P-Cm (Coimbra) Biblioteca Municipal FPM-B50-09

The recto includes a rubric apparently requiring the use of the common of confessors for Fernando, a priest (ffernadi confessoris); the position of the commemoration implies a date between 13 and 15 of June; the only saint of that name and category is Fernando (or Fernam) Martins de Bulhões, the secular name of St. Anthony, who spent some time in Santa Cruz de Coimbra before becoming a Franciscan and is commemorated on June 13th, which fits the calendar. The verso has part of the mass for the Vigil of John the Baptist, and apparently two masses for the feast day. The rubric before the decorated 'A' instructs that the first mass is "de luce", at sunrise. The second mass is that "in die", although its rubric (right end of the seventh line) is undecipherable. While the main mass does not pose any particular problem and the choice of chants is wholly regular, an aurora mass for John the Baptist is unusual. It might thus be that the fragment comes from an institution with strong ties to this saint; since the external features of the document are compatible with a local origin, this was perhaps São João das Donas, a feminine convent dependent on Santa Cruz de Coimbra, whose patron was St. John the Baptist.  This accords with the the unusual rubric referred to above, since Dona Constança Sanches (1204-1269), natural daughter of King Sancho I, professed in this convent in 1224 and had an altar and a chapel erected to St. Anthony shortly after his canonization in 1232. She is said to have met him in Coimbra before her profession when he was at Santa Cruz and responded to the name Fernando, leaving a lasting impression on the young Constança; she left provisions to be buried in his chapel (Santa Maria, Chronica, pp. 541-543). This fragment, in its mention of Fernando instead of Antonio, probably replicates an earlier manuscript that preserved the 13th-century local memory of the saint.