Browse Exhibits (5 total)

Clarissan Death in Brussels: A Burial Procession in Plimpton MS 034

A fourteenth-century processional for an order of Rich Clares in Brussels, Plimpton MS 034 (New York, Columbia University, Rare Book and Manuscript Library) contains a detailed service for a deceased woman. The other services contained in the manuscript are those for the Feast of the Purification, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, the Feasts of Saint Francis and Saint Clare and Corpus Christi. The burial ritual does, however, take up significantly more space in the manuscript than the other services.

This exibit aims to reconstruct the full text of the death ritual at the Clarissan convent in Brussels and to examine the manuscript in the context of what is known about the convent as well as about contemporary attitudes on the body, dying, and burial.

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Franciscan and Clarissan Chants in Plimpton MS 034

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Plimpton MS 034, a processional copied in the fourteenth century for the Brussels Covent of Saint Clare, contains the procession for the feasts of Saint Francis and Saint Clare written in a double text format. Uncommonly found in fourteenth-century processionals, this text underlay allows us to gain a deeper understanding of the liturgical practice in the Brussels Covent and of the significance of the relationship between the Franciscan and the Clarissan orders. This exhibit offers a discussion of the manuscript folia that include the Franciscan/Clarissan chants, music recordings of these chants along with transcriptions, and the complete Latin text and English translation.

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Gallery of Plimpton MS 034

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Images of all folios in a Clarissan processional from Brussels: New York, Columbia University, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Plimpton MS 034

How to Date and Place a Medieval Manuscript

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This exhibit aims to provide researchers with tools and methods for determining the probable date and geographical origin of a medieval liturgical manuscript. The manuscript used here as a case study, Western MS 97 (housed in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University), is a gradual containing music notation. However, most of the methods discussed in the exhibit are applicable to any liturgical manuscript.

Each page in the exhibit will lead us down an investigatory avenue: musical analysis, paleographical analysis, and--particularly useful for Western MS 97--exploration of marginalia. 

The pages in this exhibit are intended to be read in order.

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Living Letters: Decorated Initials in Plimpton MS 034

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This exhibit displays the decorated initials in Plimpton MS 034, a processional copied in 1351 for the Brussels convent of St. Clare. The aim is not so much to find a one-to-one correspondence between the anthropomorphic and zoomorphic letters and the chant texts, but rather to explore the types of figures portrayed in these initials and tentatively suggest some possible meanings. Since there is no evidence of a division of labor, I assume in this exhibit that Johannes de Havere was both the scribe and artist for this manuscript.

A note on the images: by hovering the mouse over each image, you can view the folio number. When you click on the image, you will be taken to the web page corresponding to the entire leaf.