Two reconstructed bifolia labelled A and B.

Proposed Reconstruction (16/08/01)

Leaf A Flesh-side up

56A

237A

205A

lacuna

254A

lacuna

6A

39A

lacuna

73A

221A

156B

Leaf B Flesh-side up

189B

lacuna

71A

lacuna

23B

173B

lacuna

89B

lacuna

106A

123B

139B

All lacunae are of approximately the same depth as one horizontal strip. As such, it is highly possible that the extant strips represent the remains of no more that two parchment bifolia. This is supported by the survival of two top strips and two bottom strips, preserving upper and lower margins respectively. The original dimensions of the leaves would thus have been 290mm high x 400mm wide. This matches the dimensions of Yi 2 (the Nesciens mater fragment), which also shares the same written space with 9 brown staves ruled 145mm wide. It could therefore be suggested that they were ruled contemporarily with one another. However, Yi 2 has been trimmed at the top, losing one stave of music, and had a significantly more extended lower margin that the leaves now preserved as binding strips, yet its dimensions only then matched the strips. The reasoning behind this is unclear, but it is possible that the leaves originated in the same scriptorium, and were ruled with the same instrument to the same model but at different times. At the later date, the earlier document was trimmed to be used as a cover for the newly copied music.

This new collection appears to have been a collection of 'squares,' tenor parts taken from other pieces of music in order to form the foundation of new music, perhaps in which improvisation played a part. This was a common English practice in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries until the Reformation, though collections of squares are rare, and mainly found added at the end of other liturgical books. Since Mass I of the York Masses is composed 'upon the square,' this helps to create a picture of square collection and composition in York c.1500.

The identifiable pieces in the binding strips are both settings of the Gloria found in the Old Hall manuscript. A third piece in the strips is a tenor part from a Gloria which has so far not been identified from surviving repertory, but which probably dates from the same period, i.e. c.1390-1420. The use of much earlier repertoire as source material for squares is common, and does not preclude a significantly later date for the copying of the squares collection, perhaps as late as c.1500. This would also explain the mixture of notational styles (both black and void notations are present on these leaves in a non-chronological manner). It may be suggested that the fragment Yi 2 represents the one surviving leaf of a modestly sized collection of polyphony from c.1400, which drew on the same repertoire as the Old Hall manuscript. However, later musicians copied out only the tenor parts of these pieces, eventually discarding the main collection since it had become obsolete. They also seem to have preserved only alternate verses of the Gloria, suggesting that these were originally pieces for alternatim performance (chant and polyphony); this type of setting is associated with the singing of Lady Mass. There is some evidence to suggest that this occurred through the fifteenth century, perhaps within the same establishment. The research of Chris Webb identifies St Michael's, Spurriergate, as a strong contender for provenance.

not indicated

15 mm

Parchment