Dear Leonard,
Apart from only minor differences, the two versions do indeed appear to
be identical. I would however disagree with you on the matter of the
hands. Apart from the rhythmic notation ('grids' on 34r, single flags
on 35v), the writing seems to be identical. Notice especially the way
in which the letter b is written. As far as I know, one unique
characteristic of the scribe of Cosens is the way in which he writes
the letter b: he writes it like a modern h, open at the bottom. I
haven't seen this in any other lute source so far. (On a sidenote: in
very much the same way, the b written by the scribe of the Welde lute
book is unique too: he consistently writes it like a modern flat sign
from musical notation). This open b, written like h, is found in both
versions.
There are other, very interesting scribal peculiarities to be noticed
in Cosens, involving the letters b, f and h in particular. Although
Cosens was obviously written by someone who had considerable experience
as a scribe (this is apparent when you look at the often exquisitely
written titles and attributions in the margins), he was certainly not a
professional. It very much looks like he intended to write the entire
manuscript using the same script, but on very many occasions, involving
the letters I mentioned, he made a mistake and wrote those letters in a
different script (almost certainly one that he had been using before:
old habits die hard). Once he realizes his mistake, he abandons the
incorrect letter forms and continues with the right ones.When you study
the facsimile, you can see this happening literally dozens of times.
André Nieuwlaat
Op wo 26 aug. 2020 om 18:18 schreef Leonard Williams
<[1]arc...@mail.cs.dartmouth.edu>:
A curious discovery in Cosens (for me, at any rate): f. 34r
and
f.35v have the exact same untitled piece, but in different hands.
The
two are identical, no changes from one to the other that I see.
Why? Did he loan his book to someone who copied in a "new"
selection?
Curiously,
Leonard Williams
PS: Questions like this are why I (we) need this list!
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References
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