This study examines the illustrations that appear at the Office of the Dead in English Books of Hours, and seeks to understand how text and image work together in this thriving culture of commemoration to say something about how the English understood and thought about death in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Office of the Dead would have been one of the most familiar liturgical rituals in the medieval period, and was recited almost without ceasing at family funerals, gild commemorations, yearly minds, and chantry chapel services. The Placebo and Dirige were texts that many people knew through this constant exposure, and would have been more widely known than other 'death' texts such as the Ars Moriendi. The images that are found in these books reflect wider trends in the piety and devotional practice of the time. The first half of the study discusses the images that appear in these horae, and the relationship between the text and image is explored. The funeral or vigil scene, as the most commonly occurring, is discussed with reference to contemporary funeral practices, and ways of reading a Book of Hours. Other iconographic themes that appear in the Office of the Dead, such as the Roman de Renart, the Pety Job, the Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead, the story of Lazarus, and the life of Job, are also discussed. The second part of the thesis investigates the musical elaborations of the Office of the Dead as found in English prayer books. The Office of the Dead had a close relationship with music, which is demonstrated through an examination of the popularity of musical funerals and obits, as well as in the occurrence of musical notation for the Office in a book often used by the musically illiterate. The development of the Office of the Dead in conjunction with the development of the Books of Hours is also considered, and places the traditions and ideas that were part of the funeral process in medieval England in a larger historical context.

John Blow (1649-1708) was among the first group of boys pressed into the service of King Charles II, following the decade of Puritan rule. Blow would make compositional efforts as early as 1664 and, at the age of nineteen, began to assume professional positions within the London musical establishment, ultimately becoming, along with his pupil and colleague, Henry Purcell, London's foremost musician. Restoration sacred music is generally thought of in connection with the stile nuovo which, for the first time, came to be a fully accepted practice among English musicians for the church. But the English sacred polyphonic art, little threatened by England's largely political Reformation, embodied sufficient flexibility as to allow it to absorb new ideas, thereby remaining vital well into the seventeenth century. Preserved from decisive Italian influences by the Interregnum, the English sacred polyphonic tradition awoke at the Restoration full of potential for continuing creative activity. In addition to studying Blow's polyphonic compositions, including the transcription of several not available in modern edition, this paper seeks to address the unique nature of the English polyphonic tradition which allowed it to retain its vitality throughout the seventeenth century, while other polyphonic traditions were succumbing to the ossifying influences of the stile antico concept. Identification of the Continental stile antico through pertinent treatises and scores revealed a marked distinction between its application and the English polyphonic art as seen in the work of John Blow. In the end, the peculiar nature of Restoration polyphony is seen to be derived from a number of factors, among them, the continuation of liturgical ceremonial within the independent English church, the flexibility of the English polyphonic medium with regard to new musical developments, and the interruption of England's cathedral music tradition just as Italian influence was beginning to be felt in liturgical music. The sacred polyphony of John Blow represents the last great flowering of the English polyphonic tradition, with all of its idiosyncracies, in a lively, as yet unfettered style.

An examination of the utilization of folk song elements in the wind band music of Australian composer David Stanhope, represented in two movements ("Lovely Joan" and "Rufford Park Poachers") from his Folk Songs for Band. Sets 1 and 2. Included is an historical overview of English folk music, emphasizing the theoretical properties of the English folk song and the events surrounding the modern renaissance of British folk music. Background information related to the musical development of Vaughan Williams, Grainger, and Stanhope is provided, noting the influence of the folk idiom in their compositional styles and Grainger's influence on the music of David Stanhope. An historical account of the two folk songs examines the events and compositional procedures related to the inclusion of "Lovely Joan" in Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on Greensleeves. and Grainger's use of "Rufford Park Poachers" in Lincolnshire Posv. Emphasis is placed on the subsequent compositional treatment of the folk elements in Stanhope's wind band compositions. A detailed analysis of Stanhope's compositional style includes structural, harmonic, melodic, and historical considerations, while specifically illuminating his contemporary and innovative approaches to scoring and instrumentation.