Beschreibung:

GREGORIAN SACRAMENTARY, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [Germany, second half 11th century] A fine example of a book used by a priest at Mass in the eleventh century A single leaf, c.285×200 mm, blind-ruled on the (present) verso for 26 lines written in brown ink in a somewhat irregular Caroline minuscule, ruled space c.250×160mm, with rubrics employing uncial forms, rubrics and large initials stroked in red (now mostly darkened by oxidisation), added old foliation numbers ‘63’ and ‘64’ (with a vertical crease, the recto [bound as the verso] worn and stained but still legible, the margins somewhat cropped with no loss of text). Bound in grey buckram at the Quaritch bindery. Provenance : (1) A pen-trial ‘Arma virumque’ (the incipit of the Aeneid ) in 15th-century Humanistic-influenced Italian/French script, in the upper margin of the verso (present recto), suggests not only that by this date the Sacramentary text was obsolete, but also that this leaf was already serving as the front pastedown of a Humanistic copy of a Classical text. (2) Later pen-trials on the present verso appear to include the date ‘1617’. (3) Unidentified 20th-century French owner: inscribed twice in pencil ‘12e s’. (4) Louis Bondy, London bookdealer; acquired from him in 1960, perhaps at the London Book Fair, by: (5) Bernard Rosenthal, his ‘I/99’. (6) Bernard Quaritch, Bookhands V, cat. 1147 (1991), no 32. (7) Schøyen Collection, MS 634. Text : A Sacramentary (cf. lot 441) differs from a Missal in that it contains only the texts said by the priest officiating at Mass: for proper Masses these are the Collect, Secret, Preface, and Postcommunion (a Missal additionally includes the Epistle and Gospel readings, which are read by a sub-deacon and deacon, and may indicate the parts sung by the choir, found in full in a Gradual). On the present leaf, the rubrics for the Secrets are ‘oblata’, ‘obl.’ or ‘super obl.’, characteristic of the Gregorian Sacramentary, based on a manuscript sent by Pope Adrian to Charlemagne in the late 8th century. The text here comprises part of the Common of Saints, opening in a Mass for Apostles, and including the proper texts for One Martyr, Martyrs, One Confessor, Confessors, and Virgins, followed by the beginning of prayers for Advent. Script : Written in dark brown ink in a large, bold, clear hand, suitable for reading aloud at arm’s length, despite fairly frequent abbreviations and some joined words (e.g. ‘insexufragili’ for ‘in sexu fragili’). In the Mass for a (singular) Virgin, plural forms are added between the lines, e.g. ‘intercedente tibus beatat is .ill. martyr ribus ’. The ampersand is used to represent ‘et’ within words (e.g. ‘repl&ti’, ‘c&era’, ‘l&tificas’).