Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.2003, Page 36

22
Michael Chesnutt
Latin manuscripts in the Royal Library (JørgCCL 218-19), contains two
quires of eight and one quire of six leaves in a modem binding. The
book measures ca. 13.8 x 9.3 cm and the text is written in double
columns. Frames for the latter are pre-ruled as far as f. 22r. BKB contains
collects and Matins lessons for the following saints: Dorothy, Ansgar
(apostle of Denmark), Sigfrid (apostle of Sweden), Lucius (patron of
Roskilde), Gertrude, Joseph, Botulph, and Knud Lavard, followed by an
unidentified rhymed office. The scribe has left his work unfinished at
the end of f. 21ra (ff. 21rb-21v are blank). The office, beginning on f.
18r, includes three psalms and three responds for each of three noctums
of Matins, but no collect or lessons, and would appear to have been
copied from a secular choir book.41 The preceding lessons (ff. 1-17) are
in groups of nine for each saint and accordingly also from a secular
source; it is an aberration when Gertz speculates that the lessons for St
Knud Lavard in BKB might have been used in the monastery at Ringsted
(VSD 446: “fieri posse arbitror, ut in ipsa ecclesia Ringstadiensi in festis
annuis adhibitæ sint”)-
In 1661 the manuscript was in the possession of a certain Petrus Cas-
tenus (the names of this man and other seventeenth-century owners are
on f. 22r; f. 22v is blank). Nothing definite is known about its prove-
nance, but Jørgensen identified it without reservation as the work of a
Danish scribe and the contents do not contradict that assumption. The
tiny format, like that of K, implies a notebook for personal reference.
After the collect and lessons for St Knud Lavard, which fill the whole of
ff. 15val-17vbl8, a picture of Jesus of Nazareth wearing the crown of
thoms has been drawn in red and black ink, partially covering lines
17vbl7-18 (the title “Ecce Homo” is written sideways and in red to the
left). Gertz and Jørgensen dated the writing to the fifteenth century; it
need not in faet be very mueh older than the Reformation.
The Knud Lavard extracts in BKB were printed in full by Gertz (VSD
41 It begins: Anima mea liquefacta est = Cant. 5:6c-e, followed by Euouae without neumes
(a series of psalm antiphons for First Vespers?) and R(esponsorium) Regnum uidi (incipit
only; a respond beginning with the same words concludes the third nocturn of Matins at f.
19val7-vb5). Thereafter: Ad Magnificat [antiphona] Accinxit fortitudine lumbos suos =
Prov. 31:17, Is. 34:10a-b; Matins invitatory Regem electorum Dominunr, rubric Jn primo
nocturno\ antiphons Ex ore infantium, Enarranl celi, and Portas vestras attollite with their
respective psalm incipits (Pss. 8, 18, and 23), the latter likewise followed by Euouae with-
out neumes.