MS. Canon. Liturg. 325
Summary Catalogue no.: 19414
Ordinal, Use of Hirsau, and Miracles of the Virgin, in Latin with some German and Czech; south-eastern Germany, Austria, or northern Italy, late 12th or perhaps early 13th century
Contents
Miscellaneous additions, mostly 13th- and 14th-cent.:
Miscellaneous late medieval notes, partially erased (cf. Provenance).
Settings of the Sanctus and Kyrie, with square notation on four-line staves, partly erased and rewritten, followed by a partly-erased inscription (see Provenance).
Mnemonic verses on the reading of biblical books on the Sundays after Pentecost
A line of verse in Old Czech , over an erasure: ‘ Czest ctnost stud bazen ktoz ma ten nenye bl⟨azen⟩ ’ (‘He who has honour, virtue, shame and fear is not a fool’, Jan Hus, identified by Danny Bate, personal communication). Followed by a Latin distich, ‘senex si iweniliter conuersatus fuerit | plus iuuenibus in derisum erit’
A setting of the Gloria with music in square notation on four-line staves, and other short added notes.
Added feasts by various hands include:
- ‘Dedicatio Capelle S. Marie et omnium sanctorum’ (11 April)
- ‘Dedicatio capelle S. Marie Mog(?)’ (28 April)
- St Stanislaus of Cracow (8 May)
- ‘Dedicatio capelle sancte Elizabeth’ (8 June)
- ‘dedicacio huius ecclesie’ (9 June); cf. inscription on fol. 2r (see Provenance) and MS. Canon. Liturg. 346 which has the ‘Consecracio ecclesie monasterii Mosacensis’ on the same day.
- ‘Dedicatio ecclesie sancti Benedicti’ (26 Nov)
- Several added feasts are dated e.g.:
- 1248, ‘dedicatio est ecclesia fratrum minorum in Glem. [Gemona]’ (15 March)
- 1349, the death of Abbot Gi[l]bertus [of Moggio] (4 March)
- 1350, the killing of the patriarch [of Aquileia] Bertrandus [of Saint-Geniès] (6 June)
- 1388, John of Moravia, patriarch of Aquileia, arrival at Cividale (13 Sept)
- 1389, an earthquake which damaged the ‘ecclesia mosacen.’ (20 Aug)
Marginal notes include one for 1383
A key to the preceding table, listing the 28 possible dates for Easter, with the corresponding dates for Septuagesima, Lent, etc.
A table of years A.D. with their corresponding indiction, epact, and concurrent; largely erased and rewritten for 1344–1409.
One of the earliest attested examples of a German text with musical notation.
With lists of feasts according to rank: celebrated in albs, copes, etc., some written in majuscules, some incipits with neumes.
Combined temporale and sanctorale, from Advent to the 25th Sunday after Trinity; common of the saints (fol. 139v); order of responsories after Pentecost (fol. 146v), followed by votive masses (fol. 157r).
With some marginal additions, and some passages re-written over erasures. See K. Heinzer, ‘Der Hirsauer ‘Liber Ordinarius’’ (1992), repr. in his Klosterreform und mittelalterliche Buchkultur im deutschen Südwesten (2008), 185–223, esp. section II.
According to Flotzinger, p. 41, text is missing between fols. 84 and 85.
Miscellaneous liturgical and other notes added by several hands, including the dates of the deaths of popes, and of Gilbert, abbot of Moggio, in 1349 (cf. the calendar; Provenance).
The name of Mary, apostles, and other saints typically written in majuscules and stroked in red.
To be followed by six psalms, and prayers, the first:
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
Ruled very faintly in plummet for 23 lines, fols. 13r-15r and 160v-224v in 1 column, elsewhere 2 columns. Written space 175 × 110 mm.
Hand(s)
Expert early Gothic bookhand.
See above: adiastematic neums; square notation on four-line staves.
Decoration
One 9-line foliate initial (fol. 160v) drawn in red ink, with a bird- or dragon-head terminal, the background filled with pale yellow and green washes One similar but simpler 4-line initial (fol. 15v); 4-line arabesque red initial, fol. 13r.
Other initials, mostly 1- or 2-line, in plain red.
Binding
18th-cent. brown calf, the covers framed with a blind and gilt roll tools, a standard Canonici style; marbled endpapers; rebacked, reusing the title-piece lettered in gilt capitals: ‘Ordo Div. Off | Mirac. BV et SS | et alia &c | cod. membr’. The first and last leaves with rust stains and holes caused by the metal fittings of a previous binding.
History
Provenance and Acquisition
Written for a house of the Hirsau Congregation; probably, as argued by Heinzer, Buchkultur, 194–8, for San Gallo, Moggio (Mosach), where the manuscript certainly was later (see below), as suggested not only by the calendar but by the inclusion of local saints such as Hermagoras and Fortunatus (fol. 116r) in the ordinal itself. Watson's suggestion of an origin at Hirsau Abbey itself (Dated and Datable) is rejected by Heinzer and Gutfleisch on palaeographical and art-historical grounds and because of the dialect of the German text, all of which suggest south-east Germany or Austria and do not exclude the possibility that the manuscript was written at Moggio itself. Regarding the date Watson observed that Thomas Becket, canonized in 1173, is included by the original scribe in the calendar, while Cunegund (3 March), canonized in 1200, and her Translation (9 Sept, 1201), are additions (as is her feast at fol. 126v), and thus dates it between 1173 and 1200; Gutfleisch, op. cit., however, dated the manuscript slightly later palaeographically.
Benedictine abbey of San Gallo, Moggio (Mosach), in the patriarchate of Aquileia, as indicated by several inscriptions in the calendar (q.v.) and elsewhere:
- ‘[ … ] in die sancte theodori [ … ]do de [ … ] abbat[ … ] monasterii mosacen. [ … ]’(fol. 1r)
- ‘Millesimo Cxviiij dedicatum fuit monasterium siue [ecclesie?] Mosacum in festo sanctorum Primi et Feliciani [i.e. 9 June; cf. the calendar] [ … ]’ (fol. 2r)
- ‘M ccc.lj die sabbati tercio mensis decembris venerabilis vir dominus Nicholaus [of Luxembourg] patriacha Aquiliensis, frater domini Caruli [ … ] fecit detruncari caput [...]’ (fol. 4v)
- ‘M ccco xlviiij interfectus fuit Gilbertus abbas a mosacensis’ (fol. 160r)
Giacomo Soranzo (?): J. B. Mitchell's card-index of Canonici manuscripts note that the endpapers are similar to those in other manuscripts owned by Soranzo: 'perhaps Soranzo's'.
Matteo Luigi Canonici, 1727–1805
Purchased by the Bodleian in 1817. Former Bodleian shelfmarks: ‘E codd. Bodl. Miscell. Liturg. CCCXXV’ in ink (fols. ir, 5r, 13r), and ‘Miscel Liturg. 335’ in pencil, the second ‘3’ overwritten in ink with a ‘2’ (fol. ir).
Record Sources
Digital Images
Digital Bodleian (full digital facsimile)
Digital Bodleian(7 images from 35mm slides)
Bibliography
Online resources:
Printed descriptions:
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
Last Substantive Revision
2021-03-02: Revised description for Polonsky German digitization project.