DIAMM FACSIMILES 4 DI MM DIGITAL IMAGE ACHIVE OF MEDIEVAL MUSIC editorial board DR NICOLAS BELL (Editor) DR MAGAET BENT cbe fba DR JULIA CAIG-McFEELY (General Editor) POFESSOR ELIZABETH EVA LEACH DR OWEN REES POFESSOR THOMAS SCHMIDT DR MAGNUS WILLIAMSON The HENY VIII BOOK (British Library, Add. MS 31922) Facsimile with introduction BY DAVID FALLOWS DI MM facsimiles © COPYIGHT 2014 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PUBLISHED BY DIAMM PUBLICATIONS FACULTY OF MUSIC, ST ALDATES, OXFORD OX1 1DB ISSN 2043-8273 ISBN 978-1-907647-00-0 SERIES ISBN 978-1-907647-01-7 All rights reserved. This work is fully protected by The UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of the work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior permission of DIAMM Publications. David Fallows asserts the right to be identified as the author of the introductory text. Rights to all images are the property of the British Library. Images of Add. MS 31922 are reproduced by kind permission of the British Library Board. Digital imaging, typesetting and page make-up by Julia Craig-McFeely Image preparation by Matthias Range & Julia Craig-McFeely Specialist music fonts by Ronald Woodley Typeset in Bembo and Bentivoglio Printed and bound in Great Britain by Berforts Information Press Eynsham Oxfordshire CONTENTS Acknowledgements ii INTRODUCTION 1 The book 1 Composers; Continental music; English sources; Missing repertory; Courtly context 2 Physical description 5 Structure; Stave ruling; Musical script; Text hands; The emender of H106; Ruling for texts; Numbering systems; The index; Les écritures réunies; Words and music; Copying order; Decoration; Bindings and endpapers; The main copyist 3 Repertory 15 Rounds; ‘Consorts’; ‘Tastar de corde’; Texts that do not fit the music; Freemen’s songs; Apparently theatrical songs; Larger works; Repeated final phrases; Metrical irregularities; Misunderstandings 4 Henry VIII 20 Royal and noble composers; Henry VIII as a composer; Henry VIII as an arranger; Henry VIII as a poet; The anonymous pieces 5 History 24 Early annotations; Purpose and possible origins; Possible dates; Provenance; Publishing history 6 Commentary on the compositions 30 Bibliography 70 Indexes 74 General index; Index of manuscripts; Index of song texts Table 1: Inventory of British Library, Add. MS 31922 80 Table 2: Differences between body of volume and original index (table of contents) 82 Table 3: Scoring, texting and clefs 84 FACSIMILE Acknowledgements One of the great pleasures of writing this was the reawakened memory of past performances. First from Martin Lane, Alastair Thompson and Brian Kay, already calling themselves the King’s Singers as Cambridge undergraduates in the mid-sixties and giving performances that still ring in my ears. Then came Ian Harwood, Robert Spencer, Jane and Lucy Durán, Jantina Noorman, David Munrow, James Bowman, Christopher Hogwood and John Turner; after that the concerts I myself gave in various parts of California in the seventies with Judith Nelson, Steven Hart, Pamela Crane, Thomas Buckner and Penny Hanna. Heartfelt thanks to all of them. They have enriched my life; and I hope they have enriched what I have to say about the book. For help over the eighteen months that I have been preparing this Introduction (mainly specific suggestions or responses to specific enquiries), I thank Julia Boffey, Roger Bowers, Eleanor Cracknell, Michael Scott Cuthbert, Helen Deeming, Fabrice Fitch, David Greer, Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Justin Clegg, Linne Mooney, John Morehen, Oliver Neighbour, Sandy Paul, Joshua Rifkin, Stephen Tabor and Magnus Williamson. In addition, I thank the ‘editorial team’ of Nicolas Bell and Julia Craig-McFeely. They have been a tower of strength: reading, observing, reacting, advising, supporting. Particularly I thank Margaret Bent, Dagmar Hoffmann-Axthelm and John Milsom, who read earlier versions of the entire text and offered extremely helpful suggestions, thereby greatly increasing my debts of gratitude to all three, debts going back over many years. Most of all, though, I thank John Stevens (1921–2002), whose work obviously stands as the basis for any further study of this manuscript and who allowed me on several occasions to perform its music in concerts under his direc- tion. This Introduction should be understood as a companion to his edition of the music (Stevens 1962) as well as to the facsimile. David Fallows Chorlton-cum-Hardy and Basel ‘In May that lusty sesonn’ 2014 ii INTRODUCTION For Dagmar 1 The Book Composers English composer of the preceding century, this is the last known copy of a work plausibly ascribed to him. Even though he probably never owned it, this must be That Cornysh and Farthing are the best represented called the ‘Henry VIII Book’. Of its 109 pieces, almost composers apart from the king may seem to put the one third have Henry’s name at the head of the page, manuscript into court circles. But it is very surprising all with exactly the same wording: ‘The Kyng . H . viij’ indeed that Fayrfax, effective head of the Chapel Royal or ‘The Kynge . H . viij’. All other ascriptions are at the from the day of Henry’s coronation and supported with bottom of the page, at the end of the music. They name extraordinary financial generosity thereafter,1 should be the following (with details in brackets taken from else- represented here only by one uncharacteristic puzzle- where): canon (H53) and a single very early song (H107), here given anonymously. It is also surprising that by far the Dr [Robert] Cooper H14, H62, H63 largest work of Cornysh in the manuscript, Ffa la sol William Cornysh [H6], H8, H16, H25, H27, H35, (H6), is not ascribed here. H38, H39, H41, H49, H50, Equally surprising is that, apart from Cornysh and H60 Fayrfax, there is nothing here by any of the composers William Daggere H18 in the two great English manuscripts from around 1500, [John] Dunstable H32 the Fayrfax Book (with songs by Banester, Browne, Thomas Ffaredynge H17, H19, H20, H24, H28, Davy, Hampshire, Newark, Phillips, Sheryngham, Turges H40, H59 and Tutor) and the Eton Choirbook (with sacred music [Robert] Ffayrfax H53, [H107] by Banester, Browne, Davy, Lambe, Turges, Wilkinson [John] Fflude H21, H26, H74 and many others). [?John] Kempe H13 On the other hand, the printed book of XX songes [William] Pygott H105 (London, 1530) includes works by four of the Henry VIII [?Henry] Rysbye H22 Book composers, namely Cornysh (3), Pygott (1), Fayrfax Daggere, Kempe and Rysbye are so obscure that (1) and Cooper (3), but has in addition one work each by they do not even merit entries in the 29-volume New Ashwell, Gwynneth and Jones plus three by Taverner. Grove dictionary of music (London, 2001). Of Daggere, These matters raise questions that the following nothing is known to this day, though his one piece also pages try to address. Even so, the procedure with the appears in the British Library MS Royal Appendix 58. ascriptions makes it clear that in the view of the copyist Kempe was probably the John Kempe who was Master this was a collection focussed around Henry VIII. of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey in 1502–8. No other music by any of those three is known apart from a tiny two-voice fragment printed by Morley (1597: Continental music 121–2) as ‘of one Henry Rysbie’, who may therefore be the Henry Rysby who was at Eton College in 1506–8. Uniquely among surviving early Tudor music manu- But four of the named composers were in the scripts, this one also contains twelve or more pieces Chapel Royal: Farthing (d. 1520–21) from 1511, Flude originating on the continental mainland, including (Lloyd, d. 1523) from 1505, and Fayrfax (d. 1521) cer- works by Hayne van Ghizeghem and Henricus Isaac tainly from 1497. Cornysh (d. 1523) had been there (two each). All are transmitted here anonymously. since 1493 and was also deeply involved in providing Nearly all were extremely popular, copied in dozens theatrical entertainments for Henry VIII’s court. of sources, reaching forward in most cases to 1540 or Two are slightly more distant from the court. later. Four (H2, H3, H36 and H37) go back to the Cooper (in modern reference works usually as 1470s and and are therefore substantially earlier than ‘Cowper’), whose Cambridge Mus.D. is dated 1507, was anything in the book apart from Dunstaple’s H32. All in the chapel of the Lady Margaret Beaufort, Henry bar two of the others are from before about 1500 (H1, VIII’s grandmother, c. 1504–1509. Pygott (d. 1549) was H4, H5, H42, H43, H45, H83), whereas of the English Master of the Children in cardinal Wolsey’s household pieces only the Dunstaple and H107 (Fayrfax’s chapel from 1517 and first heard of in that same year as Sumwhat musing) are likely to be from before 1500. The having committed offences with a crossbow and a hand- gun. For Dunstaple (d. 1453), by far the most famous 1 Best outlined in Sandon 2004, with documention laid out in Ashbee 1993. 2 The Book latest continental piece, perhaps from around 1510, is heavy (and heady) use of popular songs, as can be seen the added Amy souffrez (H85). particularly from the Italian frottola repertory, the Perhaps the surprise here should be that there is so German Gesellschaftslied and the Spanish pieces of the little evidence of overseas music in other English manu- Cancionero de palacio. scripts. Theodor Dumitrescu (2007: 63–116) has shown how there were many musicians from France and Flanders at the English court more or less throughout Missing repertory Henry VII’s reign; and their numbers grew under Henry VIII. Even so, the international interests in this What does need saying, though, is that the repertory book are distinctive and part of its individuality.