Anne Bagnall Yardley, Performing Piety: Musical Culture in Medieval
English Nunneries, Palgrave Macmillan, New York and Hampshire,
2006. £40.00, ISBN-13: 978-1-4039-6299-7 (hardback), pp xvii + 326
Reviewed by: Lisa Padden, National University of Ireland, Galway,
November 2008
Anne Bagnall Yardley’s monograph began as her 1975 PhD dissertation and one
must wonder why this valuable study remained unpublished in full for thirty
years. In her text Yardley notes that she only considered putting her work
forward as a book after receiving encouragement from a colleague, but it is
difficult to believe she had not received encouragement before this as the text
adds a significant and unique contribution to those interested in a number of
different areas. Researchers of musical history, piety and medieval culture will be
grateful for this study for many years to come as Yardley’s meticulous research
has resulted in a thorough study of musical culture in medieval English
nunneries.
Yardley, in her introduction, methodically states the problems which she
encountered within her study; time-span, place and volume of sources. While
expanding on these problems Yardley allows readers to appreciate the sheer
scope of the work; covering hundreds of years and exploring the sources in all of
the relevant nunneries. This text goes far beyond the reach of any other full
length study on this specific topic. Though the bulk of this research was done
thirty years ago, Yardley’s career and her current post as Associate Professor of
Music and Associate Academic Dean at Drew Theological School, USA, has
certainly served to enrich the work.
Yardley’s work stands up well when compared to other works in the general area
but it is difficult to find another work which examines, in such detail, the music of
medieval nunneries in England – the specifics of time and source are rarely seen
in other works. One example of a work which does examine medieval religious
music is Music in the Medieval English liturgy: Plainsong & Mediaeval Music
Society Centennial Essays, edited by Susan Rankin and David Hiley; this
collection of short studies, while useful, fails to provide the same flow of
argument seen in Yardley’s full study. What is most unique about this study is its
methodical survey of all relevant evidence allowing the reader to view a complete
picture of the data available to modern scholars.
Following a thorough introduction in which Yardley defines the terms which she
will use throughout the text, she moves on to develop her work in eight
chapters. The first of these deals with the complex issue of religious rules
throughout the ambitious time period covered. Yardley discusses at length the
different versions of the Benedictine Rule including the Witney Early Middle
English Version, the Anglo-Norman Prose Version, the Northern Prose Version,
the Northern Metrical Version, the Caxton Abstract and Bishop Fox’s Translation.
This interesting analysis is followed by a briefer discussion of the Augustinian
Rule, the Order of Premontre, the Dominican nuns and the Order of the
Minoresses. This chapter serves as a very useful and detailed discussion of how
the specific rules governing the women religious affected the role of music in
their everyday lives.
Chapter 2 discusses musical leadership within nunneries and includes a very
interesting analysis of the regulation and specifically the teaching of music within
the orders. It should also be noted that this chapter contains two very clear and
interesting images; the first from the Theoretical Treatise on Music from
Wherwell Abbey showing an usual set of circles, each of which contains a note
and information on the note; the second image comes from Wherwell Psalter and
shows a set of vocal exercises. All of the images in the book are of good quality
and serve not only to break up the text but also to enrich Yardley’s discussions
and analyses.
Chapters 3 and 4 discuss realities of musical life within the nunneries and the
everyday musical practices of the nuns, including Psalters, Hours and the Office
of the Dead. These first four chapters constitute Yardley’s discussion of the
normative practices within the nunneries she is examining, the remaining four
chapters move on to examine more specific cases which emerge from the
discussion in the opening section. Chapter 5 is perhaps the most interesting in
the work; it discusses the relationship between pomp and piety, specifically the
processional practices in nunneries. Yardley notes that the apparently conflicting
ideas of pomp and piety come together in the procession which is at once a
private journey and public display. Yardley looks closely at a number of
processional sources before moving on to look at the rituals for Holy Week in
detail.
Yardley moves on in chapter 6 to discuss the musical practice in the consecration
of nuns. This chapter looks closely at the ritual experiences which the young girl
would pass through on her religious journey looking closely at the development
of sources throughout the middle ages. Chapter 7 of the text discusses Barking
Abbey as a case study of Benedictine practices. This section looks at the training
of the young priests of the abbey, music for mass, music for the office and the
veneration of saints such as St. Ethelburga and St. Thomas of Canterbury.
Chapter 8 is another specific study, this time taking as its subject the Bridgettine
nuns at Syon Abbey. Yardley gives a brief history of the order as well as
examining the relevant extant manuscripts from the order before looking at their
spiritual formation and musical aesthetics. The chapter goes on to analyse in
detail the Cantus Sororum (Song of the Sisters), the Bridgettine Liturgy, looking
at antiphones, hymns and responsories, music for St. Bridget, the Lady Mass and
the consecration of nuns.
In her conclusion Anne Bagnall Yardley notes that scholars may never be able to
appreciate a complete picture of the role and impact of music within the
nunneries she has examined because of the sources which are missing. However,
Yardley also notes that there is still a great deal to be learned from the sources
which have survived. In this text Yardley has brought together these sources,
along with her own expertise, to produce a text of limitless value and timeless
relevance to all students of music, the middles ages and women religious.