This path was created by Elizabeth Hadley.
Office of the Dead
Our book has the following nine lectiones for Matins:
1. Job 7:16ff.
2. Job 10:1ff.
3. Job 10:8ff.
4. Job 13:23ff.
5. Job 14:1ff.
6. Job 14:13ff.
7. Job 17:1ff.
8. Job 19:20ff.
9. Job 10:18-22
The first 8 readings are common to all of Ottosen’s Group 1, while the final reading (Job 10:18-22) places our text in Ottosen’s Group 1d. Ottosen has found this as the ninth reading in texts as early as the 11th century; eventually it “became the ninth reading in the Lateran Office of the Dead, thus becoming widely spread as the final reading of the Roman Office of the Dead”; the series of readings in our book is “the most widespread set in the Middle Ages, especially in France and England” (p. 62).
But though the series of lectiones on our manuscript is very common, it can be more precisely localized by looking at the responsories and verses that follow each reading. With Ottosen’s numeration, we have:
First Nocturn
• R14 (Credo, quod) V177 (Quem visurus)
• R72 (Qui Lazarum) V188 (Qui venturus es)
• R24 Domine, quando veneris) V34 (Commissa mea)
Second Nocturn
• R32 (Heu mihi) V12 (Anima mea)
• R57 (Ne recorderis) V59 (Dirige, domine)
• R28 (Domine, secundum actum) V8 (Amplius lava me)
Third nocturn
• R68 (Peccante me) V53 (Deus, in nomine)
• R82 (Requiem eternam) V185 (Qui Lazarum)
• R38 (Libera me, domine, de morte) V55 (Dies illa, dies ire) V227 (Tremens facta sum) V198 (Requiem eternam)
About half of the series included in Ottosen’s study have, like ours, responsories 14-72-24 in the first nocturn and responsory 82 with verse 185 after the eighth reading, in the third nocturn.
Ottosen places this series of responsories and verses in Metz, Normandy, and Sarum: “...the Norman dioceses Courtances, Lisieux, and Séez have this series as the only series, whereas Rouen is represented by two traditions of which the “Sarum” series is only one” (p. 242)
Like the image of the four evangelists that precedes the Gospel pericopes, and the series of prayers in the Office of the Virgin, the readings and prayers in the Office of the Dead here indicate that our manuscript was made in Rouen.
