Christmas Liturgy
Leaf from a Lectionary in Latin, manuscript on vellum [Northern(?) Italy, 9th century].
A very early example of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day liturgy.

c.220 × 155mm. 23 lines in a fine Caroline minuscule with a distinctive open-topped ‘a’ that looks like a ‘u’, orange rubrics in uncials and rustic capitals, the text comprising readings from the end of Christmas Eve and beginning of Christmas day (‘evangelizo vobis gaudium magnum […] [Luke 2:10–14] Item ad sanctam Anastasiam mane prima. Lectio epistolae beati Pauli apostoli ad Titum. Karissime. apparuit benignitas & humanitas […] [Titus 3:4–7] Lectio Esaiae prophetae […] [Isaiah 61:1–3, 62:11–12] Secundum Lucam […] [Luke 2:15–20] Lectio beati apostoli ad Hebreos […] quem constituit [Hebrews 1:1–2]’), large orange initials (recovered from use as a flyleaf, with a vertical crease, traces of glue, and some overall wear, the orange ink partly oxidised).

Provenance:
(1) ‘The Property of a Gentleman’ (Martegain?), sold at Sotheby’s, 10 December 1969, one of two leaves that comprised lot 1; bought by Maggs:
(2) Colker MS 288; acquired in 1980 from Maggs.

This is the long-lost sister-leaf to a leaf now in the McCarthy Collection (G. Freuler, McCarthy Collection, I (2018), no 2); the McCarthy leaf was probably the first in the parent volume and the present leaf was probably the third: missing between them is text from the end of the reading from Matthew 1:18–21 to the start of the reading from Luke 2:1–14. The work sometimes contains the title Liber Comitis, Sive Lectionarius Per Circulum Anni.

In the early Middle Ages in Rome there were three masses for Christmas held at different churches: the first was on Christmas Eve, at S. Maria Maggiore, the second on Christmas morning, at S. Anastasia (the saint’s feast day was 25 December), and the third back at S. Maria Maggiore. These Roman ‘stational’ churches are often mentioned in the rubrics of Missals, even in manuscripts made for use in other places.

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