For the first time since the 1530s, the sacred sounds of monastic music are once again being heard at Buckland Abbey, a former Cistercian monastery in Devon, southwest England. Thanks to a partnership between the University of Exeter and the National Trust, supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, a rare 15th-century manuscript used by the monks of Buckland has returned to the abbey—and its music has been performed for the first time in nearly five centuries.
Now part of the British Library’s collection, the richly decorated Buckland Book (c.1450) was once a vital guide for the abbey’s daily rituals. Known as a customary, the manuscript provided instructions for religious services—but it also contains an unusual addition: a collection of plainchant music copied into the book in the early Tudor period.
The book has now returned on loan to Buckland Abbey as the centrepiece of a new exhibition, Opening the Buckland Book: Music and community in a Tudor monastery, which runs until the end of October. The University of Exeter Chapel Choir has also recorded the music and will perform it live in the abbey’s medieval Great Barn on 16 and 17 August.
Hardly any monastic music from medieval England survives, due to the widespread destruction of manuscripts during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. But while researching Buckland Abbey’s past for the National Trust, Professor James Clark of the University of Exeter discovered the music preserved in this manuscript.
The chants are written in plainchant style—single lines of music sung in unison—but what makes them stand out is their deviation from the expected liturgical structure.
“Whoever compiled this collection seems to have been unusually creative, pulling together words and music from many different sources,” said Daisy Gibbs, Research Officer at the National Trust and a music historian.
“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,” she added. “We still have work to do to find out exactly how unusual this collection is.”
One theory is that the chants were composed as a response to the recurring outbreaks of sweating sickness—a mysterious and deadly disease that struck Tudor England and could kill within 24 hours. Among its victims were the wife and two daughters of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s chief minister.
The Buckland manuscript is also notable because scholars can associate it with a specific historical figure: Robert Derkeham, the abbey’s choir master and organist, who lived and worked at Buckland from 1522 until the monastery’s dissolution. Such a connection between music and musician is exceptionally rare for medieval monastic settings.
A rare medieval manuscript is bringing the sound of monks back to Buckland Abbey for the first time in 500 years.
A 15th-century book that once belonged to Buckland Abbey to come home for the first time since 1539, thanks to a British Library loan.
The musical pieces were transcribed and recorded by the University of Exeter Chapel Choir. Their recording will form the audio backdrop for the exhibition at Buckland Abbey and bring the voices of the long-silent monks back to life.
“Having searched the archives for traces of England’s lost abbeys, it is very exciting to recover something of their sound,” said Professor Clark. “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.”
Michael Graham, Director of Chapel Music at the University of Exeter, described the challenges of reviving music from half a millennium ago. “Although the music is written down using the same notation that’s still used in the modern Catholic Church, it doesn’t give any instructions about rhythm or dynamics, so we had to make decisions about how the pieces should sound. This is one of the most interesting, and also most challenging, parts of performing music that’s over 500 years old! Our students have really enjoyed being involved in the project, and have relished the opportunity to explore this rich vein of music and bring it to life in our chapel on campus.”
There are still unanswered questions about the Buckland Book’s whereabouts during the centuries between the abbey’s dissolution and its acquisition by the Harley family in the 1720s.
“There’s still work to be done to find out what happened to the Buckland Book between the closure of the abbey and when it was acquired by the Harley family in the 1720s, before being sold to the British Museum in 1753,” said Gibbs. “Perhaps one of the monks took the book with him, and it remained quietly on a shelf after the hoped-for reversal of the Dissolution didn’t come.
“It’s possible we’ll never know. But we feel very privileged that our work with the University of Exeter and the British Library has allowed us to bring the voices of those monks and choirboys back to life.”
For the first time since the 1530s, the sacred sounds of monastic music are once again being heard at Buckland Abbey, a former Cistercian monastery in Devon, southwest England. Thanks to a partnership between the University of Exeter and the National Trust, supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, a rare 15th-century manuscript used by the monks of Buckland has returned to the abbey—and its music has been performed for the first time in nearly five centuries.
Now part of the British Library’s collection, the richly decorated Buckland Book (c.1450) was once a vital guide for the abbey’s daily rituals. Known as a customary, the manuscript provided instructions for religious services—but it also contains an unusual addition: a collection of plainchant music copied into the book in the early Tudor period.
The book has now returned on loan to Buckland Abbey as the centrepiece of a new exhibition, Opening the Buckland Book: Music and community in a Tudor monastery, which runs until the end of October. The University of Exeter Chapel Choir has also recorded the music and will perform it live in the abbey’s medieval Great Barn on 16 and 17 August.
Hardly any monastic music from medieval England survives, due to the widespread destruction of manuscripts during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. But while researching Buckland Abbey’s past for the National Trust, Professor James Clark of the University of Exeter discovered the music preserved in this manuscript.
The chants are written in plainchant style—single lines of music sung in unison—but what makes them stand out is their deviation from the expected liturgical structure.
“Whoever compiled this collection seems to have been unusually creative, pulling together words and music from many different sources,” said Daisy Gibbs, Research Officer at the National Trust and a music historian.
“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,” she added. “We still have work to do to find out exactly how unusual this collection is.”
One theory is that the chants were composed as a response to the recurring outbreaks of sweating sickness—a mysterious and deadly disease that struck Tudor England and could kill within 24 hours. Among its victims were the wife and two daughters of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s chief minister.
The Buckland manuscript is also notable because scholars can associate it with a specific historical figure: Robert Derkeham, the abbey’s choir master and organist, who lived and worked at Buckland from 1522 until the monastery’s dissolution. Such a connection between music and musician is exceptionally rare for medieval monastic settings.
The musical pieces were transcribed and recorded by the University of Exeter Chapel Choir. Their recording will form the audio backdrop for the exhibition at Buckland Abbey and bring the voices of the long-silent monks back to life.
“Having searched the archives for traces of England’s lost abbeys, it is very exciting to recover something of their sound,” said Professor Clark. “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.”
Michael Graham, Director of Chapel Music at the University of Exeter, described the challenges of reviving music from half a millennium ago. “Although the music is written down using the same notation that’s still used in the modern Catholic Church, it doesn’t give any instructions about rhythm or dynamics, so we had to make decisions about how the pieces should sound. This is one of the most interesting, and also most challenging, parts of performing music that’s over 500 years old! Our students have really enjoyed being involved in the project, and have relished the opportunity to explore this rich vein of music and bring it to life in our chapel on campus.”
There are still unanswered questions about the Buckland Book’s whereabouts during the centuries between the abbey’s dissolution and its acquisition by the Harley family in the 1720s.
“There’s still work to be done to find out what happened to the Buckland Book between the closure of the abbey and when it was acquired by the Harley family in the 1720s, before being sold to the British Museum in 1753,” said Gibbs. “Perhaps one of the monks took the book with him, and it remained quietly on a shelf after the hoped-for reversal of the Dissolution didn’t come.
“It’s possible we’ll never know. But we feel very privileged that our work with the University of Exeter and the British Library has allowed us to bring the voices of those monks and choirboys back to life.”
Click here to learn more about Buckland Abbey
Top Image: Buckland Abbey – photo by Becks / Flickr
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