Two well-preserved bifolios – one an internal leaf of a gathering and one from the centre of a gathering – of a lost host manuscript of which another motet fragment, S-Sr 5786, survives and to which the organum fragment S-Sr 535 possibly also belonged. Double-column format with alternating red and blue pen-flourished initials. Roman numerals at the top of folios indicate the second extant motet in the fragments as number III and the third as number IIII. Three three-voice ‘double’ motets in a mid-to-late thirteenth-century or Ars antiqua style. The notation is Franconian: there are texted pairs of semibreves but no dots of division. The first and third motets, however, exceed the maximum tripartite division of the perfect breve permitted by Franco, featuring occasional melismatic four-semibreve groups. A musical and textual phrase at the opening of what survives of the first motet (and which includes four-semibreve decorations) is cited as an example in Franco’s Ars cantus mensurabilis musicae (‘cruci corpus adaptari’ in chapter 5). The third and almost complete motet, Dies ista celebris/Hec est dies/Manere (numbered IIII), notates in red ink alternate ordines of its fifth-rhythmic-mode tenor (three perfect longs followed by a perfect long rest). The red ink prompts transposition of these tenor ordines down an octave, a function described in the Ars vetus et nova treatise following Phillipe de Vitry, but of which no other examples are known in practice.

Writing block of ca. 125 x 90 mm. Ruled red staves of five lines; double column.

No foliation. Individual motets are numbered with Roman numerals, in alternating red and blue ink.

Four French three-voice ‘double’ motets (i.e. with independent upper-voice texts). All of the motets are incomplete (although most of Dies ista celebris/Hec est dies/Manere survives). None of the motets is known from other sources.