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MS. Digby 90

Summary Catalogue no.: 1691

John of Tewkesbury (attrib.), Quatuor principalia musicae

(fols. 1r-6r)

Rubric: Tabula super quatuor principalia Musice

Incipit: De Musica Armonica in primo principale c. 6

Alphabetical table of contents.

Incipit: (prologue) (fol. 7r) Quemadmodum inter triticum et zizania quamdiu herba est et necdum culmus ad spicam venit tam grandis similitudo est

Incipit: (text) (fol. 7r) Quoniam circa musicam deo auxiliante

Final rubric: (fol. 63v) Cuius operis finis primo erat pridie nonas Augusti anno domini M.CCC. quinquagesimo primo. Illo autem anno regens erat inter minores Oxon. frater Symon de Tunstude doctor sacre theologie qui in musica pollebat et eciam in septem liberalibus artibus. Explicit tractatus qui quatuor principalia vocatur quem edidit Oxon. quidam frater minor de custodia Brustoll. qui nomen suum propter aliquorum dedignationem hic non inserebat.

eTK 1190B eTK 1266E

Luminita Florea Aluas, 'The Quatuor principalia musicae: A Critical Edition and Translation, with Introduction and Commentary' (Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1996)

Language(s): Latin

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: Quid est consonancia

Form: codex

Support: parchment

Layout

Partly in long lines, partly in 2 columns, typically 33 lines.

Hand(s)

The same scribe wrote Manchester, Chetham's Library, MS. 6681; Watson, following Ker, identifies him with John of Tewkesbury.

Musical Notation:

Musical notation on staves of four lines.

Decoration

Initials in red.

Paraphs in red, rubrics underlined in red.

Diagrams.

History

Origin: 14th century, third quarter (1351 × 1388) ; English

Provenance and Acquisition

'Fratri Johanni Teukusbury constat' (fol. 7r)

Franciscan convent, Oxford: 'Ad informationem scire volentibus principia artis musice istum libellum qui vocatur Quatuor principalia musice fr. Johannes de Teukesbury contulit communitati fratrum minorum Oxonie auctoritate et assensu fratris Thome de Kyngusbury magistri tunc ministri Anglie viz. anno domini 1388. Ita quod non alienetur a predicto communitate fratrum sub pena sacrilegij.' (fol. 6v)

Thomas Allen, no. 14 in the octavo section of his catalogue; '14', fol. 1.

Kenelm Digby.

Presented by him to the Bodleian in 1634.

Record Sources

Description adapted (2017) with corrections from the Quarto Catalogue (W. D. Macray, Bodleian Library Quarto Catalogues IX: Digby Manuscripts, repr. with addenda by R. W. Hunt and A. G. Watson, 1999).

Quarto Catalogue, col. 100

Quarto Catalogue, col. 101

Quarto Catalogue (addenda), p. 50

Summary Catalogue, vol. 2, part 1, p. 73