Liber processionarius regularis observantiae Ordinis Cistercensis, in Hispaniarum Regnis iussu capituli Prouincialis nuper correctus by GREGORIAN CHANT - CISTERCIAN PROCESSIONAL - 1569

Salamanca: Juan Baptista de Terranova, 1569. 8vo (140 x 96 mm). [8], 155, [1] leaves. Printed in red and black. Typographic music throughout: 5-line staves in red, each with a line of printed text below. Title woodcut of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, printer's woodcut device on recto of last leaf, woodcut initials. A modest copy: washed and with tears with loss to ff. 104 and 106, repaired tear to f. 103. Modern parchment over boards. Provenance: 18th-century (?) inscription on final leaf, "Díos me favorezca."*** A portable volume of chant for Cistercian monks. "A small portable liturgical book of the Western Church, containing the chants, rubrics and collects appropriate to liturgical processions ... [the processional] is of particular musical interest since it contains antiphons, verses, rhymed Preces and even polyphonic chants that do not occur in other liturgical books.... Each of the religious orders imposed a processional of its own, and these were propagated through manuscripts and subsequently in printed editions. The processionals of most of the orders have remained substantially identical with the originals through the history of each order" (Oxford Music Online, art. M. Huglo). An exception was the Cistercian processional: in the 12th century the Cistercians carried out a reform of liturgy and chant, and reduced the number of processions to two: thus the earliest Cistercian processional manuscripts contain only the chants for Candelmas (2 February) and Palm Sunday. Over time more processional chants were added to the repertory, for the feast of the Ascension, the Assumption of the BVM, the feast of St. Bernard (founder of the order) on 21 August, the feast for the Nativity of the Virgin, etc. The earliest printed Cisterican processional appeared in Zaragoza in 1511 (RELICS 2860, locating one copy); later Zaragoza editions followed in 1514 and 1550; a couple of Paris editions also preceded this edition. All the sixteenth-century editions are quite rare, and the eminent scholar Michel Huglo was evidently unaware of their existence: "The Cistercian processional must have been printed at about the same time as the antiphoner (1545), but no edition except that of 1689 is known" (art. cit.) The preliminary matter of our edition contains the privilege, dated 13 May 1569, a preface discussing music generally and sacred music, and a table of contents. Many of the rubrics (liturgical instructions) are printed in smaller type contained within the height of a stave. This edition contains all the processions mentioned above, along with later additions, such as the procession for All Souls' Day ("In die animarum") which contains the liturgy and instructions but no music, and two Offices for the Dead, the first being for the burial of deceased fellow Cistercians (Officium pro praesenti defuncto). USTC, OCLC and RELICS list a dozen copies, of which three in the US (Hispanic Society, UNC Chapel Hill, and University of Florida). Palau 137705; USTC 338265; RELICS (Renaissance Liturgical Imprints: A Census), 1913 (providing a complete contents list); Wilkinson, Iberian Books: Books Published in Spanish or Portuguese or on the Iberian Peninsula before 1601, 6595; Ruiz Fidalgo, La Imprenta en Salamanca, 72; Gozzi, Le fonti liturgiche a stampa della Biblioteca musicale L. Feininger presso il Castello del Buonconsiglio di Trento, II: 868.