Music and Majesty: Chapels Royal, Cathedrals, and Colleges, c.1485-1688
The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw enormous change wrought to the musical and liturgical practices of the British Isles. The most significant centres of these changes, and the locations most usually cited as key to the preservation of a British (more usually English) choral tradition, are royal chapels, cathedrals, and collegiate institutions. Despite this significance, and a wealth of musicological attention on the compositions associated with these institutions, they are less frequently discussed by historians and scholars from other disciplines. Between the 1st and 2nd of July, 2024, hosted at the Linnean Society, Burlington House, scholars of early modern religion, music, art, architecture, and literature gathered to discuss and reconcile diverging approaches to these important (and often surviving) institutions. The introductory remarks, given by Oscar Patton and Katie Bank, recognised these interdisciplinary dynamics, and the importance of bearing in mind the ‘living’ context of the institutions discussed over the course of the conference.
The first panel of the conference engaged with a key feature of these extraordinary music-making venues: the projection of majesty. Kenneth Fincham’s paper, on the Chapel Royal of Charles II, illustrated how this important courtly institution was key to Charles’s approach to securing the loyalty and conformity of his councillors and churchmen, especially in codifying and ensuring use of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, with particular focus on Charles’s personal involvement in this. Bill Hunt turned to the development of the late-Elizabethan and Jacobean verse anthem, pointing to the musical ‘recycling’ of a melodic phrase found in William Byrd’s ‘Rejoice unto the Lord’ by a number of early Jacobean composers, especially Edmund Hooper, emphasising the political importance of this for policy aims such as the Union of the Crowns. Owen Rees’s paper on the performance of Portuguese music in the chapel of Catherine of Braganza closed out this panel, in which the divergence of contemporary responses to the sonic experience of Catholic worship in the Queen’s Chapel was highlighted, with reference to the mutual influence facilitated between English and Portuguese composers.
The second panel considered the significance of ceremonial occasions on the types of music and ceremony heard and observed. Matthias Range’s paper provided an impressive overview of post-Reformation coronations, weddings, and funerals, arguing that despite important doctrinal change, and some alterations in the language heard, many of the ceremonies remained the same. Alexandra Siso’s paper offered a more specific example of the ways in which ceremonial occasions could undergo reformation, focusing on the Elizabethan Maundy ceremony, and arguing for the importance of the ‘Lamentations of Jeremiah’ in framing and bolstering images of Elizabeth’s power in this unique ritual. Anthony Musson’s paper offered an investigation into the competing sizes and expectations of the early Tudor Chapel Royal, which as an itinerant institution, was regularly brought into contact with local examples of musical patronage during the regular and elaborate occasion of the royal progress each summer.
The third session, and final panel of the first day, provided a spatial context for the ceremonial and musical discussions heard in the morning and early afternoon. Beginning with Mark Kirby’s paper, on the ideal spaces of royal, private, and collegiate chapels, the elastic concept of ‘comeliness’ was granted full exploration as a lens by which early modern people viewed extraordinary ecclesiastical space, and which determined how far their material elaboration could be pushed. An example of this in action was provided in the second paper, by Charlie Spragg, a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh, on the redesign of the royal chapel at Stirling castle, in advance of prince Henry’s baptism, which heightened classical assertions of royal power in architecture and symbolism. David Coney, also a PhD student at Edinburgh, closed the first day with a paper which illustrated the gradual Jacobean reform of the Scottish Chapel Royal, showing how it remained distinct from its English counterpart, and was dependent on key churchmen to enact the liturgical changes directed by James after his accession to the English throne.
In the evening of the first day, conference delegates and attendees were treated to an extraordinary service of prayer and early music at His Majesty’s Chapel Royal, at St James’s Palace. With introductory reflections by Samuel Teague, a wonderful chronological programme took attendees (sonically) from Taverner to Purcell, while appreciating the acoustic and spatial dynamics of this remarkable survival of a functional early modern Chapel Royal. The convenors would like to express their thanks to sub-dean of His Majesty’s Chapel Paul Wright, and Serjeant of the Vestry Jon Simpson, for their accommodation and support of this remarkable event.
The second day opened with a paper presented by Daniel Koplitz (with John Milsom), who presented their joint research on the Ludlow part-books, and provided important and novel information about the surprisingly elaborate content of the repertory of the early Elizabethan Chapel Royal. Katie McKeough’s paper followed, which explored how post-Reformation English universities engaged with pre-Reformation liturgical material, between personal items akin to commonplace books, to items of potent antiquarian and confessional interest. Katherine Butler’s paper on the education of choristers through catches and rounds closed out this panel, indicating the rich textual indications that survive concerning how potentially widespread musical learning and elaboration may have been, from surprising sources.
The fifth panel of the conference began with a paper by Jonathan Arnold, who explored early English humanist critiques of music, and applied these to the cathedral reforms implemented by John Colet. A later perspective on the application of reforming music, though based on a rather different ethos, was provided by Andrew Foster, who offered a fresh revision of Andrew Neile’s reforms at Durham and elsewhere, explaining his attitude to musical reform with reference to both his education and social circle. Nicholas Thistlethwaite concluded this panel with a detailed paper on the centrality of organs as a measure of the impact of the reformation, combining detailed organological information with the patterns of reform observed across English cathedrals, to show the ‘patch-work’ of reformation in action.
The final panel of the conference considered the relationship of royal, cathedral, and collegiate institutions with their urban environments, and where the boundaries of these lay. Magnus Williamson began with an exploration of the impact of the Henrician reformation on the musical-patronage dynamics of the Chapel Royal, emphasising how the collapse of an extensive and well-funded network of private collegiate chapels, which were frequently visited on progress, saw a drop in courtly expenditure by Mary’s reign, something she was never able to recover. Lucy Munro’s paper followed, which explored the relationship between institutions and the individual directors of the theatrical activities of the Children of the Chapel Royal, recognising an increasing split between the institutional boundaries of the Chapel by the early seventeenth century, as ‘deputies’ were granted full positions of authority over the independent company. Kerry McCarthy’s paper concluded formal proceedings, with a detailed exploration of the dynamics and practicalities, as well as some of the extraordinary provisions, involved in taking a full group of singing-men and instrumentalists ‘on tour’ in early sixteenth century progresses.
As recognised in the closing remarks, given by Peter McCullough, such institutions were also valued for their provision of expert sermons, not only musical provisions. By shifting scholarly emphasis away from the ‘literary’ perceptions of these institutions, and towards the sensory, however, we found the striking trend of corporate identities and personal connections shining through. It was perhaps early modern people, who formed and bolstered institutional cultures, who ensured the survival of English choral music, if in a constantly contested, negotiated, and relatively defined way.
The convenors (Oscar Patton, Katie Bank, and Samuel Teague) would like to express their thanks to their generous funders (the British Academy, the Society of Court Studies, Birmingham Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies, the Society of Renaissance Studies, and Oxford Centre for Early Modern Studies), for their invaluable support and encouragement of this event.
