THE BURIAL AGENDA AND ASSOCIATED MUSIC IN PRE-REFORMATION ENGLAND: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY MANUSCRIPT FF.6.21 (RELIGION, CHRISTIANITY, LITURGY, CHANT, MEDIEVAL)

The thesis sets out to examine from a musico-liturgical perspective Christian burial practice in England, together with the ritual care of the sick and dying, from the time of the earliest extant ms. sources with musical notation for the burial office (c. A.D. 980) to the eve of the Protestant Reformation. The initial chapter discusses the burial agenda in general and contends that the English manuscript witness views the agenda as one unified rite, i.e., as a single procession from the onset of illness to a final resurrection. A narrative of the progression of liturgical action concludes the chapter.;Part II of the thesis begins with a source critical commentary and inventory of Cambridge University Library ms. Ff.6.21 and concludes with a transcription and interlinear translation of its contents (fols. 53-end).;Chapter two provides an historical overview of the burial rite and of the Office of the Dead, and includes a new outline derived from the Regularis Concordia of the daily work and devotional regimen of the English Benedictine monk. There follows a table which lists seventy of the most significant manuscript sources for the study of medieval English burial observance and enumerates their applicable contents. This forms the basis for Chapter 5 where the responsories for the burial office are analyzed according to form, and comparative tables listing the variant manuscript readings of their musical notation are provided.