Latin, Liturgy and Music in Early Mediaeval Ireland: From Columbanus to the Drummond Missal

From the ancient sources, we know that the monastic liturgy during Columbanus's life required both sung and silent recitations of the Psalms. Dow er have any real witness of this ancient music? The Drummond Missal (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M 627) has been suggested as a source of very ancient, local Irish liturgical music. This research shows that the Drummond Missal, far from being the witness of local Irish otherwise unknown musical traditions, shows an early attempt to write down the European, and particularly French, musical “common language”.