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A new English source of the Visitatio Sepulchri

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2009

Susan K. Rankin
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Extract

The manuscript 596 in the Library of the Abbaye-St-Pierre, Solesmes, is a copy, made in 1860, of a noted English processional, which was written between 1250 and 1320 for the Benedictine Abbey of St.Edith's at Wilton, near Salisbury. How the manuscript came to Dom Guéranger, and what subsequently became of it after 1860 is unknown. In 1961 Georges Benoit-Castelli published an examination of the provenance, date and contents of the processional, noting the presence of dramatic ceremonies, which include an Elevatio Crucis and Visitatio Sepulchri for Easter Day. This, in fact, makes the manuscript one of only five extant English sources of the Visitatio Sepulchri. Yet, despite Benoit-Castelli's report, this processional has been entirely neglected by historians of the liturgical drama. This article aims to describe the relation of the Visitatio ceremony to others in the Anglo-French repertory, and will conclude with a complete transcription based on the 19th-century copy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Plainsong & Mediaeval Music Society , Volume 4 , January 1981 , pp. 1 - 11
Copyright
© The Plainsong and Medieval Music Society 1981

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References

Notes

1 (p.1) I would like to thank Dom Jean Claire and Dom Jacques Hourlier of the Abbey of Solesmes for bringing this manuscript to my attention, and for allowing me every facility to work on it.

2 (p.1) Benoit-Castelli, G.: ‘Un processional anglais du xiveme siècle’, Ephemerides liturgicae, 75 (1961), pp.281–326 Google Scholar.

3 (p.1) The other sources being those from Winchester (Regularis Concordia and the two tropers) and St.Mary's, Barking.

4 (p.1) Benoit-Castelli; Ker, N.R.: Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, I: London (Oxford, 1969)Google Scholar; Millar, E.G.: ‘Les manuscrits à peintures des bibliothèques de Londres’, Bulletin de la Société francaise de reproductions de manuscrits à peintures, 4 (1914–1920), pp.128–49Google Scholar.

5 (p.1) Power, E.: Medieval English Nunneries c.1275 to 1535 (Cambridge, 1922)Google Scholar; Pugh, R.B. and Crittall, E. (eds.): A History of Wiltshire, The Victoria County History of the Counties of England (London, 1956)Google Scholar; Benoit-Castelli.

6 (p.1) The texts of the Salisbury, Barking and Dublin ceremonies are printed in Lipphardt, W.: Lateinische Osterfeiern und Osterspiele (5 vols., Berlin, 1975–1976): II, p.571 (Salisbury)Google Scholar, p.545 (Dublin), and V, p.1456 (Barking). The Hereford ceremony is printed in Frere, W.H. and Brown, L.E.G.: The Hereford Breviary, Henry Bradshaw Society, 26–27 (London, 1904–1911), I, p.324 Google Scholar.

7 (p.1) de Boor, H.: Die Textgeschichte der lateinischen Osterfeiern (Tübingen, 1967), p.348 Google Scholar.

8 (p.2) See Lipphardt, V, p.1458; I, p.209; V, p.1682.

9 (p.2) Other German versions of this melody are transcribed by Lipphardt, W. in Die Weisen der lateinischen Osterspiele des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts (Kassel, 1948)Google Scholar.

10 (p.2) See Lipphardt, Osterfeiern, I, p.189 (Poitiers) and p.209 (Troyes).

11 (p.5) This material is discussed in Rankin, S.K.: ‘The Mary Magdalene scene in the Visitatio Sepulchri ceremonies’, Early Music History, 1 (Cambridge, 1981), pp.227–255 Google Scholar.