English: This antiphonary was copied in the Netherlands in the second half of the fifteenth century. It was written for the Augustinian abbey of the Sisters of the Common Life at Amersfoort. Shown here is one of three large blue and white divided initials which signal major sections in the antiphonary. Each has penwork infilling and surround with full-length marginal flourishing in red partly infilled with a green wash. The penwork for this letter ‘E’, which marks the beginning of the Common of the Saints, terminates with a bushy-tailed dragon. The musical notes in hufnagelschrift are written on a four-line stave. Hufnagelschrift, or horseshoe-nail script, was found mostly in late medieval German chant manuscripts. It is so called because of the resemblance of its noteheads to a Hufnagel (horseshoe-nail).
The Antiphonary contains the music for the Offices; the text for the Offices is written in a Breviary. The Offices are the daily devotions at the eight canonical hours of Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, Nones, Vespers, and Compline.