Chants based on Crucem tuam in the second medial mode are examined in Greek, Slavonic and Latin sources. Central to the discussion is the role of Jerusalem in the dissemination of the modal system. On the Latin side, the emphasis is on Old Roman melodies, showing how they reproduce the prototypes more faithfully than Beneventan or Frankish melodies. The analysis does not support certain conclusions regarding the origins of the modal system and the relationship of Old Roman and Gregorian melodies advanced by Robert Snow, Helmut Hucke and Leo Treitler.

Although it has always been plain to see that the Milanese and Roman Mass shared many texts, that the melodies were also shared has gone largely unnoticed, or at any rate undemonstrated, except in the special case of the few offertory chants with wider concordances in Franco-Roman, Milanese and Visigothic books. This article takes up the particular case of the Roman and Milanese entrance antiphons: first, the circumstances of the importation of the Roman introits into the Ambrosian Mass; and, second, the precise relationship of the Ambrosian and Franco-Roman (Gregorian) melodies. It has long been understood that chants of the Old Roman repertory provide a firm basis for an understanding of the changes, inevitable over time, in an orally transmitted repertory. It emerges that the Ambrosian melodies, transcribed in neumes in about the middle of the eleventh century, offer a second opportunity for a sondage. This other, unsuspected, version of the chants, miraculously preserved and stabilised north of the Alps in the ninth and tenth centuries also allows for convincing demonstrations of the musical procedures employed in the elaboration of the melodies and in their adaptation to different texts. And not least, the isolation of what is shared between versions notated at a distance of centuries give us the basis of an objective estimation of the effectiveness of musical memory in a musical culture that did not rely on notation.

The changes in time perception that emerged in the late Middle Ages have not only left their mark on musical notation or the isorhythmic motet, but also on the composition of polyphonic songs. This article proposes an analytical approach to late Trecento songs that takes these changes into account. A case study of Andrea da Firenze's ballata Non più doglie ebbe Dido reveals how the temporal structures of the text and the music interact.

Pistoia, Archivio capitolare, manuscripts C.119, C.120 and C.121 – two twelfth-century graduals and a troper from the cathedral of San Zeno – are relatively small, undecorated choirbooks copied during a time when the cathedral chapter gained unprecedented wealth, power and autonomy. This study closely connects the choirbooks to their cultural milieu and specifically to two high-ranking Pistoiese clerics who were likely involved in their manufacture. By examining the political and social environment in which they were created, this article places the manuscripts in a specific historical context and uses paleographical and historical evidence to date them between 1108 and as early as 1116.

The Ave Maria remains the most widely repeated prayer in Christian devotional life, and music has played a critical role in its formation and propagation. This article reviews the essential contribution of music in the dissemination of texts based on the original verses from the gospel of Luke, with new evidence concerning the tradition of affixing a petition to the core devotion. While the Ave Maria remained unfixed in form and function until the sixteenth century, this article presents three significant examples from the corpus of Ars Antiqua polyphony in which versions of the text that include both the biblical verses and a supplicatory conclusion are not only used, but are also emphasised through polyphonic techniques.

The Beneventan Mass Propers are preserved in sources that are notated, for the most part, in campo aperto – without staff lines or clefs to indicate the pitch or placement of the semitone. Despite the absence of pitch-specific notation, it is possible to discern a great deal about the pitch of the Beneventan chant and to propose verifiable transcriptions. This article provides a systematic overview of the pitch placement of the Beneventan repertory through a study of the formulaic structure of the chant and through a comparative examination of the small number of exemplars of Beneventan chant notated on a staff line.