; Date(s): circa 1128 - circa 1130; Classification(s): illuminated manuscript, fragment (manuscript), illumination; Acquisition: bequeathed by McClean, Frank (1837-1904), 1904 [MS McClean 49]
Description: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Parchment, iii modern flyleaves + 14 fols. + iii modern flyleaves, 257 x 163 mm (187 x 108 mm), 29-32 long lines, ruled in hard point and plummet, with four-line musical staves ruled in red ink
BINDING: Late nineteenth century, purple morocco by Joseph William Zaehnsdorf (1853-1930), London.
CONTENTS:
fols. 1r [70r] - 3r [72r] Proper Prefaces for main feast days
fols. 3r [72r] - 3v [72v] Mass Propers for De commemoratione salvatoris
fol. 3v [72v] Prayers before Mass: (i) Confessio coram altari dicenda, inc. Suscipe confessionem nostram; (ii) Oratio sancti Ambrosii, inc. Conscientia culpabilis vite
fols. 4r [73r] - 6v [75v] Common Preface
fols. 7r [76r] - 10r [79r] Canon Prayer, Te igitur
fols. 10v [79v] - 14v [83v] Temporal from Holy Saturday to Thursday of Easter Week
DECORATION: Three historiated initials, framed, with interlace at terminals and in stems: fol. 4v Common Preface, [V, 9 ll.] Christ, three-quarter length with arms extended in orans pose, between two standing angels, set against coils of foliage on a gold ground; fol. 5r Common Preface [P, 10 ll.] Seraph on a gold ground with foliage; fol. 6v Common Preface [Q, 7 ll.] Angel kneeling on a gold ground with foliage.
There are offsets of two lost full-page framed miniatures on fols. 4r and 7r, facing the openings of the Common Preface and the Canon prayer, almost certainly Christ in Majesty and the Crucifixion respectively.
ORNAMENTATION: Three large framed initials [6 - 27 ll.] with interlace at terminals and in stems, together with geometrical medallions and animal heads on the stems, and in one case, fol. 4r, two standing men with bare torsoes and with arms and legs around the fillets of the initial, one with a lance, with, as infill, green, red, purple and blue foliage coils with white highlighting, single leaves, animals and birds, on gold grounds (fols. 4r, 6r, 7r); two initials [4 - 7 ll.] with foliage coils or leaves in green, red, purple and blue on gold grounds (fols. 11r, 11v); eighty-five smaller framed initials [2-4 ll.] for the various text sections with, as infill, foliage coils, single leaves and geometric patterns on gold, red and blue grounds, but one has been cut out on fol. 11v; Common Preface and Canon Prayer written in large capitals in alternating lines of red and blue.