GB-En [pr. bk.] RB.x.002 ('Glamis' copy of the Aberdeen Breviary)

National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland

polyphony added to a printed book: 16th century

Archive National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland (GB-En)
Shelfmark [pr. bk.] RB.x.002 ('Glamis' copy of the Aberdeen Breviary)
Image Availability DIAMM does not have images of this source. Please refer to the external links for image availability.
Surface Paper
Measurements 150 x 225 mm approx.
Notations
  • black void mensural
Relationships
External Links
Provenance
  • Aberdeen? Scotland
Contents Contains 1 composition, 1 is anonymous.
General Description

A line and a half of music added to a blank page in vol.1 ('Pars hiemalis') of the 'Glamis' copy of the Aberdeen Breviary. The music is the Tenor of a faburden setting of Cultor Dei. (Reconstructions in 2vv and 3vv are offered in the 2026 article.) Only one other faburden setting of Cultor Dei is known, on f. 159 of Cambrai MS 29.

Initially identified in 2011: "a single stave of music, four measures, on blank verso facing the first leaf of the pars hyemalis'.

Ownership inscriptions of John MacWilliam, whose father Henry was one of the 'twenty vicars of the choir' of Aberdeen Cathedral, and Nicholas Ferguson, who was appointed chaplain of St Mary's Chapel, Rattray, in 1539, link the book to Aberdeenshire until at least the 1540s.

DIAMM, 2026
Ruling

Hand-drawn staves of 5- and 4-lines.

DIAMM, 2026
Foliation

The Breviary is foliated, but the initial calendar section (in which the blank page with added music appears) has only a modern pagination 1-30. The music appears on the last page.

DIAMM, 2026
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‡ denotes primary source study

‡ Newton-Jackson, Paul, David Coney, and James Cook. 2024. A New Polyphonic Source from Sixteenth-Cebntury Scotland. Music & Letters, 105/4: 437-466. Notes: description; discussion; facsimile; transcription/reconstruction.

Holmes, Stephen Mark. 2011. Catalogue of Liturgical Books and Fragments in Scotland before 1560. The Innes Review, Vol 62.2: 127-212. Pages: 176.

Stevenson, Jane Barbara, Iain Michael Beavan, and Peter Robert Davidson. 2011. The Breviary of Aberdeen. Journal of the Edinburgh BIbliographical Society, 31: 11-41. Pages: 29. Notes: initial observation of the music.

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