It is well known that the two alleluias cited in the title are textings of the same tune – indeed they are only two of many textings of that tune. Along with the alleluia Video celos, these two were sung over a rather short space of time in the liturgical year: on the feasts of Christmas, St Stephen's and Epiphany. It happens that for another purpose, involving the transmission of chant in later manuscripts, I have collated the alleluia Dies sanctificatus and alleluia Vidimus stellam in over a hundred manuscripts, most of them late French sources. The choice of these manuscripts rather than others – French rather than German or English – was dictated in part by practical considerations, but also by the conviction that French sources are on the whole richer in variants and hence more revealing in the mechanics of their transmission. The approximately one hundred sources considered are a good majority of the surviving late sources, and the picture they give is, I believe, representative. In the course of this article, I will also have occasion to mention earlier manuscripts, both French and non-French. These are not the primary focus of my study, and therefore I have permitted myself many omissions in that respect. Important graduals, for example from St-Omer,2 Angers3 and Noyon,4 to name only three, have been untouched. My collation has shown a considerable number of variants, some of which are clearly regional in nature, while others are of a more ambiguous character. Having two textings of the same melody available supplies a useful control: readings that occur in both versions naturally have a strong claim to represent a true tradition, rather than a random alteration.

The fragments of liturgical music held in the monastic library of Ampleforth Abbey, Yorkshire, consist of thirty-three manuscript parchment leaves of varying sizes, most of which appear to have been used as strengtheners for book bindings.1 It is difficult to determine their provenance but some clues may be found in the variety of their neume styles. Six of the fragments are written with staffless neumes, the rest have staff notation, including eleven leaves from an Office antiphoner. There are also several fragments with square notation in a mensural form. The neume styles indicate a wide time-span, probably from the eleventh century to the mid-fifteenth century. The geographical region suggested by the notation is, for the most part, that of Lorraine and of southern Germany.

Liturgical chant bibliography 7 continues the new format initiated last year in this journal: editions and facsimile editions; books, reprints; collections of essays, congress reports, chant periodicals, dictionaries; articles in periodicals and Festschriften. This year's bibliography begins with a list of additions to the previous bibliography. In the case of a few titles, the Lexicon Musicum Latinum (7053) or MGG (7059), for example, I have referred to publications listed in LitChBibl 6. Completing and facilitating access to the bibliography are separate indices of names, subjects and manuscripts