Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.2003, Page 28

14
Michael Chesnutt
musician, most likely the cantor at some ecclesiastical foundation large
enough to support a professional choir - perhaps Roskilde Cathedral,
the principal diocesan seat west of the Øresund.25
In order to understand the modus operandi of the scribe of K it is ne-
cessary to define the class of text he wanted to produce. The liturgy as
exhibited in art. 1 is not in faet an ordinal, as it is commonly called,26 but
a kind of plenarium, a complete text with chant set out in the chronolo-
gical order of service as in modern printed books such as the Liber Usu-
alis. This is a mode of presentation that presupposes the shortening of
the old scheme of scriptural lessons and makes its first appearance to-
wards the year 1200.27 Before that time the full texts and music of the
liturgy were only kept in separate books appropriate to the role of the as-
sistant at the funetion: in the case of the Divine Office a Gospel book
and a book of collects for the celebrant, a book of lessons for the leetors,
and a book or books of antiphons, hymns, and responds for the skilied
singers or schola, all coordinated for practical use by the instructions
found in the ordinal.
There is visible evidence that the scribe of K compiled art. 1 from a
set of such functionally limited books (for the following exposition see
Plates 1-2). At f. 37vl4 the last lesson of Matins of the Translation feast
ends with the words per omnia secula seculorum amen (edition line
858). The conclusion of Matins and the whole of Lauds are then passed
over in silence, the rest of the line being filled with the rubric Ad primam
A(ntiphona). On line 37vl5 are written the antiphon cue for Prime Jam
lucis, the rubric Ad terciam with the antiphon cue Nunc sanete nobis,
and finally the rubric Capitulum referring to the chapter Beatus uir qui
inuentus, which begins with an enlarged initial on line 37vl6. The rubric
at the end of line 37vl4 and 37vl5 as far as nobis are inserted in
25 The role of cathedral scriptoria in Danish book production of this period is emphasised
in Lauritz Nielsen, Danmarks middelalderlige Haandskrifter. En sammenfattende bog-
historisk Oversigt, Copenhagen 1937, 74. The presence in K of the Roskilde Chronicle
alongside the liturgy of Knud Lavard suggested to Gertz - again followed by Nielsen and
Kroman - that the origin of the book should be looked for either in Roskilde or at the
Benedictine monastery in Ringsted where the saint was buried (VSD 177; Nielsen loc. cit.;
CSRD xiv; see also below, p. 17 with n. 32). The chronicle may, however, have been
copied in Lund, cf. Kristensen (n. 53) 41.
26 Cf. n. 17 above.
27 Suitbert Baumer o.s.B., Geschichte des Breviers [...], Freiburg/Br. 1895 [GB], 337.