The Arundel Choirbook. London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 1. A Facsimile and Introduction.

£350 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

Due to the size postage and packing will be charged at cost. A handsome monograph on this spectacular manuscript of medieval church music commissioned by Edward Higgons, Master of Arundel College in Sussex. Three English choirbooks have survived intact from the early Tudour Period: the Eton Choirbook, and the now so-called “Caius” and “Lambeth” Choirbooks (now housed at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and Lambeth Palace Library, respectively). While Eton is known to have originated from the great college of that name the provenance of Caius and Lambeth has, untill now, been a complete mystery. The man responsible for their production has long been held to be Edward Higgons, a prominent Tudor Lawyer and multiple plurist who was a canon of St Stephen’s Westminster, where Nicholas Ludford, a principle composer in both manuscripts, was employed from the early 1520s. On the last page of the Caius Choirbook is written the insciption, “Ex dono et opere Edwardi Higons cuius ecclesie canonicis,” Which may be translated as, “By the gift and work of Edward Higgons, canon of this church.” The “ecclesia” is now believed to be St. Stephen’s, although the origins of the Lambeth Choirbook have been much less well understood. It has, however, been generally accepted that it too was produced for one of the ecclesiastical institutions with which Higgons was associated. In this Roxburghe Club volume, Dr David Skinner (Magdalen College, Oxford) casts new light on the hitherto unknown origi

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