Antiphonary

Source of title - Supplied title

Quantity: 1 volume(s) (280 pages).

Physical Description: Paper, 190 leaves (one blank), plus one contemporary leaf, bound; 213 x 146mm. Single column, six lines each of text and of music, ruled in faint plummet, written space 152 x 98mm, written in dark-brown ink by three main scribes (changing after ff.115 and 162, corresponding with changes of runs of signatures above) in a gothic liturgical hand, music in Hufnagelschrift neumes on a 4-line black stave, flyleaf and ff.91v-92 in a slightly later hand, rubrics in red, some liturgical directions underlined in red; capitals touched in red, some capitals in red.

Finding Aids: Manion, M.M. Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in New Zealand collections, no.137; Taylor, D.M. The oldest manuscripts in New Zealand, no.27.

Alexandra Barratt and Alexandra Gillespie, Early bindings on medieval manuscripts in New Zealand libraries, Script and Print v.37 no.4 (2013), pp195-219..

Provenance: Executed in the Netherlands in the second half of the 15th century. Written for the Augustinian abbey of the Sisters of the Common Life at Amersfoort; inside the upper cover of the binding is the contemporary ownership inscription 'Liber co[n]vent[us] s[anc]ti monaliu[m] s[anc]te Agathe v[ir]gi[ni]s Am[er]sfor.e'. On the first leaf is a cutting from an English bookseller's catalogue. Acquired by Albert Clemas and later sold by him to the British and Foreign Bible Society of New Zealand in 1933.

There are at least 11 different watermarks and variants in the book, including versions of Briquet 3625 (1480), 6112-6113 (similar types all later 15th century), 8623 (1484), 8655-8682 (all later 15th century), 9182 (1467), 12478 (1481), and 14187-14213 (all later 15th century).