Antiphons: MS 46

Titles

Antiphons

Entities

• Antiphoner
• Use of Augustinian Canons

Categories

• Illuminated manuscript
• Manuscript

Description

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Paper (watermark cf. Piccard 1981, V, 1411 – 1446), 213 fols. (upper pastedown originally separate leaf), 198 x 156 (148 – 154 x 108 – 114) mm, 5 lines of text with 5 four-line staves of music, ruled in red ink.

BINDING: 17th century, brown leather over wooden boards, sewn on 5 supports, blind-tooled open panel and edge design, remains of two clasps on lower cover, two catchplates on upper cover, one corner edge-plate extant out of four; modern spine repair.

CONTENTS: fols. 1r – 213v Antiphons for Matins and the processions for major feasts of the Temporal and Sanctoral.

DECORATION: Fragments from earlier manuscripts pasted in: 3 historiated initials in blue, or parted blue and red, on gold grounds, and figural border decoration, 15th century: fol. 1r [S, 9 ll.] Visitation; fol. 37v [D, c.10 ll.] Virgin and Child; fol. 102r border decoration including Christ Child covered in Passion Wounds in lower margin and Sacred Heart in upper margin; fol. 141v [D, c.5 ll.] Christ Child holding scourge and palm branch resting on a heart, Cross behind.

Blue or red (occasionally navy blue or black) initials [c.2 – 7 ll.], usually with voided ornament or parted in red and blue, often with foliage infill, on green, brown, red or pink pen-flourished grounds, occasionally with gold, 15th century, with red and blue pen-flourishing added around edge after insertion; blue white patterned initials [c.5 ll.] on gold grounds with foliate motifs or on diapered gold and pink grounds with white decoration, 14th – 15th century, with red pen-flourishing added around edge after insertion; blue or green initials [c.5 ll.] with black or white decoration on dark pink or gold grounds with foliate motifs (and hybrid with bagpipes and monkey, fol. 73v), often framed in gold (and with partial bar-border, fol. 108v), 15th century; white initials with gold edging on blue grounds with white foliate motifs, 15th – 16th century, with red pen-flourishing added around edge after insertion (fols. 100r, 102r); foliate initials [c.5 ll.] in self-shaded blue and green on gold or blue grounds, 15th – 16th century; gold initials [c.6 ll.] on blue and dark pink (occasionally red) white- or silver-patterned grounds, 15th century; gold initials [c.1 – 4 ll.] on pink and blue white-patterned grounds, 15th – 16th century, with red pen-flourishing added around edge after insertion; blue initial [c.5 ll.] on pink and green pen-flourished ground, contemporary with manuscript (fol. 91v); black initials [c.1 – 5 ll.] with red highlighting or red initials, frequently with internally voided geometric decoration, (both occasionally with strips of gold and blue or pink with white decoration pasted on) and red, yellow, pink and blue pen-flourishing, contemporary with manuscript; full, three- and two-sided spraywork borders with foliate and acanthus motifs, often with red (and occasionally blue, green, yellow and pink) pen-flourishing added around edge after insertion, pieced together from three 15th century manuscripts; one-sided bar borders with foliate motifs pieced together from two 15th century manuscripts (fols. 25r, 29v, 37v with extra corner-pieces, 100r with pasted-in and pen-flourished motifs forming pseudo-full border).

Notes

History note: 19th century inscription: ‘11 Aout 59’ (lower pastedown); unidentified 19th century English bookseller’s catalogue entry (no number) fixed to lower pastedown; Samuel Sandars (1837 – 1894); his gift, 1892.