New College Chapel Choir Books

  • This material is held at
  • Reference
      GB 161 MSS. Mus. c. 46-51, d. 149-69, c. 22-5, f. 32
  • Dates of Creation
      17th-19th century
  • Language of Material
      Latin, and English.
  • Physical Description
      32 shelfmarks

Scope and Content

New College Chapel Choir Books: incomplete sets and isolated members of part-books which were in use from the early 17th century up to the middle of the 19th century and probably later. Content and arrangement differ even in parts from the same set, as unwanted music was discarded when the books were repaired, and space was filled unsystematically: in the latter half of the period music was sometimes copied by one hand in unrelated books. On the covers there is usually indication of content (services and anthems), voice, and side (Decani or Warden's and Cantoris); numbers, written or stamped, represent different attempts to distinguish the sets from one another. The parts are the work of a series of copyists, of whom two record payment by the Bursar, Morgan Cove (1742-4) and Philip Hayes (1781-95).

Administrative / Biographical History

New College Chapel, University of Oxford.

Access Information

Entry to read in the Library is permitted only on presentation of a valid reader's card (for admissions procedures see http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/specialcollections).

Acquisition Information

The collection was given to the Library by the Warden and Fellow of New College in 1919.

Note

Collection level description created by Emily Tarrant, Department of Special Collections and Western Manuscripts.

Other Finding Aids

A full description is available in the Library.