Matins, Lauds and Vespers for St David's Day: The Medieval Office of the Welsh Patron Saint in National Library of Wales MS 20

This is the first book about the only Welsh antiphonal known, and it discusses in particular the material for services celebrating the memory of the Welsh patron saint. The `Penpont Antiphonal', National Library of Wales MS. 20541 E, is the only source known of the Latin rhymed Office of St David. An introduction to this fourteenth-century antiphonal includes a full listing and description of its contents. In Part 2 of the book Professor Edwards is concerned to show the significance of the Office of St David. The chants and the literary text are described and discussed, supported by full transcriptions of the musical and literary texts, and by facsimile reproduction of the manuscript folios. The office is considered in its historical perspective: its relationship to other similar late medieval offices and to Rhigyfarch's Life of St David, the importance of this rare survivor in the light of the almost total annihilation of Welsh Latin liturgical material in 1550, and as evidence of the active cultivation of music in Wales during the Middle Ages.OWAIN TUDOR EDWARDS is Professor of Music History at the Norwegian State Academy of Music, Oslo.