Beautiful monastic music will be heard again in a former Exeter priory closed by Henry VIII thanks to the discovery of a rare collection of medieval chants.
St Nicholas Priory was founded by William the Conqueror in 1087. It was home to Benedictine monks for over 400 years and is the oldest building in Exeter. In 1536, like other monasteries, it was closed and the remains became the home of wealthy Tudor merchants.
Thanks to the University of Exeter Chapel Choir the long-lost voices of monks will return to the priory at a special event next month. This may be the first time monastic music has been heard in the building’s Great Hall since 1536.
The concert is possible thanks to new analysis of a ‘customary’, the richly decorated Buckland Book which dates from around 1450. This contains the instructions the monks needed to carry out their daily religious rituals and services. But unusually, the Buckland Book also contains a rare collection of medieval music copied and added to the book in the early Tudor period.
University of Exeter historian, Professor James Clark, first noticed this while researching Buckland Abbey’s monastic past on behalf of the National Trust. Hardly any of the music performed in England’s medieval monasteries now survives because their books were lost or destroyed during the Tudor Reformation.
Professor Clark has worked with Michael Graham, the University’s Director of Chapel Music, and choristers so the music can be performed again.
The music is written down using the same notation still used in the modern Catholic Church but there are no instructions about rhythm or dynamics, so choristers have had to make decisions about how the pieces should sound.
The music is in a style called ‘plainchant’, with single lines of music for monks or priests to sing all together. What makes the music more unusual is that rather than following the rigid liturgical structure of the time, with pieces sung at different times of the day, the monks curated a unique sequence of chants drawn from various sources.
Professor Clark said: “It is exciting for us to be able to bring this music back to St Nicholas Priory after five hundred years. It’s likely this is the first time since the Dissolution that monastic music has been heard in the building’s Great Hall.
“This will be another special moment in the long and rich history of this fascinating building.”
England’s monasteries were at the cutting-edge of medieval music-making, with monks perfecting the haunting melody of plainchant and pioneering the rich and colourful performance of polyphony. On the eve of the Reformation, which led to every abbey and priory in England being shut down, the most ambitious musicians – singers, organists and composers – gravitated to the great, old abbey churches.
The pieces found in the Buckland Book ask for God’s mercy, forgiveness and protection from harm. They share a real feeling of anxiety and fear. It looks as though they were once sung as a complete sequence, perhaps to help the monks through a crisis of some kind.
Perhaps the monks were responding to an outbreak of the sweating sickness which was virulent during Henry’s VIII’s reign. The leading light of his Reformation, Thomas Cromwell, lost his wife and daughters to the disease.
But it may be the monks were showing their feelings following the death of their abbot. When they lost their leader, a small community of monks was left vulnerable, especially at a time when the king was looking to take control of the Church.
The Buckland music is also unusual because it can be connected to a specific musician who performed it, the abbey’s choir master and organist from this time Robert Derkeham. He was employed at Buckland right down to the Dissolution, to teach the monks and their boy choristers to sing and to play the organ.
The Chapel Choir have also performed the music in Buckland Abbey’s medieval Great Barn this year and have also recorded it.
Mr Graham said: “The Chapel Choir has been delighted to bring to life the music of such an extraordinary discovery and project. Recording the Buckland Abbey plainsong has been a phenomenal experience for us. We have loved exploring this rich vein of choral music – repertoire we don’t often sing in the Chapel – and being part of a narrative that spans hundreds of years. We are very much looking forward to sharing this music with our audience at St Nicholas Priory on Thursday 13th November.”
The event will be held on November 13 at St Nicholas Priory, Exeter. Tickets are available at: https://nicholaspriory.com/events/the-music-of-monastic-england-university-of-exeter-chapel-choir-at-st-nicholas-priory/.