Folio, (410 x 270 mm); illuminated manuscript on vellum; 204 leaves, later ink pagination 1-408, 39 lines in 2 columns, ruled space: 280 x 170mm, preserving original prickings (visible to f.58) and catchwords along with some gathering signatures, vellum page markers; square musical notation in four-line staves lined in red; eleven 4- to 6-line illuminated initials formed of blue and rose letter structures wound with blue, green, and red foliage and flowers touched in white on gold grounds, with marginal sprays, two 6-line penwork initials, flourished initials in blue on red throughout (lacking Canon miniature and further single leaves and quires, an illuminated initial excised from f.107). Contemporary thick leather chemise over wooden boards, metal bosses (lacking fastenings and two bosses on upper cover), completely unrestored and in exceptional condition.

Provenance: I: apparently originally produced for use in the diocese of Lincoln; the unusual sequence (‘Spirat odor renouatus’) in the Sanctoral for the translation of St Hugh of Lincoln is otherwise only known from a textually-close missal at the Spalding Gentlemen’s Society, Lincoln (M.J.II). II: in the collection of the Chaunterell and Saunders families of Northamptonshire; in his will of 1509, a John Chaunterell of Westcheap, London leaves ‘my fayre mas booke written by hand’ to; III: the church of St Giles, Northampton, in whose Lady Chapel are buried further members of the Chaunterell family, including William Chaunterell (d.c.1521). A 1525 inscription on f.84 – ‘ora tu pro me peccatore Wyllelmo aliquando existanti presbetero istius capelle anno domini millesimo quengentesimo vicesimo quinto’ – identifies an erstwhile presbyter of a chapel by the name of William, while the names of members of the extended Chaunterell and Saunders families have been added on f.80v in a fine 16th-century hand: ‘Roborte Chauntrell Margere Chauntrell Arture Chauntrell Marke Saunders Anne Saunders’).IV: the Library of Rugby School, Warwickshire, until deaccessioned and sold in 2018.