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Ambrosian Mass chants before the Carolingian intervention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2012

Terence Bailey
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Abstract

The service books of the Ambrosian rite were produced relatively late: the oldest copy of the Manuale, the first to record the texts and some rubrics, dates from the early eleventh century; the earliest redaction of the ordinal, from shortly after 1126; the oldest copy of the antiphoner, which contains the notated melodies of both Mass and Office, from the mid-twelfth. All these books document a liturgy that had been extensively revised after the Frankish conquest of northern Italy in 774. The Frankish reforms did not result in the suppression of the Milanese rite (as they had the Gallican), but many changes were effected, changes that brought the ancient liturgy of northern Italy – without destroying all of its indigenous features – closer to the new, international, Gregorian rite. The purpose of this article is to re-examine the earliest references to the Mass of pre-Conquest Milan and its archdiocese, which reveal more than has been suspected, and to present new evidence concerning the Ambrosian sacrifice as it was in the earliest centuries, even before the time of St Ambrose.

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Research Article
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Plainsong & Medieval Music , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , April 2012 , pp. 1 - 21
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

1 The Manuale (Magistretti, Marco, ed., Manuale ambrosianum ex codice saec XI, 2 vols., Milan, 1904–05Google Scholar) is the service book that contains the texts and some rubrics for the Mass and Office.

2 Although Ambrose is often given credit for the formation of the rite and music that bear his name, in much the same way as St Gregory is given credit for the Gregorian, the basis for both these claims is slight. But the terms Gregorian and Ambrosian are too well established to be replaced, and moreover useful because Gregorian refers to much more than the practices of Rome and Ambrosian to those of a large region of northern Italy. This extended from Switzerland to Florence, where in 393–94 St Ambrose brought the relics of Sts Vitalis and Agricola and, as archbishop, dedicated a basilica to house them.

3 Missa is usually derived from the closing formula, ‘ite missa est’, that is, ‘go, you are dismissed’. This seems doubtful to some, and other derivations have been offered. See the interesting discussion in the Catholic Encyclopedia, 15 vols. (New York, 1907–12)Google Scholar, s.v. ‘Liturgy of the Mass, Name and Definition’.

4 ‘Post lectiones atque tractatum dimissis catechumenis … nuntiatum est mihi comperto quod ad Porcianam basilicam de palatio decanos misissent … ego tamen mansi in munere; missam facere coepi’. Letter 20, vv. 4–5 (accessed online at Biblioteca Augustana: www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/amb_ep20.html).

5 In his twelfth sermon, Sancti Caesarii Arelatensis Sermones, ed. Morin, Germain, Pars I, Editio 2 (Turnholt, 1953)Google Scholar=Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, 103:67–9.

6 Etymologiarum sive originum libri XX, ed. Lindsay, W.M. (Oxford, 1911)Google Scholar, Bk. 6 (De officiis), ch. 19.4.

7 Most accept that Ambrose was the author; virtually all agree that the documents date from c.400.

8 See Strawley, J.H.'s introduction to On the Mysteries and the Treatise on the Sacraments by an Unknown Author, ed. Thompson, T. (New York, 1919), section V, ‘The Lessons from the Scriptures’Google Scholar.

9 Cf. the Mass-prayer, ‘Orate fratres ut meum et vestrum sacrificium…’. It is not clear whether Ambrose is addressing his clergy or the congregation.

10 ‘Matutinis horis lectum est, ut meministis, fratres, quod summo animi dolore respondebamus: Deus, venerunt gentes in hereditatem tuam.’ Letter 20, vv. 4–5 (accessed online at Biblioteca Augustana: www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/amb_ep20.html).

11 From section 57; see McKinnon, James, Music in Early Christian Literature (Cambridge, 1987), item 233, p. 109CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Apostolic Constitutions ‘appears to have been written about 380 by a Syrian’. McKinnon avoids the question, but ἀκροστίχιον suggests something sung at the end (ἀκρον) of (each) verse (στίχος).

12 St Ambrose or whoever was the author of De sacramentis mentions (ch. 8.43) that the newly baptized approached the altar singing Ps. 42 (‘the cleansed people hastens to the altar of Christ, saying, And I will go unto the altar of God [Introibo ad altare Dei]’), but this cannot be accepted as evidence for the introit-antiphon (cited in On the Mysteries and the Treatise on the Sacraments).

13 Augustine is addressing God.

14 See, below, the citation of Paulinus of Milan.

15 Confessiones 9.7.15: ‘Tunc hymni et psalmi ut canerentur secundum morem orientalium partium, ne populus maeroris taedio contabesceret, institutum est, ex illo in hodiernum retentum multis iam ac paene omnibus gregibus tuis et per cetera orbis imitantibus.’ Confessions, Introduction and Text, ed. O'Donnell, James J. (Oxford, 1992)Google Scholar.

16 See Ramsey, Boniface, Ambrose (New York, 1997), 195Google Scholar. Paulinus also knew Augustine personally.

17 Vita S. Ambrosii, ed. Pellegrino, Michele (Rome, 1961), ch. 13, p. 68: ‘Hoc in tempore primum antiphonae, hymni et vigiliae in Ecclesia mediolanensi celebrari coeperunt, cujus celebritatis devotio usque in hodiernum diem non solum in eadem ecclesia verum per omnes paene Occidentis provincias manet.’Google Scholar

18 And with this Office the sequential cursus, the singing of all 150 psalms in a regular cycle? See Bailey, Terence, Antiphon and Psalm in the Ambrosian Office (Ottawa, 1994)Google Scholar.

19 If the ‘brethren’ addressed by Ambrose (see above, note 9) were the people, they were presumably at a regular morning Office. A century or so later, Bishop Caesar of Arles (c.470–542) seemed to expect the laity to be present at Matins in his cathedral. See Taft, Robert, The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West, 2nd rev. edn (Collegeville, MN, 1993), 152Google Scholar.

20 ‘Ut statim meridianis horis adveniendum sit in ecclesiam, canenedi hymni, celebranda oblatio.’ Expositio psalmi cxviii, 8.48; Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum (hereafter CSEL) 62:180 (also Patrologia latina 15, col. 1314). See Schaff, Philip, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Second Series, 14 vols., Volume X, Ambrose: Select Works and Letters (New York, 1896; repr. edn, Grand Rapids, MI, 2007Google Scholar), xix: ‘From various allusions, it would seem that the completed work [the sermon] dates from about 388.’

21 Apart from the sequences and tropes, which are a late development and had no place in the Milanese liturgy.

22 ‘Magister scholarum canit hymnum cum pueris alternatim cum choro’; ‘magister pergit in medium chorum cum pueris suis ad canendum hymnum vicisssim cum choro’. Beroldus sive Ecclesiae ambrosianae mediolanensis kalendarium et ordines, ed. Magistretti, Marco (Milan, 1894), 64, 81Google Scholar.

23 See De officiis 44.215; McKinnon, , Music in Early Christian Literature, item 297, p. 132Google Scholar.

24 ‘Est et alius cursus quem refert beatus Augustinus episcopus quem beatus Ambrosius papa propter hereticorum ordinem dissimilem composuit qui in italia antea de cantabatur.’ London, British Library, MS Cott. Nero, A. ii, sec. VIII (‘Cantuum et cursuum ecclesiaticorum origo’), f. 35v et seq.; cited in Haddan, Arthur West and Stubbs, William, eds., Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents Relating to Great Britain, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1869), 140Google Scholar.

25 λεîτα, ‘public’+ἔργα, ‘duties’.

26 ‘Ambrosius quoque Mediolanensis episcopus tam missae quam caeterorum dispositionem officiorum suæ ecclesiae et aliis Liguribus ordinavit, quæ et usque hodie in Mediolanensi tenentur ecclesia.’ Harting-Correa, Alice L., ed., Libellus de exordiis et incrementis quarundam in rebus ecclesiasticis rerum (Leiden, 1995), xxiiGoogle Scholar. ‘Aliis Liguribus’ is presumably a reference to the Milanese archdiocese.

27 The remarkable Cesare Cantù informs us – typically, without naming his authority – that Ambrose's successor, St Simpliciano Soresini, ‘added much’ (‘Dopo sant'Ambrogio ai nostri riti religiosi molte cose aggiunse il vescovo san Simpliciano’. Milano e il suo territorio (Milan, 1844), 1:116Google Scholar). This remark has been widely and uncritically repeated. During the exile of the Milanese hierarchy between 570 and 649 in Genoa (which remained under Imperial control in this period), the characteristic Milanese liturgy (with its two cathedrals, two baptistries and its frequent processions to stations throughout the city) would need to have been adapted to local circumstances. Moreover, there is reason to believe that during this period in Genoa the rite was subject to Roman influences. In 601, Pope Gregory I insisted on his right to confirm the election of Deusdedit (Deodatus), the Ambrosian Bishop in exile. Gregory I, Registrum Epistolarum, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolae 2, XI.14, p. 274.

28 Consider the comment of Louis Duchesne who observed, ‘it is not readily admitted that the Ambrosian rite has undergone so many Roman retouches that it now is very far from its primitive forms’. (On n'avoue pas volontiers que le rit ambrosien a subi tant de retouches romaines qu'il est maintenant très loin de ses formes primitives.) Origines du culte chrétien, 5th rev. and augmented edn (Paris, 1925), 92, n. 1Google Scholar.

29 The credible lists of Milanese bishops name only five before Merocles, who attended the council convened by Emperor Constantine in Rome in 313.

30 ‘Ecclesia romana … cuius typum in omnibus sequimur et formam’ (De sacramentis III.1.5). Monumenta eucharistica et liturgica vetustissima, ed. Quasten, Johannes, Florilegium Patristicum 7 (Bonn, 1936), 152Google Scholar.

31 (Rome, 1935).

32 Such as Caldwell, John in ‘Modes and modality’, in Music in Medieval Europe: Studies in Honour of Bryan Gillingham, ed. Bailey, Terence and Santosuosso, Alma (Aldershot, 2007), 35–48Google Scholar.

33 One has, of course, to rely on later sources for the melodies; the books of the Sextuplex contain only text, as does their Milanese counterpart, the Manuale.

34 See the articles referred to, seriatim, in the following notes.

35 By proper I mean intended for a particular occasion or not sung on any other.

36 Bailey, Terence, ‘Introits and ingressae; Milan and Rome: The elaboration of chant-melodies: The operation of musical memory’, Plainsong and Medieval Music, 19/2 (2010), 89–122CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Beroldus, 49.

38 It is conceivable that discarded entrance-antiphons are among the vast number of Ambrosian processional antiphons, the psallendae.

39 See Terence Bailey, ‘The adoption of the Roman respond-gradual in Milan’, in the Festschrift for Giacomo Baroffio (forthcoming).

40 See Bailey, Terence, ‘The Milanese Gospel-processions and the antiphonae ante evangelium’, in Antiphonaria. Studien zu Quellen und Gesängen des mittelalterlichen Offiziums, ed. Hiley, David. Regensburger Studien zur Musikwissenschaft 7 (Tutzing, 2009), 1–15Google Scholar.

41 One usually reads that there were only three Ambrosian antiphonae ante evangelium, but in fact the number is a somewhat larger than that. See Bailey, ‘The Milanese Gospel-processions’.

42 Such as the aius of the Gallican Mass described by ‘St Germain’. I have identified (in ‘The Milanese Gospel-processions’) what might have been the corresponding Ambrosian chant.

43 See Baroffio, Giacomo's table entitled ‘Antifone ante evangelium nell'Italia settentrionale’ in ‘Antifone ante evangelium: un nuovo testimone’, in Signum sapientiae, Sapientia signi. Studi in onore di Nino Albarosa, ed. Conti, Giovanni, Cantus gregoriani helvetici cultores (Lugano, 2005), 107–16Google Scholar. Borders, James (‘The Northern Italian Antiphons ante evangelium and the Gallican Connection’, Journal of Musicological Research, 8 (1988), 1–53)CrossRefGoogle Scholar advances the arguments in favour of a connection between the Gregorian and Gallican practices.

44 Apologia prophetae David, 1.8.42. For an excerpt, see McKinnon, , Music in Early Christian Literature, item 282, p. 128Google Scholar. Ambrose must be referring to the resumption of the alleluia after the penitential observances of the Pentecost vigil. Other than on this occasion there would be no fasting in Eastertide.

45 See below, note 52.

46 ‘Ut autem Alleluja per illos solos dies quinquaginta in Ecclesia cantatur, non usquequaque observatur, nam et aliis diebus varie cantatur alibi atque alibi, ipsis autem diebus ubique’ Epistola 55.17; accessed online at www.augustinus.it/latino/lettere/lettera_055_testo.htm. Some would ‘correct’ this text (‘hic non diceretur); see below, note 52.

47 πάλιν αὖ ἓκαστου ἔτους ἅπαξ ἔν Pώμη τὸ ἀλληλούϊα ψάλλουσι κατὰ τὴν πρώτην ἡμέραν τῆς πασχαλίου ἑορτῆς. Church History, 7.19; Patrologia graeca 67, col. 1476.

48 Bailey, Terence, The Ambrosian Alleluias (Egham, Surrey, 1983), 51ffGoogle Scholar. That the Ambrosian and Gregorian verses with shared texts have related melodies could probably be demonstrated, but the extraordinary development of the melodies in Milan makes the comparison quite complicated and difficult to demonstrate.

49 Because I have not turned my attention recently to the Ambrosian and Gregorian alleluia-verses, I include in this section rather more detail than for the other Ambrosian Mass chants I have written about in the last two years. The fact is, I became aware of the extent of the Milanese borrowings only well after the publication of The Ambrosian Alleluias; there, the question was only adumbrated.

50 This is a useful Milanese term for the first section of multipartite chants.

51 It should not be ruled out, however, that verses were enhancements added while the Mass-alleluia was confined to Eastertide.

52 ‘That the alleluia should be sung at Masses outside of Paschal time was adopted through St Jerome … at the time of Pope Damasus’ (Quia alleluia dici ad missas extra Pentecostes tempora … de Jerosolymorum Ecclesia ex beatae memoriae Damasi papae traditur), Patrologia latina 77, col. 956. The letter neither confirms nor refutes the testimony of Sozomenus, for its text has been disputed. This article is not the place to consider the matter further, but a brief summary of the disagreement, which hinges on whether the text is properly ‘ut alleluia hic diceretur’ or ‘ut alleluia hic non diceretur’, is given in Apel, Willi, Gregorian Chant (Bloomington, IN, 1958), 376–7Google Scholar. See also Roederer, Charlotte, ‘The Frankish Dies sanctificatus at Gaul’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 30 (1977), 95–105CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 See note 30, above.

54 Thematischer Katalog der ältesten Alleluia-Melodien aus Handschriften des 10. und 11. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1965).

55 I refer only to the opening section. The repetition after the verse was on many occasions greatly elaborated with ‘melodiae’, long melismas.

56 Perhaps, before the local expansion of the repertory, for festivals of a single martyr Dextera domini fecit virtutem for St Victor was repeated, and if a verse were required for a confessor, perhaps Elegit te dominus for St Dionysius (Bishop of Milan, died c.359). Neither of the two alleluia-verses assigned for confessors in the Ambrosian books, Euge serve bone and Confessus es bonum, is found in the Sextuplex, although Schlager (Thematischer Katalog, 86) mentions a single Gregorian appearance of the former; nor is Tu est sacerdos included, although Bede mentioned it well before the books of the Sextuplex were copied and it is found widely as a commune chant in other Gregorian manuscripts. In Milan, Tu es sacerdos was assigned for St Ambrose alone.

57 There is no combined feast for Sts Peter and Paul in the books of the Sextuplex.

58 Roederer, ‘The Frankish Dies sanctificatus’.

59 We can ignore the first and second Masses of Christmas; see Bailey, Terence, ‘Christmas Masses in the Ambrosian Liturgy’, in Ambrosiana at Harvard: New Sources of Milanese Chant, ed. Kelly, Thomas Forrest and Mugmon, Matthew, Houghton Library Studies 3 (Cambridge, MA, 2010), 125–36Google Scholar.

60 The text Hodie natus is not found in the Septuplex; Dies sanctificatus was not used in the Ambrosian liturgy.

61 Consider also the circumstances of Commune confessorum (see note 56, above).

62 Cantus and also the Gregorian tractus are probably abbreviations of cantus tractus, that is, protracted chant, a reference to their use in extensive psalmody. (I should perhaps mention that cantus is a word of the fourth declension, and its nominative singular and plural are the same.)

63 The text Laudate dominum omnes gentes is used in a cantus and in a tract, and also as an alleluia-verse in three of the books of the Sextuplex.

64 For the details, see Bailey, Terence, The Ambrosian Cantus (Ottawa, 1987)Google Scholar.

65 A different melody is used for the ‘cantus’ on Palm Sunday, and on the sixth Sunday of Advent, but these chants, Pacifice loquibantur mihi and Suscipiant domine montes, are properly psalmelli.

66 The melodies, of course, must be sought in later sources.

67 De profundis clamavi (Ps. 129), Qui regis Israel intende (Ps. 79) and Laudate dominum omnes gentes (Ps. 116).

68 See, below, the discussion of the penitential Masses.

69 The designation ‘after the Gospel’ has, naturally enough, misled some to think that the antiphons were sung to accompany the Gospel book back to the sacristy. The ordinal makes it clear that they were not. See Bailey, Terence, The Chants of the Ambrosian Offertory: The Antiphons ‘after the Gospel’ and the Offerendae (Ottawa, 2009)Google Scholar.

70 See ‘Rome, Milan and the confractoria’, Proceedings of the 15th Meeting of International Musicological Society Study Group ‘Cantus Planus’, Dobogoko, 23–29 August, 2009 (forthcoming).

71 No satisfactory explanation has been offered for the name.

72 That is, ‘Come to the altar’, ‘Approach and eat’, ‘We receive the body of Christ’.

73 And perhaps also in the Gallican. In the sole manuscript of the first ‘letter of St Germain’, there is a lacuna precisely where the Gallican communion-chant would be mentioned. See Ratcliffe, E.C., ed., Expositio antiquae liturgiae gallicanae, Henry Bradshaw Society 98 (London, 1971), 17Google Scholar.

74 Laudate deum in sanctis, from the Commune plurium martyrum.

75 See Bailey, Terence, The Transitoria of the Ambrosian Mass (Ottawa, 2002)Google Scholar.

76 The text is sung in a responsory-verse at Vespers on the Wednesday in Easter Week.

77 The Advent Project: The Later Seventh-Century Creation of the Roman Mass Proper (Berkeley, 2000)Google Scholar.

78 ‘The Roman Offertory: An Introduction and some Hypotheses’, in The Offertory and its Verses: Research, Past, Present and Future: Proceedings of an International Symposium at the Centre for Medieval Studies, Trondheim, 25 and 26 September 2004, ed. Hankeln, Roman (Trondheim, 2007), 15–40Google Scholar.

79 The Ambrosian Antiphonale missarum (1935) contains four settings, but these include the melodies intended for the discontinued Gloria in excelsis at Matins.

80 The melodies ad libitum in the Ambrosian Antiphonale missarum (1935) are modern fabrications.

81 In the Liber pontificalis, we read that ‘Pope Telesphorus [128–39?] ordered that … on the Birth of the Lord Masses should be said at night … and that the angelic hymn, that is Gloria in Excelsis Deo, should be said before the sacrifice’ (cited in the Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. ‘Gloria in Excelsis Deo’). The original Catholic Encyclopedia, like the eleventh edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, is more complete than any of its successors, and remains an almost indispensable, work of reference, conveniently accessible online in more than one location. See, for example, www.catholic.org/encyclopedia.

82 Pope Symmachus (498–514) ordered that ‘the hymn, Gloria in excelsis, should be said every Sunday and on the feasts [natalicia] of martyrs’, but only by bishops. Liber pontificalis, cited by the Catholic Encyclopedia s.v. ‘Gloria in Excelsis Deo’. Berno of Constance (Reichenau), who died in 1100, ‘thinks [this practice] a grievance’. Libellus de quibusdam rebus ad Missæ officium pertinentibus, ch. 2, in Patrologia latina 142, col. 1059, cited in the Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. ‘Gloria in Excelsis Deo’. Berno's Micrologus, written towards the end of the eleventh century, seems tacitly to allow it.

83 Beroldus, 53.

84 Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. ‘Mozarabic Rite’.

85 See Berno of Reichenau (Constance), De quibisdam rebus ad missae officium spectantibus, Patrologia latina 142, col. 1060 et seq.

86 For this dating, see Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, vol. 11.1, col. 1083; see also the ‘Praefatio’ to Magistretti's edition (Beroldus, ix).

87 A twelvefold Kyrie eleison was sung at Vespers and Matins.

88 Also in processions.

89 St Clement of Rome (d. c.104) mentions it, quoting the text in Isaiah 6:3 (Patrologia graeca 1, cols. 276–7; Die apostolischen Väter I, ed. Funk, F.X. (Tübingen, 1906), 51–2Google Scholar). Some believe that Clement was saying the Sanctus was sung at Mass (see the Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. ‘Sanctus’).

90 Said to have been introduced by Sergius, Pope I in 687: ‘Hic statuit ut tempore confractionis dominici corporis Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis, a clero et a populo decantetur.’ Le Liber pontificalis: Texte, introduction, et commentaire, 2 vols., ed. Duchesne, Louis (Paris, 1886, 1892), 1:381Google Scholar.

91 No Mass was celebrated on Fridays.

92 The cantus was followed by a reading from the Gospel.

93 See Manuale, 126, 128, 129, etc.

94 In these cases, the rubric ‘ad missam’ has been supplied by the editor, Magistretti.

95 In these instances too, an Old Testament reading is followed by a psalmellus, a reading from the Epistles by the cantus, and the cantus by a Gospel reading.

96 Cesare Cantù, Milano e il suo territorio, 116, says ‘secondo una fondatissima tradizione’. But there is a similar account crediting the introduction of the Great Litany to Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne in 477 (Council of Orléans, canon 27, cited by Duchesne, Origines, 305).

97 Actually, Alaric I died in 410, and Alaric II was not king of the Visigoths until 485.

98 Since none of the chants associated with the preparation and distribution of the Eucharist was entered, I suggested some time ago that it might have been consecrated beforehand, as in the so-called Mass of the Presanctified on Good Friday in the Gregorian rite. I see now that this idea must be abandoned. For one thing there are too many such occasions. Moreover, if there were reasons not to celebrate the Sacrifice on a particular occasion, Mass was simply omitted, as on Good Friday (and in commemoration of the Crucifixion, on all the other Fridays of Lent).

99 We read in the Encyclopedia Britannica (s.v., ‘Mass’) that the pilgrim Etheria, about the same time as Ambrose, used missa ‘indiscriminately of the Eucharist, other services, and the ceremony of dismissal’. The suggestion is that Etheria was not a discriminating witness.

100 Cf. Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. ‘Aliturgical Days’: ‘we have indications in Tertullian and other writers of a current of opinion which tended to regard the offering of the Holy Sacrifice as inconsistent with the observance of a true and serious fast’. But short Masses were sung on the first and last Saturdays of Lent (formerly on all Lenten Saturdays), and Saturdays (and Sundays) were not days of fasting in Milan (see below, note 105).

101 It seems likely that at an even earlier stage Mass was sung only on Sundays and festivals – there are no Mass-items in the Ambrosian Commune feriarum or Commune sabbatorum. Odd, that reforms in evidence even in the early copies of the Manuale were never entered for the first Saturday (Manuale, 134); but the oversight is useful, since it allows us to look back at an earlier stage in the development of the penitential Masses.

102 See Manuale, 142, 151, 159, 168.

103 For Holy Saturday, the brief form of Mass was never replaced: the only items entered, even in the late copies of the Manuale, are two alleluias with verses, these, for obvious reasons, replacing the usual psalmellus and cantus.

104 The Matins cursus of the lectio continua included only Monday through Friday: Saturday had its own fixed psalms and canticles (as, of course, did Sunday).

105 Ambrose's contribution (‘when in Rome, do as the Romans’) to collections of famous sayings is based on his remark (De Elia et jejunio liber unus, ch. 18; Patrologia latina 14, col. 720): ‘When I go to Rome, I fast on Saturday, but in Milan I do not. You too should follow the custom of whatever church you attend, if you do not want to give or receive offense.’

106 Milan, Biblioteca capitolare metropolitano, MS II.D.2.28.

107 Sic. Although offerenda is usually considered the characteristic Ambrosian designation, offertorium is also found in the service books.

108 There is some evidence that this chant began to be considered obsolete in the Ambrosian Mass. See Terence Bailey, ‘Christmas Masses in the Ambrosian Liturgy’, in Ambrosiana at Harvard, 133–4.

109 The psalmellus and the cantus were not those of the preceding Sunday, but those originally assigned.

110 It is likely that ‘ad altare’ means no more than ‘at Mass’, and that the singer would have stood a little apart on a podium of some sort. He was perhaps the deacon assisting the celebrant. Consider the epitaph of the Roman archdeacon Deusdedit in the fifth century: ‘Hic levitarum [i.e., deacons] primus, in ordine vivens / Davidici cantor carminis iste fuit’; however, ‘Pope Gregory the Great in the council of 595 abolished the privileges of the deacons in regard to the chanting of Psalms … and regular cantors succeeded to their functions’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v., ‘Deacons’).

111 The word means ‘laid down’, as an animal upon the altar prior to sacrifice. Cf. Leviticus 10.19: ‘Aaron said unto Moses, Behold, this day have they laid [oblata] their sin offering and their burnt offering [on the altar] before the Lord (respondit Aaron, oblata est hodie victima pro peccato et holocaustum coram Domino).’

112 ‘Inter haec, Hilarus quidam uir tribunitius laicus catholicus nescio unde aduersus dei ministros, ut fieri assolet, inritatus morem, qui tunc esse apud Carthaginem coeperat, ut hymni ad altare dicerentur de Psalmorum libro, siue ante oblationem siue cum distribueretur populo quod fuisset oblatum, maledica reprehensione ubicumque poterat lacerabat.’ Retractationes 2.11, ed. P. Knöll (1902), CSEL 36:144. Between 398 and 404 (the date is disputed), Augustine had written a treatise, Contra Hilarum, now lost.

113 This is an old idea. Palmer, William (Origines liturgicae (Oxford, 1839) ch. 4, sect. VIII)Google Scholar, perhaps looking for early evidence of the foremass, could write: ‘But I think Augustine there refers to the anthem called Introit, sung before the lessons.’ Peter Wagner seems to have taken Palmer's remark seriously (Einführung in die gregorianischen Melodien, 3 vols., repr. edn (Hildesheim, 1962), 1:107, note 1). Much more recently Joseph Dyer has written categorically that ‘the first reference, albeit fleeting, to an offertory chant in the West’ is found in Ordo Romanus I, that is, in the early eighth century. See his ‘Augustine and the “hymni ante oblationem”: The Earliest Offertory Chants?’ Revue des études augustiniennes, 27 (1981), 87Google Scholar. Dyer was principally concerned with the elaborate Roman offertoria and offertory-processions, and I do not wish to suggest that the psalms mentioned by Augustine had anything to do with these, but for Dyer to dismiss the remark in the Retractationes with the comment that it ‘tells us far less than has been generally assumed’ (ibid., 92) is to beg the question.

114 It may be significant that none of the psalmelli and cantus assigned to the Milanese penitential Masses has a Gregorian counterpart. It is conceivable that even these chants, sung in the foremass, were later additions, and that the penitential synaxes were once conducted entirely without liturgical chants.