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New sources of English thirteenth- and fourteenth- century polyphony

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

Peter M. Lefferts
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Margaret Bent
Affiliation:
Princeton University

Extract

The volumes of the Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (hereafter RISM) devoted to manuscripts of polyphonic music contain a nearly complete catalogue of the sources of late-medieval English polyphony known in the literature at the time of their publication in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Since that time a substantial number of new sources has been discovered or rediscovered.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

1 Reaney, G., ed., Manuscripts of Polyphonic Music: 11th – Early 14th Century, RISM B/iv/1, (Munich and Duisburg, 1966)Google Scholar; Reaney, G., ed., Manuscripts of Polyphonic Music (c. 1320–1400), RISM B/IV/2 (Munich and Duisburg, 1969)Google Scholar; von Fischer, K. and Lutolf, M., eds., Handschriften mit mehrstimmiger Musik des 14., 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts, RISM B/IV/3–4 (Munich and Duisburg, 1972)Google Scholar. These incorporate information up to and including the article by Bent, MargaretNew and Little-known Fragments of English Medieval Polyphony’, JAMS, 21 (1968), pp. 137–56Google Scholar.

2 Articles devoted to new sources not mentioned in RISM include the following: Sandon, N., ‘Fragments of Medieval Polyphony at Canterbury Cathedral’, MD, 30 (1976), pp. 3754Google Scholar, on Canterbury, Cathedral Library, MS 128; Summers, W., ‘A New Source of Medieval English Polyphonic Music’, M&L, 58 (1977), pp. 403–14Google Scholar, on Durham, Archives of the Dean and Chapter, Communar's Cartulary (see also n. 35, below, and the letter from Lefferts, P. M., M&L, 60 (1979), pp. 250–1)Google Scholar; Hughes, Andrew, ‘Fifteenth-Century English Polyphony Discovered in Norwich and Arundel’, M&L, 59 (1978), pp. 148–58Google Scholar, on NOcro 299 (see also the letter from Lefferts, P. M., M&L, 60 (1979), pp. 250–1)Google Scholar; Harrison, F. Ll., ‘Polyphonic Music for a Chapel of Edward iii’, M&L, 59 (1978), pp. 420–8Google Scholar, on US-NYpm 978 (see also Sanders, E. H., ‘English Polyphony in the Morgan Library Manuscript’, M&L, 61 (1980), pp. 172–6)Google Scholar. William Summers delivered a paper to the American Musicological Society in New York, November 1979, on aspects of the pieces in score notation in a few of the sources to be discussed below, and Roger Bowers, in a paper at the Ninth Annual Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Music, Glasgow, 31 July – 3 August 1981, questioned the dates hitherto proposed for pieces in US-NYpm 978.

3 See especially Dobson, E. and Harrison, F. Ll., eds., Medieval English Songs (London, 1979)Google Scholar; and Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century 1, 14–17 (Paris and Monaco) ( = PMFC). The latter are: Schrade, L., ed., The Roman de Fauvel, The Works of Philippe de Vitry, French Cycles of the ‘Ordinarium Missae’, PMFC 1 (1956)Google Scholar; Sanders, E. H., ed., English Music of the Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries, PMFC 14 (1979)Google Scholar; Harrison, F. Ll., ed., Motets of English Provenance. PMFC 15 (1980)Google Scholar; Harrison, F. Ll., LefTerts, P. M. and Sanders, E. H., eds., English Music for Mass and Office, PMFC 16 (1982)Google Scholar; F. Ll. Harrison, P. M. Lefferts and E. H. Sanders, eds.. PMFC 17 (forthcoming).

4 Facsimile publications include Summers, W., ed., English Fourteenth-century Polyphony: Facsimile Edition of Sources Sotated in Score, Münchner Editionen zur 4 Musikgeschichte (Tutzing, forthcoming) (= S)Google Scholar; Harrison, F. Ll. and Wibberley, R., eds., Manuscripts of Fourteenth-century English Polyphony, Early English Church Music 26 (London, 1981) (= H–W)Google Scholar; Bent, M., ed., The Fountains Fragments (Clarabricken, Ireland, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

5 Discovered by Bent, Margaret, who gave a brief notice of it in ‘The Transmission of English Music 1300–1500: Some Aspects of Repertory and Presentation,’ Studien zur Tradition in der Musik: Kurt von Fischer zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Eggebrecht, H. and Lütolf, M. (Munich, 1973), pp. 67–8Google Scholar.

6 In both of these sources the careful placement of the page turn at the end of a Kyrie or Christe in all voices indicates the sensitivity of the scribe to the requirements of performance.

7 A summary account of this deposit is given in Giles, P. M., ‘A Hand-list of the Bradfer-Lawrence Manuscripts Deposited on Loan at the Fitzwilliam Museum’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 6 (19721976), pp. 8699Google Scholar.

8 On fol. 2v two extra staves have been added in the blank space at the bottom of the leaf to carry an extra item of music; on fol. 2r one extra staff has been added to enable the music occupying the rest of the page to be completed; on fol. lv a blank staff left unused at the bottom of the leaf has been carefully erased.

9 The music scribes of fol. 2r and 2v appear to be identical, though three may be two text scribes.

10 Rental of Coxford Priory, 1511, Norwich, Norfolk and Norwich Record Office, MS Bradfer-Lawrence v.d. A late-sixteenth-century transcript occurs as Norfolk, Raynham Hall, Manuscripts of the Marquis Townshend of Raynham, Box 37, large paper volume without shelf-mark (in a brown paper packet marked on the exterior ‘E. & W. Rudham Temp Eliz (1579–1600)’), pp. 8–12.

11 The rental is held together by a parchment thong threaded through the spine; two large holes in the leaf of music appear in an exactly matching location. Through the upper of a pair of stitching-holes in the spine of the outer bifolium of the rental, above the holes made for the parchment thong, there remains a small piece of string; this once bound the outer folio to the music-leaf cover, which has a pair of holes in an exactly corresponding location. A similar length of string remains attached to the lower part of the fold on the music leaf; and in the outer bifolium of the rental there is a stitching-hole in the identical place.

12 London, British Library, Campbell Ch.xxi.8.

13 Ibid., fol. 4v.

14 A rental is not identical with a terrier, and served a rather different purpose; however, since there is a considerable degree of overlap in their respective subject matter, it is entirely conceivable that the process of replacing an obsolete terrier would involve the compilation of a new rental.

15 In the right-hand margin of fol. 2r of the music there appears, in an apparently earlyfifteenth-century hand, the single word ‘mitiget’, apparently intended to relate to the entry lying adjacent to it on the last folio of the volume to which it was then serving as a cover. At the foot of fol. lr some sums of money have been jotted down (e.g. 'xljli xixs xd); the hand seems to be late-fifteenth-century, but the significance of these inscriptions, appearing on the outside of the cover, is not readily obvious.

16 For some account of the history of the priory see Cox, J. C., ‘Coxford Priory’, Victoria County History of Norfolk, ed. Page, W., 2 vols. (London, 1906), ii, pp. 378–80Google Scholar; Saunders, H. W., ‘A History of Coxford Priory’, Norfolk Archaeology, 17 (1910), pp. 284370Google Scholar; Knowles, D. and Hadcock, R. N., Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales (2nd edn, London, 1971), p. 155Google Scholar. A fair amount of archival material from Coxford Priory still survives at Raynham Hall, near Fakenham, Norfolk, and by kind courtesy of the owner, the Marquis Townshend of Raynham, the author was permitted to examine this material in the hope of finding further leaves of music. The search was unfruitful.

17 Ayscough, S. and Caley, J., eds., Taxatio ecclesiastica Angliae et Walliae auctoritate P. Nicholai iv circa a.d. 1291, Record Commission London, 1802), pp. 90114Google Scholar; Saunders, ‘A History of Coxford Priory’, pp. 284–5.

18 Harrison (1963), pp. 113–15.

19 The duplum of Ihesu redemptor/lhesu labentes/Ihesu redemplor omnium.

20 In fact, in the absence of any centralised organisation (in contrast with, for example, the Cistercians and Cluniacs), there appears to have been no distinctive Augustinian liturgy containing chants, or particular combinations of chant and text, readily identifiable as peculiar to it. The nature of the use observed at Coxford is not at present known. For evidence that Salisbury Use was observed at at least some Augustinian houses, see below, note 29; and, in respect of Notley Abbey and others, see Calendar of Papal Registers: Papal Letters, iv: (1362–1404) (London, 1902), p. 396Google Scholar.

21 For example, motet triplum: ‘Fons misericordie … o paraclite largitor venie’; compare Kyrie Omnipotens pater: ‘Kyrie spiritus paraclite largitor venie … Kyrie fons misericordie’ etc.

22 I am most grateful to Anthony Pryer of Goldsmiths' College, London, for undertaking to identify this chant, and for his generosity in supplying transcriptions of the relevant plainsongs, and indeed most of the information contained in this paragraph and its footnotes; his expert knowledge has preserved me from a number of potential hazards and pitfalls.

23 The incipit of this version, beginning on f, is given as no. 110 in Landwehr-Melnicki, M., Das einstimmige Kyrie des lateinischen Mittelalters, Forschungsbeiträge zur Musikwissenschaft 1 (Regensburg, 1954)Google Scholar; for her incorrect reference ‘E3’ read ‘E4’. A recent discussion of the provenance of Arsenal 135 occurs in Hohler, C., ‘Reflections on some Manuscripts containing Thirteenth-century Polyphony’, Journal of the Plainsong and Mediaeval Music Society, 1 (1978), pp. 25–8 and n. 28Google Scholar.

24 The leaves containing chants for the Ordinary of the Mass were unfortunately excluded from the facsimile edition of this manuscript: Mocquereau, A., ed., Antiphonaire Monastique … de Worcester, Paléographie Musicale, ser. i, 15 (Tournai, 19221925)Google Scholar. Consequently the Worcester version beginning on c′ is listed neither in Landwehr-Melnicki, Das einstimmige Kyrie, nor in Bryden, J. R. and Hughes, D. G., An Index of Gregorian Chant, 2 (Cambridge, Mass., 1969)Google Scholar.

25 Unfortunately, neither of these books is from a house of the Augustinian order. A few graduals and noted missals deriving from English Augustinian houses are known to exist, but in none of its forms does this chant appear to occur in any of them. These include London, British Library, MS Harley 622 (Ranton Priory, Staffordshire, a small house closely associated with the much more important Haughmond Abbey); Cambridge, University Library, MS Kk.ii.6 (of unknown provenance, but closely related to Harley 622); and Oxford, Bodleian Library. MS Lyell 9 (Breamore Priory, Hampshire). An alternative tradition of this Kyrie chant is recognisable in Landwehr-Melnicki, Daseimtimmige Kyrie, no. 58: it occurs in both English and continental sources, and may be presented with a troped text (e.g. Pater cuncta in the Gradual of Hereford Use, London, British Library, MS Harley 3965. fol. 89r). However, this version will be disregarded here since it presents a form of the chant considerably more distant than the other two from that used as the motet tenor, and moreover starts not on f or c′ but on g.

26 The possibility cannot at present be excluded that the texts of this motet are related to some unknown trope of the monophonic Kyrie, which circumstance would render this motet comparable to the tropic chant settings of Kyries found in slightly earlier sources, such as Ccl, which is discussed elsewhere in this article (see above, pp. 278–81). (P.M.L.)

27 Stäblein, B., Hymnen, i: Die miitelalterlichen Hymnenmelodien des Abendlandes, Monumenta Monodica Medii Aevi 1 (Kassel, 1956)Google Scholar.

28 See above, note 24.

29 For example, Cambridge, University Library, MS Mm.ii.9, fol. 335v: an antiphoner of Salisbury Use of the middle of the thirteenth century. This volume exemplifies the adoption of Salisbury Use at Augustinian monasteries (see note 20 above), since it is believed to have been compiled for use at the Augustinian Abbey of Barnwell, Cambridgeshire, a house located within forty miles of Coxford (AS, pp. 77–8; unfortunately, the hymner was excluded from this facsimile edition of the manuscript). In a rather later hymner (Cambridge, St John's College, MS D.21), possibly emanating from one of Coxford's closest Augustinian neighbours, Westacre Priory, the present melody does occur (on fol. 223v ), but is set to ‘Vos secli iusti iudices’, a hymn in the Commune sanctorum sung at second Vespers on feasts of apostles which were common feasts, or feasts of three or nine lessons.

30 Brev. Sar., ii, cols. 420, 422, 430.

31 Cambridge Mm.ii.9, fol. 335v.

32 Alternatively, however, it must be conceded that the use of the word ‘servuli’ may have no particular significance, having simply been suggested by the text of the hymn lesu redemptor omnium, where it occurs in stanza 4. Phrases occurring in stanzas 1 and 3 of the duplum of the motet also seem to have been suggested by the terminology of the hymn. In 1281 the canons of Coxford Priory received a stern rebuke from Peckham, John, Archbishop of Canterbury, for their sloth and lack of fervour: Martin, C. T., ed., Regislrum epistolarumfratrisjokannis Peckham, Rolls Series 77, 3 vols. (London, 18821885), l, pp. 162–5Google Scholar. It is remotely possible that these texts were written in a fit of contrition following this occurrence, though it does not seem likely that the music can have been composed so early.

33 This feature is not uncommon in English motets of the period, though rarely encountered elsewhere: see PMFC 15, nos. 3,5, 10, 13, 14, 27, 30, 31; and p. xii. See also Sanders, E. H., ‘The Medieval Motet’, Gattungen der Musik in Einzeldarstellungen: Gedenkschrift Leo Schrade, ed. Arlt, W. and others (Berne, 1973), pp. 543–6Google Scholar, for a discussion of isoperiodicity, especially in relation to the motets with medius cantus.

34 See note 24 above.

35 For example, a fragmentary setting of the Magnificat: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Lat.Th.e.30, flyleaf (quoted by Harrison (1963), p. 346); the triplum and duplum of the motet Herodis in pretorio/Herodis in atrio/Hey hure lure (PMFC 15, no. 29); and the top voice of a setting in three-voice discant of Gloria Spiritus et alme (Durham, Archives of the Dean and Chapter, Communar's Cartulary, flyleaf; Summers, W., ‘A New Source of Medieval English Polyphonic Music’, M &L, 58 (1977), p. 403Google Scholar, supplies a facsimile, but unfortunately the transcription appended is untrustworthy; there is also a facsimile in Bent, M., ‘A Preliminary Assessment of the Independence of English Trecento Notations’, L'ars nova italiana del Trecento: quattro convegno internazionale, 1975, ed. Ziino, A. (Certaldo, 1978), pp. 7980)Google Scholar.

36 James, M. R., A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Gonville and Caius College Cambridge (Cambridge, 19071908), p. 268Google Scholar. I am grateful to the librarian, J. H. Prynne, for providing a microfilm and facilitating my work.

37 Howlett, D. R., ‘Studies in the Works of John Whethamstede’ (D.Phil, thesis, University of Oxford, 1975), p. 202Google Scholar.

38 Richard of Wallingford, an Edition of his Writings, ed. and trans. North, J. D., 3 vols. (Oxford, 1976), ii, p. 309Google Scholar. An edition and translation of the treatise are in vol. I, extensive commentary in vol. ii.

39 AH 8, p. 173, from a printed Schleswig missal of 1486. A sequence beginning ‘Virgo vernans velut rosa’ but continuing differently is to be found in Dickinson, F. H., ed., Missale ad usum insignis et praeclarae ecclesiae Sarum (Burntisland, 18611883)Google Scholar, col. 960, for St Winifred. It evidently derives, with some free paraphrase, from the St Margaret version, which was presumably therefore known in England.

40 See OH, i and iii.

41 James, M. R., A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of St. John's College Cambridge (Cambridge, 1913), p. 32 (Cjc 23), pp. 112–13 (Cjc 84)Google Scholar.

42 Ibid., St John's College Library copy, p. 382.

43 Previté-Orton, C. W., ‘The Southampton Manuscripts’, The Eagle, 39 (19171918), pp. 207 ff., esp. pp. 208, 210Google Scholar.

44 Deanesley, M., The Incendium amoris of Richard Rolle de Hampole, Publications of the University of Manchester 97 (Manchester, 1915)Google Scholar.

45 Ker, N. R., Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: a list of Surviving Books, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 3 (London, 1964), pp. 78, 260Google Scholar.

46 Pollard, G., ‘Describing Medieval Bookbindings’, Medieval Learning and Literature: Essays Presented to Richard William Hunt, ed. Alexander, J. J. G. and Gibson, M. T. (Oxford, 1976), pp. 64 fGoogle Scholar.

47 In their versified texts, periodic phrase structures, and perhaps in their composition for four voices they represent an advance on the numerous thirteenth-century English tropic chant settings for three voices, which do, however, have easily identifiable cantus firmi. A particularly apt example in this context is the troped Christmas responsory O Judea et Jerusalem in Ob 60, which like Speciosa (items 3–5) has separate sections, set off by staff divisions and fresh initials, for its verse (‘Consona constantes’) and its doxology (‘Gloriose trinitati’; this is actually for two voices, though it is cited in RISM B/IV/1, p. 567, as a single voice of a separate item). (P.M.L.)

48 For general information on the manuscript see the introductory remarks on Cjc 23 above (pp. 306–7).

49 Ed. Migne, J.-P., Patrologiae Cursus Completus (Paris, 18441855), 184, p. 1189Google Scholar.

50 Ibid., p. 366.

51 Ed. Migne, J. P., Patrologiae Cursus Completus (Paris, 18441855), 18, p. 71Google Scholar.

52 Kaepelli, T., Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum medii (Rome, 1970), iii (1980), p. 1146Google Scholar.

53 Cantilena examples from these sources that have Franconian notation with regular declamation on long and breve include Ave caro Christi (Cgc 512, item 13), Decora facie (Cpc 228, item 6) and Virga Deigcnerosa (Cgc334, item 9). On the first of these, see further below, pp. 360–1.

54 According to a record entry slip in the new rear flyleaves, they were returned from binding on 29 April 1977. The eighteenth-century spine of Royal 11 E.IX is preserved in the Department of Manuscripts as MS Royal 11 E.IX (Covers). The two non-musical strips taken from this spine are from a twelfth-century collection of homilies; the material is for the vigil of Christmas Day and possibly draws on Romans 1.1–6.

55 The seven fragments belonging to part M are at present kept in one envelope. For a brief description see ‘Rough Register’ of Acquisitions of the Department of Manuscripts, British Library 1976–1980, List and Index Society Special Series xv (London, 1982), p. 27Google Scholar.

56 In one case, the normal combination of C1, C3, C5 is implied, and in another a C clef and a Bb used as a clef are visible, implying another common clef configuration, C2, C2, [C4] Bb.

57 Andrew Wathey has identified and examined over eighty Royal manuscripts bound in the same style; more remain to be examined. For the bindings of Royal manuscripts see Warner, G. F. and Gilson, J. P., Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King's Collections (London, 1921), i, pp. xxxxxxiGoogle Scholar. No binding records survive for this period and the manuscripts were probably bound by an outside binder (information kindly supplied by Howard Nixon, Librarian of Westminster Abbey Chapter Library).

58 Thanks are due to William Summers for sharing his discovery of Sarum Sanctus 1 in one of the fragments.

59 See for example NOcro 299, item 1 (PMFC 16, no. 22) or Lbl xxiv, item 2 (PMFC 16, no. 37). The other settings run the gamut of tempus perfectum and imperfectum with major and minor prolation.

60 See Ker, N. R., Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, 2 vols. (London, 19691977), i, pp. 140–1Google Scholar: Baildon, W. P., compiler, The Records of the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn: the Black Books, 5 vols. (London, 18971968), iv, p. 84Google Scholar.

61 For example, the writ to the Sheriff of Worcester of 6 November 1301 on fol. 132v, the enrolment of the will ofjoan la Spicer in the Common Pleas on fol. 190v, and the scribbled Norfolk place-name ‘Blikkelyng’ on fol. 194r.

62 For compilations of this sort, see Dewick, E. S., ‘On an Inventory of Church Goods Belonging to the Parish Church of St. Martin Ludgate’, Transactions of the St. Paul's Ecclesiological Society, 5 (19011905), p. 124Google Scholar: and Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous 1399–1422 (London, 1968), p. 188 (no. 352)Google Scholar.

63 The hymn In Anne puerperio occurs only in the Salisbury Use; both hymns are given in Brev. Sar., iii, cols. 539, 542. In other respects the Offices are not as close to the Salisbury versions as to Worcester Q.86, collated as Win Frere, W. H. and Brown, L. E. G., eds., The Hereford Breviary, Henry Bradshaw Society 26, 40, 46 (London, 19041915)Google Scholar; for the Feast of St Anne, see 40, pp. 262–9.

64 The feast's elevation occurred after Richard ii's marriage to Anne of Bohemia in 1382, though it had been observed locally earlier; see Pfaff, R. W., New Liturgical Feasts in Later Medieval England (Oxford, 1970), p. 2Google Scholar.

65 The hymns are listed in Chevalier (nos. 1928, 8518) and are mentioned in AH 5. p. 121 (where the other items of the Office are edited); their texts are edited in AH 19. pp. 55–6. from a number of sources, mostly English. Hereford plainsong sources could not be found, but as used in the polyphony the melodies differ little from the Salisbury versions in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Lat.liturg.b.14, fol. 267r–267v. The latter source is a noted choir breviary from St James's, Denchworth, Berkshire; see S. J. P. Van Dijk, ‘Handlist of Latin Liturgical Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford’ (typescript, Oxford, 1957), ii/2, p. 230. ‘Ave mater Anna’ is set to the hymn tune commonly associated with Ave maris Stella.

66 For other sources of this notation, see pp. 332, 354–5.

67 For descriptions see Ker, N. R., Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, 2 vols. (London, 19691977), i, p. 135Google Scholar; Baker, J. H., English Legal Manuscripts, 2 vols. (London, 19751978), ii, pp. 44–5Google Scholar.

68 Paste-downs taken from a year-book of Edward iii, together with part of the original cover, have been preserved in the volume. For more information on the binding see Douglas Cockerell's typescript repair note in the back of the volume. For dating such bindings see Pollard, G., ‘Describing Medieval Bookbindings’, Medieval Learning and Literature: Essays Presented to Richard William Hunt, ed. Alexander, J. J. G. and Gibson, M. T. (Oxford, 1976), pp. 5065Google Scholar. The binding of Lli 146 falls into Pollard's third group. (Bruce Barker-Benfield, of the Department of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, has pointed out that there is a degree of overlap in date between Pollard's third and fourth groups.)

69 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Add. c.40, p. i: ‘3 shelfe: 3 a yeare booke of E.3. in an antient hand in paper’ See also [Bernard, E.], Catalogi manuscriptorum angliae et hiberniae (Oxford, 1697), ii/1, p. 181Google Scholar: ‘5721.146. Relationes tempore Ed. iii. fol.’

70 See, for example, GS, pl. 19*, the fourth Ite missa. The chant is a fourth higher in Cu6, item 2, than in Lli 146, item 2; in GS it is written at the lower pitch.

71 I am grateful to M. B. Parkes and A. G. Watson for their help in the matter of hands.

72 In versification and subject matter of text, and also in notational style, this motet fragment is similar to the first motet fragment in TAcro 3182 (see below, pp. 354–5).

* The authors regret that a recent article by Foulds, Trevor, ‘The History of Thurgarton Priory to 1316’, Thornton Society, 84 (1980), pp. 2132Google Scholar, came to their attention too late to be taken into account in their discussion of the provenance of this fragment.

73 Although in fact a rental, its heading (on fol. 1r) describes it as an extent: ‘Extenta omnium proficuum Reddituum et firmarum Monasterio de Thurgarton’ pertinencium per Annum a festo Michaelis anno regni regis henrici vti septimo usque idem festum anno revoluto.'

74 The modern binding also contains the remains of one or more paper books, now adding up to thirty-two folios reduced by the process of repair to separate leaves, containing rentals and other estate documents of Thurgarton Priory, of various dates between 1428 and 1473.

75 Mid-sixteenth century: ‘Rentale de Thurgarton in Comitatibus Nott'et Lincoln’.' c. 1700: ‘Co. Nott.: Extent and Rental of the Manor of Thurgawon [sic] & also several other Manors in said County 7 Henry 5th 5 Henry 6th part and parcel of Thurgarton Monastery.’

76 The assessed income of Thurgarton Priory in 1291 exceeded £247, making it substantially more wealthy even than Coxford Priory (income in c. 1291 over £145) with which Cfw appears to have been associated (see above, pp. 284–5). For further information see Cox, J. C., ‘Thurgarton Priory’, Victoria County History of Nottinghamshire, ed. Page, W., 2 vols. (London, 19061910), ii, pp. 120–4Google Scholar; Knowles, D. and Hadcock, R. N., Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales (2nd edn, London, 1971), pp. 144, 176Google Scholar.

77 See AS, pl. 252; a setting of this chant in English discant, dating from around the mid-century, survives as Cu 6, item 3 (PMFC 17; facs. in Harrison (1963), pl. 22, facing p. 285).

78 This French tag is the incipit of several texts of late-thirteenth-century continental motets (for which see the index to RISM B/IV/ 1), but it occurs in association with a tenor only in F-MO, where it is written beneath the tenor of F-MO, item 292 (Rokseth, no. 309) on fol. 356r. Its purpose there, however, may not have been to identify the tenor.

79 Hughes, Anselm, Medieval Polyphony in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, 1951)Google Scholar.

80 RISM B/IV/1, pp. 566–70. For convenience, the one piece on this leaf has been given the next number according to RISM, so it is Ob 60, item 15.

81 One example is Nobili precinitur (Lbl 5958, item 1), a transcription into English mensural notation of a continental motet in the second mode that is also found as F-MO, item 58 (Rokseth, no. 67); the other instance is the fragmentary Fulgens stella (WF, item 74), a motet-like setting for two voices of a single text in a notation that is primitive and not always fully mensural.

82 See Coxe, H. O., Laudian Manuscripts (Oxford, 18581885; rev. R. W. Hunt, 1973), cols. 422–5, and p. 573Google Scholar.

83 For further details see Emden, A. B., A Biographical Register of the University of Cambridge to 1500 (Cambridge, 1963), p. 392Google Scholar.

84 On Tynemouth see Knowles, D. and Hadcock, R. N., Medieval Religious Houses (rev. edn, London, 1971), pp. 57, 78–9Google Scholar.

85 Four manuscript entries in the margins of Occ 144 identify Bamburgh as subprior, donator of these items, and probable copyist of some. 1 On fol. 16v in the middle of a fragment of a treatise, De planctu nature (fols. 16r–18v), byone Alanus: ‘Hie est Liber Sancte Marie ct Sancti Oswyni regis et martiris de Tynemoth ex dono domini Johannis Bambwrgh quondam supprioris anno gratie 1450’. 2 Some commentary following the treatise De planctu nature is signed ‘John Bambwrgh’ on fol. 18v This is almost certainly an autograph and probably indicates that Bamburgh was the copyist. From the similarity of hands, the Vinsauf treatise, which follows, was probably also copied by him. 3 On fol. 19v on the same page as the incipit of the main text of the Liber metricus: ‘Dominus Johannes Bambwrgh dedit hunc librum Deo et ecclesie Sancte Marie Sanctique Oswini anno Domini 1438 in festo Sancti Edmundi regis. Anima eius requicscat in pace. Amen.’ 4 On fol. 261: ‘In die sancti Thome martiris Anno Domini 1447 Dominus Johannes Bambwrgh quondam supprior huius ecclesie anno etatis sue 46 dedit hunc librum sic ligatum cum contentis omnibus Deo et Sancte Marie et Sancto Oswino, quern qui abstulerit aut titulum deleverit anathema sit. Amen. Anima dicti Johannis et fidelium anime requiescant in pace. Amen’.

86 The Liber metricus, a metrical poem of over 2000 Latin hexameter lines, written c. 1208–13, is given a valuable introduction and English translation in Murphy, J. J., ed., Three Medieval Rhetorical Arts (Berkeley, California, 1971)Google Scholar.

87 Malcolm B. Parkes of Oxford recently noticed these and drew the attention of Roger Wibberley to them. Dr Wibberley gave a brief introduction to this fragment in his dissertation, see Wibberley, R., ‘English Polyphonic Music of the Late-Thirteenth and Early-Fourteenth Centuries: a Reconstruction, Transcription and Commentary’ (D. Phil, thesis, University of Oxford, 1976), i/l, Appendix ii: ‘Two New Discoveries’, pp. 182–9Google Scholar. See Also Coxe, H. O., Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum … oxoniensibus, 2 (Oxford, 1852)Google Scholar, ii: Collegii Corporis Christi, pp. 56–7. Thanks are due to Dr Wibberley for generously sharing his information and observations on Occ 144 and One 57 (see below, pp. 352–3).

88 This is item 1, Singulans laude digna; see Harrison, F. Ll., ‘Polyphonic Music for a Chapel of Edward iii’, M&L, 59 (1978), p. 424Google Scholar.

89 St Albans, which often entertained royalty, seems as plausible a locale in which to have performed the musical repertory of Occ 144 or US-NYpm 978 as does any royal chapel of Edward III. For a hypothesis concerning the latter possibility, see Harrison. ‘Polyphonic Music for a Chapel of Edward iii’.

90 See Bent, M., ‘New and Little-known Fragments of English Medieval Polyphony’, JAMS, 21 (1968), p. 137Google Scholar. Other St Albans books with musical flyleaves have since come to light; see Cgc 230 above, pp. 295–306.

91 The elder John's tenure ended before 1396; the younger John was also prior of Tynemouth, from 1396 to 1420, before moving to St Albans; see Gibson, W. S., The History of the Monastery Founded at Tynemouth in the Diocese of Durham, 1 vols. (London, 18461847 ), i, p. 178Google Scholar; and for the letter to Bamburgh, see also Riley, H. T., ed., Chronica monasterii S. Albani … Registrum abbatiae Johannis Whethamstede Rolls Series 28 ( London, 1872), i, pp. 311–16Google Scholar.

92 Richard of Wallingford, an Edition of his Writings, ed. and trans. North, J. D., 3 vols. (Oxford, 1976)Google Scholar; vol. i includes an edition of the Albion, while the manuscripts and contents of the treatise are discussed in vol. ii, pp. 127–286. Another version of the Albion survives in a manuscript from Tynemouth, now Ob 657; see Coxe, H. O., Laudian Manuscripts (Oxford, 18581885; rev. R. W. Hunt, 1973), cols. 477–9Google Scholar. North (ii, p. 130) calls this a new edition of the text, made by Simon Tunsted, a name familiar to music historians for his association with the Quatuorprincipalia. The manuscript was evidently copied between Tunsted's death (?1369) and the end of the fourteenth century. There seems to be little foundation for the suggestions made in Gunther, R. T., Early Science at Oxford, II: Astronomy, Oxford Historical Society 78 (Oxford, 1923), p. 370Google Scholar, that the Ob 657 version was copied from that of Occ 144, or that these are both fifteenth-century copies. North also rejects a number of other claims and suggestions made by Gunther about Wallingford.

93 For more on these note-forms, see Bent, M., ‘A Preliminary Assessment of the Independence of English Trecento Notations’, L'ars nova italiana del Trecento: quattro convegno internazionale, 1975, ed. Ziino, A. (Certaldo, 1978), pp. 68–9, 72Google Scholar.

94 William Summers has discussed these flagged semiminims in his paper, ‘English Discant:New Sources and Old Questions’, given at the Ninth Annual Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Music, Glasgow, 31 July – 3 August 1981.

95 Wibberley, R., ‘English Polyphonic Music of the Late-Thirteenth and Early-Fourteenth Centuries: a Reconstruction, Transcription and Commentary’ (D.Phil, thesis, University of Oxford, 1976)Google Scholar, i/l, Appendix ii: ‘Two New Discoveries’, pp. 182–9.

96 One of the projects with which R. W. Hunt was occupied at the time of his death in 1979 was a large undertaking concerning New College Library. Most of the information in this paragraph has been drawn from his chapter on donors, which was graciously made available by B. C. Barker-Benfield of the Department of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library; see R. W. Hunt, Studies in the History of New College Library (unpublished draft, now kept in the Bodleian Library). See also Coxe, H. O., Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum …oxoniensibus, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1852), i: Collegii Novi, pp. 11, 16Google Scholar, where the Canterbury provenance is noted.

97 A reconstruction of half of the motet is provided in Wibberley, ‘English Polyphonic Music’, i/l, Appendix n, pp. 185–9.

98 See LefTerts, P. M., ‘The Motet in England in the Fourteenth Century’, Current Musicology, 28 (1979), pp. 62–3Google Scholar.

99 This source was given a brief description by Doe, Paul in his edition of its two complete items, see 1. Sanctus, 2. Magnificat (Anonymous, 14th Century), transcribed and ed. Doe, Paul, University of Exeter Publications in Early Music 1 (Exeter, 1973)Google Scholar. The Sanctus also appears in Marrocco, T. and Sandon, N., eds., Medieval Musk, The Oxford Anthology of Music (London, 1977), no. 64, pp. 143–4Google Scholar. See also Bowers, p. 4008, n. 3. Steven Douglas Halasey, who is working on a Ph.D. thesis for the University of California at Los Angeles, entitled ‘The Production and Dissemination of the Lollard Bible’, has kindly shared his opinion that the biblical portion of the Taunton manuscript was produced between 1395 and 1410, probably by a provincial group of scribes, and that the manuscript was bound shortly after its completion; it is still in its original binding.

100 This mensuration appears in many cantilena-style settings in score, and a few motets in parts from the later fourteenth century, such as Omc 266/268, items 1 and 3, and the newly discovered fragment Ancilla domini, Lli 146, item 6 (see above, p. 332).

101 The cantus firmus is Salisbury Sanctus 4, pitched a fifth higher than in GS.

102 The minims in particular are very distinctive. They have parallel vertical sides with the ascending stem growing directly up out of the left-hand edge. This resembles the hand of NOcro 299. and the hand of scribe B in Occ 144 (for which, see above, pp. 350–2).

103 A perfect match for the eighth tone of the Magnificat according to the Use of Salisbury; see Frere, W. H., Use of Sarum, ii (Cambridge, 1901), p. lxxiGoogle Scholar.

104 See Hanboys's, Muska, Lbl 8866, fol. 78v, ed. Coussemaker, E. de, Scriptorum de musica medii aevi novam seriem a Gerbertina alterant, 4 vols. (Paris, 18641876; repr. 1963), i, p. 431Google Scholar.

105 A mention of this source is given in Bowers, p. AO87.

106 Another setting of Gaude Maria which is of approximately the same age (Ccc 65, item 4; PMFC 16, no. 81), sets all five lines.

107 See for instance LU, pp. 1266–7.

108 See GS, pll. 14*–15*.

109 On the Lumiere see Legge, M. D., ‘Pierre de Peckam and his “Lumiere as lais”’, The Modern Language Review, 24 (1929), pp. 3747, 153–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Legge, “La lumiere as lais” — a Postscript’, The Modern Language Review, 46 (1951), pp. 191–5Google Scholar.

110 Everart's version of the Distiches of Cato; see Legge, ‘“La lumiere as lais” – a Postcript’. p. 192.

111 Ibid., p. 193.

112 F. Ll. Harrison, preface to H–W.

113 Ker, N. R., Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: a List of Surviving Books, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 3 (London, 1964), p. 395Google Scholar.

114 I am grateful to Anthony Pryer of Goldsmiths' College, University of London for the observations and information in this paragraph. Mr Pryer reports that Helen Lycett, who is preparing a dissertation at Leeds University on Fothegale, has informed him that other books from Fothegale's library have music bound in them. At the time of writing these books have not, however, been identified and examined.

115 A concordance for Zelo tui occurs in Lbl 1210, item 13, fols. 142v–143r. Concordances for Inter amenitatis occur in F-Pn 146 (the Roman de Fauvel, 1316), item 21, fol. 21v as a two-voice motet (listed in the index to this source under ‘Notez a tenures sanz trebles’); F–Pn 23190 where it survives only as a listing in the index, numbered xxxi; I—TRmn 87, item 177, fols. 231v–232r, a fifteenth-century source which is the only complete version (i.e. with duplum). Inter amenitatis is ed. after F-Pn 146 in PMFC 1, no. 22; and after I-TRmn 87 in von Ficker, R., Sieben Trienter Codices: geistliche und weltlkhe Motetten, Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich Jg. XL, 76 (Graz, 1960), p. 1Google Scholar.

116 The presence of music in Yc was first remarked upon by Legge. in ‘“La lumiere as lais”—a Postscript’, p. 192, and independently discovered by Frank LI. Harrison in 1960, who recovered his reference to it during the editing of PMFC 15 in 1979.

117 See the discussion of the second motel in Cfw above, p. 291.

118 On this manuscript see Ehrensburger, H., Libri liturgici Bibliothecae apostolicae vatkanae manuscripti (Freiburg, 1897; repr. 1969), pp. 227–9Google Scholar; and Greith, K J., Spialegium latkanum (Frauenfeld, 1838), pp. 132–4Google Scholar. The poem is listed in Chevalier (no. 22426). and ed., after the Vatican manuscript, p. 72 (no. 71).

119 Cgc 512, item 13a, fol. 260r–260v Both items 13 and 13a were originally notated so that the declamation was isochronous on the value of the long, but they have been revised in notation so that the units of declamation alternate between long and breve values; see Wibberley, R., ‘English Polyphonic Music of the Late-Thirteenth and Early-Fourteenth Centuries: a Reconstruction, Transcription and Commentary’ (D. Phil, thesis. University of Oxford, 1976), i/l, pp. 163–4Google Scholar.

120 See Sanders, H., ‘Cantilena and Discant in 14th-century England, MD, 19 (1965), pp. 752, esp. pp. 14 ff, 36Google Scholar. Only one other cantilena setting can be shown to be based on a cantus firmus; this is Gaude virgo mater Christi (Lbl3132, item 1), whose melody is also in the lowest voice. See Bent, M., ‘New and Little-known Fragments of English Medieval Polyphony’, JAMS, 21 (1968), pp. 139–41Google Scholar.

121 de Ricci, S., Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada, 3 vols. (New York, 19351940)Google Scholar; Supplement, ed. C. U. Faye and W. H. Bond (New York, 1962).

122 MGG, ix, cols. 1920–5, see col. 1922. Despite inquiries made of Professor Harrison and Messrs Rosenthal. Andrew Hughes and Margaret Bent were unable to locate it for purposes of their edition of OH. It re-emerged when Kenneth J. Levy brought it to Margaret Bent's attention in 1976.

123 Private correspondence from Bernard Rosenthal to Margaret Bent, 9 August 1971, and to Peter Lefferts, 13 September 1980.

124 Lbl 57950, item 89, fols. 76v–77r; OH, i, pp. 293–9, iii, p. 33.