Tracing the history of the manuscript Corpus Christi 410

The history of scholars mentioning or working with Odington's De speculatione musica



1298-1316: Records of Walter Odington's activities

c1300?: De speculatione musica

1463: William or Worcester states that 'Master Walter Evesham [  ] made his deliberations at Oxford about 1316'

1557: Bishop John Bale attributed certain scientific treatises to Walter Odington, but misattributed De speculatione musica to Gualterus de Evesham and misdated it to be from around 1240.  Subsequently, scholars who discussed the treatise reattributed the work to its rightful owner, but retained the date of c1217-1240.

1655-83: William Dugdale writes Monasticon Anglicanum which lauded Odington's natural curiosity and hunger for knowledge.

1776: The historians Charles Burney (A General History of Music) and Sir John Hawkins (A General History of the Science and Practice of Music) praise Odington's expansive information in the De speculatione musica.  Hawkins also includes a brief history of the manuscript along with mention that Odington's work is also contained in a Tiberius manuscript (destroyed in the fire of 1731 but copied previous to its destruction by Hawkins to present to Dr. Pepusch).

1864-76: Edmond Coussemaker makes the first edition of the manuscript Corpus Christi 410 (the only manuscript which contains the entire contents of De speculatione musica) as a part of his series Scriptorum de musica medii aevi nova series a Gerbertina altera.

1965: Frederick Hammond provides a new edition as a part of his PhD dissertation from Yale university and published the edition as a part of a series of edited treatises by Corpus Scriptorum de Musica in  1970 under a new name Summa de speculatione musica.

1971: The British Library acquires two fragments of De specualtione musica which contain the first section of the treatise.  The existence of this fragment was not previously known as it was used as pastedown bindings for another book or manuscript.