main corpus (ff. 1r-99v) transmits an incomplete copy of the Historia scholastica, the work of Petrus Comestor, chancellor of Notre-Dame of Paris in the 1160s. The source belonged to Juan Alfonso de Segovia, professor of Theology in the Salamanca studium, where it was located at least since 1457, the date of Segovia’s donation of books to the university where the volume is listed. A different hand, in the internal part of the closing bifolium, copied the music: four monophonic conducti and one two-part motet, all belonging to the Notre-Dame repertoire. Most of the texts have medieval attribution to Philippe the Chancellor (d. 1236) in other sources. The manuscript does not seem to have originated in Spain. In fact, both handwritings do not display Spanish features and are rather closer to French scripts of the 13th century.

The fact that the external part of the music bifolium displays several notes written between the 13th and the 14th century, suggests that those leaves were an early addition to the manuscript. The bifolium, as well as the parent volume with Comestor’s Historia, were possibly written in France. Two of the conducti are monophonic arrangements of polyphonic pieces in the Notre-Dame sources. The only motet copied there has an unusual and perhaps unique layout: the tenor is written before the upper part.

Concordances & Cognates are found in:

Burgos, Monasterio de Las Huelgas, Ms. s/n

Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, Ms 20486

Florence, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Pluteus 29.1

Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August Bibliothek, Ms 677

Wolfenbüttel, Loc. cit., Ms 1099

brown leather over wooden boards

diastematic Messine neumes

music is written on two columns and entered on five-line staves (no more than twelve per column).

Parchment