Sixteenth-century Hybrid Music Volume

[Ordo for the anointing and communion of the sick and for burial of the dead. Cistercian Use].
Ordo ad inungendum infirmum & ad communica[n]dum atq[ue] ad mortuum sepeliendum: secu[n]dum Cisterciensis ordinis consuetudinem.
Coimbra: Ioannes Alvarus, 1555.
[Bound with:] [Noted texts for the Office of the Dead and Requiem Mass].
Subvenite Sancti Dei occurrite angeli.
[Portugal (?), ca. 1550–1575].
Manuscript on vellum.
(BRF0028/A-B)

This hybrid text with music is a single volume comprising both printed and manuscript texts bound together since the sixteenth century. The printed Ordo provides Cistercian rituals and services including visitation of the sick and rites for the dying. The accompanying manuscript is contemporary with the printed text and includes only the chants and musical notation for many of the liturgical occasions represented in the printed text. Although it may appear unusual to purposefully include two copies of identical texts, in this instance the manuscript was produced for selected texts to be utilized by a singer performing the liturgy while the complete printed Ordo was available for reference.

Together the two texts provide an engaging example of the association of an imprint with with an appended manuscript which combines, adapts, and personalizes for local use a standardized publication. An inscription in Portuguese on the inside back cover records the ownership in the late sixteenth century by a woman, perhaps a Cistercian nun.