Layout: 2 columns, 22 - 24 lines Script: A number of nineteenth-century riiqiq hands Decoration: Rubrics including the opening lines of sections, instructions for the performance of the Mass, and cantillations; many of the texts include interlinear cantillations or musical notation, with a small number of single-column head-ornaments or hariigs and one large, full-page hariig (f. 1), in red, green, and yellow. Decoration: Diagram of the positions of the priests, deacons, and celebrants of the Mass (f. 108v), diagram of the Thirteen Passions of the Cross (f. 113). Binding: Coptic binding with plain wooden boards. Dark and rough parchment with holes and repairs throughout. Some folios are irregularly shaped or torn. Slight staining and traces of roden damage to some leaves, one leaf is loose. Provenance: Purchased from Les Enluminures, 2020. There is no colophon giving a precise data of completion; a note on f. 108v indicates that the principal text was finished on Tahsas 2nnd (December 31st or January 1st), but the year is not mentioned. Provenance: The scribe's name is given as Gabra Madhen as an insertion over an erasure, belonging to a church called Mahdara Maryam, after which the name of John Boanerges/Son of Thunder [Yohannes Walda Nagwadgwad] has been added. The name of the original owner, Gabra Sellase, appears in a few invocations for blessing (e.g. f. 63v). There is an illegible ink stamp-seal on f. 2. This manuscript includes texts for the Mass, divided into the usual two parts, the introductory (the Ordo communis or the Ordinary of the Mass), corresponding to the Alexandrian liturgy, and the Eucharistic prayers, or Anaphora, which are variable according to the feast days of the liturgical year. The Ethiopian rite has a particularly large number of Anaphoras. This manuscript is notable for the use of cantillation marks or musical notation, called melekket in Ge'ez, which are inserted between the lines of the text. These signs do not depict the melodies in any visual way, but are more a mnemonic device for recalling the chants. To read the notation properly, the singer must therefore already be acquainted with the corresponding melodies. The melekket comprise characters from the Ethiopian script, occurding singly or in groups; a small number of conventional, non-alphabetic signs; numbers indicating the repetitions of the halleluyas; and marginal signs indicating related groupings of melodies. F. 113v contains an Amharic text describing the correct belief and religious practices of a Christian. This text is added in a different scribal hand. Previous shelfmark: Ethiopian Missal
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