[Monocordium]

Music, as incorporated into the medieval liberal arts curriculum, was conceived of as a mathematical discipline and included the study of complex harmonics. MS Codex 922 is a diverse collection of medical remedies, recipes for inks, and a treatise on music theory. The text on music draws on several earlier philosophers, including Boethius. The diagram on the page shown illustrates a monochord, a chord produced from a single string. Similar diagrams are found in existing copies of Boethius’s text De Musica, including the copy in the Schoenberg Collection, LJS 47. Boethius’s theories on music appearing in such an eclectic manuscript in the fifteenth century affirm the powerful and wide-ranging influence of his ideas.