14 - Epilogue

Summary

The written evidence considered in Music and Liturgy in Medieval Britain and Ireland has included sources of every type, from formal service books to informal additions, and from fragmentary manuscripts to early printed books. The picture that emerges is one of intersecting devotional cultures, both textual and practical: liturgy was constantly in development, open to adjustment, and affected by changes in international sacred customs as well as by local cultural interests and requirements. Furthermore, we have shown that though set apart geographically from the larger landmass of Continental Europe, Britain and Ireland were actively engaged in liturgical discourse through the constant travel of musicians, ecclesiastics, writers, books, relics, and via intellectual exchange, and rather than an agent of separation, the sea was in fact a connector of people.