The Codex Speciálník is a 15th-century speciálník (i.e., special songbook) originating from a monastery in the region of Praha (Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

). Its eclectic mix of Medieval

Medieval music

Medieval music is Western music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends sometime in the early fifteenth century...

 and Renaissance

Renaissance music

Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given that its defining characteristics were adopted only gradually; musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.Literally meaning...

 a cappella

A cappella

A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...

sacred music is matched only by its brilliant juxtapositions of well-known and obscure pieces and composers. Containing works for two, three, and four voices, the Codex is one of the oldest surviving collections of Czech

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

 Renaissance polyphony

Polyphony

In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....

, and originated in the Utraquist

Utraquism

Utraquism was a Christian dogma first proposed by Jacob of Mies in 1414. It maintained that the Eucharist should be administered "in both kinds" — as both bread and wine — to all the congregation, including the laity...

 protestant congregations of around 1500. The manuscript

Manuscript

A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

 is currently in the Hradec Králové

Hradec Králové

Hradec Králové is a city of the Czech Republic, in the Hradec Králové Region of Bohemia. The city's economy is based on food-processing technology, photochemical, and electronics manufacture. Traditional industries include musical instrument manufacturing – the best known being PETROF pianos...

Museum, which acquired it from a Prague antique dealer in 1901.

External links

• A listing of Medieval and Gothic recordings, containing a wealth of historical information on the Codex Speciálník.