Interactions between Brittany and Christ Church, Canterbury in the Tenth Century: The Linenthal leaf

Summary

MUSICAL LIFE in pre-Conquest Canterbury has not enjoyed the same scholarly scrutiny as that of Winchester. Weight of evidence plays a role in this, since approximately one-third of the surviving pre-Conquest insular chant manuscripts are from, or are connected to, Winchester. The derivation of the Winchester chant tradition has been thoroughly studied. The influence of Corbie and Saint Denis is visible in both notation and melodic variants, and the tradition has been convincingly linked with Athelwold of Winchester, who invited monks from Corbie to come and help with the chant when he was Abbot of Abingdon, and subsequently reseeded Winchester with Abingdon monks in 964. However, despite its wide influence and longevity, the Corbie/Saint-Denis chant tradition was not the only one to play a role in rehabilitating monastic life in England after the ninth-century Scandinavian invasions. This is demonstrated by the pre-Conquest Mass Proper tradition of Christ Church, Canterbury, as shown in the Linenthal leaf, one of the fragments brought to wider notice by Hartzell's recent Catalogue. The fragment is reproduced here as illus. 1. The first purpose of the current essay is to place this fragment in the context of the Canterbury scriptorium, and a list of the pre-Conquest Canterbury manuscripts containing notation may be found in Appendix 1. The second purpose is to examine the contents of the Linenthal leaf, and to explore its implications for our understanding of the Mass Proper in Canterbury at the close of the tenth century. Comparison of the fragment's notation, repertoire and melodic variants with those of other pre-Conquest insular manuscripts and with a sample of manuscripts from Brittany and northern Francia makes it possible to establish a connection between the Breton Mass Proper tradition and that of Christ Church, Canterbury in the later years of the tenth century. This connection apparently continues, at least to a modest degree, in the Christ Church, Canterbury tradition of the 1080s. While a late tenth-century preference at Christ Church, Canterbury for Breton notation has previously been observed, the melodic material conveyed by this notation has not been closely studied.