Disambiguation by the Initial Scribe

The initial scribe and rubricator of Western MS 097 seem to have recognized that the layout they used for blocks of incipits could sometimes make it unclear which chants belonged to which feasts, and made efforts to visually distinguish feasts from one another. As seen in the previous four examples of multi-column layout, they used vertical lines to divide columns from one another. In the example below, from fol. 232r, horizontal red lines also divide most of the feasts from the feasts above and below them.

In this case, such dividing lines do not entirely resolve either the boundaries between the feasts or the order of the feasts. The block begins with incipits for the feast of the Crown of Thorns, which are written in a long-line format. It then switches to a two-column format, with the feast of John before the Latin Gate on the left and the beginning of the feast of Saints Gordianus and Epimachus on the right. The left column continues with the offertory and communion of the feast of Saints Gordianus and Epimachus immediately below the feast of John before the Latin Gate, from which these chants are divided by a red horizontal line. They are also divided from the right column, which continues with the introit for the feast of Saints Nereus, Achilleus, and Pancratius, by a red vertical line. However, it is not clearly divided from the text immediately below it, which is an incomplete rubric for the feast of Saints Nereus, Achilleus, and Pancratius. A user uncertain which chants were recited on which of these feasts might reasonably conclude that these two chants belong to the feast of Saints Nereus, Achilleus, and Pancratius.

In the parallel section of Princeton MS 245, fol. 136v, neither horizontal nor vertical lines divide feasts or chants from one another. The already unambiguous long-line format of the blocks of incipits in this manuscript makes these methods of clarification unnecessary.