English neumes
Two leaves from a Missal, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [England, late 12th century]
An extremely rare survival with musical notation from an English Romanesque Missal.

c.275 x 210mm, two leaves, 2 columns of 25-26 lines in a fine Romanesque hand in dark brown ink, English neumes on 4-line red staves, initials in red and green, rubrics in red, prickings on inner margins (recovered from a binding a consequently a little soiled and cockled, upper margins a little trimmed, upper corner of one leaf cut away).

Provenance:
(1) James Thomlinson: 17th?-century pentrial. Other pentrials are in Latin and English, including 'After many
combates the minde waxeth fainte and dull', and the name 'Antony', repeated twice. A possible institutional inscription is partially legible under the scribbles: 'Bey[...] Coll.'?

(2) Anthony Birdsall (1877-1972), of Birdsall and Son, Northampton.

(3) Bernard Quaritch, London, September 1995.

(4) Schøyen Collection, MS 2059.

Text:
The text, from the Temporal, contains the Mass for the Easter Vigil, from the Paschal proclamation '[Ille, qui regressus ab inferis] humano generi' to the first reading ending 'Creavitque Deus ce[te grandia]' and, on the second leaf, from '[vinea enim] domini Sabaoth domus Israel est. Deus qui nobis ad celebrandum paschale sacramentum [...]' to 'in quo non est iniquitas: justus et sanctus Dominus'.

K. Helsen, 'The Evolution of Neumes into Square Notation in Chant Manuscripts', Journal of the Alamire Foundation 5 (2013), p.171.