There is some soiling throughout the bifolium. Rodent damage is visible on the outer edges of the pages.

The bifolium is non-continuous and written in double column format. It is foliated twice as 46-49 and 73-76, the former of which will be used for the purpose of this description. At the beginning of each oration, the first initial is penned with alternating blue/red initials and contrasting red/purple penwork. The length of the first column of fol. 49v is decorated with an alternating red and blue fleur-de-lys pattern. Rubrication is penned or underlined in red. 

The bifolium was purchased at auction on 3 December 2025, where it was sold from the collection of a private collector (Forum Auctions, lot 26). It was part of a manuscript intended for Dominican use. This is evidenced by the bifolium containing orations for vespers on Friday in the 4th week of Lent through to vespers on Tuesday in Passion Week (fol. 46r-v) and Wednesday in Holy Week through to the Memorial of the Cross (fol. 49r-v) that align with the orations for those days in the Humbert of Romans Codex (Santa Sabina MS XIV L1, fol. 46r-v). Additionally, the bifolium’s rubrics for the orations intended for Holy Week (fol. 49r-v) almost precisely match the rubrics for the corresponding orations in the codex (Santa Sabina MS XIV L1, fol. 46v). A bound sister fragment (52 leaves), which sold at Sotheby’s on 4 December 2007 (lot 56), likewise contains a calendar with several Dominican feasts, including Saint Dominic (August 6) and the translation of his relics (May 24) as totum duplex.

The parent manuscript was determined to originate from south-eastern France, most likely Arles. This is mainly based on Sotheby’s lot 56, with the inclusion of Saint Honoratus (Archbishop of Arles, c. 350-429) in the calendar (January 16) and the sixteenth century addition of an oration to Saint Trophimus (first bishop of Arles, d. c. 290). An eighteenth century note on fol. 1r from this fragment also states the parent manuscript was written at the time of the foundation of a convent (Ce collectaire a eté ecrit lors de la fondation du couvent). Based on the references to Arles-based saints, the Sotheby’s lot 56 description suggests that the parent manuscript came from the Dominicans of Arles, who first settled outside the city walls in 1231 and relocated within the city in the fourteenth century.

Sister leaves have likewise appeared on the market roughly between 2016 and 2022. On 5 December 2017, three sister bifolia were sold at Sotheby’s (lot 15). The lot description references the folio numbers for only two of the three: fols. 69-70 and 73-75.¹ On 26 September 2019, two sister bifolia were listed at auction at Forum Auctions (lot 35). While the folio numbers are not specified in the lot description, the bifolium that was digitized as part of the lot description later appears in Stephen Butler’s Spring 2022 catalogue (item 8), where it is identified as fols. 87-88. This bifolium was listed in the Stephen Butler catalogue alongside a second sister bifolium (fols. 71-72). It is possible that this was the second bifolium from Forum Auctions lot 35. There was also a potential sister leaf (fol. 126) held by Park West Gallery in 2016, which was indicated to be from a Dominican manuscript of the same period. The leaf is the only one of the aforementioned, with the exception of the leaf digitized as part of the Sotheby’s lot 56 description, to bear musical notation. It sections off the beginning of each chant with a blue bracket, much like the leaf with musical notation digitized as part of the Sotheby’s lot 56 description. The leaf equally has a double foliation format and patterns of rodent damage similar to the other sister leaves. No additional information about the leaf could be provided from the gallery.

Another potential sister leaf (MED MS 19) is housed at Winthrop University. In addition to bearing similar design and rodent damage, MED MS 19 follows the same format as the bifolium and its sister leaves (notwithstanding those containing musical notation), wherein it only contains the orations (or capitula in the case of the recto/part of verso) for a given day/hour, rather than the complete readings and chants for that day/hour. 

While the bifolium and most of its sister leaves have been described as having been part of a breviary-antiphoner, it is more likely that the parent manuscript was a collectarium. As previously mentioned, the orations and rubrics for the days in the bifolium match those in the Humbert of Romans Codex. More specifically, they match the orations and rubrics found in the codex’s collectarium. The format found in both the bifolium and its digitized sister leaves, wherein the different types of text (orations, antiphons, capitula) are written individually rather than with the complete readings and chants for a given day/hour, is equally how the codex’s collectarium is organized. In addition to the matching format, the text and rubrics for all the digitized sister leaves, including Park West Gallery fol. 126r and MED MS 19, likewise align almost exactly with the Humber of Romans Codex’s collectarium. Moreover, another sister leaf was donated to the University of Bristol Library (DM2373) in 2012. It contains a list of the parent manuscript’s contents (fol. 7v). The names of the 29 sections and the introduction to the list, which refers to the parent manuscript as a collectarium (Libellus iste qui collectarius dicitur eo quod propter collectas sive orationes), also match the equivalent portion from the codex’s collectarium (fol. 41r).

The Forum Auctions lot 26 description for the bifolium mentions that it was part of the dispersed first volume of the parent manuscript and that the second volume was Sotheby’s lot 56. This is not entirely consistent with the descriptions for its sister leaves. The Sotheby’s lot 56 description, for instance, makes no reference to the parent manuscript being multi-volume. Additionally, in the Sotheby’s lot 15 description, the three bifolia are referenced to have derived from Sotheby’s lot 56. The Forum Auctions lot 35 description similarly mentions that the two bifolia were “part of a dispersed first section of the [fragment] sold Sotheby's, 4th December, 2007, lot 56.” It is only in the Stephen Butler Spring 2022 catalogue that there is the first reference to the parent manuscript having been bound within two volumes. As previously indicated, at least one of the two bifolia from the catalogue was initially listed in Forum Auctions lot 35. It is, therefore, possible that referring to the bifolia as “part of a dispersed first volume” in the catalogue was a misread of “dispersed first section” from the auction lot description. Moreover, the bifolia digitized as part of the Sotheby’s lot 15, Forum Auctions lot 35, and Stephen Butler Spring 2022 catalogue descriptions all would have been part of the Orationes de tempore et de sanctis et de mortuis section of the parent collectarium. Seeing as the bifolium would have been part of the same section, it is likely that, like the aforementioned, it was fragmented from Sotheby’s lot 56.

¹ The former bifolium is referenced in the lot description as fols. 68-70, but the oration for the feast of Saint Pudentiana (virgin and martyr, May 19) begins on the verso of the prior leaf and continues on the recto of the posterior leaf. This makes the bifolium continuous and, by extension, foliated consecutively.