Notre Dame in Scotland: W1 and Liturgical Reform at St Andrews

Abstract

One of the earliest examples of Notre Dame polyphony is a manuscript that for the past forty years has been considered the product of several scribes working in St Andrews, Scotland (Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek Cod. Guelph 628 Helmst., (W1)). Twenty years ago, the discovery of two contemporary liturgical sources from St Andrews further established the origin of W1 in St Andrews during the episcopacy of William Malveisin (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, fonds latin 12036 and 1218). This dissertation demonstrates that the Francophile Bishop Malveisin commissioned the impressive collection of music in W1 as part of a liturgical campaign. Malveisin also built a college of secular canons, called Céli Dé because of the ancient royal Celtic religious order from which some members were recruited, to perform the grand ceremonial in W1 in order to increase the international prestige of the Scottish cathedral.

The first chapter argues that, contrary to previous assumptions, the Augustinian canons were not the recipients of W1, but rather the Céli Dé, who were aristocratic Scottish-Norman clerics with university educations. In Chapter 2, my paleographic and codicological study lays the foundation for a biography of the scribe of W1, demonstrating that one documentary scribe copied both the text and music of the whole manuscript. In Chapter 3, I trace the editing work of that scribe in the music and in the collection of polyphony and monophony providing insular ordinary tropes of various styles for the cathedral liturgy. The fourth chapter, offering the first analysis of the antiphoner for the Céli Dé, (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, fonds latin 12036), finds it better suited to the Notre Dame polyphony of W1 than Edward Roesner found the Uses of Sarum and York in his study.

The final chapter argues that the polyphony in W1 contributed to the prestige of the new Gothic cathedral dedicated to the patron saint of Scotland, St. Andrew. This precious witness to the various ways of ornamenting the liturgy in the thirteenth century, inspired by polyphonic performances at the cathedral of Notre Dame, was produced as a testament to the great importance and power of the Apostle to the Scots.