Dear colleagues, I came across a peculiar list of chant books as a part of a library catalogue from the 15th century. Besides the title of the book, the librarian also placed a small (but distinctive!) piece of text next to the title, in order to make the identification easier. I was able to identify two records (as you can see in the list). The librarian, strangely, didn't write down the incipit, but a small excerpt of the text taken from the end of the chant. Does "actus nostros dirige", "contristari et inde" or "ut cum elias" sound familiar to you? I searched the AH and other text editions without further success. It would be grat to identify the other records.
Cancionale / actus nostros dirige (Sequence Gaude mater nobilis. Could it be something else?)
Passiones cum prefacionibus / contristari et inde (?)
Cancionale / ora custodi nos (This is a well-known cantio Sol nascitur de sidere based on Minnesang)
Viaticus / Deus meus es tu (?)
Cancionale / ut cum Elias (?)
Thank you very much for any advice,
Jan Ciglbauer
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Replies
Thank you very much, Mr. Milanese, let's see if it fits other circumstances.
Jan C.
Guido Milanese said:
Thank you very much! That would be also a plausible explanation.
Jan
Jeffrey Dean said:
For the first item (actus nostros dirige) I find some evidence of a possibly trad. Tyrolean hymn (or prosula, maybe), used apparently by the Redemptorists: see https://list.uiowa.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=piporg-L;4968d208.0409B (Tyrolean) and a booklet, almost completely in English, for the very recent (June 2016) Profession of a Redemptorist in the London area: http://www.redemptorists.co.uk/images/pdf_documents/BrCharlesPerpet...
The text is of Marian contents -- incipit: Inclyta et virgo pia / Respice nos o Maria / Vitam nostram protege / Actus nostros dirige.
dirige actus nostros would sound to me much more familiar!
My tuppence...
Guido Milanese
It was customary throughout the middle ages for books to be inventoried with the incipit of their SECOND folio, chiefly to distinguish different books that began the same (or whose contents were altogether the same), but partly in case the first leaf became detached from the book. That's why you've got excerpts from the middle or end of chant texts. (At the moment I don't have access to my reference works, so I can't help with the particulars.)
Best,
Jeff Dean