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Rediscovered Music Fragment Offers Glimpse into 16th Century Scotland

An intriguing piece of music, thought to have been lost to time, has been uncovered within Scotland’s first full-length printed book, shedding light on the musical landscape of the early 1500s.

Scholars from Edinburgh College of Art and KU Leuven in Belgium have delved into the origins of a newly discovered musical score, comprised of just 55 notes. This discovery not only highlights the musical practices of pre-Reformation Scotland but also marks a significant find from the early sixteenth century.

The fragment represents a rare manifestation of music from Scottish religious institutions of that era and stands as the only known piece from northeast Scotland of this time period. The discovery was made in a copy of The Aberdeen Breviary, printed in 1510, a comprehensive compilation that served as a manual for daily worship, incorporating prayers, hymns, psalms, and even accounts of Scottish saints’ lives. Dubbed the ‘Glamis copy’ due to its previous ownership by Glamis Castle in Angus, it is currently housed at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Although the musical score lacks any accompanying text, title, or attribution, researchers have recognized it as a unique musical arrangement of Cultor Dei, a hymn traditionally sung at night during Lent.

The Aberdeen Breviary was produced under an initiative by King James IV, who granted a Royal Patent to facilitate the printing of service books that adhered to Scottish religious customs, thereby reducing reliance on imported texts from England or continental Europe.

The score is believed to have originated in the Aberdeenshire region, with potential ties to St Mary’s Chapel in Rattray and Aberdeen Cathedral.

The mark of discovery began when the research team scrutinized marginal annotations within the Glamis copy. Among their findings was a fragment of music spread over two lines on a blank page dedicated to Matins, the early morning service.

The origin of the music puzzled the team as it was not part of the book’s original print. Yet, the bound page indicated a deliberate effort to preserve both the music and the breviary together. Absent any textual guides, it remained uncertain whether the piece was sacred or secular.

Upon deeper analysis, researchers concluded that the music was polyphonic—indicating the simultaneous movement of two or more independent melodies. This musical form was prevalent in Scottish religious settings during the time, although few surviving examples have been documented.

One team member noticed that the musical fragment aligned perfectly with a Gregorian chant melody, identifying it as the tenor part of a faburden, a type of three- or four-voice harmonic arrangement for the hymn Cultor Dei.

David Coney from Edinburgh College of Art described the moment of identification as akin to a “Eureka” experience for musicologists. He expressed excitement over the potential to reconstruct the other missing vocal parts based on the tenor line, stating, “From just one line of music scrawled on a blank page, we can hear a hymn that lay silent for nearly five centuries, in a way reviving a precious historical artifact of Scotland’s musical and religious heritage.”

Alongside this musical discovery, researchers have also traced the historical trajectory of The Aberdeen Breviary, revealing its use over the centuries. It was once the private service book of an illegitimate son of a high-ranking chaplain at Aberdeen Cathedral and eventually became an heirloom of a Scottish Catholic who journeyed through post-Reformation Scotland and into the courts of the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires.

Dr. Paul Newton-Jackson of KU Leuven emphasized the importance of their findings, stating, “The conclusions we have been able to draw from this fragment underscore the crucial role of marginalia as a source of new insights into musical culture where little notated material survived.” He suggested that more discoveries—musical or otherwise—might still be hidden within the pages of other sixteenth-century printed works in Scotland’s libraries and archives.

Dr. James Cook from Edinburgh College of Art remarked on prior assumptions regarding the scarcity of sacred music in pre-Reformation Scotland, asserting that this research reveals a rich tradition of quality music-making in the country’s religious institutions, on par with developments elsewhere in Europe, despite the Reformation’s challenges.

The study has been published in the Journal Music and Letters.

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