Christmas Meditations

Our knowledge of High Mass on Christmas Day as it might have been celebrated at Sherborne Abbey in c. 1520 comes from the highly ornate Sherborne Missal (British Library MS Add.74236). From this manuscript it is possible to reconstruct the service as it would have been performed at Sherborne Abbey in this period. The melodies of the chants are supplied in the main from another Benedictine manuscript, the Crowland Gradual (British Library, MS Egerton 3759), except for the Pater noster and the 'incipits' (starting phrases for the Gloria and Credo), which are from the Missal.