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Two early layers of Sanctus melodies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 November 2023
Abstract
This article examines Sanctus melodies from the tenth and eleventh centuries with special attention to the division of the first verbal phrase. The melodies with circulation in all regions of the Roman rite fall into two groups, an earlier one with ternary division and a later one with binary division. This picture is further enriched by the analysis of melodies connected in some way with these widespread melodies, by the simple melodies of the Sundays and weekdays and by an overview over northern French melodies of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press
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1 The chronology of surviving sources has indeed been the base for most modern attempts to revise traditional views about the history and development of the ordinary chants. The most controversial aspect of this approach is the group of melodies I call the ‘basic layer’, see section ‘The basic layer’.
2 The catalogue by Peter Josef Thannabaur (Das einstimmige Sanctus der römischen Messe in der handschriftlichen Überlieferung des 11. bis 16. Jahrhunderts, Erlanger Arbeiten zur Musikwissenschaft 1 (Munich, 1962)) lists 230 Sanctus melodies. Some of the numbers can be discarded, being identical to or variants of other melodies, further numbers need to be added. A comprehensive list of the melodies of the Mass Ordinary that includes the corrections and additions by complementary catalogues (Hiley, David, ‘Ordinary of Mass Chants in English, North French and Sicilian Manuscripts’, Journal of the Plainsong and Mediaeval Music Society, 9 (1986), 1–128CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Kiss, Gábor, Ordinariumsgesänge in Mitteleuropa: Repertoire-Übersicht und Melodienkatalog, Monumenta monodica medii aeui, Subsidia VI (Kassel, 2009)Google Scholar is in preparation for the Corpus Monodicum (https://corpus-monodicum.de). For the present purpose, it is necessary to be aware that the Thannabaur catalogue does not include manuscripts in adiastematic notation (with a few exceptions), most French manuscripts of that sort, however, are incorporated by Hiley. Most of the tenth- and eleventh-century manuscripts are furthermore catalogued in Iversen, Gunilla, ed., Corpus Troporum VII: Tropes de l'ordinaire de la messe: Tropes du Sanctus (Stockholm, 1990)Google Scholar (hereafter CT VII).
3 Some of the following observations have already been made by Richard Crocker, ‘Sanctus’, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. George Grove and Stanley Sadie, 20 vols. (London, 1980), 16: 464–5.
4 Thannabaur (26–8) names eight melodies as present in all regions: 32, 41, 49, 116, 177, 202, 203, 223. My list (32, 41, 49, 116, 154, 203, 216, 223) differs from his in several respects: the presence of Sanctus 154 and 216 in all regions becomes apparent only when adiastematic manuscripts are included. For assertions about ‘all regions’, one should distinguish between (northern) France and Aquitania/Spain, a distinction strangely omitted by the catalogues of the Stäblein school. Since relevant Aquitanian manuscripts from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries are missing, ascertaining the reception or non-reception of late melodies in the southwestern region depends on the Spanish manuscripts. Hence, Sanctus 202 is missing in Aquitania/Spain. For France some manuscripts cited by Thannabaur should be discarded: I-BAsn 88 belongs to the Franciscan Order, and the manuscripts from Sion/Sitten are partly dependent on the Franciscan tradition. Thus, Sanctus 177 is missing in France, the French testimonies for Sanctus 116, 202 and 203 are rather thin.
5 Some relevant manuscripts do not include any of these melodies: tenth- and eleventh-century manuscripts from St Gall (CH-SGs 484, 381, 376, 378), tenth-century manuscripts from Mainz (BL add. 19768) and Regensburg (D-BAs lit. 6), a Reichenau manuscript datable to 1001 (D-BAs lit. 5)
6 One can name several melodies of the Mass Ordinary that are attested earlier in the West than in the East (clear cases only): Kyrie 18, 47, 70, 124, 142, Agnus 136. Of the melodies attested earlier in the East, some belong to the ‘basic layer’ that should be excluded here (see section ‘The basic layer’), some are probably affected by the bad source situation in northern France (Kyrie 39, Gloria 28). The only real exception seems to be Gloria 24. The numbering follows the standard catalogues: Margaretha Landwehr-Melnicki, Das einstimmige Kyrie des lateinischen Mittelalters, Forschungsbeiträge zur Musikwissenschaft 1 (Regensburg, 1955). Detlev Bosse, Untersuchung einstimmiger mittelalterlicher Melodien zum ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’, Forschungsbeiträge zur Musikwissenschaft 2 (Regensburg, 1955). Martin Schildbach, Das einstimmige Agnus Dei und seine handschriftliche Überlieferung vom 10. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert, Diss., Erlangen (1967).
7 The exceptions in the Norman-Sicilian manuscripts and the Montecassino manuscript BAV Urb. 602 (in the Kyriale obviously dependent on Norman-Sicilian tradition, see John Boe, ed., Beneventanum Troporum Corpus II, 1: Ordinary Chants and Tropes for the Mass from Southern Italy, A.D. 1000–1250: Kyrie Eleison, 2 vols. (Madison, 1989), 1: xxiv–xxxix) can be easily explained as having been imported from France.
8 Some eleventh-century manuscripts do not include any of these melodies. Most of them, however, are incomplete in some respect. The strongest negative witness is I-Ra 123 from the early eleventh century.
9 BnF lat. 1240, 1118, 779, F-APT 18, 17.
10 In BnF lat. 887 the melody has received no notation, but the trope text Summe pater de quo (CT VII 154) is regularly connected with Sanctus 56. In BnF n.a.l. 1871 this Sanctus (with the same trope) is entered as an addition, but directly below the original Sanctus collection. One further witness is known: the twelfth-century troper from Narbonne, BnF lat. 778.
11 In BnF lat. 1084 the notation of Sanctus 49 is written over the erasure of another Sanctus melody, probably 228. In BnF lat. 1119 the added Sanctus text without notation was probably intended for Sanctus 49 according to the space left for melismas on certain syllables.
12 On the English chant traditions, see David Hiley, Western Plainchant: A Handbook (Oxford, 1993), 580–2. The earlier representants of this tradition, GB-Ccc 473 and GB-Ob 775 from Winchester, do not contain any of the melodies in question.
13 Sanctus 154 is not included in the late manuscript F-DOU 124 (fifteenth/sixteenth century). This melody has disappeared in most regions after the twelfth century (the most prominent exception is Paris). On the concept of melodic assimilation, cf. Andreas Pfisterer, Cantilena Romana: Untersuchungen zur Überlieferung des gregorianischen Chorals, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kirchenmusik 11 (Paderborn, 2002), 33–45.
14 BnF lat. 10508, E-Mn 288, 289, 19421, BL Royal 2 B IV, BL Royal 8 C XIII.
15 BnF lat. 7185, BnF lat. 10508, E-Mn 19421, BL Royal 8 C XIII.
16 GB-Ob Selden Supra 27 (Eichstätt?), D-Mbs clm 14322 and clm 14083 (St Emmeram), D-Kl 4° theol. 15 (Kaufungen), I-Vnm 2235 (Salzburg?), A-KR 309 (Kremsmünster), I-UD 234 (Regensburg/Moggio?), D-Sl Bibl. Fol. 20 (St Paul in Carinthia), and manuscripts from the Hirsau reform movement: D-Mbs clm 27130, BnF Smith-Lesouëf 3, D-FUl 100 Aa 6, BL add. 24680, D-Sl Brev. Fol. 123, D-Sl Bibl. 4° 36, D-Mbs clm 13125, A-Wn s.n. 2700.
17 Hiley, David, ‘Das Wolfgang-Offizium des Hermannus Contractus: Zum Wechselspiel von Modustheorie und Gesangspraxis in der Mitte des 11. Jahrhunderts’, in Die Offizien des Mittelalters: Dichtung und Musik, ed. Berschin, Walter and Hiley, David, Regensburger Studien zur Musikgeschichte 1 (Tutzing, 1999), 129–42Google Scholar.
18 Cf. the assimilations to Sanctus 154 in other melodies. The Nevers melody 221 corresponds at the beginning to Sanctus 216, from Deus Sabaoth to Sanctus 154. Since the Nevers manuscripts (BnF lat. 9449, BnF n.a.l. 1235) contain a normal version of Sanctus 154, but no other version of Sanctus 216, this melody should be judged as a disturbed variant of Sanctus 216. In the Pistoia melody 219, the situation is similar, but the assimilations to Sanctus 154 are less expansive. The Beneventan melody 152 has a beginning not known from other sources, from Deus Sabaoth it is assimilated to Sanctus 154.
19 An argument for the opposite direction of change would work for the melodic correspondence between the two osanna in excelsis in the German version of Sanctus 204 (cf. the observations on Sanctus 51 earlier), but not for benedictus qui uenit in nomine Domini.
20 Cf. the discussions in Hiley, Western Plainchant, 161–2. Boe, John, ed., Beneventanum Troporum Corpus II, 3: Ordinary Chants and Tropes for the Mass from Southern Italy, A.D. 1000–1250: Preface Chants and Sanctus, 2 vols. (Madison, 1996), 1: 118–19Google Scholar. Bjork, David A., The Aquitanian Kyrie Repertory of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries, ed. Crocker, Richard (Aldershot, 2003), 95–7Google Scholar (on Kyrie 217).
21 Even earlier is the tenth-century Mainz troper BL add. 19768 that includes the trope Ante saecula, but no notation for the connected Sanctus.
22 An article on this topic is in preparation. The following remarks are based on the material of this article.
23 This would be the place, where Kenneth Levy's observations on Italian Sanctus melodies and their assumed connection to Byzantine melodies (‘The Byzantine Sanctus and its Modal Tradition in East and West’, Annales musicologiques, 6 (1958/63), 7–67) become relevant. In the present context it should be noted that the Italian melody for the Greek Sanctus has the AAA scheme, the Aquitanian melody, however, has AA with a contrasting third invocation.
24 Some manuscripts are not included since they do not contain relevant melodies: F-Pa 1169, BnF lat. 1087, BnF lat. 9436, F-AN 96, F-CA 61, F-DOU 90, F-VAL 121, F-LA 263.
25 See Thannabaur and CT VII, no. 4 (Osanna prosula Agie deus altissime, only with Sanctus 58) and no. 1 (Sanctus trope Admirabilis splendor, with Sanctus 111 in Aquitania, France, England, but with Sanctus 74 in Italy).