GUALTERUS

Techniques

Illumination of manuscripts and musical notation.

Profile and historiographical debate

GUALTERIUS / GUALTERUS / GUALTER

Gualterus was a monk linked to the Santa Maria de Ripoll’s Monastery, contemporary to the abbot-bishop Oliba (971-1046) He was from the region of the Fuentes del Ebro, currently in Cantabria (Junyent 1992). It was attributed to him the illumination and the musical notation of the manuscript Breviarium de Música (ACA, Ms, Ripoll, 42, f. 6r). His name appears in an acrostic poem with two more monks of the monastery, Arnaldus and the Monk Oliba:

Sede sedens diva comes, abbas, praesul Oliva,         tri

rimans cum studio quid musicet eufona Clio,           Oliva

me fore delegit Arnaldus iussa peregit,                      ni

qui iussus peragit quicquid laudabile sentit.             Arnaldus

Gualterus vero, de fonte regressus Hibero,               tas

formis signavit, numeris signata probavit.                Gualterus

It is a manuscript composed by 112 folios (25,70 x 24,70 cm) wrote in Carolingian letter from the 11th century in black tint with epigraphs. According to Pijoan (Pijoan 1914) and Gudiol (Gudiol 1955), this volume would have been the draft of a richly illustrated book, currently lost, commissioned by the abbot-bishop Oliba. It contains fragments of Boethius and a varied collection of texts about rhetoric, grammar and music.

The manuscript was discovered by Jaume Villanueva (Villanueva 1803), where it describes a Gualterus like “the person in charge of transcribing the musical notations and the geometric decorations” of the manuscript. Therefore, Gualterus would have been inspired, not only in the illumination, jointly with Arnaldus, but also on a scripture of a musical tree with de musical divisions.

In any case, it is clear that Gualterus had worked directly by the scriptorium of Ripoll and was part of the circle of proximity of the abbot-bishop Oliba.

Works

Breviarium of Music (ACA, Ms, Ripoll, 42, f. 6r).

Patrons

Abbot-Bishop Oliba.

Documentary Sources

Prosopopoeia of the Breviarium of Music (ACA, Ms, Ripoll, 42, f. 6r):

Sede sedens diva comes, abbas, praesul Oliva,         tri

rimans cum studio quid musicet eufona Clio,           Oliva

me fore delegit Arnaldus iussa peregit,                      ni

qui iussus peragit quicquid laudabile sentit.             Arnaldus

Gualterus vero, de fonte regressus Hibero,               tas

formis signavit, numeris signata probavit.                Gualterus

Translation in English:

Seated in his divine chair Oliva’s count,                                                                tri

Abbot and bishop, in the assiduous research of what Clio.                          Oliva

Of soothing voice, sings, she selected me.                                                        ni

He accomplished his dispositions Arnald                                                           Arnaldus

That being commanded give perfection of what it is laudable.                  tas

Also, Gualter, precedent of the Birth of the Ebro                                            Gualterus

Made notations and demonstrated it with numbers

Text: Laia Cutrina Gallart