A musical fragment from Anglo-Saxon England

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Early Music, Vol. xxxvi, No. 2 The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.doi:10.1093/em/can036, available online at www.em.oxfordjournals.org

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It is rare nowadays to find reference to a previouslyunpublished medieval source with music nota-tion, especially one dating from the earliest periodof music writing. Precisely when and where neumeswere first used in the medieval West is not known,as David Hiley and Janka Szendrei have recentlyput it.1 The earliest-known fragmentsabout threedozen or sodate from the 9th century, and the

earliest complete books with music notation survivefrom the turn of the 9th to the 10th century.2 So thediscovery in an 8th-century book at the CathedralLibrary in Durham of neumes which have escapedmusicological notice until now is significant.3 At firstglance, the discovery is small: a single line of musicpreceded by two ligatures. But given that these neu-mes may date from the 8th century and thus antici-pate the earliest-known English music writing bytwo centuries, it is an important musical fragment.The provenance of the source in which the neumes

are found, the famous scriptorium of Wearmouth-Jarrow in northern England, may shed new lightnot only on the earliest English tradition of notat-ing music, but also on the earliest music writing inthe West. The reader should be warned, however.Not only is it difficult to date the Durham neumesbecause they were added to the main text, but thereis no precedent for them; that is to say, no evidenceuntil now has survived of music notation from the8th century. Although an 8th-century origin for theDurham neumes is questionable, it is nevertheless

still a hypothesis which merits at least thoughtfulconsideration.

The Durham Cassiodorus

The source in which the neumes are found isa famous redaction of a famous text, the Com-mentary on the Psalms or Expositio psalmarumby Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator

(c.487580). Cassiodorus wrote his commentarynot long after his conversion in the late 530s, mak-ing this a less-mature work than his better-knownInstitutiones.4 As P. G. Walsh explains in his transla-tion of the work, one of the original features of theExpositio psalmarum is the concluding section foreach psalm which provides a practical applicationfor the early medieval reader. In Cassiodoruss read-

ing, the psalms become, among other things, a vehi-cle for teaching the liberal arts, especially music.5Beyond the psalms obvious fit to the topic, musicproves to be of special concern to Cassiodorus.6 Inthe Expositio psalmarum, he adds material culledfrom his reading of Augustines De musica and othersources. In his commentary on Psalm 80, for exam-ple, he digresses on different divisions for music.There is one which distinguishes between harmon-ics, rhythmics and metrics; a second way differen-tiates musical instruments into percussion, strings

and wind instruments; a third separates music intosix harmonies; and a fourth distinguishes 15 tones.7Cassiodoruss thoughts on music, especially those inthe Institutiones, would have an enduring impact onmedieval intellectual life, especially during the Caro-lingian revival.

Of the 15 manuscripts which transmit the Exposi-tio psalmarum, the so-called Durham Cassiodorus(Durham, Cathedral Library, Ms.b.ii.30) is theearliest-surviving redaction. It is well known to arthistorians and palaeographers as one of the most

beautiful extant products of early Anglo-Saxonscribal culture, in the company of the LindisfarneGospels from the early8th century and the CodexAmiatinus from the 7th century. The Durham Cas-siodorus is contemporary with the former, and bothwere copied in Northumbria; like the Codex Amiat-inus, the Durham Cassiodorus was likely compiledat the scriptorium of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow

John Haines

A musical fragment from Anglo-Saxon England
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where the Venerable Bede (673735) worked.8 For atime it was believed that the Durham Cassiodoruswas written by Bede himselfde manu Bede asthe 14th-century inscription on f.1vdeclares.9 How-ever, this has been all but discounted by modernscholarship which has demonstrated that the bookis the work of at least six scribes who finished work-

ing around 750 (the view supported by R. Bailey, E.H. Zimmerman, E. A. Lowe and T. D. Kendrick)or shortly after 700, in a less popular view (T. J.Brown).10 At best, Bede would have been involvedin a final stage of compilation of the codex. Even ifdoubt is cast on Bedes involvement, the DurhamCassiodorus remains rightly famous as a typicallyNorthumbrian product in the scope and sophisti-cation of its craft. The books adaptation of InsularMinuscule script represents an important phasein palaeography, and its two large portraits of King

David are iconographically significant.11

The manuscript is a large volume (420 295 mm),

and was carefully prepared as a presentation copy ofsome sort. The bulk of the book (ff.5r-264v) datesfrom the mid-8th century, with ff.1r-4vhaving beenadded in the 12th century. The first of the six or soscribes involved in the original 8th-century comp-ilation worked up to f.82; it is this first section thatconcerns us.12 First to be copied was the main text,in leisurely, large letters, in an insular half-uncialhand. The letters are described as generally broad,

and the main hand as a careful, expert but some-what self-conscious majuscule.13 The text mod-ule is 3 mm, excluding descenders and ascenders.14The ink is now dark brown, as seen in illus.1. AsR. A. B. Mynors points out in his catalogue of Dur-ham manuscripts, no special ornaments were addedto the text, except for red rubrics, presumably thenext stage of copying. They too can be seen in illus.1,some quite faded, such as the five-line title near thetop of the left-hand column indicating the end ofPsalm 16 and the beginning of Psalm 17. Occasion-

ally, the rubricator put in a red capital, or a blackletter surrounded by red dots characteristic of theinsular style.15 Beyond this, corrections were made tothe main text in a darker ink verging on black. Thesecorrections include not only punctuation marks, butalso changes such as the I above Dilegante in thesecond line from the bottom left-hand column inillus.1. Indeed, I spellings are favoured over E ones

in the earliest redactions, as has been pointed outby Marc Adriaen.16 Still later, textual additions andglosses were made in an insular cursive minusculehand not found in illus.1.17 In the commentary of hiscritical edition of the Expositio psalmarum, Adriaenstates that the Durham source, although the earliest-known redaction, was probably a shorter version of

an older, now-lost exemplar, a point to which I willreturn later in this article. The cursive minusculeglosses presumably attempted to reinsert the impor-tant parts of the text.18 All of this writing took placein the course of the original redaction, likely some-time before or around 750. As far as is known, thebook never left the north of England, and by the 14thcentury had travelled from Wearmouth-Jarrow toDurham Cathedral Library where it is now housed.19

Before arriving at the musical notation found atthe bottom of f.24r, it is important to say something

more about the rubrication already mentioned. Thered ink or paint has aged unevenly. The colour nowranges from a bright orange to a brown-black, hav-ing faded in a manner generally typical of red ink.20It is most faded in areas which have been frequentlyexposed to deteriorating factors over the centuries,as in the popular image of the victorious Davidshown in illus.2. Elsewhere, in the least-popularcorners of the book, the red ink is well preserved, asin the red dots surrounding an initial C on f.117r,right-hand column. This change in colour is likely

due to the most common cause of ink decay or age-ing: exposure to light.21 This explains why the redin the least popular corners of the book is betterpreserved. Either way, this redred being the sec-ond most common colour after black in medievalbookshas held up well.22 Despite the differencesin shading, then, the red used throughout the bookappears to be all the same ink. This is especially clearin the case of colour gradations occurring within asingle line of rubricated text. This can be seen, forinstance, in the rubric mentioned earlier (illus.1):

Expli(cit) Psal(mus) .XVI. Inci(pit) Psal(mus).XVII.. Here the ink colour varied from a darkbrown in the initial E to an orange by the end ofthis first word, even more clearly by the second line.In the victorious David painting found later in thebook (f.172v, illus.2), we see the same kind of varia-tion in the ring which David holds in his right hand.Incidentally, this image also demonstrates that, of


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all the colours used in the books paintings, the col-our red has held up best to the ravages of time. Theyellow paint in the border of the rectangle below

Davids feet, in contrast, is nearly completely faded,whereas the orange-red in the two rectangles oneither lower side has held up well.

This discussion of red ink brings us to the neumesat the bottom of f.24r, for they are in the same dustyred found throughout the manuscript. The neu-mes are drawn finely, with the virga ranging from2 to 3 mm in height. Several of the minuscule cur-

sive glosses mentioned earlier in the bottom marginof the large folios are drawn rather close to the text,between 3 to 9 mm. The musical neumes, however,

begin at 15 mm below the text, and settle in at 25 to28 mm. In other words, the rubricator placed themusical notation with a little more discretion thanthe glossator. Since the folios were originally largerand were later cut down in the process of rebind-ing, the notation would have filled in a more amplebottom margin; presently the bottom marginalspace ranges from around 40 to 50 mm. All of this

1 Durham Cassiodorus (Durham, Cathedral Library, Ms.b.ii.30), f.24r: end of Psalm 16 and beginning of Psalm 17


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suggests that the music was a reference meant to beseen rather than a mere doodle, but not so promi-nently placed as the glosses.

As can be seen in illus.3, the ink or paint of theseneumes is equally worn, as elsewhere in the book.Their shade of red is somewhere in between the two

extremes of colour discussed above, like that foundin the rubrics on the same folio (illus.1). In otherwords, these neumes were likely drawn with thesame red ink used in the rubrications and two paint-ings. Thus they may well date from the middle, ifnot the first half of the 8th century. As corroborating

2 Durham Cassiodorus (Durham, Cathedral Library, Ms.b.ii.30), f.172v: victorious King David


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evidence a few folios down from this musical sketch,on f.29v, we find tiny spots of red ink, also at the bot-tom of the page, accidentally splattered at this placeonly in the manuscript. They are of a bright redshade, of the well-preserved variety mentioned ear-lier (i.e., the letter C dots on f.117r); they even retain alittle of their original thickness, visible under a mag-

nifying glass. These red ink spots are concentrated inan area ranging from 25 to 50 mm below the text, soexactly at the location of the neumes five foliosearlier. Some were clearly cut off during rebinding. Wemay gather from this that some more red markings,perhaps even neumes, were lost in the later trim-ming of the folios for rebinding. Either way, it wouldappear that the same rubricator who added the neu-mes on f.24ralso splattered this ink a little later onf.29v, and that both of these markings belong to theoriginal work of rubrication.

The Durham Cassiodorus neumes in context

To sum up, the evidence points to the possibil-ity that the neumes in the Durham Cassiodorus arecontemporary with the main redaction of this manu-script in the early8th century. To be sure, it is pos-sible that they were added later, perhaps in the 12thcentury when the book was renovated.23 If, how-

ever, they were written down earlieran unprov-able hypothesis, as mentioned at the beginning ofthis article, but one corroborated by the above evi-dencethen what might have been the motivatingcontext?

The century or so preceding the compilationof the Durham Cassiodorus witnessed a flurry of

musical activity in Northumbria, particularly at theneighbouring monastic centres of Wearmouth andJarrow.24 Wearmouth gained prestige as a centrefor liturgical music in the late 7th century with theresidence of John, archcantor at Saint Peters basil-ica and abbot of Saint Martins in Rome, who hasbeen described as a visiting professor of liturgyin northern England;25 the impact of the abbotsstay was felt for decades afterwards. It has been saidthat the Venerable Bedes love of music was firstkindled by the visit of Abbot John, the archicantor

of St Peters church in Rome who came to Wear-mouth to teach the Roman chant, possibly in thevery year in which Bede entered the monastery as aboy of seven.26 Bede relates in his Ecclesiastical His-torythat abbot John, during his stay at Wearmouth,not only taught the cantors the order and man-ner of singing, but also committed to writing [lit-teris] all things necessary for the celebration of

3 Durham Cassiodorus (Durham, Cathedral Library, M.b.ii.30), detail of f.24r


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festal days throughout the whole year. Bede addsthat many copies were made of these writings.27It is not entirely impossible that John wrote downsome musical neumes in addition to the text litte-ras. From this point on, there is frequent referenceto musical and liturgical activity in Northumbria,and mention of books such as antiphoners and mis-

sals, although here again it is unclear whether ornot they contained music.28 Whether Bede com-posed music is unknown (for lack of evidence it hasbeen assumed he did not), but his love for the artis undisputed. He was not only versed in liturgi-cal chant but also skilled in singing English songs:erat doctus in nostris carminibus, as his obituaryrelates.29

Though not posited for Bede, the question ofmusic writing has been recently asked in regard toanother Northumbrian scholar born around the

time Bede died, Alcuin of York (c.735804). Follow-ing his training in York, Alcuin was invited to Char-lemagnes Frankish court in 781, where he becameone of the major agents of the Carolingian liturgi-cal revival. Unlike Bede, Alcuin did specifically writeon music, although the treatise is now lost. His rolein the Carolingian reform included composing amissal (a sacramentary) and giving instructionin singing.30 For Alcuin, the practice of singing theliturgy and the skill of writing were closely relatedactivities,31 and throughout his own writings, Alcuin

had a great deal to say about singing.32

One of hisworks closely related to music which has survived isa liturgical collection he compiled around 790. Thisis the fourth and last part ofDe laude Dei, describedby Bullough as a lengthy and distinctive sequence ofliturgical texts and excerpts,33 with the antiphonersection (called De antiphonario by later writers)containing a collection of the occasional chantedparts, not exclusively antiphons, of the liturgy.34The antiphons were regularly sung in the York andMetz liturgies in Alcuins day, and at least one was

known to have been sung by Bede himself.

35

It is justpossible, as Guido Milanese has recently suggested,that Alcuins antiphoner originally had musicalnotation.36

It is important to emphasize at this juncture thatmany manuscripts from this period have been lost.To take the later medieval example of vernacularFrench lyric, it is likely that a variety of earlier,

more modest sources, ranging from single parch-ment leaves to libelli, predated the extant luxur-ious anthologies produced well after the floweringof troubadour and trouvre song.37 For the earliestmusic writing, one of the possible practical reasonsfor lack of early evidence is simply that space forneumes needed to be reserved at the initial layout

stage of a book. Manuscript compilers, especiallythose of large and expensive books, may well havebalked at changing over to the new layout requiredfor musical notation.38 In the field of the earliestchant sources, musicologists have been reluctantto discuss sourcesleaves, libelli and books ofmediocre qualitypredating the often high-gradeextant ones. Instead, many have concurred withwhat Kenneth Levy has called the late independ-ent or reimprovisation scenarios, both of whichclaim that no chant was written down prior to

the earliest extant sources in the late 9th century.Until that time, the argument goes, all chant wastransmitted exclusively by oral and aural means.39This argument, of course, is circular: no musicwas written down because none survives. Levy,on the other hand, along with others such asMichel Huglo, has suggested that musical notationexisted about a century prior to the extant sources.According to this early archetype scenario, a now-lost Carolingian text archetype with neumes wascompiled in the late 8th century.40 Othersadmit-

tedly, a minorityhave argued for even earlierlost sources going back to the time of Gregory theGreat.41 If we accept Levys thesis, it is not unrea-sonable to believe that, given his vital role in theCarolingian liturgical reform, Alcuin might havebeen involved in the making of the Carolingianarchetype. Guido Milanese has advanced this ideaand Levys thesis further, arguing that an authori-tative Carolingian notated book would have beenin perfect keeping with the high literary activityat Charlemagnes court, and suggesting that this

archetype might have been indebted to earlier Eng-lish ones. If there really was a Carolingian arche-type, he writes, it was the work of copyists andintellectuals tied to an Anglo-Saxon culture, likeAlcuin and his friends .42

In the case of England, then, it is possible thatnow-lost sources predated extant ones. Com-menting on the fact that no English chant book


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survives prior to the late 10th century, SusanRankin has noted earlier books are more thanlikely to have existed.43 Rankin sees the extantsources as arising out of the monastic reform inthe 10th century.44 History certainly seems to haveconspired against the survival of early musico-liturgical sources in England prior to the 10th

century, beginning with the Viking raids on mon-asteries from the early9th century to the dissolu-tion of the monasteries in the Reformation and onto 20th-century world wars. Where estimates canbe given, it appears that the majority of books inany given medieval English library did not surviveinto modern times. To take but two examples,only around 300 of more than 2,000 books knownto have been at Christ Church, Canterbury, dur-ing the Anglo-Saxon period can be identified.45Another case directly pertinent to my topic is that

of the 200 or so volumes which constituted Bedeslibrary at Wearmouth-Jarrow. As Michael Lapidgerecently put it, the largest library ever assembledin Anglo-Saxon England has vanished more orless completely.46

The study of the earliest extant English sourceswith music has been led in recent times by SusanRankin, who, in an important article, listed theearliest-known sources.47 Of the 27 items in hercatalogue, eight contain music dated from the late10th century, with the rest dating from the 11th cen-

tury. Her catalogue suggests that music writing wasflourishing in Canterbury, Exeter, Winchester andWorcester by the 11th century. She has distinguishedtwo styles of neumes used in Anglo-Saxon England:the more common one resembles northern Frenchnotations, in particular that of Corbie. The other,exemplified in the famous Winchester Tropers,indicates a style idiomatic to Winchester, where thepractice of notating music was well established bythe year 1000.48

One source to be added to Rankins 1987 cata-

logue is the British Librarys Cotton Tiberius man-uscript c.ii, the so-called Tiberius Bede (illus.4). Itis a copy of Bedes Ecclesiastical History compiledin Southumbria, possibly Canterbury, in the early8th century.49 In the margins on a few pages of thisbook are neumes which were first noted by Lowein his monumental catalogue of the earliest extantLatin manuscripts.50 The neumes may have been

added later, possibly with the Anglo-Saxon glossesin the 9th century, or after this.51 In appearance theymatch the 10th- and 11th-century specimens cata-logued by Rankin. There is what Rankin has calledthe looped climacus52 (a) , an m-shapedpes andclivis combination (b) , a porrectus with a longascending flourish (c) , and an oriscus with its dot

(d) . Assuming these neumes do not predate the10th century, they confirm the evidence presentedby Rankin, and her conclusion that music-writingprospered in Anglo-Saxon Southumbria.

To sum up this section, the earliest Anglo-Saxonsources with music survive only from the late 10thcentury, a century later than the earliest extant inthe West. As I have suggested, however, it is possiblethat the English were writing neumes earlier thanthisjust how much earlier is hard to tell. As Rankinadmits, the history of insular notation before 980 is

totally obscure.53

From Cassiodorus to Alcuin

So far, I have suggested that the neumes foundin the Durham Cassiodorus may date from the firsthalf of the 8th century, and I have also emphasizedthe possibility of music-writing occurring in Anglo-Saxon England prior to the 10th century, draw-ing attention to the Carolingian liturgical reformerAlcuin of York as one of the prime candidates as anotator. As has already been argued, it is possible

that what Kenneth Levy has called a Carolingianarchetype, that is, a now-lost antiphoner with musiccompiled around 800, may trace some elements toearlier English precedents. It is also possible, then,that these Anglo-Saxon music-writing precedents tothe Carolingian archetype were connected to Alcuin,together with the Northumbrian musical fragmentdiscussed in this article.

There remains one more piece of evidence toadd to those I have already laid out. In his authori-tative work on Alcuins role in Carolingian liturgy,

Bullough has suggested a link between the Dur-ham Cassiodorus and Alcuin. It is well known thatAlcuin frequently argued for the controversial viewmaintained by Cassiodorus and mentioned near thebeginning of this article that the liberal arts of theancient world could and should become a founda-tion for Christian learning. In this respect and oth-ers, Alcuin was an avid reader of Cassiodorus, and


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shared his general view of music as an active par-ticipant in higher learning. One of the works whichAlcuin read and cited was Cassiodoruss Expositio

psalmarum. From a comparison of Alcuins citationsand Cassiodorus s Psalm commentary, it has beendemonstrated that Alcuin, alone amongst his Anglo-Latin peers, used the unique abbreviated redactionof the Durham Cassiodorus. Alcuin had the Dur-

ham Cassiodorus in his possession, Bullough argues,during his time as lberhts assistant and magisterin York, probably in the 770s, so about a half centuryafter the book was copied in Wearmouth-Jarrow.54This would imply that the book travelled to Yorkor that Alcuin consulted it at Wearmouth-Jarrow.55It is but a small step from this to imagining Alcuin,if indeed he could notate music, either reading the

neumes already inscribed by a rubricator in Wear-mouth-Jarrow in the early8th century, or adding inthe books margins with his own hand musical nota-tionnotation that, either way, might be the ances-tor of the surviving fragments and books from the10th and 11th centuries.

Does the appearance of the Durham Cas-siodorus neumes lend any support for their being

the ancestors of the 20-odd earliest Anglo-Saxonspecimens catalogued by Susan Rankin? The Dur-ham Cassiodorus neumes indubitably evoke theearliest-known English notation. The virga is thesame unadorned and slightly rightward-leaningline found in the earliest Winchester and Can-terbury books. We also find the punctus and itsrounded inverted c form singled out by Rankin in

4 London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius c.ii, f.18r(with kind permission of the British Library)


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other books.56 Thepes is the angular, small-footedtype with a slight rightwards lean, a tall shaft andno head. The m-shaped clivis mentioned earlieris also a feature. The quilisma preceded by a dotis also present here, as is the oriscus, although with-out its companion point. One interesting fea-ture also found in other books, including one11th-century specimen from Durham, is a pes with

climacus, the last note of which is in the shape ofan apostrophe rather than a point. In short, thereis no shape here which cannot be found in the ear-liest English musical sources. Nevertheless, giventhe brevity of the Durham fragment, it is impos-sible to state even hypothetically whether theDurham shapes are primitive forms of the 10th- and11th-century specimens known at present.

What can be stated conclusively or, at least,hypothesized cautiously? For one, the discovery ofneumes in the Durham Cassiodorus expands thelist of Anglo-Saxon music-writing specimens from27 to 28; and the Tiberius Bede neumes mentionedin this article make this 29. More importantly, theDurham fragment widens the span of early Englishmusic-writing centres to Wearmouth-Jarrow. If

the neumes are from the early8th century, as I haveargued here, then, in turn, it is possible that they

were known to Alcuin; alternatively, he himselfmay have written them in the 770s. At the very least,the Durham Cassiodorus neumes provide grist tothe mill of continuing research on the practice andcraft of the earliest music writers in Anglo-SaxonEngland.57

Table 1 Comparison of Durham Cassiodorus neume shapes with other manuscripts

(R# indicates nos. in Rankins 1987 catalogue)


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I should like to express my heartiestthanks to Brian Crosby of Durham

Cathedral for first pointing out to methat the Durham Cassiodorus wasmissing from his own catalogue, Acatalogue of Durham Cathedral musicmanuscripts (Durham, 1986), and forsharing so generously his time andknowledge; also to Joan Williams,curator of the Cathedral Librarymanuscripts, who assisted me withexemplary patience and skill. I wouldalso like to thank Nicholas Bell, DorothyHaines (to whom I owe many things,including whatever little knowledge of

Anglo-Saxon England I have managed

to pick up), Andrew Hicks and JamieYounkin for their help, as well as AndyOrchard and Susan Rankin forcritiquing earlier drafts of this essay.

1 D. Hiley and J. Szendrei, Notation, III, 1 (iii): Plainchant: origins and earliestexamples,New Grove I, xviii, p.88.

2 For a survey of these sources, seeHiley and Szendrei, Notation, pp.8891,and S. Corbin, Die Neumen,Palaeographie der Musik i (Cologne,1977), pp.2141, and the bibliographycited there.

3 This essay was written before thepublication of K. D. Hartzellsimpressive Catalogue of manuscriptswritten or owned in England up to 1200containing music(Woodbridge, 2006),where this fragment is briefly describedon p.159. Hartzell identifies the neumesas 10th-century French and furthermoreclaims that the shade of ink in whichthey are written does not occurelsewhere in the manuscript; neitherstatement is substantiated. As is clearfrom the following article, I believe thatHartzell may have rushed to

conclusions.4 The Latin work is edited by M.Adriaen,Magni Aurelii CassiodoriSenatoris Opera, pars II, 1 and 2,Corpus Christianorum Series Latinaxcviixcviii (Turnhout, 1958), trans. P.G. Walsh, Cassiodorus: explanation ofthe psalms, Ancient Christian Writersliliii (New York, 19901).

5 Walsh, Cassiodorus, i, pp.57, 1518.6 C. Bower, Cassiodorus,New Grove

I, v, pp.2445, and S. DeGregorio,Cassiodorus, in Sources of Anglo-Saxon literary culture, ed. T. N. Hall,C-Volume (Kalamazoo, MI,forthcoming).

7 Walsh, Cassiodorus, ii, p.295.

8 On this context, see D. Wilson,Anglo-Saxon art from the seventhcentury to the Norman Conquest(London, 1984), with a discussion ofthe Durham Cassiodorus on pp.613,and M. Brown,Anglo-Saxonmanuscripts (Toronto, 1991), p.59 and

pl.58. On the Lindisfarne Gospels, seeM. Brown, The Lindisfarne Gospels:society, spirituality and the scribe(Toronto, 2003).

9 On the hand of Bede, see R. Marsden,Manus Bedae: Bedes contribution toCeolfriths bibles,Anglo-Saxon England,xxvii (1998), pp.6585.

10 The dating is discussed in R.Bailey, The Durham Cassiodorus, inBede and his world, vol. i, The Jarrowlectures, 19581978 (London, 1994),esp. p.20. See also T. J. Brown in

Codex Lindisfarnensis, ed. T. D.Kendricket al. (Olten and Lausanne,1960), ii, p.xxiv; E. H. Zimmerman,Vorkarolingische Miniaturen (Berlin,1916), pp.11820 and 2712; E. A.Lowe, Codices Latini Antiquiores: a

palaeographical guide to Latinmanuscripts prior to the ninth century,ii, Great Britain and Ireland(Oxford,2/1972), pl.152 on p.11; T. D.Kendrick, Anglo-Saxon art to A.D.900 (London, 1972), pp.133 and 138;and R. A. B. Mynorss excellentdescription of the codex in his

Durham Cathedral manuscripts to theend of the twelfth century(Oxford,1939), pp.212.

11 On the palaeography, see M. B.Parkes, The scriptorium ofWearmouth-Jarrow, in Bede and hisworld, vol.ii, The Jarrow lectures,19791993 (London, 1994), esp.pp.5612, and Lowe, Codices, ii, no.152.

On the paintings, see C. Nordenfalk,Celtic and Anglo-Saxon painting: book

illumination in the British Isles 600800(New York, 1977), pp.10, 29 and 85,with the two Davids reproduced inpls.2728; J. J. G. Alexander, Insularmanuscripts, 6th to 9th century(London, 1978), p.46; and Wilson,

Anglo-Saxon art. R. Stevick, in Theearliest Irish and English book arts:visual and poetic forms before A.D. 1000(Philadelphia, 1994), pp.1522 and504, treats the proportions of thefamous David pages.

12 Mynors, Durham Cathedralmanuscripts, p.21; Lowe, Codices, ii,no.152.

13 E. A. Bond and E. M. Thompson,eds., The Palaeographical Society:

facsimiles of manuscripts and inscriptions,series 1, vol.ii (London, 187383), pl.164and commentary; Lowe, Codices, p.11.

14 For another example of this script,see M. Brown,A guide to Westernhistorical scripts from Antiquity to 1600(London, 1990), pp.501, no.16.

15 Mynors, Durham Cathedralmanuscripts, p.21.

16 Adriaen,Magni Avrelli Cassiodori, i,pp.xiiixiv.

17 For an example of this script, seeBrown, Guide, pp.567, no.19.

18 Adriaen,Magni Avrelli Cassiodori, i,pp.xvxvi.

19 In addition to the sources alreadycited, see A. Lawrence-Mathers,

Manuscripts in Northumbria in theeleventh and twelfth centuries(Woodbridge, 2003), p.21.

20 This is the typical discoloration overtime of red lead, in particular, if this was

used here. See R. Gettens and G. Stout,Painting materials: a short encyclopaedia(New York, 1966), p.153.

21 See G. M. Cunha, The care ofbooks and documents in Lesmatriaux du livre manuscrit,Codicologica v (Leiden, 1980), pp.623.

22 On red inks and their recipes, seeC. De Hamel, Scribes and illuminators

John Haines is Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Eight cen-turies of troubadours and trouvres: the changing identity of medieval music (Cambridge University Press,2004), and various articles on medieval music and its reception. He is a contributor to the forthcoming Cam-bridge companion to French music and the Cambridge history of musical [email protected]


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(Toronto, 1992), p.22; L. Holtz andE. Le Roy Ladurie,Archologie du livremdival(Paris, 1987), p.52; andP. Binski,Medieval craftsmen: painters(Toronto, 1991), pp.53 and 57.

23 The book was repaired and perhapsrebound in the 12th century (Lawrence-Mathers,Manuscripts in Northumbria,

p.26).24 S. Rankin, The liturgicalbackground of the Old English Adventlyrics: a reappraisal, in Learning andliterature in Anglo-Saxon England:studies presented to Peter Clemoes on theoccasion of his sixty-fifth birthday, ed.M. Lapidge and H. Gneuss(Cambridge, 1985), esp. pp.31926.

25 D. A. Bullough, Carolingian renewal:sources and heritage (Manchester, 1991),pp.3 and 163.

26 P. H. Blair, The world of Bede

(London,1970

), p.5.

27Bedes ecclesiastical history of theEnglish people, ed. and trans. B.Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford,1969), pp.3889: et ordinem videlicetritumque canendi ad legendi viva vocepraefati monasterii cantors edocendo,et ea quae totius anni circulus incelebratione dierum festorum poscebatetiam litteris mandando, cited inRankin, Liturgical background, p.322.

28 Rankin, Liturgical background, p.321.

29 C. Plummer, Venerabilis Baedae:Historiam Ecclesiasticam gentis

Anglorum, Historiam abbatum,Epistolam ad Ecgbertum, una cumHistoria abbatum auctore anonymo(Oxford, 1896), i, p.clxi; my thanks toAndy Orchard for this reference. Seealso Blair, World of Bede, p. 5.

30 See J. Bellingham, Alcuin,NewGrove I, i, pp.3323.

31 D. A. Bullough,Alcuin: achievementand reputation. Being part of the FordLectures delivered in Oxford in HilaryTerm 1980 (London, 2004), p.170; mythanks to Susan Rankin for her counsel

on the following points.

32 Bullough,Alcuin, pp.1723.

33 Bullough,Alcuin, p.180.

34 Bullough,Alcuin, p.194.

35 Bullough,Alcuin, p.197. On the Delaude Dei and the York liturgy, seeBullough,Alcuin, pp.1939; on theantiphoner, see pp.20411.

36 G. Milanese, Alcuino, i grammatici ela trasmissione del repertoriogregoriano, Polifonie: Storia e teoriadella coralit, i (2001), pp.21935; anEnglish translation by Milanese andHung Ward-Perkins entitled Alcuin, theLatin grammars, and the transmission ofthe Gregorian repertoire immediatelyfollows on pp.23750.

37 J. Haines, Eight centuries oftroubadours and trouvres: the changingidentity of medieval music(Cambridge,2004), pp.1318.

38 On layout and exemplars, see J.Haines, Erasures in thirteenth-centurymusic, in Music and medievalmanuscripts: paleography and

performance, ed. Haines and RandallRosenfeld (Aldershot, 2004), pp.6088;Haines, Lai layout in the Paris proseTristan manuscripts, Scriptorium, lix(2005), pp.225; and Haines, A sight-

reading vielle player from thethirteenth century, in The sounds andsights of performance in medieval andRenaissance music, ed. B. Power andM. Epp (Aldershot, forthcoming).

39 K. Levy, Gregorian chant and theCarolingians (Princeton, 1998), pp.1013.See also D. Hileys indispensableWestern plainchant: a handbook (Oxford,1993), pp.36173 and, with a view to theEnglish context, S. Rankin, Carolingianmusic in Carolingian culture: emulationand innovation, ed. R. McKitterick(Cambridge, 1994), esp. pp.27594. A

recent plea for the oral transmissionview which appeared after Levys 1998book is E. Hornby, The transmission ofWestern chant in the eighth and ninthcenturies: evaluating Kenneth Levysreading of the evidence,Journal of

Musicology, xxi (2004), pp.41857.

40 Levy, Gregorian chant, esp. pp.13 and83.

41 Levy, Gregorian chant, pp.89 (n.11)and 111.

42 Milanese, Alcuin, the Latingrammars, p.249.

43 S. Rankin in The Blackwellencyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England,ed. M. Lapidge (London, 1999), p.95.

44 S. Rankin, From memory to record:Exeter musical notations of themid-eleventh century,Anglo-SaxonEngland, xiii (1984), pp.97111, andRankin, Winchester polyphony: theearly theory and practice of organum,

inMusic in the medieval English liturgy:Plainsong & Mediaeval Music Societycentennial essays, ed. S. Rankin andD. Hiley (Oxford, 1993), esp. p.98.

45 H. Gneuss, Englands Bibliothekenim Mittelalter und ihr Untergang, inFestschrift fr Walter Hbner, ed. D.Riesner and H. Gneuss (Berlin, 1964),

p.117; reprinted in Gneuss, Books andlibraries in early England(Aldershot,1996), i, p.117. Concerning the Vikingraids and dissolution of monasteries,and the impact on the survival ofliturgical books, see also Gneuss,Anglo-Saxon libraries from theconversion, in Books and Libraries, ii,pp.6458 and 6634.

46 M. Lapidge, The Anglo-Saxon library(Oxford, 2006), p.37.

47 S. Rankin, Neumatic notations inAnglo-Saxon England, in Musicologiemdivale: notations et squences (Paris,1987), pp.12844.

48 Rankin, From memory, p.98.

49 See M. Brown,Anglo-Saxonmanuscripts (Toronto, 1991), pl.9 andp.8; Brown, The Lindisfarne Gospels,p.115; and Lapidge,Anglo-Latinliterature, 9001066, p.34. Brownsuggests a date in the 820s or 830s.Plummers statement that the TiberiusBede was certainly a Durham book(Venerabilis Baedae, i, p.xciii) is notaccepted (Colgrave and Mynors, BedesEcclesiastical History, p.xlii).

50 Lowe, Codices Latini Antiquiores, ii,pl.191. As Lowe indicated, neumesoccur on f. 18, 26, 29.

51 I would like to thank Nicholas Belland Susan Rankin for this point.

52 Rankin, Neumatic notations, p.133.


54 Bullough, Carolingian renewal,pp.1735 and p.216, n.41. The view isreiterated in Lapidge,Anglo-Latinliterature, 600899, p.427.

55 A less likely scenario briefly

and tentatively suggested by Lapidge isthat the book originated in York(Lapidge,Anglo-Saxon library, p.41, n.57).


57 On this topic a few centuries later,see J. Haines, Anonymous IV as aninformant on the craft of musicwriting,Journal of Musicology, xxiii(2006), pp.375425.


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Documents

A musical fragment from Anglo-Saxon England