ABSTRACT
This chapter aspect of nineteenth-century Catholic music in England was the emergence of a substantial repertoire of works for the rite of Benediction. It focuses on settings of O Salutaris, the Litany, and Tantum Ergo; and sometimes these were grouped together to form what was known as a 'Benediction Service'. The chapter illustrates how, as with hymnody, locally composed Benediction music could nonetheless find a national audience. The earliest evidence for the emergence of Benediction music comes from the London embassy chapel repertoire of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The 'St Cuthbert's Litany' was in all probability written in 1837, the first year of Newsham's presidency, when St Cuthbert was adopted as Ushaw's patron saint. Jesuit contributions limit to work each by George Herbert, William Maher and Charles Raymond- Barker. It represents no more than a modification of the Benediction repertoire inherited from the nineteenth century and retained by the English Catholic community after the Great War.
