Issues of Page Layout in Western MS 097

This exhibit explores peculiarities of page layout, or mise-en-page, in Western MS 097, a tiny Dominican gradual produced between 1276 and 1298 that likely belonged to a convent in Strasbourg by the fifteenth century. Decisions of page layout, both the initial choices made by the scribe and those made by later modifiers of the manuscript, can provide hints both to the context in which the manuscript was produced, and to the expectations that the people who made and owned the manuscript had for how and by whom the manuscript would be used. The highly unusual decisions of page layout made in Western MS 097, which are frequently spatially inefficient and often result from planning errors, may suggest that the manuscript was produced by an inexpert scribe. At the same time, the ambiguities in the sequence of the text that result from the unusual page layout of the manuscript suggest an expectation that users of the manuscript would have strong enough memory of the proper order of the liturgy to recite the correct chants in the correct sequence even when this order was not clearly conveyed by the arrangement of the text. Later owners of the manuscript may not always have been willing or able to meet this expectation; at at least one point, a later user modified the manuscript to make the ambiguous organization of the chants clearer. 

The exhibit focuses especially on issues of layout that occur in blocks of incipits. In order to save space, frequently repeated chants in liturgical manuscripts are generally not written out in full; only the initial words are copied, often without notation. These initial words are called incipits. Particular difficulties of layout occur when a large number of incipits for multiple different feasts are given at once, because the scribe must condense a large amount of information into a small space in a way that is simultaneously efficient and clear. Many of the most peculiar decisions of page layout in Western MS 097 occur in large blocks of incipits.

Each page of this exhibit explains a different issue of page layout in Western MS 097. Each issue is illustrated by examples from the manuscript, which are highlighted and annotated in order to explain the sequence in which the chants in the image were recited. Viewers of the exhibit who want a broad guide to the layout of the page can get this quickly through the color-coded highlights; the sequence of the feasts on each page follows the order of the colors of the rainbow in order to intuitively indicate the order in which each section was read. Viewers interested in a more detailed understanding can click on highlighted blocks in order to see more information about the feasts and chants it contains. For each issue, examples from Princeton MS 245, a Dominican gradual copied in northern France or the southern Low countries between 1253 and 1264 that has a much more conventional layout, are provided for comparison. Folios from Princeton MS 245 are color-coded and annotated in the same way as those from Western MS 097.

Bibliography and Further Reading on Page Layout in Liturgical Manuscripts

Bell, Nicolas. “Liturgical Books.” In The European Book in the Twelfth Century, edited by Erik Kwakkel and Rodney Thomson, 175–91. Cambridge University Press, 2018. Cyrus, Cynthia J. “The Margin Is the Message The Changeable Mise-En-Page as Signal of Musicking in Nuns’ Liturgical Books in Late Medieval Freiburg Im Breisgau.” In Uncovering Music of Early European Women (1250-1750), edited by Claire Anne Fontijn, 20–44. Routledge Studies in Musical Genres. New York: Routledge, 2020.

Cyrus, Cynthia J. “The Margin Is the Message: The Changeable Mise-En-Page as Signal of Musicking in Nuns’ Liturgical Books in Late Medieval Freiburg Im Breisgau.” In Uncovering Music of Early European Women (1250-1750), edited by Claire Anne Fontijn, 20–44. Routledge Studies in Musical Genres. New York: Routledge, 2020.

Hughes, Andrew. Medieval Manuscripts for Mass and Office: A Guide to Their Organization and Terminology. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.

O’Rourke, Russell, Susan Boynton, Claire Dwyer, and Alina Shubina. “How to Date and Place a Medieval Manuscript.” Liturgical Manuscripts, 2021. https://liturgicalmanuscripts.sandbox.library.columbia.edu/exhibits/show/date-place-medieval-manuscript.