjectionem; et hoc propria manu subscribo.’ The rite for confirming a bishop (f. 34) also locates the manuscript in the Canterbury province, in a secular church (‘Venerando sance cantuariensis ecclesie archiepiscopo clerus et populus ecclesie’. The manuscript contains three separate hands (see below), the main scribe writing in single columns. Many of the capital letters are missing, and there are some blank staves. Two leaves are lost after f.87.

The manuscript is of Sarum type and relates closely in terms of textual and melodic content to the early 14th-century [Bangor Pontifical] [used][1] by Bishop Anian II of Bangor. The complete version of the rite for dedicating a church at the beginning of the Coventry Pontifical (ff.1r-15v) serves usefully to restore lost material in the Bangor Pontifical, where five leaves are missing from the first quire (so that it begins halfway through with an incomplete item on f.12r).

Contents: Main items include the rite for dedication of a church (f. 1); ordination (f. 20v); blessing of a bell and of incense (f. 31, without notation); confirmation of a bishop-elect (f. 34); confirmation of the baptized (f. 35v); blessings of vestments and ornaments, including those for a new cross and images of the Virgin and St John (f. 36v); rites for Maundy Thursday (f. 42); consecration of the oils (f. 46); blessing of a cemetery (f. 52); reconciliation of a defiled church (f. 55v); blessing of an abbot, monks or canons and an abbess (f. 58v); profession of a monk (f. 62v); profession of a virgin or widow (f. 63); blessings of books, altars etc (f. 68); Order for a Provincial Council (f. 75); blessing of candles on the Purification (f. 79); expulsion of penitents (f. 80) and blessing of ashes on Ash Wednesday (f. 81); blessings for Palm Sunday (f. 82v, without notation) blessings of thurible and ampoules (f. 84); blessings of pilgrims, crusaders, pyxes and food (f. 85). Material added later in a later hand includes another version of the rite for the reconciliation of penitents on Maundy Thursday (f. 88, cropped at the right margin); and a series of episcopal blessings (f. 92v).

Square notation

All images reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.