The copy of the German jurist and Wittenberg university professor Hieronymus Schiurpff (1481–1554), who published his canon law work in Frankfurt in 1545, is preserved in a special binding in the Episcopal Library of Székesfehérvár. Four strips of parchment with musical notation were used to reinforce the spine. The strips are still found between the sewing-stitching areas, glued to the paper sheets. The pieces probably continued in the binding to hold the stitched sheets together and attach them to the book cover. The fact, that the fragments hidden in the glued boards are very small, is proved by the liturgical content of the strips. The fragments are not covered, so that the structure of the binding is visible at the spine, making the book stand out among the volumes on the shelf. Apart from the parchment fragmentula and the yarn used for stitching, the binding is made from paper, with parts of a German print glued on the cover.
The size of the parchment pieces is roughly the same (about 5 cm). Bookbinder tried to cut out equal parts to reinforce the spine. The first three of the strips are horizontal cuts from the leaf of the former codex, as indicated by the position of the music and text, while the last is a longitudinal cut, so that the music on it can be read by turning the volume.
The fragmentula most probably once belonged to a notated breviary: the chants can be identified from the short text and music sections, and the analysis also provides information on the parent codex. The fragmentula may have been cut out from the same manuscript, or even from the same leaf. The strips have been numbered from top to bottom (1, 2, 3, 4), but this numbering is reversed when trying to restore the liturgical order (3, 4, 2, 1). On three of the strips, torsos of the responsory Qui venturus est veniet and the related verse Ex Sion species decoris eius survive: from the first Nocturn of Matins of the third Sunday of Advent.
As far as the liturgical order is concerned, Fr. 3 stands at the top, and the words non erit timor on it are the earliest in the responsory: Qui venturus est veniet et non tardabit iam non erit timor. In the second line of text, ipse est salvator is read, but only the top of the letters, the bottom has been cut off, and can be found in Fr. 2. The two strips are therefore exactly matching each other, together giving three lines of text and two of music. These two fragments include Fr. 4, the lowest strip in the spine order, which also preserves two words from the responsory: nostris and noster (the original text: Qui venturus est veniet et non tardabit iam non erit timor in finibus nostris quoniam ipse est salvator noster). The three strips, therefore, suggest a longer coherent passage from the end of the main part of the responsory: Qui venturus est veniet et non tardabit iam non erit timor in finibus nostris quoniam ipse est salvator noster. The word quoniam, which may be hidden in the glued part, fits into the intervening gap (the last letter -m is already visible). All this suggests that the lowest fragment preceded the previous two connected fragments. The two fragmentula are a direct continuation of it, the staff lines are traceable through the three fragments, and only a small part is not visible on the first fragment in liturgical order (quoniam). The lowest cut-out glued to the spine retains the rubric V (verse) and the initial E of Ex Sion.
The first fragment in the order of the spine, but the last in the original codex in terms of content, is only slightly further away from the others: it preserves the words tibi a Domino (Suscipe verbum virgo Maria quod tibi a Domino et ...) of the responsory Suscipe verbum virgo Maria, which follows the R. Qui venturus est veniet. This strip comes from the bottom of the same folio as the other fragmentula: the lower margin is visible, demonstrating the last line of the leaf. It cannot be determined precisely, how many lines of music and text are missing between the last fragment and the above three strips. Even if only the end of the verse Ex Sion veniet and the beginning of the responsory Suscipe verbum virgo Maria are missing, the hiatus may be more lines. In the light of the first three fragmentula, the musical and text lines seem unusually short, so it could be a two-column arrangement. This would be supported by the dating of the fragments, as this form was common in notated breviaries in the 14th century and in this case, a lesson could have preceded the responsory on the last fragment.
However, it can be stated with absolute certainty, that Fr. 1 (liturgical order No. 3) has a fold under the glue equal to the length of the text [E]x Sion, since the initial letter is on the longitudinal strip. Since there are few gaps in continuity after the visible part of Fr. 3 (liturgical order No. 1), we can expect a folding of roughly 2–3 cm per strip.
Although there are only small musical segments available for research, and the ink of neumes, which is in a delicate place and constantly exposed to light and air, has been worn out in places, the surviving neumes and staff lines that can be reconstructed from the fragments provide a wealth of information. Unfortunately, neither the beginning nor the end of the staves is visible, i.e. clefs and custos do not aid the analysis of the musical notation. However, we have at our disposal a special music notation that guides the research in a specific direction from the very beginning. In addition to the black ink staff line, which is drawn for the text and is only occasionally discernible, four lines can be detected per staff, including a red staff line to indicate the F and a yellow line to indicate the C note. The other two (black) staff lines are only partly visible the ink having largely fallen off.
The most recognizable elements of the fragments are those used in German neume notation: the set of signs is reminiscent of early Rhenish notation. However, the rounded shape of the pes also suggests a Cistercian origin, as do the other neumes on the fragments: the curved, rounded drawing of the porrectus and torculus, the two types of pes, written in spur and French with a left-hand dot element, may also be Cistercian. This impression is reinforced by the colored staves, which are characterized above all of the sources of the order. The notation shows both a separate virga and punctum. The elaboration of notation points to the early 14th century, which would refute the dating suggested by the library catalog (Katalin Velenczei, Catalogue of the Prints of the Székesfehérvár Episcopal Library before 1601. Budapest: OSZK – Székesfehérvár Bishop’s Library, 2008, 400): the Rhenish or Cistercian notation was written later by their professional copyists using a different writing technique, while here a practical notation is used.
We first considered the Cistercian origin of the fragments. From the 12th century onwards, the order simultaneously centralized and reformed its liturgical life. Starting from French territory, the Cistercians, through their codices, established the same liturgy and the same Central French notation in their distant monasteries. Nevertheless, the order was dominated by the reform spirit and a highly developed literacy, which is clearly shown by the fact that from the beginning in the 12th century the staff system of Guido of Arezzo was used, and that it was colored in a particular way, like the Italian model, exactly as shown on the fragments: two black lines, a red F and a yellow C. Although in the early phase the Central French roots were everywhere adhered to in the Cistercian communities, over the centuries this inherited notation adapted to the locally developed diocesan scripts. Maintaining the basic French structures, the order also introduced new elements locally (see Janka Szendrei, “Does a Special Cistercian Notation exist?”, Magyar Zene 23 (1982), 129–137, 135). It is therefore not surprising the use of the spurred pes or the climacus, which descends gently (not steeply!) from a horseshoe virga and its inverted scandicus form in the music notation of a West German Cistercian monastery on the Rhine. However, the curved, upward stem elements, which are also visible on the fragments, are more characteristic of the Central French notation. These elements had a strong influence on the notations of the German territories and the northern part of Central Europe. The neumes of 14th-15th century Polish or Upper Hungarian local traditions can be traced back to the curved stem formation of Cistercian notation (see, for example, the curved neume stems and flagellated note heads of Krakow and Upper Hungarian notations), but the long stems seen on our fragments may also be traces of Cistercian influence.
In addition to the Cistercian Order, the reform workshops in the Rhineland also adopted the Guidonian staves, adapting elements of German neume notation to the staves of 4–5 lines, usually consisting of black lines with the red F-line highlighted, the F-clef often being represented by a dot. However, we also find a narrower tradition, e.g. around Cologne, where diocesan manuscripts were written on yellow-red-black staves, in a manner more in keeping with the Guidonian tradition. Taking all this into account, the provenance of the parent codex behind the Székesfehérvár fragments cannot be established with complete certainty based on this quantity of musical notation.
Two aspects of analysis helped to make progress: a melodic and liturgical comparison. If it is a Cistercian source, the liturgy is monastic, differing in many respects from the diocesan rite, e.g. in the structure of the Nocturns of the Matins. Instead of three, there are four antiphons and responsories per Nocturn. So if the fragments come from a Cistercian codex, we have the responsories 3–4 of the third Sunday in Advent. In Cistercian sources (see the CANTUS database A-Wn 1799**, D-KNd 1161, F-Pnm NAL 1411, 1535, PL-Wn I F 403: https://cantus.uwaterloo.ca/), R. Qui venturus est is the third in the order of responsories, while Suscipe verbum virgo Maria is the fourth. However, we also note that Qui venturus has nowhere Ex Sion species as its verse and that instead the verse Deponet omnes iniquitates is prescribed. Regarding the strong liturgical discipline of the Cistercians, this small difference may have been significant. Using it as an argument, it seemed worth considering, that the manuscript could be originating from a secular church in the Rhineland, which used the same special typ of „reformed” notation.
In the course of a comparative study of musical notation, we looked at several Rhenish notation samples and finally came to the source material of the Archdiocese of Cologne, where remarkable similarities were striking. First, the 1479 Gradual of the Catholic parish of Kerpen, west of Cologne (https://digital.dombibliothek-koeln.de/hs/content/titleinfo/253868), and a 14th-century manuscript attracted attention. It is the latter, an antiphoner from the parish of Euskirchen, south of Bonn, at the end of the 14th century, which offered a point of comparison for all aspects of musical analysis (https://digital.dombibliothek-koeln.de/hs/content/zoom/260071). Despite being a slightly later source, the neumes visible in our fragments made it clear that both represent the same narrow tradition of Rhenish notation. This was indicated by the identical coloring of the lines and the perfectly parallel neume shapes, which were particularly striking in the 14th-century manuscript. Even the letters of the texts seemed to be identical. In addition, musical parallels could be detected, since the melodic fragments are close variants of each other. Unlike the melodies in the Cistercian codices. Finally, the correspondence is perfect from the point of view of content: Qui venturus est has the verse Ex Sion species in the sources of the area.
Based on the results of the analysis, it is certain that the fragments under examination come from a West German diocesan codex written with 14th-century Rhenish notation. The first responsory on the third Sunday of Advent is presumably the concluding piece of the first Nocturn, while the second chant is the opening responsory of the second Nocturn. The absence of antiphons to the Matins is common at this point in the liturgy, as they were taken over from the first Sunday.
All sources available from the binding and the host book can be unified and point in the same direction: the print, the maculature, and the spine reinforcement all confirm a West German origin, although there is no possessor inscription. The book was published in Frankfurt, the paper cover is a detail of a German print, and the parchment codex itself is associated with this narrower European region. The analysis of the fragments has once again drawn attention to the potential of musical fragmentology: sometimes a few neumes and words from certain chants are sufficient to map the content and origin of the original medieval manuscript with relative accuracy.
Gabriella Gilányi