Amalar of Metz applied allegorical methods of biblical interpretation to the liturgy. This articl... more Amalar of Metz applied allegorical methods of biblical interpretation to the liturgy. This article discusses the background of that practice and Amalar's application of it to the role of cantors.
Attempts to reach an agreement about origins and the relationship between Old Roman and Gregorian... more Attempts to reach an agreement about origins and the relationship between Old Roman and Gregorian chant have generated numerous hypotheses. Less attention has been directed to the question of why anyone would have bothered to notate the music of a local Italian repertoire (Old Roman chant) just as it was being pushed aside at Rome and the surrounding territory by Gregorian chant. Some theories misconstrued or did not take sufficiently into account local ecclesiastical structures. The priestly association known as the Romana Fraternitas may have played a role in the preservation of Old Roman chant in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries.
This chapter provides an introduction to the two principal liturgical observances of the medieval... more This chapter provides an introduction to the two principal liturgical observances of the medieval church: Mass and Office. It also attempts to convey some idea of the richness and diversity of the manuscript sources of the Latin liturgy of the Middle Ages. Understanding the medieval liturgy involves moire than the consideration of books with music. At Mass each of the main participants (bishop or priest, deacon, subdeacon, cantor, choir) had a specific role and a specialized book corresponding to that role. The celebrant (bishop or priest) read the variable prayers of the Mass and the invariable Canon from a sacramentary, which might also contain blessings and prayers for sundry occasions. The epistle (or Old Testament reading) was chanted by the subdeacon, either from a biblical codex or from an epistolary with the prescribed passages copied out in liturgical order. The gospel was chanted by the deacon, either directly from a book of the Gospels or from an evangeliary with the appointed readings for Sundays, feasts, and some weekdays (especially during Lent). The gradual (also antiphonarium missae) was a comprehensive book of music for the Mass (initially devoid of notation). The cantor might have had at his disposal a cantatorium, which contained only the music required to fulfill his role: intonations and solo verses of Graduals, Alleluias, and Offertories, as well as all the music for the Tracts, which latter were solo chants. The missal combined all of these texts (and sometimes music) in a single book for the bishop or priest. Reference will be made to modern printed editions, as applicable.
The two quaestiones to which the philosopher-theologian Pierre d’Auvergne responded during his la... more The two quaestiones to which the philosopher-theologian Pierre d’Auvergne responded during his last Quodlibetal (1301) at the University of Paris are among the rare examples of interest in music in the literature of academic quaestiones disputatae. Pierre’s answers to the questions are not restricted to philosophical argument but extend to physiological considerations. His goal is to prove not only that music can arouse passion and promote virtue but to explain how it does so. He will explain how apprehension of a stimulus (music) by the senses is transformed by the circulation of blood, warmth, spirit, and ‘first qualities’ into a passion that involves the entire body. Music also possesses the power to encourage the practice of virtue through a correspondence between musical proportion and comparable proportions in the human body. For this purpose vocal music is preferable to instrumental music. Boethius is cited but Pierre’s proofs do not depend on the proportions of musica instru...
L'epistolaire de Ste.-Cecile-au-Trastevere est un temoin fragmentaire de la liturgie medieval... more L'epistolaire de Ste.-Cecile-au-Trastevere est un temoin fragmentaire de la liturgie medievale de Rome comme elle se celebrait dans l'eglise ou le manuscrit etait copie. Ecrit vers la fin du onzieme siecle, il consiste a present de 40 feuilles. Le manuscrit contient les pericopes des Epitres et lectures veterotestamentaires pour environ la moitie du careme, les dernieres quatre jours de la Semaine Sainte, une partie de la semaine de Pâques, tous les dimanches apres Pâques, les dimanches 4-14 apres la Pentecote (avec indications des propres evangiles), et une partie des Quatre-Temps de septembre. Le trait le plus significatif du manuscrit a present est la serie de douze lectures pour la veillee pascale avec des lectures longues de Jonas (1-3) et Daniel (3,1-52 avec extraits des versets 53-100). La notation musicale se trouve sporadiquement dans les sections narratives, mais les elements lyriques (la priere de Jonas et le cantique des trois jeunes hommes) sont entierement note...
The Scientia artis musice, a music theory treatise completed in the year 1274 by Hélie Salomon, a... more The Scientia artis musice, a music theory treatise completed in the year 1274 by Hélie Salomon, a cleric from the village of St-Astier (Périgord/Dordogne), covers all the usual topics treated in such sources: letter names, hexachord syllables, the claves (letter + syllable(s)), the musical hand, mutation, staff notation, clef placement and chant genres. It includes an incomplete tonary with representative chant genres together with a commentary on the seculorum (differentiae) appropriate to various chant incipits. A lengthy instruction on the performance of parallel four-voice organum is also included. The Scientia is the only medieval theory treatise whose eight illustrations (called ‘figurae’) include human figures. These images relate directly to matters covered in the treatise and serve to make its main points more easily committed to memory. Of especial interest is the image of an enthroned bishop that serves as the focal point for a novel exposition of the tonal system of chan...
Amalar of Metz applied allegorical methods of biblical interpretation to the liturgy. This articl... more Amalar of Metz applied allegorical methods of biblical interpretation to the liturgy. This article discusses the background of that practice and Amalar's application of it to the role of cantors.
Attempts to reach an agreement about origins and the relationship between Old Roman and Gregorian... more Attempts to reach an agreement about origins and the relationship between Old Roman and Gregorian chant have generated numerous hypotheses. Less attention has been directed to the question of why anyone would have bothered to notate the music of a local Italian repertoire (Old Roman chant) just as it was being pushed aside at Rome and the surrounding territory by Gregorian chant. Some theories misconstrued or did not take sufficiently into account local ecclesiastical structures. The priestly association known as the Romana Fraternitas may have played a role in the preservation of Old Roman chant in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries.
This chapter provides an introduction to the two principal liturgical observances of the medieval... more This chapter provides an introduction to the two principal liturgical observances of the medieval church: Mass and Office. It also attempts to convey some idea of the richness and diversity of the manuscript sources of the Latin liturgy of the Middle Ages. Understanding the medieval liturgy involves moire than the consideration of books with music. At Mass each of the main participants (bishop or priest, deacon, subdeacon, cantor, choir) had a specific role and a specialized book corresponding to that role. The celebrant (bishop or priest) read the variable prayers of the Mass and the invariable Canon from a sacramentary, which might also contain blessings and prayers for sundry occasions. The epistle (or Old Testament reading) was chanted by the subdeacon, either from a biblical codex or from an epistolary with the prescribed passages copied out in liturgical order. The gospel was chanted by the deacon, either directly from a book of the Gospels or from an evangeliary with the appointed readings for Sundays, feasts, and some weekdays (especially during Lent). The gradual (also antiphonarium missae) was a comprehensive book of music for the Mass (initially devoid of notation). The cantor might have had at his disposal a cantatorium, which contained only the music required to fulfill his role: intonations and solo verses of Graduals, Alleluias, and Offertories, as well as all the music for the Tracts, which latter were solo chants. The missal combined all of these texts (and sometimes music) in a single book for the bishop or priest. Reference will be made to modern printed editions, as applicable.
The two quaestiones to which the philosopher-theologian Pierre d’Auvergne responded during his la... more The two quaestiones to which the philosopher-theologian Pierre d’Auvergne responded during his last Quodlibetal (1301) at the University of Paris are among the rare examples of interest in music in the literature of academic quaestiones disputatae. Pierre’s answers to the questions are not restricted to philosophical argument but extend to physiological considerations. His goal is to prove not only that music can arouse passion and promote virtue but to explain how it does so. He will explain how apprehension of a stimulus (music) by the senses is transformed by the circulation of blood, warmth, spirit, and ‘first qualities’ into a passion that involves the entire body. Music also possesses the power to encourage the practice of virtue through a correspondence between musical proportion and comparable proportions in the human body. For this purpose vocal music is preferable to instrumental music. Boethius is cited but Pierre’s proofs do not depend on the proportions of musica instru...
L'epistolaire de Ste.-Cecile-au-Trastevere est un temoin fragmentaire de la liturgie medieval... more L'epistolaire de Ste.-Cecile-au-Trastevere est un temoin fragmentaire de la liturgie medievale de Rome comme elle se celebrait dans l'eglise ou le manuscrit etait copie. Ecrit vers la fin du onzieme siecle, il consiste a present de 40 feuilles. Le manuscrit contient les pericopes des Epitres et lectures veterotestamentaires pour environ la moitie du careme, les dernieres quatre jours de la Semaine Sainte, une partie de la semaine de Pâques, tous les dimanches apres Pâques, les dimanches 4-14 apres la Pentecote (avec indications des propres evangiles), et une partie des Quatre-Temps de septembre. Le trait le plus significatif du manuscrit a present est la serie de douze lectures pour la veillee pascale avec des lectures longues de Jonas (1-3) et Daniel (3,1-52 avec extraits des versets 53-100). La notation musicale se trouve sporadiquement dans les sections narratives, mais les elements lyriques (la priere de Jonas et le cantique des trois jeunes hommes) sont entierement note...
The Scientia artis musice, a music theory treatise completed in the year 1274 by Hélie Salomon, a... more The Scientia artis musice, a music theory treatise completed in the year 1274 by Hélie Salomon, a cleric from the village of St-Astier (Périgord/Dordogne), covers all the usual topics treated in such sources: letter names, hexachord syllables, the claves (letter + syllable(s)), the musical hand, mutation, staff notation, clef placement and chant genres. It includes an incomplete tonary with representative chant genres together with a commentary on the seculorum (differentiae) appropriate to various chant incipits. A lengthy instruction on the performance of parallel four-voice organum is also included. The Scientia is the only medieval theory treatise whose eight illustrations (called ‘figurae’) include human figures. These images relate directly to matters covered in the treatise and serve to make its main points more easily committed to memory. Of especial interest is the image of an enthroned bishop that serves as the focal point for a novel exposition of the tonal system of chan...
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