Fragments of Medieval Liturgical Manuscripts Held in the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland

Abstract

In 1974 eleven fragments of medieval liturgical manuscripts, bound as a 'guard-book', were purchased by the University of Queensland Library and housed in the Fryer Library. This article provides a palaeographic description of them and identifies their liturgical contents. The first two folios, with musical notation, reveal texts belonging to the monastic cursus for Matins of Maundy Thursday. The other nine are fragments from a liturgical Psalter of secular use for the weekly Offices from Sunday Matins through to Saturday Vespers. The article further discusses the dismemberment of medieval manuscripts for the purposes of book-binding in the early print era and the subsequent recuperation of such binding fragments in the form of guard-books in nineteenth-century Britain. Finally the sequence of sales and purchases of the guard-book prior to its arrival in Australia is examined.