A remarkable discovery hidden within Scotland’s first full-length printed book, The Aberdeen Breviary, is shedding new light on what sacred music sounded like more than five centuries ago. Researchers from Edinburgh College of Art and KU Leuven in Belgium have unearthed a “lost” musical fragment—just 55 notes—providing valuable insights into the pre-Reformation musical traditions of early 16th-century Scotland.
Rare Clues to a Forgotten Musical Tradition
The fragment is considered an exceptionally rare example of sacred music from Scottish religious institutions dating back 500 years. In fact, it is the only known surviving piece from northeast Scotland during this period. Scholars believe the composition likely originated in the Aberdeenshire region, with strong possible ties to St. Mary’s Chapel in Rattray and Aberdeen Cathedral.
The discovery emerged from meticulous examination of a copy of the 1510 Aberdeen Breviary, once held at Glamis Castle—hence the nickname the “Glamis copy”—and now part of the National Library of Scotland’s collection in Edinburgh. This breviary, a compilation of prayers, hymns, psalms, and readings for daily worship, was produced at the behest of King James IV. He sought to create service books reflecting distinctly Scottish religious traditions, reducing reliance on imported liturgical texts from England or mainland Europe.
Identifying a ‘Lost’ Hymn
Within the breviary, researchers encountered numerous handwritten annotations, but it was a tiny fragment of music on a blank page that captured their attention. Consisting of two lines of musical notation—one only half the length of the other—this fragment lacked any visible text, title, or attribution. Scholars initially wondered whether it was sacred or secular, or even intended for voices at all.
Through in-depth analysis, the team determined that the notation was polyphonic—a style where two or more independent melodies are performed simultaneously. Polyphony was a known practice in Scottish religious communities at the time, but surviving examples are exceedingly scarce.
Further investigation revealed that the musical line perfectly matched the tenor part of a “faburden,” a type of three- or four-part vocal harmonization, for the Lent hymn Cultor Dei. This recognition not only confirms the fragment’s identity, but also allows musicologists to reconstruct the missing parts. With that, a long-silent hymn can be heard once again after nearly 500 years.
A ‘Eureka’ Moment for Musicologists
“Identifying a piece of music is a real ‘Eureka’ moment,” says David Coney of Edinburgh College of Art, who pinpointed the piece’s identity. “From just one line of notes scrawled on a blank page, we can now hear a hymn that had been silent for centuries—an invaluable artifact of Scotland’s musical and religious heritage.”
Tracing the Breviary’s Long Journey
As well as unlocking lost sounds, the research team has traced the breviary’s fascinating provenance. Once the private service book of the illegitimate son of a high-ranking Aberdeen Cathedral chaplain, this volume later became a cherished family heirloom. Its owners transported it from post-Reformation Scotland to the Habsburg and Ottoman empires, illustrating the far-reaching cultural journeys such texts could undertake.
Illuminating Scotland’s Sacred Music Heritage
Lead author Dr. Paul Newton-Jackson of KU Leuven notes that marginalia—handwritten notes in the book’s margins—played a critical role in this discovery. “These marginal annotations are a crucial source of new insights into musical culture, particularly where notated materials are scarce,” he says. “It’s entirely possible that more such finds await in the blank spaces and margins of other sixteenth-century printed works housed in Scottish libraries and archives.”
Dr. James Cook of Edinburgh College of Art adds: “It was once thought that pre-Reformation Scotland lacked significant sacred music traditions. Our work shows that despite the upheavals of the Reformation, a strong culture of high-quality music-making thrived in Scotland’s religious institutions, rivaling that of any European nation of the era.”
This extraordinary discovery not only revives a “lost” piece of Scottish musical history but also encourages renewed interest and future exploration into the nation’s rich, yet often overlooked, cultural and religious musical legacy.