The Leiria Fragments: Vestiges of Fifteenth-Century Northern Polyphony in Portugal

Abstract

In the Biblioteca Pública e Arquivo Distrital de Leiria are preserved numerous Portuguese documents whose bindings consist of parchment folios from liturgical chant books dating from the mediaeval period through to the 18th century. Among these is an isolated fragment with polyphony containing parts of two three-voice Graduals and a simple setting of Asperges me. The precise origin of the majority of these musical fragments is not entirely certain at present. Judging from the presentation and musical style of the polyphonic fragment, which is analogous with music in the Trent codices, these Graduals are highly suggestive of origin in the compositional circuit of the Burgundian court during the middle decades of the 15th century.