ABSTRACT

In addition to the mass prayers (the collects, secrets and postcommunions) and lectionaries (the gospels and epistles), correlation between Hereford, Sarum and York may also be noted in the series of alleluyatic verses following the graduals for the twenty-five Sundays from Trinity (English, Carthusian and Dominican uses1) or the octaves of Pentecost (Roman, Dominica prima post pentecosten) to Advent. This was one section of the proper of the missal where considerable diversity was permissible, and variations between 1502 and the earlier Hereford manuscripts may be explained by probable assimilation to Sarum by the former, though other influences should also be considered. The Hereford series in 1502 has similarities with six northern French sources, both secular and monastic, from Lille, Saint-Valéry, Rouen, Saint-Wandrille, Chelles, and Fleury.2 The variants noted in the manuscripts (39675, 78A and F.161)3 also have affinities with these, with 39675, for example, containing all the alleluyatic verses in the Saint-Valéry/Rouen series.4 of the three English uses compared here, York emerges as the most idiosyncratic, corresponding twice only (first and second Sundays) with Hereford and Sarum, while having a notable affinity with the Roman Missal (fifth to tenth Sundays inclusive). The wider relationship of all three to the French uses mentioned, and indeed to the Roman series, is highly complex, and its investigation here would lead into specialized and probably inconclusive paths beyond the scope of the present work.