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The Ampleforth fragments: a preliminary survey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Joan Malcolm
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Extract

The fragments of liturgical music held in the monastic library of Ampleforth Abbey, Yorkshire, consist of thirty-three manuscript parchment leaves of varying sizes, most of which appear to have been used as strengtheners for book bindings.1 It is difficult to determine their provenance but some clues may be found in the variety of their neume styles. Six of the fragments are written with staffless neumes, the rest have staff notation, including eleven leaves from an Office antiphoner. There are also several fragments with square notation in a mensural form. The neume styles indicate a wide time-span, probably from the eleventh century to the mid-fifteenth century. The geographical region suggested by the notation is, for the most part, that of Lorraine and of southern Germany.

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Articles
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Plainsong & Medieval Music , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , October 1998, pp. 129 - 140
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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References

1 I am indebted to the Abbot of Ampleforth for allowing me to view the fragments and for permission to publish the facsimiles.

2 I am grateful to Fr Terence Richardson OSB and Fr Anselm Cramer OSB, librarian of Ampleforth monastic library, for facts regarding the history of Ampleforth and for information about books in the library.

3 See Hemmerlin, F., Variae oblectiones: opuscula et tractatus (Basel: N. Kessler, 1497)Google Scholar.

4 Brevarium monasticum secundum consuetudinem… de observantia sanctae Iustinae (Brescia: Britannicus, 1488).

5 van Waesberghe, J. Smits, ‘The Musical Notation of Guido of Arezzo’, Musica Disciplina, 5 (1951), pp. 25 and 28Google Scholar.

6 proparoxytone, 8 proparoxytone, 7 paroxytone, × 2, rhymed aabccb. Defined by Hughes, Andrew, ‘British Rhymed Offices’, Music in the Medieval English Liturgy, ed. Rankin, S. and Hiley, D. (Oxford, 1993), p. 241Google Scholar.

7 See Hallinger, K. OSB, Gorze-Kluny: Studien zu den monastischen Lebensformen und Gegensätzen im Hochmittelalter, 2 vols., Studia Anselmiana 22–25 (Rome, 1951)Google Scholar