Trier, Bistumsarchiv, Abt. 95, Nr. 5

The manuscript D-Trb Abt. 95, Nr. 5 (hereafter Trier 5) is a small book measuring 16.4 cm by 11.4 cm. Its 145 folios comprise three parts written in different hands. The first part is a legendary that contains saints' vitae (folios 1-103v). The second part consists of three proper offices for the Anglo-Saxon missionary siblings and Eichstätt patrons Willibald, Wunnebald, and Walburga (folios 104v-141). The change in hand and format between these sections, together with the fact that folios 104 and 141v were originally left empty, suggests that the offices were copied as nineteen bifolios, folded to create a libellus with a blank cover—a small book which could easily have been held in the cantor’s hand. Once bound with the legendary and additional pages, folios 141v- 145v were inscribed with additional hagiographic material. Written on the inside of the back cover is the sequence Magnificandus et omnicolendus for Pope Pascal II, who died in 1118. Due to this composite nature of the manuscript, estimates of its date have varied from late tenth-century to early twelfth-century.

The eleventh-century chronicler Anonymous of Herrieden (Anonymus Haserensis) attributes the offices for Willibald and Wunnebald to Reginold, Bishop of Eichstätt from 966-991, and the Walburga office to the poet-composer Wolfhard von Herrieden, author of the late ninth-century Miracula S. Walburgae. The three offices follow the secular cursus and reflect the liturgy of the Eichstätt cathedral. The texts of the Walburga office are drawn from Wolfhard’s Miracula, while those for Willibald and Wunnebald follow the vitae composed by the nun Huneberc of Heidenheim. Dörr, Schlager, and Wohnhaas suggest that Reginold composed the office for Saint Willibald for the occasion of his translation on April 22nd, 989, providing a terminus post quem for the creation of the libellus that was later incorporated into Trier 5. I have suggested that Reginold’s offices for Willibald and Wunnebald were intended as the concluding members of a trilogy: one that elevated the two brothers, whose fame was previously eclipsed by that of their celebrated sister, and claimed the legacy of this trio of saints for the diocese. The conclusion of this proper office trilogy moreover established Reginold in a poetic and compositional lineage descending from Wolfhard of Herrieden.

The text of Trier 5 is written in Caroline miniscule. Many of the initials for the office texts were never completed. The manuscript’s adiastematic neumes use St. Gall forms, but without litterae significativae. The notational hand is characterized by long, tapered pen strokes with a prominent convex ductus. Reginold's remarkable trilingual trope Terminus et idem interminus for the last Matins responsory of the Willibald office was first described by Anonymous of Herrieden. The text linguistically retraces Willibald’s pilgrimage to Jerusalem by traveling through Latin, Greek, Hebrew and back through Greek to Latin. The trope is also transmitted independently from the office in D-Mü Clm 14377, from St. Emmeram in Regensburg. In both sources, the Greek and Hebrew portions of the text are transliterated into Latin characters. The transcription of the Hebrew portion of the trope found in the CANTUS Database is based on the transcription by Daniel et alia. The transcription of the Greek portions of the trope follows J. L. Van Dieten’s reconstruction. A complete translation of the trope into German may be found in Dörr, Schlager, and Wohnhaas.

Wolfhard of Herrieden’s office for St. Walburga is also transmitted in the fragment D-Mü Clm 29316(5 (antiphoner, Salzburg, 10th-11th century.) Selected Matins responsories from the office are recorded in CZ-Pu VI.E.4c, a twelfth-century breviary from the convent of St. George in Prague, and in NL-ZUa 6, a fifteenth-century antiphoner from the chapter church of St. Walburga in Zutphen. The Lauds antiphons of the Walburga office are transmitted in the above sources, and in the fourteenth-century antiphoner CZ-Pu XIV.B.13 from the St. George convent. Finally, the magnificat antiphon for second vespers is transmitted in the Münster printed antiphonal of 1537. Textual evidence from printed breviaries shows that a modified version of the Walburga office was in use at the Eichstätt cathedral into the seventeenth century.

Inside the back cover of the book (here indexed as folio 146) appears the addition of the un-notated sequence Magnificandus et omnicolendus for Pope Paschal II (1099-1118). My transcription adapts that of Thomas Haye for the first seventeen versicles.

This project was completed with a grant from the Graduate College of the University of Northern Iowa. My thanks go to Mother Franziska Kloos, Abbess of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Walburg, Eichstätt, and to the staffs of the Bistumsarchiv Trier, the special collections department of the Universitätsbibliothek Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, and the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library, St. John's University, for their research assistance.