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The Norman Chant Traditions — Normandy, Britain, Sicily

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1980

David Hiley
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Extract

For practical reasons, this paper concerns not the complete corpus of Norman liturgical books, but simply those which contain music for mass (or information about it). The sources upon which my survey is based are listed in Table 1 on pages 14–16. They are grouped according to place of origin, in four sets: sources from (i) Normandy, (ii) areas of north France adjacent to Normandy, (iii) Britain, (iv) Sicily, South Italy and the Holy Land. When more than one source survives from a particular church, each is distinguished by a readily comprehensible qualifier in square brackets. The contents of the chosen sources are examined from six main points of view: post-Pentecost alleluia series, then the complete alleluia, sequence and ordinary of mass repertories, and finally variant readings in proper of mass chants and in sequences. The crosses in the columns opposite each source in Table 1 indicate that the source has been used in one of the six types of investigation. Thus the troper from St Evroult (Paris, Bibl. Nat., lat. 10508) contains material for a study of alleluia, sequence and ordinary of mass repertories, and the text and melody variants in sequences; but for the St Evroult post-Pentecost alleluia series one must consult the sacramentary Rouen, Bibl. Mun., 273, which has chant text incipits in its margin. No St Evroult book survives with chant melodies for all the proper of mass, so St Evroult must remain unrepresented in the study of melodic variants in the proper of mass. It goes without saying that some books can be assigned more confidently than others to particular churches. Table 1 is therefore followed by brief notes explaining the more tentative or less widely known among the assignations I have made. The churches of Normandy mentioned in this paper are shown in Map 1 on page 18.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 107 , 1980 , pp. 1 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © 1982 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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Footnotes

1

This article is based on a paper co the Royal Musical Association in London on 6 February 1980. It presents in summary form conclusions drawn from my doctoral thesis The Liturgical Music of Norman Sicily: a study centred on Manuscripts 288, 289, 19421 and Vitrina 20–4 of the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid (University of London, 1981). My aim here has been to provide a concise account of the inter-related Norman traditions which will be of use to historians as well as to musicologists. Chant specialists are referred to the fuller treatment given in my thesis, particularly pp. 179–375 and the tables on pp. 498–691.

References

NOTES

2 So far as other material for mass is concerned, the proper prayers have long been of interest, particularly to English scholars, ever since J Wickham Legg's study of the Lytlington Missal of Westminster Abbey: Missale ad usum ecciesiae Westmonastenensis, Henry Bradshaw Society, i, v, xii (London, 1891–97). The proper prayers of Sicilian and north French books are considered in my thesis (see n. 1), 155–78 and 474–97. A study similar in character to those which are described in this paper has been carried out by Dom R.-J. Hesbert for Advent Matins responsory series: Corpus antiphonalium officu, v-vi (Rome, 1975–79). The information this elicits about Norman antiphoners and breviaries is summarized in n. 15 below.Google Scholar

3 First published mention of the usefulness of the post-Pentecost alleluia series in distinguishing the use of one church from another occurred in W. Frere: Graduale sansburiense (London, 1894), 1. But the first systematic practitioner of the technique of comparing series appears to have been Dom Gabriel Beyssac: See Huglo, M., ‘Les listes alléluiadques dans les témoins du graduel grégorien’. Speculum Musicae Artis: Festgabe für Heinrich Husmann (Munich, 1970), 219. Unfortunately Beyssac left little published material on the subject. The largest number of series presented to date is given in H. Husmann, ‘Studien zur geschichdichen Stellung der Liturgie Kopenhagens’ and ‘Die Oster– und Pfingstalleluia der Kopenhagener Liturgie und ihre historischen Beziehungen’, Dansk Aarbog for Musik Forskning (1962), 3, and (1964–65), 3, respectively.Google Scholar

4 See Turner, D. H., The Missal of the New Minster, Winchester, Henry Bradshaw Society, xciii (Leighton Buzzard, 1962).Google Scholar

5 See G. Benoit-Castelli and M. Huglo, ‘L'origine bretonne du Graduel n° 47 de la Bibliothèque de Chartres’, Études grégoriennes, i (1954), 173.Google Scholar

6 Evreux [1773] actually has a combination of numerical and non-numerical series. Its first 12 alleluias correspond to the Dijon non-numerical series, the other 11 to the series in Evreux [Vernon]. The monastery of St Taurin, Evreux, was reformed from Fécamp in 1035.Google Scholar

7 Le graduel roman, IV/i: Le groupement des manuscrits (Solesmes, 1960).Google Scholar

8 An essential prerequisite of this part of my study was the remarkable catalogue of alleluias by Karlheinz Schlager, Thematischer Katalog der ältesten Alleluia-Melodien aus Handschriften des 10. und 11. Jahrhunderts, Erlanger Arbeiten zur Musikwissenschaft, ii (Munich, 1965). Only a few of the alleluias found in Norman sources, which by their nature are not covered in Schlager's catalogue, since all are post–1100, are not accounted for in the catalogue.Google Scholar

9 In cataloguing ordinary of mass repertories I was able to draw upon the work of M. Melnicki, Das einstimmige Kyrie des lateinischen Mittelalters (Diss., Erlangen, 1954); D. Bosse, Untersuchung einstimmiger mittelalterlicher Melodien zum ‘Gloria in excelsis’ (Diss., Erlangen, 1954); P. J. Thannabaur, Das einstimmige Sanctus der römischen Messe, Erlanger Arbeiten zur Musikwissenschaft, ii (Munich, 1962); M. Schildbach, Das einstimmige Agnus Dei (Diss., Erlangen, 1967); and K. Rônnau. Die Tropen zum Gloria in excelsis Deo (Wiesbaden, 1967). The first four of these do not cover the sources from our area adequately. My own comprehensive catalogue of ordinary of mass chants in north France, Britain and Sicily will appear shortly in the Research Chronicle of the Royal Musical Association.Google Scholar

10 The Winchester, St Magloire and Arras books are the best known exceptions. Of the later books only Chartres [Pro] contains a complete cycle of proper tropes, which is exceptional for its date (thirteenth century). The Jumièges gradual has ‘Hodie cantandus’ on Christmas Day, and thereby becomes the only surviving book of the Dijon group with any proper tropes. Palermo [V 20–4] begins with ‘Gregorius presul mentis’, which may be taken as another borrowing from Chartres practice (Chartres [520] also begins thus).Google Scholar

11 See n. 7.Google Scholar

12 The Mont-St-Michel source is also covered in M. Robert, ‘Le graduel du Mont Saint-Michel’, Mont Saint-Michel: millénaire monastique (Paris, 1967), 379; and the Canterbury Christ Church gradual in K. D. Hartzell, ‘An Unknown English Benedictine Gradual of the Eleventh Century’, Anglo-Saxon England, iv (1975), 131.Google Scholar

13 See the brief account in D. Knowles, The Monastic Order in England (Cambridge, 1940, 2nd edn., 1963), 84, and refs.Google Scholar

14 Influence in the reverse direction cannot be entirely ruled out. Alençon, Bibl. Mun., 14 is an autograph manuscript of Ordericus Vitalis of St Evroult, containing English hymns and tropes by Wulfstan of Winchester, among other material. (The tropes are two for St Ethelwold, also in Winchester [Ccc]. See Planchart, A., The Repertory of Tropes at Winchester, Princeton, 1977, ii, 175, nos. 170–1.)Google Scholar

15 The only Sicilian book belonging to a ‘local’ tradition to be found among the antiphoners and breviaries represented in R.–J. Hesbert, Corpus antiphonalium officii v-vi (Rome, 1975, 1979) is a breviary of the fifteenth century from the monastery of San Martino delle Scale (near Palermo), Palermo, Bibl. Naz., XV.H.1. And this book has the same series of Advent responsories as the Dijon family. San Martino delle Scale was founded from San Niccolò, Catania: San Niccolò's derivation is unknown to me.Google Scholar

Since the responsory series tabulated in Dom Hesbert's remarkable work are so useful in revealing relationships between churches, I give a summary of the related series here. Churches outside Normandy are cited in brackets. In the left-hand column are the results of the survey in CAO, v; on the right, CAO, vi. Since Dom Hesbert has mentioned to mé a wish to write about the implications of his work for our knowledge of English uses, I feel I should not discuss this information further here and thereby pick the fruits which Dom Hesbert has so richly deserved to harvest himself.

CAO, v

Identical:

1. Fécamp, Jumièges, Conches,

St Evroult, Troarn, Mont

St Michel (Dijon St Bénigne,

St Germain-des-Prés,

Winchcombe, San Martino delle Scale)

2. Bec, Lyre

3. St Catherine-du-Mont, Tréport

4. Eu, (Paris)

2% difference:

1. Caen, Bec

3. St Wandrille (Chartres St Père)

3% difference:

1. Bayeux (Tours St Côme)

4% difference:

1. (Battle, Coldingham)

5% difference:

2. (Sarum, Hereford)

6% difference:

1. Bayeux (Angers)

3. (Dijon, Evesham)

7% difference:

1. Bayeux, Lisieux

9% difference:

1. Séez, Avranches

2. Avranches (Chartres)

10–15% difference:

1. Coutances, Avranches

2. St Catherine-du-Mont, St Wandrille (Chartres St Père)

CAO, vi

Identical:

1. Fécamp, Jumièges, Conches, St Evroult, Troarn, Mont St Michel (Dijon St Bénigne, St Germain-des-Prés, Evesham)

2. Bee, Lyre

3. St Catherine-du-Mont, Tréport

2% difference:

1. (San Martino delle Scale, Dijon)

2. (Winchcombe, Dijon)

3. (Battle, Coldingham)

4. Eu (Pans)

4% difference:

1. Caen (Battle)

3. (Sarum, Hereford)

6% difference:

1. Bayeux, Lisieux

2. St Cathenne-du-Mont (Chartres St Père, Ely)

3. Bec, (Battle, Coldingham)

7% difference:

1. (York, Hereford)

8% difference:

1. St Cathenne-du-Mont, St Wandrille (Ely)

9% difference:

1. Séez (Le Mans)

10–15% difference:

1. Séez, Avranches

3. Rouen, Coutances

3. Evreux (Guisboro')

4. (Hereford, Guisboro')

5. Dijon (Muchelney)

6. Bee (Worcester)

7. Caen (Worcester)

On the Sarum and Hereford series, see Dom Hesbert's article ‘The Sarum Antiphoner - Its Sources and Influence’, Journal of the Plainsong & Mediaeval Music Society, iii (1980), 49–55.Google Scholar

16 See my forthcoming paper. ‘The Chant Traditions of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem’.Google Scholar

17 See Hesbert, op. cit.Google Scholar

18 On the Thurstan episode, see Knowles, op. cit., 114. The interpretation placed upon these events by J. Smits van Waesberghe in ‘Die Geschichte von Glastonbury’, Colloquium Amuorum: Joseph Schmidt-Görg zum 70. Geburtstag (Bonn, 1967), 372, is wildly improbable. For further discussion see my ‘Thurstan of Caen and Chant at Glastonbury’ (forthcoming).Google Scholar

This paper has not mentioned other aspects of chant studies, such as notation, which clearly needs full treatment elsewhere. However, since Dijon influence in Britain has so far appeared rather restricted, it may be worth pointing out that what I have elsewhere called the ‘Fécamp mi neume’ was adopted quite widely in Britain, being found in Canterbury Christchurch, St Albans, Hereford, Haughmond and Downpatrick manuscripts. See my forthcoming article ‘The Fécamp mi neume in North France and Britain’.Google Scholar

19 Knowles, op. cit., p. 619 n. i, and p. 129.Google Scholar

20 The Downpatrick gradual also shares a very rare alleluia, 1141, with St Mary's York.Google Scholar

21 These collections are discussed at length in my contribution to J. Brown, S. Patterson and D. Hiley, ‘Further Observations on the Date and Provenance of W1’.Google Scholar