Thomas Phillips

Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 4, f. 165v

I missed St Nicholas’ feast day yesterday, but here is a ‘Benedicamus Domino’ for it set to the melody on ‘Clementiam’, taken from the responsory ‘Qui cum audissent’. It’s one of the most popular Benedicamus melodies. Can you see the attempt made by a scribe to fix the melody?

Has anyone seen a medieval SpongeBob like this before? Not what I expected to see leafing through a chant book

See the manuscript here permalink.kb.dk/permalink/20...

Happy St Edmund’s Day!

An office for this saint’s feast day has been notated using Anglo-Saxon neumes.

København, KGL Bibliotek, GKS 1588 quarto (Second half of 11th c.)

I very much doubt anyone on here will recognise this logo, but I’m showing it anyway because I’m very happy with this purchase.

I should have said “a history” as my chapter is largely focused on notated offices, but I do talk about the 1482 and 1497 editions of Breviarium Othoniense

3) for any notation enthusiasts out there, this is from a fragment of an English gradual (11th c.) written and notated by several scribes. It’s a great example of the diversity of scribal approaches to notating chant.

Stockholm, Kungliga Biblioteket, MS A. 128, f. 1r

2) A study of the music for the Chrism Mass in late Anglo-Saxon and early Anglo-Norman England, as well as the classification of Norman notation in England after the Conquest. Fingers crossed someone wants to read at least one of them…

1) I’m using this short time I have in Cambridge to get some articles out which I’m really excited about sharing. Topics include the role of the cantor at St Albans Abbey throughout the twelfth century, the history of the Office of St Alban in England and Scandinavia…

I'm lucky to have worked with one of the many brilliant people in these departments. Henry Parkes in Music is one of the cleverest, most insightful and inspirational historians I know - and one of the finest teachers too. Don't waste such talent @uniofnottingham.bsky.social.

Some of the earliest written notes in western musical history discovered in Pennsylvania Ninth-century manuscript for Easter services remained ‘out of sight’ for years in hands of private collector

🤦🏼‍♂️

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Eight pages bound in furry seal skin may be Norway's oldest book The little book is so rare that the National Library of Norway is bringing in experts from around the world to learn more.

Furry seal skin AND tiny Icelandic manuscripts!

www.sciencenorway.no/cultural-his...

www.icelandreview.com/news/rare-15...

I’m reading Michael Ende’s ‘The Neverending Story’ for the first time as the film is my absolute childhood favourite. To my horror, the horse, Artax, can talk…if you know, you know…

Thank you!

Thank you!

Time to relax. 7 days in Zakynthos should do the trick. I have been itching to read this book since I bought it but told myself to wait until after submission.

I’m delighted to be starting a one-year postdoc in October at the University of Cambridge on Dr Catherine A. Bradley’s ERC-funded BENEDICAMUS project.

It’s finally finished. Big thanks to the SWWDTP and my supervisors - Emma Hornby, Ben Pohl, and Sarah Hamilton.

A sorely underrated English medieval manuscript, if I might say so myself. I hope I’ve done it some justice.

I haven’t checked in on here in a while. My thesis is currently with my supervisors for comments before I submit the final thing at the end of September. In the meantime, job applications and article writing…

1st August - the original feast day of the Invention of St Alban. It was moved to 2nd during the abbacy of Geoffrey de Gorron in 1129, but the octave, which should fall on 9th August, remains fixed on 8th in the calendars.

(Oxford, Bodleian Library, Auct. D. 2. 6)

Looking forward to speaking at this conference. This is the last time I’ll be giving a paper before I submit my thesis in September.

Lovely Easter run across the dunes of what was once the medieval town of Kenfig. John Leland, writing in 1538, said: “There is a litle village on the est side of Kenfik, and a castel, booth in ruine and almost shokid and devourid with the sandes that the Severn Se ther castith up.”

“Exultet iam angelica turba…” from the Blessing of the Candle on Holy Saturday.
Note the melisma over the word “accendit”, the point at which the candle is lit. These melismas are only found in sources from England, Normandy, and Norman-Sicily.

BnF Lat. 13765 (11th c.)

I couldn’t call myself an Oxford resident if my bike hadn’t been stolen…8 months isn’t bad a run.

It’s sad to see that the ‘Dublin Pontifical’ (Dublin, Trinity College, 98) is no longer available online as a fully digitised manuscript.

The Chrism Mass liturgy is so messy.

I should really say four verses plus…coda? After the end of the final refrain is a short text ‘Tibi laus per saecula amen’ set to the melody of the second half of the refrain. This addition is found elsewhere only in the 13th-century Worcester Antiphoner.

Five verses of the hymn ‘O redemptor sume carmen’ preserved in BL, Cotton Nero A. i, ff. 172r-172v (early 11th c.)

Despite being technologically literate, I haven’t found a better way to organise my chant-text comparisons than using pencil and paper

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