The concept of the Dominican liturgical ‘exemplar’ is the subject of Chapter 2. The Dominican exemplar was undoubtedly modelled on an earlier exemplar from the Cistercian order (now Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale, 114). Comparing the Dominican exemplar to its Cistercian predecessor, it is evident that the two are similar in both content and presentation. Nevertheless, the Dominicans took the concept further: they made several copies of their exemplar rather than just one, and, instead of merely documenting the liturgy, the Dominican exemplars supplied the models for fourteen types of books required for performing the liturgy. Three exemplars survive: the oldest, Rome, Santa Sabina, XIV L 1; a copy used by the master of the order, London, British Library, Add. 23935; and a copy made for the Dominican province of Spain, Salamanca, San Esteban, SAL.–CL.01. Each manuscript is described individually, outlining the dating, known provenance, and current physical state.

Chapter 9 is the last of four chapters to consider one element of the Dominican liturgy, focussing here on the melodic and modal qualities of Dominican chant before and after the mid-thirteenth-century liturgical revision. The chapter opens with a consideration of the melodic characteristics of Dominican chant; Cistercian melodies were clearly an initial source of inspiration for the Dominican mass chants. A comparison of the melodies of a twelfth-century Cistercian gradual (Paris, BnF, lat. 17328) with key thirteenth-century Dominican mass books reveals that the Dominican revision maintained many Cistercian characteristics (such as abbreviated melismas and a preference for minor thirds over major seconds), while reducing the incidence of repetition and reversing the Cistercian transposition of the modes of alleluias. To close, the chapter investigates cases of palaeographical anomalies at points of melodic revision in the first authoritative ‘exemplar’ of the revised liturgy (Rome, Santa Sabina XIV L 1), and considers what these reveal about both the production and revision process.

Chapter 7 is the second of four chapters to consider one element of the Dominican liturgy, focussing here on the sources and development of the Dominican mass over the thirteenth century. The analysis confirms that the Dominican order’s mass chants, particularly its alleluias, were mainly drawn from the Cistercian gradual, and demonstrates that this can be traced back to the earliest identifiable Dominican liturgy. Using surviving manuscripts, this chapter traces various patterns of revision made to the Dominican liturgy in the mid thirteenth century, undertaken by a commission of four friars and completed by Humbert of Romans. The final portion of the chapter examines instances where these changes result in palaeographical anomalies in the first ‘exemplar’ manuscript of Humbert’s revised liturgy (Rome, Santa Sabina, XIV L 1), and considers what these reveal about the process of copying the exemplar.

Chapter 3 is the first of three chapters to consider an aspect of the material production of Dominican liturgical books. This chapter focuses on textual palaeography and the work of text scribes, as exemplified in the three extant exemplars: Rome, Santa Sabina, XIV L 1; London, British Library, Add. 23935; and Salamanca, San Esteban, SAL.–CL.01. The chapter opens with a review of thirteenth-century Dominican documentation concerning the copying of books more generally, such as Humbert of Romans’ description of the ‘overseer of scribes’, as well as the more limited evidence for liturgical book production. It then treats each of the three extant liturgical exemplars individually, identifying text scribes and their working patterns. Numerous scribes copied the exemplars, with only one working on more than one manuscript. Given the high production quality, it is argued that the exemplars were largely the work of professional scribes, who would have been working under the supervision of a Dominican friar.