The insular daily Lady Mass of the thirteenth century: sources, repertory and transmission

Abstract

A new daily ritual, commonly called the Salve Mass or Lady Mass, rapidly grew throughout the British Isles in the High Middle Ages inspiring new festive chants. John Harper's introduction to Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary establishes the sources of the Lady Mass in its fully developed form in the late Use of Salisbury and earlier related sources. Yet the Marian Mass collections in insular graduals, missals and non-liturgical sources identified in this article exhibit significant local adaptations not assigned in Salisbury Ordinals. I argue that extant Marian Kyries, alleluias and offertories contained in thirteenth-century insular liturgical sources of the Mass of the Virgin Mary are evidence of the daily Lady Mass. A study of chant variants and sources demonstrates the insular circulation of some of these chants outside of sources replicating the Lady Mass at Salisbury. The insular repertory of Marian Mass music, examined here for the first time with concordances in fragmentary and non-liturgical collections, reveals a lively exchange of repertory and compositional techniques between insular monastic and secular churches. This regionally developed, decentralised ritual had an important impact on music composition and transmission in the British Isles in the thirteenth century.

Hic etiam felicis memoriae Abbas Willelmus, videns quod in omnibus nobilibus ecclesiis Angliae Missa de Beata Virgine ad notam solemniter cotidiana decantatur … constituit etiam ex consensus, et, beneplacito totius conventus, in perpetuis temporibus sancivit perduraturum, ut cotidie Missa de Beata Virgine solemniter ad notam celebretur.¹

According to historian Matthew Paris (who died c.1259), by the early thirteenth century all noble English churches practised a new form of Marian devotion: a solemn Mass for the Virgin Mary sung daily in a chapel dedicated to her. Matthew may have had in mind the practice at the new Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey, which he credited to Henry III.² St Albans, already rich in its commemoration of the Virgin Mary, followed the other churches, instituting a solemn daily Mass for the Virgin Mary under Abbot William (1214–35).³ Daily solemn Lady Masses were instituted at several monastic and secular churches beginning in the late twelfth century, and they inspired English abbots, bishops and noble patrons to build large new Lady Chapels throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.⁴ Yet even by the middle of the thirteenth century, Matthew Paris insisted, repeating ‘ad notam’, that the music of the daily Lady Mass was essential to Marian devotion at prominent English churches.

Though music was vital to the daily Lady Mass, liturgical books before the late 1300s seldom designate specific chants for the daily or Saturday Marian Mass; by then the daily Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Salisbury was codified and widely adopted across the British Isles.⁵ The Salisbury Lady Mass does not, however, account for an insular repertory of Marian Mass music that blossomed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. While some institutions in France, most importantly the Cathedral of Reims, instituted their own daily solemn Marian Masses in the thirteenth century, the repertory for these Masses, where it can be uncovered, is distinct from that in insular sources.⁶ Thus, I argue, an insular thirteenth-century repertory of Marian Mass music – including alleluia verses, offertories and Mass Ordinary chants and tropes – developed for the daily Lady Mass and spread independently of the Use of Salisbury.⁷ In this article, I reconstruct this significant repertory of Marian Kyries, alleluias and offertories in the inchoate stage of the daily Lady Mass in the British Isles. Identifying this repertory locates insular monophony and polyphony within its performance context, revealing local liturgical changes.⁸ A complete list of the sources discussed is provided as an appendix.

The repertory of Marian Mass chants in missals, examined here for the first time alongside fragmentary and other monophonic and polyphonic collections, reveals a lively exchange of repertory and compositional techniques in insular monastic and secular churches. The English prosulated alleluia recently studied by Karen Desmond, in which long melismas were overlaid with texts in both monophony and polyphony, contributed to the Marian alleluia repertory, as did its most important composer, W. de Wicumbe.⁹ The techniques used to embellish the daily Lady Mass extended beyond prosulated alleluias to include new sequences and other double-verse compositions, tropes and contrafacta (in which new texts were created for pre-existing chants).¹⁰ Marian contrafacta on chants from feasts throughout the liturgical year provided a Marian interpretation of the full liturgical cycle while importing the solemnity and symbolism of these major liturgical feasts into the daily Lady Mass of the thirteenth century.

This article examines a complex late thirteenth-century missal that, I argue, supplemented chants from the Salisbury Commemorative Mass of Mary with alleluias, offertories and Mass Ordinary tropes to provide a weekly rotation for the daily Lady Mass. These adapted contents are evidence of an insular repertory for the daily Lady Mass that spread outside of Salisbury. Several fragments and other sources of Marian music well known to scholars of English polyphony present further evidence of the daily Lady Mass in a different archival form. I show that textual and contextual clues indicate performance of this rich repertory in the daily Lady Mass. Finally, I briefly examine contrafaction as a primary compositional technique by which the daily Lady Mass was elevated to a solemn celebration and Mary was glorified. The festive, yet still quotidian, ritual of the daily Lady Mass apparently inspired a creative fervour among otherwise unknown insular composers.

Plainchant repertory for the daily Lady Mass in the London Missal

One mid-thirteenth-century missal consulted for J. Wickham Legg's The Sarum Missal presents the important distinctions between the Commemorative Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Salisbury and the insular Marian repertory that circulated outside of Salisbury.¹¹ The notated London Missal (F-Pa 135) is closely related to other missals in the Salisbury family in its Temporale, Sanctorale and Common. The calendar, Sequentiary and Kyriale are not from a Salisbury source, but suggest the diocese of London.¹² Importantly, the Kyriale and Sequentiary both contain a significant amount of music for the Virgin Mary. Moreover, the Commemorative Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary contains a large repertory of alleluias and offertories. All these collections in the London Missal together constitute the closest concordance to the only extant complete thirteenth-century polyphonic Marian Mass collection, in the last three gatherings of W₁ (D-W Guelf. 628 Helmst, fols. 176r–197v).¹³ Thus the close examination of the Commemorative Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the London Missal provides the basis for a larger exploration of the insular repertory for the daily Lady Mass.

In the London Missal, the Commemorative Mass for Mary during the long season between the feast of the Purification and Advent includes an unusually large collection of sequences and offertories reflecting a daily Lady Mass repertory. Like most missals with votive Masses, the London Missal contains three seasonal Commemorative Masses for Mary: Advent, Christmas until the Purification, and Per annum at all other times of the year (Table 1).¹⁴ The first two seasonal Masses agree precisely with those in three Salisbury sources: the early fourteenth-century Ordinal GB-Lbl Harley 1001 and the early thirteenth-century gradual GB-Cu add. 8333, as well as the Cicestre Missal (GB-Mr 24) copied in Salisbury c.1250.¹⁵ The Per annum Mass in the London Missal also closely aligns with the same Salisbury sources except for the provision of additional alleluias, offertories and Communion chants.¹⁶ Some of the alleluias agree with a selection of alleluias in the Cicestre Missal: these five alleluias formed the core of a weekly rotation in the later Salisbury Ordinals, GB-SB 175 and GB-Occc 44 (Table 2).¹⁷ But the Per annum Mass of the London Missal includes a further eight alleluias, totalling thirteen and providing a substantial collection. Some of these alleluias are found only in insular sources, such as Alleluya. Ave paradysi, in the Durham Gradual GB-Du Cosin V.v.6 (fol. 99v) and the Canterbury collection GB-Lbl Cotton Vespasian D.VI (fol. 76v). One contrafactum, Alleluya. Angelus domini nunciavit, is only otherwise found in the W₁ collection of Marian Mass polyphony. The provision of alleluias that formed the core of the later Salisbury weekly rotation for the daily Lady Mass Per annum of the Cicester Missal, and the provision of more than seven alleluias in Per annum Mass of the London Missal attest to the development of Lady Mass repertory in the 1250s, preserved in Per annum Masses in insular liturgical books.

Table 1. Liturgical books with additional alleluias and offertories in the Mass for the Blessed Virgin Mary Per annum

Table 2. Alleluias in the Mass Per annum of insular missals from Table 1

Note. Here, and in the Tables that follow, numbered chants indicate their order in the manuscript. ‘A’ indicates that the chant is assigned to the Advent seasonal commemoration rather than Per annum – Alleluya. Post partum was also assigned to the Christmas season; asterisks indicate contrafacta; ‘t’ indicates text only; and ‘i’ incipit only.

The Kyriale and Sequentiary of the London Missal further reflect insular repertory for the daily Lady Mass. Thirty-three Marian sequences, few of which are actually assigned to a Marian feast copiously expand on the repertory of festal sequences. This is a sign, as Peter Lefferts first argued, of the influence of the daily Lady Mass.¹⁸ Most significantly, each section of Latin-texted Kyries, Sanctus and Agnus Dei tropes concludes with seven Marian texts. Books in the Salisbury family often contain at least one Latin-texted Marian Kyrie, in spite of the general avoidance of tropes in Salisbury sources, but these collections of dedicated Marian tropes for Mass Ordinary items are unusually large and include several unique texts. Other of the Marian tropes reflect the distinct insular repertory: the Agnus Dei trope text Flos de flora (fol. 288v) a contrafactum of the more common Mortis dira set in the Marian collection of W₁ is also in the Winchcombe Cartulary.¹⁹ Voci vita (fol. 284v), a Sanctus trope also in the W₁ Marian collection, received a new Marian text and two-part setting in a thirteenth-century Worcester fragment (GB-WO add. 68, frag. XXIX).²⁰ In the London Missal, the provision of seven Marian texts for Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei chants likely reflects the earliest rotation for the daily Lady Mass, as Lefferts observed.²¹ Examined in light of these observations, then, the Marian provisions scattered throughout the book indicate that the London Missal drew from, and possibly expanded through contrafacta, an insular repertory that provided weekly rotations of alleluias, Latin-texted Kyries, Sanctus and Agnus Dei tropes for a daily Lady Mass.

Other missals assigned to the Salisbury family include both alleluias in the Salisbury Lady Mass weekly rotation and new Marian Mass repertory, expanding the evidence of the insular Lady Mass repertory.²² In the late thirteenth-century Radeford Gradual, GB-Ob Rawl. lit. d.3, the set of seven sequences that formed the weekly rotation in the Salisbury Ordinals was copied in the Per annum Mass in order from Sunday to Saturday, with rubrics assigning weekdays before the second to sixth alleluia verses (feria ii–feria vi).²³ On Saturday, the alleluia sung in the Salisbury Lady Mass is followed by three further alleluias sung at the cantor's discretion (see 8–10 under GB-Ob Rawl. lit. d.3 in Table 2).²⁴ The last of these alleluias is a contrafactum shared with a few insular and French sources, discussed further later. The other two are unica. The Aberystwyth Missal (GB-AB 15536E) and the Cicestre Missal (GB-Mr 24) share the same order of six alleluias in the Salisbury weekly rotation.²⁵ Yet like the Radeford Gradual, the Aberystwyth Missal includes three more alleluias, for which the singular concordances are in the Per annum Mass in F-Pa 135 and the Marian collection in W₁ (see 9t and 7t under GB-AB 15536E in Table 2).²⁶ One unique text, ‘Per te nobis mater pia’, is a re-texting of an important alleluia in the insular Marian repertory, discussed further later. Thus, by the late thirteenth century the weekly rotation of alleluias was established at Salisbury, the core of which already circulated in the middle of the thirteenth century, witnessed in the Cicestre Missal, London Missal and W₁. Nonetheless additional alleluias reflect repertory that circulated independent of the Use of Salisbury and amended the contents of books in the Salisbury family for locally adapted Lady Masses.

The offertories included in the London Missal, Aberystwyth Missal and Radeford Gradual also provided further local adaptations of the Lady Mass from insular repertory from both secular and monastic institutions. After a textual incipit for Felix namque, following the Salisbury sources, the London Missal includes two further offertories. Mater patris et filia (fol. 209v), unknown in any plainchant books, has concordances with an addition to a cartulary from Winchcombe Abbey (GB-GLr D678/1/M4/1, pp. 255–6), and a plainchant tenor in the Worcester fragments (GB-Worc add. 68, frag. XXX, br). The prosulated alleluia terminus that follows in the London Missal is found in the tenor of an offertory in W₁, further evidence of the uniquely insular repertory.²⁷ Similarly, the Radeford Gradual follows two offertories in the Salisbury sources with Recordare virgo mater and O vere beata, found in the Marian collection of W₁, the Worcester Gradual and Antiphoner (GB-WO F 160) and the addition to the Winchcombe Abbey Cartulary (GB-GLr D678/1/M4/1).

Whereas Salisbury sources are relatively restrained – not allowing for tropes and only providing two offertories and at most seven alleluias in a weekly rotation – local adaptations included Latin-texted Kyries, sequences, alleluias, offertories, Sanctus and Agnus Dei tropes. These, as far as they can be identified through their inclusion in the Per annum Mass or Kyriale, have concordances primarily if not exclusively in insular sources. Such insular liturgical sources emerge in the 1250s, and weekly rotations for alleluias, and possible Mass Ordinary tropes, developed by the late thirteenth century. While there is some overlap with the chant repertory for the Lady Mass at Salisbury Cathedral in the thirteenth century as far as can be found in the minimal extant sources, a significant number of chants in the repertory circulated in insular sources independent of the Commemorative Mass of Salisbury.

Marian alleluias and contrafacta of chants for the Holy Cross

Alleluya. Salve virgo, a Marian contrafactum of the Holy Cross chant Alleluya. Dulce lignum (Schlager no. 242), exemplifies the role of the technique of contrafaction in shaping insular repertory of the daily Lady Mass, particularly the development of weekly rotations. Continental sources for Alleluya. Salve virgo before 1400 are scarce and point to Norman origins. The earliest sources of the chant, the Évreux and Noyon Missals (BnF NAL 1773, fol. 272v and F-AB 7, fol. 201v) both include Alleluya. Salve virgo and one other contrafactum of Alleluya. Dulce lignum in collections of seven alleluias in the Commemorative Mass of Mary.²⁸ Other commemorative Masses of Mary Per annum in sources held in French public libraries less frequently include more than three alleluias, and rarely include Alleluya. Salve virgo.²⁹ In contrast, all the Per annum Masses in Table 2 include Alleluya. Salve virgo, Alleluya. Dulcis virgo or – in the case of the St Mary's Ordinal – assigned the sequence Stabat juxta related to the Holy Cross, to Friday.³⁰ The only exception is the earliest source, perhaps copied before Alleluya. Salve virgo was created, the late twelfth-century Exeter Gradual (GB-EXc 3515).³¹ Thus Marian contrafacta on chants for the Holy Cross, particularly Alleluya. Salve virgo, emerged in the context of the Commemorative Mass of Mary (Table 2).³²

The late thirteenth-century Radeford Gradual (GB-Ob Rawl. lit. d.3) provides the earliest evidence of the assignment of Alleluya. Salve virgo for Friday in a weekly rotation of alleluias, an earlier date for the establishment of a weekly rotation of alleluias than the late fourteenth-century Salisbury Ordinals.³³ In the Radeford Gradual, Alleluya. Salve virgo is the sixth of the Salisbury weekly rotation of alleluias in the Per annum Mass, indicated with the rubric feria vi.³⁴ The Aberystwyth Missal (GB-AB 15536E) and the Cicestre Missal (GB-Mr 24) agree in both contents and order of six alleluias in the Salisbury weekly rotation, strengthening the association of Alleluya. Salve virgo with a fixed rotation in which it was sung on Fridays.³⁵ Thus, by the late thirteenth century, Salve virgo was integral to insular Marian alleluia collections both in and beyond Salisbury and was associated with Fridays in the daily Lady Mass.³⁶ As the day of Commemoration for the Holy Cross, Masses on Fridays inspired this musical connection between the Crucifixion and Mary's virginal birth.

Other Marian contrafacta confirm the role of the Friday Commemoration of the Holy Cross in shaping weekly rotations of chants in the Lady Mass.³⁷ At St Mary's Abbey in York (GB-Cjc 102), which did not have a weekly rotation of alleluias, the sequence Stabat juxta Christi crucem narrated Mary's presence at the Crucifixion in Friday Masses Per annum.³⁸ According to the Exeter Ordinal (GB-Exc 3502), Bishop John Grandisson (1327–69) created a weekly rotation of alleluias for the daily Lady Mass at Exeter that was altogether different from that at Salisbury, assigning to Friday the less common Alleluya. Dulcis virgo.³⁹ Furthermore, the Exeter Ordinal specifies that Alleluya. Dulcis virgo contemplated the Compassio, though the text of this Marian alleluia, discussed further later, does not itself refer to the Crucifixion.⁴⁰ Only the parent chant Alleluya. Dulce lignum brings any idea of the Crucifixion to bear on Dulcis virgo. Bishop Grandisson made explicit what was implied by the performance of contrafacta of Alleluya. Dulce lignum in the Friday Lady Mass in the earlier insular liturgies: singing a Marian text with the melody for the Holy Cross allowed for the Commemoration of the Holy Cross in the daily Lady Mass on Fridays. The rubrical evidence in the Radeford Gradual, Bishop Grandisson's interpretation of the Friday alleluia in his weekly rotation and the presence of Alleluya. Salve virgo in the large alleluia collections included in Commemorative Masses indicate that Alleluya. Salve virgo, and the collections of alleluias with which it circulated, were sung, sometimes in weekly rotation, in a daily Lady Mass.

Latin-texted Kyries

The repertory of Latin-texted Kyries outside of Salisbury sources shows the importance of contrafacta and the circulation of non-Salisbury repertory. Five melodies provided the foundation for many new Marian Kyrie texts (Table 3).⁴¹ The late Salisbury Ordinals established a weekly rotation of festal Kyrie melodies for the daily Lady Mass, but no Salisbury Ordinal allowed for singing Latin-texted Kyries.⁴² However, several chant books – including some in the Salisbury family, polyphonic collections and other fragmentary collections – include Marian Latin-texted Kyries. These Latin-texted Kyries shared texts or, more commonly, melodies, using contrafacta of Trinitarian Latin-texted Kyries to solemnise the daily Lady Mass and apply a Marian hermeneutic to the Kyrie.⁴³

Table 3. Marian Kyries in the liturgical books

A survey of Kyrie melodies with Marian texts in liturgical books shows that a common core of melodies frequently received new texts. Hiley's repertorial study of Latin-texted Kyries in the mid-thirteenth century polyphony for Marian Masses copied in W₁ provides a foundation for this survey.⁴⁴ Most common among those Marian Kyries was Rex virginum, a contrafactum of the well-known Cunctipotens genitor, the melody of which was assigned to Wednesday Lady Masses in late Salisbury sources (Melnicki no. 18).⁴⁵ Each of the Lady Mass sources in Table 1 includes the Marian text Rex virginum except for the Radeford Gradual (GB-Ob Rawl. lit. d.3) which, as we saw in the alleluia collection, followed the Salisbury practice, though expanded on it.⁴⁶ The London Missal (F-Pa 135) and St Mary's York Ordinal (GB-Cjc 102) share five melodies in total and four Marian texts all assigned to the daily Lady Mass in the St Mary's Ordinal. Hiley noted the close association between these two insular sources and W₁, concluding that the repertory of Latin-texted Kyries in the St Mary's Ordinal was closer to W₁ because it had more shared texts.⁴⁷ However, his study did not consider the codicological evidence of the London Missal; here, all seven melodies shared with W₁ were copied together and received a Marian text. Thus the London Missal and W₁ are more closely related than would appear from Hiley's study, and their collection of seven Marian Kyries is heightened further through the assignment of these Kyries in the St Mary's Ordinal to repertory for the daily Lady Mass.

Lady Mass repertory: liturgical fragments, non-liturgical books and polyphonic settings

The liturgical sources discussed previously include the repertory of music for the daily Lady Mass in the standardised institutional repertories presented in missals, ordinals and other books designed to provide comprehensive texts and chants for the liturgical year. These establish a basis for comparison with sources of Marian alleluias, offertories and Latin-texted Kyries among thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century non-liturgical books and fragments of insular polyphony. Most of these sources are well known to scholars of polyphony but their liturgical function has yet to be identified.⁴⁸ The examination of the daily Lady Mass repertory in fragmentary, non-liturgical and polyphonic sources showcases the dynamic nature of the repertory captured in less stable and institutionally oriented books, and indicates possible methods of transmission (Table 4). These non-liturgical sources of chant and chant-based polyphony expand our understanding of the repertory and offer insights into liturgical performance of the Lady Mass at some poorly documented churches.

Table 4. Chants and polyphonic settings for the daily Lady Mass in fragments and non-liturgical books

The final three gatherings of W₁ (D-W Guelf. 628 Helmst, fols. 176r–197v), the only extant complete thirteenth-century polyphonic collection devoted solely to Marian Mass music, provide key codicological evidence of the chant-based polyphonic repertory for the daily Lady Mass. Most of the music copied in W₁ reproduces the Notre Dame organum and conductus found in the other copies of the Magnus liber organi. Between 1240 and 1250, the scribe of W₁ copied three gatherings of two-part settings of Marian Mass music added to the end of the Notre Dame corpus.⁴⁹ This Marian collection includes Alleluya. Salve virgo among nine alleluias, and a collection of seven Latin-texted Kyries, signs both of provision for a daily Lady Mass, and of a possible weekly rotation. The scribe's collection is arranged in liturgical order, unlike the tropes and some of the Notre Dame polyphony earlier in the manuscript: seven Latin-texted Kyries, a troped Gloria, nine alleluias, a tract, fourteen sequences, eight offertories, four Sanctus tropes and three Agnus Dei tropes. This extensive collection of Marian Mass music covered multiple seasons of Marian Masses rather than an octave of a feast, as Edward H. Roesner observed.⁵⁰ From the intersection of the Mass Ordinary and sequence repertory with insular and a few exceptional continental sources, Hiley inferred that the collections were designed for a Saturday Commemorative Mass.⁵¹ The alleluias and offertories of the Marian collection in W₁, however, have not received the same detailed repertorial study (Table 5).⁵²

Table 5. Alleluias in sources listed in Table 1 and Table 4 (numbered according to the sequence in which they appear in these sources)

Note: Asterisks indicate borrowing from another chant text.

The codicological context of the chants set to polyphony in the Marian collection of W₁ ties together a repertory that is scattered and fragmented in other collections for one liturgical function. Given the presence of the alleluia for Fridays, more than enough Marian alleluias and sequences for a weekly rotation and the group of seven Latin-texted Kyries altogether strongly indicate that this collection provided for a daily Lady Mass. Though the collection in W₁ is uniquely intact, it seems to be representative of a likely wider circulation of the insular repertory for the daily Lady Mass.

W₁ is not the only source to preserve what appears to be polyphonic contributions to the Mass of the Virgin Mary in the 1240s. On a blank opening in a Reading manuscript (GB-Ob Bodley 125, fols. 98v–99r), a list of works copied by ‘W. of Wicb.’ includes a troper, processional and eciam librum ad missam de sancta Maria super proprium pergamenum suum (and also a book for the Mass of Holy Mary written on its own parchment).⁵³ ‘Book’ (librum) indicates a more substantial collection than simply a copy of the votive Mass, possibly a plainchant collection like that in the London Missal that included several alleluias and offertories, or a polyphonic setting of several chant genres similar to those in W₁. Karen Desmond has recently argued that the copyist ‘W. of Wicb.’ should be identified with W. of Wicumbe, who in the 1240s copied, and likely composed, alleluia settings listed in GB-Lbl Harley 978 (Table 5).⁵⁴ The list of alleluias in GB-Lbl Harley 978 ends with eight Marian textual incipits that Peter Lefferts suggested were, like the W₁ collection, evidence of a weekly rotation of alleluias for the daily Lady Mass.⁵⁵ The overlap of these eight alleluia texts with Lady Mass plainchant sources and W₁ provides evidence of the liturgical use of Wicumbe's Missa de Sancta Maria at a morning Mass celebrated daily at Reading Abbey or Leominster Priory.

Contrafacta of Alleluya. Salve virgo and other Holy Cross chants indicate the performance of items preserved in other fragmentary and ad hoc collections in the daily Lady Mass. A polyphonic Alleluya. Salve virgo dated to the second half of the thirteenth century appears with a unique Marian alleluia on a leaf used as a pastedown in a Christ Church Canterbury book (GB-CA add. 128/8). In the calendar section of the St Chad's Martyrology, a scribe added a Marian contrafactum for a sequence for the Holy Cross, Salve signum sancta crucis, among several Marian alleluias and Marian songs.⁵⁶

Fragmentary and ad hoc collections of Marian Mass Ordinary tropes together with Marian Mass alleluias and offertories also strongly suggest dedicated repertory for the daily Lady Mass. At the end of the Winchcombe Abbey Cartulary (GB-GLr D678/1/M4/1, pp. 255–6) a scribe copied a new Marian text for one of the seven Kyrie melodies with Marian texts in the London Missal and W₁ (Melnicki no. 171), along with four Marian offertories also with concordances with the London Missal and W₁ (Table 6).⁵⁷ The presence of these chants in the Winchcombe Cartulary ties them to Winchcombe Abbey, where a solemn daily Lady Mass had long been established.⁵⁸ However, the close relationship of this collection with the daily Lady Mass collections of W₁ and the London Missal, and its presence in the charters, suggest that the repertory circulating in the mid-thirteenth century and reflected in W₁ and F-Pa 135 came to Winchcombe well after the daily Lady Mass was established.

Table 6. Contents of Winchcombe Cartulary, GB-GLr D678/1/M4/1

Additionally, the polyphony and monophony on a bifolio among the fragments recovered from bindings at Worcester Cathedral (GB-WO add. 68 xxix) show the development of a daily Lady Mass repertory at Worcester Cathedral in a collection of Marian Mass Ordinaries and sequences. These two bifolia include a Sanctus melody and trope from the Lady Mass repertory, a three-voice Latin-texted Kyrie setting and Marian cantilenas, all copied sometime from the mid-thirteenth century to the late thirteenth century, when some of the music was updated (Table 7).⁵⁹ Two monophonic Sanctus melodies copied over erasures replicate a Sanctus melody found only in the Worcester Gradual (GB-WO 160, fol. 348v) with the rubric ‘de Domina’, designating the melody for Marian Masses. The fragmentary text of Virga florem germinavit agrees with the prosulated alleluia setting in W₁, while O maria virgo pia provides a more Marian-focused text than Voci vita, a Sanctus trope in the Marian collection of W₁ (fol. 196v) with the same melody. This now fragmentary collection of Marian Mass music thus included Mass Ordinary chants particular to Worcester Cathedral to augment the repertory circulating in liturgical sources.

Table 7. GB-WO add. 68, xxix, rearranged in hypothetical original order

The codicological clues in these fragmentary sources – that is, that the Marian Mass chants were copied together in charters and other church documents – indicate that such Mass chants were, like the collection in W₁, intended for the same use. The Marian monophony copied on the final folio of the Winchcombe Cartulary (GB-GLr D678/1/M4/1) (as in W₁) groups together Mass chants typically found in different sections of liturgical books: Latin-texted Kyries and offertories. The Marian music scattered throughout the calendar of the St Chad's Martyrology (GB-Ob Rawl. d.1225) similarly includes the chant genres of alleluia, sequence and offertory, with a Marian contrafactum on the Holy Cross. The concluding list of Marian alleluias set by W. of Wicumbe (GB-Lbl Harley 978) indicates their distinctive liturgical function. Each of these sources is clearly tied to a particular monastic or secular community for which very little information specifically about liturgical rites exists in the thirteenth century. Together these sources reveal that insular monastic and secular churches shared a distinctive repertory, emerging as early as the 1240s, to embellish the daily Lady Mass with new alleluia contrafacta, Marian Latin-texted Kyries and Marian offertories.

Insular contrafacta and Marian hermeneutics: case studies

Contrafaction was not simply a convenient method of creating new Marian chants, rather contrafacta were central to the Marian hermeneutics that established the solemnity of the Mass performed daily.⁶⁰ Two case studies of alleluia texts and Marian Kyrie texts demonstrate the use of intertextual references to apply a Marian hermeneutic to other liturgical commemorations, seasons and tropes. Some melodic variants circulating between these diverse sources show the insular transmission of Lady Mass music, further demonstrating the distinctive aspects of this repertory.

Close textual relationships between Alleluya. Dulce lignum (Schlager no. 242) and the Marian contrafacta Alleluya. Salve virgo and Alleluya. Dulcis virgo point to the intertextuality of the Marian hermeneutic. As Example 1 demonstrates, the Marian contrafacta both repeat the same syllable structure of the original (meruisti for sustinere) and copy many of the words or syllables from the original. The very close notational relationship between the two versions further demonstrates the intertextuality of the contrafactum. In the Cicestre Missal, the two copies of the melody are graphically the same, except for the sections marked in grey in Example 1. The Marian texts Salve virgo and Dulcis virgo both compare Mary's womb to the wood of the cross praised in Dulce lignum through their actions: Mary's womb carried the saviour's body as did the cross.⁶¹ However, whereas the Dulcis virgo text maintains the grammar of the parent chant, Salve virgo, the text more widely circulated in insular sources turns to Mary's merits, replacing the masculine words for God (regem and dominum) with the feminine equivalent for Mary, a common approach in other contrafacta in the daily Lady Mass repertory.

Example 1. Alleluya. Dulce lignum (Schlager no. 242) and Alleluya. Salve virgo in the Cicestre Missal, fols. 212v (a) and 214v (b). Alleluya. Dulcis virgo in I-Ass 695, fol. 54v (c).

Some sources in the Salisbury family share melodic variants related to but distinct from the Rouen-Jumiéges group.⁶² The melodies for Alleluya. Salve virgo in the Radeford Gradual (GB-Ob Rawl. lit. d.3) and Shepton Beachamp Missal (GB-LVhu 29) follow that in the Cicestre Missal for same chant and its parent chant Alleluya. Dulce lignum. The Salisbury variants replicate those in the parent chant in the Rouen Missal copied between 1231 and 1245 (F-R 277, fol. 267), the Reims Gradual (F-RS 264 fol. 147v) and the Saint-Denis Gradual (BnF Lat. 1107, fol. 237r).⁶³ However, the earliest continental source of Alleluya. Salve virgo and its parent chant in the missal of St-Taurin at Évreux (BnF NAL 1773, fols. 272v and 204r–v) have different variants on ‘que sola’ and consistently use e-g rather than d-g (Example 2, line d).⁶⁴ At both points of variance, Alleluya. Salve virgo in I-Ass 695 (supposedly made for Reims) is closer to the Salisbury version than the Évreux version or other continental sources of the contrafactum such as the Nevers Gradual (BnF NAL 1235, fol. 2v).⁶⁵ These variants reveal the close relationship between the earliest sources in the Salisbury family and this version of the melody, which likely came to the collection in I-Ass 695 through a Salisbury-related source rather than through a continental one.⁶⁶ More importantly, they point to the consistency between the parent chant with Salisbury variants and the contrafactum within these sources.

Example 2. Variants on ‘que sola’ and ‘regina celorum’ in Evreux (BnF n.a.l. 1773 fol. 272v, line d), W₁, F-Pa 135, the Worcester Gradual (GB-WO F. 160, line e) and Noyon (F-Ab 7, fol. 201v, line f).

Versions of Alleluya. Salve virgo in W₁ and the London Missal (F-Pa 135) show that the melody was transmitted in insular sources outside Salisbury with different variants. These variants are more closely related to versions of the parent chant found at Worcester (GB-WO 160, fol. 138r) and Winchester (GB-Ob Bodl 775, fol. 42v) than to the versions of the parent chant in the main corpus of the same manuscripts.⁶⁷ The variants on ‘que sola’, and ‘regem/regina celorum’ match almost exactly, missing only the last a in F-Pa 135 (Example 2, line e).⁶⁸ These would seem to suggest a relationship with Hiley's Corbie and Saint-Denis group in the transmission of these versions of Alleluya. Salve virgo, but the two extant versions of the chant from continental sources in this group: Noyon (Example 2, line f) and Saint-Denis give different variants.⁶⁹ Moreover, another insular polyphonic source, the Canterbury fragment (though damaged at ‘celorum’), follows the variants on ‘que sola’ and ‘regina’ in the Worcester Gradual, F-Pa 135 and W₁. The circulation of these variants between the Benedictine churches of Worcester, Winchester and Canterbury points to a distinctly insular tradition circulating outside the Salisbury sources that would be incorporated into important secular churches represented by F-Pa 135 and W₁.

Contrafacta such as Alleluya. Salve virgo exemplify the Marian hermeneutic that shaped the insular Lady Mass repertory. The close relationship between the contrafactum and parent chant texts connects the shared soteriological role of the cross and Mary's womb, but also emphasises Mary's queenship by supplanting ‘regem’ with ‘regina’, an exchange that Alleluya. Dulcis virgo avoids. Other alleluia contrafacta follow typical techniques, such as reusing words in the parent chant to emphasise the new Marian interpretation: Alleluya. Virtutes celi venetantur replaces the powers of heaven with Mary, while Alleluya. Angelus domini nunciavit replaces the angelic herald at the tomb with the Annunciation. Some alleluias such as Justus germinavit (Schlager no. 119) for a Confessor and Dies sanctificatus (Schlager no. 27) for Christmas proved especially fruitful for Marian interpretation through both contrafacta and prosulated alleluias (Table 2).⁷⁰ These contrafacta and prosulated alleluias provided a Marian interpretation of festal chants throughout the liturgical year.

Similarly, clerics employed the technique of contraction with Marian texts for the Kyrie. As already demonstrated, the Marian text Rex virginum (for Melnicki no. 18, commonly sung with the text Cunctipotens genitor) circulated widely in insular sources of the Lady Mass. The Marian text focuses on Mary's role in the salvific action of the three persons of the Trinity celebrated in the tripartite form of Cunctipotens (Table 8).⁷¹ Contrafacta closely based on Lux et Gloria and other common Latin-texted Kyries replace words from the parent chant to direct the prayer to Mary (Table 9). Placing her name before each iteration of ‘eleison’ directs the chant to Mary and the replication of many of the words from the parent chant draws attention to the Marian hermeneutic replacing the liturgical interpretation of the Kyrie in the parent trope. Similarly, the Marian text for Melnicki no. 171 in the London Missal places Mary's name in a prominent position, mimicking the opening ‘kyrie’ and final ‘-e’ of ‘christe’ in five out of nine of the phrases (Table 10). This Kyrie melody, Melnicki no. 171, never became part of the rotation of Kyries for the daily Lady Mass in Salisbury sources and was rarely copied with Latin texts in insular or continental manuscripts. However, it was a celebrated melody in the insular Lady Mass repertory. In addition to being one of the seven Marian Kyries in the London Missal, the melody also received a different Marian text in the seven Kyries in W₁ and a third Marian text in the Winchcombe Cartulary. Each of these texts uses techniques such as those in Rex virginum to redirect the Trinitarian formula of existing Kyrie tropes towards Mary.

Table 8. Text and translation of the first three verses of Rex virginum

Table 9. Verses 2a–2c of Lux et Origo (Melnicki no. 39) compared with the contrafactum Lux et Gloria in W₁, fol. 176v

Note. Bold text indicates replicated words in the contrafactum.

Table 10. Marie et laus, F-Pa 135, fol. 231v

Symmetries between parent and contrafactum texts thus amplified Mary's ritual role in the daily Lady Mass. In each of these contrafacta and other Marian Latin-texted Kyries, texts describing the divine actions of the Trinity in the parent chants transform into Mary's action in the Kyrie for the daily Lady Mass. Because Latin-texted Kyries were sung only on major feasts, singing the Marian Latin-texted Kyries reinforced the Marian interpretations of the Trinity and elevated the daily Lady Mass to a status equal to the central feasts of the liturgical year. Though the Salisbury Ordinals would not permit the use of Latin verses in the daily Lady Mass, these new texts on a few festal melodies were foundational to the thirteenth-century daily Lady Mass in many insular churches. As these Marian texts and their references to parent texts show, a core repertory of Marian texts and Kyrie melodies circulating in Lady Mass sources played a significant role in establishing a solemn daily Lady Mass in many insular institutions outside of Salisbury.

Conclusion

A handful of insular liturgical books offer a glimpse into notable local adaptations and creations for daily Lady Masses in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century churches. These liturgical collections and contextual clues from non-liturgical collections – Mass music and contrafacta on Holy Cross chants especially – present a large and dynamic repertory of monophony and polyphony for Kyries, alleluias and offertories that supplied daily Lady Masses with music. The musical and poetic repertory exhibited in these genres is particular to the British Isles, just like the popularity of the daily Lady mass itself. Melodic variants in one of the central chants in these collections further confirm the insular transmission of the repertory. Finally, both the sizeable liturgical collections and the common association of a few Marian contrafacta with Friday Lady Masses reveal the early development of weekly rotations of chants at some churches.

The musical and poetic creativity exhibited in the Lady Mass repertory focused especially on applying a Marian hermeneutic to the Mass liturgy through new Marian tropes and contrafacta of festal chants. The new Marian texts for the Kyrie provided a Marian interpretation of the Trinity, in which each person of the Godhead was understood and approached through Mary. Tropes for the Gloria, Sanctus and Agnus Dei were less common, but through their Marian interpretations they too changed the ritual role of Mary in the Mass (a subject for further investigation). Festive alleluias inspired a number of new Marian interpretations. Yet many of the new texts are unica, implying that they were locally composed. As such, the Lady Mass functioned as a laboratory for compositional approaches to Latin song and Marian theology that could be performed and modified regularly.

The influence of the Ordinal of Salisbury Cathedral on insular practice by the late fourteenth century is well documented. Nevertheless, the reserved chant repertory of the Salisbury Lady Mass did not inhibit the early development of the repertory in the middle of the thirteenth century, even at some of the churches that sought the Salisbury Use (as evidenced in books such as the London Missal, and to a lesser extent the Radeford Gradual). Moreover, as the non-liturgical sources demonstrate, the repertory connected secular and Benedictine institutions that otherwise maintained distinctive repertories, and engaged some of the most important insular composers, such as W. of Wicumbe. The daily Lady Mass, thus, played an important role in providing a ‘soft’ ritual occasion encouraging the creation and sharing of new music and texts in a time when the ritual and music of the high altar was becoming more uniform in many insular secular cathedrals. New music for Mary blossomed through the re-texting and re-shaping of festal chants for daily performance, emphasising her divine participation in this ritual. Connecting this Marian monophony and polyphony to the daily liturgical performance in Lady chapels across the British Isles encourages a better understanding local liturgical practices, churches and the people who attended them.