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Adoramus Te Christe: Music and Post-Reformation English Catholic Domestic Piety

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Emilie K. M. Murphy
Emilie K. M. Murphy*
Affiliation:
University of York
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Extract

On the Feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross, 3 May 1606, Henry Garnet was hung, drawn and quartered in St Paul’s churchyard, London. In his last dying speech Garnet adapted the liturgy from the office hours of the day and he proclaimed in Latin: ‘We adore thee, O Christ and we Bless thee, because by thy Cross, thou hast redeemed the world. This sign shall appear in heaven, when the Lord shall come to judgment’. Finally, beseeching God to let him always remember the cross, he crossed his arms upon his chest and was turned off the scaffold.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 50: Religion and the Household , 2014 , pp. 240 - 253
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2014

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References

1 Oxford, Bodl., MS Eng. Th. B. 2, 135.

2 Ibid.

3 Freeman, Thomas S., Martyrs and Martyrdom in England (Woodbridge, 2007)Google Scholar; Gregory, Brad, Salvation at Stake (London, 1997)Google Scholar; Dillon, Anne, The Construction of Martyrdom in the English Catholic Community (Aldershot, 2002)Google Scholar. For a literary perspective, see Monta, Susannah Brietz, Martyrdom and Literature in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2005)Google Scholar.

4 Dillon, , ‘A trewe report of the li[fe] and marterdome of Mrs. Margaret Clitherowe’, in Construction of Martyrdom, 277–322 Google Scholar. For full printed edition of the original manuscript, see Mush, J., ‘A True Report of the Life and Martyrdom of Mrs. Margaret Clitherow’, in Morris, John, ed., The Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers Related by Themselves, 3 vols (London, 1872–7), 3: 331–440.Google Scholar

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9 This is not to suggest that Catholicism ‘retreated’ to the households of the aristocracy. See, for example, Questier, Michael, Catholicism and Community in Early Modem England: Politics, Aristocratic Patronage and Religion, c.1550-1640 (Cambridge, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 This now well-known phrase was coined by John Bossy in his discussion of Tridentine Europe and the aftermath of the Council of Trent, ‘The Counter-Reformation and the People of Catholic Europe’, P&P, no. 47 (1970), 51-70, at 68. See also, in this volume, Walsham, Alexandra, ‘Holy Families: The Spiritualization of the Early Modern Household revisited’, 122–60.Google Scholar

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14 Ibid.

15 McClain, Lisa, Lest we be Damned: Practical Innovation and Lived Experience among Catholics in Protestant England, 1559-1641 (London, 2004)Google Scholar, esp. chs 2-4.

16 Bodl., MS Th. Eng. B. 1-2.

17 Kilroy, Gerard, Edmund Campion: Memory and Transcription (Aldershot, 2005), 13–14.Google Scholar

18 Ibid. 14.

19 Ibid.

20 Barker, Nicolas and Quentin, David, The Library of Thomas Tresham & Thomas Brudenell, Roxburghe Club (London, 2006)Google Scholar.

21 Ibid. 54.

22 For further information on these antiquarian impulses, see Milson, John, ‘Sacred Songs in the Chamber’, in Morehen, John, ed., English Choral Practice: 1400-1650 (Cambridge, 1995), 161–79.Google Scholar

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24 Cited in Lomas, S. C., ed., Historical Manuscripts Commission: Report on Manuscripts in Various Collections, vol. 3 (London, 1904), 48.Google Scholar

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26 For a more detailed discussion of this unusual format, see Morehen, John, Murphy, Emilie K. M. and Rastall, Richard, ‘Table-book’, in Grove Music Online: Oxford Music Online, at: <http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/27341>, accessed 16 August 2013.Google Scholar

27 For a video representing the table-book format, see the You Tube clip (particularly at 1: 25), online at: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nntri9OfaRY>, accessed 10 July 2012. Sting is singing from a facsimile of Dowland’s 1597 publication.

28 Cited in Anstruther, Godfrey, Vaux of Harrowden: A Recusant Family (Newport, 1953), 113.Google Scholar

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31 McClain, Lisa, ‘Without Church, Cathedral or Shrine: The Search for Religious Space among Catholics in England, 1559-1625’, SCJ 33 (2002), 381–99.Google Scholar

32 Southwell, Robert, A Short Rule of a Good Life (S. Omers [sic], 1622), 162.Google Scholar

33 Ibid. 164.

34 Ibid. 165.

35 In the performance and recording made for the purpose of my doctoral research in January 2012, several options were tried - singing both the upper and lower notes together, as well as singing just the lower notes. My profound thanks here are due to the members of Les Canards Cliantants: Soprano, Sarah Holland; Alto, Robin Bier; Tenor, Edward Ingham; and Bass, Graham Bier. From this and the opinions of several musicologists (particular thanks are due to Jo Wainwright, Richard Rastall, John Morehen, Kerry McCarthy, Jeremy L. Smith and Katelijne Schiltz for all their helpful comments on this and on table-music more generally) it is clear that the lower note was not meant to be performed.

36 See examples in Dart, Thurston, ‘Eye Music’, Grove Music Online: Oxford Music Online, at: <http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/09152>, accessed 29 March 2012.Google Scholar

37 In his Grove entry, Thurston Dart intriguingly asserts that ‘[t]here is more than one instance of the symbolism of the Crucifixion illustrated by means of a set of notes in the shape of a cross’, yet he mentions this after his discussion of canons and unfortunately gives no indication of sources for his statement.

38 Walsham, , ‘Translating Trent’Google Scholar.

39 Walsham, Alexandra, ‘“Domine Preachers”? Post-Reformation English Catholicism and the Culture of Print’, P&P, no. 168 (2000), 72–123 Google Scholar, at 121.

40 See Aveling, J. C. H., ‘Catholic Households in Yorkshire, 1580-1603’, NH 16 (1980), 85–101 Google Scholar, at 101. Aveling was using John Bossy’s phrase.

41 Walsham, , ‘“Domme Preachers”?’, 1xs22.Google Scholar