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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 August 2009
1 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 272, fol. 174v, reproduced in Pl. I. In the following discussion reference to entries in the Catalogue will be indicated in the form ‘[H + no]’, accompanied by a manuscript shelfmark.
2 The common terminology should not be read as indicating the origin of this neumatic notation in Metz; the earliest sources in which it is used are from Laon. On these grounds Solange Corbin wished to see it renamed ‘lotharingian’, but this has not caught on. See S. Corbin, Die Neumen (Cologne, 1977), p. 3.87.
3 The main survey of the sources using this notation is J. Hourlier, ‘Le domaine de la notation messine’, Revue Grégorienne, 30 (1951), pp. 96–113, 150–8.
4 Facsimile edn in Antiphonale missarum sancti Gregorii, IX–Xe siècle, Codex 239 de la Bibliothèque de Laon (Paléographie Musicale, 10; Tournai, 1909), including a substantial study of the notation in this gradual.
5 Graduale Triplex (Solesmes, 1979).
6 The items dated to the ninth century in this Catalogue are: Cambridge, University Library Kk.1.24 [H14]: on this see below (the notation dates from the late tenth century); Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 272 [H34]: see n. 1 above (the notation is Continental); New York, Pierpoint Morgan Library M.776 [H206]: individual neumes entered ‘to aid the priest during recitation’: there is no secure way of dating such isolated examples; New York, Public Library De Ricci 115 [H208]: the neumes probably added in the mid-tenth century (as the Catalogue notes); Oxford, Bodleian Library Bodley 579 [H260]: the first layer of neumes in this book (of the Breton type) can be directly associated with additions made at Canterbury in the tenth century (Leofric B); Anglo-Saxon neumes added rather sporadically to parts of the book copied in the ninth century (Leofric A), are demonstrably later, possibly all from the eleventh century; Oxford, Bodleian Library Hatton 42 [H266]: the one neumed passage possibly as early as the ninth century (fol. 101v) was probably written in Brittany; Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana lat. 3363 [H313]: notations for two metra of Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae; of these neumes Malcolm Parkes wrote ‘[they] are in ink which has the same colour and density as that of late ninth-century glosses’ (see M. Parkes, ‘A Note on MS Vatican, Bibl. Apost., lat. 3363’, in M. Gibson (ed.), Boethius, his Life, Thought and Influence (Oxford, 1981), pp. 425–7); in this Catalogue Hartzell describes the neumes as written ‘in ink of the corresponding glosses’. But the letter forms for significative letters in the notation are quite different from the letter forms of the glosses; these notations were written by at least two notating hands, at least one of these French, using an axis for neume script never written in England.
7 For this dating we thank David Ganz. The ambiguity of Hartzell's description of the text hand (‘a small upright Caroline minuscule of Breton aspect written under the influence of Anglo-Saxon insular script’) results from a current lack of knowledge of where such a small, informal, rapid hand might have been written, whether in Brittany or in England. The script is not square minuscule, nor is it Caroline, rendering association with a known centre extremely difficult; all that can be said with certainty is that it did not emanate from a major centre.
8 Again, as with the description ‘Messine’, this should not be understood to indicate that such notation had its origin in Brittany nor that all such notations relate to Brittany: for the main study of the range of sources containing this notation see M. Huglo, ‘Le domaine de la notation bretonne’, Acta Musicologica, 35 (1963), pp. 54–84.
9 In short additions to Cambridge, University Library Kk.I.24 [H14]; El Escorial, Real Biblioteca E.II.1 [H98]; London, British Library Add. 57337 [H125]; London, British Library Cotton Vitellius A.XIX [H148]; New York, Public Library De Ricci MS 115 [H208]; Oxford, Bodleian Library Bodley 579 [H260]; Oxford, Bodleian Library Hatton 42 [H266]; Salisbury Cathedral 173 [H330], and in the fragments Linenthal fragment [H199]; and London, Society of Antiquaries 154* [H202]. Substantial passages of notation in Durham, Dean and Chapter Library B.IV.9 [H92] (over hymns of Prudentius); London, British Library Harley 1117 [H157]; Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France lat. 943 [H310]; Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Reg. lat. 204 [H314].
10 On this text scribe see T. A. M. Bishop, ‘Notes on Cambridge Manuscripts: Part VII’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 3 (1963), pp. 413–23 and Pls. 13–15 (including Harley 1117 in Pl. 13c).
11 On the dating of the separate parts of this book see esp. N. Orchard, The Leofric Missal (Henry Bradshaw Society, 113–14; London, 2002), p. 132 ff.
12 Cambridge, Pembroke College 46 [H48]; London, British Library Cotton Vitellius A XIX [H148]; London, Society of Antiquaries 154* [H202]; Oxford, Bodleian Library Bodley 579 [H260].
13 On this type of notation see most recently S. Rankin, The Winchester Troper (London, 2007), p. 23 ff. In a recent study John Haines has claimed to have found neumes datable to the early eighth century: ‘A Musical Fragment from Anglo-Saxon England’, Early Music, 36 (2008), pp. 219–29, with plates. We note that the only argument for dating the neumes in a period a century before any other examples of neumes of any kind, and more than two centuries before the appearance in other sources of neumes of the Anglo-Saxon type, is the use by the early eighth-century rubricator and by the neume writer of a similar red ink, now aged to a ‘dusty red’ colour. It is possible that the rubricator and the notator used a red ink of similar composition, that today appears similar, although written at quite different times.
14 T. A. M. Bishop, English Caroline Minuscule (Oxford, 1971), pp. xxi–xxii. See also D. Dumville, English Caroline Script and Monastic History: Studies in Benedictinism, A.D. 950–1030 (Woodbridge, 1993).
15 Tempe, Ariz., 2001.
16 Oxford, 1957.
17 Hartzell, Catalogue, p. vii.
18 R. M. Woolley, The Canterbury Benedictional (Henry Bradshaw Society, 51; London, 1917).
19 On the contents and make-up of this manuscript see A. G. Rigg and G. R. Wieland, ‘A Canterbury Classbook of the Mid-Eleventh Century (the “Cambridge Songs” Manuscript)’, Anglo-Saxon England, 4 (1975), pp. 113–30; the later bibliography on the manuscript and its contents is extensive, including the edition and translation of the songs by Jan M. Ziolkowski, The Cambridge Songs (Carmina Cantabrigiensia) (Tempe, Ariz., 1998).
20 Hartzell, Catalogue, p. xxv.
21 These are listed in Appendix 2 below.
22 The notated pages in Burney 357 can be seen on the British Library's website at <http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/> (accessed 10.4.09).
23 Burney 357 is one of a collection of twelfth-century booklets, now bound separately as Burney 246, 285, 295, 341, 344 and 357. There are twelfth-century ex libris for Thame in 295 and 357.
24 Over the words ‘O sapientia’ in calendar entries for 16 December, signalling the beginning of the Christmas season with the singing of the first ‘O antiphon’. Represented in this Catalogue by Cambridge, St John's College 42 [H54]; London, British Library Royal 2 A.x [H170] from St Albans; and Oxford, Bodleian Library Auct D.2.6 [H241], also from St Albans. To this group should be added Hildesheim, Dombibliothek St Godehard 1 (neumes on p. 14), a Psalter made at St Albans in the second quarter of the twelfth century; pictures are available at <http://www.abdn.ac.uk/∼lib399/english/commentary/page014.shtml>. A late twelfth-century psalter from Chester, Oxford, Bodleian Library Tanner 169*, has a similar calendar entry. It would be useful to determine whether another St Albans calendar now in St Petersburg (National Library of Russia, Q.v.I.62, of s. xii med.) also has such an entry.
25 Although it is Hartzell's view that the neumes were added in England in the mid-tenth century: see his ‘The Early Provenance of the Harkness Gospels’, Bulletin of Research in the Humanities, 84 (1981), pp. 85–97.
26 See S. Keynes, ‘King Athelstan's Books’, in H. Gneuss and M. Lapidge (eds.), Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England: Studies Presented to Peter Clemoes on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 143–201 at 159–65.
27 B. Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden, 1998–2004), ii, 106 (no. 2418). (The neumes are on fols. 67v, 92r, according to Nicolas Bell.)
28 See E. Pellegrin, Manuscrits latins de la Bodmeriana (Cologny-Geneva, 1982), pp. 411–15 and Pl. 27; also as Lot 80 in the Sotheby's catalogue Western Manuscripts and Miniatures for 5 July 2005, pp. 6–14, with 5 plates.
29 I am grateful to the authorities at the Bodleian Library for having allowed me access to this manuscript while it was on deposit there in the period before it was sold in July 2005 (SKR).
30 It should be noted that there is some doubt as to whether Royal 15 B.xix was in England before the thirteenth century.
31 Hartzell, Catalogue, p. xvi.
32 Ibid., Preface, vii.
33 Ibid., p. xvi.
34 See ibid., p. xvi, where he gives the example of Vatican City, Reg. lat. 338.
35 N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books (2nd edn, London, 1964); Bischoff, Katalog.
36 Here we avoid the description ‘antiphoner’. There is no surviving complete antiphoner from England in this period: however, there are several books containing substantial portions of the chants required for the divine office (of which Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 391 [H42], ‘The Portiforium of St Wulstan’, is the best-known).
37 On the ruling of music books see esp. H. Deeming, ‘Observations on the Habits of Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Music Scribes’, Scriptorium, 60 (2006), pp. 38–59 and Pls. 5–12.
38 It is worth pointing out that there are examples of notations written by visitors to the Continent in manuscripts of Continental origin. These deserve to be listed and studied.
39 Hartzell notes the use or possible use of a rastrum to rule staves in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk Record Office IC 500/2/1 [H3]; Oxford, Bodleian Library Rawlinson C.101, fols. i–ii [H284]; and Shrewsbury School 30 [H332 and Pl. VII]; from the reproduction of Shrewsbury 30 we are not convinced that a rastrum was used. On rastra see Deeming, ‘Observations’, pp. 46–9.
40 It should be noted that the justification provided in the Introduction for use of the term ‘Messine punctum’ confuses two quite different neumes, even if they look the same (pp. xxiii–xxiv). The ‘uncinus’ of Messine notation represents a single tone, without reference to pitch; its only significance beyond that of a single tone is greater emphasis (whether in length or articulation) than that signified by a simple dot. The ‘Fécamp mi-neume’ sometimes has a similar shape, but appears in the context not of Messine notations, but of Anglo-Saxon, French and Norman notations, and in these it has a significance in relation to pitch. See Rankin, Winchester Troper, pp. 29–30.
41 Ker, Catalogue, pp. xxv–xxxvi.
42 Ibid., pp. 551–8.
43 In this Hartzell adopted a useful classificatory description proposed by Madeleine Bernard and Solange Corbin in their Répertoire de manuscrits médiévaux contenant des notations musicales, i: Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Paris (Paris, 1965), pp. 9–10. The group of descriptions of neumes on lines they provide (‘points-liés’, ‘petits-carrés’, ‘notation carrée’) should be more widely adopted.
44 On the importance of differentiating between ‘school’ scripts and the work of individuals see Wulf Arlt, ‘Anschaulichkeit und analytischer Charakter: Kriterien der Beschreibung und Analyse früher Neumenschriften’, in Musicologie médiévale: notations et séquences: actes de la Table Ronde du CNRS à l'Institut de recherche et d'histoire des textes, 6–7 septembre 1982: Études rassemblées par Michel Huglo (Paris, 1987), pp. 29–55. And for the importance of ‘scribes’ rather than scripts see now M. B. Parkes, Their Hands before Our Eyes: A Closer Look at Scribes (Aldershot, 2008).
45 Hartzell, Catalogue, pp. 305–6.
46 R. Sharpe, ‘Words and Music by Goscelin of Canterbury’, Early Music, 19 (1991), pp. 94–7; R. Gameson, Manuscripts of Early Norman England (c.1066–1130) (Oxford, 1999), no. 452 (p. 108).
47 Canterbury, Cathedral X.1.11a and Oxford, Bodleian Library Fell 2, identified as possibly by the same scribe by Ker: see N. R. Ker, ‘Copying an Exemplar: Two Manuscripts of Jerome on Habakkuk’, in P. Cockshaw, M.-C. Garand and P. Jodogne (eds.), Miscellanea Codicologica F. Masai Dicata, 2 vols. (Ghent, 1979), i, pp. 203–10.
48 Hartzell, Catalogue, p. 17.
49 Ibid., p. 17.
50 Ibid., pp. 3–4.
51 Ibid., p. 340.
52 M. R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Lambeth Palace (Cambridge, 1932), pp. 483–4.
53 Gneuss, Handlist; Gameson, Manuscripts.
54 T. Webber, Scribes and Scholars at Salisbury Cathedral, c.1075–c.1125 (Oxford, 1992), p. 166.
55 On Eadmer's hand see M. Gullick, ‘The Scribal Work of Eadmer of Canterbury to 1109’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 118 (1998), pp. 173–89.
56 Hartzell, Catalogue, p. 183.
57 On this scribe see N. R. Ker, English Manuscripts in the Century after the Norman Conquest (Oxford, 1960), p. 31. On the Textus Roffensis see Textus Roffensis: Rochester Cathedral Library Manuscript A. 3. 5., ed. P. Sawyer (Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile, 7 + 11; Copenhagen, 1957–62).
58 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 328 [H38]; Durham, Dean and Chapter Library Incunable 4, leaf s.n. [H94]; Edinburgh, University Library Laing 499 [H97]; Helsinki, University Library F.M. IV Nr. 3 [H105]; Hereford, Cathedral P.III.5, fol. 200 [H110]; Oxford, Bodleian Library lat. misc. b.18, fol. A.7 [H278]; Oxford, Bodleian Library Selden supra 90 [H290]; Oxford, All Souls College Printed Book Z.9.18 [H293]; Oxford, New College 362, fols. 34–5 [H307]; Taunton, Somerset Record Office DD/AH 16/17 [H359].
59 The classic study is Ker, English Manuscripts.
60 M. R. James, The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts (London and New York, 1919), p. 95.
61 Ker, Catalogue, no. 37; for a summary of arguments and bibliography see D. N. Dumville, Liturgy and the Ecclesiastical History of Late Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge, 1992), pp. 72–3.
62 A useful series of reproductions, showing different parts of the manuscript, and thus different scribal hands, is in M. Budny, Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge: An Illustrated Catalogue, 2 vols. (Kalamazoo, 1997), ii, Pls. 388–95.
63 Page 441, under D, art 4.
64 Folios 80–7 form gathering 12. Hartzell's collation of the manuscript indicates that fols. 82 and 85 (quire 12: sheets 3 and 6) do not form a bifolium but are half-sheets: in the explanation provided here we have adopted ‘bifolium’ to refer to 3 + 6, for clarity's sake.
65 We note, however, that the feasts represented in the Sanctorale section are not ordered by date.
66 Of course, the actual foliation is modern.
67 Described in this Catalogue as a ‘large, clear bookhand’.
68 Hartzell: ‘at Christ Church, for use in the Cathedral’, which is very precise.
69 Ker, Medieval Libraries, pp. 29–40. On the problems of identifying the origin of this book see Dumville, Liturgy, pp. 79–80.
70 The Trinity manuscript contains Homilies in Anglo-Saxon: see Ker, Catalogue, no. 86.
71 In this Hartzell is presumably taking up Bishop's revision of Ker's date of the first half of the eleventh century. Bishop argued for the second half of the eleventh century: see T. A. M. Bishop, ‘Notes on Cambridge Manuscripts: Part V’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 3 (1959), pp. 93–5 at 95.
72 Ker, Medieval Libraries, 40; the entry has a query, his device for expressing caution.
73 Bishop, ‘Notes: Part V’, p. 95.
74 Olim Box CCC no. XIXa. Bishop, ‘Notes: Part V’, p. 95; Ker, Catalogue, no. 97, and Medieval Libraries, p. 34. For a description of the fragment, with a good plate, see now R. Gameson, The Earliest Books of Canterbury Cathedral (London and Canterbury, 2008), pp. 126–31.
75 Ker, Catalogue, no. 97.
76 Fols. 243–58: the text was not spaced for music, but, given the standard practice of writing chant text in a smaller format than readings and prayers, there was always interlinear space into which neumes could be written.
77 See E. Teviotdale, ‘The Cotton Troper (London, British Library, Cotton MS Caligula A.xiv, ff. 1–36): A Study of an Illustrated English Troper of the Eleventh Century’ (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1991), p. 238. See now, with reference to earlier bibliography, T. A. Heslop, ‘Manuscript Illumination at Worcester in 1055–1065: The Origins of the Pembroke Lectionary and the Caligula Troper’, in S. Panayotova (ed.), The Cambridge Illuminations: The Conference Papers (Studies in Medieval and Early Renaissance Art History; London, 2007), pp. 65–76.
78 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 473 [H45] and Oxford, Bodleian Library Bodley 775 [H263]). On these trope repertories see esp. A. Planchart, The Repertory of Tropes at Winchester, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1977).
79 Hartzell, Catalogue, p. 237.
80 No sizes or measurements are provided in the descriptions of the manuscripts reproduced in Plates I and V.
81 Mentioned by Hartzell (Catalogue, p. vii), but not listed, since it has been unavailable for many years.
82 This book is dated by Ker as ‘s.xiii in’: see N. R. Ker with A. J. Piper, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1969–92), ii, p. 825. Neither of us has seen it, but to judge by the plate in the Catalogue (Pl. VIII), we prefer a thirteenth-century date.
