Leaf from an antiphoner from the Franciscan Convent of St Klara, Germany (Cologne), ca. 1350.

This single leaf from an Antiphonal comprises 8 lines of text written in Gothic Book Script (textualis), in black ink with occasional letters in red ink. There are three minor initials, one in red ink (E), the others (C and B) in black ink with red and black ink decoration. Above each line of text are four horizontal lines equal distance apart, ruled in red ink. These lines carry the appropriate musical notation, written in black ink. Further text, smaller in size and mainly in red ink, occurs at the end of the fifth line of the main body of text and in the lower and left page margins.

The page has a 2-line historiated initial ‘D' the centre of which shows the Virgin flanked by the Apostles with the Holy Ghost (Pentecost).

The initial is enclosed on three sides by a blue painted border encased within a gilded surround. Both the blue and the gold extend into the margins of the page fusing with a decorated bar-border running along the left, upper and lower margins, each end of which becomes a foliate branch bearing tri-pointed leaves with a bird perched on it (in the case of the lower branch this may be a heron). The same tri-pointed leaves extend from the stem of the initial ‘D’ itself into the left margin.

A small female figure dressed in the habit of a Franciscan nun appears in an attitude of prayer in the margin next to the historiated initial ‘D’. This is Heylwigis von Beechoven, Abbess at the Franciscan Convent of St Klara (Order of Poor Clares) at the time the manuscript was produced. She is dressed in a red/brown cloak over a gray habit with black veil over white, and is identified by a caption in red 'Domina abbatissa soror Heylwig'. A pair of small hybrid grotesques facing one another are perched on the upper and lower bar borders, a fifth, slightly larger one, occurs beneath the stem of the letter ‘D’.

Text: Rubric: Iste tres Ant. ad noctes dicuntur omni nocte per totam ebdomadam cum psalmis. Dum complerentur dies...
8 lines of music (staves of 4 red lines) and text; square notation

Made at the convent of St Klara in Cologne.
Part of cuttings purchased in batches from William Henry James Weale in 1883, 95 on 9 April 1883, 258 on 17 April 1883, 20 on 20 February, for the total sum of £96.7.2 (now Museum nos 8972-9042).
This leaf was one of the group bought on 9 April 1883. As a whole, this group cost £26.17.6. Individually, the leaf cost 2 shillings.

The entry in the Register of Drawings 1880 to 1884 (museum numbers 8526 to 11002) lists the leaf as:

One leaf with storied versal: D, the Descent of the Holy Ghost, and an abbess of the Order of S. Francis, Sovor Heyl-wigis, kneeling. Netherlandish, xiv cent.

A duplicate number MS.39 was assigned to this object in error and was subsequently cancelled.

Cuttings from the same manuscript in other collections: other leaves from the manuscript are in Stockholm and Cologne (Wallraf-Richartz Museum).

Background to Music and Christian Liturgy

Music was incorporated into the Christian Liturgy early on and had been influenced by the use of music in the synagogue. Plainchant (unison singing, originally unaccompanied) was the traditional music of the western Church and from about 1000, vocal polyphony (music with two or more melodically independent parts) was being practiced. Polyphony made certain chants of the Mass longer and more complex.

The notation of liturgical music initially appears in the form of neumes - graphic symbols written above the text and indicating the rise and fall of melodic movement or repetitions of the same pitch. From the 11th century they were commonly written on a four-line staff. Two hundred years later, eastern European music manuscripts adopted Gothic notation, produced with a thick, square-cut nib, with the points and curves of neumes being replaced by broader, more angular forms. A similar development in the Île de France gave rise to the use of square notation in the late twelfth century, especially in France and Italy.

Music Manuscripts

There are many different types of medieval music manuscripts including the Gradual, Kyriale, Sequentiary, Troper, Missal, Antiphonal, Hymnal and Breviary.

The Antiphonal (also called an antiphoner or antiphonary) contains the sung portion of the Divine Office (cycle of daily devotions - the prayers of the canonical hours - performed by members of religious orders and the clergy). Antiphonals were often large in format so that they could be used by a choir.


The above is adapted from Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms by Michelle P. Brown (London, 1995)

An Antiphonal contains the choral parts sung during the celebration of the Divine Office or Mass celebrated by a monastic or other community. This type of choirbook was usually written in large format so that the whole choir could read the music at once. This example was made at the convent of St Klara in Cologne by one of the nuns, Sister Loppa de Speculo. Another surviving leaf records that Sister Jutta paid for the book while Loppa carried out the writing, lining (putting in the staves for the music), notation and illumination 'in the year 1350, when there was a great plague everywhere'. This was one of a series of books produced in the convent. The Abbess, Heylwigis von Beechoven, who had ruled the convent since 1344, is portrayed kneeling by the historiated initial of the Descent of the Holy Ghost on the Virgin and Apostles associating her prayer with this crucial event, when the Holy Spirit came to earth and the mission of the Apostles to spread the Christian revelation began. The prayer of her convent was thus part of the mission.

If we take at face value the claim that Sister Loppa did all the illumination (it is always possible that parts of it were contracted out, paid for by Sister Jutta), it appears that grotesques and birds (a heron seems to be shown) were the accepted form of ornament even in this convent environment. The initial looks German, but the three pointed leaves on their swirling stems may show an effort to copy Parisian or other French styles. Other leaves from this manuscript are in Stockholm and in Cologne itself, collected by the founders of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum who wanted to assemble works to show the antiquity of a local school of painting.

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