English neumes

Starting price
£ 6 500
Auction dateClassic
08.11.2023 11:00UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
United Kingdom, London
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 1053159
Lot 45 | English neumes
English neumes
Two leaves from a Missal, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [England, late 12th century]
An extremely rare survival with musical notation from an English Romanesque Missal.

c.275 x 210mm, two leaves, 2 columns of 25-26 lines in a fine Romanesque hand in dark brown ink, English neumes on 4-line red staves, initials in red and green, rubrics in red, prickings on inner margins (recovered from a binding a consequently a little soiled and cockled, upper margins a little trimmed, upper corner of one leaf cut away).

Provenance:
(1) James Thomlinson: 17th?-century pentrial. Other pentrials are in Latin and English, including 'After many
combates the minde waxeth fainte and dull', and the name 'Antony', repeated twice. A possible institutional inscription is partially legible under the scribbles: 'Bey[...] Coll.'?

(2) Anthony Birdsall (1877-1972), of Birdsall and Son, Northampton.

(3) Bernard Quaritch, London, September 1995.

(4) Schøyen Collection, MS 2059.

Text:
The text, from the Temporal, contains the Mass for the Easter Vigil, from the Paschal proclamation '[Ille, qui regressus ab inferis] humano generi' to the first reading ending 'Creavitque Deus ce[te grandia]' and, on the second leaf, from '[vinea enim] domini Sabaoth domus Israel est. Deus qui nobis ad celebrandum paschale sacramentum [...]' to 'in quo non est iniquitas: justus et sanctus Dominus'.
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
Preview
02.11.2023 09:00 – 17:00
03.11.2023 09:00 – 17:00
04.11.2023 12:00 – 17:00
05.11.2023 12:00 – 17:00
06.11.2023 09:00 – 17:00
07.11.2023 09:00 – 17:00
Phone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
Email
Buyer Premium see on Website
Conditions of purchaseConditions of purchase

Related terms