friday 16 december 1977
BRUXELLES. I enjoy the warm embrace of the scholarly apparatus here for my use in the Bibliothèque Royale. This is a brief visit. I am here to make notes, construct an aide-memoire for future detailed study. No more than that today for the great rail roads of Europe beckon. Seductively. Put them aside for now. Consult the very informative catalogue with its spreads from those who have been here before. Pick out five manuscripts. See what they actually contain.
BR 10127-44. a composite. writings from scriptoria of the 8th and 9th centuries. the language is latin. the penmanships pre-carolingian minuscule from four different monastic houses. a treatise on canon law. how to compute the liturgical calendar. rules for holy week. an incomplete gelasian sacramentary.
BR 10078-95. another composite. scientific and musical texts. in carolingian minuscule. from the 11th century. Jerome de musica. Gerbert de constructione spherae. Sigebert sententia de ratione tonorum. Hucbald de musica, de institutione harmonica. and others. This is a nicely written miscellany. titles and initials in red. the bodies in brown. examples of individual ways to capture sounds for recognition by the eye.
BR 2750-65. a fat volume. bound in boards. a composite of different hands from the 10th and 11th centuries. I am drawn to the tonary of Regino de Prum though the vitae of gregory the great, jerome, st severin and st maur also attract for their thought patterns.
BR 4499-503. a tiny thin book. oblong. with grey covers. from the 12th century. treatises on geometry. Augustine de quantitate animae. 41v to 43 rect: de ratione proportionis minoris semitonis. Gerbert ratio sphere.
BR 14650-59. like a foolscap bible! latin sermons and lives of the saints. staffless neumes on the verso of folio 60. antiphons and responds for dusk and dawn. parchments handwritten round about 1000 and 1100.
francis cameron, temporary vagabond
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