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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Manuscripts of sacred music of the Renaissance fall into various categories. Some of them, like the famed series of codices of the Sistine Chapel, were written for the Church; others, like the parchment choirbooks of Jena, with their magnificent illuminations from the workshop of the famous Alamire, were done for a court chapel; many manuscripts, of modest appearance and written on paper, were executed for the churches of cities.
1 The manuscript has never been the subject of detailed study. It originally formed part of the Library of the Sacred Harmonic Society and is listed in the Catalogue of the Library of the Sacred Harmonic Society, rev. edn., London, 1872, pp. 200–201, under the number 1721. I am greatly indebted to Oliver Davies, Reference Librarian, and Richard Townend, Assistant to the Reference Librarian, of the Royal College of Music, for granting me every consideration during my stay in London for the study of the manuscript, and to Dr. C. E. Wright, Deputy Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum, for allowing me to use the manuscript in the Students' Room in the British Museum.Google Scholar
A considerably expanded version of this paper, with a number of illustrations and a catalogue raisonné of the contents of the manuscript, is to be published in Florilegium Historiale: Essays Presented to Wallace K. Ferguson, ed. J. G. Rowe and W. H. Stockdale, Toronto, 1970.Google Scholar
2 Ed. Edward E. Lowinsky (Monuments of Renaissance Music, iii-v), Chicago, 1968.Google Scholar
3 Professor L. M. J. Delaissé, author of A Century of Dutch Manuscript Illumination, Berkeley, 1968, and other books on illuminations, and Miss Janet Backhouse, Assistant Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum in London. The latter remarked also on the provincial and derivative aspect of the decorations that showed French rather than Flemish character but might have been done by an English craftsman who had trained himself on French models. I wish to thank both scholars for their kindness.Google Scholar
4 Paul Friedmann, Anne Boleyn: A Chapter of English History, 1527–1536, London, 1884. This book is the fundamental work on Anne Boleyn. To this day it is unexcelled in the thoroughness of its documentation and the solidity of its conclusions. It is the main basis of the following presentation.Google Scholar
5 See James E. Doyle, The Official Baronage of England, 3 vols., London, 1886, iii. 681. I am indebted to Mr. Frank Tirro, a member of my doctoral seminar, for calling my attention to this motto.Google Scholar
6 Sir Jack Westrup made the observation that the longa also looked like an axe.Google Scholar
7 Printed in full at the end of this paper, pp. 20–27.Google Scholar
8 I am greatly indebted to Karl Morrison, Professor of History at the University of Chicago, for the English rendering of the poem, in which he succeeded in infusing the same tone of arcane wisdom as the original. He was aided in parts by an ingenious prose translation made by Professors Bonner Mitchell and Elbion de Lima of the University of Missouri at the occasion of the performance of the work during my lecture there on the present manuscript. Both translations had to take liberties to wring some sense out of the text. I quote the prose translation of the last two verses, where the two renderings show the greatest divergence: ‘Hercules in two-columned Gibraltar rests his holy forces; Lazarus, called by a harmonious song, enjoys a high place in Paradise, where we ask Christ as our dear friend and omnipotent master, with varied praise, that he make us meek’.Google Scholar
9 The noble tryumphaunt coronacyon of quote Anne, wyfe unto the moost noble kynge Henry the VIII, London, [1533]; ‘The receivyng, conveiyng and coronacion of quene Anne wife to the high and mightie prince kyng Henry the eight’, in Edward Hall, Henry VIII, ed. Claries Whibley, a vols., London, 1904, ii. 229–42. The following account of the coronation festivities is taken from the latter source.Google Scholar
10 The noble tryumphaunt coronacyon, ff. 4v-5.Google Scholar
11 See Osthoff, Helmuth, Josquin Desprez, 2 vols., Tutzing, 1962–5, i. 41.Google Scholar
12 See Kinkeldey, Otto, Orgel und Klavier in der Musik des 16. Jahrhunderts, Leipzig, 1910, p. 103.Google Scholar
13 Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance, rev. edn., New York, 1959, p. 292.Google Scholar
14 This matter will be dealt with in detail in the Florilegium Historiale mentioned in footnote 1.Google Scholar
15 Nicholas Harris Nicolas, The Privy Purse Expences of King Henry the Eighth, from November MDXXIX, to December MDXXXII, London, 1827.Google Scholar
16 Royal MS 20 B XXI. Patricia Thomson, in her book, Sir Thomas Wyatt and his Background, London, 1964, pp. 39–40, drew attention to this manuscript and to the fascinating autograph signatures to be found in it.Google Scholar