The Henry Bradshaw Society was established in 1890 in commemoration of Henry Bradshaw, University Librarian in Cambridge and a distinguished authority on early medieval manuscripts and liturgies, who died in 1886. The Society was founded for the editing of rare liturgical texts'; its principal focus is on the Western (Latin) Church and its rites, and on the medieval period in particular, from the sixth century to the sixteenth (in effect, from the earliest surviving Christian books until the Reformation). Liturgy was at the heart of Christian worship, and during the medieval period the...

This text represents a sort of customary or ordinal for the English court chapel in 1449, intended to govern the life of the 49 people, including choirboys, who were the staff of this peripatetic establishment. It was based on earlier drafts, and was sent to Alvaro Vaz d'Almada, a knight of the Garter, for the use of Afonso V of Portugal; it includes a copy of the English coronation rites.