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The Eton Choirbook

A full-colour facsimile edition of Eton College Library, MS 178

One of the most iconic of music manuscripts, the Eton Choirbook is of unique importance, both in its own right as a cultural artefact and as a source of English choral polyphony composed during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Had it perished, along with so many other (less fortunate) pre-Reformation music manuscripts, our knowledge of a critical moment in the history of English music would have been immensely diminished.

Ever since it was first copied for use in the college chapel in the early 1500s, the choirbook has been continuously in the possession of Eton College. Several composers whose works were included in it had close associations with the college, not least Robert Wylkynson, who served as the college’s informator choristarum from 1500. Other composers represented include Banaster, Browne, Cornyshe, Davy, Fawkyner, Fayrfax, Hygons, Lambe and Turges. Most of its original contents (67 out of a total of 93 pieces) were votive antiphons, or devotional motets of prayer and praise, sung each evening to the Virgin Mary, the college’s dedicatee. The Salve ceremony, familiar to worshippers throughout Catholic Europe, lay at the heart of Eton College’s raison d’être as a chantry college: the Eton Choirbook is an eloquent witness to this flowering of devotional culture on the eve of the Reformation.

The manuscript is also a work of consummate artistry, copied by an experienced scribe on large vellum leaves, and illuminated by a professional limner. Even in its in-complete state (nearly half of its original 224 leaves have been lost), the Eton Choirbook is the undoubted queen of early Tudor music manuscripts.

The Choirbook is presented in full colour facsimile on heavy matt art paper, hard bound, with an introduction by Magnus Williamson (Newcastle University) and published by the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music (University of Oxford)

Pages: 92 (introduction) + iv + 252 + iv

Format: 427 x 306 mm (reduced from 590 x 420 mm)

Images from and a detailed source descrition of the Eton Choirbook is available on the DIAMM website. While the description is always available, you must be logged in to DIAMM in order to see the images. Please sign up for your free DIAMM account here or log in here. Once you have logged in, please come back to this page and use the link below to be taken direct to the Eton Choirbook's page.

Eton Choirbook on DIAMM

A contents list for the manuscript can be found here (PDF document)

Pricing and order information

UK/Europe etc. orders or enquiries should be sent to:

DIAMM, Faculty of Music, St Aldates, Oxford OX1 1DB, enclosing a cheque (payable to ‘Oxford University’) for the appropriate amount plus postage, and including all contact details for despatch or notification if collected, or purchased directly through our online shop.

All orders for USA and Canada should be made through OMI Facsimile sales

All orders for Japan and Asia should be made through Academia Music

Orders in Australia and New Zealand can also be made through Saraband Music

Orders and payment may also be made electronically in any currency via our online shop.

Please contact DIAMM or OMI if you wish to make multiple purchases to enquire about discounts, or if you are a retailer.

Download publicity leaflet here

The Dow Partbooks

A full-colour facsimile edition of Christ Church Oxford Library, MSS 984-988

DIAMM has published The Dow Partbooks in partnership with the Viola da Gamba Society (UK).

There are 5 partbooks (Discantus-ii + i + 93 folios, Medius-ii + 93 + i, Altus and Tenor-ii + 95 + i folios each, Bassus-ii + 89 + i), each original measuring 142 x 194 cm. They are presented published in full colour on matt art paper in open-flat soft covers, with an introductory volume by John Milsom with comprehensive indexes and finding lists, all included in a hard slipcase.

Robert Dow’s partbooks, copied in Oxford around 1580, rank among the most beautiful of all Tudor music manuscripts, and are also an important and authoritative source for the works they contain. Conceived with both singers and instrumentalists in mind, they contain a varied repertory suitable for voices and viols, including Latin-texted motets, English-texted anthems and consort songs, and a selection of In nomines and textless chansons, scored mainly for five-voice texture. Featured composers include William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, Robert White, Robert Parsons, Philip van Wilder and Alfonso Ferrabosco Sr. Dow was a trained calligrapher, and his exquisite penmanship, executed in black ink on printed red staves, is unusually accurate and easy to read.

Pages: 5 partbooks (Discantus 192 pp, Medius 192 pp, Altus 196 pp, Tenor 196 pp, Bassus 184 pp) and 1 vol introduction, full text 96pp, each facsimile volume measuring 170 x 240 mm (landscape format)

Images from and detailed source descritions of each partbook are available on the DIAMM website. While the descriptions are always available, you must be logged in to DIAMM in order to see the images. Please sign up for your free DIAMM account here or log in here. Once you have logged in, please come back to this page and use the links below to be taken direct to each partbook's page.

Discantus ¦ Medius ¦ Altus ¦ Tenor ¦ Bassus

A contents list for the partbooks can be found here (PDF document)

Pricing and order information

UK/Europe etc. orders or enquiries should be sent to:

DIAMM, Faculty of Music, St Aldates, Oxford OX1 1DB, enclosing a cheque (payable to ‘Oxford University’) for the appropriate amount plus postage, and including all contact details for despatch or notification if collected, or purchased directly through our online shop.

All orders for USA and Canada should be made through OMI Facsimile sales

All orders for Japan and Asia should be made through Academia Music

Orders in Australia and New Zealand can also be made through Saraband Music

Orders and payment may also be made electronically in any currency via our online shop.

Please contact DIAMM or OMI if you wish to make multiple purchases to enquire about discounts, or if you are a retailer.

Bologna Q15: The Making and Remaking of a Musical Manuscript

A deluxe colour facsimile of Bologna, Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica di Bologna, Ms Q.15

LIM Editrice, Lucca, has published these volumes in collaboration with DIAMM. Copies are only available through LIM or their distributors. Their website is here.

This manuscript is the largest international anthology of polyphonic music of the early 15th century. It was compiled in the Veneto, in Padua in the early 1420s (stage I) and Vicenza in the early 1430s (stages II-III), all copied by a single scribe between 1420 and 1435. The three illuminations are an unusual luxury for a musical manuscript at this period. It was acquired by Padre Martini in 1757 and is one of the great treasures of his library in Bologna.

About half of its 323 compositions are unique; some others are shared with and complemented by the slightly younger Veneto manuscripts Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria 2216 and Oxford, Canon. misc. 213. It is the most important source for the works of Zacara and Ciconia and for the early works of Guillaume Du Fay (with 78 works, nearly a quarter of the manuscript, many of them unica). About 50 composers are represented, including native Italians, and composers from the north who were sought after and made their careers in Italy.

It is primarily a collection of mass movements (mostly Glorias and Credos, and a few cycles) and motets. Du Fay's Missa Sancti Jacobi was assembled as a cycle only here, and can now be linked with the circle in which Q15 was compiled.

Margaret Bent tells the complete story of this manuscript in her extensive introductory study, which also includes comprehensive indexes and catalogues. She spells out some of the conclusions to be drawn from the partial destruction of the manuscript by its own creator, a unique and extraordinary testimony to changing taste and contemporary reception.

Deluxe limited edition consisting of introductory study (400 pp) and facsimile (686 pp), supplied with slipcase.

A list of addenda and corrigenda is available here.

DIAMM Digital Restoration Workbook

An introduction to digital restoration techniques using high resolution digital images.

The DIAMM Digital Restoration Workbook was written in response to a demand for information about digital restoration techniques as demonstrated by Dr Craig-McFeely at various conferences and other venues. With the financial and administrative support of the AHRC ICT Methods Network a workshop was organised in June 2006 for which this textbook was printed. The printed copies are sold out, but as it was prepared as press-ready pdf this has now been made available for download. The copy supplied is at print resolution so that the colour images can be clearly read both on screen and when printed.

The book utilises samples and images drawn from the DIAMM collection, and the images were used by the workshop participants. However due to rights restrictions the images are only available for demonstration purposes and are therefore not available for download due to rights restrictions. However, access to the images shown in the workbook, and the samples prepared for the workshop is not essential to an understanding of the techniques described, which can easily be applied to any image of suitable type and resolution. The workbook has proved a useful starting point for dealing with images of damaged documents for researchers in many fields, both those with prior experience of digital restoration and those who have never attempted to adjust an image.

The techniques described make use of Adobe Photoshop, and do not require more than a fairly basic knowledge of the software in order to understand the descriptions. Those unfamiliar with Photoshop may need a little while to familiarise themselves with the software interface before embarking on restoration work using the workbook, but should find the information in the workbook helpful in understanding and accessing the various tools available. All the images in the book are copyright and may not be reproduced except for personal research purposes. The workbook may be downloaded on the understanding that it is only reproduced for personal use: it may not be reprinted and sold or otherwise distributed by a third party.

You may download the Workbook using the links below:

Complete Workbook (58Mb) | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4