MS. Canon. Bibl. Lat. 43
Summary Catalogue no.: 18935
Gospel lectionary, Benedictine use; Germany, late 11th century
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Temporale from Christmas Eve to twenty-four weeks after Trinity Sunday, the five weeks before Christmas, and Trinity
Sanctorale, from St Sylvester to St Thomas the Apostle (31 December – 21 December). Most feasts indicated by name and heavily abbreviated cue only:
Original feasts include Walburga, Gangulf, Ulric, Kylian, Affra, Verena, Emmeram, Wenceslas (‘Venezlai’), Gereon, Wolfgang, Pirminus (fol. 97r), Willibrord, and Othmar.
Early additions include Oswald (fol. 92v), Radegund (fol. 93r), and Florinus (fol. 97v).
Common of the saints
Votive masses
Masses for the dead, in some cases with the epistle as well.
Contemporary additions:
The accounts of the Passion (fols. 30r–46v) with the parts indicated by a, c and t, and with neumes above Christ’s words on the cross from Matthew 27:46 (fol. 34r). Luke 3:1–2 (fol. 85r–v), and the genealogies of Christ from Luke (fol. 5r–v) and Matthew (fol. 94v–95r) also notated.
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
Blind-ruled for a single column of 27 lines; the list of ancestors of Christ from Luke in three columns (fol. 5r–v). Ruled space 195 × 115 mm.
Hand(s)
Late Caroline bookhand.
Occasional neums above the text; the genealogies of Christ (fol. 5r-v, 94v-95r) with notation.
Decoration
One four-line pen-drawn initial (fol. 1r), with coiling foliate forms and buds in brown ink, and red dots. (Pächt and Alexander i. 47)
A space left blank for one other large initial (fol. 113r).
Other initials throughout in plain red.
Binding
Sewn on four bands and bound with 18th/19th-century Italian(?) three-quarter leather over brown paper-covered pasteboards; the spine with a title-piece lettered in gilt capitals ‘Evang. per totum annum MS Sec. X’
History
Provenance and Acquisition
Van Dijk noted that the sanctorale is very similar to that of the Epistle & Gospel Book, MS. Canon. liturg. 324, which he suggested was from Hirsau Abbey, partly due to the presence of its patron, St Aurelius, whose relics there were elevated by Pope Leo IX in 1049. MS. Canon. Liturg. 324 was later at Moggio, a house of the Hirsau congregation: Felix Heinzer, Klosterreform und mittelalterliche Buchkultur im deutschen Südwesten (2008) 88 n. 16 rejects a direct connection with Hirsau. St Aurelius is included in the present volume (fol. 95v), as is the rare St Pirminus, who was venerated at Strasbourg, Chur, Freiburg, St Gall, and Speyer, supporting an origin in south-western Germany.
Matteo Luigi Canonici, 1727–1805 (uncertain how acquired: not from Trevisan/Soranzo)
Purchased by the Bodleian in 1817. Former Bodleian shelfmark ‘Can Bibl. 43.’ (front pastedown) A list in pencil of some of the saints in the sanctorale is initialled H.C. (front pastedown).
Record Sources
Digital Images
Digital Bodleian (full digital facsimile)
Bibliography
Online resources:
Online resources:
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
Last Substantive Revision
2021-02-17: Description revised for Polonsky German digitization project.