Workshop 9. A Reused Binding Fragment from a Medieval Musical Manuscript

We continue our explorations of "Hybrid Books" combining, one way or another, textual and/or other components from different dates, regions, subjects, genres of book, and in manuscript or printed forms. This workshop will examine a fragment (or set of patchwork fragments) from a musical manuscript in Latin laid out in double columns with text and notation on 4-line staves. It forms the vellum covering of a 17th-century printed book.

We will work to decipher the visible parts of the text and music, identify the readings/lections and chants, discern their relatives among surviving witnesses, and, if possible (given the fragmentary nature of the pieces) determine the probable genre of original manuscript, such as lectionary, breviary, or missal.

Perhaps we might find other survivors from the same despoiled medieval manuscript or its relatives.