Latin Polyphony under Henry VIII

Author(s): Paul Doe

Source: Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , 1968 - 1969, 95th Sess. (1968 -
1969), pp. 81-96
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Royal Musical Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/765919

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 Latin Polyphony under Henry VIII
PAUL DOE

IT IS INEVITABLE that any branch of historiogra

its early stages submit itself to the discipline
tivity. Nineteenth-century political historians
duty to present ascertainable fact; and it
century that their successors have begun to ta
granted, and have gone on to make inferen
opinion on unanswered questions, and, to s
use their imagination. Musicology, being a
branch of the art, is still at a relatively object
are such formidable gaps in our knowledge o
I6oo00 that scholars have shown a natural cauti
those gaps with anything in the nature of
guesswork. The standard work on English mu
Reformation is, of course, Frank Harrison's M
Britain,' a brilliant presentation of archival m
liturgical and musical analysis. It is precisely
and caution that make the book so valuable. Ho
prepared to argue that, once a book of that k
written, it is perhaps justifiable to go beyon
inferences which, though they could well be
may stimulate argument and so help to arrive at right
answers. Much of this paper, therefore, is frankly discursive
and conjectural, deficient in corroborative detail, and clearly
open to the Scottish verdict of 'not proven'.
The three most important collections of church music of
Henry VIII's reign are the Caius College choirbook,2 the
Forrest-Heyther partbooks, and the earlier of the two sets
of partbooks at Peterhouse.' The date and provenance of
the first two can be conjectured, giving us a reasonably well-
focussed idea of central stylistic development in the first half
of the reign. The Caius choirbook was almost certainly written
for the collegiate church of St. Stephen's, Westminster, and
used there in and shortly after I520.' It contains Masses and
Magnificats composed in the first twenty years of the century,

1 London, 1958.
2 Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 667.
3 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MSS Mus. Sch. e. 376-381.
4 Cambridge, Peterhouse, MSS 40, 41, 3', 32.
5 See Paul Doe (ed.), Early Tudor Magnificats (Early English Church
Music, iv), London, n.d., p. viii.
81

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82 LATIN POLYPHONY UNDER HENRY VIII

and represents (at least in three6 of t

English florid style at its zenith. The For
books contain festal Masses in six parts, and
plausibly deduced that they were compiled i
for Wolsey's new foundation at Cardin
and used there between about 1526 and
the three six-part Masses of Taverner,
persuaded to move to Cardinal College f
and a number by other composers with n
These partbooks almost certainly surviv
in the private hands of William Forre
choirbook may owe its survival to the good
Ludford, who was still Verger of St. Step
its dissolution.
The Peterhouse partbooks are a good deal more problematic.
They are generally thought to have been compiled between
1540 and 1547, a view with which I do not propose to quarrel.
However, they differ from the two earlier sources in a number
of significant ways. In the first place, their repertory is more
diverse, with Masses, votive antiphons, Magnificats, a few
ritual pieces, and two compositions of Continental origin, all
assembled in a seemingly haphazard fashion.' Their notation
is archaic for the 1540s; they contain many copying errors;
and they were obviously used very little, if at all, for actual
performance. If we disregard the Continental pieces by Jacquet
of Mantua and one of the prolific Lupus family,1o there
remains music by 27 English composers. Nine of these are
totally unknown, in the sense that no biographical information
has yet come to light; fourteen were definitely, or at least
very probably, born before 1500; while the remaining four,
including Tallis and Tye, were born at the latest only a few
years after the turn of the century, and are known to have
been active musicians by I530 or so. The composers were
associated with a wide variety of London and provincial
centres-yet there is no single composition by Sheppard, or
indeed anybody of that generation which became active
6 Those of William Cornysh, Edmund Turges, and Henry Prentyce, ibid.,
pp. 49-109.
7 Early Tudor Masses (Early English Church Music, i), London, n.d.,
pp. vin-ix.
8 Some further Masses were apparently added later, possibly by Forrest
when he was chaplain to Mary Tudor (ibid., p. ix).
9 Dom A. Hughes, Catalogue of Musical Manuscripts at Peterhouse, Cambridge,
Cambridge, 1953, pp. 2-3-
10 Lewis Lockwood, 'A Continental Mass and Motet in a Tudor Manu-
script', Music & Letters, xlii (1961), 336-47-

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LATIN POLYPHONY UNDER HENRY VIII 83

around 1540. My point is that the Peterhouse books se

be a provincial and slightly retrospective anthology, pe
compiled by a former monastic musician living in retir
just after the dissolution, and that they are not represen
of musical composition in and around London during th
ten or twelve years of Henry's reign. They have some
been cited as evidence that composition of votive anti
of the Virgin Mary continued unabated right up to
Yet every one of the thirty or so Mary antiphons, which f
nearly half the pieces in the collection, could quite plau
have been written before 1535. This is true even of th
by Tallis, for his 'Salve intemerata'1 occurs also in a si
medius partbook which seems to have been copied
1520s.'* One of the latest of the votive antiphons
Peterhouse books is Ludford's Jesus antiphon 'Domi
Jesu Christe', which opens as follows.

Ex. 1

Do mi. ne Jesu Chri - - - ste,

Do mi-ne Jo sU - Chri - ste,

Do - mi ne Jo - su Chri - sic,

[editorial]o

Do - mine Je - su_ Chri - . stc,

Do - mi-ne Je - su Chri . - e,

Splen - dor et i - ma - - go pa - - tris, s- lus- no - stra,

Splen - dor et i - ma o pa - tris, a - lus no - stra,

Sp:cn - dor et i - ma go pa - tris, sa- lus"

11 Tudor Church Music, to vols., Lond

" British Museum, MS Harley 1709,

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84 LATIN POLYPHONY UNDER HENRY VIII

i ="; a I-? - i- F r
&C Vi-l ? -Ia0 ter na

-- i- 0-tr - - a, cu i

no - Stfr, ac.- vi v - t tr - - - na

This is quite similar in general style to the oth

in the collection, 'Ave rosa sine spinis',13
sections of Taverner's writing, and represen
I take to be characteristic of 1530 or there
parison with the music of a decade or two e
setting is more syllabic, the voices are well-m
and some of the solo material is treated im
other hand the imitation is incidental to the main flow of the
music, there is still some melismatic writing at cadences, and
the essential formal principle is still the old block-contrast
of choral and solo writing.a
It is already fairly clear that the large festal Mass dis-
appeared from the scene, at any rate in London, after about
1535;14 and I would suggest that the same is probably also
true of the large votive antiphon.15 The progress of the
Reformation during the last decade of Henry VIII's reign
has been described in many histories of music, but always from
the standpoint of the embryonic vernacular liturgy."6 Almost
no attention has been paid to the possible effects of the
Reformation movement on the Latin liturgy which remained
the basis of worship right up to Henry's death in 1547,
although Harrison has drawn attention to 'Henry's determined
orthodoxy in matters of faith and ritual', and remarks that
'the influence of Lutheran thought, though strong, was
indirect until . . . 1549'. This is a matter that deserves
closer attention.
The key figure in any question of liturgical experiment
at this time was Thomas Cranmer, who first entered the
national scene in 1529, in connection with the negotiations
'3 Tudor Church Music, vi. 169.
14 One of the latest is Marbeck's 'Per arma iustitiae', printed in Tudor
Church Music, x. 165.
15 Both forms were of course revived in the reign of Mary Tudor; see below.
16 The most recent and detailed account is in Peter Le Huray, Music and

17 the
TheReformation
New Oxford in England
History of r549--r66o, London, 1968),
Music, iv (London, 1967. 465-

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LATIN POLYPHONY UNDER HENRY VIII 85

leading to Henry's divorce. For nearly thirty years be

that, Cranmer had been at Cambridge, as both studen
teacher. One notable visitor to Cambridge during this
was Erasmus, whose views could easily have made a
impression on Cranmer. Shortly after his visit, in
Erasmus wrote in his commentary on the New Testam
Modem church music is so constructed that the congregation c
hear one distinct word. The choristers themselves do not understand
what they are singing, yet according to priests and monks it constitutes
the whole of religion.x8

Cranmer was also in Cambridge during the turmoil created

by the impact of Lutheran ideas in the early I520os. Although
he did not become directly involved in the controversy, he
is known to have made a careful study of both sides of the
question, in an impartial and scholarly sort of way.1' Some
years later, in 1531, he was sent to Germany on a diplomatic
mission, where the direct contact with Lutheran life and
thought must have greatly revived and deepened his interest
in it. After his consecration as Archbishop of Canterbury in
1533, he engaged in considerable correspondence with
Lutheran theologians."2 This progressive entente reached a
climax in the summer of 1538, when the threat of a Catholic
alliance against England induced Henry to consider seriously
a Lutheran alliance. Henry, however, was not prepared to
accept the doctrinal concessions involved, and rapidly cut
short the negotiations.
Liturgical usage in the Lutheran churches was still highly
flexible at this time. Many features of the Latin services were
retained, including the outward form of the Mass, and also
the popular Latin hymns and some other Office items. In
addition, as is well known, Luther strongly encouraged choral
singing in four parts, partly, as he put it, to wean the youth
of the country away from 'their carnal and lascivious songs'."a
Numerous German publications of the second quarter of the
century therefore contain such four-part settings of hymn
and song melodies of all kinds, both Latin and German, and
from both sacred and secular sources. Any good tune was
acceptable, provided it did not have positively bawdy
associations. Luther himself had a passionate and discerning
interest in music, and was deeply moved by Flemish poly-

18 J. A. Froude, Life and Letters of Erasmus, London, 1894, p. I 5-

19 Jasper Ridley, Thomas Cranmer, Oxford, 1962, p. 2o.
20 Ibid., p. 159-
21 W. E. Buszin, 'Luther on Music', The Musical Quarterly, xxxii (1946), 88.

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86 LATIN POLYPHONY UNDER HENRY VIII

phony, sung by a trained choir; but in t

forms he was anxious for real commitment
singers, and some of his comments about na
were closely echoed by Cranmer in the 15
There was, of course, little scope within
the Sarum rite for the sort of homely fo
that was the dominant feature of Lutheran music. But
Cranmer is known to have become interested in a revision

of the Sarum liturgy by 1538,"- the year of the negotiations

with the Lutherans; and in the light of his few surviving
comments about music, it is likely that he shared at least
some of Luther's views on the subject. It would be surprising,
therefore, if some form of experiment on these lines did not
take place in England at about the same time: experiment
concerned at least with style of composition and performance
in those parts of the liturgy suitable for polyphonic treatment.
One obvious test-bed for new ideas about music was the
choir of the Chapel Royal. Since the Act of Supremacy in
1534 the king had not been answerable to Convocation, and
the observances of his own chapels were entirely at his disposal.
Moreover, Cranmer usually enjoyed the king's complete
respect and confidence, and there is no reason why Henry
should not have permitted some departure from tradition
in, say, the musical setting of the Ordinary of the Mass. The
Dean of the Chapel Royal at this time was Richard Sampson,
who was also bishop of Cranmer's neighbouring see of
Chichester, and evidently a competent musician as well.23
It is particularly unfortunate that we have practically no
record of the membership of the Chapel at this time. Probably
the full adult establishment consisted of about forty Gentlemen
-the same as in Mary Tudor's reign,24 and about the same
as that of the largest cathedral choirs.25 It is also likely that,
as in the reign of Elizabeth, they operated a kind of shift-
system, spending only about half the year in royal service,
and the remainder of it in their home town or elsewhere.26

22 See C. H. Smyth, Cranmer and the Reformation, Cambridge, 1926, p. 34-

23 British Museum MS Royal Ix E. xi contains compositions attributed to
him; one of them, the setting of 'Quam pulchra es', is an astonishingly
fluent essay in the Flemish style.
24 C. C. Stopes, 'William Hunnis and the Revels of the Chapel Royal',
Materialien zur Kunde des dlteren Englischen Dramas, Louvain, 191o,
pp. 21-22.
25 Le Huray, Music and the Reformation, pp. I4-15.
26 Alan Smith, The Practice of Music... during the Reign of Elizabeth I,
unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Birmingham, 1967.

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LATIN POLYPHONY UNDER HENRY VIII 87

The twenty singers who performed at the funeral o

VIII in 1547 would thus represent only about half t
complement."' We can only guess at who the other
were, or what the full list might have been ten year
One of the most puzzling figures of Henry VIII's
John Taverner, who left his appointment at Cardin
in 153o, after narrowly escaping imprisonmen
association with the Lutheran heretics in the colleg
after the only known references to him are in Linc
though he certainly travelled a good deal as Cro
agent in the dissolution of the monasteries. We also
well-known remark of John Foxe, half a century la
Taverner 'repented him very much that he had ma
to popish ditties in the time of his blindness'."2 Fr
scant evidence it has generally been assumed that T
stopped composing completely after 1530; 2 but this
necessarily follow. Even if Foxe's comment is true,
just gossip, the expression 'popish ditties' cannot m
whole corpus of music for the Latin rite. There were of
sharply differing opinions on some matters of doct
it is abundantly clear in the literature and injuncti
the mid-sixteenth century that 'popish' generally re
those beliefs and practices which had been estab
papal authority but which had no biblical author
as belief in purgatory and indulgences, the worship
and relics, and any sort of practice classified as supe
In Taverner's case the 'repentance' might have exte
the composition of votive antiphons of the Virgin M
various saints, many of which were, of course, 'ditt
in the narrowest sense of verse written for setting
But it is unlikely that a man who had a wide reput
one of the best composers in the country, and who m
been well known to Cromwell and many of the estab
figures of the I530s, could not have been persuaded t
to composition in London circles, particularly when
was a real prospect that liturgical music might be st
a Lutheran direction.
This hypothesis may offer a solution to some of the puzzling
features of Taverner's music. It is fairly clear what sort of
music he supplied for Cardinal College: the three six-par
27 H. C. de Lafontaine, The King's Musick, London, 1909, p. 7.
28 Actes and Monuments, 4th. rev. edn., London, 1583, ii. 1032 (the comment
is not in the earlier editions).
29 Tudor Church Music, vol. I, p. lii; and Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart,
Cassel &c. 1949-, art. 'Taverner'.

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 88 LATIN POLYPHONY UNDER HENRY VIII

Masses in the Forrest-Heyther books,"' the

'Gaude plurimum',"3 and other devotion
purposes specified in Wolsey's statutes.3'
compositions, however, which are very diff
with what is known of the musical styles a
before z53o. For example, the 'Western
has so many novel features that it can only
to unusual terms of reference. A Mass based on a secular tune
was itself unprecedented in England, so far as is known;
moreover, the tune is not a concealed backbone to the music,
as in the Flemish 'L'Homme arme' Masses, but is used
throughout in an obvious way, which would hardly have
been tolerated in the repressive atmosphere of Wolsey's
regime. The rhythmic treatment of the tune is much closer
to German than to traditional English methods: although
the Germans occasionally set a plainsong hymn tune in
relatively long notes, their secular tunes were normally set
in a flexible mixture of shorter note-values, more or less
matching the surrounding voices in rhythmic style. A com-
parison between Isaac's four-part setting of the secular tune
'O weiblich Art', published in the first volume of Georg
Forster's Frische Teutsche Liedlein in 1539,34 and a section from
the Gloria of Taverner's Mass, will show how much they have
in common. Both have the tune in the tenor.

Ex. 2
(a)

0- weib - lich Art, hart tribst du . ... mein-.

W W .... , r _ -r i H
O weib - lich Art, hart, hart trlbst

O weib - lich Art, _

0 weib - lich Art, hart trilbst du mein Herz I-

30 Tudor Church Music, i. 126-225.

31 Ibid., iii. 78.
32 Harrison, Music in Medieval Britain, pp. 168 and 341; see also his lett
in Music & Letters, xlvi (1965), 382, where he ingeniously suggests
that the Mass-title 'Small devotion' may be a scribe's misreading o
'S[ancte] Wil[helme] devotion' or some similar form of abbreviation
3* Tudor Church Music, i. 3.
34 Reprinted in Das Erbe deutscher Musik, xx (I942), I49.

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 LATIN POLYPHONY UNDER HENRY VIII 89
- Herz ! ___ Schcrz , hat aim - merStatt. drat, hast

do mei Her I Hast do verges . . .

do mein Her I Scherz hat aim ner Stat?, drt at

- -- -"'_4 t - - . .-I
Scherz hat nim - met Statt, drahast do verges . .

du. verges - - sea del - - - ner Wort.

do r -
- seai deiner Wort, di I- - nr Wort.
du vergesr - sen dci - - - Won.

- sea . del - ner Wort.

(b)

Do - mi - ne Do - - as. rex..

Do - mi- n De - - us, rx cc.- l - -

Do io - rnsi De D -us, rn ce - l - is

ce- ti, De- us p ter . mnipo as

r r " - , ,. 1 F --- -
?Dets, De-
- us pa -as
- -pa
ter-o-- ter
mni o-mai - - po - .
- po - - -

1 . . j .I _ _:-4 4
. . . stis, Dc.us pa - - ter o. mrui po.

Taverner's part-writing has cer

to the German, with melodic li
purposeful, but with very littl
position of four voices into tre
in itself not common in Englan
but accords well with the standa
ment. There may even be some
cation of the tune among the
frequently set the borrowed me
occur in the treble in both hym

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90 LATIN POLYPHONY UNDER HENRY VIII

hymn-settings occasionally also in the bass

it never occurs in the alto except in a few
alto voice is used as a canonic comes. Simila
Mass the alto is the one voice which never s
It might be felt that all these points add
coincidence. There are, of course, several signi
of style, such as Isaac's use of dissonant su
Taverner largely avoids), and also Taver
faster pace. In such a long work as the Mas
variety by the traditional English method
texture to two or three parts, and in seve
he writes some highly florid counterpoint
This has scarcely any parallel in German m
inconsistent with some of Luther's comments about cantus
firmus writing. In a preface to a collection of Passion music
published in 1538," he wrote:
Outstanding in this art [music] is this, that while one voice continues
to sing its cantusfirmus, other voices at the same time cavort about the
principal voice in a most wonderful manner with praise and jubilation,
adorning the cantusfirmus with most lovely movements; they seem to
present a kind of divine dance, so that even those of our day who have
only a limited amount of sentiment and emotion gain the impression
that there exists nothing more wonderful and beautiful.b

The sole source ofTaverner's Mass is the Gyffard partbooks,a6

which also contain variation Masses on the same tune by
Tye and Sheppard. Although there are differences of tech-
nique, it is reasonable to suppose that such a unique group of
compositions might all have been written at about the same
time. Unless Sheppard was an older man than is generally
thought, his own can hardly date from earlier than about
1538. He is another composer who might well have been
associated with music in London in between his intermittent
appointments at Magdalen College, Oxford.
The same partbooks also contain a group of Masses which
are without cantus firmus of any kind, and whose chief dis-
tinguishing characteristic is the syllabic writing of Gloria and
Credo--often amounting to chordal declamation, with a
complete caesura at the ends of phrases. This style, too, has
close parallels in the simpler kind of German partsongs; but
it also has quite strong roots in the much humbler varieties
of English polyphony, such as measured faburden and its
associated techniques. I do not suggest any more, therefore,
35 Praefatio D. M. Lutheri in Harmonias de Passione Christi; quoted from Buszin,
'Luther on Music', p. 82.
36 British Museum, Add. MSS I7802-5.

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LATIN POLYPHONY UNDER HENRY VIII 9

than that Cranmer's views may have pr

it, and a new exploration of its possibili
Ordinary of the Mass. ' In Tallis's fou
example, it is as though the choir had a
of a congregation, earnestly participatin
accordance with one of Luther's most cherished ideals.
Taverner's 'Playn Song' Mass"' is so called because it u
the narrow range of note-values typical of polyphony i
provised on plainsong. Where he does use imitation, the e
is often carefully set against melisma in other voices, so
different phrases of text are not sung simultaneously.
opening of Taverner's Mass clearly reveals its debt to
rhythmic style offaburden techniques.c, d
Ex. 3

Et in tc -rrapax ho - mi - ni-bus bo - nae vo - lun - ta - Us.

Et in te-rra pax ho- mi-ni - bus bo - na vo-lun - ta - tis.

Et in to- rra pax ho- mi-ni - bus bo - nae vo - lun - ta - tis.

ho- mi -ni - bus bo - nae vo - lu - ta -tis.

Lau- da-mus te, be-ne - di - ci-mus_ te, a - - do- ra - mus te

Lau- da -mus te, bc - ne di- ci - mus te, a - - do- ra-mus te

Lau- da - mus te. be - ne I di- ci - mus_ te, a -

Lau- da-mus te, be - ne - di- ci - mus te , a - - do-ra-mui te

37 Taverner had earlier written a Mary antiphon, 'Mate

markedly syllabic style, though this also has the long cad
which I suggested were still characteristic of about 15
antiphon in this sort of style, 'ChristeJesu pastor bone' (wi
from an antiphon of St. William of York) is without the
therefore probably later. This piece, and also the five-par
Mass, must be among the latest compositions in the Peterho
38 Tudor Church MAlusic, vi. 31.
39 Ibid., i. 30.

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92 LATIN POLYPHONY UNDER HENRY VIII

If we accept that Taverner continued to

1530, it is possible to see these Masses (and t
and Appleby) as a closely-related group, wr
the early I540s when Cranmer is known to
ticularly concerned about clear word-setting
Composition of the Ordinary of the Mass,
well have continued in these modified form
death of Henry VIII. Polyphony for the e
however, may have undergone a change of r
as of style. I have already suggested that th
of the Virgin disappeared from the scen
London soon after I530.40 The number of ex
similarly dwindles sharply at about this tim
as a liturgical text of biblical origin, ther
reason for the reformers to condemn it. W
have replaced these two forms as a vehicle
First, there is some evidence that the psalms,
a favourite form of composition later in the ce
in motet form as early as Henry's reign. In
partbooks there is a setting of 'Deus misere
Johnson, with a copyist's note that it was 'se
or twelve years before Reformation'." Tye'
Deus' may also date from before 1547. In ge
these early psalms were evidently intend
occasional use, rather than as part of the d
psalms in the Office.
A second candidate was the hymn. Luther,
the Diet of Augsburg in I530, remarked that
of these [Roman Catholic] services is the fa
seasonal Latin hymns have remained...
German liking for the well-known Latin hy
have stimulated a revival of them in Englan
no reason why most of the twenty-odd hymn
and Sheppard could not date from the later
reign. In style they are archaic by the stan
Reformation years; they make use of major
is otherwise exceedingly rare in Tudor Eng
does occur in some German hymn-settin
consistently sonorous, with little by way of de
40 There is evidence that, in those establishments who
ments required a Mary antiphon, a Jesus antiphon s
was generally substituted.
41 See Music of Scotland, ed. K. Elliott & H. M. Shire
xv), London, I957, pp. 202, 205.
"* Buszin, op. cit., p. 90.

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LATIN POLYPHONY UNDER HENRY VIII 93

or choral antiphony. One of the most pron

this period was the shift to continuous cho
away from the old contrast between full c
textures.e This trend, clearly seen also in the E
may well reflect a direct Lutheran influence
It could be argued, similarly, that the
reign also produced a high proportion of t
Responsories. There are six by Tallis, more
Sheppard, and two by Taverner, who died
these are for the great feasts of our Lord, but
for example, one for the Common of Apostl
Annunciation, " and two for the Purificati
was very anxious that such feasts should
observed. In an injunction of 22 July 1541
ticularly those of St. Luke, St. Mark, and St
The king's highness, considering that the same s
many times mentioned in plain and manifest scr
commandeth that the said three feasts from henceforth shall be
celebrated and kept holy days, as in times past they have been used

Many of the feasts of the Virgin, including the Nativity a

the Assumption, may have been quietly dropped; but
Annunciation, which is of course described in 'plain a
manifest scripture', was certainly continued. So also was t
Purification, which is mentioned in several injunctions,*' a
for which Henry evidently had a particular fondness, th
distribution of candles being symbolic of the spiritual lig
of the gospel.
Earlier Responsory settings had been limited to a ve
small number of texts, mostly for Compline or certain ce
monies, in which only the solo parts of the plainsong we
set in polyphony. ' These new festal Responsories, howev
are fundamentally different in that they set the choral p
4j Tallis's 'Candidi facti sunt Nazarei' (printed in Tudor Church Mus
vi. 186). The Sarum Breviary seems to indicate that this Responso
was used for four feasts: St. Mark (25 April), St. Philip and St. Jam
(I May), St. John ante portam Latinam (6 May), and St. Barnab
(x x June). Joseph Kerman considers that it was confined to feasts of th
Apostles in Paschal time; but even with this unusually severe limitati
some possible years were 1538, 1546, and 1557, when Easter Sunday f
respectively on 2I April, 25 April and I8 April.
44 Sheppard's 'Christi virgo dilectissima'.
45 Sheppard's 'Gaude gaude gaude virgo cunctas haereses' and Tall
'Videte miraculum'.
46 Tudor Proclamations I: The Early Tudors, 1485-1553, ed. P. L. Hughe
and J. F. Larkin, Yale and London, 1964, p. 301.
47 Ibid., pp. 270, 278.
48 Harrison, op. cit., pp. 366 ff.

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94 LATIN POLYPHONY UNDER HENRY VIII

of the chant. The transfer of polyphony fr

chant, and the clear presentation of the
equal-note*' cantus firmus, are both the so
might have suggested themselves to Cranme
The Responsories are similar in principle to
are altogether more elaborate and imposi
ingeniously contrived imitation. If one c
setting of the Easter Responsory 'Dum trans
with the first of Taverner's two settings,5
Tallis is slightly more responsive to the
thoroughgoing in his working of imitation.
enough similarity of style and general met
strongly that these two pieces are at least fairly
The suggestion that many of the Responsor
Sheppard might have been written for Henr
a revision of my earlier view that they were co
chapel of Mary Tudor. 5 What, then, is left for
Apparently not very much. One composer w
to compose before 1547 was William Mundy
fairly safely assign to her reign Mundy'
antiphons,.3 as well as Tallis's 'Gaude glorios
seems to refer to the queen as much as to her d
There is also the group of antiphons in the Gyf
some of them in a highly developed imitativ
bably some psalms for occasional use."5 M
of all is Tallis's huge cantusfirmus Mass, 'Puer n
probably written in 1554,56 which seems to rec
world of hieratic symbolism that England had
the fall of Wolsey and the advent of Cranmer.
restore the religion of her father's reign, in
authority; and it is significant that, so far as h
is concerned, she seems to have gone back, n
Cranmer period, but rather to the repertory o
formative years as a child.
The nostalgia was short-lived, however, for
is archaic in conception, it also reveals a quit
49 Not always consistently equal: for example, a quilis
generally given double value.
50 Tudor Church Music, vi. 257.
s' Ibid., iii. 37.
52 Tallis, London, 1968, p. 34-
5 William Mundy, Latin Antiphons and Psalms, ed. F. L1. Harrison (Early
English Church Music, ii), London, n.d., pp. I, 33-
54 Tudor Church Music, vi. 123-
55 E.g. Sheppard's 'Beati omnes', possibly written for Mary's wedding.
56 Doe, Tallis, pp. 20o-2 .

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LATIN POLYPHONY UNDER HENRY VIII 95

nical mastery in its handling of imitation and c

against the cantusfirmus: it is 'modern' and res
which makes the Responsories sound like the w
generation. Mary's reign can clearly be seen
period in which composers of the Chapel Roy
aware of the work of their Imperial and
poraries, were primarily concerned not wit
function or propriety of music, but rather w
technique for its own sake. This is evident in su
Masses 'Upon the Square' by Whytbrook and
probably the 'French' Mass of Sheppard, and
six-part Magnificat of Parsons, which conta
array of canonic writing.'5 The whole tradit
composition was probably also begun in t
composition employing cantusfirmus and canon
tinued into the reign of Elizabeth, but was
planted by yet a further new development: t
text setting, which perhaps emerged fi
Lamentations of Tallis and White.58 By this
serve a Latin liturgy had disappeared, and
inspiration of the country came from Ca
Luther. Calvin's musical ideals can scarcely
either the queen or her musicians, who now, fo
in the history of English church music, fe
themselves.

57 Tenbury, St. Michael's College, MSS 807-811 , f. 28 (in all books).

58 For an important survey of the post-Reformation Latin repertory, see
J. Kerman, 'The Elizabethan Motet: a Study of Texts for Music',
Studies in the Renaissance, ix (1962), 273.

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96 LATIN POLYPHONY UNDER HENRY VIII
The following recorded illustrations were played during the cou
the lecture:

The first part of Ludford's 'Domine Iesu Christe', transcribed from the
Peterhouse partbooks by the author, who supplied the missing tenor
voice.
b The first half of the Gloria of Taverner's 'Western Wynde' Mass (ed.
Philip Brett), performed by the choir of King's College Cambridge,
director David Willcocks (gramophone record RG 316).
C The first four verses of the Magnificat, Sarum first Tone, sung alternatim,
the second and fourth verses being reconstructed by the author from a
tenor in the British Museum, MS Royal Appendix 56, f. 22v.
d The first half of the Gloria of Taverner's 'Playn Song' Mass.
e The first two verses of Sheppard's 'Deus tuorum militum', performed
by the choir of the Carmelite Priory, conductor John McCarthy
(gramophone record CLP 1895).
f The first part of Taverner's 'Dum transisset Sabbatum' (recorded as in
'b' above).
9 The first part of Tallis's 'Videte miraculum', performed by the choir
of King's College Cambridge, director David Willcocks (gramophone
record ZRG 5479)-

Examples a, c and d were specially recorded by students of the Depart-

ment of Music, Birmingham University, whose help I gratefully acknow-
ledge.

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