ROSSLYN Chapel holds many secrets. For hundreds of years experts and visitors alike have puzzled over the carvings in the chapel. Whilst some debate whether they point to hidden treasure, Edinburgh composer Stuart Mitchell thinks he has cracked one part of the enigma.

He believes that the ornate ceiling of carved arches, featuring 213 decorated cubes holds a code for medieval music. His father Thomas Mitchell spent 20 years cracking this code in the ceiling and now Stuart is orchestrating the findings for a new recording called The Rosslyn Motet.

They hope that the music, when played on medieval instruments in situ, will resonate throughout the chapel unlocking a secret in the stone.[snip]

 

If this science was used in the carvings at Rosslyn, then there needs to be an explanation of how this information came to be lost for centuries. According to Mitchell, the Church suppressed the knowledge as a means of controlling the public. "What it points towards is the church system denying people certain knowledge because knowledge is awareness. People who knew too much were burnt as witches."

 

Interestingly the Devil's Chord - diabolus in musica - makes an appearance in the music.

 

"In the ceiling is this jump of an augmented fourth, in fact it opens up with an augmented fourth," says Mitchell. The Catholic Church had banned this interval (seven semitones) from medieval music as it was believed to be disturbing and therefore diabolical. Perhaps St Clair was indeed challenging the authority of the church.