Proto-gothic script with strong documentary influence. Modal notation of Notre-Dame type, written in England

80v

Parchment

RISM Supplement: 76 fols, (foliated 5-80); the music is added on the last page of this fascicle. Parchment. 215 x 150 mm. Written space: 164 x 130-140 mm (fol. 80v). Ruling: nine red four- and five-line staves (9-17 mm), roughly drawn in systems of three; frame rules ruled for the main body of the text (here ignored), and text guides. Collation: l8-98, 104. Quire-signatures b-k in brown crayon, s. xiii, at the bottom of the first leaf of each of quires 2-10. Script: proto-gothic, with strong documentary influence. Notation: modal, Notre-Dame type; vertical lines drawn through the systems, probably s. xvii-xviii, although possibly early, align the music with words and phrases in the text.

Written in England. Fols. 5-80, written s. xii/xiii, form a discrete booklet, one of two now bound in this volume, containing a concordance to the Gospels, on whose last page the music has been added. It is clear that this booklet was originally separate from the other part of the manuscript; but the collection, which may once have included further booklets, was assembled probably by the fifteenth century and possibly earlier (cf. the marks from a former binding, of white whittawed leather over boards, on fols. 1, 114v). A s. xv hand has annotated both remaining parts of the manuscript, and may have written 'memorandum quod iste liber quondam erat Johannes Sturmy' on fol. 114. Other notes and memoranda on fol. 114 include: an Anglo-Norman note concerning the division of goods, beginning 'pur pleye garir finement ben perner ...' ; another note, 'nota quod ecclesia de beltesford est taxata ad xxxiiij marc' prêter penciones et prêter portion' Prioris de Spald' de dominicis' ; a memorandum of an enrollment made of proceedings 'in plena curia' on 3 May 1319 by Nicholas de Overton, seneschal of Stephen de Segrave; 'Johan de Rydewar', s. xii/xiv. The Benedictine Priory at Spalding, Lincolnshire, was a cell of St Nicholas, Angers (France, Maine-et-Loire), and held a share in presentations to the church at Belchford, Lines.; most of the Segrave lands were located in Lincolnshire. It may therefore be that a Lincolnshire provenance can be inferred for the second item in Harley 5393; but it is not clear that these notes relate also to the early ownership of fols. 5-80. Fols. 2-4 and 112-113 are medieval flyleaves, formed from waste; the pastedowns have been lifted and are now fols. 1, 114. Recipes and other items in Anglo-Norman, s. xiii, appear on fols. 4v, 113, 114. Standard British Museum Harleian binding. Owned: Edward Harley, Earl of Oxford, by 1741. Given in 1753.1 am grateful to Mr Adrian Bassett for drawing my attention to this source.

NOTES ON CONTENTS

Ed. Anderson, I, pp. 109-112. Also in W1, fol. 72r-v (No. 176) down a fifth; W2, fols. 42-43 (No. 22) down an octave; a variant version is in F, fols. 234v-235 (No. 665). Falck, No. 287. Text only in 0b, MS Rawl. C. 510, fol. 13v.

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