14th-century mensural notation

1-4v, 54, 54v

Parchment

RISM B/IV 2 A collection of fragments assembled by the British Museum in 1912-1913, of which item F is important here. The eleven 14th century parchment fragments making up F were taken from the binding of ms Harley 602 when it was rebound in 1912. This source contains the memoranda of John Moot, prior of St. Albans Abbey till 1396 and afterwards abbot. All the fragments constituting item F are musical, but f. 45 and 46 appear to contain plainsong using square notes, red four-line staves, flat and natural clefs and non-mensural rhombs. The initials here are red and green. The succeeding folios are 9 strips meas. between 45 and 80 mm. wide and 218 mm. long. (They should be 10 or 20 mm. longer.) These strips are double-page strips, so that the length 218 mm. only refers to the single-page length (original width). The strips have recently been rearranged, and 8 of them (f. 47-53, including the unnumbered f. 48a) form the greater part of 2 bifolios meas. originally some 320 x 230 mm. The ninth strip (f. 54) is apparently from a different ms of similar type with a few notes in three-part score on brown five-line staves on each side. The 2 bifolios are here renumbered from 1-4. The music should be in three-part score throughout, though sometimes the top stave is missing. Initials are red and the notation 14th century mensural on red five-line staves, originally 10 per page. Some pieces employ minims as the smallest value, others only semibreves, together with longs and breves.

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