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From memory to record: musical notations in manuscripts from Exeter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Susan Rankin
Susan Rankin
Affiliation:
Emmanuel College, Cambridge
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Extract

When Ælfric wrote that ‘every mass-priest should have a mass-book and epistle-book and song-book and reading-book and psalter and handbook and penitential and kalendar’, there is every possibility that by ‘song-book’ he was thinking of a book containing not just chant texts, but also their melodies. A type of musical notation recognized as Anglo-Saxon appears in more than one hundred manuscript sources of the late tenth and the eleventh centuries, many of which may be linked with major ecclesiastical centres such as Worcester, Exeter, Sherborne, Canterbury, Durham and Winchester. Whilst it is possible that knowledge of musical notation reached England via northern France during the ninth century, it was apparently not until after the mid-tenth century, when the Benedictine revival occasioned numerous contacts between England and the continent, that music-writing became established in Anglo-Saxon England. Several Anglo-Saxon manuscripts of the late tenth century have contemporary notation, and they show the use at this period of two different neumatic systems. One system – closely related to northern French notations, particularly those of Corbie — was to set the pattern for the great majority of eleventh-century English notations; the other type, related to notations of Breton provenance, appears mainly confined to sources originating in south-west England. The breadth of notational detail found in one of the so-called Winchester Tropers (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 473) indicates that the practice of notating music was well established, at least at Winchester, by the year 1000.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 13 , December 1984 , pp. 97 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

1 ‘Mæsse-preost sceal habban mæsse-bóc and pistel-bóc, and sang-bóc and rǽding-bóc and saltere and handbóc, and penitentialem and gerim’, Die Hirtenbriefe Ælfrics in altenglischer und lateinischer Fassung, ed. Bernhard Fehr; repr. with a Supplement to the Introduction by Peter Clemoes (Darmstadt, 1966), p. 126.Google Scholar Fehr's text is from Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 190.

2 In reference not to Ælfric's but to Leofric's list, Max Förster explains the term sang-boc as referring to a book of chants for the mass and offices; see ‘The Donations of Leofric to Exeter’, The Exeter Book of Old English Poetry, ed. R. W. Chambers, Max Förster and Robin Flower (London, 1953), pp. 10–32, at 25,Google Scholar n. 80.

3 Parkes, M. B. (‘A Note on MS Vatican, Bibl. Apost., lat. 3363’, Boethius, ed. Margaret, Gibson (Oxford, 1981), pp. 425–7)Google Scholar reports the presence of neumes in Vatican, Bibliotheca Apostolica, lat. 3363 (Loire region, s. ix) ‘in ink which has the same colour and density as that of the late ninth–century [Insular] glosses on those pages’. I have not yet been able to consult this manuscript, and cannot comment either on the type of notation, or on the way this might relate to that in later Anglo-Saxon sources.

4 The relation of Anglo-Saxon notations to those of Corbie and information characteristics of Anglo-Saxon notations are discussed in Susan Rankin, ‘Neumatic Notations in Anglo-Saxon England’, Musicologie médiévale. Notations–séquences, Actes de la Table ronde de Paléographie musicale d'Orléans – La Source, à l'Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des Textes, 6–7 septembre 1982 (Paris, forthcoming).

5 Ibid, and Huglo, M., ‘Le Domaine de la notation bretonne’, Acta Musicologica 35 (1963), 54–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar (repr. with the same title but with additional plates in the series Britannia Christiana 1 (Daoulas, 1981)).

6 See, e.g., Le Havre, Bibliothèque Municipale, 330, a missal written in the second half of the eleventh century for the New Minster at Winchester (plate in The Missal of the New Minster Winchester, ed. Turner, D. H., Henry Bradshaw Soc. 93 (London, 1962)Google Scholar, frontispiece), and Durham, University Library, Cosin v. v. 6, a gradual written at Christ Church, Canterbury, in the late eleventh century (plate in Hartzell, K. D., ‘An Unknown English Benedictine Gradual of the Eleventh Century’, ASE 4 (1975), 131–44,Google Scholar pl. 111a).

7 See Rankin, ‘Neumatic Notations’.

8 E.g., a pontifical written at Winchester in the early eleventh century (now Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 146) has substantial additions made at Worcester, which may date from any time up to or during the episcopate of Bishop Samson (1096–1112); these Worcester additions have notation of the traditional Anglo-Saxon type. For a reproduction of p. 18 of this manuscript, see Rankin, ‘Neumatic Notations’, pl. XX.

9 The nature and evolution of the early practice of music-writing and the different purposes for which notation was used from the outset are examined in Treitler, Leo, ‘The Early History of Music Writing in the West’, Jnl of the Amer. Musicological Soc. 35 (1982), 237–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Reading and Singing: on the Genesis of Occidental Music Writing’, Early Music Hist. 4 (1984, forthcoming).Google Scholar

10 See Hucke, H. (‘Towards a New Historical View of Gregorian Chant’, Jnl of the Amer. Musicological Soc. 33 (1980), 437–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar), who explains the earliest chant-books as touchstones for reference ‘and for regulation of the oral tradition’, rather than for use in performance during services.

11 ‘Much of my information on the Exeter scriptorium is drawn from Drage, Elaine M., ‘Bishop Leofric and the Exeter Cathedral Chapter 1050–1072: a Reassessment of the Manuscript Evidence’ (unpubl. D.Phil, dissertation, Oxford Univ., 1978)Google Scholar, without the aid of which my task of examining all Exeter material would have been greatly increased.

12 See Barlow, Frank, The English Church 1000–1066, 2nd ed. (London, 1979), pp. 83–4Google Scholar, and ‘Leofric and his Times’, F. Barlow et al., Leofric of Exeter: Essays in Commemoration of the Foundation of Exeter Cathedral Library in A.D. 1072 (Exeter, 1972), pp. 1–16.Google Scholar

13 Drage (‘Leofric’, pp. 145–90) establishes the Exeter origin or connection of a chain of books by first identifying the work of eleven Exeter scribes in the Leofric Missal (now Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 579) and then by tracing their work (and that of scribes working close to them) in other manuscripts.

14 Neumes added above the Prefaces in the oldest parts of the Leofric Missal can be directly associated with a second set of marginal annotations in this same section. This marginal material was written by text-scribe 1 (in Drage's designation). The same music-hand reappears passim on 18r–30v of the missal; these two gatherings were added to the tenth-century sacramentary at Exeter, and here the text was again written by scribe 1. Thus there is a clear association between scribe 1's text-hand and a recognizable music-hand. This music-hand also appears on 9r of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Auct. F. 3. 6, a collection of Prudentius's poems which bears Leofric's donation inscription. Like his text-hand, scribe 1's music-hand is distinctive, using long thin ascenders, litterae significativae, and two forms of oriscus И and ‘2. Drage identifies scribe 1's hand as probably that of Leofric himself (‘Leofric’, pp. 140–1).

15 Textual and musical additions in the first part of the psalter, Harley 863, allow me to identify this music-scribe as Drage's text-scribe 12. Her comments on his lack of accomplishment as a text-scribe (‘Leofric’, p. 169) place his work as a music-scribe in an interesting light.

16 ‘7 he ne funde on þam minstre, þa he to-feng, boca na ma buton.i. capitularie 7.i. for-ealdod niht-sang 7.i. pistel-boc 7.ii. for-ealdode ræding-bec swiðe wake 7.i. wac mæssereaf’ (Förster, ‘Donations’, p. 28). The first gathering of the Exeter Book (fols. o, 1–7), which includes Leofric's donation inscription and a list of his gifts, was originally part of an Exeter gospel-book, now Cambridge, University Library, Ii. 2. 11.

17 Exeter, Cathedral Library, 3501 (the ‘Exeter Book’), 1r–2v; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Auct. D. 2. 16, 1r–2v.

18 Drage, ‘Leofric’, p. 46.

19 The list is edited and interpreted by Förster, ‘Donations’, and Drage, ‘Leofric’, pp. 48–61.

20 The earliest Anglo-Saxon gradual to survive intact dates from the late eleventh century (see above, n. 6). That this type of book was in use in England at an earlier period is demonstrated by various fragments, some dating from the first half of the eleventh century. The term Ad te levavi is also employed in a list of books owned by the monks of Bury St Edmunds at the beginning of Leofstan's abbacy (1044–65); see Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. Robertson, A. J. (Cambridge, 1939), p. 194.Google Scholar

21 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 41, a copy of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum with extensive marginal additions, including liturgical material, bears Leofric's donation inscription, but is not included in the donation list; see Grant, R. J. S., Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 41: the Loricas and Missal (Amsterdam, 1979)Google Scholar, together with the review by Hohler, C., MÆ 49 (1980), 275–8.Google Scholar

22 The Durham Ritual, ed. Brown, T. J., EEMF 16 (Copenhagen, 1969).Google Scholar

23 See Gy, P.-M., ‘Collectaire, rituel, processionnal’, Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 44 (1960), 441–69.Google Scholar

24 Gamber, Klaus, Codices Liturgici Latini Antiquiores, 2 vols., 2nd ed. (Freiburg, 1968) 11, 555–6 (no. 1523).Google Scholar

25 I follow Drage's numbering here; see ‘Leofric’, pp. 150–4.

26 See above, n. 14.

27 By contrast, the unabbreviated word Domino has eleven notes in the Graduale Triplex sen Graduate Romanum Pauli PP. VI, ed. the monks of Solesmes (Solesmes, 1979), P. 545.Google Scholar

28 Saxer, Victor, Le Culte de Marie-madeleine en Occident: Des origines à la fin du moyen âge, 2 vols. (Paris, 1959) 1, 169.Google Scholar

29 Ibid.

30 See The Leofric Missal, ed. Warren, F. E. (Oxford, 1883)Google Scholar. He prints all the marginal cues for mass-chants.

31 ‘See Karl-Heinz Schlager, Thematischer Katalog der ältesten Alleluia-Melodien (Munich, 1965), p. 30.Google Scholar

32 Ibid. pp. 196–7.

33 This version of Laetabitur iustus is taken from the Graduate Triplex, p. 479.

34 See Ferretti, Paolo, Esthétique grégorienne (Solesmes, 1938), pp. 248–51.Google Scholar

35 The letter m more commonly implies a rise. The litterae significativae were explained by Notker of St Gall; see Froger, Jacques, ‘L'Épître de Notker sur les “lettres significatives”: Édition critique’, Études Grégoriennes 5 (1962), 23–71Google Scholar. Their use in the two Winchester Tropers is discussed in Holschneider, A., Die Organa von Winchester (Hildesheim, 1968), pp. 84–6.Google Scholar

36 Frere, Walter Howard, Antiphonale Sarisburiense, 6 vols. (London, 1901–1925; repr. 1966), p. 42.Google Scholar

37 Ibid.

38 The version on lines in fig. 5 is transcribed from Frere, , Antiphonale, p. 402.Google Scholar

39 This article is based on papers read to the thirteenth annual Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Music, Oxford, July 1983, and the first Conference of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists, Brussels, August 1983. I should like to thank Professor Peter Clemoes, Mr Malcolm Parkes and Professor Leo Treitler for their invaluable help during the preparation and writing of these papers.