Description
Alternative title
Musica
Type of resource
mixed material
Extent
ff. 54
Date created
[ca. 900 CE - 999 CE]
Language
Latin
Material
Vellum
Layout
28 lines to a page
Height (mm)
272
Width (mm)
193
Collation
1(8) (wants 1) 2(8) 3(8) 4(6) 5(8)-7(8) (+1).
Writing
in a fine upright Carolingian minuscule
Foliation
ff. i-ii + 1-54 + iii-iv
Provenance
From Christ Church, Canterbury. On f. 1r is: MVSICA HOGERI. TT. (Ancient Libraries, p. 8, no. 44 and p. xxxiii). Also, in red chalk: TW.
Abstract/Contents
- Summary
- CCCC MS 260 was written towards the end of the tenth century at Christ Church, Canterbury. It contains copies of important early medieval treatises on music, most significantly the Musica enchiriadis and Scholica enchiriadis, which usually travelled together. Both must be considered essentially anonymous, despite the fact that the Musica enchiriadis is in this manuscript attributed to Hoger of Laon (d. 930); in the Corpus catalogue James attributed them to Hucbald of Saint-Amand (d. c. 930) and Odo of Cluny OSB (c. 879-942) respectively. Together they provide some of the earliest evidence for polyphony, and use a type of notation known as Dasian, which allows for precise pitch to be recorded. Parker wrote "TW" in this manuscript, perhaps to indicate that he acquired it from John Twyne, a Canterbury schoolmaster and antiquary who had worked at St Augustine's before the Dissolution; or alternatively, from Thomas Wotton (c. 1521-87), nephew of Nicholas Wotton dean of Canterbury, and an associate of Parker with Puritan sympathies.
- Contents
- Musica Hogeri (Boethius, De institutione musica (V, 17-19)) -- Musica enchiriadis -- Scholica enchiriadis -- Commemoratio breuis de tonis et psalmis modulandis (fragment)
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction:
- Images courtesy of The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For higher resolution images suitable for scholarly or commercial publication, either in print or in an electronic format, please contact the Parker Library directly at parker-library@corpus.cam.ac.uk
- License:
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC).