Porvoo, Borgå Gymnasium’s Library, Thomas Thomae’s Antiphonarium

Modern foliation in the upper margin. The two first folia are both marked 2 and two further folia are marked 61 (61 and 61b). Foliation skips 149. Two folia are marked 224.

Several leaves are loose and no detailed collation has been attempted, owing to the decaying condition of the manuscript.

Occasionally the first word of a new recto has been written in the lower margin of the preceding verso.

Leaves missing from the beginning. One folium torn between 28 and 29. Fols. 21–22 seem to have been inserted later on as replacements. The text continues from

22v

23r

. Leaf missing after fol. 81. Fol. 88 possibly added later (although the same hand is also found on

89r

, after which the hand of 87 continues on

89v

). Similarly fol. 92 seems to have been added later on; it contains the same sequence that breaks off in the middle on fol. 91. Leaf missing after 122 (123 added later on). Leaf missing after fol. 130. The text on fol. 244 suggests that the leaf properly belongs before fols. 241–243, although it does not continue directly from 237; fols. 238–240 have been almost entirely excised. There is a lingula after fol. 223 but no text is lost.

In decaying condition: the leather covers are loose, the edges of the leaves are fraying and creased. Text losses occur, especially at the outer edges of the leaves.

8 lines of notation in one ruled column.

There are either two main hands of

saec. XVI

writing in short stints or one main hand writing in two different scripts. At least a few additional hands write short sections and make additions.

Additional texts and/or corrections occasionally added by a contemporary hand.

Quadratic and round notation on a black four-line stave. Written by different hands.

Black pen-drawn initials with varying levels of ornamentation and occasional colouring in red. Occasionally larger initials at the beginning of a new feast. No rubrics.

Brown leather binding, torn and in bad condition. Paper pastedowns with Latin text written by students.

The manuscript is an

antiphonary

, which, to judge by the varying quality of script, was written over a period of time and possibly by at least two scribes (or by one scribe writing different types of script). The book’s small format suggests it was for personal use, and the replacement leaves along with its deteriorating condition suggest that the book was in use for a long period of time.

A few scribes or owners have marked their names in the book, but these have not been identified. The texts are strictly Lutheran and suggest the manuscript was written during the

second half of saec. XVI

Fol.

140v

(in a contemporary hand): ‘

Paulus Olaij Pickarainen

’; on the inside of the front and back covers (in another contemporary hand): ‘

Thomas Thomae

’, ‘Th[oma]s Thom[ae]’. Neither person has been identified.

There is no information available as to how the manuscript arrived in

Porvoo Gymnasium's Library

. Fol.

244v

(in a modern hand): ‘Tillhör Borg Gymnasiums Bibliothek’, ‘B VII.31’, ‘1341

’.

Olav D. Schalin,

Kulthistoriska studier till belysande av reformationens genomförande i Finland, 1,

Helsingfors 1946, 41–42.

Cataloguer

Ville Walta

Finnish Literature Society (SKS)

Codices Fennici

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