Beneventan neumes
Five fragments from Service Books, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [southern Italy, 12th and 13th centuries]
Fragments of Beneventan script and notation.

Five fragments, as bound: (i) c.143 x 74mm; (ii) c.140 x 70mm; (iii) c.125 x 35mm; (iv) c.75 x 40mm; (v) c.40 x 50mm. Fragments (i) and (ii) are part of the same leaf, with the text consecutive from (ii) to (i), in total up to 6 visible lines written in brown ink in a Beneventan minuscule, 6 lines of Beneventan neumes on a single line red F-staff, part of a flourished initial, some initials touched in red. Fragments (iii), (iv) and (v) are from the same leaf, with parts of 2 columns of c.8 visible lines written in brown ink in Beneventan minuscule in two sizes, Beneventan neumes on a single line red F-staff, one decorated initial 'S' outlined in red, with yellow and blue wash, rubrics and other initials in red (all recovered from bindings and very fragmentary, frayed and wormholed, two fragments reinforced with modern paper). All 5 fragments bound together in grey buckram.

Provenance:
(1) Sotheby’s, 21 June 1994, part of lot 5.

(2) Schøyen Collection, MS 1855/1 and 1855/2.

Text:
The first two fragments (MS 1855/1) are from the Feast of St Martin (11 November) in a 13th-century Antiphonal, beginning on (ii): '[Martine misit] nos dominus tibi auxilium ferre et rusticam multitudinem fugare' to, on the verso of (i): 'Sancte trinitatis fidem Martinus confessus est'. The final three fragments (MS 1855/2) are from Holy Saturday in a 12th-century Breviary.

V. Brown, ‘A Second New List of Beneventan Manuscripts (IV)’, Mediaeval Studies, 61 (1999), p.387.
BMB. Bibliografia dei manuscritti in scrittura beneventana, 1994.