Night Office for the Eve of All Saints (Medieval York Use): Service Orders used for a Medieval Enactment at Southwell Minster on Thursday 31 October 2024

This deposit consists of three service orders and a supporting document that contributed to the collaborative enactment of a medieval 'Night Office' liturgy at Southwell Minster, Nottinghamshire, on Thursday 31 October 2024, at 8pm. Based upon primary research from the project 'Music in the Shadows: Staging Medieval Night Worship, 800-1300', the service was co-created by the named researchers together with clergy, musicians, and staff from Southwell Minster. The liturgy was the Night Office for the feast of All Saints, as it might have been performed at Southwell on this very evening (late on 31 October, or early on 1 November) in the later Middle Ages. As a collegiate church within the province of York, Southwell would have followed the secular nine-lesson form of the Night Office according to the Use of York Minster. The readings, drawn from the anonymous Carolingian sermons 'Legimus in ecclesiasticis' and 'Hodie dilectissimi', followed the fifteenth-century York lectionary GB-Ob Gough. liturg. 1. The chant texts and melodies, hymn, and versicles were transcribed from GB-Llp Sion College Ms. L.1, a noted York breviary from the fourteenth or fifteenth century. The rubrics were based upon those in the fifteenth-century Arundel Castle Antiphonal (olim Everingham Breviary), from the Chapel of St Mary and the Holy Angels, York, supplemented by rubrics from Salisbury and Exeter. The polyphony for the eighth responsory, 'Audivi vocem', was transcribed from GB-Cmc Ms. 1236 (the Pepys Manuscript), associated with the Almonry School of Canterbury Cathedral. The collect and Benedicamus melody were drawn from the Customary of St Mary's, York, now GB-Cjc Ms. 102 (D.27) . All texts were translated from their original Latin into English, except where this would do injury to the music, i.e. the liturgical chants. The rationale for these and other liturgical choices will be explored in a future publication, in which the researchers reflect on the intellectual contribution of the medieval enactments accomplished during the research project. The orders of service were assembled with the assistance of Dr Peter Siepmann (music typesetting), whose work is published here with permission. Because permission was not obtained to reproduce the edition of the polyphonic music on pages 28-29 of the 'Choir booklet' document, this element has been removed from the deposit. Dr Fraser McNair is the author of the English translations of the readings. Contents: 1) Readers' booklet - used at the lectern 2) Choir booklet - used by the singers 3) Congregation booklet - used by all other attendees 4) Rubrics booklet - used in rehearsal