A Special Anniversary
Sunday 14 June marked a very special anniversary in the life of Salisbury Cathedral. It was on this day eight hundred years ago that the bodies ( and likely the tombs) of three former bishops of Old Sarum, namely Osmund, Roger and Jocelyn were removed from their former burial place in the cathedral at Old Sarum to the Trinity Chapel of the present cathedral.
The Cathedral Choir were an integral part of the commemorations which began with a Pilgrim Office at Old Sarum with the singing of the Processional Hymn ‘Urbs beatus Jerusalem’ ( lessed city, heavenly Salem), a 7th or 8th century office hymn written for the dedication of a church. During the singing of ‘Almighty and everlasting God’ by Orlando Gibbons, the former sanctuary, now only an outline in the grass, was censed by the Acting Bishop of Salisbury, the very Reverend Karen Gorman, and many of those present remarked that this was a particularly moving and emotional moment. The short service at Old Sarum ended with the singing of ‘Christ is made the sure foundation’ to the tune Westminster Abbey.
Following the service the choir, clergy and congregation walked the two miles back to Salisbury, in glorious sunshine ( one wonders what the weather was like in 1226! ), reassembling on Choristers’ Green, before processing into the cathedral for FestalEvensong, which began with Vaughan William’s arrangement of ‘All people that on earth do dwell’ as everyone moved to their places in the Quire. The choir then sang the anthem ‘Lord I have loved the habitation of thy house’ by Bernard Rose, and the setting for the Canticles was Ireland in F. At the end of Evensong the choir, clergy and congregation processed to the Trinity Chapel where prayers were said at the tomb of Bishop Osmund. During the censing of the tomb by Bishop Karen the choir sang ‘Locus iste’ by Bruckner, and the organ voluntary was ‘Cathedrales’ by Vierne.
The year 2020 marked the eight hundredth anniversary of the laying of the cathedral’s foundation stones and numerous celebrations had been planned, but the Covid pandemic unfortunately meant most of these couldn’t take place.
The cathedral had commissioned a special anthem by James Morgan and Juliette Pochin, based on a poem by Henry d’Avranche, and, although the choir had recorded an online version in 2020, the anthem had never been sung in the cathedral, so it was a huge pleasure to hear it now performed at Evensong. The ‘Salisbury Anthem’, as it is known, describes the move from Old to New Sarum, and so it was very fitting that it was sung on this wonderfully special anniversary.
