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Chant Manuscripts at Columbia University

This site presents selected manuscripts of Latin chant and liturgy in the collection of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University in New York City. Each manuscript is represented by a complete set of digital images described with metadata fields based on the Dublin Core.

The gradual Western MS 097 was copied between 1277 and 1298 for a Dominican convent in eastern France; by the fifteenth century it was in Strasbourg.

The processional Plimpton MS 034 was copied in 1351 for the Urbanist Clares of Brussels, a community of Franciscan nuns. We are in the process of linking each chant incipit in this manuscript to the Cantus database of chant manuscripts.

Susan Boynton, Lindsay Cook, Consuelo Dutschke, John Glasenapp OSB, Julia Hamilton, Velia Ivanova, Qingfan Jiang, and Russell O'Rourke contributed content. Andre Laboy configured and developed the site.

The site originated in 2015 as a project of Susan Boynton's graduate seminar on medieval liturgical manuscripts. The project was made possible by a grant from the Provost of Columbia University and the support of the Center for New Media Teaching and Learning.