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A fourteenth-century Welsh Sarum antiphonal: National Library of Wales ms. 20541

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2009

Owain Tudor Edwards
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Extract

Surprisingly few antiphonals were to survive “the King's order for bringing in popish rituals”, the Statute of 3 and 4 Edward VI, c. 10., following an Order in Council, 25 December 1549.[1] This was put into effect with great assiduity by the Church, under the auspices of its bishops, each bishop having been made personally responsible for seeing that the law was obeyed in his diocese. The destruction of books was deplored by some of the Protestants themselves, for instance by Bishop John Bale, who was a fierce enemy of the papacy,[2] but they were not permitted to do anything about it. The text of the statute acquires an ominous inevitability as every kind of liturgical book in turn is condemned to annihilation. Since divers unquiet and evilly-disposed people wanted to have their Latin services back (begins the statute), their “conjured bread” and water and suchlike vain and superstitious ceremonies, the king had decided to put an end to such expectations by instructing each bishop immediately to command every clergyman in his diocese to deliver to him or to a deputy “all antiphoners, missales, grayles, processionalles, manuelles, legendes, pies, portasies, jornalles, and ordinalles after the use of Sarum, Lincoln, Yorke, or any other private use, and all other bokes of service …” Bishops were explicitly instructed to “take the same bokes … and then so deface and abolyshe that they never after may serve eyther to anie soche use, as they were provided for …”

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Plainsong & Mediaeval Music Society , Volume 10 , January 1987 , pp. 15 - 21
Copyright
© The Plainsong and Medieval Music Society 1987

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References

Notes

[1] Frere, W.H. and Kennedy, W.M., eds.: Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Period of the Reformation (London 1910), ii, 248 Google Scholar; Wilkins, David, ed.: Concilia magnae Britannicae et Hiberniae (London 1737), iv, 37 Google Scholar.

[2] Legouis, E. and Cazamian, L.: A History of English Literature (London 1957), p.214 Google Scholar.

[3] Frere, W.H., ed.: Antiphonale sarisburiense, a Reproduction in Facsimile of a Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century, with a Dissertation and Analytical Index (London 1901–1924), Introduction pp.76–82 Google Scholar.

[4] A description of this manuscript, which is the British Library's oldest witness to the music of the Sarum office, is given by Turner, D.H.: ‘The Penwortham Breviary’, The British Museum Quarterly 28 (1964), pp.85–88 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

[5] Edwards, O. T.: Matins, Lauds and Vespers for St. David's Day: the Medieval Office of the Welsh Patron Saint in National Library of Wales MS. 20541 (forthcoming)Google Scholar.

[6] See Sotheby's sale-catalogue, 10 December 1969, lot 42, “The Property of a Lady”.

[7] Discussed in the short article describing the new acquisition in The National Library of Wales Annual Report for 1969 (Aberystwyth 1970), pp.40–41.

[8] See note 5.

[9] Wilkins iii 847–48.

[10] Proctor, F. and Wordsworth, C., eds.: Breviarium ad usum insignis ecclesiae Sarum (Cambridge 1879–1886), vol.1, pp.cccxiii–cccxvii Google Scholar.

[11] The manuscripts are Paris, Bibliothèque Ste.-Geneviève, 117 (the Beauvais source in Analecta hymnica) and Paris, Sorbonne, 1220 (a noted breviary said to be for Paris to which the office has been added on flyleaves). I am grateful to Professor Andrew Hughes for this information. The full text of the office is given in Dreves, G.M., Blume, C. and Bannister, H.M., eds.: Analecta hymnica mediae aevi (Leipzig 1886–1922), vol.13, pp.242–5Google Scholar.

[12] The Beauvais source has “Lundonus. oriundus”.

[13] These were also included as RR 3–4 in the (secular) offices of Hereford and York. For a comparison of the Sarum selection of responsories with those of Hereford, York and Nidaros, see Gjerløw, L., ed.: Antiphonarium Nidrosiensis ecclesiae (Oslo 1979), pp.99–100 Google Scholar. The text of the complete office is given in Analecta hymnica vol.13, pp.238–42. Other aspects of this extremely influential rhymed office are discussed in Stevens, D.: ‘Music in honor of St. Thomas of Canterbury’, The Musical Quarterly 56 (1970), pp.311ff.Google Scholar, and Hughes, A.: ‘Chants in the Offices of Thomas of Canterbury and Stanislaus of Poland’, Musica antiqua 6 (Bydgoszcz 1982), pp.267ffGoogle Scholar. Particular attention is paid by Professor Hughes to the Office of Thomas, St. in ‘Modal order and disorder in the rhymed office’, Musica Disciplina 37 (1983), pp.29ffGoogle Scholar.

[14] These are prescribed as RR 3–5 at York and in most monastic sources for Dominica in Sexagesima (see Gjerløw p. 114).

[15] For other uses, see Gjerløw p. 115.

[16] Frere, W.H., ed.: The Use of Sarum (Cambridge 1898, 1900), vol.ii, p.59 Google Scholar; Frere, W.H., ed.: Antiphonale sarisburiense, p.158 Google Scholar; Procter and Wordsworth, vol.1, p.dlxxxix.

[17] Frere, , Use, vol.ii, p.72 Google Scholar.

[18] Procter and Wordsworth, vol.1, p.dcccxxi.

[19] See Frere, , Antiphonale, Introduction p.77 Google Scholar, for a description of Cambridge University Library ms. Mm.ii.9.

[20] Frere, W.H. and Brown, L.E.G., eds.: The Hereford Breviary, Henry Bradshaw Society 26, 40 and 46 (London 1904–1915), vol.1, Introduction pp. xxii–xxiii Google Scholar, and Dr. Gjerløw's survey of gospel antiphons in books representing 13 different uses (Gjerløw pp.128ff.).

[21] See Edwards (op.cit. note 5) ch.2 for a comparison of 8 sources.

[22] Wilkins iii 863, “That all mass-books, antiphoners, portuises in the Church of England should be newly examined, corrected, reformed and castigated from all manner of mention of the Bishop of Rome's name …”

[23] Procter and Wordsworth vol.2, p.252.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Williams, G.: The Welsh Church from Conquest to Reformation (Cardiff 1976)Google Scholar, Part I, From the Edwardian Conquest to the Glyn Dŵr Rebellion, particularly pp.137 and 163 for details of presentations made to Welsh prebends directly by the king.

[26] Or ‘Jestin’, the 6th-century hermit and martyr of Ramsey Island off the coast of South-West Wales. Associated with St.David, he does not normally appear in the Sarum Litany. (See Farmer, D.H.: The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Oxford 1978 Google Scholar.)

[27] Frere, , Use, vol.ii, Introduction pp.xvii–xviii Google Scholar.

[28] Pfaff, R.W.: New Liturgical Feasts in Later Medieval England (Oxford 1970), p.2 Google Scholar.

[29] Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc.253 (Sarum missal) and Cambridge, University Library, Additional 4500 (Sarum breviary). For the St.Paul's supplement, see Simpson, W. Sparrow, ed.: Documents Illustrating the History of St. Paul's Cathedral, Camden Society New Series 26 (London 1880)Google Scholar.

[30] The verse, beginning Horrendum est incidere in manus dei (f.281v), is known from 22 sources besides the Penpont Antiphonal, but in a search of 26 Sarum breviaries its presence has been registered in only o n e: Edinburgh, Advocates Library, 8.2.13 A, of the 13th century. I am indebted to Dr. Knud Ottosen, Aarhus, for this information.

[31] See Edwards, Owain: ‘Nyvinninger i St. Davids liturgi’, Nordisk kollokvium iv i latinsk liturgiforskning (Oslo 1978), pp. 108–111 Google Scholar, for a summary of the first modern presentation of the material. Colleagues present at that conference will remember the performance of R9 of the Office of St. David, complete with prosa, presumably the first performance anywhere since the middle of the 16th century and doubtless the first performance ever in Scandinavia. For a transcription of the complete text of the office, see Duin, Johannes J. and Edwards, Owain T.: ‘In Festo Sancti Dauid’, The National Library of Wales Journal xxi (Aberystwyth 1980), pp.229–40Google Scholar. A transcription with music, and a consideration of text and music together, is included in my forthcoming study (see note 5).

[32] James, J.W., ed.: Rhigyfarch's Life of St. David: The Basic Mid Twelfth-Century Latin Text with Introduction, Critical Apparatus and Translation (Cardiff 1967), Introduction p.xi Google Scholar.

[33] I have suggested (Edwards, see note 5, Ch.5) c.1224 and alternatively c.1285 as the most likely times when the composition of a proper office in honour of the patron saint would have been particularly appropriate in the history of St. David's Cathedral.

[34] Musica, B.M. Additional MS. 14905 (Cardiff 1936) is a facsimile with introduction by Lewis, H. Google Scholar. For a bibliography of the subject see Ellis, O.: The Story of the Harp in Wales (Cardiff, 1980), p.90 Google Scholar.

[35] I am grateful to Mr. Christopher Hohler for valuable comments on the subject of this paper.