English mensural notation with rhomboid breves

4 r+v

Parchment

RISM Supplement: Three fragments of a roll (foliated Lat. liturg. b. 19, fol. 4, and Rawl. C. 400, fols. 5a, 6a). Parchment. At least 588 x 170 mm (306 x 170; 108 x 165; 178 x 115). Written space 165 mm wide. Ruling: at least 34 freely-ruled brown five-line staves (11-13 mm); frame rule at the bottom only (fol. 6a) of the face of the roll. Script: distinctive gothica textualis semi-quadrata, also found in Rawl. C. 400, pp. 1-8, fols. 1-4 (versos only). Main medial pauses in the text are indicated by the punctus elevatus; all other pauses in text are indicated by a punctus. Notation: English mensural with rhomboid breves. Decoration: plain brown initials. Written in England, not after A.D. 1256. The dorse of the roll was later used to write: (1) Notes on the Salomite controversy of the Trinubium of St Anne with genealogical charts (later erased), a draft office of St Margaret, and miscellaneous liturgical notes and quotations. (2) [fols. 5av-6av] An Assize of Grain, drawn up in 1248, which was copied later than and over (1). (3) [fol. 4v] An account of grain, possibly for a household, purchased at Reading and Wokingham between December and June, ending at the feast of St John the Baptist, probably in 1256 and 1257. The succession of saints' days and festivals used for dating shows that, in the year of the account, the morrow of St Scholastica (11 February) was a Sunday, that the feast of St Gregory (12 March) fell on a Monday (the year, therefore, was not a Leap Year), and that Pentecost fell between the Sundays after St Dunstan and before St Barnabas, that is, on either 27 May or 3 June. The second of these days is unlikely, since Trinity Sunday would then fall on 10 June, which is cited in the account merely as the feast of St Barnabas; if Pentecost fell on 27 May, Easter Day fell on 8 April. Possible years for the end of the account, therefore, are 1246, 1257 or 1319. The last of these is too late for the script and contents of the document; since the compilation of the 1248 Assize of Grain probably predates the account, 1257 remains its most likely year. Among the dates cited in the account is that of the dedication of a church, between 2 and 5 May. Items (1)-(3) were all written after the music on the face of the roll, as made clear by holes in the parchment, which perforate the work of the music scribe but which were avoided by the scribes who wrote on the dorse. The music must, therefore, have been copied before the commencement of the account, which can be dated December 1256 at the latest. Used with Rawl. C. 400, pp. 1-8, fols, la-4a in the binding (s. xiv in.?) of the Pontifical of Roger Martival, Bishop of Salisbury 1315-1330 (MS Rawl. C.400 [S.C. 12254]), probably to pad the cover (cf. the offsets of MS Lat. liturg. b. 19, fol. 4r on MS Rawl. C. 400, pp. 3, 6). The pontifical was bequeathed to Salisbury Cathedral at Martival's death (fol. 1), and appears in the catalogue of the Cathedral's books made c. 1622 by Patrick Young (Sc, MS 225; see Ker, p. 195). Owned: Richard Rawlinson (d. 1755). Bequeathed c. 1756 to the Bodleian Library. The fragments were removed from the binding as follows: (1) fol. 4 by W. D. Macray, s. xix ex., who placed it with other liturgical fragments from Rawlinson manuscripts in the guard book, now MS Lat. liturg. b. 19; (2) fols. 5a, 6a by the Bodleian Library, April 1952, to form, with other fragments, MS Rawl. C. 400* (see RISM, B IV, 1). MS Lat. liturg. b. 19 owned by W. D. Macray; Sir Michael Sadler, Master of University College, Oxford (bought at the Macray Sale, Oxford, December 1923); F. W. Bond (bought at Sotheby's, 29 March 1944, lot 887). Bought by the Bodleian Library at Sotheby's, 22 June 1982, lot 26.

NOTES ON CONTENTS

1 Second section begins Mira federa, which appears among the 'Moteti cum duplici littera' in the Harley Index (Lbl, Harley MS 978, fol. 161). 2 Some losses of music and text in Mot; opening of T, in score beneath Mot, lost. Incomplete ed. in Dittmer, pp. 55-58.

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