A Carol by James Ryman in the Holkham Archives

Abstract

Abstract A late fifteenth-century manorial notebook in the archives of the Earl of Leicester at Holkham Hall, Norfolk, has been found to contain a hitherto unnoticed and apparently unique late medieval English carol, based on the Latin hymn Te deum. Comparison with other examples of the genre suggests that its author is more likely than not to have been James Ryman, a Franciscan friar of Canterbury, and a prolific writer of carols. His oeuvre includes a number of compositions deriving from the Te deum, to some of which the Holkham text bears significant similarities. The owner of the notebook is identified as William Wayte Jr of Tittleshall, Norfolk, who is known to have served as an estate administrator and agent for the well-known Norfolk lawyer Sir Roger Townshend of Raynham (c.1430–1493). Certain provisions in Wayte’s will suggest that his interest in the carol may have been connected to a devotion on his part to the Trinity, which in late medieval art was often expressed through imagery drawn from the Te deum.