"Sarum Mass" at Hampton Court Palace's Chapel Royal

According to this Facebook post, yesterday might have been a historic day:

This Sunday 25 November, a unique and historic event is taking place at the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court Palace - for the first time since the 16th century, the sublime music of Thomas Tallis will accompany the liturgy for which it was originally written. Tallis was a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in the 1500s, who would have sung for the monarch at Hampton Court. His music Missa Puer natus est nobis will be played on Sunday, accompanying the Eucharist.

After the service, the Gentlemens’ new recording of Tallis Latin music for lower voices (which includes the Missa Puer natus est) will be officially launched. The disk, on the Resonus label, will be released for sale on December 3.

It's not clear to me whether this was a Catholic Mass, celebrated by a priest with faculties of the local ordinary, or a Church of England service performed according to the Sarum Use. I think it's more likely the latter. As of this posting, the Catholic Herald did not have a story about it, nor did the Roman Catholic Diocese of Arundel & Brighton have any notice of it. Perhaps more information will be forthcoming soon.

As I understand it, a "Sarum Mass" would be a pre-Tridentine Roman Rite Mass according to the Sarum Use (from the Cathedral at Salisbury).

More information about the CD release here:

The Gentlemen of HM Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace and their director Carl Jackson make their Resonus Classics debut with this album of works for lower voices by Thomas Tallis – himself a Gentleman of the Tudor Chapel Royal serving under four monarchs.

Recorded in the impressive surroundings of the Chapel Royal where the choir is resident, this first disc with The Gentlemen presents works for four and seven voices including the Missa Puer natus est nobis based on chant for Christmas Day, and the sumptuous Suscipe quaeso Domine.

You might remember that 2016 Catholic Vespers were prayed in the Chapel Royal.

The Chapel Royal and The Martyrs' Remains

Early next month, another concert of Tudor church music (through the modern era) in another Chapel Royal, Saint Peter ad Vincula, at the Tower of London, celebrating five hundred of "royal" music:

In this historic and intimate Chapel, nestled in the shadow of the Tower of London’s mighty White Tower, the acclaimed Choir of the Chapels Royal, HM Tower of London, directed by Colm Carey will perform works from Tudor times through to the modern day, including works by Byrd, Parry and Handel.

The Tower of London is one of the world’s most famous fortresses, and one of Britain’s most visited historic sites. In the shadow of the great White Tower stands a small chapel, constructed on the orders of King Henry VIII around 1515.

Now known as the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula this ecclesiastical gem has been a place of worship for royalty, residents of the Tower and condemned prisoners for the past 500 years. It is the final resting place of three queens of England, as well as Thomas More and John Fisher.

The intimacy and atmosphere of this historic Chapel provides a unique platform on which to experience music making. The Chapel Royal has always been associated with the finest music and finest musicians, and this concert celebrates 500 years of royal composers, from Tudor times through to the 20th century.

"It is the final resting place of three queens of England, as well as Thomas More and John Fisher." That sentence from the announcement gave me pause:

Shouldn't Saint John Fisher be resting in a Catholic church (St. John Fisher in Rochester) or cathedral, like the Cathedral of St. George in the Diocese of Southwark (since the Catholic diocese of Rochester was suppressed after its last ordinary, Maurice Griffith died in 1558)? If his remains were buried there in an appropriate tomb, Catholics would be able to pay homage to him without paying admission to the Tower of London! 

Shouldn't Saint Thomas More be resting in the Catholic church near Chelsea (Our Holy Redeemer and St. Thomas More), for the same reason? Catholics shouldn't have to try to visit an Anglican church in Canterbury (his head is entombed with the Roper family at St. Dunstan's  or pay admission to the Tower of London to visit the tomb of this great saint!

Saint Philip Howard's body was reclaimed from the Chapel Royal and reburied in the Cathedral of Arundel in West Sussex, and the Cathedral itself changed dedication from St. Philip Neri to St. Philip Howard (with Our Lady in pride of place).

I think Saint John Fisher and Saint Thomas More should be reclaimed from the Church of England and the Chapel Royal of the monarch! What do you think?

One Drowning Victim Among Many: Robert Parsons

The BBC History Magazine posts an extra: why did so many people drown in Tudor England?:

Travel across and beside water was as risky as travel on it. Rickety bridges, slippery banks, panicky horses, and fords where the depth of the water or the speed of the current were hard to judge all posed threats.

Everyone was at risk, from a labourer like John Hayward, walking the six miles from Broadway to market in Evesham across the brook at Childswickham on a dark December morning, to a yeoman like Richard Mongombery, riding the eight miles from Uppingham to Kirby late on a February afternoon beside the flooded river Welland.

Animals and water were a dangerous combination. The easiest way to wash a horse was to ride it into deep water, but falling off could be fatal, as Griffin Home found when he rode a black horse into the ‘horse pool’ at Bishop’s Castle and it stumbled. Even taking excitable horses to drink was risky. William Hill, aged 17, took two colts to the river Soar at Burton on the Wolds on 15 June 1558, but they ran into the river and pulled him in after them.

Sheep needed washing before they were sheared and that too could have tragic consequences. One June morning in 1560 Alice and Katherine Bonde were washing sheep in the river Hodder at Slaidburn. A wether (castrated ram) jumped up and knocked Alice head over heels into a whirlpool. Seeing her sister in trouble, Katherine went after her, while John Swinglehirst jumped in from the bank to help. All three died.

Children’s curiosity could get them into trouble with anything that moved. John Choppinge, a Hertford toddler, followed a gosling into a pond in the yard of his family home in April 1560 with fatal results.

One drowning in every ten involved women fetching water for cooking or washing. They died this way three times as often as men, as we might expect from their predominant role in domestic work. Wells, slippery-sided streams and rivers like the Tyne at Newcastle, where Elizabeth Garret fell in on 26 June 1560, all posed problems.

Washing linen in rivers could also prove fatal for women. And in the devastating epidemics of the late 1550s, men and women alike drowned in the attempt to slake their fevered thirst. Some were described as losing their reason in the heat of the fever, like Dorothy Cawthorn of Belton in Lincolnshire, who got out of bed between 4 and 5am on 19 October 1559 and smashed a hole in the kitchen wall so she could get out into her mistress’s hop-garden, where she drowned in a pit five-feet deep. . . .

Read the rest there. Robert Parsons, the great Tudor composer, died of drowning. Naxos posts this biographical note:

Little is known about the life of Robert Parsons. Much of his music has survived to the modern day, however, often in incomplete editions. Born in England around 1535, Parsons was appointed as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1563, a post he held until his death in 1572, when he was succeeded by William Byrd.

Parsons’ output of music was varied, and although the majority of his surviving scores are for choir, he is believed to have written a large amount of instrumental music for the Chapel Royal as well. It is the story surrounding the death of Robert Parsons that arouses great intrigue. On a cold and wet January day, Parsons fell into a swollen River Trent and drowned. Such was the upset and suspicion surrounding his death that much of his music ceased to be performed in the Chapel Royal, as musicians tried to move on and forget this tragic incident. These unfortunate circumstances may also have led to the poor maintenance of Parsons’ music over the years. The consequence of the lack of performance of Parsons’ works after his death has, in the course of time, led to this English polyphonic master being largely unrecognised and even forgotten. His vocal writing is very gifted, and he must have been well versed in composition to have access to the skills of writing music for seven part viols.

His Ave Maria, here sung by the Choir of St. John's College, Cambridge, is one of his best known works. The Cardinall's Musicke performed several of his works on their 2011 release, pictured above:

Gramophone award-winning ensemble The Cardinall’s Musick return to another master of the Renaissance, Robert Parsons. Very few records remain of the composer’s short life, and his musical output is often overlooked, perhaps in the shadow of the prolific William Byrd, his successor as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. However, his vocal writing is some of the most opulent of the period.

The Cardinall’s Musick give sublime performances of some of the composer’s most sumptuous choral works, from the remarkably sophisticated Magnificat to the dramatic O bone Jesu. As demonstrated in their previous recordings, their resonant, pure-toned singing is the perfect advocate for such exquisite polyphony. The ensemble’s seemingly effortless and magical performance of the glorious Ave Maria is the perfect conclusion to an enlightening recording.

St. Peter in Chains: Tower of London

Edmund Dudley and Richard Empson, counsellors to the late King Henry VII, were executed on August 17, 1510 and buried in the Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula (St. Peter in Chains) in the Tower of London. Henry VIII ordered their executions early in his reign.

According to the official site for the Tower as a Historic Royal Palace, St. Peter ad Vincula is:

A Tudor chapel containing monuments to residents of the Tower and its prisoners, including those executed on Tower Green.

Originally a parish church, the Chapel was incorporated into the walls of the castle during Henry III’s expansion. It has been rebuilt at least twice, once in the reign of Edward I, and then again in its present form in Henry VIII’s reign.

Three queens of England Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard and Jane Grey, and two saints of the Roman Catholic Church, Sir Thomas More and John Fischer, are buried here. Their headless bodies were buried under the nave or chancel without memorial until the 19th century when remains found in the nave were re-interred in the crypt.

The chapel also has many monuments which commemorate officers and residents of the Tower who worshipped here. It remains a place of worship for the Tower’s community of 150 or so residents.

St. Philip Howard was buried there for a time but then moved first to the Fitzalan Chapel at Arundel Castle and then to the Catholic Cathedral in the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton, renamed for him. (It was dedicated to Our Lady and St. Philip Neri; since 1973 it has been dedicated to Our Lady and St. Philip Howard).

The other chapel in the Tower is the Chapel of St. John, which was:

Part of the original construction of the White Tower begun in 1078 by William the Conqueror. The chapel was at the heart of the king’s royal and ceremonial apartments and would probably originally have been brightly painted.

The Chapel of St. John's is not only the best-preserved interior in the White Tower, but also one of the best examples of Anglo-Norman church architecture in England. Although it was probably orginally brightly painted, Henry III (1216-72) embellished it with stained glass windows representing the Virgin and Child and St. John the Evangelist, a painting of Edward the Confessor, and a figure of Christ. For much of its later history, it was used to store state records.

By tradition, it was here that King Henry VII's wife, Elizabeth of York, was laid in state after dying at the Tower in childbirth. It was also here that Henry VIII’s eldest daughter, Mary, was betrothed by proxy to Philip of Spain. St. John’s is still a royal chapel and the Queen’s Chaplain performs a series of services throughout the year.