Missal, with music, for a Benedictine nunnery; Austria (Salzburg (?)), 1495 × 1503, with inserted miniature c. 1460–70

Title

Missal, with music, for a Benedictine nunnery; Austria (Salzburg (?)), 1495 × 1503, with inserted miniature c. 1460–70

Shelfmark

MS. Lat. liturg. e. 13

Place of origin

Germany

Austria, Salzburg

Austria, Salzburg (?)

Date

14th century

c. 1460–70

between 1495 and 1503

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment

Physical extent

i (modern paper) + II (medieval parchment) + 87 + II (medieval parchment) leaves

Hands

Gothic hybrida

Textualis for the canon and music.

Decoration

One very fine miniature of the Crucifixion, probably an early work of Ulrich Schreier, c. 1460–70, perhaps cut from another book, stuck to fol. 33v, with an added penwork border. Included in Michaela Schuller-Juckes, ‘Ulrich Schreier und seine Werkstatt: Buchmalerei und Einbandkunst in Salzburg, Wien und Bratislava im späten Mittelalter’, Dr. Phil. thesis (Vienna, 2009), p. 187 Kat. 80 (available online).

Three-line initial in blue with red penwork flourishing (fol. 34r).

Two-line initials plain red, or alternately plain red or blue. One-line initials in plain red.

Musical notation

Square notation on four-line red staves

Binding

Contemporary binding. Sewn on four double cords laced into wood boards, covered with pink leather blind-tooled in a lattice pattern, in each compartment a flower with eight heart-shaped petals, each cover with four metal corner-pieces and a circular centre-piece; one strap is missing from a pair of clasps; the catch-plates, clasp, and centre-pieces each engraved with a rose design. Red leather fore-edge tabs. The inner face of each board is lined with part of a manuscript in very large formal textualis quadrata script. c. 180 × 125 mm.

Acquisition

Given by Madan to the Bodleian in 1917, with a Bodleian ink stamp dated 22 May 1917 (fol. 2v). Former Summary Catalogue number 40107.

Provenance

Written for a Benedictine nunnery in the diocese of Salzburg (perhaps Stift Nonnberg, Salzburg?): there are prayers for pope Alexander [VI], 1492–1503, and Leonhardus [von Keutschach], bishop of Salzburg, 1495–1519 (which indicate the date), and for ‘abbatissam nostram’ before ‘antistitem nostrum’ and ‘abbatem nostrum’ (fols. 42v–43r). (The manuscript is not noticed in Watson, Dated and datable manuscripts in Oxford libraries.) Van Dijk suggested, probably on the grounds of the high grading of the feasts of St Peter (fol. 10v) that the manuscript might have been written for the Benedictine nunnery of Petersfrauen.

Inscribed, fol. 4r: ‘15+96 | Z. V. A. S. | Hoffmarschalkh | Carl Shurff zu Sch | haubtmann zu khueffstein | Mains gliebten herrn dienstwillig’: Karl von Schurff (1548–1626) of Schönwörth in Tirol, 'Schloßhauptmann' of Kufstein.

Unidentified 19th-century owners: the turn-ins of the front board with three paper labels on top of each other, each obscuring the earlier one, the topmost with ‘372’ written in blue pencil within a printed blue circle; nearby is written ‘57’, also in blue.

Rev. Nigel Walsingham Gresley (1850–1909): inscribed with his name (fol. 2r); bequeathed to his first cousin:

Falconer Madan (1851–1935), Bodley’s Librarian 1912–19; with a circular ink stamp ‘F. Madan | S. N. C. Oxford’.