Add. 47 2°: Antiphonarium Nidrosiense (fragment)

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Add. 47 2°: Antiphonarium Nidrosiense (fragment)

Parchment, 10 ff., 45,5 × 30 cm; Norway (Nidaros/Trondheim), 1250-1275

The fragment formed part of the sanctorale in an antiphoner, written for Nidaros Cathedral. It covers parts of the period from 29 June to 14 September:

1r-2v: Officium SS. Apostolorum Petri et Pauli (29 June)

3r: In natale S. Marie Magdalene (22 July)

3v: Directives for celebrations of saints 23-28 July

3v-4v: In natalicio beati Olaui Martyris (29 July)

5r-5v: In nativitate Marie (8 September)

6r-10r: In susceptione sanguinis (12 September)

10r-10v: In exaltatione crucis (14 September)

The fragment is the only source preserved containing music and texts for the office “at the reception of the blood”, In susceptione sanguinis, i.e. the feast celebrating of the drops of blood of the Lord that came to Nidaros in 1165. In a source more or less contemporary with the fragment, the office is called “the mass of the finger gold”, probably because the blood was contained in a ring of gold. The rest of the offices are incompletely transmitted in the fragment. – There is a drawing of the king in the margin to the left of the office for St. Olav on f. 4v

The leaves have been reused for the binding of accounts from 1624 to 1630 of the Copenhagen student hostelry Regensen in the archive of Copenhagen University. Folios 1, 3, 4, 5 and 9 had been cut into 3 pieces each, whereas folios 2, 6, 7, 8 and 10 were left intact. Thus the fragment once consisted of 15 pieces and 5 entire folios. The 15 pieces have been glued together into folios at an unknown date in modern times

According to a librarian’s note only the two lower parts of f. 3 and the upper and the lower part of f. 4 were known until 1929, when the other parts of the fragment were transferred from the university archive. However, in his catalogue of 1935 Krarup still speaks of only four pieces, so the transfer may have taken place later

The sequence of the leaves was previously: 3, 4, 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. The pieces were specified by means of letters a, b and c. The present foliation was established by Lilly Gjerløw

Bibl.: Gustav Storm, Monumenta historica Norvegiæ. Latinske kildeskrifter til Norges historie i Middelalderen, Kristiania 1880, p. 245-246. - [Kr. Kålund], Katalog over de oldnorsk-islandske Håndskrifter i Det Store Kongelige Bibliotek og i Universitetsbiblioteket, København 1900, p. 428. - Georg Reiss, Musiken ved den middelalderlige Olavsdyrkelse i Norden, Kristiania 1912, p. 69. - Alfr. Krarup: Katalog over Universitetsbibliotekets Haandskrifter, 2. Del, København 1935, p. 38. - Lilli Gjerløw (ed.), Antiphonarium Nidrosiensis ecclesiae, Oslo 1979 (Libri liturgici provinciae Nidrosiensis medii aevi vol. III), p. 230-242 (& pl. 34-54). - Gisela Attinger, A comparative study of chant melodies from fragments of the lost Nidaros antiphoner, Oslo 1998, p. 90f., 191-274 & passim. - Eyolf Østrem, The Office of Saint Olav. A Study in Chant Transmission, Uppsala 2001, p. 240 & passim. - Gisela Attinger & Andreas Haug (eds.), The Nidaros Office of the Holy Blood. Liturgical Music in Medieval Norway, Trondheim 2004

Erik Petersen