A Notated Graduale-Prosarium from Sens in Lisbon

Abstract

Little was known about the history of P-Ln Iluminado 84, a fully notated Gradual with integrated sequences. Manuel Pedro Ferreira first proposed Sens as the point of origin for the manuscript, but nothing was published to substantiate this informal proposition. In this article I discuss the contents of Iluminado 84 and test the hypothesis of its origin in Sens for the first time.

By means of a close examination of the codicology of the manuscript and its liturgical contents, it is possible securely to identify its origins in the archdiocese of Sens and demonstrate that the manuscript consists of two codicological units. The first copied from a model dated after 1240s (but not much later than 1264) and the second unit copied from a model dated after 1297. Analysis of the set of sequences and their comparison with coeval manuscripts demonstrates that P-Ln Iluminado 84 can be considered to be the oldest surviving manuscript to transmit some of the earlier sequences from Sens fully notated. Finally, some later-hand inscriptions reveal important details about the later history of the manuscript, proving that it was in the hospital of Joigny (near Sens) at the end of the seventeenth century.