Anonymous, Worcester Antiphonarium

The Worcester Antiphonarium, GB-WO F. 160, can be an enormous, 355-page level of monastic chants ready for Worcester Cathedral, which the main part was made in about the entire year 1230. It had been copied out into three areas by two different scribes, the initial two parts by an experienced hands writing within an early British gothic script, and the 3rd part (which can be an appendix) within a rougher, low-gothic hands. Sooner or later, the Worcester Antiphonarium was re-bound so that these areas became confusing, though in the incomplete published model in Paléographie musicale xii (1922 — 1925) the materials is reshuffled in to the best order. The initial section provides the antiphoner correct and some processionals. The antiphoner takes its nearly complete group of antiphons for the cathedral year, running through the initial week of Development towards the 25th week after Trinity. The processionals, nevertheless, break off following the Feast of Rogations, indicating that area of the reserve is lacking. The initial section resumes following the appearance of the 3rd, and this part contains a cathedral calendar, an imperfect Psalter including a litany to murdered Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket, hymns, gathers, another antiphoner. The second option is supposed for make use of on feast times and special events, includes an workplace for the lifeless, and concludes using a tonary. The next section comes after and concludes the real volume using a Steady including troped Kyries and Glorias and some Sequences — most likely a lot of the Sequences had been lost somewhere on the way. The third part of the Worcester Antiphonarium, mentioned previously, includes offices and public, a lot of which focus on persons of regional significance inside the cathedral hierarchy. There is an added Benedictine British antiphoner (GB-Cmc F.4.10), a fourteenth or fifteenth hundred years manuscript once owned by Samuel Pepys. Prior to the reformation, chant customized for so-called “Sarum Make use of” was a lot more common in Britain, and almost all British Catholic assistance books had been wiped out through the dissolution from the monasteries under Henry VII between 1534 and 1539. Provided its early provenance, prosperity of articles, and understanding, the Worcester Antiphonarium is among the most important resources of Benedictine chant found beyond continental Europe.