Music for a Medieval Christmas Mass
Our knowledge of High Mass on Christmas Day as it might have been celebrated at Sherborne Abbey in c.1520 comes from the highly ornate Sherborne Missal (British Library MS Add.74236). From this manuscript it is possible to reconstruct the service as it would have been performed at Sherborne Abbey in this period. The melodies of the chants are supplied in the main from another Benedictine manuscript, the Crowland Gradual (British Library, MS Egerton 3759), except for the Pater noster and the 'incipits' (starting phrases for the Gloria and Credo), which are from the Missal.
- Introit Puer natus est nobis
- Kyrie Deus creator omnium
- GLORIA Missa Tecum principium - Robert Fayrfax (d. 1521)
- Gradual Viderunt omnes
- Alleluia Dies sanctificatus
- CREDO Missa Tecum principium
- Offertory Tui sunt celi
- SANCTUS Missa Tecum principium
- Pater noster
- AGNUS DEI Missa Tecum principium (SAMPLE TRACK)
- Communion Viderunt omnes
Magdala
Directed by David Skinner
Recorded in Saint Giles' church, Bruges, and Magdalen College, Oxford, July 2004
Liturgical reconstruction by Anna Parsons