Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 410: Walter of Oddington OSB, De speculatione musicae. Johannes de Muris, Libellus cantus mensurabilis (recensio minor). A Short Treatise on the Rule of Discant
Description
Abstract/Contents
- Summary
- CCCC MS 410 provides the only complete copy of Walter of Oddington OSB's (fl. 1298-1316) De speculatione musicae, an encyclopaedic consideration of music theory written in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century. This manuscript is a compendium consisting of a c. 1425 volume containing Oddington's work, and a later fifteenth-century paper volume containing a treatise on mensural music by the French theorist Iohannes de Muris (c. 1290-c. 1344), and an anonymous English treatise on descant. It serves as a remarkable witness to the diversity of both practical and theoretical treatises available to late-medieval English writers.
- Contents
- De speculatione musicae -- Libellus cantus mensurabilis (recensio minor) -- A short treatise on the rule of discant
Bibliographic information
- M.R. James Date
- xv and xv late
- Downloadable James Catalogue Record
- https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:vk166vb1454/MS_410.pdf
- Superseded Interim Catalogue Record
- https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:qh259nk0346/410.pdf
- Contains
-
- Walter of Oddington OSB, De speculatione musicae. 1r-36v
- Author
- Walter of Oddington OSB
- Rubric
- (1r) Incipit summus (corrected to summa) ffratris Walteri monachi Eueshamie musici de speculacione musice
- Incipit
- (1r) Plura quam digna de musice speculacione et musice speculatoribus perutilia breui ut potero nitar explicare sermone Quadam (!) que pluribus dubia sunt corrigendo, etc.
- Note
- (1r) There are frequent blanks in the first page, as if the archetype had been defective. The Preface ends with a statement of the subjects of the work
- Explicit
- (1v) que inequalitates quas creant
- Rubric
- (1v) De utilitate arsmetice et eius musice introductione. Rubrica
- Incipit
- (1v) Quoniam de musica presens est pertractacio
- Note
-
(6v) Part II
(13r) Part III
(14v) On this page are musical symbols written large
(19r) Part IV (change of hand)
(19v) Part V
(30v) Part VI
Ending - Explicit
- (36r) et non ampliam do (-ando) fastidium nouam diuersitatem superaddicere
- Rubric
- (36r) Explicit
- Note
- A paragraph follows
- Incipit
- (36r) Quia dictum est quod licet monocord' intendere et uoces (or notes) plures adicere
- Explicit
- (36r) ut monstrat hec forma (diagram)
- Rubric
- (36r) Explicit
- Note
-
(36v) blank
The author is also known as Walter of Odington. A short article in Grove, Dict. of Music IV 734, describes this manuscript, the only complete copy. The text is in Coussemaker, Scriptores I 182-250
- Iohannes de Muris, Libellus cantus mensurabilis (recensio minor). 37r-49v
- Author
- Iohannes de Muris
- Note
- Paper
- Incipit
-
(37r) Quilibet in arte practica mensurabilis cantus erudiri mediocriter affectans ea scribat diligenter que sequntur compilata secundum Johannem de muris
(37r) Quinque sunt partes prolacionis (?) videlicet maxima, etc. - Note
-
Probably an abridgment of a tract by Joh. de Muris
(46v) There is a break here - Explicit
- (46v) dicitur ascendentis dicti breuis est, etc.
- Note
- (47r) It continues
- Incipit
- (47r) Omnis proporcio est communiter dicta vel proprie dicta. proporcio proprie dicta est habitudo duarum rerum comparatus
- Note
- Ends with a short paragraph
- Incipit
- (49v) In omnibus coloribus albus est dignissimus
- A short treatise on the rule of discant. 49v-51v
- Note
- (49v) Tract in English
- Incipit
- (49v) Here begynnes a schorte tretys of the reule of discant. It is to wit Þat Þere are acordance wt outen nowmber
- Note
- Ends imperfectly
- Explicit
- (51v) as for to syng iij or iiij
- Walter of Oddington OSB, De speculatione musicae. 1r-36v
- TJames
- 203
- Stanley
- N. 25
- Location
- https://purl.stanford.edu/wq027ng0617
- MS 410
- Repository
- UK, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Parker Library
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction:
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- License:
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC).