Add MS 29704, 29705, 44892

Paper and vellum; ff. 212 (3 vols. in continuous foliation, in which are mounted 1588 vellum fragments). Measurements of the reconstructed MS. are 710 mm. x 540 mm. (original size apparently 639 mm. x 425 mm.). Last decade of XIV cent. (see below). Gatherings were of eight leaves, except for the Calendar, which formed a separate quire of six leaves, and the Prefaces and Canon, whose collation cannot be determined. Apart from the Calendar and the Prefaces and Canon, now placed between quires ix and x, the collation of the reconstructed Missal is i-xxv⁸ (i lacks 1, 2; ix lacks 8, xxi lacks 7, xxii lacks 4). Written in a late 14th-cent. bookhand, the hand of the Prefaces and the Canon differing from the rest. Two columns of 29 lines to each page, except for the Prefaces and the Canon which have columns Of 27 lines. Some musical notation. Rubrics usually in red. Titles and the beginnings of introits of important masses in red or blue. Some important words in decorative letters of gold or colours. The only other known English Carmelite Missal is Oxford, University College, MS. 9 (see W. Frere, Bibliotheca Musico- Liturgica, i, 1901, p. 146, no. 476). The reconstructed Missal contains 52 historiated initials; 193 decorative initials, either painted in colours on a burnished gold ground or in gold on a coloured ground; many smaller decorated initials; marginal decorations and figures; and line endings. The historiated initials (described in detail in The Reconstructed Carmelite Missal, pp. 99-115) are of varying sizes, from the equivalent Of 3 to 6 lines of text in depth.

1. Holy Saturday (the celebration of. mass), f. 6 b.

2. Easter, f. 7 b.

3. The Ascension, f. 21b.

4. Pentecost, f. 27b.

5. Trinity Sunday, f. 36b.

6. Corpus Christi, f. 38.

7. The Dedication of the Church f. 68b.

8. The Conversion of St Paul, f. 90., 9. The Purification, f. 93.

10. The Annunciation, f. 99.

11. St Richard Wych, f. 100.

12. St Ambrose, f. 100b.

13. St Sixtus I, f. 100b.

14. The Nativity of St John Baptist, f. 113.

15. The Translation and Ordinatin of St Martin, f. ii 8.

16. The Octave of St Peter and St Paul, f. 118b.

17. St Lawrence, f. 130.

18. St Hippolytus, f. 131.

19. The Vigil of the Assumption, f. 131.

20. The Assumption, f. 132b.

21. The Octave of St Lawrence, f. 133b.

22. St Louis, k.c., f. 135b.

23. St Augustine of Hippo, f. 136b.

24. The Decollation of St John Baptist, f. 136b.

25. St Giles, f. 138.

26. The Nativity of the Virgin, f. 138b.

27. The Exaltation of the Cross, f. 140.

28. St Maurice and his companion f. 143b.

29. St Cleophas, f. 143b.

30. All Saints, f. 152b 31. St Martin, f. 159.

32. St Brice, f. 159b.

33. St Edmund Rich, f. 160.

34. St Edmund, k.m., f. 160b.

35. St Cecilia, f. 160b.

36. St Clement, f. 161.

37. St Chrysogonus, f. 161.

38. St Catherine of Alexandria, f. 161b.

39. St Saturninus, f. 162.

40. St Linus, f. 162.

41. The Vigil of St Andrew, f. 162.

42. St Andrew, f. 163.

43. St Eligius, f. 164.

44. St Barbara, f. 164.

45. St Nicholas, f. 164b 46. The Octave of St Andrew, f. 165.

47. The Conception of the Virgin, f. 165.

48. St Lucy, f. 166.

49. St Lazarus, f. 166.

50. A Matron, f. 192.

51. Many Virgins, f. 193.

52. Votive Mass of the Trinity, f. 193b.

The three miniatures of the Trinity (ff. 36b, 152b, 193b) are all of iconographical interest. That on f. 36b is combined with a baptism scene. The rite appears to be that of Sarum, with the infant being immersed face downwards (see Manuale ad usum percelebriis Ecclesiae Sarisburiensis, ed. A. J. Collins, Henry Bradshaw Society, vol. xci, 1960, p. 36). The Trinity is of the socalled Gnadenstuhl type, but omits any representation of the Spirit, probably implying such representation in the baptismal water into which Christ's Cross reaches. f. 152b is an apparently unique representation of a Gnadenstuhl Trinity crowning the Virgin. f. 193b gives special prominence to the Virgin, the patron of the Carmelites, as intermediary between God and man. The iconography of the miniature of the celebration of mass on Corpus Christi (f. 38), with figures of Carmelite friars and two white dogs, has been connected with the Wycliffite controversy on transubstantiation Of 1382 (see Reconstructed Carmelite Missal, pp. 49, 50). Other figures of Carmelite friars are ff. 6b, 99, 113, 130, 136b. On ff. 132b, 193b appear kneeling figures of a man and woman, who may be the donors of the Missal. On f. 193b the man is accompanied by St Catherine of Alexandria, the woman by St Margaret of Antioch. The miniatures fall into three stylistic groups, viz.:- A, those on ff. 6b, 68b, 90, 93, 135b, 138, 138b, 140, 152b, 159, 159b, 160, 160b, 161, 161b, 162, 163, 164, 164b, 165 and 166; B, those on ff. 7b, 21b, 27b, 36b and 38; and C, those on ff. 99, 100, 100b, 113, 118, 118b, 130, 131, 132b, 133b, 136b, 143b, 192, 193 and 193b. The features characteristic of the three groups are as follows:-

(1) Group A. The miniatures of this group are more realistic in style than those in the other groups. Particular attention is given to rendering threedimensional space and the expressions of figures. Backgrounds are of gold with arabesques and diaper patterns, diapered gold and colour, and colour with gilt vine patterns. Colouring is rich and draperies fully modelled with shading and folds. Flesh has greenish or brown undertones, white highlights, pink on cheeks and touches of red on nostrils, lips and chin. Irises are very marked, and attempts have been made to represent the foreshortening of the far side of the face.

(2) Group B. The style of group B is more plastic than that of C, but remains decorational rather than representational. Backgrounds are of burnished gold with arabesque patterns. Colouring is paler than in group C, draperies are fuller, and there is much use of white, both mixed with other colours and as overpainting. Faces are modelled in white and pink, with greenish shadows and a characteristic pink spot between the eves, with the irises emphasised. Foreheads are broad, but the lower parts of faces narrow. Features are noticeably pointed.

(3) Group C. The technique of this group is linear and rather flat. Backgrounds are patterned gold, diapered gold and colour, solid colour with gilt vine pattern, and solid colour with diaper or vine pattern in a deeper shade. Colouring is strong in tone, and the principal colours used are two shades of blue (dark ultramarine and a lighter cobalt) and two of red (a dull soft red and a crimson). Draperies hang fairly straight. Flesh is modelled in a light shade of brown with white highlights and overpainting. Pupils seem to be attached to the upper eyelid and are usually in one corner of the eye; hands are ungainly with long fingers. The miniatures on ff. 130, 131, 132b, 136b and 143b are better in design and execution than the others of the same group, which seems to be the work of two artists. Like the historiated initials, the border decoration which accompanies them can be divided into three groups and seems in part at least to have been painted by the miniaturists themselves. The borders in group C are chiefly in reds, pink and blue, and use such motifs as small gold balls, kites, strapwork and interlace, and hair-line flourishes. Those in group B use a balanced arrangement of foliate motifs, chiefly trefoils, and thick coloured stems bearing ivy-leaves, etc., in gold or colour. The larger decorative initials in the Missal, measuring 3 to 5 lines in depth, although similar in design and colouring, have distinct differences in details which make them evidently the work of more than one illuminator. Of the smaller decorative initials, many are pen-drawn, incorporating small scenes, whose subjects include gospel and apocalypse pictures, and Carmelites.

In dating the Missal, two kinds of evidence call for consideration, viz.:-

(1) Textual. The Missal does not appear to have contained the feasts of the Visitation, the Purification, and Our Lady of the Snows. B. Zimmerman, Ordinaire de l'ordre de Noire-Dame du Mont Carmel (U. Chevalier, Bibliothèque Liturgique, xiii), Paris, 1910, p. xx, and V. Leroquais, Les Bréviaires manuscrits, tom. i, p. cxi, state that these feasts were introduced into the Carmelite rite by a general chapter of 1391, which led Miss Rickert to suggest that the writing of the Missal was concluded at or before that date. In fact, however, the date of the general chapter was not 1391 but 1393 (see G. Wessels, Acta Capitulorum Generalium Ordinis Fratrum B.V. Mariae de Monte Carmelo, i, Rome, 1912, pp. 109, 110). The exact date of the introduction of the Solemn Commemoration of the Virgin (f. 120) into the Carmelite rite is not known, but is assumed to have been before 1386 (see A. M. Forcadell, Commemoratio Solemnis Beatae Mariae Virginis de Monte Carmelo, Bibliotheca Sacri Scapularis, ii, Rome, 1951, esp. pp. 64-67). This gives as the probable date for composition 1386-1393. (2) Stylistic. Miss Rickert, assuming that all three groups of illuminations of the Missal were of approximately the same date and that the crucifixion miniatures in a missal dated 1398 and given to the parish church of Lapworth, Warwickshire (Oxford, Corpus Christi College MS. 394; see The Reconstructed Carmelite Missal, pl. L, and Europäische Kunst um 1400, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 1962, p. 189, no. 145) show a dependence on, and a development from, style A of the reconstructed Missal, dated the latter to before 1398. C.L. Kuhn, 'Herman Scheere and English Illumination in the Early Fifteenth Century', The Art Bulletin, Providence, New York, xxii, 1940, pp. 152, 153, considered that while group C was contemporary with the text of the Missal, groups B and A were painted about 1400. Professor E. Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting, Cambridge, Mass., 1953, i, p. 115, thought group A would have been impossible in England or on the Continent before the first decade of the 15th cent. With regard to group C, there is no doubt that it belongs to the late 14th cent. It is in the tradition of English illumination of this date, best exemplified by the Lytlington Missal, executed between 1383 and 1384 at Westminster Abbey, where it remains (see Painting in Britain, pl. 154; Europäische Kunst um 1400, p. 188, no. 144). The illumination closest to group C is in a psalter made for Eleanor de Bohun, Duchess of Gloucester (d. 1399), now Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, MS. Adv. 18. 6. 5 (see Reconstructed Carmelite Missal, pl. XLII), and the first four quires of B.M. Add. MS. 16968 (ibid., pl. XLIb). The artist of the Additional MS. had apparently earlier worked on the Reconstructed Missal, as the less accomplished artist of C. Miss Rickert relates style B to the Liber Regalis at Westminster Abbey, executed about 1382 in a style which has Bohemian affinities, and to Oxford, Trinity College, MS. 8, dating from before 1388, and Cambridge, St John's College, MS. A. 7, dated from its contents after 1387 (Reconstructed Carmelite Missal, pp. 76-80, pl. XLIV, XLVa, b; Painting in Britain, pp. 173- 174, pl. 155). Style B may therefore safely be assigned to the last decade of the 14th cent. Finally Miss Rickert's view that the style of the Lapworth crucifixion of 1398 derives from style A of the Missal is supported by the following consideration. The main artist of style A was probably Dutch (Kuhn thinks him Flemish: a second artist apparently worked on f. 135b and a third on f. 166) and there are strong resemblances between his style and that of certain illuminations in two Dutch MSS. of the late 14th cent., viz. ff. 15b, 26 and 122 in the so-called Gelder Wapengedichten en Wapenboek, Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale MS. 15652-15656, and ff. 101 and 130 in a copy of the Rijmbijbel of Jacob van Maerlant, in Amsterdam, Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschapen, MS. XVIII (Reconstructed Carmelite Missal, pp. 80-90, pl. XLVI a, b, c, XLVII, XLVIII). Another miniature also related to style A is in a German translation of Durandus' Rationale, in Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, MS. 2765, f. 1, probably painted after 1384 (ibid., pl. XLIX). A strong case therefore exists for assigning style A, like B and C, to the last decade of the 14th cent. This in turn, when related to the evidence provided by the text, makes it probable that the whole work was written and illuminated before 1398.