The transmission of motets within the Paston manuscripts, c.1610

Abstract

The creation and expansion of commercial music printing from around 1500 has normally led to modern editors assigning textual primacy to published copies of music from the period in preference to any equivalent manuscript copies. However, some groups of manuscript sources, such as the Paston collection, from late 16th and early 17th century England, can shed a different light on contemporary music print culture and its relationship to manuscript copying. Edward Paston?s huge private music library, now dispersed in collections in the UK and US, contains many multiple versions of works he already access to in print form, and the choices he or his copyists made with regard to three particular six-voice Latin motets, Byrd?s Memento homo, Ferrabosco?s In monte Oliveti, and Vaet?s Salve Regina, are examined here, and placed within with their collecting context and likely use.