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Kenneth Levy, Gregorian Chant and the Carolingians. Princeton, Princeton University Press. 1998. x + 271 pp.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

Rosamond McKitterick
Rosamond McKitterick
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Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
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Early Music History , Volume 19 , October 2000 , pp. 279 - 291
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2000

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References

1 The Rule of Benedict was certainly known in England from the seventh century, but Benedictine monasticism was not promoted as the most desirable form of the religious life there until the later tenth century. In Frankish Gaul, despite the promotion of the Rule of Benedict as the desired norm by the Carolingian church in the late eighth and early ninth century, many houses continued to observe different approaches to the monastic life: see Semmler, J., ‘Karl der Grosse und das fränkische Mönchtum’, in Braunfels, W. (ed.), Karl der Grosse: Lebenswerk und Nachleben, ii: Das geistige Leben, ed. B. Bischoff (Düsseldorf, 1965), pp. 255–89Google Scholar; idem, ‘Zur Überlieferung der monastischen Gesetzgebung Ludwigs des Frommen’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 16 (1960), pp. 309–88; idem, ‘Studien zum Supplex Libellus und zur anianischen Reform in Fulda’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 69 (1958), pp. 268–98; idem, ‘Corvey und Herford in der benediktinischen Reformbewegung des 9. Jhts’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 4 (1970), pp. 289–319. On the unlikelihood of Augustine of Canterbury having brought Benedictine monasticism to England see Holdsworth, C., ‘Saint Boniface the Monk’, in Reuter, T. (ed.), The Greatest Englishman: Essays on St Boniface and the Church at Crediton (Exeter, 1980), pp. 47–68Google Scholar. On Gregory the Great's praise of Benedict (as distinct from his Rule) in his Dialogues see Markus, R., Gregory the Great and his World (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 68–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a brief general account see McKitterick, R., The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians, 751–987 (London, 1983), pp. 109–24 and 279–86 and for an up-to-date discussion:Google Scholarde Jong, M., ‘Carolingian Monasticism: The Power of Prayer’, in McKitterick, R. (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History, ii: c. 700–c. 900 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 622–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 For excellent discussion and useful bibliography see Rankin, Susan, ‘Carolingian Music’, in McKitterick, R. (ed.), Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 274–316Google Scholar.

3 Levy, , Gregorian Chant, p. 6Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., p. 7.

5 The prime example is the Admonitio Generalis of 789 (see also below, p. 284) and the De litteris colendis of c. 800, in Monumenta Germaniae historica, capitularia regum francorum, ed. Boretius, A., i (Hannover, 1883), nos. 22 and 29, pp. 53–62 and 79–80Google Scholar. See Brown, G., ‘The Carolingian Renaissance’, in McKitterick, R. (ed.), Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 1–51Google Scholar.

5 To save space here I refer readers to my book, The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms, 789–895 (Royal Historical Society Studies in History, 2; London, 1977)Google Scholar.

7 Fischer, B., ‘Bibeltext und Bibelreform unter Karl dem Großen’, in: Braunfels, (ed.), Karl der Grosse, ii: Das geistige Leben, ed. Bischoff, pp. 156–216Google Scholar, and idem, Lateinische Bibelhandschriften im frühen Mittelalter (Freiburg, 1985); McKitterick, R., ‘Carolingian Bible Production: The Tours Anomaly’, in Gameson, R. (ed.), The Early Medieval Bible: Its Production, Decoration and Use (Cambridge Studies in Palaeography and Codicology; Cambridge, 1994), pp. 63–77Google Scholar.

8 Grégoire, R., Homéliaires liturgiques médiévaux: analyse des manuscrits (Bibloteca di Studi Medievali; Spoleto, 1980)Google Scholar.

9 Deshusses, J., Le Sacramentaire grégorien (Spicilegium Friburgense, 16; Fribourg en Suisse, 1971)Google Scholar and idem, ‘Chronologie des grands sacramentaires de Saint-Amand’, Revue bénédictine, 87 (1977), pp. 230–7 and ‘Encore les sacramentaires de Saint-Amand’, Revue bénédictine, 89 (1979), pp. 310–12.

10 Vogel, C., Medieval Liturgy: An Introduction to the Sources, trans, and rev. Storey, W. G. and Rasmussen, N. K. from the French edition of 1981 (Washington, D.C., 1986), pp. 61–104Google Scholar.

11 The Echternach Sacramentary, ed. Hen, Y. (Henry Bradshaw Society; Woodbridge, 1997)Google Scholar.

12 Mordek, H., Kirchenrecht und Reform im Frankenreich (Berlin, 1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Kottje, R., ‘Einheit und Vielfalt des kirchlichen Lebens in der Karolingerzeit’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 76 (1965), pp. 323–42Google Scholar and the references in McKitterick, R., ‘Knowledge of Canon Law in the Frankish Kingdoms before 789: The Manuscript Evidence’, Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 36/1 (1985), pp. 97–117,CrossRefGoogle Scholar repr. in R. McKitterick, Books, Scribes and Learning in the Frankish Kingdoms, 6th–9th Centuries (Variorum Collected Studies; Aldershot, 1994), chapter II.

13 See above, n. 1.

14 See Morrison, K., ‘“Know thyself”: Music in the Carolingian Renaissance’, in Committenti e produzione artistico-letteraria nell'alto medioevo occidentale (Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, 39; Spoleto, 1992), pp. 369–479Google Scholar and McKitterick, R., ‘Unity and Diversity in the Carolingian Church’, in Swanson, R. (ed.), Unity and Diversity in the Church (Studies in Church History, 32; Oxford, 1996), pp. 59–82Google Scholar.

15 Balbulus, Notker, Gesta Karoli, I, c. 10, ed. Rau, R., Quellen zur karolingischen Reichsgeschichte, i (Darmstadt, 1974), p. 336Google Scholar. I have discussed this in ‘Royal Patronage of Culture in the Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians: Motives and Consequences’, in Committenti (Spoleto, 1992) (as in n. 14), pp. 93–129Google Scholar, reprinted in R. McKitterick, The Frankish Kings and Culture in the Middle Ages (Variorum Collected Studies; Aldershot, 1995), chapter VII.

16 Admonitio generalis 789, c. 80, in Monumenta Germaniae historica, capitularia regum francorum, ed. Boretius, , i, no. 22, p. 61Google Scholar.

17 Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare, Cod. LXXXV (80). See Lowe, E. A., Codices Latini antiquiores, iv (Oxford, 1947),Google Scholar no. 514 and Hope, D. M., The Leonine Sacramentary: A Reassessment of its Nature and Purpose (Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar.

18 The earliest extant copy, made for Bishop Hildoard of Cambrai, is Cambrai, Médiathèque Municipale 164, dated 811–12. Two others from the first half of the ninth century are both from Verona.

19 Important work is in progress on the history of the Frankish liturgy by Yitzhak Hen in a monograph for the Henry Bradshaw Society and on the Missale Gothicum by Els Rose for a Ph.D. at the University of Utrecht.

20 How many antiphoners have been lost is clear if we remember that at Reichenau alone in 821 ten antiphoners are recorded. A trawl through all extant ninth-century book catalogues and treasure inventories would be worthwhile: see, for example, Bischoff, Bernhard (ed.), Mittelalterliche Schatzverzeichnisse, i: Von der Zeit Karls des Groβen bis zur Mitte des 13. Jahrhundert (Veröffentlichungen des Zentralinstituts für Kunstgeschichte in München, 4; Munich, 1967)Google Scholar.

21 Though one wonders if Bischoff was influenced in this by assumptions about the dates of neumes: Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts, i: Aachen–Lambach (Stuttgart, 1998), p. 11Google Scholar.

22 Laon, Bibliothèque Municipale 266 (flyleaf). See Jeffery, Peter, ‘An Early Cantatorium Fragment Related to Laon 239’, Scriptorium, 36 (1982), pp. 245–52 and plate 29. This fragment, dated to the last quarter of the ninth century, indicates development between it and Laon, Bibliothèque Municipale 239, and also represents a slightly divergent musical tradition from that in the Laon cantatoriumCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 See Wright, R., Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France (Liverpool, 1982)Google Scholar; Wright, R. (ed.), Latin and the Romance Languages in the Early Middle Ages (London 1991, repr. Philadelphia, 1996)Google Scholar; and Banniard, Michel, ‘Language and Communication in Carolingian Europe’, in The New Cambridge Medieval History, ed. McKitterick, R., ii: c.700-c.900 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 695–708CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Bischoff, Bernhard, Latin Palaeography and the Middle Ages, trans. Cróinín, D. Ó and Ganz, D. (Cambridge, 1990, from the 1986 German edition), pp. 112–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Levy, , Gregorian Chant, p. 243Google Scholar. The two works he cites in support of his ‘basic cultural division’ do not mention this but are accounts of the political divisions in 843; secondly, the Strasbourg oaths, as I have tried to make clear elsewhere, are not to be taken as a literal account of what happened (Introduction to The New Cambridge Medieval History, ii: C.700-C.900, pp. 11–12). The chronological leap Levy makes back from the tenth and eleventh centuries to 843 is putting too much on a political event, especially when one of the most lasting divisions created in 843 was not so much east and west but the creation of the Middle kingdom, namely, Lotharingia.

26 Gregorian Chant, p. 192.

27 I here follow Susan Rankin, ‘Carolingian Music’, pp. 292–300.

28 See the magnificent new edition of Theodulf of Orleans's Libri Carolini, ed. Freeman, A. (Monumenta Germaniae historica, Concilia II, Suppl. I: Opus Caroli regis contra synodum; Hannover, 1998)Google Scholar; the essays gathered together in Testo e immagine nell'alto medioevo (Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, 41; Spoleto, 1994), especially H. Kessler, ‘“Facies bibliothecae revelata”: Carolingian Art as Spiritual Seeing’, and Brenk, B., ‘Schriftlichkeit und Bildlichkeit in der Hofschule Karls d. Gr.’, pp. 532–84 and 631–82Google Scholar; and Chazelle, C. M. (ed.), Literacy, Politics and Artistic Innovation in the Early Medieval West (Lanham, Md. and London, 1992)Google Scholar.

29 J. Contreni, ‘The Carolingian Renaissance: Education and Literary Culture’, and Ganz, D., ‘Theology and the Organisation of Thought’, both in The New Cambridge Medieval History, ed. McKitterick, , ii: c.700–c.900, pp. 709–85,Google Scholar and the articles collected together in ‘The Power of the Word: The Influence of the Bible on Early Medieval Politics’, ed. de Jong, M., Early Medieval Europe, 7 (1998), pp. 261–358CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Pace both Bullough, D., ‘The Carolingian Liturgical Experience’, in Swanson, R. N. (ed.), Continuity and Change in Christian Worship (Studies in Church History, 35; Woodbridge, 1999), pp. 29–64,Google Scholar and Richter, M., ‘…quisque scit scribere, nullum potat abere laborare: Zur Laienschriftlichkeit im 8. Jahrhundert’, in Jarnut, J., Nonn, U. and Richter, M. (eds), Karl Martell in seiner Zeit (Beihefte der Francia, 37; Sigmaringen, 1994), pp. 393–404Google Scholar.

31 McKitterick, R., The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and McKitterick, (ed.), The Uses of Literacy in Early Mediaeval Europe (Cambridge, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.