Northern French neumes
A leaf from an Antiphonal, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [Northern France, mid-11th century]
A very elegant example of an 11th-century French Antiphonal.

280 x 160mm, 21 lines written in brown ink in a regular late Carolingian minuscule, ruled space: c.220 x 130mm, Northern French linear staffless neumes, rubrics and initials in red (recovered from a binding and consequently with a few stains, especially on the reverse, some fading, top and bottom corners frayed). Bound in grey buckram at the Quaritch bindery.

Provenance:
(1) Galerie Gerd Rosen, Berlin.

(2) Bernard Rosenthal, his I/48, purchased in 1957 from L'Art ancien, Zürich.

(3) Bernard Quaritch, Bookhands V, cat.1147 (1991), no 30.

(4) Schøyen Collection, MS 630.

Text:
The text of the fragment is from the Sanctorale, with the Office of St Paul, starting with the responsory on the verso as bound 'Gratia dei sum id quod sum et gratia eius in me vacua non fuit sed semper in me manet'; followed by the Commemoration chants for the Octave of Sts Peter and Paul, and the Office of St Mary Magdalene, ending on the recto as bound 'nos cum ea vigilemus ut per no[ctem quem in somnis]'.