The music, which is based on plainsong, was written before the invention of the stave and was drawn at the end of a manuscript of the Life of Bishop Maternianus of Reims.

The music is a chant dedicated to Boniface, the patron saint of Germany and was discovered by Giovanni Varelli, a PhD student from the University of Cambridge.

Previously, the earliest known example of polyphonic music – music written for more than one part – was in The Winchester Troper, which dates from the year 1000.

Varelli, who was working as an intern at the British Library when he made the discovery, said: “What’s interesting here is that we are looking at the birth of polyphonic music and we are not seeing what we expected.