The Wollaton Antiphonal is an illuminated manuscript currently held in the collection of the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public university, public research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. The University of Nottingham belongs t ...

in England, UK..

History

The

antiphonal An antiphonary or antiphonal is one of the liturgical books intended for use (i.e. in the liturgical choir), and originally characterized, as its name implies, by the assignment to it principally of the antiphons used in various parts of the L ...

was commissioned by Sir

Thomas Chaworth Sir Thomas Chaworth (died 1459) was an English landowner and Member of Parliament. Life He was the son and heir of Alice and Sir William Chaworth of Wiverton and Alfreton. His mother Alice (née Caltoft) brought a considerable fortune to the fami ...

of Wiverton. It was completed in 1430 and was used in his private chapel at Wiverton Manor. After Chaworth's death in 1459, the manuscript was in use at St. Leonard's Church, Wollaton until Catholic Latin service books were banned in the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

in the 1540s. The antiphonal was kept safe by the Willoughby family (later the Barons Middleton) in

Wollaton Hall Wollaton Hall is an Elizabethan country house of the 1580s standing on a small but prominent hill in Wollaton Park, Nottingham, England. The house is now Nottingham Natural History Museum, with Nottingham Industrial Museum in the outbuildings ...

library until 1924, when it was returned to the church. In 1974 it was put in the care of the Middleton collection at the department of

Manuscripts and Special Collections, The University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections is part of Libraries, Research and Learning Resources at the University of Nottingham. It is based at King's Meadow Campus in Nottingham in England. The university has been collecting manuscripts since the earl ...

, along with other papers belonging to the family.

21st century

The University of Nottingham has been examining and conserving the antiphonal for several years. Work has included removal of 19th century binding, rebinding into two volumes and consolidating pigments. In 2023, over 70 pages of the manuscript can be viewed online through their "Turning the Pages" project. The manuscript is the only surviving source of the melodies which form the Office for St John of Bridlington. The antiphonal is still used to inspire new music.
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References

{{Reflist Documents of the Catholic Church 1430s books 15th-century Latin books