Western Medieval Manuscripts : Sticherarion (menaion)

Western Medieval Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'>This Greek manuscript, probably copied in the 18th century, is a <i>Sticherarion</i>, a liturgical book containing hymns with their own individual melodies (<i>stichera idiomela</i>) sung at the morning and evening services, specific to particular days of the liturgical calendar. It belongs to the type known as a <i>menaion</i>, a term with various different uses, but in this context referring to a <i>sticherarion</i> giving the hymns particular to the feasts of the fixed calendar, organised by months and beginning from September.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The text of the hymns, in which syllables are often repeated to reflect their extension in chanting, is accompanied by melodic notation (<i>neumes</i>) of the Cucuzelian type, which emerged in the late Byzantine period and prevailed until a major reform of the notation system in the early 19th century.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dr Christopher Wright</p>