ABSTRACT

Title of Thesis: THE ART OF MUSIC IN GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911:

A CASE FOR ROBERT CARVOR AS THE
ANONYMOUS SCOT

Debra Marion Livant Nakos, Master of Arts, 2020

Thesis directed by: Professor Barbara H. Haggh-Huglo

Department of Music

GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, the sole source of an anonymous music treatise, The Art of

Music, is among the few manuscripts to have survived the Scottish Reformation. In answer

to the puzzle of its authorship, masters of song schools in Edinburgh or Aberdeen have

been proposed. A new reading of the text places the date of its creation between 1559 and

1567 and leads to a revised profile of the author, which, as is demonstrated here, the

Scottish composer Robert Carvor (1487/8 – c. 1568) uniquely matches. Further supporting

Carvor as the author of the treatise is its inclusion of a section of Carvor’s Missa L’homme

armé and of a caricature strikingly similar to one found in the Carvor Choirbook (GB-En

MS Adv. 5.1.15), where Carvor’s compositions bear his signature. An Appendix includes

the first English translation of the rules of faburden, which are unique to The Art of Music

(f.94r-f.112r).
 THE ART OF MUSIC IN GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911:
A CASE FOR ROBERT CARVOR AS THE ANONYMOUS SCOT

By

Debra Marion Livant Nakos

Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the

University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
2020

Advisory Committee:

Professor Barbara H. Haggh-Huglo, Chair

Professor William Robin
Professor J. Lawrence Witzleben
 ProQuest Number: 27837522

All rights reserved

INFORMATION TO ALL USERS

The quality of this reproduction is dependent on the quality of the copy submitted.

In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript
and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed,
a note will indicate the deletion.

ProQuest 27837522

Published by ProQuest LLC ( 2020 ). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author.

All Rights Reserved.

This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code
Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC.

ProQuest LLC
789 East Eisenhower Parkway
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, MI 48106 - 1346
 © Copyright by

Debra Marion Livant Nakos

2020
 Dedication

To my parents, in loving memory and gratitude

ii
 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Barbara Haggh-Huglo for her inspiration, her

stimulating teaching, and the many hours she has spent patiently guiding me. Her love of

early music and scholarship is contagious.

My gratitude also goes to Dr. Thomas DeLio for his encouragement and belief that

I could return to my studies after such an extended absence.

I would also like to thank the faculty of the University of Maryland Music

Department for welcoming me and providing me with the opportunity to pursue my dream.

Lastly, I thank my family, especially my sons, for listening without complaint to

every discovery or problem, and my husband, for his unwavering love and support through

all.

iii
 Table of Contents

Dedication ........................................................................................................................... ii

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iii

Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... iv

List of Figures ..................................................................................................................... v

Abbreviations and Permissions .......................................................................................... vi

Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1

Chapter 1 The Scottish Art of Music between Destruction and Survival .......................... 7

1.1 GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911 ......................................................................................... 7

1.2 The Course of the Reformation in Scotland ....................................................... 11
1.3 Surviving Pre-Reformation Music Manuscripts ................................................ 17

Chapter 2 The Art of Music: Origin and Authorship ...................................................... 26

2.1 Locating The Art of Music’s Origin ................................................................... 26

2.2 Dating the Manuscript: Clues to the Author’s Religion and Age ..................... 29
2.3 Exploring Significant Characteristics of the Music Examples........................... 32
2.4 Linking The Art of Music and the Carvor Choirbook ........................................ 37
2.5 Proposing Candidates for Authorship of The Art of Music ................................ 45

Chapter 3 The Case for Robert Carvor ............................................................................ 49

3.1 Robert Carvor’s Biography ................................................................................ 49

3.2 Robert Carvor as the Anonymous Scot .............................................................. 57
3.3 The Survival of The Art of Music ....................................................................... 60

Chapter 4 Conclusion....................................................................................................... 66

Appendix: English Translation of the Rules of Faburden in The Art of Music ............... 69

Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 81

iv
 List of Figures

Figure 1 Map of Scotland ................................................................................................. 25

Figure 2 The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, f.102v.............................................. 27

Figure 3 “The aucht canon,” The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, f.23v................ 33

Figure 4 “The tent canon” and “Canon the levent,” The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS
4911, f.33r ............................................................................................................. 35

Figure 5 The Art of Music example, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, f.127v ............................... 38

Figure 6 The Carvor Choirbook, GB-En MS Adv. 5.1.15, f.62v ..................................... 38

Figure 7 Embellished letters from The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, ff.5r, 14r,
and 46r .................................................................................................................. 39

Figure 8 Comparison of faces in The Art of Music and the Carvor Choirbook ................ 40

Figure 9 Comparison of embellished letters ..................................................................... 41

Figure 10 Comparison of handwriting .............................................................................. 42

Figure 11 Comparison of letters ....................................................................................... 44

Figure 12 Illustration of Rule 7, Faburden Type 1, from The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add.
MS 4911, f.95r ...................................................................................................... 73

Figure 13 Example of Faburden Type 1 from The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911,
f.95v ...................................................................................................................... 74

Figure 14 Example of Faburden Type 2 from The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911,
f.103r ..................................................................................................................... 75

Figure 15 Illustration of Rule 1, Faburden Type 3, from The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add.
MS 4911, f.103v ................................................................................................... 76

Figure 16 Example of Faburden Type 3 from The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911,
f.103v .................................................................................................................... 77

Figure 17 Example of Faburden Type 3 from The Art of Music (cont.), GB-Lbl Add. MS
4911, f.104r ........................................................................................................... 78

Figure 18 Beginning of an example of Faburden Type 4 from The Art of Music, GB-Lbl
Add. MS 4911, f.104v........................................................................................... 80

v
 Abbreviations and Permissions

D-W MS 628 Helmstedt Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, MS 628

Helmstedt

GB-A MS 28 Aberdeen, University Library, MS 28

GB-En MS Adv. 5.1.15 Scone Antiphonary; Carvor Choirbook. Edinburgh,

National Library of Scotland, MS Adv. 5.1.15, digital
images in the public domain

GB-Eu MS 64 Dunkeld Antiphonary, Edinburgh, University Library, MS

64

GB-Eu MS Dk.5.14-15 St. Andrews Psalter or Wode Partbooks, Edinburgh,

University Library, Dk.5.14-15

GB-Eu MS La III. 483 St. Andrews Psalter or Wode Partbooks, Edinburgh,

(a)-(c) University Library, MS La III. 483 (a)-(c)

GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911 The Art of Music Collecit Out of All Ancient Doctouris of
Music. London, British Library, Add. MS 4911, ©British
Library, digital images used with permission

GB-Lbl Add. MS 33933 Wode Partbooks, London, British Library, Add. MS

33933

GB-WRec MS 178 Windsor, Eton College Library, MS 178

I-La MS 238 Lucca, Archivio di Stato, MS 238

IRL-Dtc MS 412 St. Andrews Psalter or Wode Partbooks, Dublin, Trinity

College Library, MS 412

US-Wgu MS 10 St. Andrews Psalter or Wode Partbooks, Washington,

D.C., Georgetown University Library, MS 10

VC-Vbc MS 14 Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS

Cappella Sistina 14

VC-Vbc MS 19 Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS

Cappella Sistina 19

vi
 Introduction

The history of sixteenth-century Scottish sacred music suffers from a lack of

sources of music and musicians’ names, and of the uneven survival of archival

documentation. In 1501, James IV of Scotland reorganized the Chapel Royal at Stirling

by establishing sixteen canonicates and six boy clerics “trained in song.” 1 Presumably,

this chapel was expected to sing polyphony regularly, but only two manuscripts of Scottish

origin, the Dowglas-Fischear Partbooks, 2 GB-Eu MS 64, and the Carvor Choirbook, GB-

En MS Adv. 5.1.15, provide us with examples of pre-Reformation sacred polyphony. The

fact that most of this repertory was composed by Continental musicians suggests that

Scottish sacred music was current with musical trends in France and the Low Countries.

Only through post-Reformation manuscripts can we learn the names of composers

with surviving compositions who were working in Scotland in the mid sixteenth century,

the period of concern of this study. The Wode Partbooks 3 are a collection of metrical psalm

tunes harmonized in four parts, composed in the early 1560s. In addition to a few English

composers, the Scottish composers represented in these partbooks include:

• John Angus (fl. 1543 – 1595) – taught at the song school in Dunfermline

• Andrew Blackhall (b. 1535 or 1536 – 1609) – Canon of the Abbey of

Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh

1
Rogers, History of the Chapel Royal, xxxii.
2
This manuscript will be referred to as the Dowglas-Fischear Partbooks except when appearing in
quotation as the Dowglas/Fischear Part-books.
3
GB-Eu MS Dk.5.14-15, GB-Eu MS La III. 483 (a)-(c), GB-Lbl Add. MS 33933, IRL-Dtc MS 412, and
US-Wgu MS 10. Each partbook contains music for a single voice.

1
 • John Buchan (fl. 1562 – 1608) – master of the song schools in Haddington and

Glasgow, and prebendary of the Chapel Royal

• Sir John Fethy (c. 1530 – 1568) – canon at the Chapel Royal, master at

Aberdeen and Edinburgh song schools

• Andrew Kemp (fl. 1560 – 1570) – master of the song school in St. Andrews

• James Lauder (c. 1535 – after 1592) – musician to Mary Queen of Scots and

King James VI.

• David Peebles (fl. 1530 – 1576) – Augustinian canon at the priory of St.

Andrews

Only one further manuscript with polyphony, in musical examples, exists from the

period of the Scottish Reformation, but it is anonymous, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911. The only

extant Scottish music treatise, it offers insight into compositional practices near the time of

the Reformation. With only these few manuscripts with polyphony by a small number of

named pre- and post-Reformation Scottish composers, and only this treatise as a witness

to the transitional period, the problems of its authorship, date, and assessment of its content

take on considerable importance.

The major scholarship on GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911 is in Judson Maynard’s two-

volume PhD dissertation, which was made available in 1961. Volume 1 includes six

chapters:

• Chapter 1 explores the history of the manuscript. Maynard traces the ownership

from Sir Francis Kynaston in 1635 through unknown hands to Sir John

Hawkins, who presented it to the British Museum in 1778. Maynard also

2
 provides a literature survey, noting references to the manuscript in a variety of

books, articles, and dissertations. As Maynard explains, the treatise was

consulted for its countering and faburden sections by the musicologists Manfred

Bukofzer, Heinrich Besseler, and Ernest Trumble.

• Chapter 2 discusses the language of the treatise as it appears in the manuscript,

explaining some idiosyncrasies of Scottish spelling and handwriting, as well as

the choices Maynard made for his transcription of the text in Volume 2. He

offers a region of origin of the text through linguistic analysis.

• Chapter 3 provides commentary on the section of the treatise on mensural

music, ff.1r-45v.

• Chapter 4 discusses the counterpoint, countering, and faburden sections of the

treatise, ff.46r-112r.

• Chapter 5 provides commentary on the final section of the treatise, concerning

proportions, ff.112v-129r.

• In his summary and conclusions, Chapter 6, Maynard explores the textual and

musical sources for the text of the treatise, and the possibility that it is

incomplete in its current form. He concludes that, because the faburden

examples were based on chants of the Sarum use, rather than the Roman use,

they represented Scottish and English practice, not Continental practice.

Maynard also casts the author as an older man trained in the Catholic church,

longing for the old church. As to the question of the purpose of the treatise,

Maynard associates the treatise with the newly-created post-Reformation song

3
 schools, dating it to 1579 and offering the masters of the Edinburgh or Aberdeen

song schools as possible authors.

Volume 2 of Maynard’s dissertation contains his edition of the entire treatise in its

original Scots. Maynard was able to find attributions for approximately 20 percent of the

music examples. The majority of these were excerpted from the late fifteenth and early

sixteenth century works of leading composers from the Low Countries and France. Also

represented were works by Scottish and English composers of the sixteenth century, as

well as late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth-century Italian and German theorists. In 1967,

Maynard published an English translation of the section on countering, ff.85-93.

In 2000, a posthumous collection of chapters based on the dissertation, previous

publications, and unpublished notes of Isobel Preece was published. 4 Included were

chapters on the biography of Robert Carvor, 5 the physical characteristics and the contents

of the Carvor Choirbook, GB-En MS Adv. 5.1.15, and the “Scottish Anonymous,” the latter

first published in 1988. There, Preece explored a possible place of origin for the treatise,

examining historical events which occurred in the only year appearing in the treatise,

1558. 6 Since Preece’s assessments, there has been no further work on the Carvor

Choirbook or on the treatise.

The life of Robert Carvor has been the subject of more recent publications. In 1988,

Preece published an article detailing the life of Carvor, which subsequently appeared in the

4
Preece, Edwards, and Munro, Our Awin Scottis Use.
5
The spelling ‘Carvor’ is used throughout this thesis except where it appears in a quote as ‘Carver.’
6
Preece, “A Note on ‘Scottish Anonymous.’”

4
2000 collection. 7 Further information came to light in 1991, when mention of Carvor was

found in the Aberdeen City Archive, which spawned further discussion of Carvor’s

possible Chapel Royal connection. 8 Most recently, in 2005, D. James Ross published a

further account of Carvor’s life, using newly discovered documents dating from 1538 –

1566 and relating to Scone Abbey that are now kept at the Mansfield Muniments at Scone

Palace and in the National Archives of Scotland, which contain more than 50 references to

Carvor. 9

In the chapters to follow, I argue that Robert Carvor (1487/8 – 1568 or later) should

be considered the probable author of The Art of Music. In chapter one, I present the contents

of GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911 and place it in the context of the history of the Reformation in

Scotland and surviving manuscripts. In chapter two, I present facets of the treatise which

provide insight into the character of its author. I also offer visual and musical evidence

associating GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911 and the Carvor Choirbook. In chapter three, I deduce

that Carvor is the author of the treatise, based on the common features of decoration and

some common content between the treatise and the Carvor Choirbook, as well as the

alignment of what is known of Carvor’s biography with the profile I have developed from

my analysis of the treatise. In making my arguments, I situate the treatise in the context of

the Scottish Reformation and surviving manuscripts, suggesting that it might have been

kept at Stirling, where Carvor would have had access to a library with the music treatises

that Maynard had identified as some of his sources, and resituate Robert Carvor’s known

7
Preece, “Towards a Biography of Robert Carvor.”
8
See Ross, “New Roots,” Bowers, “Robert Carver,” and Ross, “Robert Carvor in Stirling,”
9
Ross, “Robert Carver, Canon of Scone.”

5
biography as it would relate to his composition of the treatise and the copying of its sole

manuscript source, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911.

6
 Chapter 1 The Scottish Art of Music between Destruction and Survival

1.1 GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911

The British Library holds in its collection Additional MS 4911, consisting of 129

folios and bearing the title, “The Art of Music Collecit Out of All Ancient Doctouris of

Music.” 10 The treatise consists of three books, concerning mensural music (f.1-f.112v),

counterpoint (f.46-f112), and mensural music (f.112v-f.129). As the title implies, much of

the material presented is compiled from other sources. In 1961 Maynard found that much

of the text was translated from the works of Andreas Ornithoparchus (b. c. 1490), Sebald

Heyden (1499 – 1561), and Franchinus Gaffurius (1451 – 1522). Material from Nicolaus

Wollick (c. 1480 – after 1541), Hermann Finck (1527 – 1558), Georg Rhau (1488 – 1548),

Martin Agricola (1486 – 1556), and Nikolaus Listenius (b. c. 1510) is also included. In

contrast, Maynard states that the discussions of countering and faburden found in this

treatise are “unique in music literature.” 11 However, faburden and gymel techniques are

presented in two other known treatises, but only in these two, to our knowledge, and neither

is cited in The Art of Music. As Eulmee Park explains, Guilielmus Monachus’ De Preceptis

artis musicae, dating from the end of the fifteenth century, 12 splits the topic of “gymel,”

which he attributes to the English, between chapters IV and VI, and discusses

10
The Art of Music Collecit Out of All Ancient Doctouris of Music, GB-Lbl-Add MS 4911, British Library.
https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_4911&index=0
11
Maynard, “An Anonymous Scottish Treatise,” Vol.1, 159.
12
Park, “De Preceptis Artis Musicae,” 3.

7
“faulxbordon” in chapter VI. 13 “Gymel” is only discussed in passing by the Anonymous

of Tegernsee II. 14 Because of the rarity of surviving theoretical writings on countering and

faburden techniques, The Art of Music has been a significant resource for musicologists

such as Manfred F. Bukofzer, Brian Trowell, Ernest Trumble, and, more recently, Jessica

Lynn Chisholm in their study of the development of these techniques. 15 Maynard has

published an English translation of the Countering section, ff.85r-93r. 16 An English

translation of the types and rules of faburden set forth in The Art of Music (ff.94r-112r),

“Heir Beginnis Faburdun,” is provided in the Appendix. Maynard provides a detailed

analysis of the examples accompanying the faburden section of the treatise. He also

compares the rules specified by Monachus with those found in The Art of Music. 17

The music examples in The Art of Music are taken from a wide range of sources,

often differing from those from which the accompanying text is derived. Composers

represented hail from Scotland, England, and the Continent, and include Andrew Blackhall

(1535 or 1536 – 1609), Robert Fayrfax (1464 – 1521), Henricus Isaac (c. 1450-55 – 1517),

Robert Johnson (c. 1500 – c. 1560), Josquin des Prez (c. 1450-55 – 1521), Pierre de La

Rue (c. 1452 – 1518), Jean Mouton (before 1459 – 1522), Jacob Obrecht (1457/8 – 1505),

13
Park, “De Preceptis Artis Musicae,” 322. Cf. Bernhard, ed., Bower, trans., Lexicon musicum latinum
medii aevi, s.v. “gymel” and “faulxbordon”: http://woerterbuchnetz.de/cgi-
bin/WBNetz/wbgui_py?sigle=LmL Consulted April 3, 2020.
14
Bernhard, ed., Bower, trans., Lexicon musicum latinum medii aevi, s.v. “gymel”:
http://woerterbuchnetz.de/cgi-bin/WBNetz/wbgui_py?sigle=LmL Consulted April 3, 2020
15
See Bukofzer,“Fauxbourdon Revisited,” Trowell, “Faburden and Fauxbourdon,” Trumble, “Authentic
and Spurious Faburden,” and Chisholm, “Upon the Square.”
16
Maynard, “Heir Beginnis Countering.”
17
Maynard, “An Anonymous Scottish Treatise,” Vol.1, 128-46.

8
Jean de Ockeghem (c. 1410 – 1497), and Thomas Tallis (c. 1505 – 1585). 18 Maynard

proposes that some of the examples may have been composed by the author of the

treatise. 19

Maynard cites three main sources for the text of The Art of Music: Gaffurius’

Practica musice (1496), Heyden’s De arte canendi (1537), and Ornithoparchus’ Musice

active micrologus (1517). He notes that the organization of the material closely

corresponds to that of the last three books of Practica musice, with The Art of Music’s three

books mirroring Practica musice’s books two through four. Often, subject order within

the chapters is similar. Maynard provides a detailed comparison of topics between the two

works. 20 The Art of Music introduces its subjects by question (e.g. “Tactus quhat is it? “21),

in a manner similar to one of its sources, De arte canendi.

The Art of Music consistently refers to its sections in terms of both ‘books’ (three)

and ‘parts of music’ (four), leading Maynard to explore the possibility that there may have

been a fourth book planned or missing. 22 The subject of book one is referred to as the

second part of music: “Heir endis the first part of this buik, the secund part of music, and

followis the thrid part with the secund buik.” 23 For example, the second book, similarly,

refers to its contents as the third part of music: “In this libell consequent the proces of the

18
Maynard, “An Anonymous Scottish Treatise,” Vol.2, iv-xi.
19
Ibid., Vol.1, 159.
20
Ibid., Vol.1, 159-64, Table 7.
21
The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, f.24v.
22
Maynard, “An Anonymous Scottish Treatise,” Vol.1, 166-67.
23
The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, f.45r.

9
secund buik and the thrid part of music ordorlie is extendit.” 24 The terminology becomes

confused at the end of book two: “Heir endis thrid buik of music mensurall and follis the

four buik of proporcionis.” 25 The situation is further clouded by a reference to a first book

of simple music on f.123v: “Dyverss mudis ar proporcionat quhilk ar conte in the levnt

chaiptour of the first buk of sympill music...” This sentence is not simply a transcription

from one of the source treatises, since Maynard notes that the subject does not match the

eleventh chapter of any of those used for The Art of Music. 26 While the numbering may

relate to an as yet unidentified further source, these inconsistencies may arise from author

confusion, not a missing book, given that the text of The Art of Music is predominantly

copied from other sources.

Without attribution and written in vernacular Scottish, the music treatise in GB-Lbl

Add. MS 4911 is commonly referred to as the work of the “Scottish Anonymous.” The

mystery of its origin invites closer scrutiny. Indeed, as will be demonstrated here, the

possible motivation for the creation of this treatise, as well as a potential author, can be

discerned through acquaintance with the events of its time, a period of upheaval in Scottish

history associated with the Reformation, a new reading of the treatise, and its comparison

with the Carvor Choirbook.

24
The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, f.46r.
25
Ibid., f.112r.
26
Maynard, “An Anonymous Scottish Treatise,” Vol.1, 166.

10
 1.2 The Course of the Reformation in Scotland

Scotland has a long history of invasion with its attendant ruin. Not until the

sixteenth-century, however, did the country witness such a thorough destruction of its

cultural artifacts. This was accomplished, not by an invading army, but by the systematic

efforts of its own kinsmen to eradicate Catholicism.

The Reformation arrived in Scotland gradually at first. The first indication that

Protestant ideas had made their way to Scotland can be found in an act of the Scottish

Parliament of 1525 forbidding the import and circulation of Lutheran works. 27 The

influence of Lutheran thought continued to make inroads, despite that act of Parliament.

Gordon Donaldson notes that Lutheranism was spreading beyond small groups of

intellectuals, demonstrated by incidents “such as the decapitating of an image of the

Blessed Virgin in the church of the Greyfriars of Ayr in 1533 and the hanging of an image

of St. Francis in 1537.” 28 The year 1541 saw acts of Parliament against heresy and the

‘casting down’ of images. 29 David McRoberts describes what is meant by the phrase ‘cast

down,’ which is frequently found in chronicles of the period:

The religious house is attacked; its altars, pictures, statues, stalls, vestments, books, and
ornamental structure of tombs (and sometimes the actual graves) and also windows
(presumably because they display images) are destroyed. Doors, screens and wooden
furnishings are broken up to provide fuel for the bonfire in the kirkyard. Altar vessels
and domestic furnishings are looted. 30

27
Taylor, “The Conflicting Doctrines,” 245.
28
Donaldson, The Scottish Reformation, 29.
29
Ibid., 30.
30
McRoberts, “Material Destruction,” 420.

11
Only two years later, with negotiations underway to marry the infant Princess Mary to

Prince Edward of England, the Scottish government passed an act allowing possession of

Scripture in Scots and English. 31

Attempts were made at reform within the Scottish Catholic Church as its

administration became less subject to Rome and more to royal control. One of the most

noted abuses of the Catholic Church hierarchy was King James V of Scotland’s

appointment of four of his illegitimate infant sons to head the richest houses during the

1530s, with the revenues passing directly to the crown. 32 By 1547, the holding of a

‘benefice’ in the Scottish Catholic Church became hereditary. 33

At the same time, Protestant family and social networks developed. The extent of

this growing network was demonstrated when, in 1555, Protestant leaders arranged a

preaching tour for John Knox (c. 1514 – 1572), conducted in lairds’ and merchants’

houses. 34 From about 1555 onward, regular Protestant congregations formed ‘privy kirks’

in the towns of Edinburgh, St. Andrews, Dundee, Perth, Brechin, Montrose, Stirling,

Linlithgow, Ayr, and others. 35 As ‘privy kirks’ evolved, they developed organizational

structures to elect preachers and appoint elders and deacons. Alec Ryrie reports that these

‘privy kirks’ were more than prayer or study groups, they formed a “congregation with all

the attributes of a self-regulating Reformed church, but which happens to operate in

31
Donaldson, The Scottish Reformation, 30.
32
Ryrie, The Origins of the Scottish Reformation, 14.
33
Donaldson, The Scottish Reformation, 37.
34
Dawson, Scotland Re-formed, 188.
35
Donaldson, The Scottish Reformation, 49.

12
secret.” 36 However, their organization was “more diverse, more disorganized, and more

doctrinally untidy” 37 than the Protestant Church that took shape in Scotland after 1560. So,

we find that as the old church system was crumbling, a new system had “arisen alongside

it, and it would not be too much to say that by the end of 1559 there were already two

ecclesiastical structures in Scotland.” 38

A group of Protestant Scottish noblemen rebelled against the Queen Regent, Mary

of Guise. Called the Lords (Lairds) of the Congregation, their early members included the

fourth Earl of Argyll, the fourth Earl of Glencairn, the fourth Earl of Morton, Lord Lorne,

and Lord John Erskine. 39 The Lords of the Congregation and their followers would spread

the reformation by traveling in force around the country, assisting local Protestants in “the

task of ‘cleansing’ the churches and instituting reformed worship.” 40 While they would

play a pivotal role in bringing about reform, the name most associated with Scotland’s

transformation into a Protestant nation was Knox.

Heartened by the accession of Queen Elizabeth I to the English throne in 1558 and

the repatriation of exiled English Protestants, Knox left exile in Geneva. His arrival in

Leith, the port of Edinburgh, on May 2 marked the beginning of a period of violence and

devastation that would eradicate nearly all physical traces of Catholicism in Scotland over

the following years. Knox made his way to Perth, where, on May 11, his sermon at St.

36
Ryrie, “Congregations, Conventicles and the Nature of Early Scottish Protestantism,” 46.
37
Ibid., 48.
38
Donaldson, The Scottish Reformation, 51.
39
Dawson, “Lords of the Congregation.”
40
Dawson, Scotland Re-formed, 205.

13
John’s Kirk ignited the wave of destruction that spread rapidly across the region. After the

service, the crowd cast down St. John’s Kirk, then moved on to the Blackfriars (Dominican)

and Greyfriars (Franciscan) churches and monasteries, and then the Carthusian

monastery. 41 The destruction spread to the Cistercian nuns at Elcho near Perth, as well as

the Carmelite friars at Tullilum. After Perth, the Protestants persuaded Lord James Stewart

and Argyll to abandon the Queen Regent and join the Lords of the Congregation,

weakening Mary of Guise’s power. 42 From Perth, the vandalism continued in Fife,

Anstruther, and on to St. Andrews. Knox’s sermon in St. Andrews again triggered

destruction: the churches, Blackfriars and Greyfriars monasteries, the cathedral, and the

college chapels, including the Bishop’s chapel of St. Salvator, were all ransacked. 43 Even

during a truce, the Abbey of Lundores was destroyed. Scone was the next target, where

the abbey and other religious houses were burned to the ground. 44

Argyll and Lord James next marched south, taking the town of Stirling after a secret

overnight march. The next three days were spent overthrowing the monasteries and

purging the other churches “within and about the town, including … the abbey of

Cambuskenneth.” 45 Cambuskenneth, an Augustinian Abbey 1.5 miles from Stirling by

ferry across the Forth, was destroyed despite its storied history. 46 There the barons swore

41
McRoberts, “Material Destruction,” 430.
42
Dawson, Scotland Re-formed, 205.
43
McRoberts, “Material Destruction,” 430.
44
Anonymous, Sconiana, 6.
45
McRoberts, “Material Destruction” 433.
46
Walcott, Scoti-Monasticon, 300.

14
to defend the title of Robert Bruce, and the first Scottish Parliament assembled. Edward I

visited twice and Richard II, prisoner of Stirling Castle, probably worshipped there. James

II and Queen Margaret of Denmark were buried there. The three-day raid ended Catholic

worship in Stirling. Protestant ministry would be formally established in Stirling in

October 1560, with an order in November of that year prohibiting the taking of stones

belonging to the town – presumably from dismantled friaries. 47 The Chapel Royal was not

attacked at this point, but would be purged in 1567 after Queen Mary’s abdication. 48

The Lords of the Congregation and their army moved on to Edinburgh, destroying

friaries and churches as they went. In Edinburgh, the Blackfriars and Grayfriars houses

were cast down, altars and images in St. Giles and Kirk o’ Field were destroyed and burned,

as were those at Holyrood Abbey and the Kirk of Leith. Although a truce was attempted

at Leith on July 24, the “orgy of destruction went on, nevertheless, during the remainder

of that year,” 49 sweeping westward and then north to Aberdeen.

The Great Council met on April 29, 1560, and commissioned the Protestant

ministers to put into writing their view of the reformation of religion. 50 Their report formed

the basis of the First Book of Discipline, within which was a call to destroy all idolatry.

The third head touching the abolishing of Idolatrie.

As We require Christ Jesus to be truly preached, and his holy Sacraments rightly
ministred, so can not cease to require Idolatry, with all monuments and places of

47
Slonosky, “Burgh Government,” 55.
48
McRoberts, “Material Destruction,” 433, N82.
49
Ibid., 434.
50
Whytock, Continental Calvinian Influences, 13.

15
 the same, as Abbeyes, Monkeries, Frieries, Nonries, Chappels, Chanteries,
Cathedrall Churches, Chanonries, Colledges, others then presently are Parish
Churches or Schooles, to be utterly suppressed in all bounds and places of the
Realme (except onely Palaces, Mansions, and dwelling places adjacent thereto,
with Orchards and Yards of the same) as also that idolatrie may be removed from
the presence of all persons of what estate or condition that ever they be within this
Realme.
For let your Honours assuredly be perswaded, that where idolatry is maintained, or
permitted, where it may be suppressed that there shall Gods wrath raigne, not onely
upon the blind and obstinate idolater, but also the negligent sufferers, especially if
God have armed their hands with power to suppress such abhomination.
By idolatry we understand, the Masse, invocation of Saints, adoration of images,
and the keeping and retaining of the same. And finally all honouring of God, not
conteined in his holy word. 51

After the Queen Regent died on June 10, 1560, power transferred to the Protestants

who, being more focused on eradicating Catholicism than establishing Protestantism,52

continued the destruction. After 1560, “the greater buildings, cathedrals, abbeys and

priories are unroofed and, in many cases, the actual fabric is extensively damaged.” By

about 1580, “almost all of the larger churches and (especially in the east-central lowlands)

a proportion of parish churches” 53 were in complete or partial ruin. Arthur Herman

summarizes the devastation:

He [John Knox] and his followers scoured away not only Scottish Catholicism but
all its physical manifestations, from monasteries and bishops and clerical vestments
to holy relics and market-square crosses. They smashed stained-glass windows and
saints’ statues, ripped out choir stalls and roodscreens, and overturned altars. All
these symbols of a centuries-old tradition of religious culture, which we would call
great works of art, were for Knox marks of “idolatry” and “the synagogue of Satan,”
as he called the Roman Catholic Church. 54

51
Church of Scotland, The First and Second Booke of Discipline, 26–27.
52
Ross, Musick Fyne, 84.
53
McRoberts, “Material Destruction,” 429.
54
Herman, How the Scots Invented the Modern World, 16.

16
 1.3 Surviving Pre-Reformation Music Manuscripts

Ironically, it was an avowed reformer who was responsible for providing some clue

as to what may have been lost in the Reformation and rescuing one of the great music

treasures of Scotland. He was the Lutheran, Matthias Flacius Illyricus (1520 – 1575), who

was born in what is now Croatia and moved to Wittenberg in 1541. A disciple of Luther,

he became professor of Hebrew at Wittenberg at age 24. In 1549 he moved to Magdeburg

and became leader of the “gnesio- (or ultra-) Lutheran movement.” 55 Flacius planned a

two-part church history consisting of a compilation of sources testifying to the continued

resistance of the true Catholic Church and a Protestant church history. He sent emissaries,

the so-called “Centurions of Magdeburg,” to church libraries across Europe to collect

documents for this project, which was published as Ecclesiastica historia, integram

Ecclesiae Christi ideam ... secundum singulas Centurias, perspicuo ordine complectens ...

ex vetustissimis historicis ...congesta: Per aliquot studiosos et pios viros in urbe

Magdeburgica (1559–1574).

One of Flacius’s scouts, Marcus Wagner, travelled to Scotland, arriving at St.

Andrews in 1553. In Scotland, he visited several abbeys including those in Dundee, Perth,

Scone, and Edinburgh. 56 One significant Scottish manuscript in the Herzog August Library

in Wolfenbüttel that was brought to Flacius by Wagner is the “Magnus Liber Organi”

known as “W1,” D-W MS 628 Helmstedt, which apparently joined the collection through

the sale of Flacius’s library in 1597. It is associated with St. Andrews by the inscription

on folio 56r which reads: “liber monasterii s. Andree in Scocia.” Edward Roesner concludes

55
Lyon, “Baudouin, Flacius, and the Plan for the Magdeburg Centuries,” 257.
56
Baxter, An Old St. Andrews Music Book, x.

17
that W1 was prepared for St. Andrews in the early fourteenth century. 57 The significance of

other Scottish manuscripts collect by Wagner is not fully known. He reported that, on his

return from Scotland, he left several “goodly volumes” in Copenhagen. These were

presumably lost when the royal library was destroyed by fire in 1728. 58

Wagner described finding great libraries in Edinburgh and in the monasteries of

Scone, Cambuskenneth, Coupar Angus, and St. Andrews. 59 He praised the books he found,

claiming that “neither Germany, Italy nor Denmark can boast of such manuscripts as are

to be found at Scone, Cambuskenneth, Edinburgh, and St. Andrews,” while noting that the

conditions of the libraries revealed neglect. James Baxter notes that those now in

Wolfenbüttel all show signs of decay and many are badly damp-stained. 60 McRoberts

posits that several thousand liturgical books may have existed in Scotland before the

Reformation, with perhaps less than 200 surviving, as whole libraries were thrown into the

streets and burned. 61 Although it is unknown precisely what was lost, an 1807 account of

the history of Scone speaks of its destruction on June 27, 1559:

This abbacy, with other religious houses at Scone, were burnt to the ground …
many valuable historical documents were destroyed throughout the kingdom; those
committed to the flames at Scone were particularly important. 62

57
Roesner, “The Manuscript Wolfenbüttel,” Vol.1, 145.
58
Baxter, An Old St. Andrews Music Book, xi.
59
McRoberts, “Material Destruction,” 458.
60
Baxter, Copiale Prioratus Sanctiandree, xxix.
61
McRoberts, “Material Destruction,” 458.
62
Anonymous, Sconiana, 6.

18
The purge continued for decades. That the choirbook 63 of the composer Robert Carvor

(1487/8 – c. 1568) remained safe after his death is extraordinary. Archbishop Spottiswoode

reports that he, himself, removed and burned popish copes, chalices, pictures, and more,

from Abbot Gilbert Brown’s abbey lodgings in 1609, 50 years after Knox’s return to

Scotland. 64

Several fragments of ecclesiastical music survived the Reformation in Scotland.

Among them are four leaves of plainsong from the “Inchcolm Antiphoner.” 65 Dating from

around 1340, the fragments contain parts of services for the feasts of St. Columba and

Corpus Christi.66 The fifteenth-century “Inverness Fragments,” Fort Augustus, Scotland,

Fort Augustus Abbey, Archives, MS A.1, originally formed the binding material of a

sixteenth-century manuscript with Regiam Majestate, a comprehensive digest of Scottish

law. Along with music for Lent and Holy Week, the fragments include “six polyphonic

faburden settings of the Vesper psalm Laudate pueri Dominum,” which was sung during

the procession to the font at Second Vespers on Easter Sunday. The faburden settings are

thought to come from a parish school. 67

63
GB-En Adv. 5.1.15. See Preece, Edwards, and Munro, Our Awin Scottis Use.
64
McRoberts, “Material Destruction,” 458.
65
Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections Repository, MS 211/IV. MS 211 is comprised of
several fragments of possible Scottish origin dating from the 9th–15th centuries.
66
Fragment of the Inchcolm Antiphoner, MS 211/IV. Digital image at: The University of Edinburgh
Archives Online, archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/2/archival_objects/168668. Accessed January
22, 2020.
67
Allenson, “The Inverness Fragments,” 1–2.

19
 A more complete surviving manuscript is the “Dunkeld Antiphonary,” of which

five of the original set of six partbooks reside in the collection of the Edinburgh University

Library, GB-Eu 64. Ross makes the case that “Dunkeld” is a mis-reading of the Latin

contraction of “Lincluden,” a collegiate church some 90 miles south of Stirling with ties to

the Scottish Chapel Royal. 68 He proposes that the work may better be described as

“Dowglas/Fischear Part-books,” in reference to an inscription in the manuscript,

“ROBERT DOWGLAS with my hand at the pen – William Fischear.” 69 In support of the

association with Lincluden, it is noteworthy that Robert Douglas became Provost of

Lincluden in 1547. Ross dates the manuscript to the early 1550s and notes that the contents

represent the current Scottish musical taste for “tautness of phrase.” 70 Its contents include

nineteen motets, a fragment of a mass by Thomas Ashwell (c. 1478 – after 1518) and two

anonymous masses, Missa Felix namque and Missa Cantate Domino. Most of the motets

have been identified, and include works by Pierre Certon (d. 1572), Claudin de Sermisy (c.

1490 – 1562), Jacquet of Mantua (1483 – 1559), Josquin, Johannes Lupi (c. 1506 – 1539),

Philip Van Wilder (c. 1500 – 1553), and Adrian Willaert (c. 1490 – 1562). The texts of

the motets are “mainly Mass propers for Marian and Petrine feasts.” 71

The authorship of the two anonymous Masses in the Dowglas-Fischear Partbooks

has been disputed. Ross suggested that the anonymous Missa Felix namque exhibited

68
Ross, “Robert Carver, Canon of Scone,” 98. Ross describes the Collegiate Church of Lincluden as “in
1506, had been subordinated to the Chapel Royal.” Documents signed at the College of Lincluden
included Bishop David Arnot’s signature.
69
Ross, Musick Fyne, 75–76.
70
Ibid., 76.
71
Warwick, “Dunkeld Music Book: Chapter 2.” The Dunkeld Music Book was the subject of Warwick’s
1998 Masters’ Thesis at the University of Surrey.

20
stylistic similarities to the mature work of David Peebles, but also found similarities

between it and the anonymous Missa Cantate Domino. 72 Ross also observed a similarity

between the latter and another Carvor mass, writing “such are the similarities in style and

even in material between Carver’s Mass Fera pessima and the anonymous Mass Cantate

Domino in the Dowglas-Fischear Partbooks, that there seems little doubt that it too is the

work of Robert Carver.” 73 Kenneth Elliott also contends that the Missa Cantate Domino,

is directly related to Carvor’s five-part Missa Fera pessima, because it shares thematic

material with it, but includes the former as an anonymous mass in his edition of Carvor’s

works. 74

Perhaps the most impressive collection to survive can be found in the National

Library of Scotland’s GB-En MS Adv. 5.1.15, a manuscript referred to as the “Carvor

Choirbook.” 75 It consists of 180 leaves, seven pairs of which are stuck together (6/7, 15/16,

36/37, 51/52, 69/70, 108/109, and 135/136). In 1950, Denis Stevens made an inventory of

the unfoliated manuscript, which was bound in 1957. 76 Along with Stevens’s study, the

manuscript was the subject of a 1980 Ph.D. dissertation by Isobel Woods [Preece] and of

72
Ross, Musick Fyne, 77.
73
Ibid., 54.
74
Carvor, The Complete Works of Robert Carver, ed. Elliott. Fera pessima is a responsory with Cantus ID
007109.

Also referred to as the “Scone Antiphonary,” although it is not an antiphoner. A digital image of GB-En
75

MS Adv. 5.1.15 is available at https://www.diamm.ac.uk/sources/1757/#/

76
Stevens, “The Manuscript Edinburgh,” 155–56. A digital copy of the manuscript is available at DIAMM
(the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music) diamm.ac.uk.

21
her posthumous book published in 2000. 77 Ross analyzed Carvor’s works, 78 and a

transcription of them by Elliott is available. 79

Preece’s study of the watermarks suggests that the paper originated in the late

fifteenth century in Burgundian land now in Northern France. 80 With Scotland actively

trading with the Low Countries, one cannot determine whether the paper was acquired on

the Continent or as an import in Scotland. Opinions as to the nature of the handwriting

vary. Elliott concluded the entire Choirbook was the work of a single person, with three

distinct forms of the same handwriting. 81 Preece finds five discernible types of

handwriting, however, which she labels A-E: she notes four are similar, but the fifth, E,

appears completely different. Preece also discusses the caricatures. She notes that all

appear in the sections written in handwriting C, and are of three types: with pointed ears,

with leaves at the back of the drawings of heads, and with neither ears nor leaves. Analysis

of hair and clothing in the drawings suggests a style from northwest Europe dating from

the early sixteenth century. 82

The Carvor Choirbook contains 24 compositions: nine masses, nine motets, and

six settings of the Magnificat. Seven of the works have missing folio(s), and because they

77
Preece, Edwards, and Munro, Our Awin Scottis Use.
78
Ross, Music Fyne.
79
Carvor, The Complete Works of Robert Carver, ed. Elliott.
80
Preece, “The Physical Characteristics of the Carvor Choirbook,” 131.
81
Elliott, “The Carver Choir-book,” 354.
82
Preece, “The Physical Characteristics of the Carvor Choirbook,” 139, 142, 144.

22
are the only extant copies of these pieces, they are impossible to reconstruct. 83 Fifteen

compositions are unidentified, including two Masses, four Magnificats, five motets, and

various fragments. 84 The Carvor Choirbook contains three works in common with the Eton

Choirbook (GB-WRec MS 178), the latter which dates from a few years prior to the Carvor

Choirbook. 85 Most significantly, the only known compositions signed by Robert Carvor

are found in the Choirbook: five masses and two motets.

English composers represented in the Choirbook are John Nesbet (d. 1488)

(Magnificat), Walter Lambe (c. 1450 – c. 1504) (Magnificat), William Cornyshe (d. 1523)

(Salve regina), and Robert Fayrfax (1464 – 1521) (Eterne laudis fillum and Ave Deis patris

filiai). Apart from the Carvor Choirbook, these works can only be found in English

sources. 86 Preece explores ways in which Carvor may have acquired these English pieces.

One way may have been through Sir John Clerk alias “Inglisman,” an Augustinian friar.

Preece discovered that he is recorded as a chaplain to the altar of the Holy Blood in Stirling

in August 1502, and described as a canon of the Abbey of Cambuskenneth in May 1531

and as Prior of Scone in November 1544. 87 Another source may have been English

musicians travelling with Princess Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII, when she

arrived in Scotland in 1503 to marry King James IV. 88

83
Stevens, “The Manuscript Edinburgh,” 158.
84
Preece, “The Physical Characteristics of the Carvor Choirbook,” 130.
85
Stevens, “The Manuscript Edinburgh,” 158–59. Grove Online, “Sources, MS, IX, 19”, places the copy
date for the Eton Choirbook as 1490 – 1502.
86
Preece, “The Contents of the Carvor Choirbook,” 152.
87
Preece, “Towards a Bibliography of Robert Carvor,” 124.
88
Preece, “The Contents of the Carvor Choirbook,” 154.

23
 The Choirbook includes Du Fay’s Missa L’homme armé, which can also be found

in two Vatican manuscripts: VC-Vbv, Cappella Sistina MS 14 and MS 49 and I-La MS

238. Preece notes that Alejandro Planchart suggested that it could have been brought to

England by John Hothby and would then have arrived in Scotland with the other English

compositions. She notes that it may also have arrived through direct contacts between

Scotland and England. 89 Again Sir John Clerk, chaplain of the altar of the Holy Blood in

Stirling, may provide a link. The relic of the Holy Blood was in Bruges, where Du Fay

had a canonicate. Many Burgundian festivities were held in Bruges, including a wedding

and meeting of the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1468. 90 Another possibility is that it may

have been acquired by Carvor himself during his stay in the Low Countries as a student at

the University of Leuven in 1503. What is especially noteworthy about the appearance of

Du Fay’s mass in the Choirbook is that, apart from Carvor’s own works, it is the only piece

with a composer’s name attached to it. Preece believes that the work had special meaning

for Carvor and suggests that he “had been in contact with a group of people for whom

Dufay was still a venerable memory.” 91

89
Preece, “The Contents of the Carvor Choirbook,”, 155.
90
Barbara Haggh-Huglo, private communication, February 3, 2020.
91
Preece, “The Contents of the Carvor Choirbook,” 156.

24
Figure 1 Map of Scotland

25
 Chapter 2 The Art of Music: Origin and Authorship

2.1 Locating The Art of Music’s Origin

The most extensive research on The Art of Music was undertaken by Maynard. 92

Along with providing commentary on the theoretical and musical content, Maynard

explored the possible location, date, and authorship of the treatise.

Maynard consulted with Harold Whitehall 93 for assistance with linguistic analysis,

which determined that The Art of Music was written in a “Scots dialect” spoken as far south

as mid-Yorkshire. Comparison of the treatise with excerpts of burgh records of the middle

and later sixteenth century from various towns in Scotland confirmed that the spelling

matched the Scots dialect falling within the St. Andrews – Edinburgh area. He concludes

that The Art of Music originated in an area around the Firth of Forth, encompassing the

region between St. Andrews and Edinburgh, where the same dialect was spoken (see Figure

1 above), with Edinburgh most likely, 94 but mentions that Elliott finds the language more

related to the dialect of the area around Aberdeen. 95

92
Maynard, “An Anonymous Scottish Treatise.”
93
Harold Whitehall (1905 – 1986) was a professor at Indiana University 1941 – 1986, serving as
department chair 1949 – 1959. He was also Linguistic Director, dictionary division World Public
Company, Cleveland, 1941 – 1951, and Linguistic and Etymological Editor New World Dictionary, 1951,
1953.
94
Maynard, “An Anonymous Scottish Treatise,” Vol.1, 19.
95
Ibid., Vol.1, 172.

26
Figure 2 The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, f.102v

A single date appears in the manuscript within the text in GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911,

f.102v (see Figure 2). It reads:

Of the quhilk aucht tounis, the choristeris ar all expert and dayly dois use the samyn
in kirkis of God throu[gh]out all Christianytie except the reallm of Scottland send
the yeir of God ane thousand fyve hundret fyvftie and aucht yeiris. Theirfoir, to
draw tham heir at mair lenth it is nocht expedient because thay ar nocht usit,
th[air]for I will proceid.
Concerning the eight tones, the choristers are all expert and daily use the same in
churches of God throughout all Christianity except the realm of Scotland since the
year of God one thousand five hundred fifty and eight years. Therefore, to draw
them here at more length is not expedient because they are not used, therefore I will
proceed.

This statement fixes the earliest possible date of the creation of the treatise in 1558. In an

effort to identify a possible town for the treatise’s origin, Preece searched for significant

events in the region that year. One such event took place in Edinburgh on September 1,

when St. Giles Cathedral celebrated its patron saint’s day. During the procession, attended

by the Queen Regent and the prominent leaders of the Church, a riot broke out and the

27
statue of St. Giles was destroyed. 96 Given this event, Preece, like Maynard, favors an

Edinburgh origin within the dialect region. 97

One could interpret the passage on f.102v as indicating that 1558 was the last year

before a significant change. The St. Giles incident that Preece noted appears to be only

one in an escalating pattern of violence, rather than a seminal event. For example, in

autumn 1556 in Edinburgh, images of the Holy Trinity, Our Lady, and St. Francis were

smashed, 98 and before the 1558 St. Giles Day festivities, a statue of St. Giles had been

“drowned in North Loch (and) after burnt.” 99 However, only in 1559 would events force

a change in religious observances. With the whole region in upheaval that year, the date

in the treatise may not be of much assistance in pinpointing a specific town, but it certainly

supports Maynard’s contention that, based on linguistic indicators, it was a product of the

region surrounding the Firth of Forth. McRoberts notes that the “immemorial round of

public monastic prayer ceased in the border abbeys either in July 1559, or later, as a result

of the legislation of August 1560.” 100 One can conclude this to be the circumstance

referred to by the manuscript passage.

96
Knox and Laing, The Works of John Knox, I, Appendix XV, 560.
97
Preece, “A Note on ‘Scottish Anonymous,’” 198.
98
McRoberts, “Material Destruction,” 428.
99
Ibid., 428.
100
Ibid., 448.

28
 2.2 Dating the Manuscript: Clues to the Author’s Religion and Age

The text of the manuscript refers to students in several places, leading Maynard to

conclude that it may have been written for singing schools. Although, as Maynard notes,

the structure of The Art of Music includes sections on countering and faburden that are not

present in Gaffurius’s Practica Music, it is noteworthy that they were part of the curriculum

for training choristers. Pre-Reformation skills taught in song schools could include

plainsong, pricksong, figuration, faburden, descant, square-note, counter, and organ.

Although not every school taught every subject, Jane Flynn notes that the skills are always

listed in the same order, which appears to indicate a progression of degree of difficulty.

Flynn notes that a sixteenth-century Aberdeen song school taught the skills of plainsong

through descant. 101

Students began their education with the study of Latin grammar and chant. After

studying plainsong, learning solmization, mutations of hexachords, and how to read music,

students would advance to pricksong, or mensural music. This involved learning to read

ligatures, memorizing tables of prolation, and singing canons. After learning pricksong,

the students would undertake the more challenging subjects of figuration and faburden,

involving improvising one or more voices against a chant, 102 and eventually moving on to

descant. Flynn describes ‘square-note’ as improvisation against mensural melodies rather

than against chant melodies, with the lowest part being derived from a polyphonic

composition. ‘Countering’ involved improvising a melody below the chant, a skill more

101
Flynn, “The Education of Choristers,” 182.
102
Ibid., 183.

29
suited to older singers with a lower vocal range. 103 The subjects discussed in The Art of

Music include mensural music, with a chapter on canons (GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, ff.30r-

45r), counterpoint (ff.46r-67v), setting of songs (ff.68r-112r), which included countering

(f.85r) and faburden (f.94r), and proportions (ff.112v-129r). These parallel the skills taught

in the singing schools, supporting the premise that The Art of Music was written with the

education of choristers in mind.

When the Mass was abolished in Scotland, polyphonic church music was

eliminated, and singing schools to train choristers were no longer necessary. Nearly all

closed in 1560, but those in St. Andrews and Edinburgh. 104 Aberdeen revived their singing

school in 1570, appointing Andrew Kemp as master. Only in 1579, upon King James VI’s

orders, did most new singing schools open. Given the presumed purpose of the treatise

and the resurgence of singing schools, Maynard places its creation near the year 1580. 105

By 1580, however, there was no need for a treatise explaining countering and faburden

techniques and with music examples appropriate only for the Catholic liturgy.

The purpose of the manuscript may have been to provide a guide for the instruction

of choristers, but the destruction of Catholic institutions beginning in 1559 may have

provided a more pressing motivation for writing this treatise than the resurgence of singing

schools. With so many books lost to flames, The Art of Music may have been an effort to

preserve pre-Reformation knowledge that was being cast aside. If this was the case, rather

103
Flynn, “The Education of Choristers,” 188.
104
Munro, “‘Sang Schwylls’ and ‘Music Schools,’” 65.
105
Maynard, “An Anonymous Scottish Treatise,” Vol.1, 170, 172.

30
than dating the manuscript to the resurgence of song schools, around 1580, one could

justify a date closer to 1559.

Maynard and Preece focused on the year 1558 and did not explore the phrase

“throughout all Christianity” found in the passage of text on f.102v. In essence, the passage

states that choristers are experts in the eight church tones and use them daily throughout

Christianity (that is, throughout the Catholic world), except in Scotland (a Catholic nation

by its inclusion in “all Christianity”) where the eight tones had not been sung since 1558.

That statement that the eight tones are sung in all Christianity equates Christianity with

Catholicism, and indicates that the author remained firmly Catholic since the Protestants

did not sing the Catholic psalmody. Although an Act of Parliament was drawn up in 1560

pronouncing Scotland officially Protestant, it was not until 1567 that the resolution

passed. 106 Prior to 1567, Scotland was still officially Catholic with a Catholic monarch,

despite the fact that the Latin Office was replaced with a daily service consisting of prayers

and scriptural readings in the new church. 107 These events and the wording of the statement

on f.102v of the treatise indicate, therefore, that the treatise would have been written by an

avowed Catholic between the years 1559 and 1567.

Perhaps most noteworthy, the manuscript can be construed as a private act of

defiance. Given the provisions of the First Book of Discipline, the setting of Latin Mass

texts in the music examples is a subversive act. That no lyrics are provided for the

106
Preece, “A Note on ‘Scottish Anonymous,’” 196–97.
107
Munro, “The Scottish Reformation and its Consequences,” 275.

31
Protestant music examples and that the emphasis is on ornate compositional techniques

further casts this as a stand against the Reformation.

Maynard notes that Elliott, in an unpublished document, offers the theory that this

copy of the treatise, with its frequent corrections, was copied from an earlier manuscript. 108

The first book of the treatise contains two fourth chapters. The third chapter of the first

books ends by introducing the Ferd (fourth) “So endis the pause and beginnis ye ferd

chaptur” on f.5r. The Ferd chapter is followed by “The fourt (fourth) chaptur – tym” on

f.6r. Later in the first book there are two Nynt chapters, one on imperfection (f.15v) and

one on points (f.20v). Given these numbering inconsistencies, an alternate view is that

perhaps the corrections and numbering errors indicate that The Art of Music is a draft rather

than the effort of a professional scribe, and possibly the work of an older author, as noted

in Section 1.1 above.

2.3 Exploring Significant Characteristics of the Music Examples

Music examples in the treatise draw heavily on Latin church music, with cantus

firmi coming from Sarum tenors, and some of the techniques presented relating only to

plainchant. This led Preece to conclude that the compiler “therefore must have lived long

enough under the old regime to have regarded plainsong as his vernacular.” 109 An

indication of comfort with older compositional techniques can be found in the canon

section, where examples exhibit fifteenth or early sixteenth century style, with Landini

108
Maynard, “An Anonymous Scottish Treatise,” Vol.1, 167.
109
Preece, “A Note on ‘Scottish Anonymous,’” 195.

32
cadences and works by Josquin and La Rue. Further indications of an author comfortable

with older techniques can be found in the countering and faburden sections, which appear

to be original 110 and Preece believes may be associated with the Chapel Royal. 111

Significantly, the canon section of The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, ff.30r-

45r, contains both direct and indirect references to the L’homme armé tune. Maynard notes

that the tenor of the eighth canon, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, f.32v, Figure 3, is a setting of

that tune. 112 He could not find a connection between any known composition and the

directions provided in the inscription, “Yield to the major [prolation].” 113

Figure 3 “The aucht canon,” The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, f.23v

110
Maynard, “An Anonymous Scottish Treatise,” Vol.1, 102.
111
Preece, “A Note on ‘Scottish Anonymous,’” 1, 98.
112
Maynard, “An Anonymous Scottish Treatise,” Vol.1, 58.
113
Ibid., Vol.1, 58–59.

33
 Both the tenth and eleventh canons (GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, f.33r), Figure 4,

present very similar tenor parts, whose first six notes are a variation of the L’homme armé

tune. The inscriptions for these two canons, “Clama ne cesses” and “Gaude cum

gaudentibus,” 114 can be found in Josquin’s Missa L’homme armé super voces musicales,

although Maynard notes that there appears to be no musical connection between the treatise

examples and Josquin’s canons. The author of The Art of Music would have had access to

the Josquin canons through one of the sources proposed by Maynard, Finck’s Practica

musica. 115

Des Prez, “Missa L’homme armé super voces musicales,” ed. Rodin, New Josquin Edition, vol. 6. See
114

“Tenor. Clama ne cesses” in the Agnus Dei, p. 66, and “Tenor. Osanna Gaude cum gaudentibus” in the
Sanctus, p. 61.
115
Maynard, “An Anonymous Scottish Treatise,” Vol.1, 60.

34
Figure 4 “The tent canon” and “Canon the levent,” The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911,
f.33r

35
 The inclusion of music examples of the L’homme armé tune in the treatise may be

significant, because the tune enjoyed its height of popularity during the second half of the

fifteenth century. More than 40 polyphonic Mass cycles employing the tune were

composed between 1450 and the end of the seventeenth century, 116 the majority of which

were composed before 1500. 117 They have been linked with the Burgundian court, the

Order of the Golden Fleece, and the call to Crusade. 118 Indeed, the L’homme armé tune

itself may have been composed for the Order of the Golden Fleece as a sort of “informal

marching song.” 119 Many interpretations of the allegorical meaning of “the armed man”

have been offered: Christ, saintly or temporal warriors, Crusading knights armed both

physically and spiritually, the Priest in the performance of the Mass, and even the humble

Christian, armed with righteousness. 120

As is well known, the use of L’homme armé as a cantus firmus was a compositional

challenge undertaken by leading fifteenth-century composers. Heinrich Glarean (1488 –

1563), in his 1547 Dodechachordon, noted that Josquin used his Missa L’homme armé

super voces musicales and Missa L’homme armé sexti toni to display his compositional

skill. 121 It is noteworthy that Robert Carvor is the lone Scot, indeed the only composer in

116
Fallows, “L’homme armé.”
117
Haar, “Palestrina as Historicist.”
118
Fallows, “L’homme armé.”
119
Planchart, “The Origins and Early History of L’homme armé,” 312.
120
Wright, The Maze and the Warrior, 198-202; Kirkman, The Cultural Life, 98–134; Haggh, “The Mystic
Lamb,” 33–34.
121
Glareanus, Dodecachordon. III:441. ‘Ad ostentationem autem artis haud dubie duas illas Missas
instituit Lhomme arme.’

36
the British Isles, who set this tune. While Maynard acknowledges the singularity of a

Scottish composer of a Missa L’homme armé, he erroneously attributes the Scottish Missa

L’homme armé in passing to Robert Johnson, 122 who fled to England in 1528. Authorship

of the Missa L’homme armé is established by Carvor’s signature, which appears at the end

of the composition. In Walter Frere’s 1932 description of the contents of GB-En MS Adv.

5.1.15, the Missa L’homme armé is unnamed, but was one of what Frere called “Four

Masses in 4 parts, the last signed.” 123 Stevens’ more comprehensive inventory of 1950

identified this mass by name and attributed it to Carvor. That the L’homme armé tune is

also included in a Scottish music treatise written more than 50 years after the height of the

tune’s popularity and in a culture removed from the Burgundian Court offers potential ties

between The Art of Music and Carvor’s work.

2.4 Linking The Art of Music and the Carvor Choirbook

The Art of Music is directly linked to the Carvor Choirbook through one revealing

music example. Maynard notes that the L’homme armé tune appears as a tenor in a

composition in the final section of The Art of Music (GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, f.127v),124

Figure 5. The referenced tenor is a direct citation of Carvor’s Missa L’homme armé in GB-

En MS Adv. 5.1.15, f.62v, its only source (see Figure 6).

122
Maynard, “An Anonymous Scottish Treatise,” Vol.1, 59.
123
Frere, Bibliotheca Musico-Liturgica, 53.
124
Maynard, “An Anonymous Scottish Treatise,” Vol.1, 59.

37
 Figure 5 The Art of Music example, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, f.127v

Figure 6 The Carvor Choirbook, GB-En MS Adv. 5.1.15, f.62v

The voices accompanying the example in The Art of Music are different from those found

in the Choirbook, supporting the premise that the author of the treatise was a composer in

his own right who was familiar enough with the Choirbook to extract a section and re-set

it in order to illustrate a given topic.

Preece notes another direct link between The Art of Music and the Carvor

Choirbook in the presentation of countering. At the top of f.175 of GB-En MS Adv. 5.1.15,

there is a fragment of a psalm-tune setting. Preece explains that it is significant, because it

is “a perfect example of the process of countering as described in GB-Lbl MS Add. 4911

and is the only known example of this technique other than in the treatise.” 125

125
Preece, “A Note on ‘Scottish Anonymous,’” 198.

38
 One final link between The Art of Music and the Carvor Choirbook can be found

not in its music but in its artwork. Preece separates the caricatures found in the Carvor

Choirbook into three categories: “those with pointed ears, those with leaves drawn against

the backs of their heads, and those with neither pointed ears nor leaves.” 126 Using the style

of dress and hair represented in these drawings, she attempts to date the manuscript. She

concludes that the styles represented by the figures come from northwest Europe and date

from the early sixteenth century. 127

The Art of Music contains only a few embellished letters. These appear to be

amateur flights of fancy, including frontal faces (GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, ff.5r and 14r) and

a rabbit (f.46r), Figure 7).

Figure 7 Embellished letters from The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, ff.5r, 14r, and 46r

Neither Maynard nor Preece, in their discussions of The Art of Music, make reference to

its artwork, 128 but one particular character in the treatise is noteworthy. This character

drawn in profile in the letter “S” on GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, f.23v, bears a remarkable

similarity to many of the characters found in the Carvor Choirbook, particularly that in the

126
Preece, “The Physical Characteristics of the Carvor Choirbook,” 142.
127
Ibid., 144.
128
Preece, “A Note on ‘Scottish Anonymous.’”

39
bottom margin of GB-En MS Adv. 5.1.15, f.96r (Figure 8). Both faces are in full profile,

with a ridged bump on the forehead and an angular nose and chin. Both heads are tilted

back at roughly 45-degree angles, and both have what appears to be a tongue protruding

from their mouths, which may represent singing. 129 An initial search did not reveal similar

drawings in other manuscripts from the period.

The Art of Music, Carvor Choirbook

GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, f.23v GB-En MS Adv. 5.1.15, f.96r

Figure 8 Comparison of faces in The Art of Music and the Carvor Choirbook

Although the caricature in the Carvor Choirbook is larger than the one in the

treatise, seems to have been drawn with a finer pen, and contains more detail, there is an

undeniable resemblance between the drawings in the two manuscripts. This supports the

argument that the author of The Art of Music had earlier laid pen to the Choirbook.

The protruding tongue is also reminiscent of carved gargoyles. Patrick Allies, private communication,,
129

April 3, 2020.

40
 The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, f.9v.

Carvor Choirbook, GB-En MS Adv. 5.1.15, f.180v.

The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, ff.1v and 3v.

Carvor Choirbook, GB-En MS Adv. 5.1.15, f.1r.

Figure 9 Comparison of embellished letters

Another shared characteristic between The Art of Music and the Carvor Choirbook

is the occasional embellishment of capital letters in the text. The embellishment takes the

41
form of a dot placed in the center of the letter, most frequently in an “O,” but other letters

such as “H”, “P”, or “Q” may also appear dotted.

Figure 9 shows a comparison between an “O” and a “P” from The Art of Music and

from the Carvor Choirbook, as well an “H” from the treatise.

The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, f.67v

Carvor Choirbook, GB-En MS Adv. 5.1.15, f.71v

Figure 10 Comparison of handwriting

An initial comparison of the handwriting in these two manuscripts can be made

using the samples in Figure 10, taken from a paragraph on f.67v of The Art of Music, GB-

42
Lbl Add. MS 4911, and from Carvor’s inscription in the Choirbook, GB-En MS Adv.

5.1.15, on f.71v. When considering the differences in the handwriting, it should be noted

that the Carvor Choirbook was created over a span of several decades and is written in

Latin rather than Scots. Expert analysis would be required to offer an opinion as to whether

the texts of the two manuscripts were penned by the same individual. A cache of more

than fifty documents relating to Scone Abbey during Carvor’s lifetime were found at the

Scone Palace and are now in the National Archives of Scotland, and many include Carvor’s

signature. These would offer further handwriting examples for comparison. 130 A sample

of the letters, Table 1, illustrates that, while not all letters are formed in the same way, there

are many similarities. For example, the stem of the “d” slopes to the left, the tail of the “h”

hooks left, and the letter “x” is made without lifting the pen from the page.

130
Ross, “Robert Carver, Canon of Scone,” 96.

43
 The Art of Music GB- Carvor Choirbook GB-
Letter
Lbl Add. MS 4911 En MS Adv. 5.1.15

a
f.67v f.71v

b
f.67v f.71v

c
f.67v f.71v

d
f.67v f.71v

e
f.67v f.71v

g
f.67v f.71v

h
f.67v f.71v

i
f. 67v f.71v

l
f.67v f.71v

m
f.67v f.71v

n
f.67v f.15r

o
f.67v f.71v

r
f.67v f.71v

t
f.67v f.71v

x
f.67v f.71v
Figure 11 Comparison of letters

44
2.5 Proposing Candidates for Authorship of The Art of Music

From this exploration, we conclude that the author of The Art of Music was:

1. Scottish – he wrote in the vernacular, and Maynard provided Whitehall’s linguistic

analysis determined that the author was living in the St. Andrews-Edinburgh region,

or possibly in Aberdeen.

2. He lived between 1559 – c. 1580, or perhaps the even between 1559 – 1567.

3. He may have been associated with a song school or the education of choristers.

4. He was raised in the Catholic Church and was probably a recusant.

5. He was a person of some years, and comfortable with pre-Reformation

compositional techniques.

6. He was possibly associated with the Chapel Royal.

7. He was familiar with the L’homme armé tune that had been popular on the

Continent 50-100 years earlier.

8. He was a composer who created music examples rather than borrowing them from

the sources of his texts

9. He was familiar with and had access to the Carvor Choirbook, as well as to several

published music treatises, so must have had a library that survived the Reformation

purges.

10. The scribe of penned initials of The Art of Music appears to have had a hand in the

Choirbook.

45
 Flynn discusses The Art of Music when explaining training in faburden of the

choristers, but offers no opinion as to authorship. 131 Maynard, having isolated the origins

to Edinburgh-St. Andrews region by studying linguistic characteristics, considered

Edinburgh more likely. Edinburgh was a cultural center with a song school. Maynard

noted the revival of the song school in 1579, with Andrew Buchan named as master.

Andrew Buchan was also a canon of the Chapel Royal, making him one of Maynard’s

candidates as author of The Art of Music. Little is known of his life, and no compositions

by Buchan are known to exist. 132

Maynard notes that Elliott, in an unpublished document, finds the language to be

related to north-east Scotland and the Aberdeen region. With Aberdeen being another

Scottish cultural center, Elliott offers John Black as a possible author. Maynard identified

at least two works by John Black in the music examples of The Art of Music. Black, master

of the Aberdeen song school from 1556 – 1560, was re-appointed master when he returned

to Aberdeen in 1575. Black was alive during the period when the treatise was written,

dying in 1587, making him another possible candidate as author. Maynard makes the case

that both Buchan and Black would have been old enough to have been trained in the music

of the Catholic church. 133 Maynard equivocates between the two choices, noting that if

more music examples of the two were to be found, a stylistic comparison could offer a clue

as to which is the more likely author. 134

131
Flynn, “The Education of Choristers,” 185–86.
132
Maynard, “An Anonymous Scottish Treatise,” Vol.1, 170–71.
133
Ibid., Vol.1, 91, 172, 173–74.
134
Ibid., Vol.1, 174.

46
 Preece, based on the events of 1558, favors Edinburgh as the origin of the treatise.

She also suggests Andrew Buchan as a possible author, noting that, given the lack of

evidence, it may have been someone professionally close to him. She favors Buchan not

only because he was master of the song school in Edinburgh, but also since as a witness to

a 1551 instrument, Buchan was described as a canon of the Chapel Royal. She further

notes that the faburden and countering techniques described in the treatise may represent

the practice at the Chapel Royal. 135 Additionally, the document Buchan witnessed was

drawn up in Stirling in the room of Robert Arnot. Although Robert Arnot may be

synonymous with Robert Carvor, Preece makes no connection between Carvor and the

treatise.

Preece provides a further link to Aberdeen. The Art of Music contains an inscription

on the bottom of f.1r, which reads “Liber Colegij Musei Mineruae ex dono Francis

Kinaston Regentis 1635.” Sir Francis Kynaston (Kinaston) (1586/7–1642) founded the

Musaeum Minervae in 1635. 136 Located in his house in London, it was an academy of

learning for the nobility and gentry. 137 The seven-year course of study at Kynaston’s

institution included the subjects of coins, fencing, antiquities, and music.138 The Art of

Music was part of a collection of “books, manuscripts, musical and mathematical

instruments, paintings, statues, etc.” 139 Quoting Elliott, Preece notes that the book “was

135
Preece, “A Note on ‘Scottish Anonymous,’” 198.
136
Smuts, “Sir Francis Kynaston.”
137
Maynard, “An Anonymous Scottish Treatise,” Vol.1, 1.
138
Shire, Court Song in Scotland, 8.
139
Maynard, “An Anonymous Scottish Treatise,” Vol.1, 2.

47
probably part of Andro Melvill’s library, listed under the title ‘ane grytt book written of

the airt of music.’” 140 Kynaston had a link with Aberdeen, having provided English

translations for Arthur Johnston’s book of Latin poetry published in London in 1635.

Johnston was Principal of King’s College, Old Aberdeen, and would have been in a

position to help locate some gems for Kynaston’s collection. 141

Given the profile developed here of the author of The Art of Music, it will be shown

that Robert Carvor is the one person whose known biography corresponds to all of its

criteria.

140
Preece, “A Note on ‘Scottish Anonymous,’” 196, N5.
141
Shire, Court Song in Scotland, 8.

48
 Chapter 3 The Case for Robert Carvor

3.1 Robert Carvor’s Biography

Over the years, scholars have pieced together a biography of Robert Carvor using

information from inscriptions in the Choirbook, university rolls, wills, and other official

documents. As a result, we have a clearer picture of Carvor’s life than we have of the other

men offered as possible authors of The Art of Music.

The first keys to Carvor’s biography are found in two inscriptions in the Carvor

Choirbook. Through comparison with Carvor’s signature in several Scone Abbey

documents, Preece verified that these inscriptions are in Carvor’s hand. The first

inscription appears on Missa Pater creator omnium, f.5v, and translates to “The mass made

by Master Robert Carvor in the year of the Lord 1546, and in his fifty-ninth year, also forty-

three years after entering holy orders.” 142 From this one learns that Carvor was born in

1487 or 1488 and entered religious life in 1503 or 1504. Preece notes that these dates are

consistent with the custom in Scotland for a novice monk to enter the monastery at about

age 16. 143

The second inscription appears on f.70v and translates to “The Tenor, Dum sacrum

mysterium, of the mass which Master Robert Carvor composed in honor of God and St.

Michael; canon of Scone in the year of Our Lord 1513 and aged twenty-two; or in the sixth

year after entering holy orders.” 144 This inscription confirms that Carvor took holy orders

142
Preece, “Towards a Bibliography of Robert Carvor,” 102.
143
Ibid.
144
Ibid.

49
at around age 16, but would place the date at about 1509 rather than 1513, given a birth

year of 1487/8. The date 1513, however, shows evidence of alteration. Preece reports that

it appears to have originally been written as 1511, and subsequently changed to 1506 and

then 1513. 145 Preece notes that the “statutory age for becoming a canon was twenty-four,”

and adds that, upon closer inspection, the date at one point may have been intended as

1508, aligning better with a 1587/8 birth year.

More information about Carvor’s life came to light when Preece discovered a

student “Robertus de S[anc]to Johanne in Scotia” in the University of Leuven matriculation

rolls of 1503/4, whom she thinks may be Robert Carvor. 146 St. John’s was the sixteenth-

century name for Perth, the town two miles from Scone. She notes that monasteries of

twenty or more were instructed to “keep about five percent of them at some university,”147

and it was the practice to send musicians and students in general to the Low Countries for

their education. 148 This would place Carvor on the Continent at a time when distinguished

composers were still displaying their skill in mass settings of the L’homme armé tune.

Carvor’s name is associated with the L’homme armé tune, not only for his own Missa

L’homme armé, but also for having a copy of Du Fay’s Missa L’homme armé in his

Choirbook. A sign of Carvor’s reverence for this work by Du Fay, which was some 50

145
Preece, “Towards a Bibliography of Robert Carvor,” 103.
146
Ibid., 106.
147
Ibid., 105.
148
Ibid., 106.

50
years old when Carvor was in Leuven, may be the fact that it is the only composition in the

Choirbook with an attribution other than to Carvor’s own pieces.

In 1998, Ross published an article adding significantly to the Carvor biography. 149

The Aberdeen Council Register contains an entry for March 31, 1505, concerning the

inheritance of land belonging to Andrew Gray by his nephew, “dompnus Robertus Kervour

… canonicus de Skona.” 150 Andrew Gray, Carvor’s maternal uncle, was perpetual chaplain

of the altar of St. Michael in the Parish Church of St. Nicholas, one of the largest parish

churches in the country. 151 Gray instituted a Mass of the Name of Jesus there, which Elliott

suggests may be noteworthy when considering Carvor’s motet O bone Jesu “with its

constantly recurring fermata-marked settings of the name ‘Jesu.’” 152 The use of fermata,

particularly to emphasize a name in masses and motets, was a technique frequently

employed in the late fifteenth century. Carvor’s use of fermatas may be an indication of

Du Fay’s influence. Bonnie Blackburn notes that “of all the composers in the fermata

repertory, the composer by far the best represented is Dufay: no fewer than twenty of his

compositions have fermata passages: ten masses, eight motets, and two chansons.” 153

While not proof of Carvor’s birth in Aberdeen, he had family roots there, and

records indicate that his mother married in Aberdeen in 1478/9. The inscription on f.70v

in the Choirbook, on the ten-voice Missa Dum sacrum mysterium honoring St. Michael

149
Ross, “New Roots.”
150
Carvor, The Complete Works of Robert Carver, ed. Elliott, xi.
151
Ross, “New Roots,” 8.
152
Carvor, The Complete Works of Robert Carver, ed. Elliott, xi.
153
Ceulemans, Théorie et analyse musicales, 25-26.

51
may relate to Carvor’s uncle’s position, rather than to the chapel at Stirling. The

modifications of date may indicate that it was composed over a period of time, and Elliott

proposes that it may have been begun in Aberdeen and completed in Stirling. 154 If Carvor

were born and raised in Aberdeen, this could also account for the possible Aberdeen speech

patterns in The Art of Music noted by Elliott. 155 Ross further explains that in Aberdeen,

Carvor would have had access to excellent musical training. 156

This inheritance record adds some confusion to the date of Carvor’s birth. If he

was canon of Scone in 1505, he was either born earlier than the believed 1487/8 and the

inscription dates are incorrect, or Carvor became canon at a younger age than was

customary. Elliott explains that the term ‘dompnus’ referred to canons in the “early post-

novitiate stage. 157 Ross makes a case for Carvor being born in 1484/5, giving a possible

timeline that includes his taking religious orders in 1500/1. 158 Ross would later conclude

that 1487/8 is generally accepted as his birthyear. 159

Roger Bowers, in a 1999 response to Ross’s article, makes the case that Carvor’s

birthyear was, indeed, 1487/8. He interprets the first inscription’s reference to “forty-three

years after entering holy orders” as an indication that he “took his final vows as a canon of

154
Carvor, The Complete Works of Robert Carver, ed. Elliott, xi.
155
Maynard, “An Anonymous Scottish Treatise,” Vol.1, 172.
156
Ross, “New Roots,” 9.
157
Carvor, The Complete Works of Robert Carver, ed. Elliott, xi.
158
Ross, “New Roots,” 10.
159
Ross, “Robert Carver, Canon of Scone,” 95.

52
the Augustinian order – before the end of 1504, when in his 16th year,” 160 which would

support the Aberdeen Council Register referral to him as canon of Scone in 1505. While

this would make him unusually young to take his final vows, Bowers notes that there were

other youthful canons in the Augustinian order, citing a 13-year-old becoming canon of the

abbey of St. Osyth in 1525. 161 In the end, the first inscription, being in Carvor’s hand with

no evident erasures, seems to be the most reliable for fixing Carvor’s birthyear.

Robert Carvor lived until at least 1568, his last known signature on an official

document being dated from August that year. 162 He signed some of his compositions

“Robert Carwor alias arnat,” 163 which has led to some controversy since the name Robert

Arnot 164 appears in both Chapel Royal records and burgh records in Stirling. Preece makes

the case that Carvor is the same person as Robert Arnot, canon of the Chapel Royal, and

also possibly Robert Arnot, a prominent member of the burgh council. Bowers explains

that it is possible for an Augustinian canon to be granted leave of absence from his home

monastery to serve elsewhere, so it is indeed possible Carvor was both canon at Scone and

serving in Stirling. 165 Bowers further notes that upon entry into a religious order, men

would adopt a new surname to symbolize their departure from the secular life. While often

a name of a place or a saint, it is not unheard of to take the name of a patron. In this case,

160
Bowers, “Robert Carver,” 8.
161
Ibid., 9.
162
Elliott, “Carvor [Carver, Arnot], Robert.”
163
See Carvor Choirbook, GB-En MS Adv. 5.1.15, ff.8r, 15r, 66r, and 69r.
164
The spelling ‘Arnot’ is used throughout this thesis except where ‘Arnat’ appears in a quotation.
165
Bowers, “Robert Carver,” 9.

53
that would most likely have been Bishop David Arnot. 166 Bowers, however, does not

equate Carvor with the Stirling townsman Robert Arnot, stating that it is not possible for a

priest and member of a religious order “to be identified with the Robert Arnat who from

1516 to 1550 occurs in the borough and parish church records as a townsman of Stirling in

frequent occupation of high civic office; that must have been a different individual with

the same name.” 167

Ross does not associate Carvor with canon Robert Arnot, contending that Carvor

remained in Scone his entire adult life. 168 He notes more recent discoveries of more than

50 administrative documents from the abbey referring to Carvor that range in years from

1538/9 to 1568. 169 As Ross describes it: “This creates a convincing picture of a monk

dedicating lifelong service to his monastery and thereby his monarch and his God.” 170 Ross

provides a table of said documents. 171 It may be noteworthy that, while they do span that

period, they include one from 1538/9, 2 from October and November 1541, one from April

1542, and four from the fall of 1542, with the rest dating from August 1543 onward.

Bowers explains the possibility that Carvor and Robert Arnot at the Chapel Royal,

some 35 miles and two days journey from Scone, are one and the same. He states that

Carvor may have worked at the Chapel Royal for 35 years as one of the ten minor canons

166
Bowers, “Robert Carver,” 9–10.
167
Ibid., 10.
168
Ross, “New Roots,” 10.
169
Ross, “Robert Carver, Canon of Scone,” 96.
170
Ibid.
171
Ibid., Appendix 2, 107–10.

54
prior to his promotion to full canon on July 13, 1543, “returning to the more relaxed

existence of the cloister at Scone only as he reached his later 50s.” 172 Note that the Scone

documents place Carvor permanently at the abbey beginning in August of that year.

Bowers suggests that Carvor, during his tenure at the Chapel Royal, may have served as

“Master of the Bairns,” 173 i.e. educating choristers. Bowers notes that receiving a full

canonry would have “provided him with a residence inside of or in the vicinity of Stirling

Castle” 174 which could explain how The Art of Music and the Carvor Choirbook, if they

were in his Stirling lodgings, would have survived the burning of Scone in 1559 and the

subsequent years of continued destruction. Elliott also ties Carvor to Stirling, noting that

being a canon of Scone would not necessarily require residency there. 175 With efforts to

establish a musical college in the Chapel Royal at Stirling Castle, Elliott notes that it “may

have well housed the Carvor [sic] Choirbook.” 176

Ross develops a timeline of Carvor’s works, in part based on stylistic changes. He

dates the motets O bone Jesu and Gaude flore virginali and the Missa L’homme armé to

1506 – 8, while Carvor may still have been on the Continent. He dates Missa Dum sacrum

mysterium to 1508 and Carvor’s possible return to Scotland. Ross notes that Carvor could

combine both a highly decorative and a more austere style, as found in Missa Pater Creator

omnium and Missa Fera pessima, and his style appears to evolve with the trend away from

172
Bowers, “Robert Carver,” 10.
173
Ibid.
174
Ibid.
175
Elliott, “The Carver Choir-book,” 356.
176
Ibid.

55
the highly ornate with the masses found in the Dowglas-Fischear Partbooks. 177 Ross notes

that one of the last compositions in the Choirbook is a simple two-part setting of Psalm 1

(f.175), which may represent “some attempt by the ageing composer to understand the very

latest developments in music being written for the New Church.” 178

From this information the following timeline of Carvor’s life can be constructed:

1487/8 • born, probably in Aberdeen, subsequently attending one of the

song schools there

1503/4 • takes religious orders, becoming a canon regular of the Abbey

of Scone

• enters University of Leuven and gains exposure to the

L’homme armé tradition

1505 • inherits property in Aberdeen from his maternal uncle, Sir

Andrew Gray, chaplain at St. Nicholas in Aberdeen

• is noted as a canon of Scone in the Aberdeen Council Register

1506 – 1508 • possibly still on the Continent

• composes motets O bone Jesu and Gaude flore virginali

• composes Missa L’homme armé

1508 • composes Missa Dum sacrum mysterium 179 in his 22nd year

177
Ross, “Robert Carver, Canon of Scone,” 102, 106.
178
Ibid., 105.
179
The earliest date on the transcription associated with Missa Dum sacrum mysterium has also been
interpreted as 1506.

56
 1543 • becomes full canon of the Chapel Royal, securing a residence

in Stirling

1546 • composes Missa Pater creator omnium in his 59th year

1543 – 1568 • composes Missa Fera pessima and possibly Missa Felix

namque and Missa Cantate Domino, found in the Dowglas-

Fischear Partbooks

1568 • latest known Carvor signature

3.2 Robert Carvor as the Anonymous Scot

None of the scholarship suggests Robert Carvor as a possible author of The Art of

Music. Maynard, incorrectly identifying Johnson as the composer of the Scottish Missa

L’homme armé, may have been unfamiliar with Carvor’s works. When searching for a

candidate for authorship, Bowers, Elliott, Preece, and Ross were guided by two conclusions

that would have eliminated Carvor. First, their association of the treatise with the re-

emergence of song schools limited the choices to candidates who were known affiliates of

song schools, which Carvor was not, and favored a date of creation nearer 1580, when

Carvor would have been in his 90s. Since we know that not all song schools ceased

operation during the period, even if the treatise were written for the purpose of educating

choristers, its date may realistically fall well before 1580. Second, limiting the location of

authorship to the cities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews, or Aberdeen excludes Carvor, who is

not known to have lived in any of these locations, from consideration. An interpretation

of the phrase “send the year of God ane thousand five hundred fyvftie and aucht yeiris” on

f.102v of the treatise as “after 1558” or “from 1559 onward,” renders 1558 events irrelevant

57
and places the focus on events of 1559. This would expand the possible area of origin from

Edinburgh to the whole region surrounding the Firth of Forth.

How does what has been pieced together here about Carvor’s life match the profile

developed here of the author of The Art of Music? As a canon of Scone and later Stirling,

Carvor would have spent his adult life in the St. Andrews-Edinburgh region identified as

using the same dialect as the treatise. His having grown up in Aberdeen may account for

some of the more Northern linguistic traits in the treatise that Elliott noted.

Carvor was born in 1487/8 and lived until at least 1568. The paragraph on f.102v

of the manuscript, by casting Scotland as a Christian – i.e. Catholic – nation, limits the time

span of creation. Perhaps more significant than the passage of the resolution making

Scotland Protestant in December 1567 is Queen Mary’s forced abdication on July 14 of

that year. As long as Scotland had a Catholic monarch, it could reasonably be considered

a Catholic nation. With Queen Mary’s abdication in 1567, the nine-year time span of 1559

– 1567 falls completely within Carvor’s lifetime.

Although Carvor is not known to have been affiliated with any song schools, as a

canon of the Chapel Royal he would have had contact with young singers during his

perhaps 35-year tenure there.

Folio 102v of the treatise gives indications that the author less than fully embraced

Protestantism. This conclusion is supported by the fact that only Latin liturgical texts

accompany music examples in the treatise. Both Maynard and Preece make note of this

fact, concluding that the author longed for the old religion. Given the tenets of the First

Book of Discipline, writing such a document in this period would have been more than

58
merely nostalgic: the treatise itself can be construed as a personal and perhaps dangerous

act of defiance. Coming from a family with a prominent chaplain and having spent his life

in the service of the Catholic Church, Carvor may have been less than receptive to the

changes of the Reformation. Composers active after 1560 who turned their talents to

Protestant hymns or accepted positions in song schools would have at least publicly

accepted the new religion and have been less likely to write a treatise such as this. While

many found it convenient to embrace Protestantism, Ross notes that

After some sixty years devoted to a monastic life which facilitated the composition
of lavish church music, and belonging to a Church which provided the liturgical
context and choral resources to permit its performance, it seems unlikely that the
aged Carver [sic] should consider the Reformation as anything but a comprehensive
catastrophe. 180

Carvor would have been about 72 years old when the Lords of the Congregation

began their sweep through the region. Some of his works in the Choirbook date to as early

as 1506 or 1508 and illustrate a mastery of late fifteenth-century polyphonic style. A man

of some years, Carvor was clearly comfortable with pre-Reformation compositional

techniques.

While there are no records of the Chapel Royal naming Carvor, there are indications

of his association with it. His signature in the Choirbook identifying himself as ‘Robert

Carwor alias arnat’ has led to the possibility that Carvor was also Robert Arnot, a canon of

the Chapel Royal.

Having been a student at the University in Leuven, on the Continent, Carvor could

have come into contact with the L’homme armé tradition: the Carvor Choirbook contains

180
Ross, “Robert Carver, Canon of Scone,” 103.

59
a copy of Du Fay’s Missa L’homme armé. Carvor is the only known composer in the

British Isles to have composed a Missa L’homme armé, or, indeed, to have set the tune in

any form outside of the snippets found in The Art of Music.

Carvor’s works in the Choirbook show him to be a gifted composer. As such, he

would be more than capable of creating music examples rather than borrowing them from

the sources of his texts.

With Scone destroyed at the time of the writing of The Art of Music, the author

must have been elsewhere with access to a library of music treatises. As a canon of the

Chapel Royal, Carvor may have enjoyed such a library at Stirling. As the owner of the

Choirbook, he would have had access to and been familiar with its contents, and have been

able to copy music example for The Art of Music directly from the Choirbook. A direct

link between The Art of Music and the Carvor Choirbook can be found in the artwork. The

remarkable similarities in marginal caricatures between the two manuscripts support the

proposition that the author of The Art of Music had a hand in the Choirbook.

Given these conclusions, Robert Carvor, as owner and scribe of the Carvor

Choirbook, stands out as the best, indeed the only, candidate for the Anonymous Scot who

prepared GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, The Art of Music.

3.3 The Survival of The Art of Music

The Chapel Royal was initially spared in 1559, but purged in 1567 after Queen

Mary’s abdication. 181 The Earl of Mar had his actions indemnified by Parliament in August

181
McRoberts, “Material Destruction,” 433, N82.

60
1571 with their instruction that “Johnne Erle of Mar, Lord Erskin, Captaine of the said

Castell of Striuiling that he suld caus the said chapel wtout delay be purgit and

reformit…” 182 The author of The Art of Music clearly had access to a significant library of

music treatises as well as Carvor’s Choirbook after the burning of Scone in 1559. One

such library in the region could have been found in Stirling before the “purgation of its [the

Chapel Royal’s] vestments, organs and other effects 183 in 1567.

The only pre-Reformation polyphonic music manuscripts known to have survived

the Scottish Reformation – a choirbook, a music theory treatise, and a set of partbooks –

have something in common: they are all associated with Robert Carvor in some manner.

As what was presumably the result of Carvor’s life-long collecting of fifteenth- and

sixteenth-century compositions, the Choirbook is the main source of Carvor’s works,

signed by his own hand. The Art of Music, although compiled by an anonymous author

proposed here to have been Carvor himself, has direct links to Carvor’s Choirbook. The

Dowglas-Fischear Partbooks, known to have been transcribed by William Fischear by

virtue of an inscription, contain two anonymous masses believed to have been composed

by Carvor. Because of the direct ties between the Choirbook and The Art of Music¸ one

can conclude that the two manuscripts were in the same place while The Art of Music was

being compiled. Could the Dowglas-Fischear Partbooks have found their way to the same

library and likewise survived the Reformation there?

There is some evidence that all three manuscripts may have been part of a library

in Aberdeen by c. 1636. Helena Shire explores a list of books compiled by Andro

182
Rogers, History of the Chapel Royal, lxxvi.
183
Shire, Court Song in Scotland, 9.

61
Melvill, 184 Master of the Song School of St. Nicholas, made some time before 1637.

Melvill’s original commonplace-book containing this inventory was believed lost, but

resurfaced at a Sotheby’s auction in July 1959 and was acquired by the Library of King’s

College of Aberdeen University. It proved to contain a significant work, a transcription of

William Bathe’s Brief Introduction to the True Art of Musicke from 1584. Being the only

known copy of the work, it is unknown whether the transcription is complete. Copies are

available of Bathe’s subsequent revision of the treatise, A Briefe Introduction to the Skill

of Song: concerning the practice, set forth by William Bathe, gentleman.

Melvill’s list also includes brief descriptions of a variety of music books, including

psalm books, lute books, and theory books. Shire consulted with Thurston Dart 185 who

wrote of Melvill’s that it was a “hoard of valued volumes saved, some of them, from a

period of destruction.” 186 Shire attempted to identify the volumes. For example, there are

six theory books:

Item 1 ane grytt book writtin of the airt of musick

Item 9 ane litl Book of the airt of musick

Item 11 ane frenche book of the airt of musick

Item 18 prick singing

Item 21 Ane briefe Introduction to Musick

GB-A MS 28: “A small quarto commonplace book, of ballads, proverbs and poems, in a single hand.
184

Compiled by Andrew Melville (1593 – 1640), Doctor in the Song School of Aberdeen in 1621 – 36.”
185
Hendrie, “Dart, (Robert) Thurston. Thurston Dart (1921 – 1971) was an English musicologist
specializing in early music, especially English music of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries,
harpsichordist, and conductor. Dart taught at the University of Cambridge and King’s College of the
University of London.
186
Shire, Court Song in Scotland, 9.

62
 Item 22 The definitions and divisions of moods, tymes, prolationes in

measurable musick, by Thomas Ravenscroft, Batchelor of Music

Shire proposes that Item 1, ‘ane grytt book writtin of the airt of musick’, is GB-Lbl Add.

MS 4911, the only known ‘grytt’ book of music theory, being a large volume of 20 by 33

centimeters, and the subject of this thesis. Shire offers either Campian’s A New Way of

Making Fowre Parts or Butler’s Principles of Musick as the book referenced by Item 9.

For Item 11, Shire suggests either Mersenne’s Harmonic universelle or Ballard’s Traicté

de la musique. 187 Shire proposes Morley’s Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall

Musicke as the book referenced by Item 18 because pricksong is mentioned in its full title.

Item 21 includes the transcription of Bathe’s Brief Introduction to the True Art of

Musicke, 188 and Item 22 is clearly identified by author.

Two other items in Melvill’s list are noteworthy:

Item 8 stand of 6 Pts Jon duncanes

Item 15 gloria pateris

Dart proposes that Item 15 (gloria pateris) may “refer in a somewhat cautious manner” to

a book such as the Carvor Choirbook. While this phrase does not appear in the Choirbook

in its current format, the notation clearly indicates a Catholic liturgical book. Dart suggests

187
Shire, Court Song in Scotland, 6, 8.
188
Ibid., 7, 11.

63
that Item 8 may refer to the Dowglas-Fischear Partbooks, 189 a six-book stand, or set, of

which we now only have five. Dart posits that “some wording such as ‘Jon duncanes’ now

missing, as is the sixth partbook, may have been responsible for the attribution to

Dunkeld.” 190 Shire submits that, given an item of such importance, “Jon duncanes” may

refer to John Duncanson, a former Catholic who had willingly embraced Protestantism.191

John Duncanson’s book-collecting may be the reason for the survival of The Art of

Music and the Carvor Choirbook. An exploration of Duncanson’s career reveals his strong

ties with both St. Andrews and Stirling. David Irving published a communication from

John Lee 192 concerning Duncanson’s affiliation with St. Leonard’s college in St. Andrews.

An Augustinian, Duncanson was appointed principal of the college in 1556, a position he

held for ten years, retaining it through his conversion to Protestantism, and retiring in

1566. 193 His appointment in St. Andrew’s overlapped his tenure in Stirling. In October

1560, the Stirling Town Council assigned him a manse as a minister of the burgh, and in

March 1567 he became Vicar of the Chapel Royal. 194

Duncanson had an appreciation of books. Upon his retirement from St. Leonard’s,

he made donations to the college amounting to 200 pounds. More significantly, Duncanson

189
Shire, Court Song in Scotland, 9.
190
Ibid.
191
Rogers, History of the Chapel Royal, lxxv.
192
Rev. John Lee, M.D. Professor of Ecclesiastical History in New College, and Rector of the University of
St. Andrews.
193
Irving, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of George Buchanan, 375.
194
Scott, Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae, 317.

64
also left a gift of “all his books, both great and small” to the college, which Lee describes

as appearing “to have been much more valuable” than his other donations. 195

With Duncanson in Stirling at the time that The Art of Music was being compiled,

do we have him to thank for the survival of both The Art of Music and the Carvor

Choirbook? As a minister at Stirling from 1560, and as King James VI’s chaplain and tutor

between 1567 and 1580, Duncanson was in Stirling during the time The Art of Music was

written. As Vicar at the Chapel Royal from 1567 and a collector of books, Duncanson may

have been in a position to both appreciate and protect Carvor’s manuscripts. It is unknown

how these works came to be in Melvill’s library, some 120 miles from Stirling. Gordon

Munro notes that “after the Chapel Royal, the most prestigious musical center was

Aberdeen.” 196 As a music center with a song school known to be active in 1570 when

Andrew Kemp was appointed master and as a city where Carvor had family ties, it is

perhaps not so extraordinary for the manuscripts to have made their way to Aberdeen.

195
Irving, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of George Buchanan, 375.
196
Munro, “Scottish Church Music and Musicians,” 26.

65
 Chapter 4 Conclusion

Much of the content of The Art of Music is a compilation of existing Latin treatises.

The countering and faburden sections, which are unique, however, have proven to be a

valuable resource for scholars such as Bukofzer, Besseler, and Brian Trowell, among

others. Leofranc Holford-Strevens views The Art of Music, in Scots dialect, as part of the

movement toward humanism, with other vernacular music treatises being written in Italian,

Spanish, French, Dutch, German, and English. 197 The text is of value as an example of the

Scots language of the period, serving as a source document for language examples in “A

Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (up to 1700).” 198 The Art of Music also provides

its author’s individual perspective on the upheaval of the Scottish Reformation, as well as

clues to who he was.

The Scottish Reformation had a devastating effect on Church manuscripts. Only

three manuscripts documenting pre-Reformation musical practice in Scotland survive: the

Carvor Choirbook, the Dowglas-Fischear Partbooks, and the sole manuscript source of the

anonymous treatise that is the subject of this thesis. As demonstrated above, although

possible authors have been proposed by others, their arguments suggested dates too late

with respect to the content of the treatise.

To the contrary, abundant evidence presented here points to the Scottish composer

Robert Carvor was the author, if not the scribe, of the anonymous treatise. First, the dates

197
Holford-Strevens, “Humanism and the language of music treatises,” 445.

Online resource https://dsl.ac.uk/bibliography/dost/db122 for William A. Craigie, A Dictionary of the

198

Older Scottish Tongue: From the Twelfth Century to the End of the Seventeenth, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1937.

66
customarily offered for the creation of The Art of Music are bounded by a year supplied

within the treatise itself, after 1558, and the resurgence of singing schools in Scotland, c.

1580. Yet even though the earlier date is unequivocal and places the compilation of The

Art of Music squarely in the years of the Scottish Reformation, here it is argued, based on

the contents of the treatise, that it originated before Queen Mary’s abdication in 1567.

Second, the profile of the author of The Art of Music developed here, when compared with

the known details of Robert Carvor’s life, is an excellent match. Further supporting the

argument that Carvor is the anonymous Scot are direct links between The Art of Music and

the Carvor Choirbook. Music examples in the treatise can be found in the Choirbook.

There is also a striking similarity between the artwork and letter embellishments that are

found within the two manuscripts. And, while further study of the handwriting is needed,

an initial comparison finds similarities in the letter forms of their scripts.

In light of what was concluded here, the The Art of Music itself offers possibilities

for further exploration. It has been 60 years since Maynard investigated sources for the

text of this treatise and sought to identify the music examples. There may be further

identifications to be made, given that Maynard did not recognize the concordances in the

Carvor Choirbook or even mention Carvor. The inconsistences in the numbering of

sections in the treatise, discussed above, might find better explanations if more source texts

or manuscripts, or even fragments, were located. Further investigation of public records

may help trace the journey of both The Art of Music and the Carvor Choirbook to their

current repositories. Also, the examples of Carvor’s handwriting in the documents from

Scone Abbey may aid in the paleographic analysis of the treatise and the choirbook.

67
 The personal perspective on the Scottish Reformation of the author of The Art of

Music and the direct links between the treatise and the Carvor Choirbook that were

recognized and explored here have led to a new solution to the question of authorship of

GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, one of the few manuscripts to have survived the Scottish

Reformation. Carvor scholars such as Bowers, Elliott, Ross, and Preece were familiar with

Carvor’s Missa L’homme armé, but Carvor’s name is often missing from L’homme armé

comparative studies. Although he lived and worked in Scotland, he was enough of a skilled

and confident composer to undertake setting the L’homme armé tune, a traditional display

of compositional prowess in the late fifteenth and early sixteen centuries. That Robert

Carvor, whose life was reassessed here, should have written an extensive treatise at the end

of his life that recalls his many years of teaching places him in the even more rarified

company of earlier Continental theorists, including Anonymous IV (fl. 1270 – 80), Jacobus

de Ispania (1260 – 1330), Johannes Tinctoris (c. 1430-35 – 1511), and Franchinus

Gaffurius (1451 – 1522).

The Art of Music also confirms that Carvor was a leading Scottish thinker, with

access to continental learning about music in substantial Scottish libraries that were

destroyed. And the treatise as well as the few surviving music manuscripts confirm that

Scottish churches were filled with the singing of polyphony, improvised and written, before

the Reformation, thereby explaining why Carvor would have wanted to record its practice

for posterity. As one of Scotland’s few well-documented composers, whose works include

the Missa L’homme armé, and as the anonymous Scot, Carvor should take his rightful place

among the leading composers of his generation.

68
 Appendix: English Translation of the Rules of Faburden in The Art of Music

The “Heir Beginnis Faburdun” section in The Art of Music (GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911,

ff.94r–112r) presents the rules for four types of faburden, which I have translated into

modern English below. The manuscript provides many examples to aid in understanding

the various faburden techniques. It may be viewed online among the British Library’s

digitized manuscripts. 199 The Scots from The Art of Music, as it appears in Maynard’s “An

Anonymous Scottish Treatise,” is copied from the website “Texts on Music in English,”200

with permission from its editor, Peter Lefferts.

Scots from The Art of Music English Translation

[GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911, f.94r] The rules of countering, all rehearsed,

The rewlis of countering beand all with the examples of the same: now,
rehersit, with the exemplis of the consequently, it is necessary to
samyn, now consequently it is necessar describe the process and order of
to discryve the process and ordor of faburden by rules and extensive
faburdoun be rewlis and exemplis examples, whereby students by
ostensyve, quhairthrow studentis be speculation may receive an
speculation ma recev understanding understanding of and information about
and information of the samyn. the same. Therefore, it is to be asked:
Thairfor, it is to be requirit: Quhat is What is faburden? Faburden is a
faburdoun? Ffaburdoun is ane melodious kind of harmony which
melodius kynd of harmony quhilk dois changes and ornaments simple notes
transmut and brek sympill noittis in (i.e., plainsong) in duple or triple
figuris colorat be numeris trinar and colored figures conforming to the
bynar conform to the way of music procedures of mensural notation.
mensurall.

199
https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_4911_fs001r#.
200
http://www.chmtl.indiana.edu/tme/16th/SCOTA3B3_TEXT.html Consulted on March 5, 2020.

69
 Quhow mony kyndis of fabur[doun] ar How many kinds of faburden are
nemmit? Four. Quhilk four? The first, named? Four. Which four? The first,
the secund, thrid, and the ferd. the second, third, and the fourth.

Quhow sall the first kynd of faburdoun How shall the first kind of faburden be
be knawin? Be rewills and exemplis. understood? By rules and examples.
Be rewillis--quhow? The first rewill is By rules – how? The first rule is that all
that the plane sang notis of all mesuris the notes of the plainsong in all rhythms
ma be uprasit fro the propir seit and may be raised from the proper pitch and
modulat in diapason ascendent. Bot performed an octave higher. But this
this rewill is nocht ay observit, for this rule is not always observed, for this
causs--quhan the plane sang is seit in cause -- when the plainsong’s pitch is
C fa-ut, D sol-re, E la-me, Ff fa-ut, G C fa-ut, D sol-re, E la-me, F fa-ut, G sol-
sol-re-ut in the scherp and in A la-me- re-ut in the acute 201 range and in A La-
re, B[rob][sqb] fa-be-me, [f.94v] C me-re, B♮ fa-be-me, C sol-fa-ut, etc.
sol-fa-ut, etc. above the scherip, than above the acute range, then the notes
the noittis sall nocht be transportit in shall not be raised an octave higher but
diapason ascendent bot thay salbe in shall be performed at the original pitch.
the propir seitis modulat.

The secund rewill is that the The second rule is that the baritone of
baratonantis of the forsaid rewill, the previous rule, when the plainsong
quhan quhan [sic] the plane sang is has been raised an octave, shall all be
uprasit, salbe all set in thriddis abov set in thirds above the proper pitch of
the propir sett of the plan sang quhilkis the plainsong, which shall be all in
salbe all saxtis beneth the upresit sixths below the raised notes. But this
noittis. Bot this rewill is nocht ay rule is not always observed, for this
observit, for this causs--quhan the plan cause – when the plainsong is in C fa-
sang is seitt in C fa-ut, D, E, F, G, in ut, D, E, F, G, in the acute 202 range and
the scherp and in A la-me-re, B[rob], in A la-me-re, Bb, C, C, etc., above the
C, C, etc., above the scherp, than the acute range, then the notes of the
nottis of the barratonant sall nocht be baritone shall not be set in thirds above
sett in thriddis abov the propir seit bot the original setting, but in sixths below
in saxtis beneth the plane sang and the plainsong, as before, when it is
siclyk quhen it is sett in the propir seit performed at the original pitch.
modulat.

201
Note: C fa-ut, D sol-re, etc. are an octave below the acute range. The notes in the acute range should
read c sol-fa-ut (middle c), d la-sol-re, etc. In other words, if the plainsong is set at ‘middle c’ or higher, do
not transpose up an octave.
202
See above.

70
The thrid rewill is: Suppois the plane The third rule is: Suppose that the
sang descend or ascend, all the closing plainsong descends or ascends, then the
punctis of the tribill salbe maid treble shall ascend at the cadence and
ascendent and never descent, quhilkis never descend, contrary to the rules of
to the rewillis of countering ar all countering.
contrarry.

The ferd rewill is: Suppois the plane The fourth rule is: Suppose that the
sang ascend or discend, all the closing plainsong ascends or descends, then the
punctis of the baritonant sall never baritone shall never ascend at the
ascend, bot fro the saxt in the octav cadence, but immediately descend from
immediatlie sall descend. the sixth to the octave.

The fyvft rewill is: Suppois the plane The fifth rule is: Suppose that the
sang be uprasit fro the proprie seit or plainsong is raised above its proper
modulat in the propir seit, the thrid pitch or performed in the proper pitch,
part of faburdon--callit the counter-- then the third part of the faburden –
sall ay be sett in ferdis beneth the plane called the counter – shall always be set
sang and [in] the thriddis abov the in fourths beneath the plainsong and in
baritonant, except quhan the thirds above the baritone, except when
baritonant makkis the closing punctis the baritone cadences down within the
down in the octav beneth the plane octave beneath the plainsong, then the
sang, than the closing punctis of the cadence of the counter shall close at the
said counter sall cloiss in the fyvft fifth above the baritone. The performer
above the baritonant. Of the quhilk of the counter shall sing no other notes
counter the modulaturis sall sing nan but the same notes of the plainsong, all
uther noittis bot the same noittis of the in fourths beneath the same, as it is
plan sang all in ferdis beneth the same, [explained] before at length in the third
as it is befoir in the thrid chaptour of chapter of the third part of music.
the thrid part of music at mair lynth
declarit.

71
The saxt rewill is: Gif the finall noit of The sixth rule is: If the final note of any
ony verss, hyme, antiphon or respond verse, hymn, antiphon, or respond be
be nocht flexable to resa[r]ve ane not flexible enough to resolve to any
plesand c[l]oiss it is admittit be all pleasing cadence, all musicians may
musicians [f.95r] to augment the finall enhance the final with a simple note
with ane sympill noit eftir the last noit after the last note of the plainsong in
of the plane sang for the making of the order to make the last tone pleasing,
last closing punct plesand, the quhilk which enhancement at the final ending
augmentation at the finall ending of of verses, hymns, and antiphons
versis, hymnis and antiphonis oftand frequently occurs in various cases, upon
dyverss tymes reilie dois occur in which aforesaid rules there are a variety
sindrie realmes, apone the quhilkis of real examples.
rewlis forsaidis diverss reall exemplis.

The sevnt rewill is that all nounis The seventh rule is that all ‘barbarous’
barbar[ous] or [H]ebrew, as Israell, or Hebrew nouns, [such] as Israel, Zion,
Syon, Jacob, David, Affrata, Jacob, David, Ephrata, Jerusalem, or
Jherusalem, or monosillabis--sum, es, monosyllables – sum, es, est, me, te, se,
est, me, te, se, fac, nos, voc--makand fac, nos, voc – formed by a raised tone
the punctis uprasit to cloiss in the mid to cadence in the middle of the verse [of
verss sall discend fro the uprasit nottis the psalm or canticle] shall descend
and punct in semiditono als weill in from the raised note or flex to a minor
binary as trinary and in alls weill third both in duple as well as triple
corrupt pausis as in [punct crossed [groupings of notes] and likewise at
out] product paussis or in schort unexpected pauses as in correctly
psalmony. The baritonant sall descend produced pauses or in short psalmody.
fro the meid punct and cloiss in The baritone shall descend from the
diapenthe; the counter sall descend fro median tone and cadence at the fifth; the
the mid punct in semiditono and sall counter shall descend a minor third
ascend agane and cloiss up in pleno from the median tone and then shall
tono quhilkis perfectly be thir ascend again and close up a whole step,
exemplis followand ma be fully which may be fully observed and
understand and persavit: perceived by these examples:

72
Figure 12 Illustration of Rule 7, Faburden Type 1, from The Art of Music, GB-Lbl
Add. MS 4911, f.95r

Heir for de[c]oring of the finall cloiss Here for decorating the final cadence,
thrie sympill noittis ar to the finall three simple notes are added to the final
noit augmentit. note.

[f.95v] The first exempill is that the The first example is that the plainsong is
plane sang is all extendit and modulat entirely performed an octave above the
in diapason abouv the propir seit and proper pitch, and the baritone is set and
the baritonant is sett and modulat all performed in sixths beneath the raised
in saxtis beneth the extendit plane plainsong, except that the closing notes
sang, except that all the closing of the same [baritone] descend to the
punctis of the same dois to the octave octave, to which after the final note of
descend, to the quhilkis eftir the finall the plainsong, for embellishing the
noit of the plane sang for decoring of cadence, a simple note is added. Here
the closing punct ane sympill noit is follows the plainsong:
augmentit. Heir followis the plane
sang:

73
Figure 13 Example of Faburden Type 1 from The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911,
f.95v

74
The second kynd of faburdoun is The second kind of faburden is where the
quhair the tribill and the tenor keipis treble and the tenor keep the true way of
the just way of fabourdoun; the faburden; the counter and the baritone are
counter and the barritonant ar partis freely composed parts added to them as
artificiall to tham annexit as be this is plainly demonstrated in this example
exampill upon the first toun of upon the first tone of Magnificat:
Magnificat is planly demonstret:

Figure 14 Example of Faburden Type 2 from The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911,
f.103r

75
 [f.103v] The thrid kynd of faburdun is The third kind of faburden is where the
quhair the plane sang is modulat in plainsong is performed in sixths above
saxtis above the [plane crossed out] its proper pitch; the baritone is
propir seit; the baritonant is modulat performed in thirds beneath the proper
in thridis beneth the propir seit and the pitch and the counter in fourths beneath
counter in ferdis beneth the plane the plainsong, of which kind we find two
sang, of the quhilk kynd we find tua rules. The first rule is that whole song
rewillis. The first rewill is that the being transposed beneath the proper
haill sang beand transponit beneth the pitch, 203 is all performed in just faburden
propir seit, it is all modulat in just conforming to the first kind, except that
faburdoun conform to the first kynd the song is put in another key in this
except the sang is put in ane uthe[r] way:
key in this wayiss:

Figure 15 Illustration of Rule 1, Faburden Type 3, from The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add.
MS 4911, f.103v

203
Maynard, “An Anonymous Scottish Treatise,” Vol.1, 138-39, explains that this would produce parallel
octaves. He explains that once the cantus firmus is transposed up a sixth, the faburden tenor, not the hymn
melody, is used as the cantus firmus.

76
The secund rewill is that the tenor is The second rule is that the tenor is put
put dowin to be modulat in thridis down to be performed in thirds beneath
beneth the propir seit of the plane sang the proper pitch of the plainsong, and
and thrie artificiall partis thairto three freely composed parts are added
annexit--quhilk is fro the rycht way of thereto – which is forbidden in correct
faburdoun excludit. The exempill faburden. The example follows in this
followis in this wayis quhilk is be way, which is composed by Doctor
Doctor Fairfax compysit and is haldin Fayrfax and is deemed to be authentic:
autentic:

Figure 16 Example of Faburden Type 3 from The Art of Music, GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911,
f.103v

77
Figure 17 Example of Faburden Type 3 from The Art of Music (cont.), GB-Lbl Add. MS
4911, f.104r

78
[f.104v] The ferd kynd of faburdoun The fourth kind of faburden consists of
is of four partis quhair the baritonant four parts, where the baritone is set in
is sett in thridis, fyvftis, octavis thirds, fifths, and octaves below the
beneth the plane sang or in unison plainsong, or in unison with the
with the plane sang; the tribill is sett plainsong; the treble is set entirely in
all in saxttis above the plane sang; the sixths above the plainsong; the counter
counter is all sett in ferdis above the is entirely set in fourths above the
plane sang and the plane sang is plainsong, and the plainsong is
modulat in the propir seitt, as be thir performed at its proper pitch, as in the
exemplis followand the way and following examples from which the way
process of this present kynd of and process of this present kind of
faburdoun may perfytly be faburden may be perfectly understood.
understand.

79
Figure 18 Beginning of an example of Faburden Type 4 from The Art of Music, GB-Lbl
Add. MS 4911, f.104v

80
 Bibliography

Allenson, Stephen. “The Inverness Fragments: Music from a Pre-Reformation Scottish

Parish Church and School.” Music & Letters 70, no. 1 (1989): 1–45.

Anonymous. Sconiana: Memoranda of the Antiques, Curiosities, History and Present

State of Scone. Edinburgh: John Moir, 1807.

Baxter, James Houston. An Old St. Andrews Music Book (Cod. Helmst. 628). London:
Oxford University Press, 1931.

Baxter, James Houston. Copiale Prioratus Sanctiandree: The Letter-Book of James

Haldenstone. London: Oxford University Press, 1930.

Bernhard, Michael, ed., and Calvin Bower, trans. Lexicon musicum latinum medii aevi.
http://woerterbuchnetz.de/cgi-bin/WBNetz/wbgui_py?sigle=LmL.

Bowers, Roger. “Robert Carver (1487/8 – c. 1568) at Scone and Stirling.” Early Music
Review 48 (1999): 8–10.

Bukofzer, Manfred F. “Fauxbourdon Revisited.” The Musical Quarterly 38 (1959): 22–

47.

Carvor, Robert. The Complete Works of Robert Carver & Two Anonymous Masses. Edited
by Kenneth Elliott. Musica Scotica. Glasgow: University of Glasgow, 1996.

Ceulemans, Anne-Emmanuelle, and Bonnie J. Blackburn. Théorie et analyse musicales:

1450 – 1650: Actes du colloque international Louvain-la-Neuve, 23-25 Septembre
1999 = Music Theory and Analysis: Proceedings of the International Conference
Louvain-la-Neuve, 23-25 September 1999. Louvain-la-Neuve: Départment
d'histoire de l'art et d'archéologie, Collège Érasme, 2001.

Chisholm, Jessica Lynn. “Upon the Square: An Ex Tempore and Compositional Practice
in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century England.” PhD diss., Rutgers University,
2012.

Church of Scotland. The First and Second Booke of Discipline Together with some Acts
of the Generall Assemblies, Clearing and Confirming the Same: and an Act of
Parliament. Amsterdam: G. Thorp, 1621.

81
Dawson, Jane E. A. “Lords of the Congregation (act. 1557 – 1560).” Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography. 8 Oct. 2009; Accessed 19 Jan. 2020. https://www-oxforddnb-
com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.
001. 0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-69936.

Dawson, Jane E. A. New Edinburgh History of Scotland. Vol. 6: Scotland Re-Formed,

1488 – 1587. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007.

Des Prez, Josquin. “Missa L'Homme armé super voces musicales.” In Masses Based on
Secular Monophonic Songs II, The Collected Works of Josquin des Prez, New
Josquin Edition, vol. 6. Edited by Jesse Rodin, 38–71. Utrecht: Koninklijke
Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 2014.

Donaldson, Gordon. The Scottish Reformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1960.

Elliott, Kenneth. Carvor [Carver, Arnot], Robert. Grove Music Online. 20 Jan. 2001;
Accessed 31 Jan. 2020. https://www-oxfordmusiconline-com.proxy-um.
researchport.umd.edu/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001
/omo-9781561592630-e-0000005049.

Elliott, Kenneth. “The Carver Choir-Book.” Music & Letters 41, no. 4 (1960): 349-57.

Fallows, David. “L’homme armé.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Accessed
February 24, 2019. https://doi-org.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/10.1093/gmo/
9781561592630.article.16553.

Flynn, Jane. “The Education of Choristers in England During the Sixteenth Century.” In
English Choral Practice 1400 – 1650. Edited by John Morehen, 180–99.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Frere, Walter Howard. Bibliotheca Musico-Liturgica: A Descriptive Handlist of the

Musical & Latin-Liturgical Manuscripts of the Middle Ages Preserved in the
Libraries of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. II.1.2. Hildesheim: Georg Olms
Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1967. Reprint of London edition, 1932.

Glareanus, Heinrich. Dodecachordon. Basel: Heinrich Petri, 1547.

Haar, James. “Palestrina As Historicist: The Two L’homme armé Masses.” Journal of the
Royal Musical Association 121, no. 2 (1996): 191–205.

Haggh, Barbara. “The Mystic Lamb and the Golden Fleece: Impressions of the Ghent
Altarpiece on Burgundian Music.” Revue belge de musicologie 61 (2007): 5–59.

Herman, Arthur. How the Scots Invented the Modern World. New York: Broadway Books,
2001.

82
Holford-Strevens, Leofranc. “Humanism and the Language of Music Treatises.”
Renaissance Studies 15, no. 4 (2005): 415–49.

Irving, David. Memoirs of the Life and Writings of George Buchanan. Edinburgh: William
Blackwood, 1817.

Kirkman, Andrew. The Cultural Life of the Early Polyphonic Mass. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Knox, John, and David Laing, ed. The Works of John Knox, vol. 1. Burlington: Tanner
Ritchie Publishing, 2010. http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-um.researchport.
umd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=353059&site=ehost-live.

Lyon, Gregory B. “Baudouin, Flacius, and the Plan for the Magdeburg Centuries.” Journal
of the History of Ideas 64, no. 2 (2003): 253–72.

Maynard, Judson. “An Anonymous Scottish Treatise on Music from the Sixteenth
Century, British Museum Additional Manuscript 4911, Edition and Commentary.”
PhD diss., University of Indiana, 1961.

Maynard, Judson D. “Heir Beginnis Countering.” Journal of the American Musicological

Society 20, no. 2 (1967): 182–96.

McRoberts, David. “Material Destruction caused by the Scottish Reformation.” In Essays

on the Scottish Reformation 1513 – 1625. Edited by David McRoberts, 415–562.
Glasgow: Burns, 1962.

Munro, Gordon. “‘Sang Schwylls’ and ‘Music Schools’: Music Education in Scotland,
1560 – 1650.” In Music Education in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Edited
by Cynthia J. Cyrus, Susan Forscher Weiss, and Russell Eugene Murray, 65–83.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010.

Munro, Gordon James. “Scottish Church Music and Musicians, 1500 – 1700.” PhD diss.,
University of Glasgow, 1999.

Munro, Gordon J. “The Scottish Reformation and its Consequences.” In Our Awin Scottis
Use: Music in the Scottish Church up to 1603. Edited by Sally Harper, 273–303.
Glasgow: Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen, 2000.

Park, Eulmee. “De Preceptis Artis Musicae of Guilielmus Monachus: A New Edition,
Translation, and Commentary.” PhD diss., Ohio State University, 1993.

Planchart, Alejandro Enrique. “The Origins and Early History of L'homme armé.” The
Journal of Musicology 20, no. 3 (2003): 305–57.

83
Preece, Isobel Woods. “A Note on ‘Scottish Anonymous.’” In Our Awin Scottis Use:
Music in the Scottish Church up to 1603. Edited by Sally Harper, 195–98.
Glasgow: Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen, 2000.

Preece, Isobel Woods. “The Contents of the Carvor Choirbook.” In Our Awin Scottis Use:
Music in the Scottish Church up to 1603. Edited by Sally Harper, 150–68.
Glasgow: Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen, 2000.

Preece, Isobel Woods, Warwick Edwards, and Gordon J Munro. Our Awin Scottis Use:
Music in the Scottish Church Up to 1603. Edited by Sally Harper. Glasgow:
Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen, 2000.

Preece, Isobel Woods. “The Physical Characteristics of the Carvor Choirbook.” In Our
Awin Scottis Use: Music in the Scottish Church up to 1603. Edited by Sally Harper,
129–49. Glasgow: Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen, 2000.

Preece, Isobel Woods. “Towards a Bibliography of Robert Carvor.” In Our Awin Scottis
Use: Music in the Scottish Church up to 1603. Edited by Sally Harper, 101–28.
Glasgow: Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen, 2000.

Roesner, Edward Hugo. “The Manuscript Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August-Bibliothek, 628

Helmstadiensis: A Study of its Origin and of its Eleventh Fascicle.” PhD diss.,
New York University, 1974.

Rogers, Charles. History of the Chapel Royal of Scotland: With the Register of the Chapel
Royal of Stirling. London: British Topographical Society, 1882.

Ross, D. James. Musick Fyne. Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 1993.

Ross, D. James. “New Roots for a Renaissance Scottish Master?” Early Music Review 46
(1998): 8–10.

Ross, D. James. “Robert Carver, Canon of Scone: New Perspectives on the Scottish
Renaissance Composer.” In Notis Musycall: Essays on Music and Scottish Culture
in Honour of Kenneth Elliott. Elliott. Edited by Gordon Munro, Stuart Campbell,
Greta-Mary Hair, Margaret A. Mackay, Elaine Moohan, and Graham Hair, 95–114.
Glasgow: Musica Scotica Trust, 2005.

Ross, D. James. “Robert Carvor in Stirling – Ar Not?” Early Music Review, 49 (1999): 9.

Ryrie, Alec. “Congregations, Conventicles and the Nature of Early Scottish Protestantism.”
Past & Present, no. 191 (2006): 45–76.

Ryrie, Alec. The Origins of the Scottish Reformation. Politics, Culture, and Society in
Early Modern Britain. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006.

84
Scott, Hew. Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae: The Succession of Ministers in the Church of
Scotland from the Reformation. Vol. IV: Synods of Argyll, and of Perth and
Stirling. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1923.

Shire, Helena M. Court Song in Scotland After 1603: Aberdeenshire. Vol. III, Andro
Melvill's Music Library, Aberdeen, 1637. Edinburgh: R. and R. Clark, 1960.

Slonosky, Timothy. “Burgh Government and Reformation: Stirling, c. 1530 – 1565.” In

Scotland's Long Reformation: New Perspectives on Scottish Religion, c. 1500 – c.
1660. Edited by John McCallum, 49–68. Leiden: Brill, 2016.

Smuts, R. Malcolm. “Kynaston, Sir Francis.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

23 Sep. 2004; Accessed 20 Jan. 2020. https://www-oxforddnb-com.proxy-
um.researchport.umd.edu/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-
9780198614128-e-15822.

Stevens, Denis. “The Manuscript Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Adv. Ms. 5. 1.
15.” Musica Disciplina 13 (1959): 155–67.

Taylor, Maurice. “The Conflicting Doctrines of the Scottish Reformation,” in Essays on

the Scottish Reformation 1513 – 1625. Edited by David McRoberts, 245–73.
Glasgow: Burns, 1962.

Trowell, Brian. “Faburden and Fauxbourdon.” Musica Disciplina 13 (1959): 43–78.

Trumble, Ernest. “Authentic and Spurious Faburden,” Revue belge de musicologie /

Belgisch tijdschrift voor muziekwetenschap 14, no. 1–4 (1960): 3–29.

Walcott, Mackenzie E. C. Scoti-Monasticon: The Ancient Church of Scotland; a History

of the Cathedrals, Conventual Foundations, Collegiate Churches, and Hospitals of
Scotland. London: Virtue, Spalding, and Daldy, 1874.

Warwick, Alistair. “Dunkeld Music Book: Chapter 2.” Dunblane: The Art of Music, 1992
– 2020. Accessed January 22, 2020. https://alistairwarwick.com/content/dunkeld-
music-book-2.

Whytock, Jack C. Continental Calvinian Influences on the Scottish Reformation: The First
Book of Discipline (1560). Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2009.

Wright, Craig M. The Maze and the Warrior: Symbols in Architecture, Theology, and
Music. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.

85