More on the Lambeth Choirbook

In EM, xxxiii/1 (Feb 2005), p.155, Dr David Skinner wondered about the reasoning informing some observations arising tangentially in the course of my review of Early English Church Music, xliii (Robert Fayrfax I: O bone Iesu, ed. Roger Bray), published in EM, xxxii/3 (Aug 2004), pp.471-3. These concerned the provenance of the Lambeth Choirbook; the identification of the category of liturgical use intended for the anonymous setting of Resurrexio Christi; and the origins of the composition by Robert Fayrfax of his Mass, Magnificat and antiphon O bone Iesu. Only brief comments are possible here; I hope to amplify my response to the first and third into journal articles in due course, fully annotated and referenced. In short, however: (1) there can be found no good reasons whatever to associate the Lambeth Choirbook with either Arundel College or Edward Higgons; (2) there appear to be no good reasons to believe that Resurrexio Christi was created to be an 'elevation motet', rather than a simple votive antiphon; and (3) there appear to be no good grounds for belief that the London Fraternity of the Holy Name of Jesus had anything to do with Fayrfax's creation of his three O bone Iesu pieces.

The Lambeth Choirbook carries no overt indications concerning its provenance; this can be discerned only by deduction from ancillary evidence. It is to the remarkable acuity of Dr Skinner's own observation (EM, xxv (1997), pp.245-66) that we now recognize that the hand that produced both the Lambeth Choirbook (London, Lambeth Palace Library, Ms.1) and the Caius College Choirbook (Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, Ms.667), also produced what may be called the Arundel Roll (Arundel Castle, Archives of the Duchy of Norfolk, Ms.A340). This scribe, whose surviving work probably can be dated to the later 1520s, is not known by name. However, the Caius College Choirbook bears an inscription ('Ex dono et opere Edwardi higgons huius ecclesie canonici') identifying a patron by whom on one occasion his services were engaged, and the Arundel Roll provides strong evidence identifying the locale within which he worked, and where it may be supposed that all three manuscripts were produced. This locale was the household chapel of the Earl of Arundel.

Study of such sources as have survived indicates that by the early 16th century the maintenance of a private chapel within the household, fully equipped and staffed with singing-men and boys able to maintain a full repertory of polyphonic music, was conventional and ubiquitous among the uppermost ranks of the English aristocracy. This provision extended to all those in the ranks of duke and marquess, and to all of the more senior and well-established of the earls (R. Bowers, 'The aristocratic imitators of the Chapel Royal, 1485-1547', unpublished paper, R.M.A. conference, Southampton University, 1993). Certainly, the Fitzalan earls of Arundel belonged in this latter category. By seniority (1292) theirs was no less than England's premier earldom, and, ranking fourth among the earls by wealth, the early 16th-century Fitzalans were among the ten richest lay magnates in the kingdom.

The enthusiasm for music of Henry Fitzalan, 12th earl (1544-80), is well attested, and it would not be surprising to discover that it was anticipated by his grandfather Thomas (earl 1487-1524) and father William (1524-44). Few traces of their households have survived; fortunately, however, these do suffice to establish their conventional maintenance of a household chapel. One Robert, a clerk of his chapel, enjoyed sufficient favour to be called to be a witness of the will of earl Thomas in 1524 (PRO PROB11/23, f.219r); further, it appears that another of the chapel singing-men may be identified in Geoffrey Foster, who spent three terms of the year 1543/4 moonlighting as a lay clerk in the choir of Fotheringhay College while in fact a 'servus domini comitis de Arendell' (PRO E315/301, f.18r). The Arundel household chapel may even have been comparable to that of the de Vere earls of Oxford, a comital family of seniority...