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The Nativity Drama of the Byzantine Church

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Egon Wellesz
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Extract

The service books of the Eastern Church contain a large number of monostrophic hymns, or Troparia, which originally followed a verse (στἰχος) from a psalm or canticle, and were therefore also called Stichera. As hymnography developed, their connexion with the content of the Stichos was loosened, and their number increased. The term ‘Sticheron’ was, however, maintained for this new type of Troparion, which was inserted into the Office so freely that it is not surprising to find a great authority on Eastern liturgy speaking of ‘the ivy of poetry’ which had strangled psalmody.

Investigations into the Stichera have not been carried out on a large scale by students of Byzantine hymnography, because they were mainly interested in the study of the two major forms, Kontakion and Kanon. These two, indeed, offered so many problems, both of structure and content, that the study of the vast number of short hymns was set aside. The prevailing opinion that the Stichera were of little or no poetic value contributed to this neglect; and, in fact, many of them are nothing more than slight variations of the text of the preceding verse, and it would be a long task to sort out those Stichera which have literary merit.

Type
Papers Presented to N. H. Baynes
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 1-2 , November 1947 , pp. 145 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © Egon Wellesz 1947. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 A. Baumstark, Vom geschichtlichen Werden der Liturgie, 109.

2 The dramatic element in certain Kontakia of Romanos has been stressed by E. Mioni in Romano il Melode, 27 ff. See also my Eastern Elements in Western Chant, Mon. Mus. Byz. Amer. Ser. I (1947), 21–4Google Scholar.

3 A photographic copy of the MS., made by my colleague, Professor C. Höeg, is in my possession.

4 See the examples given by Kirschner, B., ‘Alphabetische Akrosticha in der syrischen Kirchenpoesie.’ Oriens Christianus VI (1906), 1–69Google Scholar, and VII (1907), 254–291.

5 Cf. Thibaut, T.-B., Ordre des Offices de la Semaine Sainte à Jerusalem du IV au Xe siècle (1926), 101Google Scholar.

6 Cf. Eastern Elements in Western Chant 22, and Baumstark, A., ‘Der Orient und die Gesänge der Adoratio Crucis,’ Jahrbuch für Liturgiezeissenschaft II, (1922), 12Google Scholar.

7 Cf. T.-B. Thibaut, Ordre des Offices 98–100.

8 The punctuation of this and the following Troparia is that of the Menaion printed in Rome in 1892. The only punctuation in the MS. is the dot above the line which always coincides with a half or full close of the melody.

9 Ordre des Offices III.

10 Cf. S. Bäumer, Geschichte des Breviers 64.

11 Cf. E. Mâle, L'art religieux du XIIe siècle en France (1922), 60.

12 Cf. ibid., 45–106, and L. Bréhier, L'art en France des invasions barbares à l'époque romane (1930), ch. II. Les colonies des Syriens, 32–44.