Ranworth Antiphoner

The Ranworth Antiphoner is a 15th-century illuminated antiphoner of the Sarum Rite. It was commissioned for the Church of St Helen in Ranworth in Norfolk, where it is now on display. The volume comprises 285 vellum pages of writing and illustrations, with daily services in medieval Latin and 19 miniatures.

Folio 22r of the Ranworth Antiphoner contains a portion of the Mass of the Nativity. The decorated initial contains a Nativity scene.

The manuscript was probably the Antiphoner bequeathed to the church in 1478 by William Cobbe.[1] Previously thought to have been produced by the monks of Langley Abbey, examinations of the illuminations suggest that the Antiphoner was manufactured by a Norwich workshop – a basic antiphoner could be produced on spec, and personalised to order.[2] Two things may back this up: 1) the insertion at the end, out of order, of the office of St Helen; 2) Revd. Enraght's suggestion of a terminus ante quem of 1443, owing to the lack of a feast of St Raphael, which was instituted in that year. Recent research has shown that it was not uncommon for churches to invest in liturgical music books by the later fifteenth century.[3]

The Antiphoner miraculously survived the Reformation, probably thanks to the local Holdych family. It fell into private hands, including, in the 1850s, those of Henry Huth, and eventually re-surfaced at auction in 1912, where it was bought and returned to St Helen's Church.