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TWO NEWLY DISCOVERED TENTH-CENTURY ORGANA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Giovanni Varelli
Giovanni Varelli*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

In the tenth century, when the earliest chant books were being compiled in the heart of the Carolingian Empire and polyphonic music was entering the realm of theoretical speculation in the anonymous writings of Musica enchiriadis and Scolica enchiriadis, organa were also being notated for performance outside music treatises. We would not know this, were it not for a two-voice organum on an antiphon for Saint Boniface written in the first decades of the tenth century on the last page of a long-neglected manuscript, now in the British Library. A second notated antiphon, Rex caelestium terrestrium, provides elements for a reconstruction of a further, ‘hidden’, organum. These newly identified organa shed light on a significant phase in Western music history, being the sole evidence from the tenth century of a polyphonic practice before the great eleventh-century collection of organa from Winchester.

Type
Research Article
Information
Early Music History , Volume 32 , 2013 , pp. 277 - 315
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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References

1 Scholarly literature on early polyphony is vast. For an introduction see F. Reckow with E. Roesner, ‘Organum §1–3’ in Grove Music Online, <http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com> (acc. 15 May 2012); ibid., R. Erickson, ‘Musica enchiriadis, Scolica enchiriadis §5’; M. Haas, ‘Organum §I.1–III.2’ in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. L. Finscher [=MGG 2], Sachteil, vol. 7, pp. 853–64; ibid., N. Phillips, ‘Musica enchiriadis §IV’, vol. 6, p. 659; Fuller, S., ‘Early Polyphony’, in Crocker, R. and Hiley, D. (eds.), The Early Middle Ages to 1300 (The New Oxford History of Music, 2; 2nd edn., Oxford, 1990), pp. 492–503Google Scholar; ead., ‘Theoretical Foundations of Early Organum Theory’, Acta Musicologica, 53 (1981), pp. 52–84; ead., ‘Early Polyphony to c. 1200’ in Everist, M. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Music (Cambridge, 2011), pp. 46–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rankin, S., ‘Winchester Polyphony: The Early Theory and Practice of Organum’ in Rankin, S. and Hiley, D. (eds.), Music in the Medieval English Liturgy (Oxford, 1993), pp. 59–99Google Scholar; The Winchester Troper: Facsimile Edition and Introduction, ed. Rankin, S. K. (London, 2007)Google Scholar; Waeltner, E., Die Lehre von Organum bis zur Mitte des 11. Jahrhunderts (Münchner Veröffentlichungen zur Musikgeschichte, 13; Tutzing, 1975)Google Scholar; Hughes, A., ‘The Birth of Polyphony’, ch. 8 in id. (ed.), Early Medieval Music up to 1300 (The New Oxford History of Music, 2; Oxford, 1954)Google Scholar.

2 The MS Harley 3019 has fifty-seven parchment folios+three unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and one paper flyleaf at the end. The 19th-c. (c. 1882) pencil foliation, at the top right corner, stops at fol. 56. The first unit (fols. 1r–17v) contains the Sententia and Epigrammata by Prosper of Aquitaine, inc. ‘Iste Prosper Aquitanicus fuit vir eruditissimus …’. The script is a French Protogothic from the 12th c. (2nd quarter) and the decoration is plain with initials in brown and red (the red is oxidised). The dimensions are 215×130 mm (writing block: 185×90 mm). The parchment quality is either poor or heavily worn. Northern French neumatic notation has been added by a later hand on fol. 10v, probably as probatio penne. The second unit (fols. 18r–45v) is a treatise on etymology, inc. ‘Officii autem intentio est …’, apparently imperfect at the beginning. The script is a later French Protogothic from the end of the 12th c. and there are no significant decorative features. The dimensions are 215×140 mm (writing block: 195×125 mm). The third unit (fols. 46r–53v) contains a treatise on logic with a gloss, Gilbertus Porretanus, Sex principiorum liber, inc. ‘Forma est componi contingens …’. The script is a French Gothic from the second half of the 13th c. (written below the top line). The decoration consists of one large initial in blue with red pen-flourishing and two smaller plain initials in red (fol. 46). The dimensions are 210×150 mm (writing block: 115×60 mm). The parchment quality is poor. On the fourth unit see above and note 3 below. The spine reads: PROSPER | AQUITAN | EPIGRAM | MATA | & C. || Codices | XII–XV | MUS. BRIT || BIB. HARL. | 3019 | PLUT. | XXXVIII ||.

3 The dimensions are 215×145 mm (writing block: 165×100 mm). The parchment quality is good and there are no decorative features. The text of the Life of Maternianus is laid out in a single column with dry-point ruling, the text on each page starting above the top line. The pricking holes are also visible and there are no evident signs of trimming.

4 Prof. David Ganz, private comm. 18 June 2011. The script is small in dimension and is essentially tidy within justification and base lines. Words are not well separated and elements of cursiveness can still be found. Major and minor initials can be noted. The former are written in a thicker stroke, while the latter are thinner even though they obviously stand out from other letters in their dimension. Both types of initials bear elements that recall uncial script (see u and m).

5 On the page, the lower script seems much more assured, with better proportions, than the upper one. In particular, ‘the g has a very well formed curving lower bow, in contrast to the g of the upper script. The s is longer and better balanced, the a consistently uncial with a head stroke. The x of the lower script seems to be made with two penstrokes, the x in the upper script has a diagonal going from left to right to which two strokes have been added. The quality of the lower script suggests it was copied in a centre (or by a scribe trained in a centre) where high standards of calligraphy and good examples of Caroline minuscule were available’ (David Ganz, private comm. 3 Mar. 2013). Script from the second half of the 10th c. is rarely as well executed as this and, if it were not on the same leaf, it would have been conceivable to date the second hand even earlier than that of the Vita. Therefore, I argue that the hand responsible for the musical annotation should be considered contemporary or slightly later than the hand of the main text, i.e. hardly later than the beginning of the second third of the 10th c.

6 See below, ‘The Chant Notation’, for a discussion of this and other notational features.

7 See Phillips, Nancy, ‘Notationen und Notationslehren von Boethius bis zum 12. Jahrhundert’, in Geschichte der Musiktheorie, vol. 4: Die Lehre von einstimmigen liturgischen Gesang, ed. Ertelt, T. and Zaminer, F. (Darmstadt, 2000), pp. 293–623, esp. pp. 315–21Google Scholar.

8 See below, ‘A New Definition’, p. 290.

9 The little circles may also possibly be considered to represent the letter o for (vox) organalis.

10 Guido of Arezzo, Micrologus, ed. Smits van Waesberghe, J. (Corpus scriptorum de musica, 4; [Rome], 1955)Google Scholar. English trans. by Babb, W. in, Hucbald, Guido and John on Music: Three Medieval Treatises, trans. Babb, W., ed. Palisca, C. V. (New Haven and London, 1978), pp. 57–83Google Scholar.

11 In fact, vertical lines joining the two voces may be simply considered as inherited from the manuscript scribal practice of clarifying the vertical alignment of the two voces, rather than conjoining musical and performance indications. Indeed, there are many examples in manuscript sources where a vertical line is found only in the case of ambiguous correlation, i.e. on some syllables rather than others, and not as a fixed notational principle.

12 On the notation of the Winchester organa see The Winchester Troper, ed. Rankin; Rankin, S., ‘Polyphonic Notations in Eleventh-Century Sources from England and France’, in Caraci Vela, M., Sabaino, D. and Aresi, S. (eds.), Le notazioni della polifonia vocale dei secoli IX–XVII (Pisa, 2007), pp. 151–61Google Scholar. On the Chartres fragments see Arlt, W., ‘Stylistic Layers in Eleventh-Century Polyphony: How Can the Continental Sources Contribute to our Understanding of the Winchester Organa’, in Rankin, S. and Hiley, D. (eds.), Music in the Medieval English Liturgy (Oxford, 1993), pp. 101–41Google Scholar.

13 It is worth mentioning here that the idea of combining neumes and pitch-specific notation had already been advanced by Hucbald in his De harmonica institutione.

14 On the manuscript see Bower, C. M., ‘Boethius' De institutione musica: A Handlist of Manuscripts’, Scriptorium, 42 (1988), pp. 205–51, esp. p. 232, no. 86CrossRefGoogle Scholar. An added marginal gloss (fol. 19) on Boethius' De Musica is attributed to Fulbert of Chartres: see Saenger, P., Space between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading (Stanford, Calif., 1997), p. 168Google Scholar. This manuscript, dating to the early 11th c., is listed in the The Theory of Music, 6: Manuscripts from the Carolingian Era up to c. 1500. Addenda, Corrigenda, ed. C. Meyer (Répertoire International des Sources Musicales, B/III6; Munich, 2003), p. 187. On the attribution to Hucbald of St-Amand in the Paris manuscript see Chartier, Y., L'Œuvre musicale d'Hucbald de Saint-Amand: Les compositions et le traité de musique (Saint-Laurent, Québec, 1995)Google Scholar.

15 E. de Coussemaker, Scriptorum de musica medii ævi nova series, 4 vols. (Paris, 1864–76), ii. 74.

16 Apel, W., ‘The Earliest Polyphonic Composition and its Theoretical Background’, Revue Belge de Musicologie / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap, 10 (1956), pp. 129–37, esp. p. 134CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Ibid., p. 136.

18 Whether or not any relationship existed between the author (if not the scribe) of the Parisian De Organo and the Harley 3019 organum, their notational proximity is indeed tantalising. If we admit the use of exemplars, a question arises: could these be testimonies of a lost, independent transmission of Musica and Scolica enchiriadis? Or may we push this even further and speculate on a parallel transmission of a third treatise with elements of both? At this stage, we would certainly need broader and deeper evidence in order to sustain this hypothesis.

19 For example, see the entries in Grove Music Online for ‘Musica enchiriadis, Scolica enchiriadis §3’ and ‘Notation §3’, and ‘Musica enchiriadis §II, IV’ in MGG 2, Sachteil, vol. 6, pp. 655–9 for a detailed description even though no definition is provided. See also Phillips, ‘Notationen und Notationslehre’. See also Hebborn, Barbara, Die Dasia-Notation (Bonn, 1995), esp. pp. 31–52Google Scholar.

20 Chartier, Y., ‘Hucbald de Saint-Amand et la notation musicale’ in Huglo, Michel (ed.), Musicologie médiévale: Notations et séquences (Paris, 1987), pp. 145–55, esp. p. 150Google Scholar.

21 ‘Porro exemplum semitonii advertere potes, in cithara .VI. chordarum, inter tertiam et quartam chordam, seu scandendo seu descendendo…. Designetur quoque exempla … cum diductione .VI. chordarum, quarum vicem lineae teneant, annotato semper inter chordas, ubi tonus, ubi semitonium contineatur’ (De Harmonica Institutione, §21; ed. Chartier in L'Œuvre musicale, p. 160).

22 Rankin, S., ‘On the Treatment of Pitch in Early Music Writing’, Early Music History, 30 (2011), pp. 105–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Because of this dissimilarity, an equation or direct descent such as that described by John Haines as ‘though confined to the rather rarefied world of medieval music theory, this staff [cithara notation] predates Guido's time by a century and a half’, is problematic if not questionable. Haines, J., ‘The Origin of the Musical Staff’, Musical Quarterly, 91 (2008), p. 344CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Chartier, ‘Hucbald de Saint-Amand et la notation musicale’, p. 150.

25 As regards the genre of the two pieces, the absence of genre-specific rubrics in this annotation forces one to presume the genre, rather than straightforwardly describe it. It will be shown that Sancte Bonifati martyr inclite has a near identical correspondence in an antiphon for another office, which, along with the musical texture of the piece, seems to support the notion that we are dealing with an antiphon. The second piece in the fragment, Rex celestium terrestrium, is a more delicate case. I shall examine this piece in more detail below. Although it shares, as will be argued, striking similarities with a sequence mentioned in the Musica enchiriadis, there is no evidence to support that it is the intended genre of the piece in Harley 3019. Moreover, its presentation just below Sancte Bonifati without any differentiating rubrics would, in all likelihood, point to a continuity of genre. No certainty can be assumed, and therefore when speaking of an ‘antiphon’ in relation to the second piece, it must be clear that we are dealing with a certain degree of likelihood, but no claims are made in favour of a definitive resolution of a moot issue raised by a non-rubricated unicum.

26 This is particularly evident in the case of neumes like climacus and scandicus, but it may also be applicable to more complex forms. For example, the practice of referring to the Palaeofrankish climacus as such entails the reference to the Sankt Gallen notational tradition. In fact, what the notation suggests is instead what we might call a clivis subpunctis, that is, a sign composed of a clivis followed by a punctum below. These and other issues are also discussed by W. Arlt in ‘À propos de la notation “paléofranque”’, Études grégoriénnes, 39 (Actes du Colloque de Royaumont, Manuscrits notés en neumes d'Occident, Abbaye de Royaumont 29–31 octobre 2010), pp. 51–72. Arlt's critique of the criteria of earlier descriptions is aimed against adherence to notational models such as Sankt Gallen notation, which has often led to an assessment of other notations not on their own grounds, but as they reputedly deviate or derive from Sankt Gallen. ‘Ce sont principalement trois aspects qui priment dans le cadre d'une telle analyse. Le mots-clés sont le suivants: Zeichenbestand, Zeichenbildung et Zeichenmodifikation, et finalement Zeichenverwendung. L'établissement du repertoire des signes (Zeichenbestand) … Il faut détecter ensuite les règles qui guident le processus de la formation des signes (Zeichenbildung) et de leur modification (Zeichenmodifikation). Ce n'est qu'au terme de ces démarches de base que l'on entamera la discussion du vaste domaine de l'emploi des signes (Zeichenverwendung)’; p. 66.

27 There is no consensus about the precise musical rendering of what are clearly rhythmic and/or agogic indications in early neumatic writings. An analysis of the verbal and musical context, as well as parallels with a wealth of other early notations, suggests that the tractulus entails an emphasis of the sound it represents, whether it should be rendered as lengthening or through other ways of making the sound conspicuous. For its role in both the chant and polyphony of Harley 3019, see G. Varelli, ‘Rhythm, Pitch and Text Setting in Palaeofrankish Notation: The Case of London, British Library, Harley MS 3019’, in Cantus Planus: Papers Read at the 16th Meeting of the International Musicological Society Study Group, Vienna, Austria, Aug. 21–27 2011, ed. R. Klugseder (Vienna-Purkersdorf, 2012), pp. 409–14.

28 Corbin, S., Die Neumen (Cologne, 1977), p. 76Google Scholar.

29 On directionality see Treitler, L., ‘The Early History of Music Writing in the West’, in id., With Voice and Pen: Coming to Know Medieval Song and How It Was Made (Oxford, 2003), pp. 317–64, esp. p. 357Google Scholar.

30 Digital reproductions of D.1 can be found at <http://digital.ub.uni-duesseldorf.de/id/3664968> and D.3 at <http://digital.ub.uni-duesseldorf.de/id/3822299> (acc. 29 Nov. 2012)

31 See also Rankin, ‘On the Treatment of Pitch’, for an in-depth study of techniques employed by 10th-c. scribes.

32 The Wolfenbüttel Gradual fragments have recently been described in Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit: Karl der Grosse und Papst Leo III in Paderborn. Katalog der Ausstellung Paderborn 1999, ed. Stiegemann, C. and Wemhoff, M., vol. 2 (Mainz, 1999), pp. 838–42Google Scholar.

33 It is commonly accepted that most chant books were compiled for the use of a particular ecclesiastical community rather than for personal use. In some ways, exceptions are those books intended for the use of a soloist cantor (or soloist cantores), such as graduals, tropers, cantatories, etc. Both groups may have been compiled for consultation and performance. Rather, the distinction to be made here is between consultation before or during performances. To put it simply, one might argue that the Harley 3019 annotation was not conceived for consultation in performance. However, this does not exclude that a performance-orientated notation, prescriptive to the smallest detail and nuance-rich, might have led to the performance of the Sancte bonifati martyr organum, as well as the two antiphons, directly from the Passional for the Office of St Boniface.

34 For a summary of all theories and related bibliography see Arlt, ‘A propos de la notation “paléofranque”’; Levy, K., ‘On the Origin of Neumes’, Early Music History, 7 (1987), pp. 59–90, esp. pp. 62–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reproduced in his Gregorian Chant and the Carolingians (Princeton, 1998), pp. 109–40; Treitler, L., ‘Reading and Singing: On the Genesis of Occidental Music Writing’, Early Music History, 4 (1984), pp. 135–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar; reproduced with a new introduction in his With Voice and Pen (Oxford and New York, 2003), pp. 365–428; Atkinson, Charles, ‘De accentibus toni oritur nota quae dicitur neuma: Prosodic Accents, the Accent Theory, and the Palaeofrankish Script’, in Boone, G. M. (ed.), Essays on Medieval Music in Honor of David G. Hughes (Isham Library Papers, 4; Cambridge, Mass, 1995), pp. 17–42Google Scholar; id., ‘Glosses on Music and Grammar and the Advent of Music Writing in the West’, in Gallagher, Seanet al. (eds.), Western Plainchant in the First Millennium: Studies in the Medieval Liturgy and its Music in Honor of James McKinnon (Aldershot, 2003), pp. 199–215Google Scholar; id., The Critical Nexus: Tone System, Mode, and Notation in Early Medieval Music (New York and Oxford, 2009), pp. 106–13.

35 See Handschin, J., ‘Eine alte Neumenschrift’, Acta Musicologica, 22 (1950), pp. 69–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id., ‘Zu eine alte Neumenschrift’, ibid., 26 (1953), pp. 87–8; Jammers, E., Die Essener Neumenhandschriften der Landes- und Stadt-Bibliothek Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf, 1952)Google Scholar; id., ‘Die Paläofränkische Neumenschrift’, Scriptorium, 7 (1953), pp. 235–59; Hourlier, J. and Huglo, M., ‘Notation paléofranque’, Études gregoriennes, 2 (1957), pp. 212–19Google Scholar. Very little has been written recently on Palaeofrankish per se. The only monograph on Palaeofrankish notation is Ferretti, B., Una notazione neumatica della Francia del nord: Saggio critico sulla notazione paleofranca (Novalesa, 2003)Google Scholar. See also Torkewitz, D., ‘Unbekannte Paläofränkische Neumen aus Werden a. d. Ruhr’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 59 (2002), pp. 51–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; G. Varelli, ‘Rhythm, Pitch and Text Setting in Palaeofrankish Notation’.

36 Musica et scolica enchiriadis una cum aliquibus tractatulis adiunctis, ed. Schmid, H. (Munich, 1981)Google Scholar; Musica enchiriadis and scolica enchiriadis, trans., with introduction and notes, Erickson, R., ed. Palisca, C. V. (New Haven and London, 1995)Google Scholar. On the manuscript transmission and on the literary, theoretical, and musical sources of the two tracts see N. Phillips, ‘“Musica” and “Scolica enchiriadis”: The Literary, Theoretical, and Musical Sources’ (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1984); ead., ‘Classical and Late Latin Sources for Ninth-Century Treatises on Music’, in Barbera, A. (ed.), Music Theory and its Sources: Antiquity and the Middle Ages (South Bend, Ind., 1990), pp. 100–3Google Scholar5. See also Fuller, ‘Early Polyphony’ and ‘Theoretical Foundations of Early Organum Theory’.

37 Arlt, ‘Stylistic Layers in Eleventh-Century Polyphony’, p. 101.

38 Prof. David Hiley, private comm. 14 Aug. 2010. See also D. Hiley, ‘Anglo-Saxon Saints in Hessen: The Proper Offices for St. Boniface and St. Wigbert’, in Cantus Planus: Papers Read at the 13th Meeting of the IMS Study Group, Niederaltaich, Germany, Aug. 29–Sept. 4 2006, ed. B. Haggh and L. Dobszay (Budapest, 2009), p. 304.

39 ‘In .I. Vesperis super psalmos AntSancte Vite, martyr inclite Christi, te quesumus, ut nos tuis precibus semper gratiae Dei commendare digneris’, in Liturgische Reimofficien des Mittelalters, Erste Folge, ed. G. M. Dreves, SJ (Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, v; Leipzig, 1889), pp. 256–8. The two sources mentioned in it are a 14th-c. Breviary for the use of Passau in Vienna (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. Palatino Vindobonense 1891) and another, contemporary, under the name ‘Brev. Ms. Hospitalense saec. 14. Cod S. Pauli ad Laventum memb. 111’, possibly from the town of Zaventem in Belgium. According to the CANTUS database, other sources are Vorau, Stiftsbibliothek 287 (olim XXIX), fol. 291r and Graz, Universitätsbibliotek, MS 29 (olim 38/8 f.), fol. 199r <http://sosa2.uni-graz.at/digibib/handschriften/Ms.0001-0199/Ms.0029/index.html> (acc. 27 Feb. 2013).

40 Furthermore, the textual concordance with the antiphon Sancte Vite martyr inclite is significant as this appears to have been written before being adapted for the office of St Boniface: the assonance Vite/inclite and its metrical arrangement may suggest that the text was originally composed for St Vitus.

41 See the analysis of the Winchester Troper responsory Sint lumbi vestri in Rankin, ‘The Early Theory and Practice of Organum’, and Arlt, ‘Stylistic Layers in Eleventh-Century Polyphony’, for discussions of other 11th-c. organa. See also The Winchester Troper, ed. Rankin, esp. ch. 5, ‘The Composition and Compilation of the Repertories III: The Organa’.

42 Rankin, ‘The Early Theory and Practice of Organum’, p. 61.

43 Ibid., p. 65.

44 For a detailed study of these sources see Arlt, ‘Stylistic Layers in Eleventh-Century Polyphony’.

45 See Phillips, N. and Huglo, M., ‘The Versus Rex caeli – Another Look at the So-called Archaic Sequence’, Journal of the Plainsong and Mediaeval Music Society, 5 (1982), pp. 36–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an edition and commentary of the full text of the sequence, see Dronke, P., The Medieval Poet and his World (Rome, 1984), pp. 116–23Google Scholar.

46 In the following music examples, asterisks are used to indicate proposed variations from, or integrations to, the melody of Rex caeli Domine, following the results of the collation with the neumatic notation in Harley 3019. In only one instance (pro pitius), ‘X’ is used to show that a note in Rex caeli Domine (i.e. one of two Cs) has not been transported into the reconstructed melody of Rex caelestium terrestrium. Finally, in the reconstructed polyphonic version, asterisks are only used in the vox organalis to indicate minor integrations.

47 The melodic reconstruction of salva is highly hypothetical, and its polyphonic setting very problematic. The choice was therefore made to omit this passage from the proposed reconstruction of the organum Rex caelestium terrestrium.

48 The reconstruction of the final cadential movement in the vox organalis (C–C–E) is based on the corresponding section in the organum Sancte Bonifati martyr, as both digneris and perpe tuum share the same cadential melodic gesture (D–E–E).

49 The question of improvisation in medieval song is still a very recent and, for that very reason, promising problem. Leo Treitler has pursued it by a deconstruction of modern notions of what improvisation is and by suggesting that medieval improvisation would have little correspondence with notions such as ‘un-planned’ or ‘fanciful’, and might rather involve putting to work patterns and systems as a meaningful way of performing. In this model, there would be no clear or definite barrier between performance and composition. However, much of this work is aimed at accounting for the transmission of the standard repertory of chant. Closer in time and in the kind of problems it raises – the written recording of exceptional compositions – is the Winchester repertory of organa. For a close analysis and discussion see Susan Rankin's introduction to The Winchester Troper. Another kind of ‘improvisation’ – the adaptation of something pre-existing – has already been noted here for the text of the antiphon Sancte Bonifati martyr.

50 See above, ‘The Manuscript’, esp. n. 5.

51 Furthermore, the notational system employed for the organum Sancte Bonifati martyr reveals a link with the theoretical context in which the Paris De Organo originated. As I have suggested above, the cithara notation in lat. 7202 may be seen as a later development of the notational stage represented by the Harley 3019 organum and the scribe responsible for the Sancte Bonifati martyr annotation was certainly in direct contact with sources of music theory that had large diffusion in the area now defined, and in circulation at the time. The notation in lat. 7202 is similar to that of the type usually referred as Messine (or Laon, or Lotharingian). This points to north-eastern France, without excluding other possibilities. But we might, in both cases, be dealing with cultural interchanges in the broad region suggested by the text writing of Harley 3019, i.e. north-eastern France and/or north-western Germany.

52 Of course, we might also be facing the case of a travelling cleric, who moved to the host abbey in a later stage of his life, or alternatively, it might be assumed that the MS was moved between different entries. There is, however, no way to substantiate any of these possibilities, and it might therefore be more productive to assess the evidence in the manuscript as a whole before raising such highly hypothetical scenarios.

53 ‘Maternianus ep. Remensis’ in Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina Antiquae et Mediae Aetatis, ed. des Bollandistes, Société (Brussels, 1900–1), p. 833Google Scholar.

54 ‘Extat ea vita [Vita Materniani] in Passionali MS. insigni Bodecensis coenobii, Ordinis Canonicorum Regularium dioceses Paderbornensis, mensis Decembris fol. X, … haud dubie ex vetustiori Egemondani monasterii Codice desumpta, in quo S. Materniani festum solitum fuerit tali mense agi, credo, ob memoriam facta ad eum locum translationis’ (my emphasis) from Acta Sanctorum, vol. 4 (Aprilis), Tomus 3 (Antwerp: Société des Bollandistes, 1675), pp. 757–8.

55 Egmond Abbey was founded around the year 980, according to Prof. J. P. Gumbert (private comm. 13 Nov. 2012).

56 Mathon, G., ‘Materniano’, in Bibliotheca Sanctorum, vol. 9 (Rome, 1961–2000), p. 84Google Scholar. Egmond Abbey, or St Adalbert's Abbey (Abdij van Egmond, Sint-Adelbertabdij) is a Benedictine monastery in the historic region of Frisia, in the current municipality of Bergen in the Dutch province of North Holland. Founded in 975 and destroyed in the Reformation, it was refounded in 1935 as the present Sint-Adelbertabdij, under the Diocese of Haarlem. The presence of vitae of saints whose cult was particularly associated with the Netherlandish provinces is also confirmed almost two centuries later in a detailed study of the Passional by Moretus in De magno Legendario Bodecensi (‘Demum tam multae occurunt in Bodecensi legendario Vitae sanctorum qui in Hollandia, Belgio Rhenive provinciis vixerunt aut coluntur’ (my emphasis); Moretus, H., ‘De magno legendarius Bodecensis’, in Analecta Bollandiana, 27 (1908), pp. 257–358, esp. pp. 263–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Maternianus became Bishop of Reims in 351 (ibid., p. 84). However, we must exclude the see of Reims as a possible provenance for the Harley 3019 fascicle, since the saint continued to be commemorated on the 30th of April, as stated in the Acta Sanctorum (IV/3, p. 758): ‘apud Remensis Natalis eius memoria perseveravit ad hunc XXX diem Aprilis’.

57 For the life of St Boniface see The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany: Being the Lives of S.S. Willibrord, Boniface, Strum, Leoba and Lebuin, together with the Hodoeporicon of St. Willibald and a Selection from the Correspondence of St. Boniface, ed. Talbot, C. H. (New York, 1954)Google Scholar.

58 The full cycle of Boniface chants can be found in a Fulda antiphonary of the late 14th or early 15th c. Hiley, ‘Anglo-Saxon Saints in Hessen’, p. 304.

59 It is possible to infer that the Harley 3019 scribe was trained in music and polyphonic practice, and that he had direct access to those treatises forming essential literature for any musicus. As suggested previously, a better assessment of the provenance of concordant sources such as lat. 7202 might provide further insights into these matters.