Complex Multi-Column Format (Part 1)

With longer blocks of rubrics, the scribe of Western MS 097 employed more complex layouts, such as the combination of long-line and multi-column formats employed on fol. 206v (seen below). The first three lines of the block (containing incipits for the feast of Saint Nicholas and the beginning of the rubric for the introit of the feast of Saint Lucy) are written in long-line format, filling in the space left after the end of communion for the feast of Saint Andrew. However, the following four lines are divided into two columns, one for the feast of Saint Lucy and the other for the introit, gradual, alleluia, and offertory for the feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle. Below the columns the text proceeds with the communion for the feast of Saint Thomas, written out fully and notated, in a long-line format. 

Evidence of planning issues in the multi-column section of this folio is apparent. The scribe had initially drawn a vertical line dividing the column lines neatly in half; however, the incipit for the communion of the feast of Saint Lucy ended up requiring more space than planned, and cut into the second column. The scribe corrected this issue by redrawing the line dividing the columns to curve around this incipit. This correction occurred before the manuscript was rubricated; only the modified dividing line appears in red. (The rubricator made a mistake in the rubric for the offertory of the feast of Saint Thomas. It reads “coff,” with a suspension mark over the “o,” as if the rubricator began to write “communion” before correcting course. This does not impact the layout of the chants, however).

The layout of this section is further complicated by the addition in the margin of incipits for the feast of Saint Attala (a local saint of Strasbourg) and a rubric for the feast of the Conception of Mary, which were likely added to the manuscript in the fifteenth century, and which are written in long-line format. With these additions, users of the manuscript must switch repeatedly both between text and margin and between center and margin and between long-line and column layouts. While the insertion of additional feasts in the margin of a gradual is not unusual, the difficulty of the user in navigating between the original text and the marginal additions is increased by the already complex format of the main block of text.

The parallel section of Princeton MS 245, fol. 123v, maintains a long-line format throughout. Incipits for the feast of Saint Nicholas fill the space after the end of communion for the feast of Saint Andrew, from which it is separated by a vertical line. The following line is filled entirely with Incipits for the feast of Saint Lucy, which continues onto the next line and proceeds immediately into incipits for the feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle. A considerable amount of space is left blank between the incipit for the offertory of the feast of Saint Thomas and the communion for that feast, which is written out fully. Here, too, the layout is complicated by marginal additions (in this case incipits for the feasts of Saints Barbara and Ambrose).