Sequentiary (Prosar) for Dominican Use, 1480 - 1520

Copied in France almost certainly at Poissy in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century; liturgical evidence allows us to date it after 1461 (includes Vincent Ferrer, canonized 1456, Catherine of Siena, 1461), and probably before 1524, since it lacks Antoninus (canonized 1524). Certainly for Dominican Use, as evidence by the numerous Dominican saints: Dominic, Peter Martyr, Thomas Aquinas, Vincent Ferrer, and Catherine of Siena. All the texts here are copied with musical notations apart from the hymn (partially noted) and prayers ff. 171-182. The liturgical contents are further evidence that this was almost certainly copied for the use of, and most likely at, the royal foundation for Dominican Nuns at Poissy. Joan Naughton (Naughton, 1995) identified six manuscripts from Poissy with Prosars, not including this manuscript (see Appendices, Part B, “Surviving manuscripts,” nos. 8, 12,25, 43, 61, 65, and Appendix 2, “Sequences included in Poissy manuscripts,” first by folio number, followed by cues and identifications). The feasts included in this manuscript, their order, and the sequences chosen all follow those in the other manuscripts described by Naughton (our manuscript lacks later feasts including www.textmanuscripts.com Antoninus, as noted above, Holy Cross, and Maurice). Note that there are two sequences for King Louis, founder of Poissy, and feminine forms are used in two of the prayers. In particular, the order and contents of Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, McClean MS 63, a Poissy Processional-Sequentiary, is almost identical to the contents of the manuscript described here.

Interlinear translations into French (ff. 87-91, 94, 95v) are an interesting feature, demonstrating careful use by someone not completely comfortable in Latin; see for example on f. 87, “perficit” (acompli); f. 87v, “con nubio” (mariage), and “in morte laxatur” (elle ne cesse); also note in French in the very bottom margin, f. 94.

Early (seventeenth century?) inscription, front pastedown, “Ce liure est de [lothee] de sous prieure.”

f. 1, top margin, No 17, 176 f [?] (perhaps eighteenth century).

Owners’s and dealers’s notes, inside front cover: a nineteenth-century brief description in French; a price code in pencil; a clipping from a dealer’s catalogue in French.