Nicholas Ludford

That a society noted for the preservation and celebration of its artistic and cultural heroes should have allowed the music of Nicholas Ludford to lie in obscurity for over 300 years is both puzzling and reprehensible.

Ludford seems to have spent his life within the bounds of three main religious establishments—Westminster Abbey, St. Stephen’s Royal Collegiate Chapel, and St. Margaret’s, Westminster. He may have been a singer at Westminster around 1500, but his main venue of music making from 1527 to 1549 was St. Stephen’s. He was also a parishioner at St. Margaret’s from at least 1525.

At its dissolution in 1547 St. Stephen’s had 11 vicars-choral, 4 clerks, and 7 choristers . . . quite enough to fill the Upper Chapel with the glorious polyphony of Ludford’s festal masses. They were all pensioned off by young Edward VI’s enthusiastically Protestant government and St. Stephen’s became the seat of the House of Commons. The present Houses of Parliament was built around the ruins of St. Stephen’s after the fire of 1834.

Ludford died in 1557 and is buried in St. Margaret’s.