2. Early Polyphony and the Worcester Lady Chapel Choir (c.1250–1540)

The discovery of the ‘Worcester Fragments’ of early liturgical polyphony caused much excitement in the early years of the twentieth century. They had been written in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and had laid undiscovered in manuscript bindings ever since. In Benedictine monasteries like the Worcester Cathedral Priory, this music would have been sung on certain feast days by a small choir of monks with a single voice to each part. Then, in the fourteenth century at Worcester, a new Lady Chapel was created in the nave with a stipendiary choir that would sing the polyphony as well as plainsong for the Lady Mass. This chapel and the adjacent Jesus Chapel were in the part of the cathedral that was accessible to the laity, and their services and music formed part of a move by the priory to reach out to lay people. This chapter relates the story of these changes at Worcester.