Christopher de Hamel bought this vellum fragment in Detroit in June 1998 in a box of manuscript fragments, apparently one of a number of such study collections assembled by the in the early 1950s, from the residue of the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872), which they had recently bought. The fragment has Phillipps' number 29355, and a note in Phillipps' hand: 'Wrappers round Wantesden Court Rolls, temp. Hen. 6'.
Wantisden is in Suffolk. Phillipps presumably removed these wrappers himself from the Wantisden terrier, which he already owned. This was Phillipps MS. 23827, dated 2 Henry VI.
Phillipps records that he bought MS. 23827 'ex Bibl. Fitch'. This was William Stevenson Fitch (1793-1859), Suffolk antiquary, at whose two sales in 1855 Phillipps acquired very many manuscripts. Most are now in the possession of Lord Iveagh
Wantisden belonged from the fourteenth century until the Reformation to the Augustinian priory of Butley, founded in 1171, east of Ipswich (cf. W.A.Copinger, The Manors of Suffolk, V, 1909, pp. 186-8). It is very likely that the estate records of Wantisden would have been kept at Butley, not at the farmhouse. In fact, the entire manorial records of Butley Priory (later Butley Manor) and its dependent farms, 1386-1736, all belonged to Fitch (Catalogue of Suffolk Manorial RFecords ... in the Possession of William Stevenson Fitch, of Ipswich, 1843, pp. 25-26). Fitch himself transcribed the Wantisden court rolls when they were still part of this archive (Phillipps MS. 14985).
The Priory's many choirbooks were in scandalous disarray by the early sixteenth century and were the subject of constant complaints during episcopal Visitations. In 1532, in a last attempt to bring the canons' choirbooks to order, the bishop ordered the appointment of a singing master to teach 'priksong' at Butley (Victoria County History, Suffolk, II, p. 98). Therefore we know that there was polyphony there at the eve of the Reformation.
The musical fragment has several unusual aspects. It contains two parts from a substantial polyphonic composition, almost certainly a Mass Ordinary movement, with a change of mensuration from tempus perfectum to tempus imperfectum, as common in Mass cycles composed in England from the late 1420s onwards. The notation and musical style are unquestionably English, and although the basic notation is void (not filled), the coloration for semiminims, sesquialtera (within C time), and for imperfection (within O time) is red (rather than the more usual black, within void notation), as are the mensuration signs. There is no visible verbal text, which makes identification difficult, nor do the two surviving voices overlap in a way that would place beyond any doubt the presumption, from their placement, that they come from the same composition. No concordances have been identified so far. There are eight five-line staves (gauge and length) in the same brown-black ink as the musical notation (?). The first four staves contain the last part of a top voice, in C1 clef. The opening, in O time, is missing, but the entire C-time section is preserved; both sections cadence on F. The fifth stave is blank. Staves 6-8 contain the opening, indented for a non-existent capital, in O time and with C3 clef (and B flat signature visible on the first staff only), presumably a lower cantus part (not a true Contratenor) of the same composition, presumably a mass movement. Unfortunately, it is not possible to establish this identity because there is no overlap with the incomplete upper part. The last stave is hard to read because of creases and distortions in the parchment; the rest of it is badly rubbed and obscured by dirt, but has responded well to techniques of virtual restoration by Dr Julia Craig-McFeely for DIAMM, using Adobe Photoshop, and can be seen on the DIAMM website at http://www.diamm.ac.uk/. The dorse of the musical fragment is blank, not ruled for music. This suggests that the fragment was not taken from a complete music manuscript; it may have been a roll, or a leaf discarded from a larger enterprise.
