Processional (Use of the Dominican nuns of Poissy), 1450 - 1499

There are two physically distinct sections to the manuscript, copied by at least two different scribes, but both very similar in appearance, and certainly contemporary; the first section consists of fols. 1-56, with fol. 56 being a smaller folio tipped in at the end of the quire, blank on the verso, that provides the conclusion to the prayer on fol. 55v (it has glue marks on the verso, which are difficult to account for); and then a second section, fols. 57-end. It is possible that these two sections were even from independent, but contemporary manuscripts, but it seems most likely that the manuscript was copied in two sections (by two different scribes), perhaps working at the same time, and then joined together, explaining the necessity of completing the first section on an inserted folio, and erasing the first two lines at the beginning of the next section on the following folio.

Description based, with thanks, on the description provided by Les Enluminures, Ltd.

Parchment support.

Bound in late eighteenth-century morocco over pasteboards, gilt-tooled on spine with floral motifs in compartments and title “PROCESSIONALE,” marbled endpapers, edges dyed red.

iii+123+iii; 134 x 90 mm bound to 140 x 104 mm.

Nineteen lines of text and four lines of square musical notation on four-line red staves, ruled lightly in red ink; written area: 95 x 67 mm.

Bâtarde script, written in a number of late medieval bookhands.

Three three- to four-line red and blue initials, capitals touched in yellow, decorative initials within music, small initials in alternate red or blue, rubrics in red.

Nineteenth-century foliation in ink, upper right recto.