Fragment of French mensural manuscript, late 14th century

Component identifier:

Item 1

Content Summary:

Thought to be from a Choirbook used in the Chapel Royal of Henry VI

French mensural script using some red notation and containing a Cantus 2 and Contratenor of one 4pt Mass and the Superius of a 3pt Mass

Immediate source of acquisition:

The documents in this collection were presented to the National Library of Australia by Sir Rex Nan Kivell in 1969. He referred to it as ‘The Nan Kivell Calligraphy Collection’. The documents were collected by him as specimens of early calligraphy and/or examples of early documentation. He acquired them over a number of years from varied sources which were not recorded. However, it seems likely that the group of legal documents in Series 1 relating to the Elliott family of Salisbury would have a single provenance. Nan Kivell had a country house in Devizes, Wiltshire, which is only a short distance from Salisbury.

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