21 hours ago
Music silenced by Henry VIII to be heard for first time in 500 years
Monastic music that was silenced by Henry VIII during the Reformation will be heard for the first time in 500 years.
The 'plaintive' music will be performed by the University of Exeter's chapel choir in August at Buckland Abbey in Devon.
The performance will celebrate the return of a medieval book to the abbey for the first time since 1539.
Much of this repertoire was lost or destroyed during the Reformation, which saw every priory and abbey in England closed by Henry VIII.
Known as a 'customary', the richly decorated Buckland Book contained the instructions the monks needed to carry out their daily religious rituals and services. It also contained a rare collection of medieval music copied and added to the book in the early Tudor period.
The music is in a style called 'plainchant', with single lines of music for monks or priests to sing all together.
Rather than following the rigid liturgical structure of the time, with particular pieces sung at different times of the day, the monks curated a unique sequence of chants drawn from various sources.
The National Trust and Exeter University transcribed the music and a recording of the work will serve as a soundtrack to a new exhibition, Opening the Buckland Book: Music and community in a Tudor monastery, which runs from Saturday to Oct 31.
There will also be live performances on Aug 16 and 17.
Daisy Gibbs, a music historian for the National Trust, said: 'Whoever compiled this collection seems to have been unusually creative, pulling together words and music from many different sources.
'The pieces found in the book ask for God's mercy, forgiveness and protection from harm.
'They share a real feeling of anxiety and fear. It looks as though they were once sung as a complete sequence, perhaps to help the monks through a crisis of some kind.
'We still have work to do to find out exactly how unusual this collection is.'
One suggestion is that the music was intended as a response to the sweating sickness, which broke out repeatedly in Tudor England.
It often killed its victims within 24 hours and seemed to target young and middle-aged men.
Prof James Clark, the historian who discovered the music, said: 'Having searched the archives for traces of England's lost abbeys, it is very exciting to recover something of their sound.
'Before the Tudor Reformation, in every part of England and Wales there were places like this dedicated to creative music-making and performance.
'Through this research we can now learn much more about this tradition and what it meant not only for the musicians but also for the surrounding communities that shared in their art.'
Research is continuing to discover what happened to the Buckland Book between the closure of the abbey and when it was acquired by the Harley family in the 1720s.
It was later sold to the British Museum in 1753.
The 15th century book has been loaned to the abbey by the British Library. Recent research by a historian at the University of Exeter led to the discovery of the rare monastic music.
