Magdalen College Research Articles

Nonsense Syllables in Byzantine Chant Tradition

This article examines the historical phenomenon of nonsense syllables in the chant of the Byzantine church. This practice of non-lexical singing upon the extended use of vocables, appears already in ancient Greek music and has gone by many terms, including kratēmata or teretismata. Three different hypotheses as to the historical roots and development of this singing practice are predominant, namely those of Gregorios Stathis (1979, 2014), Diane Touliatos (1989), and Gregorios Anastasiou (2005). The foundations, results and consequences of these theories are reassessed in the light of critical examination of the fourteenth century treatise Ἁρμονικά (Harmonika) of Manuel Bryennios (Magdalen College MS Gr 13), the tenth century Book of Ceremonies (in Latin cited as De cerimoniis aulae Byzantinae and in Greek cited as Ἔκθεσις τῆς βασιλείου τάξεως) of the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogennetos, and different versions of the liturgy of the so-called “Service of the Furnace” (Athens, National Library, EBE 2047; Athens, National Library, EBE 2406; Iviron Monastery, MS 1120; S-Sinai, Mt. Sinai, MS 1527; and Lavra Monastery, MS 165). The critical examination and synthesis of previous theories of the origin and development of Byzantine nonsense-syllable singing offers a number of conclusions, where I argue for new, qualified hypotheses that may be laid as foundations for further research. It is concluded that the nonsense syllables seem to have served a number of semiotic functions and purposes: as incantations (sometimes with pagan and ritual associations), as mimesis of nature (birds and cicada), for the intonation of texted chant, as well as for singing practice and solmization purposes. It is also argued that the non-semantic vocalization that this singing constitutes, amounts to a type of proto-programmatic music, with layers of mimetic singing and a rare sense of heightened expression in a context which otherwise focuses strongly on a religious text and its context. Finally, the term “mental representations” is proposed for describing the semantic function of nonsense syllables.

William Worcestre, Sir John Fastolf and Latin Learning

Abstract Sir John Fastolf is known for his association with books in the vernaculars of French and English. It is, though, known that there was also an interest in Latin learning in his circle, and this article provides new evidence concerning that. It introduces a set of manuscripts which passed from the hands of Fastolf’s secretary, William Worcestre, to the foundation of Magdalen College, Oxford. Their passage to Oxford is placed in the context of the battle over Fastolf’s will, with its desire to establish a college at his house of Caister in Norfolk. A college did not necessarily imply a learned function but what Worcestre perceived to be the intentions for that foundation are placed in a wider context of his belief in his late master’s interest in promoting Latin education.

‘Instructive types’ or mere ‘fancies’: assessing French fashion prints in the library of Samuel Pepys

ABSTRACT Within the library of the famed diarist Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) at Magdalene College, Cambridge sits one of the largest surviving bound collections of seventeenth-century French fashion prints. Containing nearly one hundred illustrations of named and anonymous figures spanning from 1670 though the 1690s, the Pepys fashion prints remain an underutilised resource for seventeenth-century dress history. Using Pepys’s Habits de France and ‘Modes de Paris’, this article argues that these engravings served a dual purpose to Pepys and his contemporaries. In addition to reflecting long-standing trends in collecting images of historical and global fashions, the prints were considered in some capacity to accurately depict the current French modes. As such, they provided vital sartorial guidance to fashionable elites seeking to mimic Continental styles, cementing their importance in the visualisation and dissemination of dress in late seventeenth-century England.

Academic Collaboration in the Early Enlightenment: Daniel Waterland (1683–1740) and his Cambridge Tyros

Abstract While early modern collaborative practices have long been associated with the natural sciences, humanistic scholarship has mostly been depicted, ever since Mark Pattison’s classic biography of Isaac Casaubon, as a lonely and even self-destructive affair. This article reconstructs a moment in English intellectual history when textual scholars did collaborate in a semi-professional manner. To this end, it examines the relationship between Daniel Waterland, Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and three ambitious young scholars who assumed roles within his enterprise: Edmund Law, Thomas Johnson and John Chapman. By showing how an unofficial research team was assembled over several years and directed to perform separate but related tasks with the stated goal of defending the Church of England, the article highlights the dynamics at work within a collective, subtly top-down model of scholarly interaction. Though a passing reference has been made in the historiography to ‘Waterland & Company’, this article is the first to delve into the nature and scope of this network and its sometimes contradictory objectives.

Ray Freeman. 6 January 1932—1 May 2022

Ray Freeman pioneered many of the important advances in the technique of liquid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy: he changed fundamentally the ways in which chemists and structural biologists use NMR. Born in Nottingham, he was an undergraduate chemistry student at Oxford after National Service working with radar, and completed his Part II and doctoral research with Rex Richards (FRS 1959). After brief spells with Anatole Abragam (ForMemRS 1983) in Saclay, France, and at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, he worked for 10 years in the research department of Varian Associates, Palo Alto, USA. He was appointed as lecturer in physical chemistry and tutorial fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1973, and subsequently promoted to Aldrichian praelector. In 1987 he was appointed to the John Humphrey Plummer chair at the University of Cambridge, where he remained active in research long after his retirement in 1999, publishing his last paper at the age of 84.

John Sheppard (c.1514–1558/59) at Oxford and the Chapel Royal: exculpation and clarification

Abstract The received biography available for the English composer John Sheppard (c.1514 – late 1558 or early 1559) is amenable to clarification at a number of points. He was employed as Master of the Choristers at Magdalen College, Oxford, for just a single spell, September 1543 to early 1548. The available evidence suggests that he proceeded thence directly to admission to the Chapel Royal. He had no further contact with Magdalen College; an instance of kidnap and confinement perpetrated in 1555 that is commonly attributed to him was instead committed by one Richard Sheparde/Sheper/Sheprey, a fellow of the college. Despite being only an imperfect draft, his ‘will’ of 1 December 1558 reveals much about his family circumstances at Westminster. He died between 1 December 1558 and 31 January 1559; the actual date must be reconcilable with expectation of his attendance at Queen Elizabeth’s coronation on 15 January 1559, as recorded on a list compiled not earlier than 15 December 1558.

John Sheppard and the Ewens: a closer look

Abstract The known musical career of John Sheppard spans just 15 years. In 1543, when he was probably still in his late twenties, he was appointed informator choristarum of Magdalen College, Oxford. At his death in 1558, at about the age of 43, he was a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, perhaps having been appointed on leaving Oxford in 1548. A recent article draws attention to the fact that, early in the reign of Queen Mary, Sheppard and his family were involved in a legal action concerning a group of properties in the parish of St Clement Danes, Middlesex. Deeper investigation of this dispute reveals where Sheppard’s geographical ties lay shortly before his Oxford appointment. It allows us to pinpoint with a high degree of confidence when and where his first marriage took place and to understand a little of the young couple’s circumstances. A separate action, in which he appeared as a joint plaintiff with his Chapel Royal colleague Luke Caustell, is less revealing, but potentially points to a connection with the same geographical region of England.

Thomas Robertson and the Pedagogical Uses of Erasmus in Early Tudor Grammar Schools

Abstract Erasmus’ educational theories were popularized during the first half of the sixteenth century by a group of Tudor educators, who used the medium of elementary Latin grammars and introductory phrasebooks to offer practical tools for a multilingual literary culture that would come to full fruition in the second half of the sixteenth century. Their teaching notes and school commentaries that survive in their annotated textbooks provide a valuable source with which to trace how Erasmian methods of teaching were actually put into practise. Among these early educators is an obscure figure of English educational history, Thomas Robertson (fl. c. 1520–1561), headmaster of Magdalen College School in Oxford from 1526 to 1531, who devised the most thorough and comprehensive Erasmian program in his annotated edition of William Lily’s elementary grammar De Latinorum nominum generibus (Basel: Johann Bebel, 1532). In many ways, Robertson’s edition of Lily’s grammar epitomizes Erasmus’ grammatical encyclopedism expounded in De ratione studii and De duplici copia verborum ac rerum commentarii duo, which inadvertently resulted in a fundamental reinterpretation of textual studies in the Tudor classroom. It furthermore testifies to Robertson’s efforts to promote Erasmus’ trilingual ideal: a parallel Latin and Greek instruction, which was extended even to basic Hebrew from an early age.

A New Latin Poem by Joseph Addison

Abstract Known almost exclusively now as the author of The Spectator and Cato, Joseph Addison was also highly regarded throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a Latin poet. This article presents a new addition to the canon of Addison’s Latin verse: a 57-line hexameter poem entitled Arcus Triumphalis which survives in a unique manuscript copy recently acquired by Addison’s alma mater Magdalen College, Oxford. The article begins by describing the manuscript (scans of the leaves containing Addison’s poem are included), detailing its likely genesis and confirming its attribution of the poem to Addison. Then it reconstructs the contexts of the poem, which describes a firework display put on in St James’s Square on the evening of 2 December 1697 to celebrate William III’s triumphal return to London after concluding the Peace of Ryswick. A third section provides a critical reading of the poem, concentrating on its surprising presentation of William III and its bold use of ekphrasis. The article concludes by assessing the place of Arcus Triumphalis in Addison’s career, in relation to the early development of his Whiggism and as a forerunner of several of his definitive concerns in The Spectator: privacy and the public sphere, urban spectacle, and the aesthetics of looking. An edited text of the poem and an English translation are provided in an appendix.

‘Like, or Better’: Building Contracts and Late-Medieval Perceptions of Quality in Architecture

This article uses building contracts to understand late-medieval perceptions of quality in architecture. The focus of the paper is value judgements based on existing buildings, which were to be emulated or ‘bettered’. The contracts for Magdalen College, Oxford are the central case study. This paper argues that ‘good’ in these contracts refers to the function of the building and the specifics of its design, and that other English and continental contracts also focus on the visible particulars of a structure. Such contracts make no reference to religious or political symbolism, rhetoric or iconography. It seems that, when closely engaged in the practice of building, medieval patrons and craftspeople showed aesthetic preferences of a precision not found in other sources.

Middle English Manuscripts and Their Legacies: A Volume in Honour of Ian Doyle

Middle English Manuscripts and Their Legacies: A Volume in Honour of Ian Doyle

‘Nevermind the Camel!’: The Hogarth Archive and the Wilderness of Zin

ABSTRACT The recent acquisition of the Hogarth Archive by Magdalen College Archives provides new insights to be achieved on the extraordinary work of David George Hogarth as one of the preeminent scholars of the Balkans and Middle East in the last half of the 19th and the early 20th century. He was a committee member of the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) and director of the British Museum excavations at Carchemish. His role in the Wilderness of Zin Survey, a joint effort by the War Office and the PEF to map the region of Sinai in the anticipated advent of war with Turkey, has been further illuminated by the discovery of new letters written by C. Leonard Woolley and T. E. Lawrence.

Some Versions of Pastoral and Related Writings

Some Versions of Pastoral and Related Writings

‘Different Forms of Gowns for All Sorts of Scholars in their Several Ranks’: Academic Undress at Oxford in 1635

This is a study of a one-page manuscript in the Oxford University Archives with the title ‘Different Forms of Gowns for All Sorts of Scholars in their Several Ranks’, dated June 1635. It was clearly written in connection with the Laudian Code of statutes, which was drafted in 1634 and adopted in 1636. The Code included regulations on university dress and its use at Oxford that would remain in force for 134 years. The document gives a concise specification for Oxford gowns at a time when other written records providing such detail are lacking and pictorial evidence is sparse. This article places ‘Different Forms’ in the context of the Laudian Code and provides a transcription. It then explains the various ranks and the requirements for the gowns and their facings and ornament. A section is devoted to four problematic terms for articles of dress. A commentary discusses significant points in the document, comparing the dress with Oxford gowns in the period leading up to 1635. A table summarizing the provisions in ‘Different Forms’, the text of a second manuscript (at Magdalen College) and a glossary of materials to be used for trimming the gowns are given in appendices.

THE ROLE OF PRIVATE LAW IN PROMOTING SOCIAL JUSTICE

The first contribution published in this edition is an abridged version of the inaugural lecture delivered by Professor Eltjo JH Schrage on 24 August 2009 in Port Elizabeth. The Faculty of Law is honoured that such an internationally esteemed jurist accepted the appointment as first Honorary Professor of the Faculty of Law in 2009. Prof Eltjo JH Schrage was born in Groningen. He studied law at the University of Groningen, where he obtained his doctorandus, a degree which is analogous to our master’s degree. In 1975 he defended his doctoral thesis entitled Libertas est facultas naturalis. Menselijke vrijheid in een tekst van de Romeinse jurist Florentinus (Human liberty in a text of the Roman jurist Florentinus). His academic career commenced in 1969 at the Free University, Amsterdam. In 1980 he was appointed as professor at the Free University in Roman Law and Legal History. In 1998 he became the director of the Paul Scholten Institute at the University of Amsterdam. Some of his other academic appointments include the following:• Chairperson: International Study Group on the Comparative Legal History of the Law of Restitution;• Chairperson: International Study Group on the Comparative Legal History of the Law of Torts;• Visiting Professor: University of Cape Town;• Visiting Fellow: Magdalen College, Oxford University as well as visiting professor at Oxford;• Visiting Professor: University of the North (now Limpopo) in Polokwane; and• Visiting Fellow: Trinity College, Cambridge University as well as visiting professor, Cambridge. Prof Schrage has published extensively in International journals in Dutch, English, German French, and Italian. He has edited, written and contributed to more than 30 books, and written more than 100 articles. He has been the supervisor of numerous doctoral students, including Prof Marita Carnelley of the University of KwaZulu-Natal and erstwhile member of the Faculty of Law, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and Prof André Mukheibir, Head of Department, Private Law of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. He was also the promoter of the honorary doctorate awarded by the University of Amsterdam to the former chief justice of South Africa, Arthur Chaskalson in 2002. Prof Schrage has also acted as judge in the Amsterdam court since 1981. Prof Schrage is married to Anneke Buitenbos-Schrage and the couple have four children and one grandchild.

John Lander Harper. 27 May 1925—22 March 2009

Born into a farming family, John Harper identified a number of influential figures in his formal education, including his inspirational school master Wilfred Kings, and the plant ecologists Roy Clapham (FRS 1959) and Jack Harley (FRS 1964) and animal ecologists Charles Elton (FRS 1953) and George Varley during his university education at Magdalen College, Oxford. His first academic appointments were in the University of Oxford School of Rural Economy and the Department of Agriculture, where he carried out pioneering research on seed and seedling mortality and the ecology and control of weeds. In 1960 John was appointed to head the Department of Agricultural Botany at the University College of North Wales, Bangor. The departments of Botany and Agricultural Botany merged in 1967 with John as head of the new School of Plant Biology. From this base, he established a research centre that attracted students and visitors from around the world. As one of the most influential of thinkers, John Harper generated a new discipline: plant population biology. In addition, by integrating advances in animal population biology and evolution into his own work, John helped to create a complete master discipline of ecology, as reflected in a textbookEcology: individuals, populations and communities(Oxford, UK: Blackwell) for which he received (with co-authors Mike Begon and Colin Townsend) an exceptional lifetime achievement award from the British Ecological Society.

Notes on Contributors

Notes on Contributors

Thinking with Ferrar Papers 1422: A c. 1681 Verse Miscellany

Abstract This article explores a late seventeenth-century manuscript verse miscellany held amongst the Ferrar Papers in Magdalene College, Cambridge, not previously discussed by critics. By attending to both the specific features of this manuscript miscellany (including poems by John Dryden, Katherine Philips. and others), and the larger Ferrar archive, the article considers broader questions about how to read and interpret manuscript miscellanies.

Catalogue of the Pepys Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge. Supplementary Series, Volume II: Collections, I: Maritime, Religious, Political. Ed. by C. S. Knighton

Catalogue of the Pepys Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge. Supplementary Series, Volume II: Collections, I: Maritime, Religious, Political. Ed. by C. S. Knighton

Response to Amy Hollywood

Modern TheologyVolume 36, Issue 1 p. 53-55 Article Response to Amy Hollywood Rowan Williams, Rowan Williams rw488@cam.ac.uk Magdalene College, Cambridge, CB3 0AG UKSearch for more papers by this author Rowan Williams, Rowan Williams rw488@cam.ac.uk Magdalene College, Cambridge, CB3 0AG UKSearch for more papers by this author First published: 11 November 2019 https://doi.org/10.1111/moth.12585Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume36, Issue1Themed Issue: “Negative Political Theology”January 2020Pages 53-55 RelatedInformation