This special issue of Plainsong and Medieval Music honours the memory of Michel Huglo (1921–2012) with four articles that resulted from two sessions of papers held on 11 May 2013 at the 48th International Congress on Medieval Studies at the University of Western Michigan. Titled ‘Chant and Liturgy: Papers in Memory of Michel Huglo’, the sessions were organised by Anna Grau, Cathy Elias and Daniel DiCenso, with papers given by Terence Bailey, Frank Lawrence, Rebecca Maloy (in collaboration with Emma Hornby), William P. Mahrt, Nils Holger Petersen and Michael Norton. Also included is a bibliography of Michel Huglo's articles and unpublished papers to 2012, complementing earlier bibliographies. Obituaries are also cited. Each article in this volume advances research on subjects that occupied Michel Huglo fully at different times in his life.

Despite the lack of notated evidence, something can be recovered of the lost song of medieval epic, a foundational musical tradition in late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Like the chant of the Christian Church, epic has come down to us in a distinctively Carolingian framing. Given the close relationship between liturgical recitation and epic song throughout late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, as well as Charlemagne's own active role in the codification of both Frankish epic and Roman chant, it is possible, as I suggest in conclusion, that these two repertoires resembled each other in significant ways.

Eight times a day, the prayer Deus in adiutorium meum intende sounded from the lips of the faithful as the standard introduction to the Office Hours. Infiltrating daily life through the liturgy and popular interjections, the psalm verse Deus in adiutorium served a devotional function marked by versatility and popularity. Yet, despite its omnipresence, as well as its inherently vocalic identity, the verse was only rarely troped musically or poetically. A collection of thirteenth-century monophonic and polyphonic tropes of the verse circulating in France in motet collections and festive offices represents one of the few moments of heightened musical interest in the prayer. This article draws attention, for the first time, to the musical and textual connection between these tropes and Pater creator omnium, a thirteenth-century refrain song. This monophonic song from France also belongs firmly to the medieval cento genre, with both its musical and textual construction based on the piecing together of borrowed text and music – including Deus in adiutorium. This article argues that Pater creator omnium stands at the intersection of two important yet understudied histories: the musical and textual troping of Deus in adiutorium and the medieval cento. Analysis of this song ultimately illustrates the creative processes behind the making of a pre-modern song.

A guide, with historical observations, that distinguishes the kinds of responsories employed in the Ambrosian liturgy, describes their liturgical functions and performance practice, determines the size of the various repertories, and discusses the textual and musical characteristics of the types.

In the mid-fourteenth century the Black Death inflicted one of the most devastating losses of life in human history. This was met by exercises of collective piety such as the singing of psalms and the celebration of special votive masses, which encouraged social cohesion in the face of the tragedy. This article presents results from an analysis of fifty-seven manuscripts containing copies of the monophonic ‘Recordare domine’ Mass, reportedly created at the behest of Clement VI at Avignon during his Black Death-spanning pontificate. Of these, seven manuscripts contain fully notated renditions of each of the chants for the Mass Propers, enabling us to decouple questions concerning the organisation and transmission of the melodies from those of the texts set to them. When the different versions of the Mass are compared, two major findings emerge. First, differential patterns of consistency within the texts and melodies suggest that the texts of the ‘Recordare domine’ Mass may have circulated separately from the melodies set to them, with the choice of music left to the discretion of the local performing clergy. Second, the patterns of variation between different versions of the Proper texts and melodies allow us to see how a variety of composition strategies (including mnemonic processes) were used to create new music for the mass. The ‘Recordare domine’ Mass thus sheds light not only on the performance of organised sacred music at a pivotal point in European history, but also more generally on the processes of chant composition as a tool for use in response to social stress.

The Christmas octave in the Sarum rite included the singing of prosae on Christmas Day and on the three days following Christmas – the feasts of St Stephen, St John the Evangelist and the Holy Innocents. After the Vespers preceding each of these three days, a procession was made to an appropriate altar in the church, during which a responsory was sung with its prosa and wordless melismas after each prosa verse, with two responsory prosae based upon the melody from Christmas. These processions featured, in turn, the deacons, the priests and the choirboys, vested in silken copes and carrying lighted candles, going to the altar of St Stephen, of St Peter and All Apostles, and of Trinity and All Saints (the Lady Chapel). Rubrics indicate their special character, especially for St Stephen, described as solemnitas diaconorum, but also for all three, described as being for the sake of deacons, priests and choirboys in turn. Processions to altars in Salisbury Cathedral were strictly limited to one each year; these processions took up those three altars, which then had no further processions on their proper days. The processions had been established during the initial building-phases of the cathedral, when only these three altars existed. This exceptional series of processions emphasised the distinct importance of the Christmas octave and honoured the hierarchy of the choir, who served the liturgy throughout the year.

Aside from Don Randel's study of the responsory verse tones, there have been few comparative analyses of Old Hispanic chant melodies. Such comparison requires new methods because of the paucity of surviving manuscripts, the limited sharing of repertoire between them and the nature of the notation. This article examines variants in specific opening and cadential contexts, across the Old Hispanic corpus. In these contexts, cantors chose from a system of interchangeable melodic shapes, which vary by manuscript. Some manuscripts cluster in their choices of these shapes, in ways that confirm Randel's findings, with four melodic dialects in evidence (‘Leon’, ‘Rioja’, ‘Toledo A’ and ‘Toledo B’). Other manuscripts, however, do not fit securely into any of these four dialects, instead showing a certain degree of permeability between the dialects. Although the types of variants we have identified, including differences in notation and melody, may appear ‘insignificant’ in comparisons of individual chants, they emerge as significant markers of melodic dialects in comparisons of large data sets.

The Liturgical chant bibliography 25 retains the traditional format: (1) Editions and facsimile editions, (2) Books and reprints, (3) Congress reports, (4) Chant journals, (5) Colections of essays and dictionaries, (6) Articles in periodicals and Festschriften. Additions to the bibliographies of previous years (mostly reviews) are listed directly after this introduction.

Graz, University Library, MS 807 and Vienna, Austrian National Library, latin 13314 have been studied intensively for more than a century, yet unsolved problems remain. Following a brief discussion of the sources and relevant scholarship, the antiphons for the Rogationtide processions in the gradual portions of both manuscripts I examine, along with a supplementary set of Rogationtide antiphons added to the Vienna codex. I then take a closer look at the expanded descriptions for the rites for Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday in the Vienna manuscript's sacramentary. From this evidence, I reaffirm the association of the liturgies in Vienna 13314 and Graz 807 with the canons and canonesses of Klosterneuburg respectively, and argue that the twelfth-century additions to Vienna 13314 suggest that the two manuscripts were kept together already in the twelfth century, most likely at the Augustinian monastery at Seckau. I conclude with further observations on the much-discussed odd placement of the Dedication of the Church in the Sanctorale of Graz 807 and on the occasion that would have brought the two manuscripts to Seckau.

The latest entry in the traversal of Graduale Novum 1, the AISCGre edition of restitutions of Mass Propers, arrived too late for last year's roundup of new recordings (no. 1 in the list below). It offers the Propers for the eleventh to the fifteenth Sundays in Ordinary Time. The title, ‘Gustate et Videte’, comes from the incipit of the communion for the fourteenth Sunday. The chants are sung in the best semiological interpretation with superb choral tone. The notes are interesting for a wry explanation of the lack of correspondence between the new liturgical calendar and the old. The first four sets of Propers on this disc match the fifth to the eighth Sundays after Pentecost, but the last set come from the tenth Sunday after Pentecost (with the exception of the communion). Because of the imprecatory introit of the ninth Sunday after Pentecost, averte mala inimicis meis . . . disperde illos, this set was passed over. The editors of the 1970 Roman Missal, on second thought, decided, upon reaching the sixteenth Sunday of the Year, to restore the missing chants (except the communion) to that service, while removing the offending lines in favour of another verse from the same psalm. (As the Graduale Triplex shows, the text of the introit escaped the tampering.) At this moment, EOS has three more CDs awaiting issue by three of the directors who have contributed earlier discs to the series. The second volume of Graduale Novum is expected to be published in 2017.