More About the Regensburg "GERWIRCH" Antiphonary

NYC, Morgan Library, MS M.870.2 [Source]

About four years ago I wrote a post in which I reproduced most of the leaves of a broken-up Antiphonary, and shared my discovery of a 1945 description of the intact volume, telling us more about it before its dismemberment.

I have now found an even earlier description of the complete volume, which supplies a few extra details.

I have long been vagely aware of the bookseller P. M. Barnard of Tunbridge Wells (a provincial town in Kent, about half-way between London and Hastings). His name crops up a dozen times in Neil Ker's Catalogue of Manuscripts in British Libraries, and I encountered it several times when cataloguing medieval manuscripts acquired in the 20th century by the Bodleian Library, but I had never made any attempt to find out who he was. I decided to do something about that this week, and so have spent some time going through the (characteristically excellent) run of his catalogues at the Bodleian. Perhaps I will write a separate post, in due course, about the man and his catalogues, but for now I will just discuss one item he sold.

[EDIT 5 June 2022. As John Lancaster reminds me in the comments below, there is a detailed biographical account of Barnard here]

Catalogue no. 31 is undated (as are all Barnard's catalogues that I have seen), but was stamped on accession at the Bodleian on 27 July 1909:

 

In this catalogue, no. 36 is the Gerwirch Antiphonary. I reproduce the catalogue description and transcribe it below, but it may be worth highlighting the new information it provides:

-- The main manuscript was of 301 leaves, with 14 added at the end (the 1945 description simply stated that it was of 314 leaves).

-- The incorrect date "circa 1420" which is given in the 1945 description derives from an older (pre-Barnard) description, presumably inserted at the front of the volume. As Barnard writes, 

"the treatment of the subjects is very quaint and suggestive of a date considerably earlier than 1420; they suggest more the work of a German artist of about the middle of the 14th century. In assigning the date 1420, I am merely following the opinion of the former owner, as I do not see anything very definite in the writing of the MS. against that date"

Most recent authors have dated the manuscript to the early 14th century, and I have argued that stylistically it may be late 13th-century, perhaps around or shortly after 1296, when the Clarissan House was founded in Regensburg. [1]

-- Barnard states that there are "18 large initial miniatures", and lists 18 of them, but he unaccountably omits the leaf initial with the Crucifixion initial, so the total should be 19.

-- Barnard describes the textual content in some detail:

"The manuscript contains the choral offices, with full musical notation throughout, from the Saturday before the first Sunday in Advent to Holy Saturday; the Sanctorale goes from St. Andrew’s day to the Annunciation, after this follow the Commune Sanctorum, and after this the Venite, with ten different settings"

-- Barnard also tells us that the 14 leaves added at the end are on paper, and lists their contents, which include the Office of the Stigmata of St Francis. This is significant because there has been confusion in the 21st-century literature about whether the manuscript is Dominican or Franciscan. Several articles state that the manuscript was made for the Regensburg Dominican house of Heilig Kreuz, but I could find no supporting evidence for this, and instead proposed that it was made for Franciscans (or Clarissans, see above). Innocent Smith has recently independently studied the chant and reached the same conclusion. [2] So to now discover that the manuscript had an added office for the Stigmata of St Francis adds further support for our findings.

56   ANTIPHONARIUM SEU CHORALE de Sabbato ante Dominicam primam Adventus ad Sabbatum Sanctum. ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM, 301 +14 leaves. Very thick Folio (495 × 367). Written and illuminated in Germany, cir. 1420

This handsome MS. contains 18 LARGE INITIAL MINIATURES illuminated in gold and colours; the treatment of the subjects is very quaint and suggestive of a date considerably earlier than 1420; they suggest more the work of a German artist of about the middle of the 14th century. In assigning the date 1420, I am merely following the opinion of the former owner, as I do not see anything very definite in the writing of the MS. against that date, but it is possible that the MS. may be earlier. The following are the subjects of the miniatures:—

1. a prophet; 
2. the stable at Bethlehem, with the Almighty and angels above; 
3. the martyrdom of St. Stephen; 
4. St. James and St. John; 
5. the martyrdom of the Holy Innocents, a very curious miniature, in the upper part is depicted Herod instructing a soldier who is clad in a coat of chain mail, below is shown the soldier killing two children; 
6. the circumcision; 
7. baptism of Our Lord, one of the quaintest miniatures in the book; 
8. the creation of Eve; 
9. Our Lord’s Agony in the Garden;
10. the martyrdom of St. Andrew, the saint is shown bound with ropes to a cross of the ordinary shape, below is written in large letters GEWIRCH [sic], possibly the name of the artist, whose name may have been Andrew, and for this reason he may have chosen this place to write it; 
11. St. Agnes; 
12. the conversion of St. Paul; 
13. the Presentation in the Temple; 
14. St. Lucia and St. Agatha; 
15. Christ giving the key to St. Peter; 
16. the Annunciation; 
17. St. Bartholomew; 
18. the martyrdom of St. Catherine. 

The miniatures are in EXCELLENT CONDITION. Most of the initial letters are in either red or blue, surrounded with pen ornamentation. 

The manuscript contains the choral offices, with full musical notation throughout, from the Saturday before the first Sunday in Advent to Holy Saturday ; the Sanctorale goes from St. Andrew’s day to the Annunciation, after this follow the Commune Sanctorum, and after this the Venite, with ten different settings. At the end have been added on 14 leaves of vellum and one of paper, at different times, offices for the following festivals:

• Nomen Jesu, 
• St. Gabriel, 
• Visitatio, 
• Stigmata S. Francisci, 
• S. Didacus, 
• S. Angelus Custos, 
• Corona Domini.

Well bound in blind tooled pigskin, gilt inside border, joint cracker.

£75 / - / -

[1] Peter Kidd, The McCarthy Collection, II: Spanish, English, Flemish, and Central European Miniatures (London, 2019), no. 55.

[2] Innocent Smith, ‘Beyond the Initials: Melodic Evidence for the Liturgical Origin of a Regensburg Antiphonary’, Gottesdienst in Regensburger Institutionen: Zur Vielfalt liturgischer Traditionen in der Vormoderne, Forum Mittelalter Studien, 18 (2021), pp. 295–306.