Full Transcription and Translation

The following transcription and translation is a page-by-page reconstruction of the Clarissan death ritual as written in Plimpton MS 034. Many of the chants as well as some of the prayers in the manuscripts contain only incipits. In the trancription and translation, these incipits have been expanded to full texts. The text that is not written out in the manuscript is placed in square brackets. This approach is modeled after Frederick S. Paxton's reconstructive work on a similar ritual in the monastic community of Cluny. Paxton's reconstruction has been published in the volume The Death Ritual at Cluny in the Central Middle Ages (Turnhout : Brepols, 2013).

Rubric translations were done by Velia Ivanova with the help of Professor Susan Boynton and Consuelo Dutschke. The psalm translations as well as all biblical texts are from the Douay-Rheims Bible. An online, public domain version can be found here. The translations of the prayers have been adapted from Frederick S. Paxton's work on the Cluniac death ritual mentioned above.