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Sources of the Old Hall Music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1967

Margaret Bent
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Extract

The study of a musical manuscript for its purely physical features—the paleographic and diplomatic study of a manuscript—may seem a far cry from the music it contains, which ought to be our main focus of study. But such investigation can inform us very precisely about the preparation and purpose of a manuscript. It can suggest a great deal more about the ways in which the minds of scribes, performers, even composers worked. (A second thought, for example, can be twice as significant if you have deciphered the first thought erased beneath it.) It is, in other words, the archaeology of music, and relates to the music itself as excavation does to our understanding of civilisation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 94 , 1967 , pp. 19 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © 1968 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

1 My own work on OH has been made possible by the kindness of the President of St. Edmund's College in making the manuscript readily accessible to me.Google Scholar

2 ‘At least’, because a gathering of Kyrie settings may once have opened the manuscript. I shall justify this, and other conclusions stated in the first part of this paper, in ‘The Old Hall Manuscript: a Paleographical Study’, to appear in Musica Disciplina.Google Scholar

3 The Old Hall Manuscript, ed. A. Ramsbotham, H. B. Collins and Dom A. Hughes, London (Plainsong and Medieval Music Society), 3 vols., 1933–8 (henceforth PMMS), III. ix–xi.Google Scholar

4 Margaret Bent, ‘Initial Letters in the Old Hall Manuscript’, Music & Letters, xlvii (1966), 225–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 This possibility was raised tentatively by Ramsbotham (PMMS, I. xi), but on a mistaken analysis of the scribes. For my identifications see Andrew Hughes and Margaret Bent, ‘Old Hall: the Inventory’, Musica Disciplina, xxi (1967), 130–47. Numbers of OH pieces used here are those of this inventory.Google Scholar

6 Andrew Hughes suggests that Cook's ‘Stella celi’ may be connected with ‘Henry IV's physical precautions in 1407 to avoid the plague centre of London’ (The Old Hall Manuscript: a Re-appraisal’, Musica Disciplina, xxi (1967), 104); this is not impossible, but the piece certainly cannot have been copied into OH at such an early date.Google Scholar

7 No. 111, Damett: ‘Salvatoris mater pia/O Georgi Deo care/Benedictus Marie Filius qui ve—’, ff. 89v–90; No. 112, Cooke: ‘Alma proles regia/Christi miles inclite/Ab inimicis nostris defende nos Christe’, ff. 90v–91; No. 113, Sturgeon: ‘Salve mater Domini/Salve templum gratie/–it in nomine Domini’, ff. 91v–92. The texts have been printed in W. Barclay Squire, ‘Notes on an Undescribed Collection of English 15th Century Music’, Sammelbände der internationalen Musikgesellschaft, ii (1900–1), 346–52, and in PMMS, III. xxxiii–xxxiv; they will also appear in The Old Hall Manuscript, ed. A. Hughes and M. Bent (Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae, xlvi), Rome, 1968.Google Scholar

8 See Henrici quinti, Angliae regis, gesta (henceforth Gesta), ed. B. Williams, London, 1850, pp. 40, 51; and N. H. Nicolas, History of the Battle of Agincourt, 3rd edn., London, 1833, pp. 291, 320.Google Scholar

9 The proclamation which officially raised his status is printed in The Register of Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury 1414–1443, ed. E. F. Jacob (Canterbury & York Society, xlvi), Oxford, 1945, iii. 8 (4 January 1416). That this step was a direct consequence of the Agincourt victory is confirmed by the Brut chronicler (British Museum, Harl. MS 53, f. 157v); see below, note 12.Google Scholar

10 Sec, for example, E. F. Jacob, The Fifteenth Century, Oxford, 1961, p. 141; and Dictionary of National Biography, art. ‘Henry V’, p. 498.Google Scholar

11 British Museum, Harl. MS 565, f. 112v. The whole poem is printed, with some inaccuracies, in Nicolas, Battle of Agincourt p. 327, and in E. Tyrell and N. H. Nicolas, A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483, London, 1827, p. 231. A different version of the same poem in Cotton Vitellius D.xii perished in the Cottonian fire; for this we are dependent on the copy by T. Hearne, included at the end of his edition of Thomae de Elmham Vita et Gesta Henrici Quinti, Oxford, 1727, pp. 359–75.Google Scholar

12 British Museum, Harl. MS 53, f. 157v (underlining in the original is represented by italics). This fifteenth-century manuscript preserves one of the continuations (up to 1436) of The Brut or the Chronicles of England, ed. F. W. D. Brie, London, 2 vols., 1906–8 (see ii. 558). For detail of sources, see Brie, Geschichte und Quellen der mittelenglischen Prosachronis The Brute of England oder The Chronicles of England, Marburg, 1905. The Gesta (the so-called ‘chaplain's account’) is considered the earliest account of Henry's reception in London, and that of an eye-witness. Surviving copies (see Gesta, pp. 62–63) omit the musical titles supplied in later accounts, but as these otherwise depend on the Gesta they may have similar direct authority for the titles.Google Scholar

13 Damett uses the Sarum plainsong 3 transposed down a tone; Sturgeon uses it untransposed. I do not regard this as an obstacle to linked performance, since there is no evidence that written pitches were tied even to approximate standards of sounding pitch. The notated pitch was apparently determined by convenience of solmisation. Similarly, use of high clefs does not necessarily imply performance by trebles at this date.Google Scholar

14 See Gesta, p. 68.Google Scholar

15 Some sources have relaxetur.Google Scholar

16 Lateinische Sequenzen da Mittelalters, ed. J. Kehrein, Mainz, 1873, No. 182.Google Scholar

17 Some of the interpretations which have been put forward for this text seem quite unwarranted. Dom Anselm Hughes (PMMS III. xi) suggests ‘for whom pray that he may have a son’ as a possible rendering of pro quo pete filium. Andrew Hughes interprets came gravi as a reference to Henry IV's long illness ‘which often incapacitated him from 1406 onwards’ (‘Re-appraisal’, Musica Disciplina, xxi. 106–7), when it is surely no more than a reference to the mortal state in general. His translation of the fourth stanza otherwise conveys the right sense. But for the fifth I suggest: And, O Queen of our King, pray [thy] Son with [thy] usual faithfulness, that the downfall due [to us] may be alleviated, and that, reborn and cleansed from sin, [we] may reign [with thee in Heaven].Google Scholar

18 See, for example, E. F. Jacob's interpretation of Henry's view of his own role, The Fifteenth Century, pp. 123–4.Google Scholar

19 F. Ll. Harrison associates ‘Alma proles’ and ‘Salvatoris’ generally with Henry's campaigns (Music in Medieval Britain, London, 1958, pp. 246–7). Hughes dates ‘Salvatoris’ c.1415, but see note 17 above. Bukofzer suggests that the motets by Damett and Sturgeon (beginning with Sa- and using a Sanctus plainsong) ‘can be regarded as elaborately troped settings of the Sanctus’ (Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music, London, 1951, p. 70). After the Sanctus was one of the places prescribed for polyphony, and these motets are flanked by first-layer Sanctus settings.Google Scholar

20 Another possible Miles Christi is the setting of a different text in Oxford, Bodl., Arch Selden B.26, ff. 8v–9. This is not addressed to St. George, but is an antiphon of St. Thomas of Lancaster (d. 1322), as R. L. Greene has pointed out (‘Two Medieval Musical Manuscripts’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, vii (1954), 3).Google Scholar

21 Studies, p. 73.Google Scholar

22 Harrison, Music in Medieval Britain, pp. 220–21.Google Scholar

23 There are no strong grounds for associating any of the motets in the first layer with specific occasions. 1420 is clearly too late for the composition of Byttering's motet ‘En Katerine’ (No. 145), which has been linked with the wedding of Henry and Catherine (Bukofzer, Studies, p. 71). Both in this case and in that of the motet on St. Thomas of Canterbury (No. 143) no occasion other than the saint's day seems necessary.Google Scholar

24 PMMS, I. xii.Google Scholar

25 OH Nos. 33, 34, 47, 68, 73, 74, 140 can be completed from concordances, in addition to several pieces in which smaller losses can be restored. The knowledge that No. 33 is by Zacar, No. 66 by Dunstable, also comes from concordant sources.Google Scholar

26 Studies, pp. 38–39.Google Scholar

27 See Tables I and II on facing pages.Google Scholar

28 Squares (isolated parts, extracted from polyphony, and copied later for use in a different context) give important clues about the later distribution of certain pieces, but are not in themselves relevant to primary chronology.Google Scholar

29 All music notated in score is included in these categories. So are all the isorhythmic pieces in OH except Dunstable's second-layer ‘Veni Sancte Spiritus’.Google Scholar

30 However, a fragment preserved at Stratford (Shakespeare Birthplace Library, Willoughby de Broke Collection, Item 1744), roughly contemporary with OH, preserves two incomplete pieces that are of relevance here. One is a Credo ascribed to Picart, in a style very close to Pycard's OH contributions, though not directly linked to any of them. The other is an anonymous Credo which follows the style and design of Rowland's Gloria in OH (No. 29) so closely that he may be the composer of this Credo. Rowland's Gloria is also in LoF. Bukofzer pointed out a musical link between the OH Credo by Pennard (No. 89) and an anonymous Gloria in LoF, assigning the Gloria to Pennard on these grounds (Studies, p. 107). The Pennard Credo, too, has a concordance.Google Scholar

31 Nos. 21–23, 35, 43, 49, 81, 83, 84, 96, 99, 100, 115–8, 133, 137, 138, 141 are ascribed to Leonel in OH. No. 73 is the only second-layer piece attributed to him, and no anonymous second-layer pieces are likely to be his. Nos. 34, 77, 140 can be assigned to Leonel because they form pairs with pieces in the above list. In addition, No. 82 may be by Leonel, on stylistic and notational grounds. No. 75 uses blue notation found otherwise only in No. 22, by Leonel, but on grounds of style it might equally well be by Pycard. Typp and Pycard each have seven ascriptions; a couple more may be by Pycard on grounds of style.Google Scholar

32 See, for example, Charles Hamm, A Chronology of the Works of Guillaume Dufay, Princeton, 1964. Other evidence leads Hamm to suggest (p. 48) that Leonel may not have been writing music as early as 1414.Google Scholar

33 Emden, A. B., A Biographical Register of the University of Cambridge to A.D. 1500, Cambridge, 1963.Google Scholar

34 Harrison, Music in Medieval Britain, p. 27.Google Scholar

35 British Museum, Add. MS 35295, f. 262.Google Scholar

36 The quadrivium comprised arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music, the trivium grammar, rhetoric and logic. I should like to acknowledge the help of Messrs. A. Petti and P. Dronke in confirming my reading and interpretation of this passage.Google Scholar

37 Brian Trowell assembles the literary evidence in favour of Henry V in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, art. ‘Heinrich V’.Google Scholar

38 See The Pelican History of Music, ed. A. Robertson and D. Stevens, ii (London, 1963), 53. The MS is in Worcestershire Record Office, b705:4 BA 54.Google Scholar

39 Flagged semiminims occur in two other OH pieces, both second-layer (Nos. 38 and 53, by Cooke and Damett). They are also found in the manuscripts containing the Agincourt song, which are therefore later than 1415. Charles Hamm dates all Dufay's works using flagged semiminims between 1423 and 1433; the works he dates between 1415 and 1423, however, contain no semiminims at all. Semiminims, flagged and unflagged, are common in English music of this earlier period.Google Scholar