Illuminated Manuscripts in Classical and Mediaeval Times/Appendix

Mr Jenkinson, the Librarian of the University of Cambridge, has kindly supplied me with the following interesting extracts, from a manuscript of the thirteenth century in the Parish Library of St James' at Bury St Edmunds (M 27 + B 357), which gives instructions to scribes and illuminators of manuscripts as to the various tools they are to use.

"Scriptor habeat rasorium siue nouaculam ad radendum sordes pergameni vel membrane. Habeat etiam pumicem mordacem et planulam ad pactandum (?) et equandum superficiem pergameni. Plumbum habeat et linulam quibus liniet pergamenum, margine circumquaque tam ex parte tergi quam ex parte carnis existente libera......

Scriptor autem in cathedra resideat ansis utrimque eleuatis pluteum siue ait'em (?) sustinentibus, scabello apte pedibus posito.

Scriptor habeat epicaustorium$.i.asserem$ centone copertum. Arcanum habeat quo pennam formet ut habilis sit et ydonea ad scribendum...... Habeat dentem canis (?) sive apri ad polliandum pergamenum...... Et spectaculum habeat ne ob errorem moram disspendiosam (?). Habeat prunas in epicausterio ut cicius in tempore nebuloso vel aquoso desicari possit...... Et habeat etiam mineum ad formandas literas puniceas, vel rubeas, vel feniceas et capitales. Habeat etiam fuscum pulverem; et azuram a Salamone repertam ."

Translation.

"The scribe should have a sharp scraper or knife to rub down the roughnesses of his parchment or vellum. He should also have a piece of 'biting' pumice-stone and a flat tool to smooth down and make even the surface of his parchment.

He should have a lead pencil and a ruler with which to rule lines on the parchment, leaving a margin free (from lines) on both sides of the parchment, on the back of the leaf as well as on the flesh side....

The scribe should sit in an arm chair, with arms raised on each side to support a desk or ?; a footstool should be conveniently placed under his feet. The scribe should have an epicaustorium covered with leather; he should have an arcanum (pen-knife ?) with which to shape his pen, so that it may be well formed and suitable for writing....

He should have the tooth of a dog (?) or of a wild boar for the polishing of his parchment.... And he should have spectacles lest troublesome delay be caused through blunders. He should have hot coals in a brazier so that [his ink] may dry quickly [even] in cloudy or rainy weather.... He should also have mineum (minium) for the painting of red, crimson or purple letters and initials. He should also have a dark powder (pigment), and the azure which was invented by Solomon."

The following excellent description of the chief kinds of Service-books which were used during the later mediæval period was originally written in 1881 by Henry Bradshaw, the Cambridge University Librarian, for The Chronicles of All Saints' Church, Derby, by the Rev. J. C. Cox and Mr W. H. St John Hope. It is by the kind permission of Mr Cox and Mr Hope that I am able to reprint Mr Bradshaw's valuable note, which, with admirable clearness and conciseness, explains the character of each of the principal classes of Service-books used in English Churches and the manner in which these books became differentiated and multiplied down to the time of the Reformation.

In the old Church of England, the Services were either—

1. For the different hours (Mattins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline), said in the Choir,

2. For Processions, in the Church or Churchyard,

3. For the Mass, said at the Altar, or

4. For occasions, such as Marriage, Visitation of the Sick, Burial, &c., said as occasion required.

Of these four all have their counterparts, more or less, in the English Service of modern times, as follows:

1. The Hour-Services, of which the principal were Mattins and Vespers, correspond to our Morning and Evening Prayer.

2. The Procession Services correspond to our Hymns or Anthems sung before the Litany which precedes the Communion Service in the morning, and after the third Collect in the evening, only no longer sung in the course of procession to the Churchyard Cross or a subordinate Altar in the Church; the only relic (in common use) of the actual Procession being that used on such occasions as the Consecration of a Church, &c.

3. The Mass answers to our Communion Service.

4. The Occasional Services are either those used by a Priest, such as Baptism, Marriage, Visitation and Communion of the Sick, Burial of the Dead, &c., or those reserved for a Bishop, as Confirmation, Ordination, Consecration of Churches, &c.

All these Services but the last mentioned are contained in our "Prayer-book" with all their details, except the lessons at Mattins and Evensong, which are read from the Bible, and the Hymns and Anthems, which are, since the sixteenth century, at the discretion of the authorities. This concentration or compression of the Services into one book is the natural result of time, and the further we go back the more numerous are the books which our old inventories show. To take the four classes of Services and Service-books mentioned above:

1. The Hour-Services were latterly contained, so far as the text was concerned, in the Breviarium, or Portiforium, as it was called by preference in England. The musical portions of this book were contained in the Antiphonarium. But the Breviary itself was the result of a gradual amalgamation of many different books:

(a) The Antiphonarium, properly so called, containing the Anthems (Antiphonae) to the Psalms, the Responds (Responsoria) to the Lessons (Lectiones), and the other odds and ends of Verses and Responds (Versiculi et Responsoria) throughout the Service;

(b) The Psalterium, containing the Psalms arranged as used at the different Hours, together with the Litany as used on occasions;

(c) The Hymnarium, or collection of Hymns used in the different Hour-Services;

(d) The legenda, containing the long Lessons used at Mattins, as well from the Bible, from the Sermologus, and from the Homiliarius, used respectively at the first, second, and third Nocturns at Mattins on Sundays and some other days, as also from the Passionale, containing the acts of Saints read on their festivals; and

(e) The Collectarium, containing the Capitula, or short Lessons used at all the Hour-services except Mattins, and the Collectæ or Orationes used at the same.

2. The Procession Services were contained in the Processionale or Processionarium. It will be remembered that the Rubric in our "Prayer-Book" concerning the Anthem ("In Quires and places where they sing, here followeth the Anthem") is indicative rather than imperative, and that it was first added in 1662. It states a fact; and, no doubt, when processions were abolished, with the altars to which they were made, Cathedral Choirs would have found themselves in considerable danger of being swept away also, had they not made a stand, and been content to sing the Processional Anthem without moving from their position in the Choir. This alone sufficed to carry on the tradition; and looked upon in this way the modern Anthem Book of our Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, and the Hymn Book of our parish Churches, are the only legitimate successors of the old Processionale. It must be borne in mind, also, that the Morning and Evening Anthems in our "Prayer-Book" do not correspond to one another so closely as might at first sight appear to be the case. The Morning Anthem comes immediately before the Litany which precedes the Communion Service, and corresponds to the Processional Anthem or Respond sung at the churchyard procession before Mass. The Evening Anthem, on the other hand, follows the third Collect, and corresponds to the Processional Anthem or Respond sung "eundo et redeundo," in going to, and returning from, some subordinate altar in the church at the close of Vespers.

3. The Mass, which we call the Communion Service, was contained in the Missale, so far as the text was concerned. The Epistles and Gospels, being read at separate lecterns, would often be written in separate books, called Epistolaria and Evangeliaria. The musical portions of the Altar Service were latterly all contained in the Graduale or Grayle, so called from one of the principal elements being the Responsorium Graduale or Respond to the Lectio Epistolae. In earlier times, these musical portions of the Missal Service were commonly contained in two separate books, the Graduale and the Troparium. The Graduale, being in fact the Antiphonarium of the Altar Service (as indeed it was called in the earliest times), contained all the passages of Scripture, varying according to the season and day, which served as Introits (Antiphonae et Psalmi ad Introitum) before the Collects, as Gradual Responds or Graduals to the Epistle, as Alleluia versicles before the Gospel, as Offertoria at the time of the first oblation, and as Communiones at the time of the reception of the consecrated elements. The Troparium contained the Tropi, or preliminary tags to the Introits; the Kyries; the Gloria in excelsis; the Sequences or Prosae ad Sequentiam before the Gospel; the Credo in unum; the Sanctus and Benedictus; and the Agnus Dei; all, in early times, liable to have insertions or farsuræ of their own, according to the season or day, which, however, were almost wholly swept away (except those of the Kyrie) by the beginning of the thirteenth century. Even in Lyndewode's time (A.D. 1433), the Troparium was explained to be a book containing merely the Sequences before the Gospel at Mass, so completely had the other elements then disappeared or become incorporated in the Graduale. This definition of the Troparium is the more necessary, because so many old church inventories yet remain, which contain books, even at the time of writing the inventory long since disused, so that the lists would be unintelligible without some such explanation.

4. The Occasional Services, so far as they concerned a priest, were of course more numerous in old days than now, and included the ceremonies for Candlemas, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, &c., besides what were formerly known as the Sacramental Services. The book which contained these was in England called the Manuale, while on the Continent the name Rituale is more common. No church could well be without one of these. The purely episcopal offices were contained in the Liber pontificalis or Pontifical, for which an ordinary church would have no need.

5. Besides these books of actual Services there was another, absolutely necessary for the right understanding and definite use of those already mentioned. This was the Ordinale, or book containing the general rules relating to the Ordo divini servitii. It is the Ordinarius or Breviarius of many Continental churches. Its method was to go through the year and show what was to be done; what days were to take precedence of others; and how, under such circumstances, the details of the conflicting Services were to be dealt with. The basis of such a book would be either the well-known Sarum Consuetudinarium, called after St. Osmund, but really drawn up in the first quarter of the thirteenth century, the Lincoln Consuetudinarium belonging to the middle of the same century, or other such book. By the end of the fifteenth century Clement Maydeston's Directorium Sacerdotum, or Priests' Guide, had superseded all such books, and came itself to be called the Sarum Ordinale, until, about 1508, the shorter Ordinal, under the name of Pica Sarum, "the rules called the Pie," having been cut up and re-distributed according to the seasons, came to be incorporated in the text of all the editions of the Sarum Breviary.

H. B.

, March 17, 1881.

Mr Micklethwaite has kindly pointed out to me the following passage from the Cistercian Consuetudines (Guignard, Documents inédits, Dijon, 1878, p. 174), cap. LXXII, "Nullus ingrediatur coquinam excepto cantore et scriptoribus ad planandam tabulam, ad liquefaciendum incaustum, ad exsiccandum pergamenum...." That is, the kitchen fire might be used for melting the wax on the tablets, so that a fresh list of names could be written (see above, p. 8), for liquefying frozen ink, and for drying the vellum skins ready for writing on.