Cooke [Cook], J(ohn)

(b c1385, d ?1442). English church musician and composer. Nine compositions in the Old Hall Manuscript are attributed to ‘Cooke’ and one piece preserved anonymously there may also be assigned to him; a further, unclear attribution may read ‘J. Cooke’. The name Cooke was common, and it is possible that this music includes works by more than one composer so named. Most if not all, however, is probably attributable to the John Cooke who, as almost certainly a former chorister of the Chapel Royal, was sent from a very junior clerkship there to study at King’s Hall, Cambridge, in 1402/3. He vacated this fellowship in January 1414, but had already been re-admitted to membership of the Chapel Royal as a chaplain (a Gentleman in priest’s orders) by the summer of 1413. He was among the personnel who accompanied the entourage of Henry V on the Agincourt expedition of 1415.

By July 1419 he had left the Chapel Royal, and at the same time he vacated the canonry of the collegiate church of Hastings to which he had been collated by Henry V in 1417. Unusually, the letters of appointment for his successor made no record of the reason for the vacancy, indicating that it was the consequence of neither death nor resignation; rather, the serious attempts made to erase two of his pieces from the Old Hall Manuscript (see below) suggest that Cooke had suffered a catastrophic fall from favour.

He would nevertheless have been able to resume his career elsewhere, and it is perfectly possible that he may be identifiable with the John Cooke who was appointed a minor canon of St Paul’s Cathedral, London, in March 1426, briefly occupied the office of junior cardinal in 1435 and died in 1442. A John Cooke who in 1455 had been a lay Gentleman of the Chapel Royal for 26 years was a separate individual of a later generation.

Cooke and Leonel Power are the only two composers present in both the original and later layers of the Old Hall Manuscript. Cooke’s musical fingerprints are strong, and survive the presumed chronological division between music copied earlier and later, with the attendant move towards greater simplicity. The influence of Power is so evident as to prompt the suggestion that Cooke may have been his pupil or associate (which may point to yet another candidate for the composer's identity, Richard Cooke, who was a chaplain alongside Power in the Clarence Chapel; see A. Wathey: Music in the Royal and Noble Households in Late Medieval England, New York, 1989, pp.36, 49). The Gloria (Old Hall no.36), is closely modelled on Power’s Gloria–Credo pair nos.21, 77. The Credo, no.82, is also similar in structure to these three works, and although flanked by Power’s compositions in the manuscript, can be assigned provisionally to Cooke: the ascription has been cut off with the initial but left an imprint on the conjoint folio of the manuscript. (The first four and a half staves of music have been erased, as have ff.101v–102 including the Agnus Dei, a descant setting apparently ascribed to J. Cooke.) Power’s influence is also seen in the introduction of proportional passages (no.92), use of simultaneously conflicting signatures (final section of no.112), fluctuating bar lengths (no.36), augmentation in one part (duets of no.82), commencement of the Credo polyphony at ‘Factorem …’ (no.82), textual telescoping (nos.82, 92), bold contrapuntal writing with advanced chromaticism (no.36), and skilful handling of complex colorations and syncopations (no.92), though his use of syncopation is more advanced than Power’s. The remarkable number of sharps marked in the otherwise simple setting of Stella celi (no.55) may indicate that it was used didactically. The two Glorias in score (nos.7, 14) open in major prolation with much use of minims, coloration and changes of time signature – they are far removed from simple descant style and make no use of chant. No.7 has the text variant ‘propter gloriam tuam magnam’, prescribed for double feasts in the Sarum Missal. This piece originally had extensive duet sections, which were subsequently filled out to three parts by the second-layer scribe who was responsible for Cooke’s works: his Ave regina is the only other first-layer piece in score with duets.

His sole isorhythmic motet, Alma proles regia/Christi miles/Ab inimicis nostris, is a rhythmically complex specimen, reducing in the ratio 9:6:4. The tenor is a Rogation litany, and the saints invoked in the upper parts are Mary and George. It has been suggested that this piece would have been suitable at the time of the unsuccessful Rogationtide peace negotiations which preceded the Agincourt campaign, and also at the time of the victorious return of Henry to London. The text of the middle part, Christi miles, coincides, together with the motets of Damett and Sturgeon, with chronicle accounts of the Agincourt celebrations.

Old Hall Manuscript

WORKS

Edition:The Old Hall Manuscript, ed. A. Hughes and M. Bent, CMM, xlvi (1969–72) [OH]

MARGARET BENT/ROGER BOWERS