Full Transcription and Translation

The following transcription and translation is a page-by-page reconstruction of the Clarissan death ritual in Plimpton MS 034. Many of the chants, as well as some of the prayers, are present only as incipits. In the trancription and translation, these incipits have been expanded to full texts. Text that is not written out in the manuscript is placed in square brackets. This approach is modeled after Frederick S. Paxton's reconstruction of  a similar ritual from the monastic community of Cluny. His edition and translation is The Death Ritual at Cluny in the Central Middle Ages (Turnhout : Brepols, 2013).

Translations of the rubrics are by Velia Ivanova with the help of Susan Boynton and Consuelo Dutschke. The psalm translations as well as all biblical texts are from the Douay-Rheims Bible (see a public-domain version here). The translations of the prayers have been adapted from Frederick S. Paxton's The Death Ritual at Cluny.