Shelfmark
MS 178
Title
The Eton choirbook. manuscript.
Varying form of title
Title in M. R. James catalogue: Anthem book
Varying form of title
Eton choir book
Publication, distribution, etc.
Eton, England, between 1500-1504.
Physical description
1 volume (vi, 126, vi leaves) : parchment, illustrated (initials, music) ; 62 x 45 cm.
Note
Devised title.
Note
Compilation of musical settings of religious texts, chiefly dedicated to the Virgin Mary, intended to be sung during religious services in the chapel at Eton College. Full list of contents with composers' names available in the print facsimile and via the DIAMM database (see further details below).
Note
Fragmentary, containing 126 of 224 folios. 21 pieces are incomplete, and 29 of the 93 pieces listed in the original index are now missing. Folios v, vi, 127-128 are four bifolia of a Bible written in a good early 12th-century English hand used as binding leaves.
Note
Place of production inferred from the provenance of the manuscripts within Eton College Library together with the incorporation of armorial devices belonging to Eton College in some illuminated initials.
Note
Dates of production inferred from biographical information relating to the composers whose works are included. See Magnus Williamson, The Eton Choirbook: facsimile and introductory study (DIAMM publications, 2010), p. 47.
Note
Two contemporary indexes: partial index on fol. ee9v, and complete index on fol. a1r. The index on fol. a1r is printed with errors in M. R. James's Descriptive catalogue as cited in the references below. See Ker as cited below for further details of the indexes.
Note
Two accompanying typescript indexes by volume and by composer. In this list volumes 1, 10 and 2 are listed as A, B and C respectively.
Note
Written space: 440 x 330 mm.
Note
13 long lines and music.
Note
Contemporary quire signatures supplied in ink on each folio. Late sixteenth and modern pencil foliation also given.
Note
The 126 extant leaves are all signed with letter and number, a.1-ee.9 and show that there were originally 27 quires of 8 leaves (a.1-dd.8) and a final quire of 9 (ee.1-9). See Ker as cited below for list of leaves now missing.
Note
A ?late 16th-century foliation 1-145 (missing f. 54 after "50") suggests that 20 leaves now missing were extant then; see Ker for list of those leaves.
Note
Folios 92, 123v are blank.
Note
Written in black and red ink, with some illuminated and ornamented initials. Voice parts given in the margins. Scored in plummet and ink.
Note
Script differs from textura only in the descenders of f and s and the kidney-shaped form of final s.
Note
Initials described in Ker as cited below, some pasted-on.
Note
Secundo folio: tum cuncta.
Note
Binding of the mid-16th century; on the evidence of the roll which is not known to have been used on books printed before 1545 or after 1574, likely a date in the reign of Queen Mary.
Note
Probably acquired for use in College Chapel when Robert Wilkinson was master of the choristers (1500-1514).
Note
Identifiable by the opening words of the second leaf with "a grete ledger of prick song 2 fo tum cuncta" entered in the college inventory of 1531 (?). See Etoniana 28 (4 June 1921), p. 447.
Note
Some annotations in a later 16th century hand, on. fols. a1 and z2.
Note
The four bifolia of a 12th-century Bible used sideways as binding leaves (ff. v, vi, 127-128) make a whole quire, the text containing 1 Corinthians from "ut confundant sapientes" in titulus 5 of the table, the entirety of 2 Corinthians and Galatians, and Ephesians as far as "et beneuolentia dei et de domino" in titulus 3. See Ker for further details of the text.
Note
Bifolia used as binding leaves have written space 390 x 220 mm; two columns of 51 lines; ruling with a hard point including two pairs of vertical bounders between the columns. Folio v was the outermost, f. vi the second, f. 128 the third, and f. 127 the innermost sheet of the quire. Monochrome red or green initials (5 or 6-line, or 1-line); the running title is on a specially ruled line.
Citation/references note
James, M. R. A descriptive catalogue of the manuscripts in the library of Eton College (1895), 178
Citation/references note
Ker, N. R.. Medieval manuscripts in British libraries, v. 2 (1977), p. 773-4
Binding
Mid-16th century dark brown calf on wooden boards; concentric frames of blind tooled decorative rolls with Tudor rose, fleur-de-lys, H.R initials and portcullis (Oldham, HE.6.2); late 19th century rebacking in brown calf; 19th century clasps with brass tongues; endpapers taken from a 12th century English Bible as described in the notes above, with additional modern endpapers.
Subject
Eton College Choir.
Subject
Music Manuscripts.
Subject
Music England Eton Manuscripts.
Subject
Service books (Music)
Added entry--name
Eton College Choir.
Added entry--place
England Eton.
Language code
lat
Identifier
B46854