Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T07:50:41.835Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

MUSICAL CRYPTOGRAPHY AND THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE ‘LEÓN ANTIPHONER’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2017

Elsa De Luca
Elsa De Luca*
Affiliation:
Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e Estética Musical - Universidade Nova de Lisboa
*
Email: elsa@campus.ul.pt
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The ‘León Antiphoner’, León, Cathedral Library, MS 8, is the most complete manuscript containing Old Hispanic chant, comprising Office and Mass chants for the whole church year. As such, the León Antiphoner is the most studied Old Hispanic manuscript. Despite this, its dating is controversial and hypotheses have ranged from c. 906 (Menéndez Pidal) up to the eleventh century (Zapke and others). In this article, the dating and early history of the manuscript are reconsidered and an entirely new perspective is brought to bear on the questions of when, where, and for whom the manuscript was written. The reinterpretation of the cryptographic inscriptions found at the bottom of fols. 128v and 149r has made it possible to identify the patron of the Antiphoner as San Froilán, Bishop of León, and to date the manuscript’s production to the years 900–5. The scriptorium of the monastery of SS Cosmas and Damian in Abellar is suggested as the likeliest place of production of the Antiphoner.

Type
Research Article
Information
Early Music History , Volume 36 , October 2017 , pp. 105 - 158
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Research for this essay was supported by the European Research Council under grant 313133 ‘Shaping Text, Shaping Melody, Shaping Experience in and through the Old Hispanic Office’ Research Project, led by Emma Hornby at the University of Bristol.

References

1 A facsimile is available online at http://bvpb.mcu.es/es/catalogo_imagenes/grupo.cmd?path=26408. Colour facsimile edition: Liber Antiphonarium de toto anni circulo a festivitate sancti Aciscli usque ad finem, ed. I. Fernández de la Cuesta (Madrid, 2011). A diplomatic transcription of most of the manuscript is given in Antiphonarium Mozarabicum de la Catedral de León, ed. PP. Benedictinos de Silos (León, 1928). A more recent edition is Antifonario visigótico-mozárabe de la cathedral de León, ed. L. Brou and J. Vives, 2 vols., Monumenta Hispaniae Sacra, ser. litúrgica, 5 (Barcelona and Madrid, 1953–9). Vol. 1 contains the edition, notes, and indexes, vol. 2 the facsimile.

2 On the Council of Burgos see inter alia: Ruiz, T. F., ‘Burgos and the Council of 1080’, in F. Reilly Bernard (ed.), Santiago, St. Denis, and St. Peter: The Reception of the Roman Liturgy in León–Castile in 1080 (New York, 1985), pp. 121–130 Google Scholar, and Vones, L., ‘The Substitution of the Hispanic Liturgy by the Roman Rite in the Kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula’, in S. Zapke (ed.), Hispania Vetus: Musical-liturgical Manuscripts from Visigothic Origins to the Franco-Roman Transition (9th–12th Centuries) (Bilbao, 2007), pp. 43–59 Google Scholar.

3 Incipits of all the chants in L8 can be found in Randel, D. M., Index to the Chant of the Mozarabic Rite (Princeton, 1973)Google Scholar.

4 On L8’s notation see González Barrionuevo, H., ‘La notación del Antifonario de León’, in I. Fernández de la Cuesta, R. Álvarez Martínez and A. Llorens Martín (eds.), El canto mozárabe y su entorno (Madrid, 2013), pp. 95–120 Google Scholar.

5 On the relationship between Old Hispanic vertical notation and other contemporary European early notations see González Barrionuevo, H., ‘Relación entre la notación “mozárabe” de tipo vertical y otras escrituras neumáticas’, Studi Gregoriani, 11 (1995), pp. 5–112 Google Scholar, and ‘Algunos rasgos fundamentales de la notación “Mozárabe” del Norte’, Revista de Musicología, 20 (1997), pp. 37–49.

6 As happens in other musical notations found in early western European chant books, cantors had first to learn a melody by oral methods before they could read it by the notation. The main purpose of such notations was to serve as a reminder of the melody, and the earliest notated chant books were probably used simply for mnemonic reference rather than for preserving all the musical information in written form. A basic introduction to Old Hispanic notation in English is in Hornby, E. and R. Maloy, Music and Meaning in Old Hispanic Lenten Chants: Psalmi, Threni and the Easter Vigil Canticles, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music (Woodbridge, 2013), pp. 315–326 Google Scholar (Appendix 1: A Guide to Reading Old Hispanic Notation).

7 Apart from a few Old Hispanic chants in Aquitanian neumes – about twenty, out of a repertory of a few thousand – there are no other surviving versions of Old Hispanic melodies from later years written in a more precise notational system that could give clues about the melodic content of Old Hispanic chant. Furthermore, a palaeographical comparison between the chants in Aquitanian notation with their earlier Old Hispanic versions is not useful for understanding retrospectively the Old Hispanic neumes because Aquitanian notation did not reflect the variety of neume shapes and musical nuances transmitted by Old Hispanic notation. On the Old Hispanic chants in Aquitanian neumes see Rojo, C. and G. Prado, El Canto Mozarabe: Estudio histórico-crítico de su antigüedad y estado actual (Barcelona, 1929), pp. 66–82 Google Scholar.

8 On the methodology for the palaeographical study of Old Hispanic notation see De Luca, E., ‘A Methodology for Studying Old Hispanic Notation: Some Preliminary Thoughts’, in J. Borders (ed.), Papers Read at the 17th Meeting of the IMS Study Group Cantus Planus, Venice, 2014, July 28–August 1, 2014 ( forthcoming)Google Scholar.

9 On this point I am preparing a study, ‘The Neumes of the León Antiphoner: Written and Oral Transmission in Old Hispanic Chant’.

10 Ibid.

11 On L8’s decoration see Gómez Moreno, M. E., ‘Las miniaturas del Antifonario de la Catedral de León’, Archivos Leoneses, 8 (1954), pp. 300–317 Google Scholar.

12 Menéndez Pidal, G., Varia medievalia, ii (Madrid, 2003), pp. 122–123 and 148–51Google Scholar. Zapke, S., ‘Dating Neumes according to their Morphology: The Corpus of Toledo’, in J. Haines (ed.), The Calligraphy of Medieval Music, Musicalia Medii Aevi, 1 (Turnhout, 2011), pp. 91–99 Google Scholar, at 94.

13 As widely accepted, L8 is made of two main sections: the prologue (fols. 1–27), and the main body of the manuscript (fols. 28–306). See below for a codicological description of the prologue of L8.

14 On L8’s prologue see Díaz y Díaz, M. C., ‘Los prólogos del antiphonale visigothicum’, Archivos Leoneses, 8 (1954), pp. 226–257 Google Scholar; Cordoliani, A., ‘Les Textes et figures de comput de l’Antiphonaire de León’, Archivos Leoneses, 8 (1954), pp. 258–287 Google Scholar; Deswarte, T., ‘Polygraphisme et mixité graphique: Note sur les additions d’Arias (1060–1070) dans l’Antiphonaire de León’, Territorio, Sociedad y Poder, 8 (2013), pp. 67–84 Google Scholar; Díaz y Díaz, M. C., ‘Some Incidental Notes on Music Manuscripts’, in Zapke (ed.), Hispania Vetus, pp. 93–111 Google Scholar; Zapke, S., ‘En torno a las nociones de publicus y privatus: Apuntes al contexto y funcionalidad de los textos preliminares del Antifonario de León (fols. 2v–3v)’, in I. Fernández de la Cuesta (ed.), El canto mozárabe y su entorno: Estudios sobre la música de la liturgia viejo hispánica (Madrid, 2013), pp. 337–355 Google Scholar.

15 Online images of fols. 1v and 6r can be found respectively at http://bvpb.mcu.es/es/catalogo_imagenes/grupo.cmd?posicion=6&path=26408&presentacion=pagina and http://bvpb.mcu.es/es/catalogo_imagenes/grupo.cmd?posicion=17&path=26408&forma=&presentacion=pagina.

16 Description of the illumination from Díaz y Díaz, ‘Some Incidental Notes’, pp. 98–9.

17 Brou, L., ‘Le Joyau des antiphonaires latins: Le Manuscrit 8 des archives de la cathedrale de León’, Archivos Leoneses, 8 (1954), pp. 7–114 Google Scholar, at 10 (n. 4) and 61–2. The figure of the bishop-abbot is discussed in Bishko, C. J., ‘Salvus of Albelda and Frontier Monasticism in Tenth Century Navarre’, Speculum, 23 (1948), pp. 559–590 Google Scholar. In the Old Hispanic rite the ordo cathedralis and the ordo monasticus are not obviously differentiated. Monks used the ordo cathedralis; additional monastic offices are preserved in a separate manuscript type, the liber horarum. On the ordo cathedralis and ordo monasticus see Pinell, J. M., ‘El Oficio Hispano-Visigótico: Fuentes para su estudio’, Hispania Sacra, 10 (1957), pp. 385–427 Google Scholar,at 399, 416, and ‘Los textos de la antigua liturgia hispánica: Fuentes para su estudio’, in Rivera Recio, J. P. (ed.), Estudios sobre la liturgia mocárabe (Toledo, 1965), pp. 109–164 Google Scholar.

18 The text of the epigram is ‘Very great merit have you obtained with this gift, O Abbot Teodemundo, you who dwell here with your good monks and will in the future revel with angels. Shining even brighter thanks to your wishes, O Abbot Ikilanus! You can now see that what had been your desire is finished; look again and again at the book prepared for use, illustrated and decorated in gold. May I deserve to be helped by your prayers: remember me, the copyist, for ever, he who has worked so hard out of respect for your name.’ Translation from Díaz y Díaz, ‘Some Incidental Notes’, p. 101. The Latin version is given in Pérez de Urbel, J., ‘El Antifonario de León. El escritor y la época’, Archivos Leoneses, 8 (1954) pp. 115–144 Google Scholar, at 130: ‘O meritum magnum quidem donum sumsisti abbate tot munde / et hic havitas cum omnibus bonis et in futuro leteris cum angelis / agustior promicans mente Ikilane abbatue / jam nunc votum ut ceperas tuum cerne perfectum / utiliter librum deauratum conspice pinctum / sic merear precibusque tuis esse suffultum / me scriptori in mente abete qui hoc pati pro vestro nomine.’

19 Domínguez Bordona, J., ‘Exlibris mozárabes’, Archivo Español de Arte y Arqueologia, 11 (1935), pp. 153–163 Google Scholar. Ikilanus’s ex libris is described on p. 161, with the image in plate XIII. On L8’s ex libris see also Gómez Moreno, ‘Miniaturas’, pp. 300–2.

20 This monastery is believed to have been somewhere near the river Porma, or on the riverbank, according to Yáñez Cifuentes, where it was the original nucleus of San Cipriano del Condado (east of León); see Yáñez Cifuentes, M. P., El Monasterio de Santiago de León, Anejos del Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 1 (León, 1972), p. 55 Google Scholar. On the Monastery of San Cipriano see also López Sánchez, L. C., ‘San Cipriano del Condado en las repoblaciones del siglo IX o el antifonario mozárabe en la partida de nacimiento de un pueblo’, Studium Legionense, 39 (1998), pp. 285–309 Google Scholar.

21 The location of the Monastery of Santiago is mentioned in many documents: ‘Edificatum suburbia Legionensis, intus ciuitatis iusta aditus Sancte Marie Uirginis, (non longe ad aulam Sancte Marie Uirginis) secus sede episcopi Legionensis, discurrente Kalle de Porta Episcopi.’ Yáñez Cifuentes, Monasterio, p. 45.

22 The donation is reported in the ‘Becerro’ (León, Catedral, Archivo Histórico, MS 13, fols. 349v–350r). The full text can be read in Yáñez Cifuentes, Monasterio, pp. 136–8 and, with some omissions, in Antiphonarium Mozarabicum, pp. xi–xii. Abbot Ikilanus is mentioned again in other donations dated 927, 944, 947, 949; ibid., p. xii.

23 It is not clear when all these goods effectively became the property of the abbess Felicia. Until his death (c. 952) Ikilanus’s name is given in charters as abbot of San Cipriano (even though it had been already donated to Felicia in 917). There was certainly co-ownership of objects between the two monasteries; for example, on 3 June 948, the Bishop of León, Oveco, gave the church of Santa Maria in Cea to both of them, jointly; see Yáñez Cifuentes, Monasterio, pp. 61–2.

24 See e.g. the section ‘Ikila y Totmundo’ in Pérez de Urbel, ‘Antifonario de León: El escritor’, pp. 129–35.

25 Díaz y Díaz, ‘Some Incidental Notes’, p. 97.

26 An online image of fol. 12r is available at http://bvpb.mcu.es/es/catalogo_imagenes/grupo.cmd?posicion=29&path=26408&forma=&presentacion=pagina. Deswarte transcribes the inscription as: ‘Est liber storia eclesiastica que dicitur tripertita / a tribus auctoribus de Grecia compositum, uno scilicet / Teodorito sancto episcopo et duobus uiris Sozomeno / et Socrater, incipiens a Constantino / imperatore usque ad Teodosium iuniorem per multa / interualla tempora. Cassiodorus senador / accipiens per Epifanium scolasticum et dedit sancto / uiro regi Teodosio. / Ego Arias uidi ipsum librum in Francia, que nondum / uideram in Gallicia.’ See Deswarte, ‘Polygraphisme’, p. 72 (text), p. 74 (plate 8). I will return to this inscription below; see n. 58.

27 According to Brou, Arias 1 wrote fol. 12r middle of the second column, while Arias 2 wrote fol. 26 top of the first column. Brou speculated also that Arias 1 revised the main part of L8. Brou, ‘Le Joyau’, pp. 13–14.

28 Deswarte, ‘Polygraphisme’, p. 83.

29 See Guilman, J., ‘On the Chronological Development and Classification of Decorated Initials in Latin Manuscripts of Tenth-Century Spain’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 63 (1980–1), pp. 369–401 Google Scholar; L8 at pp. 390–1.

30 See Brou and Vives, Antifonario visigótico-mozárabe, i, p. xiii.

31 See Millares, C. A., Manuscritos visigóticos: Notas bibliográficas, Monumenta Hispaniae Sacra, 1 (Madrid and Barcelona, 1963), pp. 26–27 Google Scholar; Corpus de códices visigóticos, ed. C. Millares et al. (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1999), p. 69; Deswarte, ‘Polygraphisme’, p. 69; Hispania Vetus, p. 252.

32 De Luca, E.,‘Royal Misattribution: Monograms in the León Antiphoner’, Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, 9 (2017), pp. 25–51, online at www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17546559.2015.1101521. An online image of fol. 4v is available from http://bvpb.mcu.es/es/catalogo_imagenes/grupo.cmd?path=26408&presentacion=pagina&registrardownload=0&posicion=14 Google Scholar.

33 See Pinell, ‘Oficio’, p. 392; ‘Textos de la antigua’, pp. 128–9; Fernández de la Cuesta, I., Manuscritos y fuentes musicales en España: Edad media (Madrid, 1980), pp. 58–59 Google Scholar; Randel, Index, p. xviii; Pérez de Urbel, ‘Antifonario de León: El escritor’, pp. 115–44; Vives, J., ‘En torno a la datación del Antifonario Legionense’, Hispania Sacra, 8 (1955), pp. 107–124 Google Scholar.

34 The palaeographical motivation for a tenth-century attribution is that the tall minuscule letters b, d, h, i, l do not have a perpendicular stroke at the beginning of the ascender. García Villada, Z., Paleografia Española, i (Publicaciones de la Revista de Filología Española, 1923), pp. 1–371, at 198. Available from https://bibliotecadigital.jcyl.es/es/consulta/registro.cmd?id=19125 Google Scholar.

35 Gómez Moreno, M., Catálogo Monumental de España: Provincia de León, i (Madrid, 1926), pp. 155–158 Google Scholar.

36 Zapke, ‘Dating Neumes’, p. 94.

37 Díaz y Díaz, ‘Prólogos’, pp. 226–57.

38 Díaz y Díaz, ‘Some Incidental Notes’, pp. 93–111.

39 Díaz y Díaz suggests that it is probably only the final gathering of the codex that is missing, and it may have been lost because it contained the colophon and a note about the ownership of the original manuscript, which they felt the need to remove when its destination changed. See ibid., p. 94 and p. 106, n. 13.

40 Ibid., p. 102.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid., pp. 99, 101.

43 Ibid., p. 98.

44 Ibid., p. 101. While the verso of fol. 1 contained the miniature of the donation, the recto was originally left blank. Ibid., p. 98. In the eleventh century a later hand inscribed King Ferdinand I’s monogram there.

45 Ibid., pp. 101–2.

46 Ibid., pp. 94–5.

47 Ibid., p. 99.

48 For a transcription of the cryptographic inscriptions see §3, ‘Cyphers in the “León Antiphoner”’.

49 Gómez Moreno, ‘Miniaturas’, pp. 315–17 and Menéndez Pidal, Varia medievalia, ii, pp. 122–3, 148–51. A brief reference to L8 cryptography is also in Pérez de Urbel, J., ‘El Antifonario de León y su modelo de Beja’, Bracara Augusta, 22 (1968), pp. 213–225 Google Scholar, at 225. L8’s cryptography was also mentioned by L. Brou, who did not attempt any translation. He also noticed the neumes without text on f. 1r, and considered them as probatione calami; after palaeographical analysis, I have come to the same conclusion. Brou, ‘Le Joyau’, pp. 59–60.

50 As demonstrated in §3 ‘Cyphers in the “León Antiphoner”’, the absence of any reference to ‘Aia’ in the cryptography on fol. 149r makes Gómez Moreno and Menéndez Pidal’s speculations on the identity of ‘Aia’ irrelevant to the dating of the manuscript.

51 Gómez Moreno, ‘Miniaturas’, passim.

52 Gómez Moreno said that Arias/Aia left his signature on fol. 26 while the references to years 1062, 1063 and 1066 on fol. 4v were added by a later [sic] hand. Unfortunately, she did not explain the reason for these additions or their meaning. Gómez Moreno, ‘Miniaturas’, pp. 314–17.

53 Díaz y Díaz, ‘Some Incidental Notes’, pp. 94–102.

54 While ‘Arias’ was the eleventh-century scribe who left his signature and date on fol. 26r. Menéndez Pidal, Varia medievalia, ii, pp. 149–50. Images of fols. 20r and 26r can be found respectively at http://bvpb.mcu.es/es/catalogo_imagenes/grupo.cmd?posicion=45&path=26408&forma=&presentacion=pagina and http://bvpb.mcu.es/es/catalogo_imagenes/grupo.cmd?posicion=57&path=26408&forma=&presentacion=pagina.

55 ‘Nada tien que ver Aia con Arias.’ Menéndez Pidal added that the cryptography on fol. 149r is followed by Aia’s notarial specimen. Ibid., p. 123 Google Scholar, n. 5.

56 Ibid., pp. 123, 148–51.

57 In fact, it is immediately followed by the ‘right’ year given in letters ‘octingentessimus sextus annus est ab incarnatione Christi’ (that is, 806). The transcriptions of the texts containing the references to the year 806/906 (from fol. 20r) and Arias’s signature and date (from fol. 26r) are given in Cordoliani, ‘Textes’, pp. 284–5.

58 See above, nn. 26 and 27.

59 See my palaeographical analysis in §3, ‘Cyphers in the “León Antiphoner”’.

60 A recent survey on the existing literature on medieval music cryptography can be found in E. De Luca and J. Haines, ‘Medieval Music Notes as Cryptography’, in Ellison, K. and Kim, S. (eds.), A Material History of Medieval and Early Modern Ciphers: Cryptography and the History of Literacy, Material Readings in Early Modern Culture (Routledge, 2017) ( forthcoming)Google Scholar.

61 Brief references to Visigothic cryptography can be found in Zapke, S., ‘Notation Systems in the Iberian Peninsula: From Spanish Notations to Aquitanian Notation (9th–12th Centuries)’, in Zapke (ed.), Hispania Vetus, pp. 189–243 Google Scholar, at 222, 224–5; Ostolaza Elizondo, M. I., ‘La validación en los documentos del occidente hispánico (siglos x–xii): Del signum crucis al signum manus’, in P. Rück (ed.), Graphische Symbole in mittelalterlichen Urkunden (Sigmaringen, 1996), pp. 453–462 Google Scholar, at 456; Millares, C. A., Tratado de paleografía española, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1983), i Google Scholar, pp. 290–1; iii, plates 461–3; Le Codex 339 de la bibliothèque de Saint Gall, Paléographie Musicale, 1 (1899; repr. Bern, 1974), pp. 36–9; García Villada, Paleografia, pp. 206, 213–14; Riaño, J. F., Critical and Biographical Notes on Early Spanish Music (London, 1887), pp. 103–108; a digital edition of Riaño’s book can be consulted at https://archive.org/details/criticalbibliog00riagoog Google Scholar; Muñoz y Rivero, J., Nociones de diplomática española: Reseña sumaria de los caractéres que distinguen los documentos anteriores al siglo XVIII auténticos de los que son falsos ó sospechosos (Madrid, 1881), pp. 133 Google Scholar,cryptography at pp. 59–60; Paleografía visigoda: Método teórico-prático para aprender á leer los códices y documentos españoles de los siglos X al XII (Madrid, 1881) p. 148; cryptography at pp. 77–81; (repr. Madrid, 1919), cryptography at pp. 85–8, plate 15.

62 Foradada y Castán, J., ‘Signaturas escritas con caracteres, consideradas hasta aqui como pneumas o signos musicales’, Arte en España, 6 (1867), pp. 104–111 Google Scholar and Muñoz y Rivero, J., ‘Escritura cifrada’, Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos, 14 (1871), pp. 222–223 Google Scholar.

63 Galende Díaz, J. C., ‘Elementos y sistemas criptográficos en la escritura visigótica’, in N. Ávila Seoane, M. J. Salamanca López and L. Zozaya Montes (eds.), VIII Jornadas Científicas sobre Documentación de la Hispania altomedieval (siglos VI–X) (Madrid, 2009), pp. 173–183 Google Scholar; ‘Principios basicos de la criptología: El manuscrito 18657 de la Biblioteca nacional’, Documenta & Instrumenta, 4 (2006), pp. 47–59; ‘La criptografía medieval: El Libro del Tesoro’, in II Jornadas Científicas sobre Documentación de la Corona de Castilla (siglos XIII–XV), ed. J. C. Galende Díaz et al. (Madrid, 2003), pp. 42–77; Criptografía: Historia de la escritura cifrada (Madrid, 1995); Visigothic cryptography at pp. 75–7 and 89–95.

64 In Visigothic cryptography the words were sometimes written reversed, but in these cases the normal appearance of the letters was maintained. Millares, Tratado, i, pp. 290–4 provides a concise introduction to Spanish cryptography.

65 The Greek letters written in pale yellow ink at the top of fol. 28v in L8 (image available at http://bvpb.mcu.es/es/catalogo_imagenes/grupo.cmd?posicion=62&path=26408&presentacion=pagina) are not an example of cryptography; instead, they represent an ‘ellinolatinikoi’, that is, an attempt to match the Greek letters with the Latin alphabet. These letters may be related to the presence of transliterated Greek chants (the so-called ‘Graeci’) in L8. I would like to thank Flora Kritikou and Agamemnon Tselikas, who helped me with the interpretation of the Greek letters in L8. Greek cryptography can be found, for example, in two manuscripts from Cardeña, where it was used for scribal signatures. In the first manuscript, Cassiodorus’ Exposition on the Psalms, there are two Greek cryptographic inscriptions. The shorter one can be translated as: ‘O bone lector, charissime, Misselli Endurae Presbiteri, fui scriptoris, tua in prece mei memento. Amen’. At the very end of the same manuscript there is a longer cryptography in Greek characters which can be translated as: ‘Explicitus est Liber iste a Notario Sebastiano Diacono notum praefixionis diem, quartodecimo Kalendas Februarii, Era DCCCC. LXXX. VII. Regnante Serenissimo Rege Ramiro in Legione, et egregio Comite Fredinando Gundisalvi in Castella, atque Pontificatum gerente Basilio Episcopo Sedis Nunnioni Castelli.’ The second manuscript with Greek cryptography is a Vitae Sanctorum, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, n.a.l. 2179, and the Greek cryptography can be transcribed as ‘O bone lector, Joannes mysello tua in prece mei memento. Amen’. The transcriptions are taken from Domínguez Bordona, ‘Exlibris’, p. 154 (n. 3) and Berganza y Arce, F., Antiguidades de España, i (Madrid, 1721), p. 222 (available online at https://archive.org/stream/bub_gb_ChUrAAAAYAAJ#page/n247/mode/2up Google Scholar, accessed 10 Apr. 2017).

66 This cryptographic system is used by the scribe who wrote fols. 1–164 of Córdoba, Archivo de la Catedral, 123, which contains text from Albaro de Córdoba. The scribe left his name in three cryptographs found respectively on fol. 91r (sisuertus), 100r and 121r (identical on both pages ‘sisuertus prs scripsit’). The manuscript was written in the León area at the end of the tenth century. See Díaz y Díaz, M. C., Códices visigóticos en la monarquía leonesa (León, 1983), pp. 370–373 Google Scholar; see also n. 165 below.

67 See Appendix 1 for the symbols used to represent the letters of the alphabet in the Visigothic manuscripts containing cryptography.

68 In spite of this, Ostolaza Elizondo recognises a general similarity between the cyphers used in documents coming from some monasteries around León (c. 1050–1125): Espinareda, Carbajal, Escalada, Eslonza and Sahagún. M. I. Ostolaza Elizondo, ‘La transición de la escritura visigótica a la carolina en los monasterios del Reino de León’, in M. C. Díaz y Díaz (ed.), VIII Coloquio del Comité internacional de Paleografía latina: Actas, Madrid-Toledo, 29 setiembre–1 octubre 1987 (Madrid, 1990), pp. 149–63, at 159–60.

69 Mendo Carmona, C., ‘Cuatro escribes leoneses en el siglo X’, in C. Sáez and J. Gómez Pantoja (eds.), Las diferentes historias de letrados y analfabetos: Actas de Congreso celebrado en Pastrana 1 a 3 de julio, 1993 (Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, 1994), pp. 27–37 Google Scholar, at 30. There is no mention of the use of cryptography in Millares’s study of the twelfth- to thirteenth-century royal charters from the León area; see Millares, C. A., ‘La Cancillería real en León y Castilla hasta fines del reinado de Fernando III’, Anuario de Historia del Derecho Español, 3 (1926), pp. 227–306 Google Scholar.

70 Monograms were tokens placed on documents, standing as symbols of official confirmation given by the person to whom the monogram belonged. However, palaeographical analysis on the existing authentic notarial deeds has proven that, from the middle of the tenth century up to the end of the twelfth century, monograms were rarely autograph, that is, written by the person they represented. Instead, to make a document valid, it was enough to have the monograms written by the same scribe who wrote the rest of the document. See Mendo Carmona, C., ‘La suscripción altomedieval’, Signo. Revista de Historia de la Cultura Escrita, 4 (1997), pp. 207–229 Google Scholar, at 209–10, 221–2; Mendo Carmona, ‘Cuatro escribes’, pp. 27–8; Muñoz y Rivero, Nociones, pp. 68–9; Ruiz Asencio, J. M., ‘Notas sobre la escritura y monogramas regios en la documentación real astur-leonesa’, in J. M. Fernández Catón (ed.), Monarquía y sociedad en el Reino de León: De Alfonso III a Alfonso VII, 2 vols. (León, 2007), i, pp. 265–312 Google Scholar, at 290. On the presence of cyphers in scribes’ monograms see Sáez Sánchez, C., C. Mendo Carmona and R. Pacheco Sampedro, ‘Origine e interpretazione dei segni diplomatici ispanici’, Schede Medievali. Rassegna dell’Officina di Studi Medievali, 41 (2003), pp. 97–116, at 109Google Scholar.

71 Mendo Carmona, ‘Suscripción’, pp. 207–8.

72 Fernández Flórez, J. A., ‘Los documentos y sus scriptores’, in Fernández Catón (ed.), Monarquía y sociedad, ii, pp. 97–140 Google Scholar, at 115. In the tenth- and eleventh-century charters kept in the Archivo Capitular de la Catedral de León, the majority of the scribes who wrote the documents sign themselves as presbyters and deacons; see Mendo Carmona, ‘Suscripción’, p. 223.

73 Visigothic musical notation has a strikingly rich set of graphical varieties for basic neume shapes and a great assortment of graphical elements placed near the notation (with the purpose of adding musical information). Given the complexity of this writing system, one can assume that a scribe capable of writing musical notation must have been skilled and well trained.

74 Fernández Flórez, ‘Documentos’, p. 115.

75 So far scholars have not discussed the possibility of a Visigothic scribe being capable of mastering Visigothic minuscule (commonly found in codices) and/or Visigothic cursive (usually used in charters) as well as neumes; instead, scholars have engaged with the problem of mastering one or both of the textual scripts (minuscule and cursive). On Visigothic textual polygraphism see: Deswarte, ‘Polygraphisme’ and A. Castro Correa, ‘Writing in Cursive and Minuscule Visigothic Script: Polygraphism in Medieval Galicia’, Littera Visigothica (March 2015), online at http://litteravisigothica.com/writing-in-cursive-and-minuscule-visigothic-script-polygraphism-in-medieval-galicia/ (ISSN 2386-6330). On music cryptography in manuscripts see §6, ‘Musical Cyphers and the Scriptorium of the León Antiphoner’.

76 Appendix 2 fills a gap in the scholarly literature on musical cryptography, providing for the first time a comprehensive list of the existing documents containing musical cryptography and additional information such as date, provenance, the text concealed behind cyphers and bibliography on the document (if extant). The list in Appendix 2 was compiled to the best of my knowledge but I welcome the possibility that future research in Spanish archives and libraries may bring to light new documents with musical cryptography.

77 Fernández Flórez, ‘Documentos’, p. 108. L8’s cryptography contains the word ‘notui(t)’.

78 Ibid., p. 117. In order to understand the meaning each scribe attached to the various subscription formulae, it is necessary to compare all the deeds signed by that person. This is not possible for the scribes of L8’s cryptographs since they are anonymous.

79 A list with the notarial formulae used until the thirteenth century, and with those used from the end of the thirteenth century up to the seventeenth is in Muñoz y Rivero, Nociones, pp. 132–3. A discussion of the subscription formulae used in charters from León, before the introduction of the Public Notary in the thirteenth century, is in Mendo Carmona, ‘Suscripción’, pp. 223–4.

80 Fernández Flórez, J. A., ‘La huella de los copistas en los cartularios leoneses’, in Orígenes de las lenguas romances en el reino de León: Siglos IX–XII: Ponencias del Congreso Internacional celebrado en León del 15 al 18 de octubre de 2003 , 2 vols. (León, 2004), i, pp. 159–227 Google Scholar, at 183–4.

81 Ibid., pp. 171, 191, 201. On the Tumbo see Fernández Catón, J. M., ‘El Tumbo Legionense: Notas sobre su origen, redacción, estructura, contenido y utilización’, in Actas del IV Congreso Internacional de Latín Medieval Hispánico (Lisboa, 12–15 de Outubro de 2005) (Lisbon, 2007), pp. 415–435 Google Scholar. Herrero de la Fuente, M., ‘Cartularios leoneses: Del Becerro Gótico de Sahagún al Tumbo Legionense y al Libro de las Estampas’, in La escritura de la memoria: Los cartularios. VII Jornadas de la Sociedad española de ciencias y técnicas historiográficas (Huelva, 2011), pp. 111–152 Google Scholar.

82 Mendo Carmona, ‘Suscripción’, pp. 226–7; Muñoz y Rivero, ‘Escritura’, p. 222.

83 The scribe wrote first noto , then scraped off the second - o and wrote - uit. See the palaeographical analysis below.

84 These figures show the cyphers with their modern transcription underneath. I have visually distinguished the (faded text) and [my supplements] by means of round and square brackets. My sincere thanks to Mr Nick Cole, who helped with the digital restoration of the cyphers of fol. 149r (Figure 4d).

85 The cryptographic formulae used for subscriptions in charters normally have the name of the scribe as the only protagonist, e.g. Gundisalbus notuit’. See Appendix 2.

86 My sincere thanks to Wendy Davies, who kindly helped with the translation of the cryptograph.

87 The analysis of the monogram can be found in §5, ‘Cryptographers at work’.

88 My sincere thanks to Leofranc Holford-Strevens, who kindly helped with the translation of the cryptograph.

89 See Mendo Carmona, ‘Suscripción’, pp. 225–6. A list of scribal subscriptions containing these words can be found in Domínguez Bordona, ‘Exlibris’, p. 154 (n. 3). See, for example, the subscription left by scribe Christopher on a royal manuscript whose musical notation is related to that of the León Antiphoner: Salamanca, Biblioteca Universitaria, MS 2668. On fol. 159v one can read ‘In xvii kalendas iunias. Era TLxLvii. Christoforus indignus scripsit mementote’ (‘On 16 May 1059, unworthy Christopher wrote [this]. Remember’). See Pick, L., ‘Liturgical Renewal in Two Eleventh-Century Royal Spanish Prayerbooks’, Traditio, 66 (2011), pp. 27–66, at 40. The manuscript can be consulted at http://hdl.handle.net/10366/55563 Google Scholar; see also n. 183 below.

90 This scribal subscription in cyphers is found in charter 154 of the Archive of León Cathedral. See Appendix 2.

91 The identification of Bishop Froilán is discussed below in §4, ‘Bishop Froilán and his Afterlife’.

92 The erroneous reading ‘Froilani aepiscopi notui ego Aia memento mei’ proposed for the cryptograph on fol. 149r was probably due to the fact that the ink is almost completely faded where the scholars read ‘ego Aia’. See Gómez Moreno, ‘Miniaturas’, pp. 315–17 and Menéndez Pidal, Varia medievalia, ii, pp. 122–3.

93 The manuscript was restored in 1976 and information about the original gathering and folio order is irremediably lost. Manuel Pérez Recio, Archivist of León Cathedral, email message to author, 26 March 2015.

94 In the following analysis I refer to the cyphers using the letter of the alphabet they represent.

95 The first note of any neume has been interpreted as neutral because we do not know its exact melodic relationship with the previous note. The letters N, H, L and S stand for Neutral, High, Low and Same and they represent the melodic contour of a neume.

96 On fol. 149r ‘I’ in ‘Froilani aepiscopi’ is very faded but it seems likely that was used.

97 The ink of the cypher ‘R’ is very pale on ‘memoria’ (fol. 149r). But it seems likely the scribe used the same cypher as that already used for ‘Froilani’ .

98 It is not clear if ‘F’ is written on fol. 128v with two separated pen-strokes or with a single pen-stroke (as on fol. 149r), but partially faded.

99 The use of just the second part of the neume for a non-musical purpose is also found elsewhere in L8: is often found near the text, either below or before a syllable (e.g. fols. 32r/4, 56v/4, 150r/11, 206v/10, etc.) and more rarely is found near the neumes, as on fol. 229v (near the long melisma on the side of the page). The significance of this other non-musical use of is unclear.

100 See especially the inclination of the intermediate and final section of the pen-stroke.

101 See the different inclination of the horizontal and vertical sections of the pen-stroke.

102 The upper part of ‘P’ on fol. 128v is very slanted to the left, while the upper section of ‘P’ on 149r looks more like a regular ‘P’.

103 The final pen-stroke of ‘Froilani’ on 128v is much more tilted than the corresponding cypher on 149r.

104 Fernández Flórez, ‘Documentos’, pp. 98–9. And for the close control over the bishops exercised by the kings of León see López Alsina, F., ‘Reyes y obispos en el Reino de León’, in Fernández Catón (ed.), Monarquía y sociedad, i, pp. 85–102 Google Scholar.

105 See De Luca, ‘Royal Misattribution’, p. 23. According to Díaz y Díaz fol. 4 belongs to the ‘basic manuscript’; Díaz y Díaz, ‘Some Incidental Notes’, p. 95.

106 Risco, M., Iglesia antigua de León, España Sagrada, 34 (Madrid, 1784), pp. 299–312 Google Scholar.

107 De Sandoval, P., Historia de los Reyes de Castilla y de León (Madrid, 1792), i, p. 63, available from https://bibliotecadigital.jcyl.es/es/consulta/registro.cmd?id=3835 Google Scholar.

108 This bishop signed with his monogram at least two charters issued by King Ferdinand I; unfortunately, these charters survive only in thirteenth-century copies. See Blanco Lozano, P., Colección diplomática de Fernando I (1037–1065) (León, 1987)Google Scholar, Doc. 28 (pp. 100–1), Doc. 59 (pp. 158–60) and Froilán’s signature without monogram in Docs. 39 (pp. 121–2), 98 (p. 203), 105 (pp. 205–6).

109 This dating is taken from García Conde, A. and A. López Valcárcel, Episcopologio lucense (Lugo, 1991), pp. 80–81 Google Scholar. A list of the bishops in the diocese of Lugo from c. 750 to 1218 can also be found in A. Castro Correa, ‘La escritura visigótica en Galicia: Diócesis lucense’ (D.Phil. thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2012), i, p. 9. Here, Froilán is dated to c. 875. The list of bishops arranged by Castro Correa is based on the information found in García Conde, Episcopologio; Abel Vilela, A., La ciudad de Lugo en los siglos XII al XV: Urbanismo y sociedad (La Coruña, 2010)Google Scholarand Historia de las diócesis españolas: Iglesias de Lugo, Mondoñedo Ferrol y Orense, ed. J. García Oro, xv (Madrid, 2002), pp. 3–57, n. 201. Risco dated Froilán’s episcopate to c. 835–60 and considered Froilán as the successor of Adulfo (c. 811–c. 832); see Risco, M., Antiguidade de la ciudad y Sta. iglesia de Lugo, España Sagrada, 40 (Madrid, 1796), pp. 115–118, 379–80Google Scholar. Risco’s dating was criticised a few years later by Pablo Rodríguez, who argued that, according to the existing sources, Froilán preceded Bishop Adulfo and was successor of Odoario (†786), and Froilán’s episcopate would have probably lasted 46–7 years, until 831, when he was replaced by Adulfo; see Rodríguez, P., Diploma de Ramiro I, Vindicado de las falsedades que en los tomos XVI. y XVIII. de la historia critica de España escribió su autor en respuesta al apologista Compostelano (Madrid, 1804), pp. 95, 307–313 Google Scholar. Rodríguez’s dating has not been taken into consideration by the most recent research on the chronology of the bishops of Lugo.

110 García Conde, Episcopologio, pp. 72–5.

111 In general, there is more secure information on the bishops who played an important role in major historical events, while other less relevant figures left little or no traces of their life and episcopate.

112 García Conde, Episcopologio, pp. 80–1.

113 On Froilán, Bishop of León 900–5: González Lopo, D. L., Froilán de Lugo: Biografía e culto dun home santo (Ensaio de revision haxiográfica) (Lugo, 2005)Google Scholar; ‘Froilán’, in Diccionario de los santos, ed. C. Leonardi, A. Riccardi, G. Zarri (Madrid, 2000), i, pp. 888–90; Canal Sánchez-Pagín, J. M., ‘San Froilán obispo de León: Ensayo biográfico’, Hispania Sacra, 91 (1993), pp. 113–146 Google Scholar.Less recent bibliography on Bishop Froilán of León: López Pelaez, A., San Froilán de Lugo (Siglo IX) (Madrid, 1910)Google Scholar and Risco, Iglesia antigua, pp. 159–74.

114 de Prado Reyero, J., Siguiendo las huellas de San Froilán (Salamanca, 1994), p. 72 Google Scholar. On the scriptorium annexed to the Monastery of Tabara see García-Aráez Ferrer, H., ‘El scriptorium de Tábara en la Alta Edad Media y los códices de Beato de Lébana’, Brigecio: Revista de Estudios de Benavente y sus Tierras, 4–5 (1994–5), pp. 143–166 Google Scholar; Regueras Grande, F., H. García-Aráez Ferrer, Scriptorium: Tábara visigoda y mozárabe (Ayuntamiento de Tábara, 2001), p. 183 Google Scholar; Williams, J. and F. Regueras, El scriptorium de Tábara, cuna del renacimiento de los beatos (Rústica Nuevo, 2011)Google Scholar.

115 On the travels of Froilán’s body and relics see López Pelaez, A., Vida postuma de um santo (El culto de san Froilán) (Madrid, 1911), pp. 11–51 Google Scholar.

116 The kings of León maintained close control over religious matters, choosing bishops and creating or suppressing episcopal sees. See López Alsina, ‘Reyes y obispos’, pp. 90–1.

117 For further information on the other manuscripts containing musical cryptography see below, §6, ‘Musical Cyphers and the Scriptorium of the León Antiphoner’.

118 I will return to this manuscript later in §6, ‘Musical Cyphers and the Scriptorium of the León Antiphoner’. On the ‘León Bible’ see Díaz y Díaz, Códices visigóticos, pp. 307–8. Suárez González, A., ‘La Biblia Visigótica de la catedral de León (códice 6): Primeros apuntes para un estudio arqueológico’, Estudios Humanísticos. Historia, 10 (2011), pp. 179–196 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. García Villada, Z., Catálogo de los códices y documentos de la Catedral de León (Madrid, 1919), pp. 312 Google Scholar, at pp. 35–7; Díaz Jiménez, J. E. and R. Beer, Noticias bibliográficas y catálogo de los códices de la Santa Iglesia Catedral de León (León, 1888), pp. 5–6 Google Scholar.

119 On the Monastery of Albares and its scriptorium see Quintana Prieto, A., ‘Santa Maria de Albares y su «escritorium»’, Yermo. Cuadernos de Historia y de Espiritualidad Monásticas, 10 (1972), pp. 67–105 Google Scholar. There is a big chronological gap in the documentary evidence about the existence of the Monastery of Albares: MS 6 was written in 920 and the first charter proving the existence of the Monastery is dated 1044; see ibid., p. 89.

120 Vimara’s signature can be found on fols. 2r and 233v, while Juan signed fols. 3v, 91v, 202r, 211r, 216r and 217r. Scholars have disparate positions whether the scribe who added Bishop Froilán’s life was also one of the two main scribes of the Bible; nevertheless, the two hands seem to be from the same era (literature review in Suárez González, ‘Biblia Visigótica’, p. 182, n. 15).

121 On Froilán’s vita added by Juan see García Villada, Catálogo, pp. 36–7; see Martín, J. C., ‘La Vita Froilanis ep. Legionensis (BHL 3180) (s. X): Introducción, edición crítica y particularidades lingüísticas’, in M. Goullet (ed.), Parva pro magnis munera: Études de littérature latine tardo antique et médiévale offertes à François Dolbeau par ses élèves, Instrumenta Patristica et Mediaevalia, 51 (Turnhout, 2009), pp. 561–584 Google Scholar; ‘Relatos hagiográficos sobre algunos obispos de la España medieval en traducción: Ildefonso y Julián de Toledo (BHL 3917 y 4554), Isidoro de Sevilla (BHL 4488) y Froilán de León (BHL 3180)’, Veleia. Revista de Prehistoria, Historia Antigua, Arqueología y Filología Clásicas, 28 (2011), pp. 209–42, at 220–4. De Prado Reyero, Siguiendo las huellas, p. 23.

122 The incipit of Froilán’s vita is ‘De hortodoxo uiro Frolane Legionense episcopo. Fuit uir uite uenerabile Frolanus aepiscopus’; the explicit is ‘Hic uir dei plenus spiritu santo’.

123 On León MS 52 see Rodríguez, R., ‘El Códice 52 de la Catedral de León y la Liturgia’, Archivos Leoneses, 11 (1952), pp. 103–111 Google Scholar. The Spanish translation of the full text of Froilán’s vita from León MSS 6 and 52 is provided in Martín, ‘Relatos hagiográficos’, pp. 221–4.

124 The section of the manuscript with San Froilán’s office was added to the original manuscript in the fourteenth century. Martín, ‘La Vita Froilanis episcopi’, p. 563. The critical edition of the vita from León MSS 6, 52 and Lugo, MS s.n., can be found ibid., pp. 578–84.

125 Martín, ‘Relatos hagiográficos’, p. 221. On the breviary from Cuenca see Janini, J. and J. Serrano, Manuscritos litúrgicos de la Biblioteca nacional (Madrid, 1969), pp. 13–14 Google Scholar, n. 14.

126 The incipit is ‘[F]uit uir uite uenerabile Froylanus episcopus in suburbio Lucensi ortus ciuis Galecie, ab infancia in sanctis disciplinis eruditus . . . Cum eis fama totam peragraret Hyspaniam, peruenit quan [sic] tarde ad aures principis Adefonsi qui regnum Gothorum regebat Oneto in Austuriensi prouincia’; incipit copied from Martín, ‘Relatos hagiográficos’, p. 221. The full text of the office for San Froilán can be read in López Peláez, A., Vida póstuma de um santo (el culto de San Froilán) (Madrid, 1911), pp. 191–201, available at http://bibliotecadigital.jcyl.es/es/consulta/registro.cmd?id=4977 Google Scholar.

127 In 1635 a new reliquary was created to keep Froilán’s relics in León Cathedral and here the saint is addressed as Patron of the church and diocese of León: ‘Hic requiescit Sanctus Froylanus Episcopus et Patronus precipuus hujus Almae Ecclesiae Legionensis et Episcopatus.’ De Prado Reyero, Siguiendo las huellas, p. 133. González Fernández, J., San Froilán de León: Estudio crítico-biografico (León, 1946), p. 93 Google Scholar.

128 De Prado Reyero, Siguiendo las huellas, pp. 119–20.

129 Martyrologium Romanum, 5 October (III Non. Oct.): Legione in Hispania sancti Froilani eiusdem ciuitatis episcopi, monasticae uitae propagandae studio. beneficentia in pauperes, ceterisque uirtutibus et miraculis clari. See also López Peláez, Vida póstuma, pp. 155–9. Arias Fernández, A. I., ‘De reyes, santos y milagros: Conmemoraciones en León a principios del siglo XVIII’, Argutorio Revista de la Asociación Cultural “Monte Irago”, 14 (2004), pp. 43–49 Google Scholar, at 46.

130 See, for example, the chapter ‘Froilán, santo por aclamación popular’ in de Prado Reyero, Siguiendo las huellas, pp. 113–22.

131 Primera crónica general: Estoria de España, ed. Menéndez Pidal, i, pp. 445–6. On the Chronicle of Alfonso X el Sabio see Fernández-Ordóñez Hernández, I. R., Las “Estorias” de Alfonso el Sabio, Biblioteca Española de Lingüística y Filología (Madrid, 1992)Google Scholar.

132 De Prado Reyero, Siguiendo las huellas, p. 138. On the Chronicle of Lucas de Tuy see E. Jerez Cabrero, ‘El Chronicon Mundi de Lucas De Tuy ( C.1238): Técnicas compositivas y motivaciones ideológicas’ (D.Phil. thesis, Universidád Autonoma de Madrid, 2006) available at https://repositorio.uam.es/bitstream/handle/10486/2567/1352_jerez_cabrero_enrique.pdf?sequence=1.

133 De Prado Reyero, Siguiendo las huellas, p. 137. Pérez Llamazares, J., Códices y documentos de la Real Colegiata de San Isidoro de León (León, 1923), p. 39, available online at https://bibliotecadigital.jcyl.es/es/consulta/registro.cmd?id=6189 Google Scholar.

134 On the Hospital of San Froilán see de Prado Reyero, Siguiendo las huellas, pp. 139–40 and Fernández Catón, ‘León, diócesis de’, in Diccionario de Historia Eclesiástica, p. 1282. García Lobo, V., ‘La asistencia social de la iglesia durante la edad media: La hospitalidad monástica’, Humanismo y Trabajo Social, 5 (2006), pp. 129–158 Google Scholar, at 148–9.

135 De Prado Reyero, Siguiendo las huellas, p. 139.

136 On the history of the Council Seminar of San Froilán from its foundation to the twentieth century see ibid., pp. 142–5. On the institution of the Council Seminar see Risco, M., Historia de la ciudad y Corte de León y de sus reyes, i (Madrid, 1792), pp. 132–133 Google Scholar.

137 Information on chaplaincies, the hospital and confraternities of San Froilán can be found in de Prado Reyero, Siguiendo las huellas, pp. 145–6 along with a short bibliography for each of them. See also the chapter ‘La cofradía de San Froilán’ in López Peláez, Vida póstuma, pp. 103–17.

138 López Valcárcel, A., Historias Lugueras (Lugo, 1975), p. 103 Google Scholar. Further information on the arrival of the relic of San Froilán in Lugo, on the reliquaries created to keep it and the changes of location of the relic in the following years can be read in López Peláez, Vida póstuma, pp. 47–51.

139 The cross placed after the monogram has been completely ignored by the previous scholarship on the manuscript.

140 Mendo Carmona’s research conducted on the tenth- and eleventh-century charters in the León Cathedral Archive shows that it is possible to identify a relationship between the symbol used to subscribe charters and the social role of the person to whom the symbol belonged. Mendo Carmona, ‘Suscripción’, pp. 207–29, at 212–13. For a useful discussion of the graphical patterns used in signa (which functioned as monograms but did not contain letters) in charters from León, see chapter 3 in Davies, W., Windows on Justice in Northern Iberia, 800–1000 (Farnham, 2016)Google Scholar. My thanks to the author for providing a copy of the chapter prior to its publication.

141 Mendo Carmona, ‘Suscripción’, p. 216.

142 Bishop Froilán did not subscribe any of the surviving charters of King Alfonso III dated between 900 and 905 (Alfonso III’s charters are listed in Millares, Tratado, i, p. 159. The ‘Froyla’ who subscribed those charters with a monogram is one of Alfonso’s sons, who became King Froyla II (924–5). The charter subscribed by Bishop Froilán on 20 January 905 (containing a donation made by King Alfonso III to the Cathedral of Oviedo) is unanimously considered false. See Fernández Conde, F. J., El Libro de los testamentos (Rome, 1971), pp. 159–169 Google Scholar; San Pedro Veledo, M. B., ‘Poblamiento medieval en la parroquia ovetense de Brañes: La Alta Edad Media’, Territorio, Sociedad y Poder, 2 (2007), pp. 133–152 Google Scholar, at 143; ‘Froilán’, in Diccionario de los santos, p. 888; Risco, M., Antiguidades concernientes á la region de los Astures Transmontanos desde los tiempos mas remotos hasta el siglo X, España Sagrada, 37 (Madrid, 1789), pp. 221, 329–37Google Scholar.

143 Mendo Carmona, ‘Suscripción’, pp. 227–8, plate 19.1. The images of the other subscription signa in the same charter can be found in Mendo Carmona, ‘La escritura como vehículo de cultura en el Reino de León (S. IX–X)’ (D.Phil. thesis, Universidád Complutense de Madrid, 2002), Apéndice, pp. 45–51.

144 Illustrations of the two monograms of the Kings Vermudo II and III are in R. Pacheco Sampedro and M. E. Sotelo Martín, ‘El signum regis (SR), distintivo de la monarquía asturleonesa desde Alfonso III hasta Alfonso VII, y el origen de la cancillería real’, in Orígenes de las lenguas romances en el Reino de León: Siglos IX–XII (León, 2004), ii, pp. 419–38, at 437–8; Muñoz y Rivero, J., Firmas de los reyes de España (desde el siglo IX hasta nuestro días) (Madrid, 1887)Google Scholar, figures 11, 13 (Muñoz y Rivero’s book is available at http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000102894&page=8); and in Ruiz Asencio, ‘Notas’, pp. 281, 286.

145 Bishop of Lugo Pelagus’s monogram can be seen in J. F. Riaño, Critical and Biographical Notes, p. 105, see https://archive.org/stream/criticalbibliog00riagoog#page/n150/mode/2up.

146 Bishop of León Pelagus’s monogram can be seen ibid.

147 People’s monograms seem to get used during their lifetimes rather than afterwards. De Luca, ‘Royal Misattribution’, p. 42.

148 See above, §2, ‘Visigothic Musical Cryptography’.

149 See Appendix 2.

150 According to my palaeographic investigation L8 was written by at least four different music scribes and one of them seems to have written the majority of the Antiphoner (‘Scribe D’). Afterwards, the original neuming suffered several interventions and changes (erasures, superimpositions of neumes, etc.) by later hands. De Luca, ‘Neumes of the León Antiphoner’ (in preparation).

151 Díaz y Díaz, ‘Some Incidental Notes’, pp. 101–2.

152 This system persisted until 1120, when eventually a new organisation of the diocese was set up; see Estepa Díez, C., Estructura social de la ciudad de León, siglos XI–XIII , Fuentes y Estudios de Historia Leonesa, 19 (León, 1977), pp. 199–215 Google Scholar.

153 In the first third of the tenth century many monasteries were created in the area between Bierzo (west of León) and La Rioja (east of León); Fernández Flórez listed the most important monasteries in this area according to the date of foundation or their earliest evidence of activity: San Millán de la Cogolla 925?, San Esteban de Ribas de Sil (near Orense) 925, San Pedro de Valéranica (near Burgos) 924, San Martin de Albelda 924, San Martín de Castañeda 921, Albares 920. Earlier evidence exists for the monasteries of San Pedro de Montes 919, Santiago de León 917, San Miguel de Escalada in 913, Monasterio de Peñalba 913, Eslonza in 912 (or little bit earlier). See Fernández Flórez, ‘Documentos’, pp. 99–100. With a focus on the tenth century (910–1002) see Fernández Flórez, J. A., ‘Scriptoria, bibliotecas y codices en el Reino de León durante el siglo X’, in Ismael Fernández de la Cuesta (ed.), El canto mozárabe y su entorno (Madrid, 2013), pp. 37–82 Google Scholar. There is no documentation of the existence of any scriptorium annexed to the León Cathedral where L8 could have been manufactured. I would like to thank Manuel Pérez Recio, Archivist of León Cathedral, for confirming the total lack of evidence of the existence of any scriptorium annexed to the Cathedral in the tenth century (email of 20 February 2015).

154 Evidence of monasteries existing prior to 905 is limited to San Pedro de Cardeña (near Burgos, 899–900), Sahagún (devastated in 883 but which in 904 received some support by Alfonso III), de los santos Cosme y Damian de Abellar (near León) and the monasteries of San Román de Entrepeñas (near Palencia), Tábara (near Zamora) and Bamba o San Cebrián de Mazote (near Valladolid), all existing at the beginning of the tenth century. Fernández Flórez, ‘Documentos’, pp. 99–100.

155 Zapke, ‘Notation’, p. 224 considers the series of four neumes written at the bottom of fol. 65v in Madrid, Real Academía de la Historia, Cod. 60 (image of the detail provided) to be cryptographic. I judge these four neumes to be a pen trial and not cyphers.

156 Images of the cryptographs found in the other three manuscripts can be seen in De Luca and Haines, ‘Medieval Music Notes’.

157 On this manuscript see M. C. Díaz y Díaz, ‘La compilación hagiográfica de Valerio del Bierzo en un manuscrito leonés’, in Códices visigóticos, ch. 4, pp. 117–48. ‘Curiosidades ‘visigóticas’, in Andrés Hinojo, G. and J. C. Fernández Corte (eds.), Munus quaesitum meritis: Homenaje a Carmen Codoñer / Tribute to Carmen Codoñer (Universidad de Salamanca, 2007), pp. 225–231 (dating of MS 10007 at p. 226)Google Scholar.

158 Palaeographical analysis and description of the scribes from Díaz y Díaz, ‘Compilación hagiográfica de Valerio’, pp. 119–22.

159 Ex libris described ibid., pp. 119–20.

160 On the cryptography in MS 10007 see Millares, Tratado, i, p. 291; iii, pl. 463. P. Bertrand, ‘Die Evagriusübersetzung der Vita Antonii’ (Ph.D. diss., Utrecht University, 2005), pp. 467–9.

161 There is a description of the manuscript and an image of its cryptograph in Gómez Moreno, Catálogo, pp. 151–3.

162 On the decoration see Fernández Somoza, G., ‘La Biblia de León del año 920 en el contexto de la miniatura hispánica’, in J. Yarza Luaces, M. V. Herráez Ortega and G. Boto Varela (eds.), Congreso Internacional “La Catedral de León en la Edad Media”: Actas; León, 7–11 de abril de 2003 (León, 2004), pp. 499–507 Google Scholar; Williams, J., ‘The Bible in Spain’, in idem (ed.), Imaging the Early Medieval Bible (University Park, Pa., 1999), pp. 182–186 Google Scholar; Dodwel, C. R., The Pictorial Art of the West, 800–1200 (New Haven, 1995), pp. 250–251 Google Scholar.

163 ‘illi Iesus amen dico tibi quia in hac nocte antequam gallus cantet ter me negabis’; Matthew 26: 34.

164 See above, §4, ‘Bishop Froilán and his Afterlife’.

165 See above, n. 66. On the treatise ‘de genealogiis’ see Díaz y Díaz, Códices visigóticos, pp. 65, 83, 308, 372.

166 On this manuscript see Carbajo Serrano, M. J., ‘El monasterio de los santos Cosme y Damian de Abellar: Monacato y sociedad en la epoca astur-leonesa’, Archivos Leoneses, 81–2 (1987), pp. 7–300 Google Scholar, at 88–91; Díaz y Díaz, M. C., ‘El Manuscrito 22 de la Catedral de León’, Archivos Leoneses, 45–6 (1969), pp. 133–168 Google Scholar; ‘El manuscrito 22 de la Catedral de Leon’, in Códices visigóticos, ch. 2, pp. 57–88, cryptography at p. 86; Foradada y Castán, ‘Signaturas’, pp. 110–11, fig. 4; Galende Díaz, ‘Elementos’, p. 179; García Villada, Paleografia, pp. 101, 161–4, 206, 213–14; Catálogo, p. 56, fig. 8; Gonzálvez Ruiz, R., ‘Agali: Historia del monasterio de San Ildefonso’, Toletum: Boletín de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes y Ciencias Históricas de Toledo, 54 (2007), pp. 99–145, at 143–5Google Scholar; Muñoz y Rivero, J., Paleografía visigoda (Madrid, 1919), p. 134 Google Scholar; Riaño, Critical and Biographical Notes, pp. 103–4, 107–8; C. Upson Clark, Collectanea Hispanica, Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 24 (Paris, 1920), p. 36. The 840 dating was supported by Díaz y Díaz, García Villada and Upson Clark, while an eleventh-century date proposed by Riaño in 1920 was rejected in later studies.

167 On this monastery see Carbajo Serrano, ‘El monasterio’, pp. 7–300; Díaz y Díaz, Códices visigóticos, pp. 236–40; Rodíguez Fernández, J., ‘En torno al desaparecido monasterio de Abellar’, Studium Legionense, 8 (1967), pp. 297–304 Google Scholar; Díaz-Jiménez Molleda, E., ‘Nuevos datos para la historia del monasterio de los Santos Mártires Cosme y Damián’, Boletín de la Biblioteca Menéndez y Pelayo, 9 (1927), pp. 198–209 Google Scholar. Díaz-Jiménez y Villamor, J. E., ‘Inmigración mozarabe en el reino de León: El monasterio de Abellar o de los santos mártires Cosme y Damián’, Boletín de la Real Academia de Historia, 20 (1892), pp. 123–151 Google Scholar.

168 Monk Samuel’s additions described in Díaz y Díaz, ‘El manuscrito 22’, in Códices visigóticos, p. 83.

169 Tumbo legionense (ACL MS 11), fol. 389. See also Linage Conde, J. A., ‘El papel de Andalucía en la benedictinización del monacato peninsular’, España Medieval, 2 (1982), pp. 583–594 Google Scholar, at 592.

170 Carbajo Serrano, ‘El monasterio’, pp. 34–6. Later royal donations to the Monasterio de los santos Cosme y Damian de Abellar (made in 909, 911, 912, 919, 920, etc.) are listed on pp. 273–300.

171 In C. Mendo Carmona’s words: ‘un centro monástico como Abellar donde, como ya se ha dicho, todo apunta a que fuera un importante foco de cultura libraria’; see ‘La escritura de los documentos leoneses en el siglo X’, Signo. Revista de Historia de la Cultura Escrita, 8 (2001), pp. 179–210, at 189. A discussion of the scriptorium of the Monasterio de los santos Cosme y Damian de Abellar is in Carbajo Serrano, ‘El monasterio’, pp. 83–7.

172 Mendo Carmona grouped the charters written in Abellar into three categories, according to their script. The first group contains charters written in Visigothic cursive; a second group includes charters written with a script showing features typical of minuscule (commonly used in manuscripts; these charters leave no doubt about the fact that their scribes were more accustomed to copying codices rather than writing notarial deeds); finally, the third group contains charters written with a mixed script, with features of both Visigothic cursive and minuscule. Mendo Carmona, ‘La escritura de los documentos leoneses’, pp. 187–9. Among the charters of the second group, Mendo Carmona mentions the charter ACL 825: doc. 450 written by Martinus who left his signature using music cryptography (see Appendix 2 for information on this charter).

173 Ibid., p. 188.

174 The possibility of a southern Iberian model for León 8 was first proposed by Wagner, P., ‘Der mozarabische Kirchengesang und seine Überlieferung’, Spanische Forschungen der Görresgesellschaft, 1 (1928), pp. 102–141 Google Scholar, at 102; and then H. Anglès, ‘La música medieval en Toledo hasta el siglo XI’, in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kulturgeschichte Spaniens (Münster, 1938), pp. 1–68; Pérez de Urbel, ‘Antifonario de León: El escritor’, p. 139 and ‘Antifonario de León y su modelo’, pp. 213–25; Pérez de Urbel proposed that the model for León 8 originated in Beja in the early ninth century, specifically in the year 806 (the year attributed to the computus in Cordoliani, ‘Textes’, pp. 260–83). Díaz y Díaz also proposed that the model of L8 is a manuscript from Beja dated 806. See Díaz y Díaz, ‘Some Incidental Notes’. Recently, J. Gil studied the Latin of L8 and came to the conclusion that the Antiphoner’s model was a Mozarabic manuscript, written probably in Cordoba at the end of the eighth century; ‘El latin del antifonario del León’, in de la Cuesta, Álvarez Martínez and Llorens Martín (eds.), El canto mozárabe y su entorno, pp. 357–404.

175 Pérez de Urbel, ‘Antifonario de León y su modelo’, p. 216. On the Mozarabic immigration in León see G. Cavero Domínguez, ‘Los mozárabes en el Reino de León: Planteamiento historiográfico’, in Codex biblicus legionensis (León, 1999), pp. 39–52, and Peterson, D., Frontera y lengua en el alto Ebro: Siglos VIII–XI (Logroño, 2009)Google Scholar.

176 Díaz y Díaz, ‘El manuscrito 22’, in Códices visigóticos, pp. 86–7.

177 The text of the donation can be read in León, Catedral MS 11, fols. 384–6; in Díaz y Díaz, Códices visigóticos, pp. 163–4 and in Colección documental del Archivo de la Catedral de Leon (775–952), ed. Emilio Sáez, Fuentes y Estudios de Historia Leonesa, 41–2 (León, 1987); see doc. 75, pp. 124–9. Cixila’s books are also listed in Díaz-Jiménez, ‘Inmigración mozarabe’, pp. 128–131. On the Mozarabic origins of Cixila’s books and other elements that suggest Mozarabic origins for the monastic community in the Monastery of Abellar, see Carbajo Serrano, ‘El monasterio’, pp. 51–2 (with a useful bibliographical review of previous studies on the Mozarabic origins of Abellar). See also n. 186 below.

178 The library of the Monasterio de los santos Cosme y Damian de Abellarwas rescued by Diego, Bishop of León, c. 1120 and incorporated in the collection of Leon Cathedral. Díaz y Díaz, Códices visigóticos, p. 88, and Carbajo Serrano, ‘El monasterio’, pp. 104–5.

179 It is not clear whether Cixila resigned from his role as bishop or he was removed by the king, but certainly in the following years (when Frunimio was Bishop of León) Cixila dedicated great attention to the Monasterio de los santos Cosme y Damian de Abellar. Nevertheless, Cixila remained in the sphere of influence of León Cathedral, as several documents prove his active involvement with the cathedral between c. 924 and 927. Research on bishops’ lives and careers in León in the tenth century demonstrates the existence of many ‘resigning bishops’ who behaved exactly like Cixila did; see Carbajo Serrano, ‘El monasterio’, pp. 53–6.

180 León Cathedral was dedicated to ‘Sancte Virginis Marie, regine coelestis, siue uenerande Zipriani episcopi’; see Cantera Montenegro, M. and C. Mendo Carmona, ‘Advocaciones marianas en la documentación leonesa altomedieval (775–1230)’, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 28 (1998), pp. 875–888 Google Scholar, at 876. In L8, Mary’s feast is granted great prominence (fols. 56v–63r), and it has one of the greatest offices, along with those of the Dedication, Epiphany and Christmas.

181 Cantera Montenegro, ‘Advocaciones’, p. 876.

182 Ibid.

183 Between 900 and 925 many monasteries were created in the Astur–León area. For a list with the monasteries already active or created in those years see Fernández Flórez, ‘Documentos’, pp. 99–100. On the close musical similarity between L8 and two eleventh-century royal manuscripts written in León (Santiago de Compostela, Biblioteca de la Universidad, MS 609 (Reserv. 1) and Salamanca, Biblioteca Universitaria, MS 2668) see the chapter ‘The León Tradition and its Sources’ in Randel, D. M., The Responsorial Psalm Tones for the Mozarabic Office (Princeton, 1969), pp. 10–52 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and the section ‘Sant and Sal as Witnesses of the León Tradition’ in Hornby, E. and R. Maloy, ‘Melodic Dialects in Old Hispanic Chant’, Plainsong and Medieval Music, 25 (2016), pp. 37–72 Google Scholar, at 50–1. See also n. 89 above.

184 On the borrowing of books see Díaz y Díaz, Códices visigóticos, pp. 217–18.

185 Yáñez Cifuentes, Monasterio, p. 48.

186 See above, n. 177.

187 On the monograms in L8 and their chronology see De Luca, ‘Royal Misattribution’, passim. On Visigothic royal monograms see also C. Mendo Carmona, ‘Signos y autógrafos reales de la documentación de la Catedral de León: El caso de los monarcas de nombre Ordoño’, in Chiesa, P. and L. Pinelli (eds.), Gli autografi medievali: Problemi paleografici e filologici (Spoleto, 1994), pp. 77–101 Google Scholar.

188 The image of fol. 1r is available online: http://bvpb.mcu.es/es/catalogo_imagenes/grupo.cmd?posicion=5&path=26408&forma=&presentacion=pagina.

189 Regarding this office, Díaz y Díaz believed that fol. 5 was part of the ‘basic manuscript’; it had a magnificent cross of Oviedo painted on the verso, with the recto left blank. Here, a later hand added the chants for Saint James at the beginning of the eleventh century. According to Díaz y Díaz, the office was added in a manner that was quite advanced for its time, because it relied on two procedures: (1) a conscientious and careful imitation of the relevant neumes; (2) a literal text in which a skilful imitation of the writing of the copyist of the Antiphoner can clearly be seen. Díaz y Díaz described this script saying that only occasional slips reveal its real era, because the cursive features that can be seen at certain points have nothing to do with tenth-century writing or with the writing of the codex. Díaz y Díaz, ‘Some Incidental Notes’, p. 109 (n. 57).

190 Dr Miguel Larrañaga Zulueta, email message to author, 5 December 2014. On the role of the cult of Santiago in the building of the Christian identity of the Asturian Kingdom see Barreiro Rivas, X. L., ‘El fin de la iglesia Visigoda y el nacimiento de la iglesia asturiana’, in La fundación de occidente: El Camino de Santiago en perspectiva política (Madrid, 2009), pp. 201–239 Google Scholar.

1 Colección documental del Archivo de la Catedral de Leon (775–952); Colección documental del Archivo de la Catedral de Leon (953–985), ed. Emilio Sáez, Fuentes y Estudios de Historia Leonesa, 42 (León, 1987); Coleccion documental del Archivo de la Catedral de Leon (986–1031), ed. José Manuel Ruiz Asencio, Fuentes y estudios de historia leonesa, 43 (León, 1987); Coleccion documental del Archivo de la Catedral de Leon (1032–1109), ed. José Manuel Ruiz Asencio, Fuentes y Estudios de Historia Leonesa, 44 (León, 1990). Volume 1 does not provide any indication of cryptography while volumes 2, 3 and 4 say explicitly if the document contains cryptography and if so, where.

2 ACL MS 11 is a cartulary written by Juan in the early twelfth century known in the literature as ‘Tumbo de León’ or ‘Tumbo legionense’; see the discussion about scribe Juan in §2 ‘Visigothic Musical Cryptography’ and n. 81 for a bibliography on this manuscript.

3 Riaño, Critical and Biographical Notes, p. 103.

4 Ibid., pp. 103–7.