(Melbourne, State Library of Victoria *096 1/R66A)

From the outside this manuscript reminds one of a medieval shield (Fig. 5). It is protected by covers of heavy, thick calf to which brass bosses are affixed in a quincunx pattern both front and back. Matching brass corner-pieces engraved with fleurs-de-lys complete the protection. Except for the loss of both clasps and one of its straps, the old, though not original, binding has survived in extremely good condition.1 Later, in the seventeenth century, the spine was decorated in a gilt floral design rather at odds with the general fortified aspect, and labelled in antiquarian fashion “Ancien plein chant / du 14e siecle // beau manuscrit/ à miniatures / sur peau velin”.2

This title describes it well, for the covers protect a manuscript of liturgical chant, words and music written on fine vellum in Paris between 1335 and 1345,3 in which twenty-three selected feasts are honoured with an illustration. It is a luxury production, certainly, but who had it made and where was it used?

The liturgy is that used by the Dominican Order to celebrate Divine Office. This was sung at the eight canonical hours into which the medieval day was ordered, beginning with the long combined service of Matins-Lauds at midnight or 2 am (the “night hours”) and ending with Compline, for the Dominicans the richest and most solemn of the “day hours”4 Feasts of the Dominican saints Dominic, Peter Martyr and Thomas Aquinas are included, and their Offices illustrated, as is that of the canonised French king, St Louis. In their recent catalogue Manion and Vines argue that the antiphonary was probably made for the richly endowed Dominican monastery at Poissy, on the basis of the strong resemblance to other manuscripts produced there for the nuns at that period.5 We can now be certain of this. A later addition, on folio 424, is an antiphon for SS Sebastian and Yves. This is not a normal liturgical item. Sebastian was an early martyr whose death was commemorated throughout the Dominican Order. Yves, on the other hand, was a recently canonised Breton lawyer who had defended the poor; his feast on 19 May was not normally a Dominican celebration and other manuscripts indicate that it was not celebrated at Poissy. Why are the two invoked together here? Processionals from the monastery make the answer clear. The church housed a large number of altars, and at some period a new altar dedicated to Sebastian and Yves, no doubt associated with a valuable relic of each of the pair, was added to the original nineteen.6 The antiphon, appended in a convenient space at the back of the book, was that sung before the new altar at Poissy during the Maundy Thursday processional ceremony of cleansing the altars.7

The monastery at Poissy. located on the Seine six leagues or half a day's ride to the north-west of Paris, was founded by the French king Philippe IV (le Bel) to commemorate the recent canonisation of his grandfather King Louis IX, St Louis. Work began in 1298, and in 1304 the founding Dominican nuns entered.8 But the church was not yet complete, a small chapel dedicated to St Dominic was used for services in the interim.9 Philippe le Bel died in 1314, and the reign of his first son was extremely short. Not until the second and third sons (Philippe V and Charles IV) were crowned do the royal treasury accounts show further spending on the building project at Poissy.10 Between 1321 and 1325 Dominican friars, including the king's confessors, were in charge of progress,11 from which one might infer that at last the interior of the church was being furnished with the grill and choir fittings appropriate for the use of nuns of the Order.12 Eventually, on 12 February 1331 (n.s.) the church was consecrated, and solemnly dedicated to St Louis by two archbishops and twenty-two bishops in a magnificent ceremony attended by King Philippe le Valois and the royal court.13

After this occasion the nuns were left to fulfil their daily duties as choir sisters in the new building. Their choir was situated in the nave of the cathedral-sized church14 for which Philippe le Bel had envisaged an original complement of 120 nuns eventually increasing to 200.15 A seventeenth-century plan provides our best knowledge (see Diagram 1). In the plan two ranks of stalls on either side of the central nave, possibly the original furniture, are designed to hold around 150 nuns.16 This is the auditorium for which our manuscript was made, perhaps in response to new requirements imposed by the large space. An earlier Antiphonary from the beginning of the house also survives (London, British Library, Add. ms. 30, 072); it is another finely made, illustrated manuscript, and its continued use is indicated by later additions. It contains only the Offices for winter and no doubt had a companion summer volume, whereas our manuscript serves for the whole year. So at least two Antiphonaries were available for use by the nuns. But which nuns, and for what purpose?

Antiphonaries are not common books. They contain only the sung parts of the Office, written and noted in full, each line of text placed under the accompanying music. Spoken texts such as prayers and lessons, and instructions concerning the conduct of the liturgy are absent. The book was used by the cantrix who led the chant. The rest of the choir followed the verbal cues to the sung items in their unnoted Breviaries which at Poissy were shared between two nuns.17 They took the tone from the cantrix's introductory words which she sang solo from the Antiphonary.18 But the choir was divided into two, and much of the liturgy was sung responsorially, the choir on the left responding to the verse or section intoned by the choir on the right. So a succentrix, called at Poissy the second chantress, led the left choir while the cantrix led the choir on the right. The concern of the cantrix, and her assistant, was to ensure that the Office was correct. Charged with knowing the whole of the Office by heart and familiar with the ritual herself, she was to make sure that the nuns could intone the Office in the proper Dominican fashion with distinct pauses, teach them any new liturgical items and encourage their singing as well as leading it. Her place in the choir was not necessarily constant for, depending on the Office, she might choose to stand anywhere in the upper or lower ranges of the right or the left stalls.19 During the more musically complex higher grades of feast, though she should elect to start each item from the centre of the choir, if encouragement were needed she might hurry about (“discurrere”) in front of the sisters to stimulate them to better singing. She should also wake up sleepy nuns at Matins and get them singing.20 Such duties in the choir meant that her own book might find itself anywhere in the choirstalls. It might be expected therefore that it be transportable by herself and protected against heavy use. Our manuscript fulfils these criteria. It is just within the modern A4 size (285 × 200 mm.) and although bulky (80 mm. across the pages) and somewhat heavy it can be carried without difficulty, unlike extremely large choirbooks for use at a lectern by a group of religious, which were frequently protected by similar heavy bossed covers.21 The fine vellum pages are in excellent condition.

We do not know the cantrix for whom this manuscript was made. From later accounts, however, it appears that the one nun might hold this position for a considerable period, in one case for forty years.22 The cantrix also held responsibility for the upkeep of the books used in the choir, including her own: to ensure they were correct and up-to-date and to have them ready when and where they would be required. The fine ones, like this, were supposed to be kept well-protected, replaced in chemises and covers when not in use and tied together; careless users were to be reprimanded.23 The books were inspected periodically by a “visitation” from the Provincial General of the Order and certified correct against a standard exemplar transported from house to house by this body.24 Dominican concern that books of the liturgy should be consistent throughout the Order is heralded in the instructions for writing and correcting the manuscript. The Antiphonary from Poissy follows the Dominican exemplar from the mid-1250s, written and held at St Jacques in Paris, in including these instructions which are after a treatise on the tonary common to Jerome of Moravia's De Musica:25

Our manuscript complies with these instructions for production, clearly written in a large Gothic liturgical hand, the four-line staves carefully ruled in red and noted with black squares, observing the proper placement and pausal punctuation, including the preview of the first note on the next line. It was later corrected, though only the winter section, and inscribed on the back pastedown “Correct pour la saison diver” [d'hiver].

This then was enough to make a functional book. Decoration and illustration were not essential beyond a minimal hierarchy of larger and smaller initial letters for different items and feasts, sufficiently conspicuous to indicate the beginning of various parts of the Office. But our manuscript has more. For selected feasts the scribe has not written a capital letter but left a square space the height of two musical staves plus text (around 40 mm. square) for later painted decoration and illustration. All other items, however, were embellished by the scribe himself. A descending hierarchy of initials begins with letters one stave high alternately gold and blue, pen-flourished in blue or red, which consistently point out the first responsory of Matins in unillustrated feasts and the first antiphon for Vespers, and introduce each new item in the hymnal section of the manuscript.27 When the music and script had been copied from the corrected exemplar, the parchment sheets folded into gatherings of eight leaves were forwarded to the illuminator to paint the decoration and illustration.

One illustrator did all the work. His figures accord with a style in Paris which was influenced by and associated with the illustrator Jean Pucelle, who worked on expensive and regal commissions up until the 1330s.28 The proportions of the wide-eyed figures are still elegant, though less elongated than formerly; the protagonists are often engaged in busy activity and earnestly regard each other. But this painter has responded in a more limited degree to Pucelle's depth, either of space or figural form, and hardly at all to the master's imagination or variation. On the contrary, figures and complete compositions are repeated without demur. Twice the Annunciation is used, firstly for the start of the book, the 1st Sunday in Advent on folio 4v (Plate 16), then later for the feast of the Annunciation on folio 249 (Plate 17). The simple scene of the angel kneeling with a scroll “Ave Maria” before the standing Virgin who carries a book is allowed a slight variation by alternating two very common gestures in the artist's repertory. Either an arm raised from the waist with palm upwards or held horizontally across the body serves to express the Virgin's receipt of the message. The two gestures are again contrasted in the illustration for Pentecost in which the two foremost figures, the only ones shown in full, respond to the descent of the Holy Ghost, just as the Virgin responds to her messenger, each disciple also holding a book in his other hand (Plate 18). The disciple who stands on the right beneath the just-visible feet of Christ entering a heavenly cloud in the Ascension tells more of how the artist manipulates his limited repertoire (Plate 19). In a composition closely related to that of Pentecost — the disciples standing rather than seated on either side of the focus of the event — this figure not only displays the same gesture, but his physiognomy, the inclination of his head, and his engagement with his opposite are common to both depictions. He also shares aspects with the Annunciate Virgins. His stance is exactly hers, his backward sway brought to a halt and given balance by the book he carries right at the side of his body; similarly his grey tunic and cloak of deep red, its vermilion lining forming a band of contrast beneath his gesturing arm, is the same as the apparel worn by the Virgin of folio 249 (Plate 17). Christ's withdrawal from the kneeling Mary Magdalen in the depiction “Noli me tangere” is likewise a minimal variation on the Annunciation theme.29

The two gestures again recur in the imagery of the Dormition of the Virgin which illustrates the Feast of the Assumption. Here Christ stands behind the Virgin who lies in bed, holding up his palm as he takes her soul in his other arm. The disciple beside him holds his arm across his chest. The dead Virgin herself differs little from the new mothers in the birth scenes of Christ, of the Virgin (Plate 15), or of John the Baptist (Fig. 6). All recline against a white pillow across the face of the picture plane, placed horizontally or on the slightest diagonal, while each scene's variations are added before or behind. One depiction, though, is incorrect. Essential to the iconography of the Birth of John the Baptist at this period is his old father Zachariah, who has lost his voice through a not unreasonable doubt that his wife's pregnancy was a gift of God. He must name the son, and should appear writing the name on a tablet. But this feast is illustrated with exactly the same imagery, using the same colour scheme, as the Birth of the Virgin (Plate 15): a maid bathes a naked child before a curtain hanging from a rail near the foot of the bed (Fig. 6). It seems the artist must have lacked a more specific pattern since it is unlikely that he could have misread the rubric “Sancti Iohannis Baptiste”, which makes no mention of birth at all, for that of the Nativity of the Virgin.

The artist was, indeed, a master of economic composition. He drew and painted swiftly and efficiently in a strong rhythmic style achieved with what appears to be little effort for great effect, a highly successful working technique which was the norm for the small Parisian ateliers of the period.30 His narrow corpus of standardised gestures, figure stances and facial types was extended by other stock Parisian patterns, such as the Adoration of the Magi (fol. 287) and a generalised transfer of a reliquary for the Translation of St Dominic (fol. 266v),31 all brought to a forward plane against coloured geometric backgrounds and overlapping the initial.

Like his figures and compositions, his palette is also limited, confined to predominantly strong colours — rich blue, deep purply-red, vermilion, grey, black, brown and gold — which he uses contrasted strongly against each other and against a light blue and pale mauve. Since his pictures are essentially confined to a minimal number of simple human forms who repeatedly confront each other in similar ways, his imposition on the drapery of a limited but strongly contrasting colour range results in a simple, richly satisfying rhythm. The blue of the tunic of the disciple on the left of the Pentecost illustration (Plate 18), for instance, is repeated in the cloak of the figure on the right, while the mauve outer cloak covering his knees is given a lesser repetition in the lining of the right-hand figure's cloak; the vermilion lining of his own cloak is carried through the picture in the robes of the just-visible figures at the sides.

Table 1. Comparison of decorative-illustrative programmes in Poissy and Dominican archetypal Antiphonaries

	Dominican Archetype		Poissy Antiphonies
	1254	1256	BL Add 30, 072 ca 1300	Melbourne, SLV ca 1335–45
TEMPORAL
1ST SUNDAY OF ADVENT	/	F	/	Annunciation
Nativity of the Lord	/	F	/	Nativity
Epiphany	D	F	/	Adoration of Magi
Easter Sunday	D	F	Resurrection	Resurrection
Ascension		F	D	Ascension
Pentecost		F	Pentecost	Pentecost
Holy Trinity	D	F	D	D
SANCTORAL
ANDREW		F	/	Martyrdom on cross
Stephen		F	/	D
John the Evangelist		F	/	D
Purification of Virgin	D	F	/	Presentation in temple
Annunciation	D	F	Annunciation	Annunciation
Peter Martyr	D	F	Martyrdom with sword	Martyrdom with sword
Translation of Dominic		F	Translation of body	Translation of body
Birth John the Baptist		F	Baptism of Christ	Bathing new-born saint
Peter and Paul	D	F	D	Peter's martyrdom on cross
COMMEM. OF PAUL			D	Martyrdom with sword
Mary Magdalen			D	Noli me tangere
Dominic	D	F	Dominic on ladder	Dominic on ladder
LAURENCE				Martyrdom on grill
Assumption of virgin	D	F	Dormition	Dormition
Louis	/	/	[King Louis]	King Louis
Augustine		F	D	D
Birth of the virgin	D	F	Bathing new-born Virgin	Bathing new-born Virgin
MICHAEL ARCHANGEL		F	D	Angel kills dragon
All Saints		F	D	Seated male saints
COMMEM. OF FAITHFUL
DEAD			Funeral service
F = Pen-flourished initial; D = Decorated initial, usually vine-leaf pattern; / = Not applicable: book either predates introduction of a feast or does not cover certain feasts; [ ] = Later addition
Sundays and feasts embellished only in Melbourne Antiphonary (with decorated initial) have been omitted (1st Sunday after Epiphany Octave; Quadragesima Sunday; Invention of Cross).
Feasts celebrated at the highest rank (Totem Duplex) in the 1330s are written in capitals.

Each of the initials in which imagery is painted, and others filled with vine-leaf and grotesque designs in similar colours, support a decorative bar-border projected from the initial to terminate in vineleaf extensions which surround the text (Plate 15). It is not difficult, therefore, to use these signposts to find one's way around the year's Offices. The imagery, helped by its standardized composition and iconography, is an easily recognizable summary of the essence of each feast rather than illustrating the adjacent text. The busy cantrix, having sped around the choir to awaken or enliven her charges, may often have appreciated the mnemonic and clarificatory usefulness of the decoration and imagery when she returned to her place to begin the next chanted item.

It may be surprising that the illustrator chosen to work on a book to be used in an imposing Gothic church, “worthy of royal munificence” as its founder had required,32 is of modest achievement and the book itself reserved in its decorative elements. Yet despite its size and expense, the style of the church is reserved, imparting the “dignity of a classical model”.33 Moreover the “low-key” elegance of this manuscript, and others made for use in the nuns' choir at the same period, was already an aspect of books. This can be seen, for example, in an earlier Antiphonary, which Philippe le Bel himself had directed the Dominicans to have made for the nuns, a few years before their entry into the monastery.34 Possibly this was a result of Dominican concern that purposeless ornamentation should be absent from the worship and life of the Order.35 Though slightly more embellished, this manuscript bears a great similarity to the earlier Antiphonary. Both are clearly written, manageably large personal books whose luxury is reserved to a modest number of selected feasts, emphasised with a small historiated initial and marginal border.

But how were the feasts selected? It is likely that the scribe's exemplar furnished in large measure the decorative pattern for this manuscript. Comparison with the Dominican archetypal manuscripts shows that the two Poissy Antiphonaries follow the early exemplars fairly closely (Table 1). All twenty-two feasts selected for embellishment with a pen-flourished initial in the 1256 copy are treated as honoured feasts, either historiated or decorated, in the two manuscripts made for the nuns. Only one of the ten feasts accorded decoration in the earliest (1254) compilation is unillustrated, though decorated, in the latest (the present manuscript). This more fully illustrated manuscript consistently conserves the iconography of the earlier Poissy Antiphonary; of the ten feasts depicted in both, only the theme used for the Baptism of John the Baptist differs.

The nuns themselves ran their establishment, despite the small convent of friars at Poissy who were instituted to look to the sisters' spiritual needs, to hear confession and serve as priests in the church and at the nuns' illness and death, and to act if required by the nuns as advisers and administrators for their diverse and very rich property interests.36 The nuns held the properties and other assets in their own right and a council of the prioress and other office-bearers made the final decisions concerning them.37 No doubt they commissioned and paid for this and other manuscripts. Nevertheless, there is little indication that they imposed on the books' production any requirements that differed from earlier ones. This conservative attitude has achieved a very fine result. The harmonious volume made of fine materials, graced with a refined, not excessively expensive illustrative pattern, displays a modest luxury and is at the same time a functional liturgical book. By a fortunate chance the State of Victoria is the inheritor of the Poissy nuns, owning a manuscript whose bright, rich colours and simple strong designs still impress us today, so removed in time and distance from those who sang from it; it is still in excellent condition because of the quality of the materials used and the protective efficacy of its military-looking covers.38

The study of this manuscript is part of my doctoral research on some seventy extant manuscripts which formerly belonged to the Dominican monastery at Poissy. I have been supported throughout by an Australian Postgraduate Research Award, and received an Alma Hanson Travelling Scholarship and a Grant-in-Aid from the Faculty of Arts, the University of Melbourne, to conduct research outside Australia. I gratefully acknowledge these awards. The present manuscript is discussed as one of six closely related liturgical manuscripts in my “Books for a Dominican nuns' choir: illustrated liturgical manuscripts made for Saint-Louis de Poissy during the second quarter of the fourteenth century” which is to be published in a book provisionally entitled Art. Worship and the Book in Medieval Culture, edited by M. Manion and B. Muir.