GB-Obc III 18/3 [Tenor]

Brasenose College, Oxford, England

printed partbook with MS additions: last third of 16th century

Archive Brasenose College, Oxford, England (GB-Obc)
Shelfmark III 18/3 [Tenor]
Surface Paper
Numbering System Foliation
Format landscape
Notations
  • black void mensural
External Links
External Authorities
Contents Contains 3 compositions, 2 from 2 composers, 1 is anonymous.
General Description

A Tenor partbook from a set of four. Each partbook contains the substantial print RISM 1563/8 (John Day's The whole psalmes in foure parts) and two unknown scribes have added three works in manuscript to the front of the Brasenose copy.

The pages of the printed publication begin after a few more flyleaves. Note that pages 3-6 of the Contra Tenor book are missing, and have been replaced with calligraphic MS facsimiles. The preceding title page and its recto are intact.

The date of the MS additions cannot be before 1552, when the second Prayer Book reformed the Kyrie of the Communion Service to its present form (retained in 1662). The items by Caustun and Stone may have been copied from Day's print of 1565/1560.

Edward Tambling, 2026
DIAMM Note

Notified by Edward Tambling, 2026.

DIAMM, 2026
DIAMM Note

All of the items are anonymous in the MS: the authorship of the Kyrie has not yet been establised.

There is a striking similarity between the opening petition of his Caustun's Litany and that of Stone's piece. Caustun was something of a musical magpie, and may have admired the paraphrase in the opening of Stone's Tenor of the Litany tone (notes C/D : C\A/B/C) and sought to expand its potential into a full setting of the Litany. Stone, however, may himself have been the borrower of Caustun's phrase, unless both composers were drawing on material from a third party.

John Milsom has demonstrated that Caustun drew on French and Italian secular models for English service music in Day's publication that he passed off as his own compositions. However, this may have been in an attempt to establish a familiar-sounding repertoire for the new Anglican liturgy that would have made the new services and anthems accessible to those using them for the first time.

Edward Tambling, 2026

Click an entry to see more information about that item.

Folio / Pages Composition / Item title Number of voices Source attribution Composers (? Uncertain)
i_v Kyrie responses 4 - Anonymous

Kyrie responses

Anonymous
Appears on: i_v
Genres: Anglican Service Music, Kyrie eleison
Number of voices: 4
Voice: [no designation]
Languages: English
Clef: c3
Voice Text: Lord have mercy uppon us
General Note

The Medius has a marginal annotation '8 from ye Bass' (if I've read this correctly); both the Medius and Bassus start on F an octave apart, if this is what is meant. However, the Contra Tenor (starting on middle C) contains the same annotation. (E. Tambling 2026)

ii–ii_v Litany 4 -
Appears on: ii–ii_v
Genres: Anglican Service Music, Litany
Number of voices: 4
Voice: [no designation]
Languages: English
Clef: c4
Voice Text: O god ye fayther of heavne
Concordances

This is a different setting of the Litany from the one also attributed to Caustun (& Byrd) in GB-Cqcl Old Library G.4.17. Has a concordance in John Day's Mornyng and Evenyng prayer... RISM 1565/4 (with title Certain notes... in RISM 1560/26). Curiously, the note values in the MS are halved in this piece in comparison with Day's publication.

iii Lord's Prayer/Our Father 4 -
Appears on: iii
Number of voices: 4
Voice: [no designation]
Languages: English
Clef: c4
Voice Text: Our fa... thy...
Concordances

Has a concordance (among others) in John Day's Mornyng and Evenyng prayer... RISM 1565/4 (with earlier title Certain notes... as RISM 1560/26). Largely textless, with single cue words at the start of each line of text.

Composer Compositions
Anonymous
Caustun, Thomas (ca. 1520-1569)
Stone, Robert
Composition Composers (? Uncertain) Folios / Pages
Kyrie responses Anonymous i_v
Litany ii–ii_v
Lord's Prayer/Our Father iii
These images are from an external IIIF service and are not hosted by DIAMM.

Images © Brasenose College, Oxford

Set: GB-Obc III 18/1-4

Type: Partbooks

No images available

GB-Obc III 18/1 [Medius]

No images available

GB-Obc III 18/2 [Contra Tenor]

No images available

GB-Obc III 18/3 [Tenor]

No images available

GB-Obc III 18/4 [Bassus]

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