Talk:Robert Fayrfax

---

Merger proposal

No doubt they should be merged. However, there is not much sourced material in the Robert Fairfax (musician) article, so I am not sure what can reasonably be added here.--SabreBD (talk) 11:56, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Redirected now. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:11, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

The article claims that six of Fayrfax's masses survive. In the recording notes for Tecum Principium, David Skinner, its editor, says the figure is five, and only five are named in the article. If another survivor has emerged, what is its title and where was it hiding?Delahays (talk) 17:42, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

"23 April 1464 – 24 October 1521"

With dates that precede adoption of the Gregorian system (most of Britain, 1752) it is customary, I think, to specify both Julian and Gregorian dates (see the article on Byrd, for example), at least if one can be fairly sure that one's sources, their sources and their sources have been careful in this regard (... erm. Or otherwise put... erm. :( ) Is there at least fairly good reason at least to suppose that these are Gregorian dates (as our policy does in fact require?) Schissel | Sound the Note! 03:19, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

@Schissel:, if you're still around: No, they are definitely O.S. Julian dates. Interestingly, his birthday was exactly recorded "at around 10 o'clock at night" in a family Book of Hours still in the Bodleian Library (see Tallis, p. 94) and the #Lincolnshire or Cambridgeshire? post below: and thus Fayrfax's dates are the first precisely known for any English composer. The equivalent N.S. Gregorian dates are 2 May 1464 and 3 November 1521. Source: Converting between Julian and Gregorian Calendar in One Step. Will update article. MinorProphet (talk) 04:56, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Recordings

(Section heading added by MinorProphet (talk) 04:56, 7 May 2021 (UTC))
Under recordings it might be worth mentioning that the Missa Tecum Principium and the Motet Aeterna Laudis Lilium were recorded by the Ambrosian Singers (using a choir of 17 singers, apparently the number Fayrfax had at St Albans) under Denis Stevens, who later published his own edition of the work, in St George the Martyr, Queens Square, London on 5 July 1962 for the Schwann Musica Sacra Label, AMS 38. This may well have been the work's first recording.86.131.144.239 (talk) 11:21, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Lincolnshire or Cambridgeshire?

Wikipedia's Deeping Gate places this village in Cambridgeshire, not Lincolnshire. Eroica (talk) 20:22, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi, @Eroica: Short answer: it is in Cambridgeshire. Long answer: According to

• Collingwood, Benjamin David (18 January 2008). Methods Of Analysing Early Tudor Sacred Polyphony: The Works Of Robert Fayrfax (1464–1521) Vol. 1 (Ph.D. thesis). Exeter University. p. 21.:

"The fragmentary ‘Fayrfax’ Book of Hours held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, contains, amongst other things, detailed notes on the births, baptisms and confirmations of the Fayrfax family of Deeping Gate, Northants.[note 2]"

[note 2] "At that point Deeping Gate was in Northamptonshire, see: Christopher Saxton, Christopher Saxton’s 16th Century Maps: The Counties of England & Wales (Shrewsbury: Chatsworth Library, 1992) pp 64-5. The village is now in Lincolnshire." This is almost certainly incorrect. See a non-hi-res image of the Saxton map at NORTHAMTON, Bedfordiae, Cantabrigiae,, Huntingdoniae et Rutlandiae Comitatum which can be zoomed to a certain extent. Market Deeping is south of the word LINCOLN:, but the boundary with Northants. is fairly obviously the River Welland. (The Isle of Ely#Administration to the east, mostly now part of Cambridgeshire, was under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Ely from 1109 until 1837.)

Why both Collingwood (and the Fayrfax entry in the Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music, the quoted source in the article) say Deeping Gate is in Lincolnshire is beyond me, because as far as I can work it out, it isn't and never was. It may be because all the other Deepings are indeed over the river in Lincs., and I can only imagine that confusion™ has played its part well.

Reasoning: Deeping Gate, being on the southern side of the River Welland, seems to have been the northernmost parish of the semi-autonomous Soke of Peterborough, which was geographically considered to be in Northamptonshire. See Soke of Peterborough map. The Welland seems for long to have been the southern physical boundary of this part of Lincolnshire, although further west the county border crosses the river several times. According to Peterborough#Local government, the Soke was an administrative county in its own right from 1889 to 1965. It then merged to become Huntingdon and Peterborough until 1974 when it became Peterborough City Council, a non-metropolitan district as part of the newly enlarged Cambridgeshire. In 1988 Peterborough became independent as a unitary authority, although it remains part of of Cambridgeshire for ceremonial purposes.

Thus although two sources claim Deeping Gate to be in Lincs., the most casual observer will realise that it plainly isn't. I think I should amend the article accordingly. MinorProphet (talk) 04:21, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

On another point, not specifically for Eroica: the 'Fairfax Book of Hours' cited above is apparently Bodleian MS Lat. Liturg. e. 10, as cited in The King's Mother: Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby by Michael K. Jones & Malcolm G. Underwood, p. 302. On pp. 32-33, the authors say that Lady Margaret Beaufort, Henry VII's mum, spent much of her early childhood in settled surroundings at Maxey Castle as recorded in said Book of Hours. Maxey Castle is only about 2 miles S.W. of Deeping Gate.

According to Collingwood, p. 21 as above: "It seems likely that Fayrfax lived in Deeping Gate with his parents [William and his second wife Agnes] and his siblings for the earliest part of his life, on land rented from Margaret Beauchamp of Bletso, dowager duchess of Somerset." Margaret Beauchamp (by her second marriage to John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset, was the mother of Margaret Beaufort who married Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond) was thus the maternal grandmother of Henry VII.

Margaret Beaufort (20 years older than Fayrfax) was granted a papal indulgence in 1494 which recognised her as the patron of the cult of the Holy Name of Jesus in England. Source:

• Mateer, David; New, Elizabeth (November 2000). "In Nomine Jesu': Robert Fayrfax and the Guild of the Holy Name in St Paul's Cathedral". Music & Letters. 81 (4): 515. JSTOR 854536.

Robert Fayrfax presented a mass, probably O bone Jesu to Margaret c. 1507, receiving 6s. 8d. Source:

• New, Elizabeth A. (1999). The Cult of the Holy Name of Jesus in Late Medieval England, with Special Reference to the Fraternity in St Paul’s Cathedral, London c. 1450–1553 (PhD dissertation). Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London. pp. 68–69, . Retrieved 26 April 2021.{{cite thesis}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)

He also wrote a Magnificat and a motet both with the same name, O bone Jesu. Thus the connection between Margaret Beaufort, Fayrfax and the chapel of the Guild of Jesus in the crypt of Old St Paul's Cathedral (coming soon), which needs adding to the article.