Add MS 4730-4732

This three-volume antiphoner was probably created between 1471 and 1484, as suggested by an inscription referring to Pope Sixtus IV (Add MS 4732, f. 154v). The texts are accompanied by music in black notation on a four-line stave; many erasures and alterations have been made in a later hand. There are numerous decorated initials, some in black and yellow, with coloured ornament (mainly in the form of grotesque heads) and others in blue on a square gold ground with red, blue and green ivy-leaves; and some borders with scroll work. With one exception (Add MS 4730, f. 57) the miniatures accompanying the text have been cut out.

There is an inscription on f. 1v of Add MS 4730, stating: ‘Three volumes of old church music, in folio, written upon vellum, brought from the Monastery of Guildo in Britany in the year 1758 presented from Col. Desaguliers by the hands of Lord Charles Spencer’. The inscription states that it was copied from the Register of all the Benefactors of the British Museum with the names of the Benefactors in the order of time, on 21 June 1777, and verified by ‘HG’. There is also another inscription in an 18th-century hand on the facing leaf, f. 2r: ‘Officium de tempore. A Paschale usque ad Adventum secundum usum Eccl. Monast. Guildo Britanny. Vol. 1. Donum Col. Desaguliers Mus. Brit. June 29 1765’. The Catalogue of Additions interprets this ‘Monastery of Guildo’ as St Gildas de Rhuys, dioc. of Vannes; it may alternatively refer to the monastery of Saint Jacut near the village of Le Guildo.