The insular daily Lady Mass of the thirteenth century: sources, repertory and transmission

Abstract A new daily ritual, commonly called the Salve Mass or Lady Mass, rapidly grew throughout the British Isles in the High Middle Ages inspiring new festive chants. John Harper's introduction to Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary establishes the sources of the Lady Mass in its fully developed form in the late Use of Salisbury and earlier related sources. Yet the Marian Mass collections in insular graduals, missals and non-liturgical sources identified in this article exhibit significant local adaptations not assigned in Salisbury Ordinals. I argue that extant Marian Kyries, alleluias and offertories contained in thirteenth-century insular liturgical sources of the Mass of the Virgin Mary are evidence of the daily Lady Mass. A study of chant variants and sources demonstrates the insular circulation of some of these chants outside of sources replicating the Lady Mass at Salisbury. The insular repertory of Marian Mass music, examined here for the first time with concordances in fragmentary and non-liturgical collections, reveals a lively exchange of repertory and compositional techniques between insular monastic and secular churches. This regionally developed, decentralised ritual had an important impact on music composition and transmission in the British Isles in the thirteenth century.