The Service-Books of the Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis: Images of Ritual and Music in the Middle Ages (Oxford Monographs on Music)

A study of the music and ritual at Saint-Denis from the sixth to the sixteenth century, this book is based on an examination of the liturgical books and archival sources relating to the abbey, in particular the surviving service-books, which tell us much about the history of the music and of the Divine Office at Saint-Denis. Robertson also looks at the tropes and sequences proper to the office for Saint Denis, provides information on the performance practices, instruments, musicians, and liturgists from the abbey, and offers an account of the history of the liturgy from the Council of Torus in 567 to the pillage of the abbey by the Huguenots in 1567, thus explicating the extant liturgical codices from Saint-Denis. A fascinating and wide-ranging study, Robertson finds that the ritual and history of the abbey is also inextricably linked to the reconstruction of its various buildings, the decorations of the church, and even the monks' ambitions.