Evanston, Northwestern University, Music Library, MS 1600 (NW-M1-2)

Cantus Siglum

US-Eu MS 1600 (NW-M1-2)

Holding Institution

Evanston, Northwestern University, Music Library (US-Eu)

Manuscript/Print

Manuscript

Summary

Single leaf from a book of office chants with saints in late November.

Liturgical Occasions

Caecilia, Clement, Felicitas

Description

This manuscript consists of a single folium (membrum disiectum). The leaf contains neumatic notation on tetragrams, with the F-line marked in red and the C-line in yellow, though the latter is now faded. The script and musical notation suggest a Flemish origin before 1400. The notation is in Low Countries notation.

Palaeographic evidence reveals at least two distinct hands. The earliest hand, possibly writing in the early thirteenth century, is responsible for the original notational and rubricated content. A second hand, visible at the bottom of the recto, appears to retouch earlier entries, while a third, later hand introduces corrections and marginalia using a script of differing form (apparently in the early modern period). This final hand mixes Latin and vernacular Netherlandish, including a marginal note reading: “Process colla | Stass, teghen | [...]tas va[n] fiordimo[n]t".

The use of "famulas" in one otherwise unattested chant suggests the book was used by a female monastic community. Several chants for Cecilia are also unattested, and a number of the incipits in both feasts are not identifiable with texts from the Commons; the leaf also accords an entire nocturn of chants for Felicitas rather than Clement.

Full/Partial Inventory

Full Inventory

Complete Source/Fragment

Fragment

Fragmentarium ID

F-6w77

DACT ID

D:06w77