Jeffery - 2001 - The Earliest Oktoechoi PDF

The Earliest Oktoechoi:
The Role of Jerusalem and Palestine

in the Beginnings of Modal Ordering
Peter Jeffery
Few elements of Western music have had as long and continuous a history as the
theory of the eight modes. As early as the eighth century, the modes were present
in some of the oldest written records of European music. By the ninth century
they were already inextricably involved in 'many of the central issues in medieval
chant: the principles of composition, the changing approaches to modal analysis,
the methods of music-instruction, problems of oral and incipient-written
transmission, questions concerning the regional Gregorian dialects and the
other Western dialects that for a time coexisted with the Gregorian-Roman'.1
Throughout the course of the Middle Ages, successive discussions, system-
atizations and reformulations of the theory of the modes were among the
strongest forces driving the development and refinement of music theory, as
generations of theorists, editors and copyists repeatedly adjusted the Gregorian
melodies and the eight modal definitions to fit each other better.2 By the sixteenth
century, polyphonic music was being composed in ways that were intended to
represent the perceived affective qualities and tonal characteristics of the eight
modes. 3 With further evolution in the seventeenth century, modal concepts and
Kenneth Levy's review of Huglo, Tonaires, in 1974b:126.

For a general introduction to the medieval modes, see David Hiley, Western Plainchant: A
Handbook (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 454—77. A classic outline history of medieval modal
theory in Western music (and of similar conceptions in selected other cultures) is Harold S.
Powers, 'Mode', GDM 12: 376^50. See also Powers's articles on the individual modes
throughout GDM: 'Aeolian', 1:114—5; 'Dorian', 5:575-6; 'Hyperaeolian', 8:852; 'Hypoaeolian'.
8:852; 'Hypodorian'. 8:852; 'Hypoionian', 8:852-3; 'Hypolydian', 8:853^; 'Hypomixolydian',
8:854; 'Hypophrygian', 8:854; 'Ionian', 9:289-90; 'Locrian', 11:119; 'Lydian', 11:389; 'Mixoly-
dian', 12:371; 'Phrygian', 14:663. One important topic within modal theory is surveyed in
Dolores Pesce, The Affinities and Medieval Transposition (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1987). But a full and comprehensive history of the eight modes in medieval European
music remains to be written.
Richard H. Hoppin, 'Tonal organization in Music before the Renaissance', Paul A. Pisk: Essays in
His Honor, ed. John Glowacki (Austin: College of Fine Arts, University of Texas, 1966), 25-37;
Harold S. Powers. 'Tonal types and modal categories', JAMS 34 (1981), 428-70; Howard Mayer
Brown, 'Theory and practice in the sixteenth century: preliminary notes on Attaingnant's modally
148 Mode and melos The earliest Oktoechoi 149
terminology played a role in the emergence of the major/minor tonality that

governed most Western music into our own century.4 Yet composers of the I. The Provenance of the Modes
eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries continued to show interest in the
old modes,5 which remain part of the standard curriculum of elementary music We can no longer answer such questions as Auguste Gevaert did a century ago,
theory even today. when he set out to prove the then universal assumption that the Middle Ages
Yet we know hardly anything about the origin of the modal system, which inherited the eight modes directly from Greco-Roman antiquity, and that the
even in the earliest witnesses had already attained its familiar shape: eight creators of Gregorian chant therefore knowingly employed melodico-scalar
numbered classifications (hence 'oktoechos', or 'eightfold sound'),6 arranged in constructs that had been familiar for centuries.7 We now know that the eight
two groups (labeled 'authentic' and 'plagal') of four classifications each. From modes of Gregorian chant theory bear little resemblance to the seven or eight or
where did the Middle Ages obtain this doubly fourfold scheme, and why did it thirteen or fifteen octave species or modulation schemes derived from the tuning
take this particular form? of the ancient Greek lyre, which classical Greek theorists variously called dpôvia
(harmonia), roVo? (tonos) or rpo-nog (tropos).8 The artificial identification of the
ordered chansonniers', and Claude V. Palisca, 'Mode ethos in the Renaissance', Essays in
Musicology: A Tribute to Ahin Johnson, ed. Lewis Lockwood and Edward Roesner (n.p.: medieval modes with the ancient Greek tonoi was a product of the Middle Ages
American Musicological Society, 1990), 75-100, 126-39; Gristle Collins Judd, 'Modal types and itself,9 as Carolingian and later theorists, following the medieval habit of reading
Ut, Re, Mi tonalities: tonal coherence in sacred vocal polyphony from about 1500', JAMS 45 their own situation into the classical texts, borrowed anachronistic terminology
(1992), 428-67; the entire issue devoted to 'Modus und Tonalitat' of Basler Jahrbuchfur historische
Musikpraxis 16 (1992), 9-234.
and concepts from Boethius and the other late antique writers who transmitted
4 Recent studies include: Carl Dahlhaus, Untersuchungen uber die Entstehung der harmonischen the music theory of classical Greece to the medieval Latin West.10
Tonalitat, Saarbriicker Studien zur Musikwissenschaft 2 (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1968), translated as
Carl Dahlhaus, Studies on the Origin of Harmonic Tonality, transl. Robert O. Gjerdingen Francois Auguste Gevaert, La Melopee antique dans le chant de I'eglise latine (Ghent: Librairie
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); Bernhard Meier, Die Tonarten der klassischen generale de Ad. Hoste. 1895; repr. Osnabriick: Otto Zeller, 1967). See the statement in the
Vokalpolyphonie nach den Quellen dargestellt (Utrecht: Oosthoek, Scheltema & Holkema, 1974), introduction, 'Personne aujourd'hui ne doute que les modes et les cantilenes de la liturgie
translated as Bernhard Meier, The Modes of Classical Vocal Polyphony Described According to the catholique ne soient un reste precieux de Tart antique. Mais juqu'a present tout le monde a du
Sources with Revisions by the Author, transl. Ellen S. Beebe (New York: Broude Brothers, 1988); se contenter de cette notion sommaire et superficielle, qui ne fait que stimuler notre besoin d'en
Robert Frederick Bates, 'From mode to key: a study of seventeenth-century French liturgical savoir davantage'. p. V. Yet the book is still of interest as an interpretation of Regino's tonary,
organ music and music theory' (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1986); Joel Lester, Between discussed further below. Gevaert's views of the continuity between the ancient and medieval
Modes and Keys: German Theory 1592-1802, Harmonologia Series 3 (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon modes are fully spelled out in Auguste Gevaert, Histoire et theorie de la musique de I'antiquite, 2
Press, 1989), reviewed by Benito V. Rivera in Journal of Music Theory 35 (1991), 267-82; Eric vols. (Ghent: Typ. C. Annoot-Braeckman. 1875-81, repr. Hildesheim: Olms 1965), 1: 127-268.
Chafe, Monteverdi's Tonal Language (New York: Schirmer Books, 1992); Joel Lester, Composi- 8 For a history and interpretation of these terms as they were used by various ancient Greek
tional Theory in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge. Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992); authors, see Andrew Barker, ed., Greek Musical Writings 2: Harmonic and Acoustic Theory,
Bernhard Meier, Alte Tonarten Dargestellt an der Instrumentalmusik des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, Cambridge Readings in the Literature of Music (Cambridge University Press, 1989), 14-27, plus
Barenreiter Studienbucher Musik 3 (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1992); Thomas Christensen, The Regie the many passages cited in the index, 553-4, 570-1, to be supplemented by Barker, Greek Musical
de I'Octave in thorough-bass theory and practice', AMI 64 (1992), 91-117, especially 102-3; Writings 1: The Musician and his Art, Cambridge Readings in the History of Music (Cambridge
Helmut Federhofer, Tonarten- und Transpositionsprobleme um 1700', Festa Musicologica: University Press, 1984), 163-8, and the passages cited in the index, 318-19, 331. See also Martin
Essays in Honor of George J. Buelow, ed. Thomas J. Mathiesen and Benito V. Rivera, Festschrift Vogel, 'Zur Entstehung der Kirchentonarten', Die Musikforschung 21 (1968), 199-202. Thomas
Series 14 (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995), 455-65. Mathiesen, 'Problems of terminology in ancient Greek theory: "APMONIA"', Festival Essays
5 For examples see: Julia d'Almendra, Les modes gregoriens dans I'oeuvre de Claude Debussy for Pauline Alderman: A Musicological Tribute, ed. Burton L. Karson et al. (Provo, Utah:
(Paris: G. Enault, 1950), John Vincent. The Diatonic Modes in Modern Music (New York: Mills, Brigham Young University Press, 1976); John Thorp, 'Aristoxenus and the ethnoethical modes',
1951); Bela Bartok, Essays, ed. Benjamin Suchoff (London: Faber and Faber, 1976; Lincoln: Harmonia Mundi: Musica e Filosqfia nell'Antichita I Music and Philosophy in the Ancient World,
University of Nebraska, 1992), 361-75; Frieder Zaminer, '"Dorisch" in der europaischen ed. Robert W. Wallace and Bonnie MacLachlan (Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 1991), 54-68. An
Musik', Griechische Musik und Europa: Antike - Byzanz - Volksmusik der Neuzeit, Im Gedenken issue of Journal of Musicology 3/3 (Summer 1984) devoted to The ancient harmoniai, tonoi, and
an Samuel Baud-Bovy: Symposion 'Die Beziehung der griechischen Musik zur europaischen octave species in theory and practice' includes the following articles: Claude V. Palisca,
Musiktradition' vom 9.-11. Mai 1986 in Wiirzburg, ed. Rudolf M. Brandl and Evangelos 'Introductory notes on the historiography of the Greek modes', 221-8; Andre Barbera, 'Octave
Konstantinou, Orbis Musicarum 3 (Aachen: Alano Verlag, Edition Herodot, 1988), 25-36; species', 229^11; Jon Solomon, Towards a History of Tonoi, 242-51; Calvin M. Bower, The
Lori Anne Burns, Bach's Modal Chorales, Harmonologia Series 9 (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon modes of Boethius', 252-63; Thomas J. Mathiesen, 'Harmonia and Ethos in ancient Greek
Press, 1995); Vuk Kulenovich, The Lydian concept', Sonus: A Journal of Investigations into music', 264-79; 'Discussion', 280-6.
Global Musical Possibilities 14/1 (Fall 1993), 55-64. g Otto Gombosi, 'Studien zur Tonartenlehre des fruhen Mittelalters', AMI 10 (1938), 149-74; 11
6 Thus the word is defined 'qui est octo sonorum [that which is made up of eight sounds]' in Henri (1939), 28-39, 128-35; 12 (1940), 21-52; Jacques Chailley. 'Le mythe des modes grecs', AMI 28
Estienne. Thesaurus Graecae Linguae ab Henrico Stephana Constructus 5 (Paris: Firmin Didot, (1956), 137-63: Chailley, La musique grecque antique. Collection d'etudes anciennes (Paris: «Les
1842-6), 1862. Compare the word 'oKTWj8t/3Aoy', which is defined as 'a work in eight volumes' in belles lettres» 1979), especially 113-19.
Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, rev. Henry Stuart Jones et al. 10 See Giinther Wille, Musica Romana: Die Bedeutung der Musik im Leben der Romer (Amsterdam:
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 1213. In other words, it is a book (singular) divided into eight P. Schippers, 1967), 594-715; Ann E. Moyer, Musica Scientia: Musical Scholarship in the Italian
parts; hence 'OKTOJTJXO?' is 'sound divided into eight categories'. Renaissance (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 24-35; Ubaldo Pizzani, 'La Musica
But if the 'composers' of Gregorian chant were not working within an theoretical modes and the actual repertory of Greek liturgical melodies, resulting
inherited system of ancient Greek tunings or scales, neither did the Gregorian in chants of ambiguous assignment and necessitating additional modal classifica-
chant theorists construct the modes themselves, creating, as it were from whole tions beyond the central eight. And just as the perceptions and presuppositions of
cloth, a systematic framework for describing and summarizing the natural Renaissance and Baroque theorists misled students of the medieval Western
characteristics of the repertory through a process of analytic reflection on the modes for centuries, only recently being recognized and put aside, so the post-
full range of observable musical behaviors. On the contrary, both medieval and medieval history of Byzantine music - both in the Greek world and in the Slavic
modern analysts have detected numerous discrepancies between the intrinsic musical culture that was built upon it - has added many layers of new
properties of the Gregorian melodies and the theoretical characteristics of the development that make it all the more difficult for us to discern what the
modes to which they have traditionally been assigned. Atypical ranges and finals, modes may originally have been like. Thus to say that the Latins probably
emphasis on anomalous structural pitches or reciting tones, unexpected acciden- received the modes from the Byzantines is actually to say very little about where
tals, conflicting assignments of ambiguous melodies and melodic families and the and how they originated, or what they were like at the time the Latin world
sharing of melodic formulas or stereotyped patterns across modal boundaries - adopted them. Moreover it is possible that the Byzantine modal system was not
all go to show that at least much of the Gregorian repertory was originally native to its culture either, that here too it was an exotic idea imported from
conceived (by whatever oral or written processes) without reference to the modal somewhere else. The alternative provenance most often suggested is Syria, a
system as we know it." The four-by-two arrangement of modal classifications cipher for what were actually several distinct Semitic Christian traditions that
was not suggested by a purely inductive process of observation and abstraction, bordered the Byzantine world to the East and South. Since the history and
but owes something to some external source, whence it was arbitrarily imposed geography of these groups is scarcely less complicated than for the Latins and
on the Gregorian melodies after they had already begun to form. Greeks, alleging a Syriac origin for the modes simply pushes the whole complex
Why and how this happened is one of the major unsolved questions of of questions on to a more obscure culture without actually answering any of
medieval musicology. If the modes were neither inherited from antiquity nor them. Nor does the trail necessarily end even there. On the one hand, Syriac
extrapolated from the repertory itself, where did they come from? Why were Christianity not implausibly claimed a certain direct continuity with the world of
there eight of them - in a four-times-two arrangement - rather than some other Judaism and the ancient Near East, from either of which it might conceivably
number? And why was this approach to classifying the melodies so appealing that have inherited the modes. On the other hand, eightfold modal systems were used
it was adopted and imposed so zealously on an alien repertory, with centuries of in the even less explored musical cultures of Armenia, Georgia and Egypt, a fact
effort expended to make the classification fit? All we can say for sure is that the that also requires historical explanation. The search for the origin of the modes,
modes seem to have been imported into Latin-speaking Europe from somewhere then, requires simultaneous comparative investigation of all the cultures where
farther East. 'Here the evidence lies outside the realm of a Western specialist. For this system was used - not only because any one of them might be the original
the shadowy pre-history of the Oktoechos . . . one must turn to Byzantium, and home of the modes, but also because any or even all of them may well preserve
then to some discussion that has yet to be written.' 12
The Greek terminology of the modes, since it is not a direct survival from
classical antiquity, hints at some sort of medieval Greek or Byzantine proven- (anonymous quadrivial treatises and work attributed to Psellus, dated AD 1040); #261 (Theon of
Smyrna, from the eleventh or twelfth centuries); #234 (Cleonides, Gaudentius, Theon, Aristox-
ance. Yet the study of Byzantine modal theory is beset by many of the same enus, Ptolemy), #270 (Euclid, Aristoxenus, Alypius), #273 (Ptolemy, Plutarch, Aristides
problems as its Latin counterpart: as in the West, there is a questionable Quintilianus), appendix #267 (Ptolemy), all from the twelfth or thirteenth centuries. See also
relationship to the musical legacy of classical Greece, which continued to be Lukas Richter, 'Antike Uberlieferungen in der byzantinischen Musiktheorie', Deutsches Jahrbuch
der Musikwissenschafl 6 (1961), 75-115; Richter, 'Fragen der spatgriechisch-byzantinischen
studied in Byzantium. 13 As in the West there is only an imperfect fit between the Musiktheorie: Die Erforschung der byzantinischen Musik', Byzantinische Beitrdge: Grundungstag
der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Byzantinistik in der Sektion Mittelalter der Deutschen Historiker-
Disciplina tra Agostino e Boezio', Paideia Cristiana: Studi in Onore di Mario Naldini (Rome: Gesellschaft vom 18. bis 21.4.1961 in Weimar, ed. Johannes Irmscher and Giinther Chr. Hansen
Gruppo Editoriale Internazionale, 1994), 347-64. It is clear that many of these writings were little (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1964), 187-230; Thomas J. Mathiesen, 'Aristides Quintilianus and the
read until interest in them revived during the Carolingian period; see Bruce Stansfield Eastwood, harmonics of Manuel Bryennius', Journal of Music Theory 27 (1983), 31^9; Christian
'The astronomy of Macrobius in Carolingian Europe: Dungal's Letter of 811 to Charles the Troelsgard, 'Ancient musical theory in Byzantine Environments', CIMAGL 56 (1988), 228-38.
Great', Early Medieval Europe 3 (1994), 117-34. Milos Velimirovic, 'Reflections on music and musicians in Byzantium', T6 'EXX-^viKov: Studies in
1 1 See Powers, 'Mode', 382^4-; Terence Bailey. 'Modes and myth', Studies in Music from the Honor of Speros Vryonis, Jr., 2 vols., ed. Milton V. Anastos et al. (New Rochelle, NY: Aristide
University of Western Ontario 1 (1976), 43-54. D. Caratzas, 1993), 1: 451-63, especially 456-7, 462. For the background of Byzantine learning
12 Levy's review of Huglo, Les Tonaires, 1974b:126. and classical studies, see A. P. Kazhdan and Ann Wharton Epstein, Change in Byzantine Culture
'•' Tn fact the earliest manuscripts listed in Thomas J. Mathiesen, Ancient Greek Music Theory: A in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
Catalogue Raisonne of Manuscripts, RiSM 11 (1988), date from the Byzantine period: #14 1985), 120-66.
.
152 and melos The earliest Oktoechoi 153
unique evidence, lost to the others, pointing to the time and place and human
milieu in which the modes began. ^ o
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II. The Essential Features of the Modal System
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43
Before undertaking a truly cross-cultural examination of modal origins, it is C

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essential to clarify exactly what is being sought, lest we search in vain for
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phenomena that are unique to the familiar Western expression of the eight >!
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modes. We therefore begin by asking which features of the modal system are k,
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genuinely essential or universal. Given the many different cultural milieux in
which the system found a place, what characteristics are, or once were, common fti 0 'C (/;
3
"GO •_> h. "GO O
to all of them? Two types of characteristics can be discerned: those that pertain to (N cx o •aD ^ D
>-,
_^ •o
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the classificatory scheme as a whole, and those that pertain to the musical traits 1 11
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and definitions of the individual modes. The most important features of the first k] "cx CX « * I'D T3 a, c c c X -C
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kind, those that apply to the eight-mode classification as a whole, are listed in 1 "5"
Table 6.1. ^ ^ d
What all the modal systems have in common is the principle - unknown to
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classical antiquity - that there are eight categories arranged in four pairs. In most
traditions, the individual category is called by the Greek word 'echos'14 or by a
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native word that shares some of the same range of meanings, from 'voice' to V
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'sound' (compare the English word 'echo'): Slavonic 'glas'",15 Armenian O
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in this regard; instead of borrowing 'echos' from Greek or an equivalent Latin 0
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word, medieval Latin music theory has always substituted terms associated with 0£
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the classical Greek tonoi: 'tonus', a Latinization of the Greek 'tones',19 'tropus', a .s
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Table 6.1
authentus
echos trit
authentic
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aneanes
C
14 Thus the Coptic tradition borrows 'echos' from Greek; see Ragheb Moftah, Marian Robertson, 3
f
Martha Roy, Margit Toth, 'Music, Coptic: description of the corpus and present musical
practice', The Coptic Encyclopedia, ed. Aziz S. Atiya (New York: Macmillan, 1991), 6 1715-29,
0
k, S 'oc 1 3 1
cx
.S O
especially 1722^1. However, it is translated by the Arabic lahn, which means 'air, tune, melody'
according to Hans Wehr, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (Arabic-English), ed. J. Milton 1 O
Cowan, 4th edn (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1979), 1011. £ "5b
3
o SS r- (U VI S
deuteru:
authenti
15 Slovnik Jazyka Staroslovenskeho I Lexicon Linguae Palaeoslovenicae [Dictionary of Old Slavonic],
authentl
noioean
3
echos d
neanes
"Sb cx o
o
vol. 2 fasc. 8 (Prague: Nakladatelstvi Ceskoslovenske Akademie Ved, 1964), 401-2; T. A. 0 1"
cx
3 •5 I o
Lysaght, Old Church Slavonic (Old Bulgarian) - Middle Greek - Modern English Dictionary hi CN (N f> cx J5I
> p
(Vienna: Verlag Briider Hollinek, 1983), 74; Cswaapt, flpeeuepyccKozo fl.iuKa XI-XIY 66) C« CS
d
[Dictionary of the Old Russian Tongue, llth-14th centuries], ed. P. II. AuaHecoB, vol. 2 o
0 cx (D en
(Moscow: PVCCKHH flsHKa, 1989), 327-9. p
O
aneanes
g CO
3 (D 'C
16 Emmanuele Ciakciak [also known as Manouel Chakhchakhian], Dizionario armeno-italiano c cx B O :/:
o
C
(Venice: Tipografia Mechitaristica di S. Lazzaro, 1837), 908-9. ^ d c 3 o .2
o -G ffl cx
17 Spelled 'xma' in modern Georgian; see Kita Tschenkeli, Georgisch-Deutsches Worterbuch, ed. Q
3
ed
- - -
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cd
c o O
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1
Yolanda Marchev 3 (Zurich: Amirani-Verlag, 1974), 2370-1.
ll
Classical names
Classical names
Classical names
Greek echemata
Latinized Greek
18 R. Payne Smith et al. Thesaurus Syriacus 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901), 3618-20; J. Payne
Greek numbers
Slavonic/Syriac
Latin numbers
(Hagiopolites)
Greek names
ambitus type
Smith, A Compendious Syriac Dictionary, founded upon the Thesaurus Syriacus of R. Payne Smith,
(Papadike)
55 fe
echemata
Latinized
D.D. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903), 505; J. P. Margoliouth, Supplement to the Thesaurus 1-1
numbers
'S.
(Latin)
It
names
Syriacus of R. Payne Smith, S.T.P. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927), 302-3; Karl Brockelmann, C a
P ^
-S
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Lexicon Syriacum, 2nd edn emended (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1928), 651, col. b. Si $ 2> II 11
''' Though Latin 'tonus' is obviously the Greek word 'tones', it is not clear that the word was ever
Latinization of Greek 'tropos',20 and 'modus', a Latin translation of 'tropos'.21 not used as a synonym for 'tonos' in classical Greek, where it was not a technical
The choice of such words is surprising, since 'tones' and 'tropos' were not used to theoretical term at all. The natural Latin translation for 'echos' is 'sonus', the
designate the church modes or echoi in early Byzantine sources,22 and 'echos' was word used in the Latin Bible, which was translated from the Greek by the third
and fourth centuries AD.23 The medieval Latin terminology illustrates a tendency
that is often encountered in early Western music theory: a willingness to adapt or
used in classical Latin as a technical musical term for the Greek tonoi or octave species. See A.
Walde, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch, 3rd edn, rev. J. B. Hovmann, vol. 2 (Heidelberg: even invent Greek technical terms without regard for actual Greek usage, giving
Carl Winter, Universitatsverlag, 1954), 690-1. However 'tonus' was used in this sense by the even wholly Western phenomena an erudite, Hellenistic appearance. The use of
sixth-century authors Fulgentius and Cassiodorus. See Rudolfus Helm, ed., Fabii Planciadis Latin equivalents for 'tonos' and 'tropos' to designate 'echos' meant that a
Fulgentii V. C.: Opera (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1898), 74-9, especially 79; a translation with
deliberate identification of the medieval Western modes with the ancient Greek
some comment in Leslie George Whitbread, Fulgentius the Mythographer Translated from the
Latin (n.p.: Ohio State University Press. 1971), 93-8. R. A. B. Mynors, ed., Cassiodori Senatoris tonoi was already being made explicit in the basic vocabulary of music theory.
Institutiones (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), 145-8; a translation is Cassiodorus Senator, An Within each of the four pairs, the relationship of the two modes is asymme-
Introduction to Divine and Human Readings, transl. Leslie Webber Jones (New York: Columbia trical, if not unequal, for one mode is always identified by a derivative of the
University Press, 1946, repr. W. W. Norton, 1969). 192-5, but a more accurate and informed
translation of the musical section is published in Strunk, Source Readings 143-8. Favonius (ca. Greek word TiAayioj (modern English 'plagal') or a translation of it, meaning
400), a commentator on the 'Somnium Scipionis' from Cicero's Republic, uses the word 'sonus' 'sideways' or 'oblique'. 24 The other mode was at least by implication "straight',
in this sense ('Zodiacus circulus . . . sono Dorio moveatur'); see Luigi Scarpa, ed., Favonii Eulogii perhaps in the sense of 'unaltered, original', a concept formalized in the Latin
Disputatio de Somnio Scipionis, Collana Accademica 5 (Padua: Accademia Patavina di Scienze ed
Arti, 1974). 40-1.
tradition by the use of terms derived from the Greek 'avQevnKoi ('authentic,
Martianus Capella consistently used the word 'tropus' for what we would call 'mode', reserving principal'), though this word is not used to designate musical modes in the known
'tonus' to refer to the whole tone interval. See James Willis, ed., Martianus Capella (Leipzig: B. G. classical Greek or Byzantine sources.25 The use of this Greek word as a modal
Teubner, 1983), 359-6, 372, and elsewhere. It should be noted, however, that Martianus also
referred to a Dorian 'melos' (ed. Willis, p. 54) and a Lydian 'modus' (ed. Willis, p. 363). In choice
of vocabulary Martianus did not entirely follow his main Greek source, Aristides Quintilianus, and Otto Prinz, Tusculum-Lexikon griechischer und lateinischer Autoren des Altertums und des
who used both 'tones' and 'tropos' in a modal sense. See, for instance, the passage wherein Mittelalters, 3rd expanded edn (Munich: Artemis, 1982), 537-9.
Aristides gave Vpovros avaT-rjiJ.aTi.K6s' ('tropos systematikos", 'scalar mode') as one of the See Edwin Hatch and Henry A. Redpath, A Concordance to the Septuagint and the Other Greek
definitions of 'tonos': R. P. Winnington-Ingram, ed., Aristidis Quintiliani De Musica Libri Tres Versions of the Old Testament (Including the Apocryphal Books), 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon
(Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1963), 20; Aristides Quintilianus, On Music in Three Books, transl. and Press, 1897), repr. in 2 vols. (Graz: Akademische Druck, 1954), 1 620-1. Two passages where
annotated by Thomas J. Mathiesen, Music Theory Translation Series (New Haven: Yale echos/sonus clearly refers to a musical sound are Ps 150:3 and Sap 19:18. Particularly interesting
University Press, 1983), 86. is Sir 47:9 (=Ecclesiasticus 47:11), referring to the singers in the Jerusalem Temple, where 'echos'
Pliny the Elder referred to the invention of 'Lydios modules', 'Dorics', and 'Phrygios' in his is translated 'sonus', but 'êXr/' as "modes'!
Historia Naturalis, 7, 56, 57, 204. See C. Plinii Secundi Naturalis Historiae Libri XXXVIII C. Hjalmar Frisk, Griechisches etymologisches Worterbuch 2 (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, Universitats-
Plinius Secundus d. A, Naturkunde Lateinisch-deutsch, ed. and transl. Roderich Konig and verlag, 1970), 547. An example of what the words 'echos' and 'plagios' can mean in a non-musical
Gerhard Winkler, Tusculum-Bucherei, vol. 7 ([Munich:] Heimeran Verlag, 1975), 144-5, with context comes from the second-century apocryphon, 'Acta Petri cum Simone', published in Ada
comments 238^0. The 'Fragmentum Censorini' (but not the genuine work of Censorinus to Apostolorum Apocrypha, ed. R. A. Lipsius and M. Bonnet (Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn, 1891-
which it has become attached) uses the word 'modus' for a variety of musical and metrical 1903), 1/2: 45-103. At one point in the story (p. 96), St. Peter, while nailed to the cross on which he
phenomena, some of which can be related to modern meanings of the term 'mode' - but the would die. makes a lengthy address to the crowd which includes the words,
'dorius, phrygius, lydius' and so on are called 'species carminum tredecim' ('thirteen types of the Spirit says, 'For what else is Christ but the Word, the sound [echos] of God?' So
songs'). There is also some confusion in the manuscript tradition between 'modus' and 'motus'. that the Word is this upright tree on which I am crucified; but the sound [echos] is the
See Nicolaus Sallmann, ed., Censorini De Die Natali Liber ad Q. Caerellium, accedit Anonymi cross-piece [plagios], the nature of man; and the nail that holds the cross-piece
Cuiusdam Epitoma Disciplinarian (Fragmentum Censorini) (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1983), 15-25 [plagios] to the upright in the middle is the conversion [or turning point] and
(Censorinus), 71-6 (the 'Fragmentum'), our quote from p. 74. For a commentary on the musical repentance of man.
section of Censorinus, see Censorinus, Le jour natal, transl. Guillaume Rocca-Serra, Histoire des The English translation is from Edgar Hennecke, New Testament Apocrypha, ed. Wilhelm
doctrines de 1'antiquite classique 5 (Paris: J. Vrin, 1980), 50-4. Boethius used all three terms, Schneemelcher, transl. R. McL. Wilson (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1965; repr.
'tonus', 'tropus', and 'modus', but preferred 'modus.' See Michael Bernhard, Wortkonkordanz zu 1976), 2:320. The earliest writer known to have used the word 'plagal' in a musical context is
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius De institutione musica, VmK 4 (1979), 380-7, 673-90, 709. For apparently the Alexandrian alchemist Zosimus of Panopolis of the third or fourth century (though
discussion, see Bower, 'The modes of Boethius', and the comments in Anicius Manlius Severinus the authorship has been questioned). But Zosimus was speaking of tetrachords and did not use the
Boethius, Fundamentals of Music, transl. Calvin M. Bower, ed. Claude B. Palisca, Music Theory word 'echos'; see Gombosi, 'Studien zur Tonartenlehre' in A Ml 12 (1940). 29-52. Caspar Detlef
Translation Series (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 153^1. Gustav Miiller and Lukas Richter, 'Zosimus von Panopolis', Die Musik in Geschichte und
Hence the gloss attributed to the Byzantine philologist Manuel Moschopulos (ca. 1265-1316) in Gegenwart 14 (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1968), 1398-1400; partially transl. in GDM, 10:708-9.
Estienne, Thesaurus 4 (1841), 221: 'The Lydian tonos in music, now called "echos."' It was indeed Huglo, Les Tonaires, 378-81. Michel Huglo, 'Comparaison de la terminologie modale en orient et
at this very period that the Byzantine echoi began to be identified with the ancient tonoi, en Occident' in International Musicological Society, Report of the Eleventh Congress, Copenhagen
according to Michael Markovits, Das Tonsystem der abendlcindischen Musik imfriihen Mittelalter, 1972 2 (Copenhagen: Wilhelm Hansen, 1973), 758-61; Huglo, 'Le Developpement du vocabulaire
Publikationen der schweizerischen musikforschenden Gesellschaft, ser. 2 vol. 30 (Bern and de YArs Musica a 1'epoque carolingienne', Latomus: Revue d'etudes latines 34 (1975), 131-51, see
Stuttgart: Paul Haupt, 1977), 98-9. On Moschopulos see Wolfgang Buchwald, Armin Hohlweg, 140-2.
term seems to have originated in the West, another instance of the Latin and Rumanian 31 traditions have slightly modified this arrangement by assigning
inclination to turn to Greek as a source of technical terms. the plagal modes the numbers 5-8. The Latin sources, on the other hand, use a
Once we move beyond the bare fact of categorization into four pairs, the different arrangement, in which the authentic and plagal modes alternate, so as
different medieval chant traditions become more unlike each other, even in the to keep together each pair with a common final. Thus the Latin authentic
relatively straightforward matter of how to place the modes in order and modes are given odd numbers and the plagal modes even ones, so that the two
number them. In the Greek enumeration, also used in the Armenian26 and modes on D are numbered 1 and 2, those on E 3 and 4, those on F 5 and 6,
Georgian Churches and in the few Coptic sources that mention the eight those on G 7 and 8. It is important to keep in mind that, though each
modes,27 the non-plagal modes are numbered 1 through 4, and the plagal modes numbering system implies a particular ordering, it need not require it. In
again as plagal 1 through plagal 4. The Syriac,28 Slavonic,29 modern Greek,30 some Armenian and Syriac sources, the modes are given in the usual Western
order (authentic, plagal, authentic, plagal, . . .) even though they retain the
26 The following three articles were published under the collective title: 'Recherches sur la genese de customary Eastern numbering. They are thus presented in the order: 1, 5 (plagal
1'octoechos armenien': Nishan Serkoyan, 'I: Les huit modes de Fhymnaire armenien'; Nikogos 1), 2, 6 (plagal 2), 3, 7 (plagal 3), 4, 8 (plagal 4).32
Tahmizian, 'II: Les huit modes de la psalmodie armenienne;' Bernard Outlier, 'III: Etude critique
des documents presentes', in Etudes gregoriennes 14 (1973), 129-211; and reprinted in Vrej The names given to the modes vary even more from one tradition to another.
Nersessian, ed., Essays on Armenian Music (London: Institute of Armenian Music 1978), 51-128. The standard Greek names for the modes are simply the ordinal numbers: echos
See also Alice Ertlbauer, Geschichte und Theorie der einstimmigen armenischen Kirchenmusik: Eine protos means 'first mode', echos deuteros 'second mode', echos plagios protos
Kritik der bisherigen Forschung, Musica Mediaevalis Europae Orientalis 3 (Vienna: Offsetschnell-
druck Anton Riegelnik, 1985), 63-164; Aram Kerovpyan, 'Les Charakan (troparia) et 1'octoechos
'first plagal mode', and so on. In Latin, however, the earliest sources use what are
armenien selon le Charaknots (Tropologion armenien) edite en 1875', in Atelier de Recherche et evidently Latinized variants of these names: authentus protus and so on for the
d'Interpretation des Musiques Medievales, Aspects de la musique liturgique au Moyen Age: Actes authentic modes, plagis proti or variants thereof for the plagal modes.
des colloques de Royaumont de 1986, 1987 et 1988, ed. Christian Meyer (Paris: Editions Creaphis, Besides their numbers and numeric names, the Latin and Greek modes were
1991), 93-123.
" On the unsuccessful medieval attempts to introduce the eight modes into the Egyptian Church, also identified by their Schemata, melismas sung to the meaningless syllables
see Louis Villecourt, 'Les observances liturgiques et la discipline du jeune dans 1'Eglise copte', Le 'noeane' etc.33 In the East these seem to have been sung by the leader before the
Museon 36 (1923), 249-92, especially 262-9. Rene Menard, 'Die Gesange der agyptischen chant, to give the other singers the pitch and help them tune in to the intervallic
Liturgien', Geschichte der katholischen Kirchenmusik 1: Von den Anfangen bis zum Tridentinum,
ed. Karl Gustav Fellerer (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1972), 109-27 especially 117-18. peculiarities of the mode to be sung.34 They are also the source of the martyriai or
2S Of the four Syriac liturgical traditions, only two make use of the eight modes: The Melkite or
Antiochene Orthodox tradition, which is in effect a translation of the Byzantine rite into Syriac, 11 N. Lungu, G. Costea, I. Croitoru, A Guide to the Music of the Eastern Orthodox Church, transl.
and the so-called Jacobite, West Syrian, or Syrian Orthodox tradition, concerning which see: and ed. Nicholas K. Apostola (Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1984), 47-9;
Heinrich Husmann, Die Melodien der Jakobitischen Kirche: Die Melodien des Wochenbreviers Filothei sin Agai Jipei, Psaltichie Rumaneasca 2: Anastasimatar, ed. Sebastian Barbu-Bucur,
(Shimta gesungen von Qurillaos Ja'qub Kas Gorgos, Metropolit von Damaskus, Sitzungsberichte Izvoare ale Muzicii Romanesti (Bucharest: Editura Muzicala, 1984).
der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse 262/1 12 This is the order given in Serkoyan, 'Les huit modes de Fhymnaire armenien'. For the Syriac
(Vienna: Hermann Bohlaus Nachfolger, 1969); Husmann, Die Melodien der Jakobitischen sources see Heinrich Husmann, 'Hymnus und Troparion: Studien zur Geschichte der musika-
Kirche: Die Qale gaoanaie des Beit Gaza, Sitzungsberichte der Osterreichischen Akademie der lischen Gattungen von Horologion und Tropologion', Jahrbuch des Staatlichen Instituts fur
Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse 273/4 (Vienna: Hermann Bohlaus Nachfolger, Musikforschung Preussischer Kulturbesitz: 1971 (Berlin: Merseburger, 1972), 7-86, especially 48-
1971); Husmann, 'Syrian church music', GDM 18, 472-81; Josef Kuckertz, "Die Melodietypen der 9; Aelred Cody, 'The early history of the octoechos in Syria', East of Byzantium: Syria and
Westsyrischen liturgischen Gesange', Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch 53 (1969), 61-9 plus 14 Armenia in the Formative Period, ed. Nina Garso'ian et al, Dumbarton Oaks Symposium 1980
foldouts; Elias Kesrouani, 'L'Octoechos syriaque', in Atelier de Recherche et d'Interpretation des (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, 1982), 89-113, see 92-3.
Musiques Medievales, Aspects de la musique liturgique au Moyen Age: Actes des colloques de 33 Huglo, Tonaires, 383-90; Michel Huglo, 'L'Introduction en Occident des formules byzantines
Royaumont de 1986, 1987 et 1988, ed. Christian Meyer (Paris: Editions Creaphis, 1991), 77-91. d'intonation', Studies in Eastern Chant 3, ed. Milos Velimirovic (New York 1973), 81-90; Terence
29 See Juan de Castro, Methodus Cantus Ecclesiastici Graeco-Slavici (Rome: Ex Typographia Bailey, The Intonation Formulas of Western Chant, Studies and Texts 28 (Toronto: Pontifical
Polyglotta Sacrae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide, 1881), 48-50; Johann von Gardner, Institute of Medieval Studies, 1974); Michael Markovits, Das Tonsystem der abendlimdischen
Russian Church Singing 1: Orthodox Worship and Hymnography, transl. Vladimir Morosan Musik imfruhen Mittelalter, Publikationen der Schweizerischen Musikforschenden Gesellschaft
(Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1980), 58-61; Stela Sava, Die Gesange des ser. 2, vol. 30 (Bern and Stuttgart 1977), 99 n. 6; Tilden A. Russell, 'A poetic key to a pre-
altrussischen Oktoechos samt den Evangelien-Stichiren: Eine Neumenhandschrift des Altglciubigen- Guidonian palm and the Schemata', JAMS 34 (1981), 109-18; Michel Huglo, 'Les Formules
Klosters zu Belaja Krinica, 2 vols., Studien zur Volksmusik und aussereuropiiischen Kunstmusik 9 d'intonations «noeane noeagis» en Orient et en Occident', in Atelier de Recherche et d'Interpreta-
(Munich and Salzburg: E. Katzbichler, 1984). tion des Musiques Medievales, Aspects de la musique liturgique au Moyen Age: Actes des colloques
30 Frank Desby, 'The modes and tuning in neo-Byzantine chant' (D.M.A. [Church Music] diss., de Royaumont de 1986, 1987 et 1988, ed. Christian Meyer (Paris: Editions Creaphis, 1991), 43-53.
University of Southern California, 1974); Antonios Alygizakes, 'H 'OKra-rjxia arrjv VAAijviKi) '* Jorgen Raasted, Intonation Formulas and Modal Signatures in Byzantine Musical Manuscripts,
XiTovpyiK-r) 'vjivo-ypapta [The Eight Modes of Music (Octaechia) in the Greek Liturgical Hymno- MMB-S 7 (1966), 77-84. The tuning function of the echemata may perhaps be compared to the
graphy] (Thessalonike: P. Pournara, 1985); Jessica Ray Suchy-[Pilalis], 'Byzantine chant: the brief preliminary melisma - also sung to nasal consonants - that some Irish folksingers call the
melodic structure of the octoechos Mode III' (M.A. thesis, University of Rochester, 1982); 'Nea' (pronounced 'nyah' as one syllable); see James R. Cowdery, The Melodic Tradition of
Adriana §irli, 'New Data on Post-Byzantine Echoi', MA 1 (1985), 435-45. Ireland (Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 1990), 36-9.
modal signatures found in notated Byzantine manuscripts.35 In the West, their The material reviewed up to now deals with the formal aspects of the modes as
function may have been more theoretical or paedogogical - yet in time they a classification scheme. Much more complex and interesting, of course, are the
became linked to the phenomenon of the wordless melismas, called by the Greek musical aspects of the modes as a descriptive scheme. What characteristics of
term 'pneumata' (usually Latinized to 'neumae' or 'neupmae'), which were sung range and scale type, location of structural pitches, typical melodic gestures or
at the end of certain antiphonal psalms as ornamental, modally-marked codas.36 other traits determined the assignment of a chant to one mode rather than
Finally, both Greek and Latin sources identify the eight modes with the tribal another? The present state of knowledge does not suffice to answer this question
names of the classical Greek tonoi: Dorian, Phrygian, etc. But, as Table 6.1 across the board. In the familiar Latin tradition, each pair of modes has a
shows, they make the identifications differently. The familiar Western arrange- common final, one of the pitches we now call D, E, F, or G; the plagal mode in
ment, first found ca. 900 in the Musica Enchiriadis^1 and more extensively in the each pair exhibits a low ambitus or range, extending about a fifth above and
Alia Musica?* differs from the two arrangements found in Byzantine theory. below each final, while the other mode exhibits a high range, ascending to an
octave or more above the final but descending only a pitch or two below it. The
i5 Raasted, Intonation Formulas, see p. 154 on the dating of these signatures. For a brief
introduction, see Oliver Strunk, 'Intonations and signatures of the Byzantine modes', MQ 31 medieval Greek tradition seems to have been similar, but there are areas of
(1945), 339-55, repr. in Strunk. Essays, 19-36. unresolved doubt. Many arguments have been made for recognizing some degree
"' Huglo, Tonaires 386-90; David Hiley, Western Plainchant 331-3; Peter Wagner, Gregorianische of chromaticism in Byzantine chant - how much and at what dates remain
Formenlehre: Eine Choralische Stilkunde, Einfuhrung in die gregorianischen Melodien 3, 2nd edn
(Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel 1921; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1962), 320-1. Walter Howard
matters of controversy.39 Even more controversial is the question of how much
Frere, The Use of Sarum, 2 vols. (Cambridge University Press 1898, 1901; repr. Farnborough: continuity we can suppose between the medieval modes and the modes that are
Gregg, 1969), 2, 209, with examples throughout the tonary in the appendix, i-lxxiv. The rules for used in the Orthodox Churches today, which have arguably undergone various
when to sing these melismas are spelled out in The Ordinal and Customary of the Abbey of Saint degrees of assimilation to the maqamat of Arabic and Turkish music,40 or, in the
Mary, York (St. John's College, Cambridge, MS. D. 27) 1, ed. the Abbess of Stanbrook
[Laurentia Maclachlan] and J. B. L. Tolhurst, Henry Bradshaw Society 73 (London: Harrison Slavic realm, to Western European music.41 For the Coptic, Syrian and
and Sons, 1936), 14-15: 'according to our use. the neuma or jubilus - which are the same thing -
ought to be done at the end of the antiphon . . . . For the neuma, or jubilus, is the ineffable joy or the 'hypomixolydian' more familiar today. Note, however, that the tribal names are used in what
exultation of mind that is had from eternal things; and let the neuma be made only on the last Chailley calls the 'traite principal', but not in some other portions of this complex of treatises. For
letter of the antiphon, indicating that the praise of God is ineffable and incomprehensible the differing Latin usages, see Huglo, Tonaires, 381-2.
[secundum usum nostrum in fine antiphone fit neuma sed jubilus, quod idem est. . . . Est autem Christian Thodberg, 'Chromatic Alterations in the Sticherarium', Actes du Xlle Congres
neuma, seu jubilus, ineffabile gaudium seu mentis exultacio habita de eternis; et fit neuma in unica international d'etudes byzantines, Ochride 10-16 Septembre 1961 2 (Belgrade: Naucno Delo.
et finale litera antiphone ad denotandum quod laus Dei ineffabilis et incomprehensibilis est.]' Cf. 1964), 607-12; Gh. Ciobanu, 'Sur 1'anciennete du genre chromatique dans la musique
p. 35, where the singing of the neuma is indicated during an actual service. That this practice was byzantine', Actes du XlVe Congres International des Etudes byzantines, Bucarest, 6-12
already followed in the early Middle Ages is evident from a rubric in the so-called 'Pontifical of septembre, 1971, ed. M. Berza & E. Stanescu (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii
Poitiers' of the last third of the ninth century. 'Nee more solito . . . sed simpliciter antiphona a Socialiste Romania, 1976), 513-19; George Amargianakis, 'The chromatic modes', XVI.
cantore imponitur, sed neque melos musicum terminata antiphona in ultima syllaba protelatur International Byzantinistenkongress Wien, 4.-9. Oktober 1981: Akten, II. Teil, 7. Teilband:
iuxta rationem autenticorum sonorum', which I would translate, 'Not according to the usual Symposionfur Musikologie: Byzantinische Musik 1453-1832 als Quelle musikalischer Praxis und
custom [are certain texts said on Holy Thursday], but the antiphon is simply laid down by the Theorie vor 1453 [=Jahrbuch der Osterreichischen Byzantinistik 32/7 (Vienna: Verlag der
cantor; nor is the musical melos prolonged at the end of the antiphon by reason of the authentic Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1982), 7-17; J0rgen Raasted, 'Chromaticism
sounds.' I take the locution 'authentic sounds' as referring to the eight modes, at a time when they in medieval and post-medieval Byzantine chant: a new approach to an old problem', CIMAGL
were still relatively novel and when 'sonus' was considered the Latin equivalent of 'tonus'. I 53 (1986), 15-36; Peter Weincke, 'Some observations on the interpretation of signatures and
therefore understand this passage to mean that during the Easter Triduum one dispensed with the accidentals in East and West', CIMAGL 54 (1986), 61-72.
usual practice of prolonging the final syllable with a melisma that was specific to the mode of the For the Syrian Melkite or Antiochene Orthodox tradition, see: Dalia Cohen, The meaning of the
antiphon melody. For the text, see Aldo Martini, // cosiddetto Pontificals di Poitiers (Paris, modal framework in the singing of religious hymns by Christian Arabs in Israel', Yuval: Studies of
Bibliotheque de I'Arsenal, cod. 227), Rerum Ecclesiasticarum Documenta, Series Maior: Fontes 14 the Jewish Music Research Center 2 (Jerusalem: Magnes Press of Hebrew University 1971), 23-57;
(Rome: Herder, 1979), 136. The suppression of the neuma during the Easter Triduum was in fact D. Cohen, 'Theory and practice in liturgical music of Christian Arabs in Israel', Studies in Eastern
the medieval practice, as attested in Frere, Use of Sarum, 1: 152, 157. Chant 3 (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), 1-50. For the 'Neo-Byzantine' chant of the
37 Hans Schmid, ed., Musica et Scolica Enchiriadis una cum aliquibus tractatulis adiunctis, VmK 3 modern Greek Orthodox Church, see Heinrich Husmann, 'Echos und Makam nach der
(1981), 22, with other uses cited in the index verborum. The treatises in this complex that are most Handschrift Leningrad, Offentliche Bibliothek, gr. 127', Archiv fur Musikwissenscha.fi 36
involved with the modes are the Musica Enchiriadis, Scolica Enchiriadis, Commemoratio Brevis, (1979), 237-53; Kurt Reinhard, 'Uber die Beziehungen zwischen byzantinischer und Tiirkischer
and Modorum sive Tonorum Ordo, ed. in Schmid, Musica et Scolica Enchiriadis, 1—59, 60-156, Musik', MA 4 (1975), 623-32; loannis Zannos, Ichos und Makam: Vergleichende Untersuchungen
157—78, 182-3. See also Musica enchiriadis and Scolica enchiriadis, transl. Raymond Erickson, ed. ziun Tonsystem der griechisch-orthodoxen Kirchenmusik und der turkischen Kunstmusik (Bonn:
Claude V. Palisca (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 7-8. Verlag fur systematische Musikwissenschaft, 1994).
!K Jacques Chailley, ed., Alia Musica (Traite de musique du IX1' siecle): Edition critique commentee Eastern and Western opinions on this question were formerly at opposite extremes. The
avec line introduction sur Forigine de la nomenclature modale pseudo-grecque au Moyen-Age, traditional Western view is expressed in this quote from Carsten H0eg, The oldest Slavonic
Publications de ITnstitut de Musicologie de 1'Universite de Paris 6 (Paris: Centre de Documenta- tradition of Byzantine music', Proceedings of the British Academy 39 (1953), 37-66 with four
tion Universitaire, 1965), 22-3, 28-56. The Boethian name 'hypermixolydian' is used instead of plates (quote from pp. 42-3):
Armenian traditions these same issues present themselves even more intractably: present article will therefore leave aside issues of musical content, and will focus
the likelihood of acculturation to Arab and Turkish music is even stronger,42 yet instead on the earliest evidence of eightmode classification schemes, as they were
access to early states of the tradition by means of notated manuscripts43 or first used to organize the various Eastern and Western traditions of Christian
theoretical treatises is much more limited. The lack of a theoretical literature is liturgical chant.
particularly surprising in view of the role that Syriac-speaking Christians played
in transmitting ancient Greek music theory to the Arab world,44 where the eight
Byzantine modes were apparently known to al-Kindi in the ninth century.45 The III. The Reception of the Eightfold Modal Classification
The striking fact is that, whereas the modern Greeks indulge in oriental chromatism and Despite the many differences among the various cultures that use the eight
strange intervals, the Russians continue obstinately the diatonic tradition of [medieval] modes, the processes by which the modes were adopted by each of the non-Greek
Byzantine music and in that way, too, belong to the European family, where, in the cultures exhibit many similarities. The earliest Latin, Syriac and Armenian
Occident, the diatonic style has dominated plain song which became the basis for all
later European art music. This explains why the Russian church music was easily evidence for the modes all dates from the eighth and ninth centuries. The
adapted to polyphony when it was introduced in Russia [from Western Europe] in the Slavonic evidence emerges at the same period, though it cannot be fully separated
late seventeenth century. from the Byzantine, because the Slavonic liturgy was from the very beginning a
The traditional Eastern view, on the other hand, is that Byzantine music has scarcely changed
from ancient times, and that any similarities between Byzantine chant and Middle Eastern music close adaptation of the Byzantine rite. The Coptic evidence, on the other hand,
are due to borrowing by the Arabs and Turks from the Greeks. For instance Alygizakes, 'H dates from much later in the Middle Ages, and the eight modes were never
'OKrarixia., assumes that the Turkish makamlar are derived historically from the classical Greek assimilated into the bulk of the liturgical chant repertory. Thus Egypt can be
harmoniai, which survive more directly in the Byzantine ecclesiastical modes. The truth is
probably somewhere in the middle: The fact that many Greek and Armenian Christians
excluded from the list of plausible homelands of the eight modes.46
worked as musicians in Turkish courts, even before the fall of Constantinople, means that When we carefully investigate the sources of each individual tradition, we can
there was ample opportunity for influence and interaction in all directions, just as German and observe two consistent facts. First, the modes were always perceived as Greek in
Italian influence on Russian church music since the seventeenth century may have brought in origin, and associated with areas of each culture that were most susceptible to
more than polyphony and staff notation. See Velimirovic, 'Reflections', 457.
For the Syrian Jacobite tradition see Heinrich Husmann, 'Eine Konkordanztabelle syrischer Greek influence. Second, the modes initially stood apart from much of the
Kirchentone und arabischen Maqamen in einem syrischen Musiknotizbuch', Symposium Syr- indigenous musical repertoire, and required a long period of time to be fully
iacum 1972, OCA 197 (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1974), 371-85. For incorporated into it. The process of integration brought about significant
the Armenian tradition, see Jean-Claude C. Chabrier, 'Le systeme acoustique armenien
d'Hambardzoum au XlXeme siecle', Ethnomusicology and the Historical Dimension: Papers changes in both the melodic repertory and the theoretical understanding of the
Presented at the European Seminar in Ethnomusicology, London, May 20-23 1986, ed. Margot modes, as each was adjusted to fit the other better. This is easiest to see in the
Lieth Philipps (Ludwigsburg. West Germany: Philipp Verlag, 1989), 130-2. Latin tradition, which is both the best documented at that period and the most
Among the Syrians, the most significant group of notated sources belongs to the Melkite
tradition, the most Byzantinized of the Syrian subgroups. See 'Ein syrisches Sticherarion mil
thoroughly studied.
palaobyzantinischer Notation (Sinai syr. 261)', Hamburger Jahrbuch fur Musikwissenschaft 1
1974), 9-57; Husmann, Ein syro-melkitisches Tropologion mil altbyzantinischer Notation, Sinai
Syr. 261, 2 vols., Gottinger Orientforschungen, 1 Reihe: Syriaka 9 (Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, A. The eight modes in Gregorian chant
1975, 1978); Jorgen Raasted, "Musical Notation and Quasi Notation in Syro-Melkite Liturgical
Manuscripts', CIMAGL 31 (1979), 11-37, 53-77. The Raasted article also includes some Written copies of the Gregorian chant repertory begin in the late eighth century,
information on the extant notated Coptic manuscripts. Notated Armenian manuscripts survive
in the hundreds, but their notation is not well understood.
yet very few liturgical chantbooks earlier than the mid tenth century include
Amnon Shiloah, The Theory of Music in Arabic Writings (ca. 900-1900): Descriptive Catalogue of information about the modal assignments of the individual chants. This in itself
Manuscripts in Libraries of Europe and the U.S.A., RISM 10 (1979), 5-6, 60-2 (an author who was is enough to raise doubts about the importance of the eight modes in the context
aware of the Byzantine oktoechos), 63, 66, 75-6, 95, 101, 134-5 (a treatise by a Nestorian), 155 (an from which Gregorian chant emerged, wherever and whenever that was. The
attack on Christian music), 159-60 (a treatise by a Christian on the musical abilities of slaves), 180
(a treatise by a translator of Syriac), 195-7 (including a lengthy treatise in Syriac, cf. 348-9), 198, impression that the modes were not a major factor in the early creation and
200-1, 201-6, 222, 237, 247, 257-9, 264-6, 266-7, 282, 285, 287-8, 322-3, 331, 348-9, 353-5, 360, transmission of Gregorian chant is strengthened by the absence of the modes
362-3, 376-83, 389-90, 394-8. See also: Nancy Sultan, 'New light on the Function of "borrowed from the local Latin traditions that Gregorian chant more or less supplanted: the
notes" in ancient Greek music: a look at some Islamic parallels', Journal of Musicology 6 (1988),
387-98; Marios Mavroidis, 'Byzantium and musical notation in Islamic Arabia: the case ofSafiyu
ad-Din'. Rivista di Bizantinistica 1/2 (December 1991), 29-38. 4(1 Ilona Borsai, 'Y a-t-il un "octoechos" dans le systeme du chant copte?' Studia Aegyptiaca I:
Amnon Shiloah, 'Un ancien traite sur le 'ud d'Abu Yusuf al Kindl: Traduction et commentaire', Recueil d'etudes dediees a Vilmos Wessetzky a {'occasion de son 65'' anniversaire, ed. Laszlo
Israel Oriental Studies 4 (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University. 1974), 179-205, see p. 202; Shiloah, Kakosy and Erno Gaal (Budapest: Elte, 1974), 39-53. Borsai correctly answers this question in
Theory of Music in Arabic Writings, 258. the negative.
Mozarabic, Milanese, and Beneventan repertories as well as the Old Roman and indeed limited classification scheme, imported from a contemporary Greek-
tradition of the city itself.47 The fact that the Gregorian repertory is modally speaking milieu, and quickly elaborated with the help of locally available
organized is one of the things that distinguishes it from the other Latin information to support broad application to the current Gregorian chant
repertories. Most of the earliest evidence regarding the modes in Gregorian repertory.
chant, therefore, is not to be found in the liturgical books, but in theoretical
treatises and in the tonaries, didactic collections in which the chants have been 1. The earliest Western evidence of the modes
listed or arranged according to their modal characteristics. In the West, then, the The Western encounter with the modes is first documented in the Tonary of St.
modes were first known as a framework for organizing chants that already Riquier,49 a brief appendix to a late eighth-century psalter traditionally linked to
existed, not as a resource for composers creating new chants. Charlemagne.50 It simply lists the modes by their Latinized Greek number-names
Two simultaneous trends can in fact be discerned in the earliest Latin (Authentus protus, etc.), though the last three are no longer extant. Beneath each
theoretical sources, dating from the end of the eighth century to the beginning mode name are cited the textual incipits of three to five introits, graduals,
of the tenth. One trend involved the classification of the chant melodies into alleluias, offertories and communions from the Proper of the Mass repertory.
modal categories. Initially this was done by identifying representative pieces that The absence of chants for the Office is noteworthy, since these tend to
exhibited the appropriate melodic traits, but soon the classification was extended predominate in later tonaries. But the author of the tonary, if he was one of
to the entire corpus. This classification process did not happen once for all, but the first Westerners to tackle the task of classifying Gregorian chant according to
was attempted repeatedly by different individuals, with differing results. It the modes, would have had little or no precedent to go by. It would not be
required expansion of the original eight categories in two directions: On the surprising, therefore, if he turned first to the more stable and circumscribed (and
one hand, subdivisions were created within each mode, linked to the various liturgically more important) Mass repertory than to the larger, more diverse, and
possible terminations of the psalm tone melodies,48 to allow for finer categor- less stable repertory of the Office.
ization than the eight modes alone could make possible. On the other hand, new
categories beyond the original eight were created to allow for chants that could
not be fitted into the eightfold scheme. 2. The explanation and expansion of modal terminology
The other trend involved the acculturation of the unfamiliar Greek termino- Two small treatises may represent the earliest Western attempts to explain the
logy of the modes. This process included the development of traditional terminology of the modes. Though difficult to date, they represent a stage of
translations and explanations of the original Greek mode names, but it also intellectual development more advanced than the Tonary of St. Riquier, a
entailed the creation of additional 'Greek' technical terms, based on the limited chronological placement suggesting the early ninth century. The better preserved
Western knowledge of classical and biblical Greek. Gradually a dialectic emerged treatise, known in two recensions, was entitled De Modis in Martin Gerbert's
in which both the theoretical modal system and the actual chant repertory were
4"' The tonary begins with the incipit 'Autentus protus. An. Misereris omnium Domine . . .' but is
reformulated with the help of concepts derived from the late antique Latin incomplete at the end. It is found in Paris, Bibliotheque nationale, MS lat. 13159, fo. 167r-v, and
literature on classical Greek music theory. The historical picture, then, is not one edited in Huglo, Tonaires, 25-9.
of a continuing musical heritage extending back to ancient times, but of a simple 50 The tonary occurs at the end of a psalter (Paris, Bibliotheque nationale, fonds latin 13159), dated
by the eminent paleographer E. A. Towe to the period between 795 (the accession of Pope Teo
III) and 800 (the coronation of Charlemagne as emperor); see Lowe, Codices Latini Antiquiores: A
" Don M. Randel, The Responsorial Psalm Tones for the Mozarabic Office, Princeton Studies in Paleographical Guide to Latin Manuscripts Prior to the Ninth Century 5: France: Paris (Oxford:
Music 3 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 12-13; Helmut Hucke, 'Karolingische Clarendon Press, 1950), 38 no. 652. However, doubts about whether the tonary is of the same
Renaissance und Gregorianischer Gesang', Die Musikforschung 28 (1975), 4-18; Thomas Forrest date as the rest of the manuscript were raised by John Harris Planer in The ecclesiastical modes in
Kelly, The Beneventan Chant (Cambridge University Press, 1989), 154-6; Terence Bailey, the late eighth century' (Ph.D. diss.. University of Michigan 1970). His arguments, summarized
'Ambrosian psalmody: an introduction', Studies in Music from the University of Western Ontario on pp. 87-9, boil down to three: (1) the hand of the tonary exhibits slight differences from the rest
2 (1977), 65-78; Bailey, 'Ambrosian choral psalmody: the formulae', Studies in Music from the of the MS (see pp. 33-40), (2) graduals and alleluias were not generally listed in tonaries before
University of Western Ontario 3 (1978), 72-96; Albert Turco, 'Forme di salmodia nel canto the tenth century (pp. 40-6), (3) the communion Beati mundo corde for All Saints day was 'not
milanese', Musica e Storia \, 303-17. cited in tonaries, treatises, or graduali [sic] before the eleventh century' (p. 89), and therefore may
48 Huglo, Tonaires 12-14; Terence Bailey, 'Accentual and cursive cadences in Gregorian psalmody', not have existed before then (pp. 47-87). But these arguments were anticipated and dealt with in
JAMS 29 (1976), 463-71; Andrew Hughes, Medieval Manuscripts for Mass and Office: A Guide to Huglo, Tonaires, 25-9, where it is also asserted (p. 26) that the tonary is in the same hand as the
their Organization and Terminology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), 112-16; JoAnn psalter. Because of Planer's objections Helmut Hucke expressed reserve about the eighth-century
Udovich, 'Modality, Office antiphons, and psalmody: the musical authority of the twelfth-century date in Toward a new historical view of Gregorian chant', JAMS 33 (1980), 437-67, see 442-3,
antiphonal from St.-Denis' (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1985); Paul n. 25. But more recently he wrote 'Der Tonar ist von der gleichen Hand geschrieben wie die
Merkley, Tonaries and melodic families of antiphons', Journal of the Plainsong & Mediaeval vorangehenden Seiten, wahrscheinlich kurz vor 800', in 'Gregorianische Fragen', Die Musik-
Music Society 11 (1988), 13-24. forschung 41 (1988), 304-30, see p. 300.
eighteenth-century edition,51 despite the fact that this work, like other ninth- parapteres, which seem originally to have been independent. The first list cites the
century Latin writings on music, uses 'tonus' rather than 'modus' as the ordinary incipit of one office antiphon as an example of each category, while the second
term for 'mode'.52 The Schemata in the shorter and presumably earlier recension one cites a variable number of antiphons between one and five. The section on the
are extremely corrupt, yet the most recent editor of the text has interpreted them regular eight modes, on the contrary, names no specific pieces.
as being listed in the customary Byzantine order rather than the usual Western The other early ninth-century treatise, only incompletely preserved, begins
one.55 If this interpretation is correct, this treatise would be the only Western 'Autentus dicitur auctoritas'.57 It witnesses in its own way to a Western
source to list the modes in this order, and would provide important testimony to perception that the modes were ultimately Greek in character, for in the only
the Byzantine origin of the Western modes. The De Modis is evidently the earliest surviving manuscript, dating between 996 and 1024, the (incomplete) Latin text is
Western source to describe the four extra modes, the need for which is, it says, written in a curious script (see Plate 6.1), actually a form of the Greek alphabet
'demonstrated in the little antiphons, especially from the [ferial] psalter [of the that circulated in the Latin West.58 The implicit claim made by the script - an
weekday Office], which do not end in the same way they begin'.54 The Greek- endearing attempt by some benighted Western scribe to make the Latin text look
looking term that it uses for such modally mixed categories, parapteres, is as if it were written in Greek - echoed more explicit claims that were evidently
doubtless a neologism coined in the West,55 for it is not known ever to have made in the text, which includes the line 'omnes nem.pe toni greca lingua
been used in Greek music theory.56 The De Modis in fact gives two lists of the nominentur . . . [all the tones are undoubtedly named in the Greek language]'
and originally ended 'toni greci exponuntur [the Greek tones are expounded]'.
51 This treatise begins with the incipit 'Autentus autoralis et auctoritate plenus' and ends with 'sed
pareat altissimus'. It survives in the manuscripts Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Can. misc. 212
Both the 'Autentus dicitur' and the short recension of De Modis take the same
(Italian, fifteenth century) and Cesena, Biblioteca Malatestiana, Plut. S XXVI, 1, fo. 195 (fifteenth approach to explaining the evidently novel Greek terminology of the modal
century, copied from a lost exemplar of the tenth or eleventh century). Martin Gerbert edited the system, by supplying each Greek word with an equivalent Latin word. In both
text from a lost fifteenth-century Strasbourg manuscript in Scriptores Ecclesiastic! de Musica texts, 'authentus' or 'authenticus' is explained as equivalent to the Latin
Sacra Potissimum (Sankt Blasien 1784; repr. Milan: Bollettino Bibliografico Musicale, 1931; repr.
Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1963), 1:149, but see the newer edition in Terence Bailey, '£)<? Modis 'auctoritas' or 'auctoralis'; 'plagis' is identified with 'lateralis'. The Greek ordinal
Musicis: a new edition and explanation', Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrhuch 61-2 (1977-8), 47-60. numbers 'protus', 'deuterus', 'tritus', and 'tetrardus' are simply translated into
The Oxford MS contains the longer recension, the other sources preserve the shorter one. the corresponding Latin numbers. However, the longer recension of the De
52 Thus the commentary of Johannes Scotus Eriugena (died 877) on Martianus Capella glosses
'modulis' with 'id est tonis' and 'modorum' with 'tonorum', explaining the less familiar word by Modis goes beyond this simple listing of equivalents. The meanings of some of
the more familiar one. See lohannis Scotli Annotationes in Marcianum, ed. Cora E. Lutz, the Greek words are illustrated by comparison with other Greek loanwords,
Mediaeval Academy of America Publication 34 (Cambridge, Mass.: The Mediaeval Academy already familiar to Latin readers, that are based on the same etymological roots.
of America, 1939), 195 (at 483, 15) and 204 (at 492, 17). See also Charles M. Atkinson,
'"Harmonia" and the "Modi, quos abusive tonos dicimus'", Atti del XIV Congresso della
Societa Internazionale de Musicologia: Trasmissione e recezione delle forme di cultura musicale 3: 'Parapter', Handworterbuch der musikalischen Terminologie, ed. Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht
Free Papers, ed. Angelo Pompilio et al. (Turin: E. D. T. Edizioni, 1990), 485-500. Richard Peter (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1978).
Maddox, Terminology in the early medieval music treatises (ca. 400-1100 AD: a study of changes It evidently began 'Autentus dicitur auctoritas . . .' and ended 'toni grece exponuntur' in
in musical thought as evidenced by the use of selected basic terms' (Ph.D. diss., University of Strasbourg, Seminaire protestant MS 926, destroyed when the library was bombarded in 1870,
California at Los Angeles, 1987), 168-91. but described in a catalogue of 1846. The beginning still survives in peculiar script in Paris, Bibl.
53 Bailey, 'De Modis', 55. If Bailey is right, the unfamiliarity of the Greek arrangement may have Arsenal, MS 1169,fo. 39 (dated 996-1024), transliterated, edited, and discussed in Huglo,
contributed to the textual corruption, as the treatise was recopied by later scribes expecting to see Tonaires, 47-8. See also Joseph Smits Van Waesberghe, P[i]eter Fischer and Christian Maas,
the material ordered in the customary Latin way. The Theory of Music from the Carolingian Era up to 1400: Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts 1,
54 'Item parapteres qui supra scripti sunt necesse est, ut teneamus, qui in antiphonis minutis RISMIII 1 (1961). 87.
comprobantur, maxime de psalmis, qui non finiunt ita inchoant', Bailey, 'De Modis', 53. The script is clearly based on the Greek alphabet as it was known in the West during the
35 The Greek prefix -n-apo- ('next to') was combined with the root of the word -m-fpov ('wing') and a Carolingian period; see Jean Baptiste Thibaut, Monuments de la Notation Ekphonelique et
Latin plural suffix to form a term that evidently meant 'side wings' or 'marginal categories put to Neumatique de I'Eglise Latine (St. Petersburg 1912; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1984), 24,
one side'. A search of the word index of the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae CD-ROM located only the left column in the facsimile; Walter Berschin, Greek Letters and the Latin Middle Ages From
three attestations of the extremely rare Greek word -napa-n-rtpov, all of them later than the ninth Jerome to Nicholas of Cusa, transl. Jerold C. Frakes (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of
century. The two earliest occur in the still incompletely edited work on the ceremonies of the America Press, 1988), 29-30 and plate facing p. 3; W. Berschin, 'Greek elements in medieval Latin
Byzantine court by the tenth-century emperor Constantinos Porphyrogenitos, where they refer to manuscripts', The Sacred Nectar of the Greeks: The Study of Greek in the West in the Early Middle
the 'wings' of a building. See Johann Jakob Reiske, ed., Constantini Porphyrogeniti Imperatoris Ages, ed. Michael W. Herren. King's College London Medieval Studies 2 (London: King's
De Cerimoniis Aulae Byzantinae libri duo, Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae, 2 vols. College, 1988), 85-104 and 16 plates. W. Berschin, 'Griechisches in der Klosterschule des alten St.
(Bonn: Weber, 1829-30), 1:553, lines 15 and 19, with the Latin translation 'alas aut substructiones Gallen', Byzantinische Zeitschrift 84-5 (1991-2), 329^10 and pi. 15-17, especially pi. 15-16.
laterales' below. On this and the other works of Porphyrogenitos, see Luci Berkowitz and Karl A. Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright, Edward Yarnold. and Paul Bradshaw, eds., The Study of
Squitier, Thesaurus Linguae Graecae: Canon of Greek Authors and Works, 3rd edn (New York: Liturgy, rev. edn (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pi. 2 following p. 226; Bernice M.
Oxford University Press, 1990), 107. Kaczynski, Greek in the Carolingian Age: The St. Gall Manuscripts, Speculum Anniversary
56 See Charles M. Atkinson, The Parapteres: Nothi or not?', MQ 68 (1982), 32-59; Atkinson, Monographs 13 (Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America, 1988).
Thus the terms 'protus', 'deuterus', and 'tetrardus' are compared with 'proto-
martyr' (a liturgical term for St. Stephen, the first martyr), 'Deuteronomium' (a
book of the Bible) and 'tetrarcha' (the title of King Herod in Luke 3:1,
paraphrased in De Modis as 'quarta pars regni').
The list of comparable loanwords was expanded somewhat in the next
generation of treatises, seemingly toward the middle of the ninth century.
'Tetragrammaton' (the four-letter Hebrew name of God) is compared with
'tetrardus' in a complex of texts that repeat some of the wording of De Modis
and are evidently somehow descended from it. The best known text of this
complex is chapter 8 of the Musica Disciplina of Aurelian of Reome,59 which
seems to be derived in part from an earlier anonymous work.60 The same material
also circulated as part of several anonymous extracts from Aurelian's treatise,61
and in at least two other forms,62 one of them attributed to Alcuin. 63 The latest
recension, the Praefatio supra octo tonos, is found in two Aquitainian tonaries of
;• =• a. #-sr' »i* *«•
Lawrence A. Gushee, Aureliani Reomensis Musica Disciplina, CSM 21 (1975), 78—83.
•- : This hypothetical earlier treatise is dubbed 'De octo tonis' in Gushee, Aureliani, 39^0 and
throughout. See also Lawrence A. Gushee, The Musica Disciplina of Aurelian of Reome: a
critical text and commentary', 2 vols. (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1962), 138-53.
At least five such extracts are known: (1) 'Diximus etiam tonos consistere' in Paris, BN MS lat
7211, fo. 17, discussed in Huglo, Tonaires, 50-1; The Theory of Music 1: 101-2. (2) 'Quid sint
toni?' in Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm 19489, 50-1 [Tegernsee, eleventh century] and 'Quot sunt
toni?' in Montecassino MS Q. 318, p. 58, discussed in Huglo, Tonaires, 51; Pieter Fischer, The
1 **-'" -?8|i
Theory of Music from the Carolingian Era up to 1400: Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts 2:
Italy, RISM III2 (1968), 65; Michel Huglo and Christian Meyer, The Theory of Music 3:
Manuscripts from the Carolingian Era up to c. 1500: Descriptive Catalogue, RISM, III (1986),
• - *. 146. (3) 'Diximus in octo tonis . . . .' Oxford, Balliol College 173", fo. 79v-80v [12th cent.],
- ^
discussed in Huglo, Tonaires, 51; Christian Meyer, Michel Huglo and Nancy C. Phillips, The
• ,"' Y»»-«* Theory of Music 4: Manuscripts from the Carolingian Era up to c. 1500 in Great Britain and in the
«
United States of America: Descriptive Catalogue, RISM III4 (1992), 100. (4) 'Incipit expositione
tonorum . . . .' found in the Italian tonaries Montecassino MS 439 [tenth century]; Florence,
Biblioteca Nazionale, Conventi soppressi F III 565, fo. 57v [ca. 1100]; Florence, Biblioteca
Riccardiana 652, fo. 108v [fifteenth century]; discussed in Huglo, Tonaires, 51. (5) 'Autentus
i«,-A
protus XX in se continet varietates . . . .' Cesena, Malatest. Plut. S XXVI, 1, fo. 195 [fifteenth
century, copied from a lost exemplar of the tenth or eleventh century], discussed in Huglo,
* Tonaires, 55-6; The Theory of Music 2, 22. Further information on these manuscripts will be
found in Gushee, Aureliani 34-49; Gushee, Musica 53-85.
The text in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canonici misc. 212 is discussed in Gushee, Aureliani
3(M and published 136-53.
'Octo tonos in Musica consistere musicus scire debet . . . quia sonus eorum pressior est, quam
superiorum' in Vienna Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS 2269, fo. 7v [thirteenth century]
and MS 5271,fo. 38v [sixteenth century], ed. as a work of Alcuin in GS 1:26-7, and more recently
in Hartmut Moller, 'Zur Frage der musikgeschichtlichen Bedeutung der "academia" am Hofe
Karls des Grossen: Die Musica Albinf, Akademie und Musik: Erscheinungs weisen und Wirkungen
des Akademiegedankens in Kultur- und Musikgeschichte: Jnstitutionen, Veranstaltungen, Schriften:
Festschrift fur Werner Braun :um 65. Geburtstag, SaarbrCicker Studien zur Musikwissenschaft,
NF 7 (Saarbrucken: Saarbriicker Druckerei und Verlag, 1993), 269-88. See also Huglo, Tonaires,
51-2; Gushee, Musica 86-91; Michael Bernhard, Clavis Gerberti: Eine Revision von Martin
Gerberts Scriptores Ecclesiastici de musica sacrapotissimum (St. Blasien 1784) 1, VmK 7 (1989),
Plate 6.1 Paris, Bibliotheque Arsenal, MS 1169, fo. 39r (dated 996-1024) 10. This form of the treatise does not include the comparison between 'tetragrammaton' and
'tetrardus'. For references to music in undisputed works of Alcuin, see Huglo, 'Developpement',
cliche Bibliotheque Nationale 131-3.
the eleventh century.64 Many of the texts in this complex also offer an additional case the treatise expresses a 'third generation' of theoretical reflection on the eight
Latin equivalent for 'authentus', in the form 'magister' (i.e. 'master'), 'magister- modes, a stage more advanced than the 'second generation' represented by Metz
ialis', or 'magisterium'. I and the material Aurelian incorporated into his chapter 8. To this generation
Also assignable to this 'second generation' of theoretical literature is the first of one would also assign Metz II, which deals briefly with many of the same
two little treatises in the Tonary of Metz, written before the year 869, the earliest questions that Aurelian discusses at greater length. Thus in Metz II the seeming
manuscript of the 'Carolingian Tonary'. Like the material related to Aurelian's arbitrariness of the number eight is shown to be appropriate by a comparison to
chapter 8, these two treatises expand the list of Latin equivalents and familiar the eight parts of speech, parallelling the much longer list of eightfold phenomena
Greek loanwords, but not in quite the same way. The first and shorter treatise given by Aurelian.69
('Metz I')65 which stands before the tonary proper, includes the comparison of the Aurelian's account of the four additional modes, which follows his older
unfamiliar modal names 'deuterus' and 'tetrardus' with 'Deuteronomium' and chapter 8 material, reveals much about his attitude toward the Greek background
'tetrarcha', even though it lacks the comparison of 'protus' with 'protomartyr' of this subject. According to him, Charlemagne ordered the creation of these
found in the De Modis. The longer and more developed treatise at the end of the additional categories 'because the Greeks were boasting that they had arrived at
Metz tonary ('Metz II')66 adds to this the word 'triton' (the three-pronged the eight modes through their own ingenuity'. However, once the Latins had
pitchfork carried by Neptune/Poseidon) for comparison with the name of the raised the number of modes to twelve, the Greeks, not to be outdone, adopted the
third mode, 'tritus', paralleling the addition of 'tetragrammaton' for 'tetrardus' four new modes themselves, 'so that they could be equal to us and share a place in
in the texts associated with Aurelian. Metz II, like the texts in the Aurelianic philosophy with the Latins, and not by any chance be found inferior in standing'.70
complex, adds the translation of 'authentus' as 'magister' (i.e. 'master') or Aurelian's chauvinism, doubtless widespread in his time, renders it easy for us to
'magisterialis'. understand why Latin musicians of his period would have created Greek musical
In Metz I a further step was taken, going beyond the simple juxtaposition of terms such as 'authentus' and 'parapter', which the Greeks themselves did not use.
'authentus'/'auctoralis' and 'plagis'/'lateralis' that we find in the 'first generation' It was not simply that new words were felt to be needed and that Greek was a
of Latin treatises. In addition to this, an attempt was made to explain what traditional source of learned terminology. By dressing up the modes in a 'Greek'
'authentus' and 'plagis' actually mean: 'superior' and 'minor' (i.e. 'lesser'), we garment of Western manufacture, the Carolingians assuaged their sense of
are told, a dichotomy that can be compared with 'altiores' ('higher') and indebtedness for adopting the Greek modes in the first place. In effect they were
'inferiores' ('lower') in Aurelian's text and those related to it.67 Thus similar beating the Greeks at their own game, by demonstrating that Westerners were
processes of development can be seen happening simultaneously, but with some equally if not more capable of discerning philosophical truth.
independence, in two different streams of theoretical thinking: the complex of In Aurelian's Chapter 9 is the famous passage in which he claimed to have
texts related to Aurelian's chapter 8 on the one hand, and the two Metz treatises 'asked a certain Greek' for a translation of the echemata, and to have been told
on the other. that they 'are not translated, but among [the Greeks] they are adverbs of a person
Aurelian's Musica Disciplina has been dated by its editor to the 840s, but the rejoicing'. 71 The use of the term 'adverb' suggests that Aurelian was indeed
dependence of part of it on a text of 876-7 would require a later date.68 In any reporting an actual conversation with a genuine Greek, for it recalls the Greek
method of classifying parts of speech. Untranslatable emotional outbursts, which
64 The text begins 'Prefatio supra VIII tonos. Octo toni consistunt in Musica . . .' in Paris, in Latin were classified as interjections, were classified in Greek as belonging
Bibliotheque nationale, MS lat. 1084, fo. 159. while a fragment of it without title survives in Paris,
Bibliotheque nationale, MS lat. 776, fo. 147v. For a transcription of the text see Joseph Ponte, within the category of adverbs.72 The qualification of 'adverbia' by 'laetantis',
Aureliani Reomensis, Musica Disciplina: 'A Revised Text, Translation, and Commentary' (Ph.D.
diss., Brandeis University, 1961), 1: xii-xiii; discussion in Huglo, Tonaires 49-50, 52, and Gushee, see 60-1. Scepticism toward Bernhard's redating is expressed in Joseph Dyer, The Monastic
Aureliani, 82-4. Origins of Western Music Theory', Cantus Planus: Papers Read at the Third Meeting, Tihany,
65 This is the treatise beginning 'Noe noe ane. Auctoritas vera' and ending 'quam est intonandi in arte Hungary, 19-24 September 1988, ed. Laszlo Dobszay et al. (Budapest: Hungarian Academy of
musica. Agius o theos. Sanctus Deus . . . Heleyson imas. miserere nobis', in Metz, Bibliotheque Sciences, Institute for Musicology, 1990), 199-225, especially 219-20.
Municipale, MS 351, fo. 66r (datable before the year 869), ed. Walther Lipphardt, Der 69 Lipphardt, Der karolingische Tonar, 63; Gushee, Aureliani, 79-81.
karolingische Tonar von Metz, Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen 43 (Miinster: 70 'Et quia gloriabantur Greci suo se ingenio octo indeptos esse tonos, maluit ille duodenarium
Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1965), 12-13 with a facsimile in Tafel I, discussed in adimplere numerum. Tune demum Greci possent ut nobis esse communes et eorum habere
Huglo, Tonaires, 30. On the date of the manuscript, see Lipphardt. Der karolingische, 7-8. contubernium philosophia cum Latinorum; et ne forte inferiores invenirentur gradu, itidem[que]
66 It begins 'Gloria indiuiduae trinitati.... Autenticus uel autentus protus grece' on fo. 77r and ends quattuor ediderunt tonos.' Gushee, Aureliani, 82.
'in calce sui negotii unionis compagine iocunda fruant fraternitate', ed. Lipphardt, Der 71 'Etenim quendam interrogavi Grecum "In Latina quid interpretarentur lingua?" Respondit se
karolingische, 62-3, discussed in Huglo, Tonaires, 31. nihil interpretari sed esse apud eos letantis adverbia.' Gushee, Aureliani, 84.
67 Gushee, Aureliani, 78. 2 This is argued in J0rgen Raasted, 'Die Jubili Finales und die Verwendung von interkalierten
6S Michael Bernhard, Textkritisches zu Aurelianus Reomensis', Musica Disciplina 40 (1986), 49-61, Vokalisen in der Gesangspraxis der Byzantiner', Griechische Musik und Europa, 67-80; Raasted,
making these the adverbs 'of a person rejoicing', may have been the Greek's way improve upon the received theory of the modes. This Westernizing effort is
of bridging the gap between the more inclusive Greek and the more restrictive parallel to, though independent of and different from, Aurelian's linking of the
Latin terminology, for no confirmation has yet been adduced from Greek sources Schemata to Western traditions of wordless singing.
to show that this understanding actually circulated among Greeks at the time. In
fact the reference to rejoicing seems suspiciously like the traditional Western 3. The modal classification of the Gregorian repertory
association of wordless singing with unspeakable joy, an idea that arose in the a. The Tonary of Metz The Metz Tonary proper, sandwiched between Metz I
exegesis of the Latin text of the psalms.73 Thus traditional Western ideas seem to and Metz II, actually consists of three tonaries: one for the antiphonal introits
have crept into Aurelian's understanding of what his Greek informant had said. and communions of the Mass, one for the antiphons of the Office, and one for
In fact, Aurelian's question about the meaning of the Schemata could receive the great responsories of Matins.75 In the first two tonaries, the lists of Mass
different answers even in the West. In the other 'third generation' treatise, Metz chant and Office antiphon incipits seem intended to be exhaustive, so that the
II, we are told that 'It is not to be asserted that they have any translation, but modern editor of the tonary was enabled to go a long way towards reconstructing
only that. . . syllables of this sort are appropriate to the inflections of the tones.'74 the liturgical books these tonaries presuppose.76 The tonary of responsories, on
The independence of the Metz tradition from that of Aurelian is also evident in the other hand, is too short to be exhaustive and was no doubt merely a
the forms of the Schemata. Though Aurelian, like the Byzantine tradition, representative listing, as in the tonary of St. Riquier. In the tonary of Office
assigned a unique sequence of syllables to almost every mode, Metz I used antiphons, each mode is subdivided, with the antiphons grouped according to the
'noeane' for all authentic modes (actually 'noe noeane' for the first mode), and corresponding psalm tone ending; the term for such a grouping is 'diffinitio'. In
'noeagis' for all the plagal modes. Almost the same practice was followed in the the first of the Metz tonaries, on the other hand, the antiphonal chants of the
Metz tonary itself, with 'noeoane' used for the authentic modes ('nonannoeane' Mass are also arranged in modal subgroups according to psalm tone endings, but
for the first) and 'noeais' for the plagal ones. The simplification was taken even these subgroups have no name. The three sections of the Metz tonary, then,
further in Metz II, however, where 'noeane' is used for every mode but the first appear to represent autonomous efforts to classify portions of the Gregorian
('noe noeane'). We can see in these simplifications an attempt to make the chant repertory according to the eight modes, perhaps made at somewhat
meaningliness Schemata more uniform and logical, a Westernizing attempt to different times or even by different individuals.
b. Aurelian Aurelian's treatise incorporates two distinct but substantial
'The «laetantis adverbia» of Aurelian's Greek Informant', Aspects de la musique liturgique au tonaries, a clear indication that he was working with a now-undeterminable
Moyen Age, 55-66. Raasted's provocative suggestion that East and West may have shared a
common centuries-old tradition of melismas intercalated (or rather interpolated) into psalmody amount of earlier material. The first tonary consists of chapters 10-17, with one
need not imply that such melismas were modally organized before the ninth century - but it is chapter for each mode.77 In contrast to the exhaustive coverage attempted in
possible that the medieval Western 'neumae' melismas are descended from such a tradition. two parts of the Tonary of Metz, each of Aurelian's chapters lists only
The lack of an exact Greek counterpart to the Latin word 'jubilus' was already being noted by
fourth-century exegetes. See James McKinnon, Music in Early Christian Literature, Cambridge representative chants belonging to the mode. The range of chant genres,
Readings in the Literature of Music (Cambridge University Press, 1987), 124-5, 140, 156-8; however, is wider than in the tonary of Metz, including all the proper chants
McKinnon, 'The patristic jubilus and the alleluia of the Mass', Cantus Planus, 61-70; Ernesto of the Mass (whereas Metz listed only the antiphonal chants), as well as the
Teodoro Moneta Caglio, Lo Jubilus e le origini della salmodia responsoriale, Jucunda Laudatio 15
(Venice: San Giorgio Maggiore, 1976-7); Aime Solignac, 'Jubilation', Dictionnaire de Spiritualite
antiphons, invitatories and responsories of the Office. The chants assigned to
8 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1974), 1471-8. Whatever the role of wordless melismas in early Christian each mode are subdivided according to their various psalm tone endings, but a
singing, by the ninth century they were especially associated with the alleluias and great variety of terms is used to designate these subcategories: divisio, definitio,
responsories of Gregorian chant, and were often being supplied with secondary texts. For the differentia, varietas.78 The number of these subdivisions is however smaller than
alleluias, see Richard L. Crocker, The Early Medieval Sequence (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1977), 392-423; Klaus Heinrich Kohrs, Die aparallelen Sequenzen: in the Metz tonary, which has thirteen for the antiphons of the first mode
Repertoire, liturgische Ordnung, musikalischer Stil, Beitrage zur Musikforschung 6 (Munich: compared to Aurelian's four.79 Clearly Aurelian's first tonary is not directly
Musikverlag Emil Katzbichler, 1978); Ferdinand Haberl, Das gregorianische Alleluia der heiligen
Messe, Schriftenreihe des Allgemeinen Cacilien-Verbandes fur die Lander der deutschen Sprache n In Lipphardt, Der karolingische Tonar, they are to be found on pp. 13-21, 21-60, 60-2
14 (Regensburg [recte Vatican City]: Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, 1983), 5-14; Margot Fassler, respectively.
Gothic Song: Victorine Sequences and Augustinian Reform in Twelfth-Century Paris (Cambridge 76 Ibid., 101-309.
University Press, 1993), 38^4-1, 133. For the responsories, see Francesc Bonastre i Bertran, 77 Gushee, Aureliani, 85-113.
Estudies sobre la Verbeta (La Verbeta a Catalunya durant els segles XI— XVI) (Tarragona: "s Huglo, 'Le Developpement', 149-51. By comparison, the Aquitainian Praefatio de octo tonis
Publicacions de la Diputacio de Tarragona. 1982); Thomas Forrest Kelly, 'Neuma Triplex', consistently uses the word 'corda' for these modal subdivisions.
AMI 60 (1988), 1-30. 79 Gushee, Aureliani, 85-90; Lipphardt, Der karolingische Tonar, 243. The chart in Huglo, Tonaires,
'Non est putandum, quod aliquam retinet interpretationem. Sed quia ad id solummodo ualet, quod 33, illustrates that the Metz MS and the two other manuscripts of 'the Carolingian tonary' include
apte sunt huiusmodi syllabg ad inflexiones tonorum', Lipphardt, Der karolingische Tonar, 62. a much larger number of modal subcategories than the other sources of the period.
related to the tonary of Metz, but represents an independent attempt to impressive display of erudition to Aurelian's contemporaries, however, only
accomplish more or less the same thing, the classification of the traditional serves to undermine our own confidence in his alleged Greek informants and
Gregorian chant repertory by the new criteria of mode. sources. Aurelian's two tonaries, whatever role he had in assembling them, are
Apologizing to the reader for any possible errors, Aurelian nonetheless offered Western compilations of Western chant, two different attempts to categorize the
the reassurance that 'all the varieties woven together here are derived from a Gregorian chant repertory according to the new theory of the modes, comparable
Greek source with musical freedom',80 an admission that, whatever the exact to the three distinct attempts that were combined to form the Tonary of Metz.
nature of the alleged Greek 'source', he had compiled the tonary himself. Given Though there is certainly a great deal of agreement among these independent
the vast differences between the Byzantine and Gregorian chant repertories, we efforts, they cannot be regarded as standing in a direct ancestor-descendent
should probably read Aurelian's protestations as expressing the same sort of relationship, or as mere revisions of one another. Each represents an autonomous
mentality that could write out a Latin treatise in 'Greek' script, or introduce ninth-century project, though they shared the common goal of attempting to
Greek terms beyond what the Greeks themselves used, or invent additional classify the Gregorian chant repertory - or part of it - according to the eight
modes that the Greeks would want to emulate. Aurelian's tonary was Greek only modes.82
in the sense that it was accurate - true to the very limited core of Greek c. The first graduals with modal assignments The early antiphonaries and
information on which the structure of the Western modal system was then graduals of Gregorian chant rarely indicate the modal assignments of the
being built. individual pieces before the mid-tenth century - a clear indication that the eight
Aurelian's second presentation of the modes, in chapter 18, evidently came to modes were not integral to the repertory from the beginning. The first manuscripts
him indepently from the material in chapters 8-17; perhaps it is an earlier that do contain modal assignments are three Graduals (copies of the Proper of the
anonymous work that he incorporated into the treatise as an appendix to his own Mass repertory) of the late ninth and early tenth centuries from the region north of
tonary. It covers fewer genres than the preceding tonary: only the introits, Paris. In these manuscripts, abbreviations of the Latinized Greek number names
offertories and communions of the Mass, and the antiphons and responsories (authentus protus, etc.) are written in the margins near each of the antiphonal
of the Office. The number of modal subdivisions is sometimes different from chants (the introit and communion), but no other information is given.83 Nor is
Aurelian's first tonary - five in the first mode rather than the four in chapter 10- there any suggestion of modal ordering: the chants are arranged according to the
and the terminology is a bit different as well; more frequent use is made of the usual liturgical assignment of their texts, without any regard for the modal
term 'varietates', less of 'divisiones' and 'definitiones'. In giving this second classification of their melodies.
tonary the title 'Deuterologium tonorum', evidently meaning 'the second exposi-
tion of the tones', Aurelian has outdone even himself in his quest for superiority 1977); P. G. W. Glare, ed., Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982). Though the
over the Greeks, to the point of inventing a new pseudo-Greek word, modelled feminine form 'deuterologia' and related constructions (meaning 'second speech', cf. 2 Me 13:22,
on the name of the biblical book Deuteronomium. 81 What might have seemed an 'The king spoke a second time') were minor technical terms in Greek (but not Latin) rhetoric, they
were rare: only 23 occurrences of all forms combined are listed in the Word Index of the
80 'Sin autem displicet aut nevum erroris arbitrarit, sciat a Grecorum dirivari fonte una cum musica Thesaurus Linguae Graecae CD-ROM - and 12 of these come from a single author (Hermogenes
licentia omnes varietates ibidem contextas', Gushee, Aureliani, 114. Earlier, in chapter 8. Aurelian Rhetor) and his commentators; see Berkowitz and Squitier. Thesaurus, 3rd edn (New York:
had written 'Nomina autem eorum apud nos usitata ex auctoritate atque ordine sumpsere Oxford University Press, 1990), 195, 351. But the neuter form Aurelian used is completely
principia', while some related texts add the word 'grecorum' after 'auctoritate', Gushee, Musica unattested; a computer search of an electronic text of the Patrologia Latina (originally Paris: J. P.
2: 31, apparatus to line 523; Huglo, Tonaires, 50. Migne, 1844-64) turned up only Aurelian's use of the word. Thus I am convinced that this is
81 I find neither 'deuterologium' nor 'Seurei-oAoytoy' in any of the following lexica: Charles DuFresne neither an authentic Greek term nor a neologism that circulated in Latin, but an outright
DuCange, Glossarium ad Scriptores Mediae et Infimae Graecitatis 1 (Lyons 1688); DuCange, invention by Aurelian himself. For other instances of pseudo-Greek terms coined in the medieval
Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis, ed. Leopold Favre 3 (Niort: L. Favre, 1884); Estienne, West, see Berschin, Greek Letters, 32—3.
Thesaurus 2 (1833); Evangelinos A. Sophocles, Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods " On 'Uniformity of modal assignment in early tonaries', see Paul Merkley, Modal Assignment in
(From B.C. 146 to AD 1100) (1887, repr. New York: Frederick Ungar, n.d.); Wilhelm Heraeus, Northern Tonaries, Musicological Studies 56 (Ottawa: Institute of Mediaeval Music, 1992),
Index Graecolatinus, Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum 7/2 (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1903); 191-210.
Wallace Martin Lindsay, Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum sive originum Libri XX, 2 83 Huglo, Tonaires, 90-102. The three manuscripts are: a ninth-century gradual from Corbie (Paris,
vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1911)' Albert Sleumer, ed., Kirchenlateinisches Worterbuch (Limburg: Bibliotheque nationale, fonds latin 12050), a ninth-century gradual preserved in Laon and
Gebruder Steffen, 1926); Alexander Souter, A Glossary of Later Latin to 600 AD (Oxford: plausibly from there (Laon, Bibliotheque municipale, ms. 118), and a tenth-century manuscript
Clarendon Press, 1949); G. W. H. Lampe, ed., A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon including both gradual and antiphoner that is preserved in a religious house in Paris that wishes
Press, 1961); R. E. Latham, Revised Medieval Latin Word-List from British and Irish Sources to remain anonymous: it may be from Corbie or Noyon. See Anne Walters Robertson, The
(London: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1965); Albert Blaise, Lexicon Service-Books of the Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis: Images of Ritual and Music in the Middle Ages
Latinitatis Medii Aevi praesertim ad res ecclesiasticas investigandas pertinens, CCCM (1975); J. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), 223 n. 19, 359-66, 425-34. The text of Paris lat. 12050 has been
F. Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976); Emmanuel Kriaras, published in Rene-Jean Hesbert, ed., Antiphonale Missarum Sextuplex (Brussels: Vromant, 1935;
AfîKo rljs p.caaioviK-ij$ fA\T)viK-i)s Sr]fj.wSovs ypafi/iaTeias, 1100—1669 5 (Thessalonika: [no publisher] Rome: Herder, 1968), column 5.
A. The tonary of Regino With the tonary of Regino of Priim, about 900, the advocated that modally ambiguous antiphons, which he regarded as 'bastards, that
process of Latinizing the modes has come farther than in the sources considered up is degenerate and not legitimate',88 should be assigned to the eight regular modes
to now, building in part on Regino's knowledge of the tradition expressed in the through analysis of the beginning and the ending, with preference given to the
two Metz treatises. The preface, Regino's Epistola de Armonica Institutione*4 beginning. This is a clear step toward the common medieval approach, even though
explains the names 'authentus protus' and so on in language that echoes the later theorists came to favor the ending.89 A recent book on tonaries would identify
wording of Metz I and Metz II. The statement that the Schemata cannot be Regino's work with 'a movement towards uniformity' that would clearly mark a
translated also resembles the parallel statement in Metz II: the syllables have a later historical stage than the tonaries of Aurelian and Metz.90
practical function of distinguishing the modes, but once again there is no
suggestion of Aurelian's connection with rejoicing.85 However the explanation of
4. The classicizing of Carolingian music theory
Greek terms takes up less space and is less prominently featured than in the earlier The Western conflation of the modes and the chant repertory with concepts of
treatises; clearly it was no longer the central concern it had been a century earlier
ancient Greek theory began slowly, and gained impetus only toward the end of
when such terms were still novel. Nor did Regino invoke any Greek sources or the ninth century. This can be seen in the various terms used for 'mode' itself.
authorities as Aurelian had done. He simply claimed to have compiled the tonary The most common ninth-century term, 'tonus', was explained simply enough in
himself to counteract the inadequacies of singers he had heard: T snatched up an Metz II, by merely supplying this Greek word with a similar-sounding Latin
antiphoner, and going through it diligently from beginning to end in order, I equivalent, 'sonus'.91 Aurelian, only a little later, moved beyond this by
distributed the antiphons that I found written in it to what I deemed their proper
inserting the definition of Cassiodorus.92 The liberal inclusion of excerpts
tones.'86 His word for the modal subdivisions, 'differentia', would become the from classical sources is one of the features that distinguishes Aurelian's treatise
common one during the Middle Ages, eclipsing the other terms used in the tonaries from other ninth-century theoretical writings. Yet the material amounts to little
of Metz and Aurelian. 87 Moving away from the theory of the parapteres, Regino more than quotations. The first seven chapters of Aurelian's treatise are
essentially a florilegium of barely digested excerpts, large blocks of text
Regino Prumiensis, Epistola de Armonica Institutione, in Bernhard, Clavis Gerberti, 37-73. The
tonary that follows this writing in the MS Brussels, Bibliotheque royale 2751 is regarded as the copied from the Bible, Augustine, Boethius, Cassiodorus and Isidore.93 Regino's
tonary that Regino compiled and refers to in his Epistola, though Merkley, Modal 6, 12 expresses treatise is not much of an advance in this regard, though it demonstrates
scepticism. An unreliable lithographic 'facsimile' was published in Edmond de Coussemaker, familiarity with a wider range of classical authors. 94 Yet Regino is one of the
Scriptorum de Musica Medii Aevi Novam Seriem a Gerbertina Alteram 2 (Paris 1867; repr.
Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1963), 1-73. The short tonary that follows Regino's Epistola in the MS
witnesses to a terminological shift that took place about the year 900, from the
Leipzig, Stadtbibliothek Rep. I 93 (olim 169) is usually taken to be an excerpt from Regino's traditional Latin term 'tonus' to the more Boethian 'modus'. Though Regino
tonary, as explained in Huglo, Tonaires, 71-89. especially 79. The Leipzig text, and other himself used 'tonus', he acknowledged 'that those frequently mentioned eight,
interesting liturgical material from the manuscript, has been edited and translated in Mary
Protase LeRoux, 'The "De Harmonica Institutione" and "Tonarius" of Regino of Prurn' (Ph.D. Brockett, 'Saeculorum amen and differentia: practical versus theoretical tradition', Musica
diss., Catholic University of America, 1965). Facsimiles of some folios from the Leipzig Disciplina 30 (1976), 13-36; JoAnn Udovich, 'Modality, office antiphons, and psalmody: the
manuscript have been published in Constantin Floros, Universal Neumenkunde 3 (Kassel: musical authority of the twelfth-century antiphonal of St-Denis' (Ph.D. diss., University of North
Barenreiter, 1970), pi. 107-12; and in Bruno Stablein, Schriftbild der einstimmigen Musik, Carolina, 1985), 47-85, 232-304; Bonifacio G. Baroffio, 'Le Differentiae nei codici italiani',
Musikgeschichte in Bildern HI/4 (Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag, 1975), 111 pi. 3. Ecclesia Onrns 9 (1992), 61-8.
'Quaeritur a nonnullis, quid significent ilia verba, per quae tonorum sonoritatem in naturali 88 'Sunt namque quaedam antiphonae, quas nothas, id est degeneres et non legitimas, appellamus,
musica discernimus; id est Nonannoeane et Noeais et Noioeane et his similia, et utrum quae ab uno tono incipiunt, alterius sunt in medio. et in tertio finitur', Bernhard, Clavis Gerberti, 40.
interpretari eorum sensus possit. Ad quod respondendum, quod omnino nullam recipiunt 89 A classic medieval discussion of how to emend chants of ambiguous modality occurs in the
interpretationem; neque enim quicquam significant, sed ad hoc sunt tantum a Grecis reperta, eleventh-century text formerly attributed to Odo of Cluny, translated in Strunk, Source Readings ,
ut per eorum diversos ac dissimiles sonos tonorum admiranda varietas aure simul et mente posset 198-210. For the current view on date and authorship, see Bernhard, Clavis Gerberti, 74.
comprehend!', Bernhard, Clavis Gerberti, 73. 90 Merkley, Modal, 72-80.
'Cum frequenter in aecclesia vestrae diocesis chorus psallentium psalmorum melodiam confusis '" Toni igitur grece, latine soni interpretantur' (Therefore "tones" in Greek are translated
resonaret vocibus propter dissonantiam toni, et pro huiuscemodi re vestram venerationem sepe "sounds" in Latin'), Lipphardt, Der karolingische Tonar, 62.
commotam vidissem, arripui antiphonarium, et eum a principio usque in finem per ordinem 92 Tonus est totius constitutionis armonicae differentiae et quantitas quae in vocis accentu sive
diligenter revolvens, antiphonas, quas in illo adnotatas repperi, propriis, ut reor, distribui tonis', tenore consistit', Gushee, Aureliani, 78; Mynors, Cassiodori, 145. This is translated 'Key is a
Bernhard, Clavis Gerberti, 39. difference or quantity of the whole harmonic system, consisting in the intonation or level of the
The term 'differentia' signifies both the sequence of musical pitches that are sung at the end of the voice' in Strunk, Source Readings, 146. The point is that, for Cassiodorus, the 'tonus' meant a
psalm verse (in the case of the final verse, the Gloria patri, the differentia is set to the words transposition: the 'harmonic system' is placed at this or that 'level of the voice'.
'saeculorum amen' or an abbreviation of it), and the category of antiphons that are sung with that 1)3 Ubaldo Pizzani, 'Aureliano di Reome e la riscoperta del De institutione musica di Boezio',
particular form of the psalm tone. See Hugo Berger, Untersuchungen zu den Psalmendijferenzen, Esercizi: Arte Musica Spettacolo 2 (1979), 7-28; Michel Huglo, 'Le Developpement', 137.
Kolner Beitrage zur Musikforschung 37 (Regensburg: Gustav Bosse, 1966); Terence Bailey, '" Michael Bernhard, Studien zur Epistola de armonica institutione des Regino von Priim, VmK 5
'Accentual and cursive cadences in Gregorian psalmody', JAMS 29 (1976), 463-71; Clyde W. (1979).
which are called tones, are not so much to be called tones as modes or step was taken of explicitly identifying each of the eight tones with the Dorian,
differences, or tropes of the consonances of musical modulation'. 95 Hucbald, Phrygian and other 'modes' described by Boethius.103
about the same time, introduced the subject of 'modes or tropes, which they
now call tones',96 but then consistently called them 'modes'. It was the Musica 5. Conclusion
Enchiriadis that, in a forceful passage repeated by subsequent theorists, A striking amount of development evidently took place in Latin modal theory
established what would become the standard usage of 'modes, which we over the course of the ninth century, but the main outlines are clear. Most of the
incorrectly call "tones"'.97 earliest Latin evidence of the modes comes from theoretical sources rather than
The process of identifying classical terms and concepts with musical features liturgical books. This evidence begins about the year 800 with the small tonary of
of the Gregorian repertory took a little longer. Among the first to attempt this St. Riquier. The early ninth-century treatises, De Modis and 'Autentus dicitur',
may have been Remigius of Auxerre, a late ninth-century commentator on dealt largely with explaining the unfamiliar Greek terminology, and expanding it
Martianus Capella, who quoted the incipits of four Gregorian introits to further with the addition of other words borrowed from Greek. This process
illustrate the concepts of diatessaron and diapente.98 The most thoroughgoing continued in the Metz treatises and the treatise by Aurelian, which also
synthesis, however, was Hucbald's, written perhaps in the 890s.99 After citing incorporate tonaries much more extensive than that of St. Riquier, compiled
examples from the chant repertory to illustrate all the intervals of Boethius, independently of each other. It was only in the later ninth century that modal
whom he called 'a wondrous teacher',100 Hucbald used the eight modal identifications began to appear in actual liturgical books, and only in the tonary
Schemata to explain the tetrachords of the Boethian Greater Perfect System, of Regino at the beginning of the tenth century that awareness of the Greek
and for the first time located the finals and ranges of the eight tones among the character of the modes can be seen beginning to recede. It is in Hucbald and the
pitches of this system with their ancient Greek names. Hucbald reproduced the theorists of the early tenth century that we can observe a real synthesis of the
ancient Greek notation for the Lydian octave species,101 but it was in the modally-organized chant repertory with terms and concepts appropriated from
Enchiriadis treatises1"2 and more particularly the Alia Musica that the fateful the music theory of classical antiquity, an advance over Aurelian's and Regino's
practice of excerpting and quoting ancient texts without fully apprehending their
meaning.
'Ex hac itaque dissonantia apparet. quod illi sepe dicti octo. qui dicuntur toni, non tarn toni
dicendi sunt. quam modi vel differentiae seu tropi consonantiarum musicae modulationis',
The Latin evidence, in short, gives us a picture of the modes as beginning
Bernhard, Clavis Gerberti, 44. with a very limited core of information - little more than the four-times-two
'. . . quatuor modis vel tropis. quos mine tonos dicunt', Yves Chartier, L'Oeuvre musicale categories and a few Greek terms - that is first attested late in the eighth
d'Hucbald de Saint-Amand: Les compositions et le traite de musique, Cahiers d'etudes medievales, century. Over the next hundred years a number of attempts were made to
cahier special 5 (Quebec: Bellarmin, 1995), 200; Andreas Traub, ed., 'Hucbald von Saint-Amand,
De harmonica institution^, Beitrdge zur Gregorianik 1 (1989), 3-101, see 66. English translation in apply this classification to the indigenous chant repertory. In the process, the
Hucbald, Guido, and John on Music: Three Medieval Treatises, transl. Warren Babb, ed. Claude terminology was explained and expanded upon, the eight basic categories were
V. Palisca (New Haven 1978), 38. subdivided, and the approaches to categorizing unclassifiable melodies were
'. . . modi, quos abusive tonos dicimus', Schmid, Musica, 13. See Charles M. Atkinson, 'On the
interpretation of Modi, quos abusive tonos dicimus', Hermeneutics and Medieval Culture, ed. refined. All of this happened within a culture of Latin learning that valued its
Patrick J. Gallacher and Helen Damico (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), own limited ability to make original use of both Greek vocabulary and the
147-61. A survey of the uses of the words 'tonus', 'tropus', and 'modus' in the Latin theorists up dimly-understood corpus of Latin texts that explicated the music theory of an
to Guido will be found in Richard Peter Maddox, Terminology in the early medieval music
treatises (ca. 400-1100 AD): a study of changes in musical thought as evidenced by the use of
idealized classical antiquity. Within a century of the earliest known Latin
selected basic terms' (Ph.D. diss.. University of California, Los Angeles, 1987), 168-91. testimony of the modes, the basis of medieval Western modal theory had been
Retnigii Autissiodorensis Commentum in Martianum Capellam, Libri IH-IX, ed. Cora E. Lutz laid, and the newly-forged connections with ancient Greek music theory
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1965), 332-3, 340. According to Lutz's apparatus, the textual incipits of the already overshadowed and obscured the more significant connection with the
four introits are supplied with neumes in most manuscripts, including the earliest ones which date
from the tenth century. On the subject of the 'tropi', however, Remigius simply refers to Byzantine Greek culture of the time.
Boethius, 334. For further discussion of these neumes see Mathias Bielitz, Die Neumen in Otfrids
Evangelien-Harmonie: Zum Verhaltnis von geistlich und weltlich in der Musik des friihen
Mittelalters sowie zur Entstehung der Raumanalogen Notenschrift, Heidelberger Bibliotheks-
schriften 39 (Heidelberg: Universitatsbibliothek Heidelberg, 1989), 95-6, 265-6.
Chartier, L'Oeuvre musicale d'Hucbald de Saint-Amand.
'. . . doctor mirabilis omniumque prudentissimus artium liberalium perquisitor Boetius.'
Chartier, L'Oeuvre, 154; Traub, 'Hucbald', 36; HGJ, 21. '"- Chailley, Alia Musica, 107. Cf. Bernhard, Clavis Gerberti, 16. Related texts have been published
Chartier, L'Oeuvre, 198; Traub, 'Hucbald', 64; HGJ, 37. in Michael Bernhard, ed., Anonymi saeculi decimi vel undecimi tractatus de musica «Dulce
Schmid, Musica, 22, 78. 179. ingenium musicae», VmK 6 (1987).
-
there may after all have been a Syrian contribution. It is interesting that most of
B. The Syriac evidence the earliest composers of Greek kanons - the genre most associated with the early
The Syriac evidence regarding the origin of the modes has recently been sifted by Syriac modal system - were Melkite Syrians themselves, monks who lived in the
expert Semitist Aelred Cody, and it reveals many parallels to the Latin situ- monastery of St. Sabas near Jerusalem, the most important liturgical center of
Palestinian monasticism. The first hymnographer of this school that we can name
ation.104 Syriac sources do not present the modes as a heritage from the ancient
world, whether Semitic or Greco-Roman, but point instead toward the con- is Andrew (ca. 660-740), who later became a bishop of Crete, and whom
temporary Byzantine culture.105 Oft-cited evidence that appeared to link the tradition credits with inventing the kanon genre.109 However the central figure
modes to the period of Severus of Antioch (ca. 465-538) has been shown in was John of Damascus or John Damascene (d. ca. 750), one of the most
important theologians of the Greek Orthodox Church, which traditionally
Cody's study to be misunderstood. 'There is really no evidence for the existence
regards him as the author of the liturgical chant book entitled Oktoechos.110
of an octoechos in any sense before the eighth century.'106 In fact it is in Syriac
chant manuscripts of the ninth century that modal assignments are first seen - Kosmas of Jerusalem (late seventh to mid-eighth centuries), who later became
contemporary with the earliest Latin evidence of the modes. The Syrian modes bishop of Maiuma in Gaza, is a more shadowy member of this circle.111 Andrew,
made their first appearance in contexts that clearly point to a Greek background: John and Kosmas were all born and raised in Damascus, which was under Arab
they were most firmly associated with translations or imitations of the Greek rule at the time. Before becoming a monk, John even succeeded his father as an
hymnographic genre known as the kanon, which consists of several series of official at the court of the Caliph, and tradition has it that Kosmas was his
stanzas, each linked to a biblical psalm or ode sung in the Office. This type of adopted half-brother. All three probably spoke Syriac or Arabic as their first
Greek hymnody came into the Syriac culture through Melkite ('Royalist') language, even though their hymns, sermons and theological treatises were all
channels, that is, through the Syriac-speakers who had sided with the Byzantine written in Greek.
emperor in the theological disputes of the fifth century (specifically after the
Council of Chalcedon of 451), and who were thus most open to Greek influence. For general information and sources see Tusculum-Lexikon, 54; 'Andreas von Kreta', Biogra-
phisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, ed. Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz, 1 (Hamm: Traugott
'Our survey of early collections of Syrian [chant] leaves no room for doubt at all Bautz, 1975), 169; J. Irmscher, "Andrew of Crete", Encyclopedia of the Early Church, ed.
that. . . the hymnographic octoechal principle . . . entered with the canon,. . . and Angelo di Berardino, transl. Adrian Walford (Cambridge: James Clarke, 1992), 1:38. For lists
it came from the Melkites.'107 From the ninth to the eleventh centuries and later, of works, see Casimir-Archange Emereau, 'Hymnographi Byzantini quorum nomina in litteras
digessit notulisque adornavit'. Echos d'orient 21 (1922), 258-79, especially 267-71; "Av&piat, d
one can observe a gradual expansion of the eight-mode system, as modal
Kpr/T-r];', Repertorium Fontium Histuriae Medii Aevi 2: Forties A-B (Rome: Istituto Storico
assignments and eventually modal ordering were applied to more and more Italiano per il Medio Evo, 1967), 230; Maurice Geerard, Clavis Patrum Graecorum, 3: A Cyrillo
Syrian chant texts of other, non-Greek genres.108 The assimilation of the Syrian Alexandrino ad lohannem Damascenum, CCL (1979), 541-53, nos. 8170-228, see especially
chant repertories to the eight modes, therefore, exhibits some similarity to the no. 8219, 'Canones. Triodia ac Troparia', 551.
For general information see Tusculum-Lexikon, 389-90; Karl-Heinz Uthemann, 'Johannes von
comparable process in the West, even though it took longer and proceeded by a Damaskos', Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon 3 (1992), 331-6; Stanley Samuel
different route. The slower Syrian pace may perhaps have been related to the Harakas. 'John of Damascus', The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade (NY: Macmillan
dearth of theoretical literature relative to the Latin world, but in any case makes 1987), 110-12; B. Studer, 'John Damascene', Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, Encyclo-
pedia of the Early Church, ed. Angelo di Berardino, transl. Adrian Walford (Cambridge: James
it very difficult to imagine Syria as the original home of the eight modes. Clarke, 1992), 1:442-3. On the difficulty of separating the abundant hagiographical testimony
Even in Syriac cultures, then, the eight modes were perceived as Greek. Yet from the sparse biographical data, see Marie-France Auzepy, 'De la Palestine a Constantinople
(VITIe-IXe siecles): Etienne le Sabai'te et Jean Damascene', Travaux et Memoires du Centre de
104 Cody, 'Early history'. Recherche d'Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance du College de France 12 (1994), 183-218.
"'- This is sufficient to rule out hypotheses of an ancient Semitic origin of the modes, such as those especially 193-204. For works see Emereau, 'Hymnographi Byzantini", Echos d'orient 22
proposed in David Wulstan, 'The origins of the modes', Studies in Eastern Chant 2, ed. Milos (1923). 419-39, especially 434-9, and 23 (1924), 195-200 especially 195-7; Geerard, Clavis 3:
Velimirovic (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), 5-20; Francois Lasserre, 'Musica 511-36 nos. 8040-127, especially number 8070 'Carmina', 522.
babilonese e musica greca', La Musica in Grecia, ed. Bruno Gentili and Roberto Pretagostoni Tusculum-Lexikon, 452; J. Irmscher, 'Cosmas of Maiuma', Encyclopedia oj the Earlv Church, 1:
(Rome, Bari: Laterza, 1988), 72-95; Miroslav K. Cerny, 'K otazce vzniku nejstarsiho modalniho 204; Hans-Josef Olszewsky, 'Kosmas von Jerusalem', Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlex-
systemu v dejinach hudby', Hudebni Veda 20/1 (1983), 3-21. Eric Werner's suggestions of ancient ikon 4 (1992), 542-3; A. Kazhdan and S. Gero, 'Kosmas of Jerusalem: a more critical approach
Hebrew origin are particularly difficult to sustain on closer examination; see Peter Jeffery, to his biography', Byzantinische Zeitschrift 82 (1989), 122-32; Alexandre Kazhdan, 'Kosmas of
'Werner's The Sacred Bridge, Volume 2: A Review Essay', Jewish Quarterly Review 77 (1987), Jerusalem 2: can we speak of his political views?' Le Museon 103 (1990), 329^16. The legend that
283-98, especially 292-5. Kosmas was raised in the same household as John Damascene, as his adoptive half-brother,
106 Cody, 'Early history', 102. Severus' supposed Oktoechos is described in even greater detail in seems particularly unlikely if, as Kazhdan believes, he was not a strong iconodule, perhaps even
Heinrich Husmann, 'Hymnus und Troparion', 46-58. an iconoclast - for John was the most important theological proponent of the veneration of
107 Cody, 'Early history', 99-100. images. For the works of Kosmas, see Emereau, 'Hymnographi Byzantini', Echos d'orient 22
108 Ibid., 92-3, 101-2. (1923), 11-25, especially 20-2.
If the Greek modes were associated with a type of hymn whose first exponents Sunday as the eighth day, and its passage across linguistic and cultural
were Hellenized Syrians, might there have been some Syrian element after all? frontiers in Syria was associated with the passage of Greek kanons and
Cody suggests there may have been some precedent in the Syrian tendency to stichera into Syriac, first for use in Melkite churches using that language,
arrange the liturgical year in cycles of more-or-less seven Sundays.112 In this there and then beyond the frontiers
is an obvious parallel to the Byzantine Oktoechos book, a cycle of services for
to the other Syriac-speaking communities like the Jacobites, who, due to
eight Sundays which is sung continuously throughout the liturgical year,
theological and other differences, were less open to Greek influence.115
beginning on Easter and restarted anew after every eighth week. There is another
similarity: the modally organized kanons in the earliest Syriac sources are not
assigned to the major days of the Church year (the liturgical texts for which were
C. The Armenian evidence
presumably stabilized early), but to the more 'supplementary' periods: the
Sundays throughout the year (comparable to the Western Sundays after 'The Armenian rite is a field of liturgiology almost totally untouched by
Epiphany and after Pentecost), and 'generic' chant groupings for particular trustworthy scientific studies'116 and Armenian liturgical chant fares little better.
kinds of saints - what in the West would be called the Commune Sanctortun. Yet what is known seems to point in the same direction as the Syriac evidence,
These 'open' parts of the liturgical year would have been codified more recently suggesting that the modes were introduced about the eighth century in association
than the more important periods associated with Christmas, Lent and Easter, with the importation and imitation of the Greek kanon repertory. Armenian
and the loose relationship to the liturgical calendar provided a natural opening tradition attributes the introduction of the modes to Bishop Step'anos (i.e.,
for some other organizing principle to come into play, such as grouping into Stephen) of Siwnik',117 a prominent member of the Armenian Hellenizing school,
sevens or eights. whose entire career was devoted to promoting Greek influence in his native land.
As there is no astronomical reason to divide the year into cycles of seven or Both Step'anos and his sister Sahakduxt, the earliest known Armenian woman
eight weeks, the choice of these numbers may originally have had numerological writer, composed hymns modelled on the Greek kan5n, and Step'anos spent many
significance, related not only to the mysteries of the number seven but to the years in Constantinople, where he had contact with the Patriarch Germanos
multifaceted biblical themes associated with the week. Sunday, the day of (reigned 715-30),118 a major early author of kanons." 9 If it was indeed Step'anos
Resurrection, was regarded from early Christian times as completing the circle, who brought the eight modes to Armenia, this was surely part of his broader
counting as both the first and the eighth day of the week; this might conceivably program of Hellenizing the Armenian church, and his unfortunate murder in the
explain how the seven-week cycles of the Syrian year became the eight-week cycle year 735, at the hands of a sinful woman he had unsuccessfully admonished, would
of the Oktoechos. 113 However 'such speculation did not come from Syria', but provide us with a valuable terminus ante quern: the earliest secure date in the history
rather from Alexandria, whence it spread to other places where Greek was of the eight modes.120 As in the Latin traditions, the Armenian chant repertory
spoken.114 And it has yet to be shown that numerological thinking figures could not quite fit into eight modal classifications, so that every Armenian mode
prominently in the kanon repertory or in any other texts connected with the except the second plagal also has an 'auxiliary' form.121 But as the history of the
earliest evidence of the modes. 115 Cody, 'Early history', 103.
Thus Cody concluded, '"' Robert F. Taft, The Great Entrance: A History of the Transfer of Gifts and other Pre-anaphoral
Rites of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, 2nd edn (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum
The octoechos was a creative product of the Hellenistic Syrian mind, the Orientalium, 1978), 114.
1 1 7 Outtier, 'Etude', 182; repr. in Nersessian, ed., Essays on Armenian Music, 103. Ertlbauer,
practical expression, probably, of Hellenistic Christian speculation on
Geschichte, 37, 39 reports that some sources list two individuals with this name, the earlier of
whom may have lived before the eighth century, though it has also been denied that he existed at
": Cody cites the major early examples in 'Early history', 94-7. all.
113 Willy Rordorf, Sunday: The History of the Day of Rest and Worship in the Earliest Centuries of "s Lucian Lamza, Patriarch Germanos I. von Konstantinopel (715-730): Versuch einer endgiiltigen
the Christian Church (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1968), 275-85. For other studies of the Fixierung des Lebens und Wirkens des Patriarchen, Das ostliche Christentum new ser. 27
significance of Sunday in Christian theology see H. Boone Porter, The Day of Light: The Biblical (Wurzburg: Augustinus-Verlag, 1975), 122-3.
and Liturgical Meaning of Sunday (London: SCM Press, 1960; repr. Washington, D.C.: The m Titsculum-Lexikon 285-6; Geerard, Clavis 3, 503-10 nos. 8001-33. especially 509. no. 8024;
Pastoral Press, 1987); Samuele Bacchiocchi, From Sabbath to Sunday: A Historical Investigation A. Labate, 'Germanus of Constantinople', Encyclopedia of the Early Church, 1:346.
of the Rise of Sunday Observance in Early Christianity (Rome: Pontifical Gregorian University 120 On Step'anos of Siwnik' see Paul Ananian, 'Etienne SiunecT, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de
Press, 1977), 278-302; Alberich Martin Altermatt, Thaddaus Schnitker, Walter Heim, eds.. Der geographic ecclesiastiques;, ed. R. Aubert and E. van Cauwenbergh, 15 (Paris: Letouzey et
Sonntag: Anspruch - Wirklichkeit - Gestalt (Wiirzburg: Echter Verlag. Universitatsverlag Ane, 1963), 1263-5. Abraham Terian, 'The Hellenizing school: its time, place, and scope of
Freiburg, 1986); The Sabbath in Jewish and Christian Traditions, ed. Tamara C. Eskenazi, activities reconsidered', East of Byzantium, 175-86, especially 177, 182.
Daniel C. Harrington, William H. Shea (New York: Crossroad, 1991). 1:1 Serkoyan, Tahmizian, Outtier, 'Recherches'. The type of modal analysis used by Outtier, and by
114 Cody, 'Early history', 97. Ertlbauer, Geschichte und Theorie following him, based on the concept of the 'corde-mere',
repertory has barely begun to be studied, we do not know when these auxiliary of the city of Constantine need to be recognized as at times distinct from the
categories were formed, nor can we yet document the processes by which the equally hoary customs of the monks of Cappadocia, Palestine, Egypt, Greece and
repertory came to be classified modally. Italy, without losing sight of the fact that at times many of these interrelated
traditions were in contact with and exercised influence over some of the others.
And in many cases the earliest attested state of a Greek tradition will be
D. The Greek and Slavonic evidence preserved only in a Slavonic translation.
If Latin, Syriac, and Armenian evidence all suggest a Greek origin for the modes, 1. Theoretical literature
the Greek sources themselves are more enigmatic. For example, the problem of a. The Papadike
the relationship of medieval to ancient Greek music theory, relatively settled in In general, the literature of Byzantine music theory offers little testimony about
the West, re-emerges with renewed vigor and in new forms when we turn to the the origin of the modes. In fact the central theoretical tradition connected with
Greek East. Representations of the modes in the Byzantine visual arts date only the chant repertory is primarily made up of lists. The oldest known text of this
from the eleventh century, the same date as in the West, and draw on parallel type, an early tenth-century listing of neume names and other terms, begins
East-West traditions of psalmodic exegesis and late Antique music theory. 122 tersely with the information, 'seven sounds [i.e. pitches], four echoi, three mesoi,
Worst of all, the early medieval Greek-speaking East was as complex and two phthorai, four plagioi',1" then proceeds to a list of notational signs. The four
multifarious a culture as the pre-Carolingian Latin-speaking West: to assert echoi and the four plagioi are obviously the eight authentic and plagal modes.
that the modes are probably of Byzantine origin is to answer no questions, for the The mesoi and phthorai listed between them represent intermodal categories,
word 'Byzantine' can have as broad a range of meanings as the word 'Western'. familiar from later sources as 'middle modes' (the mesoi) for chants that cannot
The origin of the modes could be sought in any of the places that were located at be assigned to any of the eight regular modes, and notational signs (the phthorai)
one time or another within the Byzantine orbit - a domain that stretched at times indicating modulation from one mode to another. 124 Lists of this kind, uncom-
from southern Italy through Greece and Asia Minor, south through Palestine to mon in early Byzantine sources,125 emerged in the fourteenth and fifteenth
Egypt, West across north Africa through Libya and Tunisia, briefly even farther centuries as the core of the most common type of Byzantine theoretical treatise,
West to Morocco and Spain. In most of these areas there is a possibility of Greek known as the Papadike.126 The name apparently stems from an honorific term by
interaction with local non-Greek cultures, and in many there were more or less
independent traditions of liturgical chant and worship. A scholar working today 123 Athos, Lavra gamma 67, fo. 159r, reproduced in Oliver Strunk, Specimina Notationum
must be able to distinguish liturgical traditions emanating from the imperial Antiquiorum, MMB 7/1 (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1965), pi. 12.
court, from Constantinople with its 'Great Church' Hagia Sophia, from the 124 The phthorai are in fact relatively unusual in Byzantine music before the fourteenth century. For
discussions of their meaning, see: Dimitri Conomos, ed., The Treatise oj Manuel Chrysaphes, the
Greek-speaking sees of Antioch, Caesarea and Jerusalem. The monastic practices Lampadarios, CSRM 2 (1985), 49-67, 84-93; Gerda Wolfram, 'Fragen der Modulation in der
byzantinischen Musik', International Musicological Society Study Group Cantus Planus: Papers
should not be regarded as an indigenous Armenian understanding of the modes. In fact it is Read at the Fourth Meeting, Pecs, Hungary, 3-8 September 1990 (Budapest: Hungarian Academy
derived from Jean Claire's approach to analyzing Gregorian chant - an approach most fully of Sciences, Institute for Musicology, 1992), 221-9; Wolfram, 'Die Phthorai der palaeobyzanti-
carried out in Jean Jeanneteau, Los modos gregorianos: Historia - Analisis - Estetica, Studia nischen Notationen', Palaeobyzantine Notations: A Reconsideration of the Source Material, ed.
Silensia 11 (Silos: Abadia de Silos, 1985). For Claire's publications, see Peter Jeffery, Re- Jorgen Raasted and Christian Troelsgard (Hernen, Netherlands: A. A. Bredius Foundation,
Envisioning Past Musical Cultures: Ethnomusicology in the Study of Gregorian Chant (Chicago: 1995), 119-29.
University of Chicago Press, 1992), 104 n. 28. 125 For some other early examples, see J0rgen Raasted's remarks toward the end of 'Byzantinisches
123 Kathi Meyer, 'The eight Gregorian modes on the Cluny capitals', The Art Bulletin 34 (1952), 75- in der karolingischen Musik', Diskussionsbeitrdge zum XI. Internationalen Byzantinistenkongress,
94 + one unnumbered page of plates. Tilman Seebass, Musikdarstellung und Psalterillustration im Miinchen 1958, ed. Franz Dolger and Hans-George Beck (Munich: C. H. Beck'sche Verlags-
friiheren Mittelalter: Studien ausgehend von einer Ikonologie der Handschrift Paris, Bibliotheque buchhandlung, 1961), 70—4, especially 74. This discussion was in response to E. Jammers, R.
Nationale fonds latin 1118, 2 vols. (Bern: Francke Verlag, 1973); Jacques Chailley, 'Les huit tons Schlotterer, H. Schmid, E. Waeltner, 'Byzantinisches in der karolingischen Musik', and E.
de la musique et Fethos des modes aux chapiteaux de Cluny', AMI 57 (1985), 73-94; Nicole Wellesz, 'Korreferat zu Jammers-Schlotterer-Schmid-Waeltner', Berichte zum XL Internationalen
Sevestre, 'Quelques documents d'iconographie musicale medievale: I'image et 1'ecole de Fan mil', Byzantinisten-Kongress, Miinchen 1958 5/2 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1958), 1-29, 46-7.
Imago Musicae 4 (1987), 23-34; Elizabeth C. Teviotdale, The filiation of the music illustrations 126 The text survives in varying recensions in a number of manuscripts, and as yet there is no critical
in a Boethius in Milan and in the Piacenza »Codice magno«'. Imago Musicae 5 (1988), 7-22; Neil edition that takes all the sources into account. Even preparatory studies of the manuscript
Stratford, 'A Cluny capital in Hartford (Connecticut)', Gesta 27 (1988), 9-21; Carol S. transmission and recension history have yet to be done. There are, however, transcriptions and
Pendergasl, 'The Cluny capital of the three-headed bird', ibid., 31-8; Charles E. Scillia, "Meaning studies of individual manuscripts, listed in J0rgen Raasted, 'Papadike', GDM, 14: 166-7, and in
and the Cluny capitals: music as metaphor', ibid. 133^181; Peter Diemer, 'What does Prudentia Max Haas. 'Byzantinische und slavische Notationen', Palaeographie der Musik 1: Die Einstim-
Advise? On the Subject of the Cluny Choir Capitals', ibid. 149-73. Annemarie Weyl Carr, mige Musik des Mittelalters, ed. Wulf Arlt (Cologne: Arno Volk Verlag, Hans Gerig, 1973), 2.5-
'Illuminated musical manuscripts in Byzantium: a note on the late twelfth century', Gesta 28 2.6. See also 562-3 of Kenneth Levy, 'Byzantine rite, music of the', in GDM, 1980a. The most
(1989), 41-52. useful text for the novice is probably Giovanni Marzi, ed., 'Byzantina (Un trattato di teoria
which singers or psaltists were addressed (comparable to the Western title 'right navigating the gamut of pitches, using the modal signatures to ascend and
reverend'), since its subject matter was known as 'the psaltic art' (psaltike techne) descend from one mode to another. The ability to do this was clearly essential in
or the 'right-reverendly art' ('papadike techne'),127 and these treatises often occur a culture where no organ or other instrument was used to correct a singer's
at the beginning of musical manuscripts that would be used by such a person.128 intonation. Depending on the manuscript, this information, called 'parallage'
A papadike typically begins with the list of the notational signs or neumes.129 ('interchange', i.e. from one mode to another), can be presented in the form of
Toward the end of many such lists come the phthorai or transposition signs, lists,133 or charts in the shape of trees,134 wheels,135 lattices136 - even didactic
which bring in the first mention of the modes.130 Some manuscripts therefore songs.137 But information about the origins of all this is rarely if ever given.
insert after the phthorai section a brief account of the names and numbers of the b. The Hagiopolites
modes; it is in this section that the modes are identified with the names of the Aside from the tradition that became the Papadike, there is another source of
ancient tonoi, as shown in Table 6.1.'" Following the lists of notational signs that Byzantine music theory: the material (it begs several questions to call it a
are its most significant content, most papadikai move on to present more
complex information about the modes, beginning with a list of modal signatures
Press, 1961), 411-15. It is taken from the Vienna, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS phil.
derived from the Schemata; each signature is followed by an incipit of a chant gr. 194. Other portions of the text of this papadike were published in a Beilage to Wilhelm von
that uses that signature.132 In many papadikai, this is followed by instructions for Christ, 'Ueber die Harmonik des Manuel Bryennius und das System der byzantinischen Musik',
Sitzungsberichte der konigl. buyer. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Miinchen, Jahrgang 1870,
musicale del sec. XV)'. Quadrivium 23 (1982), 5-60 with pi. 2-28, which includes a complete text, _Band 2 (Munich: F. Straub, 1870). 241-66, with the Beilage on 267-70. A list of this sort can also
Italian translation, musical transcriptions and a facsimile of the original manuscript: Vatican be seen in pi. XXVII-XXVIII (the latter miscaptioned) of the St. Petersburg manuscript
City. Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, MS. Barberini gr. 300. An earler edition was published in published in Jean-Baptiste Thibaut, Monuments de la Notation Ekphonetique et Hagiopolite de
Lorenzo Tardo, L'antica melurgia bizantina nelt'interpretazione della Scuola monastica di I'Eglise Grecque (St. Petersburg 1913; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1976) 139, pi. XXIV-
Grottaferrata (Grottaferrata: Scuola Tipografica Italo-Orientale 'S. Nilo', 1938), 151-63. For a XXVIII [cited hereafter as Thibaut, Monuments]. Another such list may be seen in a 'facsimile'
better facsimile see Constantin Floros, Universale Neumenkunde: Die byzantinischen, slavischen (actually a copperplate engraving) of a manuscript published in Martin Gerbert, De Cantu et
und gregorianischen Tonfiguren und Forme In 3: Dokumentation (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1970), pi. 3- Musica Sacra a Prima Ecclesiae Aetate usque ad Praesens Tempus 2 (Sankt Blasien 1774; repr.
12, with other leaves of the same manuscript in pi. 77-80. Graz: Akademische Druck, 1968), Tab. VIII nn. 1-2, the list itself extending from segments
12 Thus in the earliest study of a papadike. Guillaume Andre Villoteau sought the assistance of a VIII-XI. According to pp. 57-8 of the same volume, this manuscript had been at St. Blasien itself
certain Gabriel, first chanter of the Greek Orthodox Church in Cairo. Though he described the until it was destroyed by a fire. Portions of the text of this papadike were published from the
manuscript as an 'ancien Livre manuscrit de Chants Grecs, qui nous fut donne par le President same engraving in Martin Gerbert, Scriptores Ecclesiastici de Musica Sacrum Potissimum 3
du Couvent Grec pres la ville d'Alexandrie', it was in fact relatively recent in origin (seventeenth (Sankt Blasien 1784; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1963), 397-8. On the modal signatures see:
or even eighteenth century), and thus witnessed to the fully developed form of the tradition; the Oliver Strunk, 'Intonations and signatures of the Byzantine Modes', Mg31 (1945). 339-55; repr.
present whereabouts of this MS are unknown to me. See Villoteau, 'De la musique grecque in Strunk, Essays 19-36; Jorgen Raasted, Intonation Formulas.
moderne'. in Description de I'Egypte, ou recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont etefaites 133 Marzi, 'Byzantina', 19-20, 39^0, pi. 15-17. An engraved 'facsimile' of such a list, from a
en Egypte pendant I'expedition de I'armee francaise, public par les ordres de sa majeste I'empereur manuscript then in a private collection in Mainz, was published in Viktor Emil Gardthausen,
Napoleon le Grand: Etat moderne 1 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1809), 784—846. 'Beitrage zur griechischen Palaeographie VI: Zur Notenschrift der griechischen Kirche', Berichte
I 2 S See the listing of manuscripts with their incipits in Tardo, L'antica, 248-56. Other lists of iiber die Verhandlungen der koniglich sdchsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig:
Byzantine theory manuscripts include A. Papadopoulos Kerameus, 'Bvâvrivfj? fKKJcriaiaaTiKrjs Philologisch-Historische Classe 32 (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1880), 81-8 and pi. 1-4; see pi. 4. A
povaiK-fjs eyxei/u'Sia', Byzantinische Zeitschrift 8 (1899), 111-21: Jean-Baptiste Thibaut. 'Les 'photolithography' of another such list can be seen in Fleischer, Neumenstudien, 3. pi. 13 (see also
traites de musique byzantine', Byzantinische Zeitschrift 8 (1899), 478-82. 38 and pi. 18). Oliver Strunk's authoritative interpretation of these two lists formed the basis of
'-' For example, the lost manuscript described in Jelena Milojkovic-Djuric, 'A Papadike from his indispensible article The tonal system of Byzantine music'. MQ 28 (1942), 190-204; reprinted
Skoplje', Studies in Eastern Chant 1, ed. Milos Velimirovic (London: Oxford University Press, in Strunk, Essays, 3-18.
1966), 50-6, apparently included an abridged papadike, from which photographs of the opening 134 Fleischer, Neumenstudien, pi. 15; Tardo, L'Antica, 258; Villoteau, "Musique grecque', 820-1,824—5.
list of Greek notational signs survive, as well as another list with the names of the signs spelled in 135 Thibaut, Monuments, p. 139; Tardo, L'Antica, 259; Costas Demetri loannides, 'The influence of
Slavonic lettering. See also Stefan Lazarov, 'A medieval Slavonic theoretical treatise on music', Antique and Byzantine music on the folk music of Cyprus', Musikethnologische Sammelbdnde 8,
Studies in Eastern Chant 5, ed. Dimitri Conomos (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary ed. Wolfgang Suppan (Graz: Akademische Druck, 1986), 91-8, with a wheel diagram on 97-8;
Press, 1990), 153-86. Villoteau, 'Musique grecque', 820-2.
110 Marzi, 'Byzantina', 12, 31-2, pi. 5. For another example (from Messina. Biblioteca Universitaria 136 Thibaut, Monuments, pi. XXIV (miscaptioned, since folio 2r had already been published on 139);
Cod. Santissimo Salvatore 154) see Oskar Fleischer. Neumenstudien: Abhandlungen fiber Tardo, L'Antica, 260. See also Dimitri E. Conomos, 'Modal signatures in Late Byzantine
mittelalterliche Gesangs-Tonschriften 3: Die spdtgriechische Tonschrift (Berlin: Georg Reimer, liturgical chants', Proceedings of the XIHth International Congress of Byzantine Studies: Oxford,
1904), 20. A facsimile of another part of this manuscript can be seen in Ottavio Tiby, La Musica 5-70 September 1966, ed. J. M. Hussey, D. Obolensky. S. Runciman (London: Oxford
Bizantina: Teoria e Storia (Milan: Fratelli Bocca, 1938), pi. 7 facing 176. University Press, 1967), 521-30.
131 Marzi, 'Byzantina', 12-13, 32, pi. 5; Fleischer, Neumenstudien 3, 37, pi. 8-10; this is from the 137 See Fleischer, Neumenstudien, pi. 16, with an unreliable musical transcription in his transcription
'Codex Chrysander' (subsequently Berlin, Staatsbibliothek. MS 40614), concerning which see section 2-3 (number 3). Other examples, better transcribed and with more up-to-date discussion
Fleischer's p. 36. will be found in: Dimitri E. Conomos, Byzantine Trisagia and Cheroubika of the Fourteenth and
"2 Marzi, 'Byzantina', 16-19, 35-8, pi. 10-14. The best edition of this type of list is published in Fifteenth Centuries (Thessaloniki: Patriarchal Institute for Patristic Studies, 1974), 287-94. See
Egon Wellesz, A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography, 2nd edn rev. (Oxford: Clarendon also Conomos, The treatise, 73-7.
'treatise') known as the Hagiopolites.>3S The name suggests a link of some sort to [mesos], as in 'NLK-TJV €xcav Xpiar€,' and '27e TOV €TTI vSdrwv,' and other
the 'd'yta TTo'Aiy', the Holy City of Jerusalem, but the date and provenance of the things made by Master Kosmas and Master John of Damascus [from
material are extremely difficult to determine. The highly corrupt text, preserved the music]. But those that were [made by] Master Joseph and some
mainly in a fourteenth-century manuscript in miserable physical condition, others, if [you try to sing them with the music, they will not fit, because
copied from a defective exemplar by a scribe who seems not to have understood they were not made upon it. Similarly, the plagal of the fourth mode is
fully what he was writing, stubbornly resists the known techniques of textual mostly sung as the fourth mesos, as] in 'Zravpov xapa&s Mwarjs' and not
a few others. From these it is evident that not only eight modes are
criticism.139 Nevertheless it is an indispensable source of information about
sung, but ten.142
Byzantine modal theory.
The text as we have it begins with an explanation of the title, which may be Without pausing to elaborate on this interesting distinction, the text moves on to
interpreted to mean that the treatise originally stood as a preface to a collection the Schemata. Despite what Aurelian wrote, the Schemata are asserted to have
of hymns about Jerusalem's local saints, hymns authored by two of Jerusalem's meaning - yet the translation offered for the Schema of the first mode, 'O Lord,
most important hymnographers, St. John Damascene and St. Kosmas of forgive', is more of a pious pun than a legitimate etymology.143 The contrite tone
Jerusalem. contrasts markedly with the joyous and typically Western interpretation favored
by Aurelian.
This book is called 'Hagiopolites' because it contains [hymns?] about
some illustrious people of holy and ascetic life in the holy city of The Hagiopolites proceeds to giving the numbers and names of the modes,
Jerusalem, written by Master Kosmas and Master John of Damascus, eventually coming to an obscure passage that seems to recall a time before the
the poets.140 modes were invented.
The treatise turns immediately to a discussion of the eight modes, arguing that There were [melodies,] then, even before the modes came into being, but
there really ought to be ten because the second and fourth plagal modes are they were without mode and harmony, and forced nature towards
actually sung as mesoi. In passing, the author seems to draw a contrast between screaming and violence; this also was forbidden by the sacred canons.144
John and Kosmas, who composed in the modes 'according to the music,' and The words 'forced nature towards screaming' are a near quotation from canon 75
Constantinopolitans like the ninth-century Joseph the hymnographer,141 who of the Trullan or Quinisext Council of 692, and the reference to 'sacred canons'
apparently did not. 'The music' (mousike) in this case means what we would call seems to indicate that the allusion was deliberate.145 The canon itself merely
'music theory'. mandates devout singing rather than unseemly caterwauling, and says nothing
Eight modes [they say] are to be sung in this. But this is false and [to be about the origin of the modes. However the author of the Hagiopolites, who
rejected]. For the plagal of the second mode is mostly sung as the second would have known the dates of the ecumenical councils, reveals much by his
choice of a text of 692 to illustrate the period 'before the modes came into being'.
"s A preliminary edition and English translation have been published by J0rgen Raasted as The In his opinion, apparently, the modes must have come into use after that year -
Hagiopolites: A Byzantine Treatise on Music Theory, CIMAGL 45 (Copenhagen: Erik Paludan, but not very much after, since the early eighth century was the period of Andrew,
1983). My own translations, given below, do not necessarily follow Raasted's, but they are
equally tentative and provisional. A portion of the background is illuminated in Raasted, 'A
John, and Kosmas.
neglected version of the anecdote about Pythagoras's hammer experiment', CIMAGL 31A Some of the remaining text is devoted to synthesizing the church modes with
(1979), 1-9. the music theory of Classical antiquity, and among other things the modes are
139 On the difficulty of reconstructing the exemplar, Paris, Bibliotheque nationale, ancien fonds grec
given the names of the ancient tonoi, though in a different order than either in
360, see J0rgen Raasted, The Hagiopolites, 3-5, and Raasted, 'Quis, quid, ubi, quibus auxiliis . . .:
notes on the transmission of the Hagiopolites'. Scriptorium 42 (1988), 83-92. Parts of the text
also occur in the MS Sinaiticus gr. 1764, described in Mathiesen, Ancient Greek Music Theory, 14: Raasted, Hagiopolites, 10-11. The restoration of the bracketed sections, illegible in the main
779. Some later recensions of the Papadike appear to incorporate material from the Hagiopolites, Paris manuscript, has been done in consultation with the Sinai manuscript, as described in
and thus may simultaneously assist and complicate the task of recovering the text. For examples, Raasted's apparatus loc. cit.
see Tardo, L'Antica, 164-73; Thibaut, Monuments, 57-60; and now especially Gerda Wolfram 143 Raasted, Hagiopolites, 12-13.
and Christian Hannick, Die Erotapokriseis des Pseudo-Johannes Damaskenos zum Kirchengesang, 144 Ibid., 16.
CSRM5(1997). 145 The canons of this synod are recognized as part of the Sixth Ecumenical Council by the
140 Raasted, Hagiopolites, 9-10. Square brackets indicate an illegible word in the manuscript. Orthodox Church but not by Roman Catholics. For the text see Joannes Dominicus Mansi,
141 Tusculum-Lexikon, 419-20; Emereau, 'Hymnographi Byzantini', Echos d'orient 23 (1924), 275- Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et amplissima collectio 11 (Florence and Venice: Antonio Zatta,
85, especially, 280-2; Hans Thurn, 'Joseph der Hymnograph', Biographisch-Bibliographisches 1759-98; repr. Paris: H. Welter, 1901, Graz: Akademische Druck. 1960), 975-6. A recent study is
Kirchenlexikon, 3, 683—7. Eutychios I. Tomadake, '/cocnjc^ d 'Y[j.voypd<f>os: ftios KO.I Ipyov, <, Heinz Ohme, Das Concilium Quinisextum und seine Bischofsliste: Studien zum Konstantinopoli-
11 (Athens: Typographeion Adelphon Myrtide, 1971). taner Konzil von 692, Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 56 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1990).
the Papadike or in the West (see Table 6.1).146 Thus the Hagiopolites, a. The Oktoechos
ambiguous though it is in its extant form, may point in more or less the John Damascene is traditionally credited with authorship of the Oktoechos or
same direction as the Armenian and Syriac evidence, suggesting that the modes 'book of the eight modes'. It consists of complete services for eight Sundays, one
were originally associated with the kanons of John, Kosmas and the other in each mode, in the usual Byzantine order: the four authentic modes first,
eighth-century hymnographers of St. Saba near Jerusalem. Their compositions followed by the four plagal modes. Resurrection themes are common in the texts
were contained in the book the Hagiopolites originally prefaced and these of the hymns, in keeping with their liturgical assignment to Sundays. In actual
compositions conformed to music theory in some way that Constantinopolitan Byzantine usage the Oktoechos is typically combined with the Parakletike, a
hymns did not. These poet-composers were working in the late seventh and book containing the weekday services for eight weeks, once again one in each
early eighth centuries, perhaps beginning around the time of the Trullan council mode. The overriding theme of these texts, however, is intercession ('paraklesis')
of 692, when the author of the Hagiopolites thought the modes did not yet whence the book derives its name. The combined book, Oktoechos and
exist. Parakletike, is also known as the Parakletike or Great Oktoechos.150 Except
when other observances intervene, the services of this eight-week cycle are
2. The chant books performed throughout the Byzantine liturgical year, beginning with the first
It would be very instructive to examine the collection of hymns or chants that mode on Easter, continuing in numerical order during the subsequent weeks, and
the Hagiopolites was written to introduce, but unfortunately this has become beginning the cycle over again after every eighth week.151 The earliest Greek
detached from the theoretical material and is no longer securely identifiable, if manuscripts are of Syrian Melkite provenance,152 including the earliest one of all,
indeed it exists. The most recent editor of the Hagiopolites, Jorgen Raasted, has now split among three codices, which dates from the late eighth or ninth century
speculated that it may once have prefaced an 'oldfashioned [sic] type' of and lacks music notation. 153 Some of the chants can be found in notated Greek
liturgical book of the sort that is also called 'tropologion',147 and he has even 150 The pagination of the Roman (Catholic) edition is frequently cited by Western scholars as a
identified an existing manuscript that would fit the bill.148 The contents and kind of standard: /TapaKKTjTixr) r/roi VKTW^XOS 17 êydA-r] [ed. J. B. Pitra and H. M. Stevenson]
structure of the tropologion weren't well defined in the Middle Ages, however, (Rome: [Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide,] 1885). The core of Sunday texts was also
published separately: 'OKTW-TJXOS TOV tv 'A-yiois Uarpos rj/j-wv 'luidwov TOV AanaaKr/vov (Rome:
and several types of Byzantine liturgical books can claim to be its direct [Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide], 1886). Western translations based on these editions
descendants.149 The three well-known chants actually named in the text of the include: Dimanche: Office selon les hnit tons 'Oxranixos, La priere des eglises de rite byzantin 3,
Hagiopolites, in fact, would most likely be found in different liturgical books of ed. Euthyme Mercenier and Nicolas Egender (Chevetogne, Belgium: Editions de Chevetogne,
1972); Paraclitique ou Grand Octoeque, 2 vols., trans. Denis Guillaume (Rome: College grec de
the modern Byzantine rite, even as they confirm that the chant repertory
Rome, 1977, Rome: Diaconie apostolique, 1979); Es preise alle Schopfung den Herrn: Hymnen
described in the Hagiopolites included pieces familiar to us. The first, 'M/ojv aus dem Wochenlob der byzantinischen Kirche (Oktoichos) aus d. Nachl. von Kilian Kir chaff
e^cuv Xpiare', is a sticheron anastasimon or resurrection stanza, part of a OFM, ed. Johannes Madey (Minister: Verlag Regensberg 1979). The major recent Greek
collection at the core of the liturgical book known as the Oktoechos. The other Orthodox editions are listed in Georgios Mpekatoros, '/7apa«Ar;TixTJ', 0pr/aKevTiKr/ KO.I 'EdiK^
'£y«:0/<Ao7j-cuSeia (Athens: A. Martinos, 1960), 10: 28-38. A translation in progress is: Mother
two are heirmoi, strophes used as models for some of the series of stanzas that Mary, The Octoechos: Saturday and Sunday Offices, Tones 1-8 (Bussy-en-Othe, France:
go to make up hymns of the kanon genre. These are familiar to us from the Orthodox Monastery of the Veil of Our Lady. 1972) and Mother Mary, The Parakletike:
type of book known as the Heirmologion. Both the Oktoechos and the Weekday Offices, (Bussy-en-Othe: Orthodox Monastery of the Veil of Our Lady, 1978- ). Other
Western translations, however, tend to be based on the Slavonic editions: N. Orloff. Octoechos,
Heirmologion are strongly associated with the circle of John of Damascus, or, The Book of Eight Tones: A Primer Containing the Sunday Service in Eight Tones, Translated
and the complicated processes by which these books were formed require from the Slavonian First Edition of 1891 Printed at S' Petersburg and Published by the Most Holy
considerable scholarly effort to unravel. Governing Synod of Russia (London: J. Davy. 1898; repr. New York: AMS Press, 1969); Alexios
Maltzew, Oktoichos oder Parakletike der Orthodox-Katholischen Kirche des Morgenlandes:
I4f ' Raasted, Hagiopolites 13. Deutsch und slawisch unter Beriicksichtigung der griechischen Urtexte, 2 vols. (Berlin: Karl
147 Jorgen Raasted, The Hagiopolites in 15th century Italy: a note on manuscript terminology', Siegismund, 1903^1).
Ballettino della Badia Greca di Grottaferrata n.s. 46 (1992), 189-96, especially 195-6. 151 See the table in Miguel Arranz, ed., Le typicon du monastere du Saint-Sauveur d Messine: Codex
148 Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MS Or. 2008, corresponding to a menaion for the Messinensis Gr 115, AD 1131, OCA 185 (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum.
months of December through February, described in Paul Canart and Vittorio Peri, Sussidi 1969), 306-7. It begins with the plagal fourth mode on the Sunday of All Saints (the eighth
Bibliogrqfici per i manoscritti greet del/a Biblioteca Vaticana, ST 261 (Vatican City: Biblioteca Sunday after Easter), and continues in numerical sequence up to the following pre-Easter period.
Apostolica Vaticana, 1970), 670. See Enrica Follieri, 'Un canone inedito di S. Andrea di Creta 152 Cody, 'Early history', 99, 110. Their contents are listed in Husmann, 'Hymnus und Troparion',
per FAnnunciazione (Vat. gr. 2008 e Crypt. A. a. VII)', Collectanea Vaticana in honorem Anselmi 33-46.
M. Card. Albareda a Bibliotheca Apostolica edita 1, ST 219 (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica 153 Sinai gr. 776, Sinai gr. 1593, London, BL Add. 26113. See Christian Hannick, 'Le Texte de
Vaticana, 1962), 337-57; the fact that this canon includes stanzas for the second ode says much 1'oktoechos', Dimanche: Office selon les huit tons, ed. E. Mercenier et a!., 37-60, especially 43, 48,
about its archaic character. 56-7. Hannick's more extended study, 'Studien zu den Anastasima in den sinaitischen
149 Husmann, 'Hymnus und Troparion', 27-31. Handschriften' (Ph.D. diss., Vienna, 1969), unfortunately remains unpublished. For a facsimile
sticheraria from as early as the eleventh century;154 notated copies of the the two is a series of texts preserved in a ninth-century manuscript now in St.
Oktoechos as such date from the twelfth century.155 The earliest Slavonic Petersburg.158 These are texts that in the West would be called 'commons', proper
manuscript dates from the eleventh century,156 fully decipherable Slavic notation Mass chants and readings intended for particular classes of feasts rather than for
only from the sixteenth and later.157 specific days of the liturgical calendar. The document as we have it (for it has lost
Though the historical formation of the Great Oktoechos has scarcely been its original beginning) contains propers of martyrs, prophets, monks, hierarchs,
investigated, two early documents testify that the practice of ordering by mode apostles, the dedication of a church, and women saints. These are followed by
was particularly associated with Palestine and Jerusalem. Possibly the earlier of eight further sets of proper texts, one in each mode. Themes relating to the
Resurrection, such as the visit of the myrrh-bearing 'three Marys' to the empty
of the London fragment, see Edward Augustus Bond, Edward Maunde Thompson, and George
sepulchre, occur in each mode, just as they do in the Byzantine Great Oktoechos,
Frederic Warner, The Palaeographical Society: Facsimiles of Manuscripts and Inscriptions, 2nd despite the relatively few textual concordances shared between the St. Petersburg
ser., vol. 1, part 1 (London: William Clowes and Sons, 1884), pi. 4, with transcription and manuscript and the familiar Byzantine book. In fact the St. Petersburg texts were
comment on the preceding unnumbered page, giving the date '8th or 9th century'. The contents not intended for use in the Byzantine eucharistic liturgies of St. Basil and St. John
of the manuscript are listed in Husmann, 'Hymnus und Troparion', 33.
Oliver Strunk, The antiphons of the Oktoechos', JAMS 13 (1960), 50-67; repr. in Strunk, Chrysostom, but unmistakably conform to the Mass order of Jerusalem, the so-
Essays, 165-90. For other sources, see the prefaces to the two musical transcriptions of the called Liturgy of St. James.159
Oktoechos repertory: H. J. W. Tillyard, The Hymns of the Octoechus, 2 vols., MMB-T 3, 5 (1940, The other early document is a supplement or appendix found in the main
1949); and Lorenzo Tardo, L'Ottoeco net mss. melurgici: Testo semiografico bizantino con
traduzione sul pentagramma (Grottaferrata: Scuola Tipografica Italo-Orientale «S. Nilo», 1955). manuscript of the Typikon of the Great Church (Hagia Sophia in Constanti-
Husmann, 'Hymnus und Troparion', 32—46; Max Haas, 'Byzantinische und slavische Notatio- nople) which dates from the 950s.160 The supplement provides lists of biblical
nen', 2.72, 2.74, 2.76; Carr, 'Illuminated musical manuscripts in Byzantium'. readings and of the responsorial chants connected with them, that is, of
The earliest Slavic source is a palimpsest in St. Petersburg from the eleventh century, described in
Horace G. Lunt, "On Slavonic palimpsests', American Contributions to the Fourth International
prokeimena (comparable to Western graduals) and alleluias. The content
Congress of Slavists: Moscow, September 1958, Slavistische Drukken en Herdrukken 21 makes clear that this material belongs to the Palestinian monastic liturgy, not
(s'-Gravenhage: Mouton & Co., 1958), 191-209, especially 193-206, with a list of other early to the rite of the city of Constantinople as the Typikon itself does. The appending
Slavic oktoechoi on 195. See also Christian Hannick, 'Die liturgische Handschrift in Altruss- of this Palestinian supplement to the Typikon of Hagia Sophia foreshadows the
land', Rivista di Bizantinistica 2/1 (1992), 35-63, especially 53^1; and Comitato della Santa Sede
per i Santi Cirillo e Metodio, Tre alfabeti per gli slavi: Catalogo della mostra allestita nella monastic-inspired hybridization that would eventually overwhelm the pure
Biblioteca Vaticana per I'undicesimo centenario della morte di San Metodio (Vatican City: Constantinopolitan liturgy, producing the Byzantine rite as we know it.161 The
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1985), 27-8, 33, which also has a description of a thirteenth- supplement begins with the eleven Gospel readings of the Resurrection story that
century Slavic palimpsest (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vatican, MS. Barberini 388) on
131, pictured in the first unnumbered plate in the 'Manoscritti' section, in the back of the book. A were read in the Sunday morning Office in the church of the Holy Sepulchre,
fourteenth-century manuscript is studied in Konrad Weber, Oktoechos-Forschungen 1: Die along with the psalmodic, responsorial prokeimena that precede them. These are
Oktoechos-Handsehrift Cod. slav. 46 der Nationalbibliothek in Wien, Veroffentlichungen des arranged in the order of the eight modes, even though there are ten prokeimena
Slavischen Instituts an der Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat Berlin 18 (Leipzig: 1937; repr.
Nendeln/Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1968), which includes discussion of other sources as
and eleven Gospels; almost the same series still survives in the Byzantine Great
early as the twelfth century. A recently discovered early fourteenth-century Serbian Oktoechos Oktoechos, though it has been regularized to one prokeimenon per mode.162 Next
(Mount Sinai, Slavic MS 9/N) is described in loannis C. Tarnanidis, The Slavonic Manuscripts in the Typikon supplement is a series of prokeimena and alleluias for Mass, once
Discovered in 1975 at St Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai (Thessaloniki: St Catherine's
Monastery, Mount Sinai, and the Hellenic Association for Slavic Studies, 1988), 114-18.
Egon Wellesz, 'Die Struktur des serbischen Oktoechos', Zeitschrift fur Musikwissenschaft 1 I5S St. Petersburg MS 44, previously at Mount Sinai. See Thibaut, Monuments, 17-30. The text is
(1919-20), 140-8; Dimitrije Stefanovic and Milos Velimirovic, 'Peter Lampadarios and Metro- edited on 3*-ll* in the 'Documents' section following 148.
politan Serafim of Bosnia', Studies in Eastern Chant 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), 159 See the discussions in Taft, The Great Entrance, xxxiv. 73-4, 97-8. 100-1, 113, 435, wherein the
67-88; Jiirgen Plahn, Die l¥ortabkur:ungen im Oktoich t> ucebnyj von 1915, Akademie der manuscript is cited as Leningrad Gr. 44.
Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz: Abhandlungen der geistes- und sozialwissenschaftliche 160 Juan Mateos, Le Typicon de la grande eglise: Ms Saint-Croix n" 40, X1' siecle 2: Le cycle des fetes
Klasse, Jahrgang 1973, Nr. 5 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1973); Danica Petrovic, 'One aspect of mobiles, OCA 166 (Rome: Pont. Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1963, repr. 1977), 170-85.
the Slavonic Oktoechos in four Chilandari Musical manuscripts', in: International Musicological On the date of the manuscript see volume 1: Le cycle des douze mois (1962; repr. 1977), XVIII-
Society, Report of the Eleventh Congress: Copenhagen, 1972, ed. Henrik Glahn, S0ren Sorensen, XIX. Because the somewhat earlier Patmos manuscript is defective at the end, we do not know if
and Peter Ryom (Copenhagen: Wilhelm Hansen, 1974), 2: 766-74; Petrovic, 'Byzantine and it also contained the supplement.
Slavonic Oktoechos until the 15th century', MA 4 (1975), 175-90; Petrovic, Osmoglasnik u 161 See the bibliography on the history of the Byzantine rite in Peter Jeffery, 'The earliest Christian
muzickoj tradiciji Juznih Slovena [The Oktoechos in the musical tradition of the southern Slavs; in chant repertory recovered: the Georgian witnesses to Jerusalem chant', JAMS 47 (1994), 1-39,
Serbo-Croatian], Posebna izdanja SANU 16 (Belgrade: Muzikoloski Institut Srpske Akademije especially 36-7.
Nauka i Umetnosti, 1982); Petrovic, 'Osmoglasje i osmoglasnik u vizantijskoj i srpskoj muzickoj 162 See Peter Jeffery, 'The Sunday Office of seventh-century Jerusalem in the Georgian chantbook
tradiciji [The Eight modes and the Oktoechos in Byzantine and Serbian Musical Tradition; in (ladgari): a preliminary report', Studio Liturgica 21 (1991), 52-75, especially Table IV, 75;
Serbo-Croatian]', Zbornik Malice Srpske za scenske umetnosti i muziku \, 11-17. Arranz, Le Typicon, 306-7.
.
again on the theme of the Resurrection. These texts too are arranged in eight
modes, even though there are only seven prokeimena - two for the third mode, Table 6.2 Series of prokeimena and alleluias ordered by mode
while the first and second plagal modes borrow the texts of the first and second Apostolos Messina Hagia Sophia St. Petersburg 44 Georgian
authentic. This list is related to the series of prokeimena that is now found in the
Mode I
Byzantine Apostolos, the book of Epistle readings163 (see Table 6.2). The P 32:22 P 32:22, 1 P 32:22, 1-2 P 73:12-13 + 88:12 P 73:12, 2, 16
remaining chants of the supplement are not arranged by mode. A 17:48, 51 A 17:48^19, 51 A 17:2
As neither of the two series of prokeimena in the Palestinian supplement (i.e., A 65: 1-2 A 23:1
the series connected with the Resurrection Gospels of the morning Office and the A 45:11-12 A 45:11
series for use at Masses) contains exactly eight texts, it is clear that what we are Mode 2
witnessing is a process of collection, with chants of disparate origin being P 117:14, 18 P 117:14, 18 P 27:9, 1-2 P 27:9a, 9b P 79:3, 2
A 19:2 A 19:2, 10 A 19:2 A 124:1 A 67:2
assembled into a framework ordered by the eight modes. Neither series was
A 27:9 A 27:9 A 87:2-3 |
intentionally composed as an oktoechal set that could be compared to the
Mode 3
Byzantine multimodal stichera154 or the Western modal Offices.165 Yet by the P 46:7.2 P 46:7, 2, 8 P 70:9, 1 P 76:14-15, 2
end of the ninth century, some composers evidently did set out to create modally- P 146:5, 1 P 146:5. 1, 7
organized sets of chants connected to the eleven Resurrection Gospels. The A* 30:2, 3 A* 30:2, 3 A- A 5:2 A 20:2
heothina ('morning songs'), composed in modal order by Emperor Leo the A 114:1
Wise (reigned 886-912), along with the exaposteilaria ('dismissal chants') by his Mode 4
son Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos (912-59)166 are now typically found as an P 103:24, 1 P 103:24, 102:1 P 103:24, 1, 33 P 84:5-6, 7 P 27:6, 8
appendix to the Great Oktoechos.167 Modern editions also include, at the end of A 44:5, 8 A 44:5. 8 A 64:2 A 46:3 A 101:14
A 147:1
each of the eight modal sections, a stanza from 'a series of anonymous epigrams' A 100:1 A 100:2
that 'deals with the "ethos"' or emotional characteristics of the eight modes; the
Plagal 1
series has been dated to the twelfth century on the basis of poetic style.168 P 11:8, 2 P 11:8, 2 P 32:22, 1-2 P 117:5-7, 8 P 103:33, 1
A 88:2, 3 A 88:2, 3 A 66:2 A 44:7 A 92:1
"'' On the Apostolos see Christian Hannick, 'Les Lectionnaires grecs de FApostolos avec notation A 68:2-3 A 64:2
ekphonetique', Studies in Eastern Chant 4, ed. Milos Velimirovic (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Plagal 2
Seminary Press, 1979), 76-80. Intermediate between the Typikon of the Great Church and the
P 27:9, 1-2 P 27:9, 1 P 27:9. 1-2 P 93:5-7, 1 P91: 2, 4
modern Apostolos is the list in the twelfth-century monastic Typikon of San Salvatore in
Messina, see Arranz, Le Typicon, 308-9, also shown in Table 6.2. A 74:2 A 82:2-3 A 103:1
164 Oliver Strunk, The tonal system of Byzantine music'. MQ 28 (1942), 190-204, especially 201^;
A 90: 1-2 A 90:1, 2 A 90: 1-2
repr. in Strunk, Essays, 3-18, especially 15-18. Heinrich Husmann. 'Modulation und Transposi- A 88:2 A 67:2
tion in den bi- und tri-modalen Stichera', and 'Die Oktomodalen Stichera und die Entwicklung Plagal 3
des byzantinischen Oktoechos', Archiv fur Musikwissenschaft 27 (1970), 1-22, 304-25. A P 28:11, 1-2 P 28:11, 1 P 28:11. 1-2 P 70:17, 1 P 70: 17-1 8, 1
comparable Western example is the computistical text Januarius in Kalendas unus, set to a A 91:2-3 A* 91:2,94:2 A- A 124:1
melody that proceeds through all eight modes and then again through the four authentic modes,
A 56:3-4 A 56:2
so that as the text moves to each month in the year the melody shifts to a new mode; see Alma
Colk Santosuosso, 'Music in Bede's De Temporum Ratione: an 11th-century addition to MS Plagal 4
London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian B. VI', Scriptorium 43 (1989), 255-9, PI. 20. P 75:12, 2 P 75:12, 2 P 75:12, 2 P 101:20-21, 2 P 30:17-18, 1
165 Andrew Hughes, 'Modal order and disorder in the rhymed Office', Musica Disciplina 37 (1983), P 32:5. 9
29-52. Richard Crocker, 'Matins antiphons at St. Denis', JAMS 39 (1986), 441-90. J0rgen A 100:1-2
Raasted, 'Byzantine Heirmoi and Gregorian antiphons: some observations on structure and A 69:2
style', MA 8 (1988), repr. CIMAGL 59 (1989), 271-96. A 94:1 A 94:1, 91:3 A 94:1 A 94:1 A 94:1
"* Solomon Hadjisolomos, Byzantine Music: The Modal Structure of the 11 Eothina Anastassima
A 91:2
Ascribed to the Emperor Leo (+912): A Musicological Study (Nicosia, Cyprus: The Holy
Monastery of Kykko, 1986); Gerda Wolfram, 'Ein neumiertes Exaposteilarion Anastasimon A 118:132
Konstantins VII', Byzantios: Festschrift fur Herbert Hunger :um 70. Geburtstag, ed. W.
Horandner, J. Koder, O. Kresten, E. Trapp (Vienna: Ernst Becvar, 1984), 333-8.
167 The heothinoi are already included in the twelfth-century table, already cited, that distributes the
eight modes over the weeks of the liturgical year: Arranz, Le Typicon, 306-7.
168 Evanghelos A. Moutsopoulos, 'Modal "ethos" in Byzantine music: ethical tradition and
aesthetical problematic', XVI. Internationale!' By.antinistenkongress: Akten II/7, Jahrbuch fur
P = prokeimenon psalm known about the origin of these heirmoi. Because many of them were used as
A — alleluia psalm
- = There are no alleluias for mode 3 and plagal 3 in the Typikon of Hagia Sophia.
models for more than one kanon or by more than one author, it seems that they
* = The alleluias so marked for mode 3 and plagal 3 are assigned to other modes in the Typikon of were often older anonymous chants that were already circulating in the tradition,
Messina. In the Apostolos, text and modal assignment for the alleluia of mode 3 vary with each though the possibility that a kanon-writer might have composed his own 'models'
repetition of the series.
cannot be ruled out.170 The sequence of eight (originally nine) heirmoi needed to
Sources: perform a single kanon is often called an akolouthia, though this term (which
Apostolos — 'AiTooroXos TJTOL TT€pLKO7Tai 7T pa^€o)v KaL 'E-jricf ' To>v 'Ayiwv 'AirooTohwv (Athens: no publisher, no means 'sequence') also has other meanings in the Byzantine liturgy. The heirmoi
date). of an akolouthia are always in the same mode, but they are not always kept
Messina - Miguel Arranz. ed., Le Typicon du monastere du Saint-Sauveur a Messine: Codex Messinensis gr
115, A. D 1131, OCA 185 (1969) 308-9.
together in the Heirmologion: within each of the eight modes, some manuscripts
Hagia Sophia - Juan Mateos, ed., Le Typicon de la grande eglise: Ms. Saint-Croix n" 40, f siecle 2: Le cycle are arranged by kanon (an arrangement scholars customarily designate KaO),
des fetes mobiles, OCA 166 (1963) 175-7. others are arranged by ode (OdO).
St. Petersburg 44 Jean-Baptiste Thibaut, Monuments de la Notation Ekphonetique et Hagiopolite de I'Eglise The origin and formation of the Heirmologion is an extremely complicated
Grecque (St. Petersburg 1913; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1976) pp. 3*-ll*.
topic, requiring the simultaneous balancing of vast quantities of Greek,
Georgian - Elene Metreveli, Caca Cankievi, and L. Xevsuriani, eds., Ujvelesi ladgari [The Oldest ladgari; in
Georgian], Jveli Kartuli mcerlobis jeglebi 2 (Tbilisi: Mecniereba, 1980) 382-3, 399, 419, 439-40, 458-9, 476, Slavonic, Syriac, Armenian and Georgian evidence.171 Yet it seems clear
492, 510-11. enough that 'the original core comprised Akolouthiai ascribed to John-
Cosmas-Andrew-Germanos', usually in that order.172 What these ascriptions
The historical trajectory from small, modally ordered groupings to the Great may mean is difficult to tell, since these authors may have chosen already
Oktoechos has yet to be traced by historians, yet what is known points existing anonymous chants as their heirmoi. Moreover, the canon of authentic
unmistakably in the same direction as the Syriac evidence: chants for Sundays compositions has not yet been established for any of these men. Particularly in
and commons that tend to be collected in appendices supplementing the older the case of John, there are dozens if not hundreds of attributions that may be
Proper chants, Resurrection themes that point to the liturgy of Jerusalem, false, or confused with lesser-known authors who were also named John. 173
monastic channels of transmission that recall the circle of John of Damascus.
cited in the quote from the Hagiopolites above, Eravpov xapa|a? Mtoarjs, is published in
b. The kanon repertory and the Heirmologion Alongside the Oktoechos is the Eustratiades, 224, akolouthia 322, where it is attributed to Kosmas. In the numbering proposed
Heirmologion, the other Byzantine liturgical book in which the contents are by Raasted it would be 2845. The other heirmos. Ze rov e-n-i vod-ra>v, occurs (with textual variants)
arranged by mode. This is the book devoted to the kanon genre of hymnody, the on 164 in akolouthia 231 (Raasted no. 2040) and on 165 in akolouthia 232 (Raasted no. 2051).
170 On the relationship of ode and kanon see Milos M. Velimirovic, The Byzantine heirmos and
genre identified more closely than any other with the eight modes. Characteristic heirmologion', Gattungen der Musik in Einzeldarstellungen: Gedenkschrift Leo Schrade 1, ed.
of this kanon is the fact that it consists of eight (originally nine) series of stanzas Wulf Arlt et al. (Bern and Munich: Francke, 1973), 192-244. Christian Hannick, 'Das
or troparia. Each series is linked textually and liturgically to a psalmodic ode or Tropenwesen in der byzantinischen und in der altrussischen Kirchenmusik', La tradizione dei
tropi liturgici: Atti dei convegni sui tropi liturgici Parigi (15-19 ottobre 1985) - Perugia (2-5
canticle from the Bible (such as the Magnificat), and based on a pre-existent settembre 1987), organizzati dal Corpus Troporum sotto I'egida dell'European Science Foundation,
model known as the heirmos. Since each stanza of the series is sung to the ed. Claudio Leonardi and Enrico Menesto (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull'Alto
heirmos melody, its text mimics the syllable count, accentuation, line length and Medioevo, 1990), 227-41; Hannick, The performance of the kanon in Thessaloniki in the
other features of the heirmos as much as possible. Kanons occur in almost every 14th century', Studies in Eastern Chant 5, ed. Dimitri Conomos (Crestwood: NY, St. Vladimir's
Seminary Press, 1990), 137-52.
type of Byzantine liturgical book, but since each series of stanzas uses the same 171 Giuseppe Schiro, 'Problemi heirmologici', Proceedings of the Xlllth International Congress of
music as its heirmos, there is no need for a notated collection of kanons, but only Byzantine Studies: Oxford, 5-10 September 1966, ed. J. M. Hussey, D. Obolensky, S. Runciman
for a notated collection of heirmoi; this book is the Heirmologion.169 Little is (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), 255-66; Velimirovic, The Byzantine heirmos and
heirmologion'; Christian Hannick, 'Aux origines de la version slave de rhirmologion', Funda-
mental Problems of Early Slavic Music and Poetry, ed. Christian Hannick, MMB-S 6 (1978), 5-
Osterreichischen Byzantinistik 32/7 (Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wis- 120; Christian Hannick, 'Die liturgische Handschrift in Altrussland', Rivista di Bizantinistica 2/1
senschaften, 1982), 3-6; Evanghelos Moutsopoulos, 'Arts liberaux et philosophie a Byzance', (1992), 35-63, especially 45-7.
Arts liberaux et philosophie au Moyen Age: Actes du quatrieme Congres international de 172 Raasted, 'Observations on the manuscript tradition of Byzantine music II: the contents of some
philosophie medievale, Universite de Montreal, Montreal Canada, 27 aoitt - 2 septembre 1967 early heirmologia', CIMAGL 8 (1972). 35-47, especially 42, quote from 46.
(Montreal: Institut d'Etudes Medievales / Paris: J. Vrin, 1969), 79-88, especially 83-8. 173 Best known and undoubtedly genuine is the Golden or Resurrection kanon for Easter. See
169 Though there is no critical edition, the following is used as a kind of standard text: Sophronios Wellesz, A History, 206-22; Ewald Jammers, 'Der Kanon des Johannes Damascenus fur den
Eustratiades, EippoXoyiov, 'A-yiopeiTiKr/ BiflXio6riK-i) 9 (Chennevieres-sur-Marne: L'Ermitage, Ostersonntag', Polychronion: Festschrift Franz Dolger zum 75. Geburtstag, ed. Peter Wirth,
1932). It is cited according to the numbering proposed in J0rgen Raasted, 'Observations on Corpus der griechischen Urkunden des Mittelalters und der neueren Zeit, Reihe D: Forschungen
the manuscript tradition of Byzantine music 1: a list of Heirmos call-numbers, based on zur griechischen Diplomatik und Geschichte 1 (Heidelberg: Carl Winter - Universitatsverlag,
Eustratiades's Edition of the Heirmologion', CIMAGL 1 (1969), 1-12. Thus one of the heirmoi 1966), 266-86.
Yet the association of the eight modes with the kanon repertory is unshakeable. liturgical books of the Georgian Orthodox Church, which are only now being
The earliest known kanon, a quite primitive text in a papyrus fragment of the edited and published by scholars in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. These
seventh or eighth century, is already assigned to the first mode plagal, and seems books are medieval translations of the early Greek liturgical books of Jerusalem,
related to the familiar heirmos repertory174 - the incipit of an unidentified heirmos is made by Georgian monks in the monasteries around the Holy City, to facilitate
cited for the stanzas of the ninth ode, and the first stanza for the eighth ode seems the celebration of the Jerusalem rite in their homeland. By this means the Church
itself to have circulated as a heirmos in later centuries.175 The earliest extant of Georgia, which is geographically not far from the Holy Land, seems to have
fragment of a heirmologion, only just discovered in a palimpsest at Princeton, adopted wholesale the entire liturgy of the Holy City as it was celebrated about
seems already to have been organized according to the eight modes, and the heirmoi the seventh and eighth centuries. In doing so they fortunately preserved it, for
that have been identified so far are associated predominantly with akolouthiai of hardly any of the original Greek sources survive from such an early period. Only
John and Kosmas. Dated to the second half of the eighth century, the manuscript in these Georgian translations can we glimpse the local Jerusalem liturgy in its
offers good reasons to propose Jerusalem or Palestinian provenance, even though it relatively pure form, before it was reshaped by political and religious forces into
was later at Mt. Sinai.176 The oldest manuscripts of the heirmologion that include conformity with the synthesis that emerged in Constantinople.177 In fact the
music notation date from the tenth and eleventh centuries. Georgian manuscripts of the Heirmologion and Oktoechos bring us closer to
In the present state of knowledge, that is as far as the Byzantine sources can eighth-century Palestine than most of the extant Greek sources do. They permit
take us. Subsequent developments within Greek-speaking Christianity have us to observe very early stages in the formation of these two modally organized
caused the liturgical traditions emanating from Jerusalem to be overwhelmed chant collections, and thus bring us closer than any other sources to the time and
and obscured by more recent traditions from Constantinople and Mount Athos. birthplace of the eight modes.
What occurred was not unlike the waves of Romanizing reform that inundated
the Gallican liturgy in the West, and the results are no easier to disentangle 1. The Georgian Heirmologion
critically today. Without further evidence, we are left with the striking coin- Let us turn first to the Heirmologion, the book of model stanzas for the kknons.
cidence that the Latin, Syriac and Armenian traditions all seem to have adopted The Georgian Heirmologia clearly represent stages of development that are more
the modes in the eighth and ninth centuries from unknown but contemporary primitive than anything known to survive in Greek or Slavonic; the situation is
Greek sources, and the tantalizing Syriac, Armenian and especially Greek summarized in Table 6.3. Six stages can be detected altogether. Though all the
indications that the modes were originally associated with the kanons composed manuscripts date from the tenth century, the one representing stage five is
by the eighth-century Palestinian monastic hymnodists of St. Sabas near evidently an autograph of the major tenth-century figure Mikael Modrekili,
Jerusalem. Fortunately, there is further evidence that allows us to proceed. who worked on it from the year 978 to 988. Thus the previous four types may
represent late copies of much earlier stages of development, taking us perhaps
E. The Georgian evidence into the ninth century.
The first three manuscripts represent as many stages of an early prose
A substantial body of new evidence has come to light in the last two decades, translation of the heirmoi, with texts that could not easily be fitted to the
which promises to bring us closer than ever before to the time and place where Greek melodies. Within each mode, the heirmoi of each kanon are kept together
the eight modes began to be used. This evidence comes to us in the earliest
177 See the following publications by Peter Jeffery: The earliest Christian chant repertory recovered:
174 Manchester, John Rylands Library, papyrus 466, described in Colin Henderson Roberts, Cata- the Georgian witnesses to Jerusalem chant', JAMS 47 (1994), 1-39; 'Rome and Jerusalem: from
logue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John Rylands Library, Manchester 3: Theological and oral tradition to written repertory in two ancient liturgical centers', Essays on Medieval Music in
Literary Texts (Nos. 457-551) (Manchester: University Press, 1938), 28-35 and pi. 1, see Honor of David Hughes, ed. Graeme M. Boone, Isham Library Papers 4 (Cambridge, Mass.:
especially the comments of Carsten H0eg in the addenda on p. xvii. A little more bibliography, Harvard University Department of Music, 1995), 207^-7; 'The lost chant tradition of early
but no real progress toward solving the fragment's many remaining difficulties, is added in Christian Jerusalem: some possible melodic survivals in the Byzantine and Latin chant
Richard Seider, Paldographie der griechischen Papyri 2 (Stuttgart: Anton Heirsemann, 1970), 177- repertories', Early Music History 11 (1992). 151-90; 'The Sunday Office of seventh-century
8 and pi. XL; this volume also includes some other examples of early Greek hymnody on papyrus. Jerusalem in the Georgian chantbook (ladgari): a preliminary report', Studio Liturgica 21 (1991),
175 Thus this stanza was published in Eustratiades, Eipp,oXoyiov, 155, akolouthia 218 (Raasted no. 52-75. On the uses of translations in early medieval Palestine, see Bernard Flusin, 'De 1'arabe au
1939). grec, puis au georgien: une vie de Saint Jean Damascene', and Michel van Esbroeck, 'Incidence
176 Jorgen Raasted, 'The Princeton heirmologion palimpsest', CIMAGL 62 (1992), 219-32, figs. 1-2. des versions arabes chretiennes pour la restitution des textes perdus', Traduction et traducteurs au
Prof. Raasted examined the manuscript and made the identification while he was visiting moyen age: Actes du colloque international du CNRS organise a Paris, Institut de recherche et
Princeton to attend the conference honoring Kenneth Levy. Since Raasted wrote, the palimpsest d'histoire des textes les 26-28 mai 1986, ed. Genevieve Contamine, Documents, etudes et
pages have been properly photographed using advanced techniques of ultraviolet photography, repertoires (Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1989), 51-61,
and research on this material is continuing. 133-43.
With stages IV, V, VI, the repertory has become much larger, growing from
Table 6.3 The Georgian Heirmologia 403 heirmoi in Stage IV to 872 in stage VI. By contrast, Greek sources contain
The early prose translation, Kanon Order (KaO), 2nd ode omitted two to three thousand. 178 But the Georgian manuscripts are actually even more
inclusive than these numbers indicate, for with each heirmos they also include the
Stage I: heirmoi for a kanon in mode 1, incipits of heirmoi for Ode 1 in the other modes corresponding theotokion, the stanza in honor of Mary that closes each series of
(all from kanons attributed to John or Kosmas in Eustratiades)
MS: Mt. Sinai Georgian MS 26 (written 954), ff. 222v-224v, 25r strophes in the kanon. This feature, seemingly unique to the Georgian tradition,
Edition: Elena Metreveli, ed., Jlispirni Gmrtismsoblisani ori jveli redakcia X-XI ss. serves to warn us that the Georgian Heirmologia may not be mere translations of
xelnacerebis mixedvit [Heirmoi and Theotokia: Two Ancient Redactions after MSS of the Greek sources, but the products of a collection process that was at least to some
X-XI Centuries] (Tbilisi: Mecniereba 1971) 205-8. degree independent. The heirmoi in these larger Georgian Heirmologia are
Stage II: libellus of heirmoi from eight Easter kanons, one kanon per mode (all attributed arranged in order of the odes, so that kanons are no longer kept together. This
to John or Kosmas in Eustratiades) is the more common arrangement in the Slavonic MSS (OdO), even though it
MS: Mt. Sinai Georgian MS 34 (mid-tenth century), ff. 57r-60v does not emerge in either Greek or Slavonic sources before the twelfth century.
Edition: Metreveli, Jlispirni 2-33 (siglum M) This is another indication of the independence of the Georgian Heirmologia,
Stage III: (incomplete?) collection of heirmoi for modes 4, 1 plagal, 4 plagal: 2 heirmoi per although the same kind of collection process may also have governed the
ode (two heirmoi from kanons attributed to Germanos in Eustratiades [146, 323]) compilation of the Greek and Slavonic forms of this book.
MS: Mt. Sinai Georgian MS 20 (written in 987), ff. lr-9r In stages IV, V, and VI it is also clear that the heirmoi were now intended to be
Edition: Metreveli, Jlispirni 209-14.
sung to the same melodies as the Greek originals: they appear in a new
The later 'singable' translation, Ode Order (OdO) with (more-or-less) correct syllable translation that attempts to match the syllable count and poetic structure of
counts, transliterated Greek incipits, and usually neumes the Greek texts, and they are supplied with punctuation indicating the ends of
Stage IV: Heirmologion containing 403 heirmoi
poetic lines. In stages IV and V the incipits of the Greek texts are also given in
MSS: 6 MSS (mid-X to XI centuries) Georgian transliteration, evidently serving to name the original Greek melodies.
Edition: Metreveli, Jlispirni, 33-204 Most fascinating of all, most manuscripts of these three later stages are suppliefl
Stage V: expansion of type IV by Michael Modrekili (X cent.)
with neumes. Though we do not know how to read the Georgian neumes, it
MS: Tbilisi, Institute of Manuscripts MS S-425 (written 978-988), siglum B appears that they transmit a melodic tradition related to the Byzantine and
Edition: Vaza A. Gvaxaria, Roland Gurculaje; Salva Amiranasvili, eds., Mikael Modrekilis Syriac melodies.179 All three traditions, then, Greek, Syriac and Georgian, seem
Himnebi: X Saukune [Hymns of Mikael Modrekili: Tenth Century], 3 vols. (Tbilisi: Sabcota to be descended from a common ancestor: the original melodic tradition of
Sakartvelo, 1978). Jerusalem or of the Palestine monasteries surrounding it.
Stage VI: Heirmologion containing 872 heirmoi (end X cent.) Though stages I, II and III in the formation of the Georgian Heirmologion
MS: Tbilisi, Institute of Manuscripts, MS A-603, siglum C focus on the works of John and Kosmas, they hardly prove that these hymnodists
Facsimile edition: G. I. Kiknaje, ed., Nevmirebuli Jlispirni (xelnaceri A-603) [Neumated set out to compose modally-organized collections. The fact that these early
Heirmoi (Manuscript A-603)], Jveli Kartuli mcerlobis jeglebi 3 (Tbilisi: Mecniereba, 1982). sources include only one or a few heirmoi per mode actually suggests the
opposite, that the idea of assembling heirmoi by mode emerged only after their
in order, representing the more common arrangement in the Greek manuscripts work was largely done and had achieved a certain classic status. The fact that the
(KaO). Already the second of the nine odes, omitted in Byzantine practice, has Georgian Heirmologia differ in so many respects from extant Greek and Slavonic
dropped out of the Georgian sources also. The manuscript representing stage 1 Heirmologia further emphasizes that the collection process was carried out
gives a complete set of incipits for one kanon in the first mode, but only for the independently in each linguistic milieu, well after the repertory itself had already
heirmoi of ode 1 in the other modes. The manuscript representing stage II, on the been created and translated. This makes it seem unlikely that John Damascene
other hand, gives one complete series of heirmoi for every mode. All the heirmoi and his fellow hymnographers intended or foresaw that the model stanzas on
are from kanons attributed to John or Kosmas in Eustratiades' edition of the which they based their kanons would be amassed into large-scale, modally
Greek heirmologion. Stage III, though in its extant form it includes only three organized anthologies. But the problem of when modal ordering originated
modes, represents two advances over the two previous stages: there are two
178 Eustratiades, EipôXoyiov, contains 369 akolouthiai with a total of 3300 heirmoi. See also the
heirmoi per ode instead of only one, and the works of poets other than John and statistics in Velimirovic, The Byzantine heirmos', 216. The numbers I cited in 'The earliest
Kosmas are beginning to be included, for two of the heirmoi are from kanons Christian chant repertory', 25, are erroneous, based on a misreading of Velimirovic.
attributed by Eustratiades to Germanos of Constantinople. I7l) Jeffery, 'The earliest Christian chant repertory recovered', 23-33.
grows more interesting when we turn to the Georgian Oktoechos, which appears
to represent a much earlier state of affairs than the Heirmologion (Table 6.4). Table 6.4 The Georgian Oktoechos
Stage I: Small collection of chant incipits organized by mode, appendix to tropologion
MS A: Tbilisi, Institute of Manuscripts H 2123, ff. 307v-313v
2. The Georgian Oktoechos Editions: A. Sanije, A. Martirosov, A. Jisiasvili, eds., Cil-etratis ladgari [The Papyrus-
Though all the early manuscripts of the Georgian Oktoechos date from the tenth Parchment Tropologion], Jveli kartuli enis jeglebi 15 (Tbilisi: Mecniereba 1977). El.
century paleographically, they differ greatly in extent and content, representing Metreveli, C. Cankievi, L. Xevsuriani, eds., Ujvelesi ladgari [The Oldest Tropologion]
different historical stages in the formation of this collection of chant. The (Tbilisi: Mecniereba, 1980) 529^10.
manuscript evidence shows that the Georgian Okt5echos originated as a kind Stage II: expanded collection, chants given in full, still an appendix to the tropologion
of appendix or supplement to the tropologion or 'antiphoner', known in MS B: Mt. Sinai Georgian MS 18, ff. 177v-230v and 78r-v
Georgian as 'ladgari', containing the proper chants of the feasts of the year. Edition: Metreveli et al., Ujvelesi 367-512.
The Oktoechos appendix was needed to supply chants for Sundays throughout Stage III: separate repertory, occurs near beginning of MS before tropologion
the year, for the tropologion contains only a few important Sundays, such as MS C: Mt. Sinai Georgian MS 40, ff. lr-47v
those of Lent and Easter. Most of the tropologion is devoted to the proper chants MS D: Mt. Sinai Georgian MS 41,ff. lr-123v
of the fixed and movable feasts, arranged in the order in which they occur MS E: Mt. Sinai Georgian MS 34,ff. 4r-5v, 20r-22r, 23v, 123v-131v,
Edition: Metreveli et al., Ujvelesi 367-512.
throughout the year, beginning with the Christmas season. There is reason to
I
believe that many of the texts of these more important liturgical days were Stage IV: transmitted with a later recension of the tropologion, includes no heirmoi
already fixed by the seventh century, thus before the emergence of the eight MS F: Mt. Sinai Georgian MS 26, ff. 287v-305v
MS G: Mt. Sinai Georgian MS 20, ff. 95r-130v
modes. The chant texts of the Oktoechos appendix, therefore, may have arisen
Edition: Metreveli et al., Ujvelesi 367-512.
more recently, about the eighth century. In keeping with their assignment to
Sundays, their texts tend to emphasize generic Resurrection themes.180
manuscripts F and G, which are evidently bound with a later recension of the
The Oktoechos section in manuscript A (Table 6.4), the earliest source of the
tropologion, the heirmoi of the kanons are no longer included. Perhaps this is
ladgari, is a very primitive collection, with a small repertory of chants cited
because substantial Heirmologia with singable translations and neumes had
mostly by incipit; it therefore belongs to the earliest stage of development, Stage
become available (i.e., in the Heirmologia of stages IV to VI), so that there
I. Unfortunately it survives only up to the beginning of the third mode, and has
was no longer any point in including the old prose translations of the heirmoi in
lost the leaves after that. Manuscript B, on the other hand, preserves a much
the Oktoechos. If so, Stage IV of the Oktoechos may coincide with Stage IV of'
more expanded repertory than A, and the texts are given in full, representing a
the Heirmologion, and date from about the the mid tenth century.
more recent stage of development, Stage II. In manuscripts C, D, and E,
The earlier stages in the formation of the Georgian Oktoechos cannot be dated
however, the repertory is no longer an appendix to the tropologion, but has
absolutely, but it is instructive to compare them with the known history of the
been separated from it and placed at the front of each of these codices, Stage III.
other Georgian liturgical books. The liturgical calendar of the tropologion points
The heirmoi in these manuscripts of the Georgian Oktoechos appear to be prose
to an origin in the sixth or seventh century; as a collection it witnesses to a state
translations comparable to those of the first three stages of the Heirmologion.
of affairs significantly more primitive than the Georgian lectionary, which has
But it is not easy to confirm that the heirmoi in the Oktoechos are textually the
been dated by its calendar and stational churches to the eighth century.182 Thus if
same as those in the early Heirmologia, because the small size of these early
we choose the most conservative dating for the tropologion - the seventh century
Heirmologia means that there are very few concordances that can be compared
- we may suppose that the Oktoechos, which began as a supplement to it, belongs
directly with the Georgian Oktoechos.181 However in Stage IV of the Oktoechos,
perhaps to the eighth century.
180 The content and structure of the Georgian Oktoechos is discussed in Jeffery. The Sunday Office A similar date is suggested by comparison of the Georgian Oktoechos with the
of seventh-century Jerusalem'; my remarks on 56-60 concerning the seventh-century date of the Georgian Heirmologion, Stage 1 of which we proposed to put in the ninth
material should perhaps be refined to acknowledge that the ladgari proper probably antedates
the Oktoechos that serves as an appendix to it. century. The kanon hymns in the Georgian Oktoechos are clearly more primitive
181 A rare example is the heirmos printed in Elene Metreveli, Caca Cankievi, and L. Xevsuriani, eds., than even Stage 1 of the Heirmologion, for they still preserve the original number
Ujvelesi ladgari [The Oldest ladgari; in Georgian], Jveli Kartuli mcerlobis jeglebi 2 (Tbilisi:
Mecniereba, 1980), 539, line 2 (MS A), 500, line 33 (the other Oktoechos MSS) and elsewhere (see
the index of heirmoi, 646), which is also in Elene Metreveli, ed.. Jlispirni da Gmrtismsoblisani ori ode in Eustratiades, Eipfj.o\6yiov, akolouthia 325, p. 227 (Raasted number 2884) where it is
jveli redakcia X-XI ss. xelnacerebis mixedvit [Heirmoi and Theotokia: Two Ancient Redactions attributed to John the Monk.
after MSS of the X-XI Centuries] (Tbilisi: Mecniereba 1971), 371. It is the heirmos for the sixth s: See Jeffery, The Sunday Office of seventh-century Jerusalem'.
of nine series of stanzas. All the Georgian Heirmologia agree with all the Greek authentic works has not been established for any of these hymnographers. In any
sources in omitting the second series of the nine, for a total of eight. The survival case, the earlier the Georgian Oktoechos is dated, the easier it is to live with such
of such an archaism in the Georgian Otkoechos is a fact of extraordinary emphasis on Germanos in a book of Palestinian rather than Constantinopolitan
historical interest, and it suggests a date well before the earliest Heirmologia, a origin, and this discourages any dating later than the eighth century.
date no later than the ninth century but perhaps as early as the eighth, roughly The stichera and the other chants of the Georgian Oktoechos, i.e., the chants
contemporary with the earliest Latin and Syriac evidence for the eight modes. that are not kanons but belong to other genres, present a more or less consistent
There is another reason for dating the Oktoechos earlier than the Heirmo- picture with the heirmoi. So far the editors of the Georgian chantbooks have
logion. Whereas the earliest Georgian Heirmologia focus on the works John and identified Greek counterparts for about five percent of the total Georgian
Kosmas, with the heirmoi of other hymnographers coming in only at later stages, repertory of Oktoechos and tropologion - about 130 texts other than heirmoi
the situation in the Georgian Oktoechos is very different. Of those Georgian that have Greek concordances in the Roman edition of the Byzantine liturgical
heirmoi with known Greek counterparts, the largest number are ascribed to books. Given the size and complexity of the repertories it is probable that other
Germanos of Constantinople, with smaller numbers going to John and Andrew, concordances will turn up when a broader range of Byzantine manuscripts and
in an approximate ratio of 3:2:1, with no heirmoi assignable to Kosmas. The printed editions has been consulted. A handful of Syriac concordances have also
early, fragmentary Oktoechos of Stage I, manuscript A, contains only six texts been identified, though the work of finding Latin and Armenian concordances
that can be identified with known Greek heirmoi: three of these were used by largely remains before us.184 Sifting the repertories and tracking down every last
Germanos of Constantinople according to Eustratiades' edition, two by John, concordance will of course take many years, but the more difficult work of
and one was used by both Andrew and John.183 In the later manuscripts the reconstructing the textual and melodic history of each concordant text will take
proportions are similar, with 27 heirmoi for Germanos, 20 for John, 8 for even longer. Each individual troparion text has a complicated history that
Andrew and none for Kosmas, out of a total of 60 heirmoi with known Greek reaches deep into complex traditions of literary imagery, theological termino-
counterparts. The identifiable heirmoi in the Georgian tropologion itself also logy, biblical exegesis and liturgical language, and all of these must be sorted out
show a preference for Germanos over John, Kosmas and Andrew. These before the development of that one text and its many variant versions can be
unexpected data may mean that the Oktoechos was compiled in a somewhat retraced.185
different milieu from the Heirmologion, where the reputations of the various Even the Greek concordances that have been identified tend to have liturgical
hymnographers were somewhat different. For example, it is likely that the assignments that diverge from those of their counterparts in the Georgian books,
Oktoechos reflects the urban usage of the city of Jerusalem, as the tropologion showing how different the medieval Byzantine rite is from the original rite of
to which it is attached certainly does. The Heirmologion, on the other hand, may Jerusalem. For instance, twenty-five of the known Greek concordances occur in
be closer to monastic traditions that might have valued the monastic hymno- the Roman edition of the Parakletike, but only nine of these texts are found in the
graphers over the bishop Germanos. Or the preference for Germanos may be a Georgian Oktoechos; the others are in the Georgian tropologion. The nine texts
clue that these early hymnographers were not all active at quite the same time, as that occur in both the Byzantine and the Georgian Okt5echos are listed in Table
if one book (more plausibly the Oktoechos) were to reflect an earlier state of 6.5. As one of these nine is actually a mistake (the last one, marked with an
affairs than the other. Though Germanos, John, Andrew and Kosmas were at asterisk), we are left with only eight stichera in the Georgian Oktoechos that have
least rough contemporaries, a tradition weighted in favor of Germanos is easier known concordances in the Greek Great Oktoechos. But when we turn from the
to imagine at a relatively early date, before his reputation was eclipsed by that of Roman edition of the liturgical books to the available musicological editions, the
John and Kosmas. An early weighting in favor of Germanos could be a clue that number shrinks yet again, for only five of these were found in Tillyard's sources,
he belonged to a somewhat earlier generation, active at a time when the works of and only seven in Tardo's.
the Palestinian hymnographers were still finding their audience. Or it may be that Six of the Greek concordances are among the stichera anastasima, which are
Germanos was simply more productive; we cannot tell since the canon of believed to belong to the earliest layer of the Oktoechos repertory, and which are
183 The three linked to Germanus are: (1) Metreveli et a!., Ujvelesi ladgari, 530, line 8 (also 371, line 1X4 See Jeffery, The earliest Christian chant repertory', 24-5.
25) = Eustratiades. £WoAoyioy, akolouthia 21, p. 16, Raasted 192; (2) ladgari 531, 2 (also 372, 183 For an example, see Daniel Sheerin, The Theotokion '0 T^V fuAoyijêV^: its background in
21) = Eustratiades akolouthia 24. p. 18, Raasted 223; (3) ladgari 531, 24 (also 373, 37), not in patristic exegesis of Luke 15:8-10 and Western parallels', Vigiliae Christianae 43 (1989), 166-87;
Eustratiades, but see the index to ladgari, p. 644. The two used by John are: (1) ladgari 533, 4 it discusses a chant of the second plagal mode preserved in the Byzantine Great Oktoechos. More
(also 376, 2) = Eustratiades akolouthia 22, p. 17, Raasted 208; (2) ladgari 539, 2 (see also generally: Alejandro Olivar, 'Notas para el estudio de la interpendencia de textos liturgicos y
footnote 181, above) = Eustratiades, akolouthia 325, p. 227, Raasted 2884; ladgari 532, 26 (also patristicos', Ecclesia Orans 2 (1985), 127-37; Henry Ashworth, The relationship between
375, 4) is ascribed to Andrew in Eustratiades, akolouthia 17, p. 13, Raasted 158; to John in liturgical formularies and patristic texts', Studia Patristica 8, pt 2, Texte und Untersuchungen
Eustratiades, akolouthia 28, p. 21, Raasted 258. zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur 93 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1966), 149-55.
stichera for the Vespers Psalm 140 (Hebrew/English Psalm 141) in the respective
Table 6.5 Stichera concordances in the Greek and Georgian Oktoechos mode. However this is mode 4 (G authentic) in the Georgian sources, mode 4
repertories plagal (G plagal) in the Greek sources. On the other hand the third anastasimon
Anastasima
in our list has the same modal classification in both Georgian and Greek, third
Greek incipit Georgian
mode plagal (F plagal). The familiar Greek designation 'low mode' is not used in
Greek Tillyard Tardo
'EpTTtpLVOV V[1.VOV 420,3 mode 4 616.28 plagal 4 5:101 107 the early Georgian sources. Yet the liturgical assignments of this chant vary:
Kvp€, Kvpie 420,6 mode 4 616,31 plagal 4 5:102 107-8 what in the Greek manuscripts is a sticheron for the Lauds Psalms 148-50 of the
Ti dvTaTTo8a)ao[j.ev 493,2 plagal 3 549,35 plagal 3 218-19 morning Office, stands in the Georgian Oktoechos as a proper chant for the
ri j4ya(7Ta<7t? fjov 460,12plagal2 101, 19 mode 2 Mass, sung while the celebrant washes his hands during the eucharistic liturgy,
XpLGTOS 6 ZtajTrjp 476,32 plagal 2 100,26 mode 2 5:90 20-1 before the Offertory.
'0 oravpos oov 463,21 plagal 2 466,25 plagal 2 209
The fourth and fifth anastasima in our list are assigned to the second plagal
Anatolica mode (E plagal) in the Georgian Oktoechos, but to the second mode (E
Greek incipit Georgian Greek Tillyard Tardo authentic) in the Byzantine, again suggesting some kind of musical relationship
Ev<f>pdv6iiTe 367,16 mode 1 2,37 mode 1 3:3 xxxiii-xxxiv, 7-8 short of complete identity. The fourth anastasimon has the same liturgical
'Ev Td<t>v 478,16 plagal 3 535,9 plagal 3 3:85 100-1
function in both traditions, as a sticheron to Psalm 140. The fifth also has this
Tov aravpov aov 463,17 plagal 2 *[ 186,20 mode 3 3:26 34-5]
function in Greek, but it is a handwashing chant in Georgian. In contrast, the
The Greek text cited here is not the closest concordance to the Georgian text.
sixth troparion was assigned to the plagal E mode in both traditions. Though it is
Georgian: El. Metreveli, C. Cankievi, L. Xevsuriani, eds., Ujvelesi ladgari [The Oldest ladgari] (Tbilisi: a sticheron for the Lauds psalms in Greek, in Georgian it is a chant for the
Mecniereba, 1980), cited by page and line.
procession to Golgotha, the site of the Crucifixion, after Vespers, roughly
Greek: napanXr/TiKTj (Rome: [Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide], 1885). cited by page and line.
corresponding to the Byzantine lite ceremony.
Tillyard, H. 1. W., ed., The Hymns of the Octoechus, MMB-T 3 and 5 (1940, 1949), cited by volume and
page. Of the three anatolika in the Georgian Oktoechos for which the Georgian
Tardo, Lorenzo, L'Ottoeco nei mss. melurgici: Testo semiografico bizantino con tmdu:ione sulpentagramma, editors have identified Greek concordances, the first two share the same liturgical
function: in both the Georgian and Greek sources, they are stichera to the Vespers
traditionally attributed to St. John of Damascus himself,186 though there are no Psalm 140 (^Hebrew/English Psalm 141), one in the authentic D mode, the other in
attributions at all in the Georgian sources. Three, or rather two, belong to the plagal F. The third one seems to differ both in mode (E plagal in Georgian vs. F
stichera anatolica, another early group whose mysterious name (avaroX-fj means authentic in Greek) and in liturgical assignment, for what in Greek is a sticheron to
'east') may indicate an origin east of the Byzantine empire, perhaps in the Syriac Psalm 140 is in Georgian a chant for the procession to Golgotha. In this case,
world, though 'Anatole' has also been taken by some as the name of the author. however, the Greek concordance has been misidentifed, for the Georgian and
The differences in modal assignment between the Georgian and Greek sources Byzantine texts are only vaguely similar. In fact the correct Greek concordance
are particularly interesting. In all eight cases the Georgian and Greek chants are would be the famous troparion Tov oravpov aov, which is sung in the Byzantine rite
assigned the same modal number, but four of them (half) are plagal in one on the feast of the Holy Cross (September 14) and thus has found its home in the
tradition and not in the other. This suggests that the Greek and Georgian liturgical book for fixed feasts (the Menaion) rather than in the Great Oktoechos.
melodies shared the same maneria or modal tonic, but were different enough in There are also concordances in Latin and other languages, and though the
range or other features that they were not necessarily classified in the same mode. interrelationships among the multiple melodic traditions are complex, most of
As we do not know the basis for modal classification in the early Georgian the extant melodies are not inconsistent with the Georgian modal assignment, E
sources, the most we can say is that there probably was some musical relationship plagal.187 In this case it would be especially plausible that the lost Jerusalem melody
between the tradition of Jerusalem and the Byzantine chant tradition as we know was somehow related to melodies we know, or even their ultimate source, for this
it, but that they were by no means identical. was the Church that was believed to be in possession of both the True Cross and the
The liturgical assignments of the Greek and Georgian texts seem less consistent actual site of the Crucifixion, and whose prominent use of both in its liturgy was
than their modal assignments. The first two of the anastasima occur in the same widely imitated throughout much of Christendom.
liturgical position in many Greek and in some Georgian sources, as the first two The fact that the few concordances between the Georgian and Greek
186 H. J. W. Tillyard, 'The stichera anastasima in Byzantine hymnody', Byzantinische Zeitschrift 31 Rosemary Dubowchik, 'A chant for the Feast of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, Byzantium, and
(1931), 13-20. medieval Europe' (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1993).
Oktoechos repertories belong to the anastasima and the anatolika supports the set of services for the first mode, followed by one for the second mode, and so on.
traditional view that these two groups are among the earliest material in the The earliest manuscripts of the Greek Oktoechos, on the other hand, are organized
Byzantine Oktoechos. But because there are so few concordances in either group, in ways that tend to put higher value on the genre of chant, with the modal
and so little agreement on their liturgical functions, it seems unlikely that each classification secondary. Thus a reader will often find separate sections for stichera,
series was composed as a unit by one individual, whether John of Damascus or kathismata, various types of kanons and sometimes other genres, each independ-
anyone else. Perhaps each of these groups is really a collection of texts of ently subdivided into the eight modes, often with each mode further subdivided by
disparate origin. At least some of the individual chants are known to have subgenre.192 Perhaps these two ways of organizing similar but rarely identical texts
circulated independently, and at least one anastasimon traveled all the way to the were carried on more or less concurrently but in different situations: in the
Latin West, where it was known as Dicant nunc iudaei.<ss Usually used as a Palestinian Greek monasteries on the one hand, leading to the Byzantine Great
processional chant, the text circulated with two Western melodies: one (possibly OktSechos, and in the urban rite of Jerusalem itself on the other hand, preserved
'Gallican') that occurs in north Italian and southern French sources, the other in only in the Georgian translations. In any case the two resulting collections had
Gregorian manuscripts where the text serves as a verse to the refrain Christus similar liturgical purposes but relatively few actual texts in common; what they
resurgens.189 The latter melody has also been expanded upon with some well- really shared was the use of the eight modes as an organizing principle.
known polyphonic190 and troped settings. 191
In imagining the processes that created the Georgian and Greek Oktoechos 3. Conclusion
books, then, it is better, as with the heirmologia, to think of parallel processes going What the Georgian sources really offer us, then, is a glimpse of the processes by
on simultaneously in distinct but adjacent milieux - developmental trajectories which early liturgical chantbooks were compiled, in an environment that was
that were in contact, but are not to be mapped on the same line of genealogical very close to the one in which the modes first emerged. The Georgian
descent. The earliest sources, in fact, exhibit significant differences in the criteria heirmologion and Oktoechos confirm what the Greek and Slavonic, Syriac,
used for ordering the texts. In the Georgian manuscripts, within each mode, the Armenian, and even Latin sources have already suggested: that the first modally
texts are arranged in the order they would actually be used in a liturgical organized collections of chant texts emerged during the eighth and ninth
celebration, in much the same way as the texts in the modern printed editions of centuries, that this type of organization was especially associated with the
the Byzantine Great Oktoechos. Thus a reader of these sources will find a complete kanon genre and the works of the Palestinian hymnographers around John
Damascene, and that in the East it was first used with texts destined for the less
188 The Greek original, Elmirwaav, 'lovSaioi, is a sticheron for the Lauds psalms 148-50 in the second
mode: UapaK\riKri (Rome, 1885), 114; Dimanche: Office selon les hull tons, ed. Mercenier and
important periods of liturgical time: the Commons of Saints and the Sundays
Egender, 262. For a melody, see Tardo, L'Ottoeco, 174-5. throughout the year that were assembled only after the Proper texts for the major
189 Jacques Handschin, 'Sur quelques tropaires grecs traduits en latin', Annales musicologiques, 1 feast days had already been stabilized, at least at Jerusalem.
(1954), 27-60, especially 47-8. Michel Huglo, 'Relations musicales entre Byzance et 1'Occident', Even though the Georgian texts were undoubtedly translated from the Greek,
Proceedings of the Xlllth International Congress of Byzantine Studies: Oxford, 5-10 September
1966, ed. J. M. Hussey, D. Obolensky, S. Runciman (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), and include concordances with the known Byzantine chant repertory, the
267-80, especially 275-6; Terence Bailey, The Processions of Samm and the Western Church, Georgian Oktoechos and Heirmologion do not represent Greek Vorlage that
Studies and Texts 21 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies 1971), 172-4 with stand in a direct line of ancestry with the counterpart Byzantine books. Rather,
transcription; James Borders, The northern Italian antiphons ante evangelium and the Gallican
connection', The Journal of Musicological Research 8 (1988), 1-53, see 5, 17, 46-7; Christian each tradition developed independently, employing the eight modal categories in
Troelsgard, 'The musical structure of five Byzantine stichera and their parallels among Western its own way to arrive at its own result. The few textual concordances that have
antiphons', CIMAGL 61 (1991), 3^18, see 26-31. The 'Gregorian' melody, linked to the refrain been identified, nonetheless, are similar enough in modal assignment to assure us
Christus resurgens, has appeared in such modern chant collections as: Processionale Monasticum
ad usum Congregationis Gallicae Ordinis Sancti Benedicti, [ed. Joseph Pothier] (Solesmes: E
that that there probably was a musical relationship of some kind, and thus that
Typographeo Sancti Petri, 1893; repr. 1983), 66-7; Variae Preces ex Liturgia turn Hodierna turn the eight modes were a musical classification from the very beginning.
Antiqua Collectae aut Usu Receptae, 5th edn [ed. Joseph Pothier] (Solesmes: E Typographeo
Sancti Petri, 1901), 141-2. Cf. Joseph Pothier, 'Repons de la procession pascale', Revue du chant
gregorien 3 (1894-5), 35^tt).
190 The polyphonic setting from the lost Chartres MS 109, fo. 75 and from Oxford Rawlinson C. IV. Conclusion
892, fo. 67v, was edited most recently in David Fenwick Wilson, Music of the Middle Ages: An
Anthology for Performance and Study (New York: Schirmer Books, 1990), 53^1.
191 Anton Baumstark, 'Fulbert von Chartres und ein Stichiron der griechischen Oktoi'chos', The picture is much the same when we add the other traditions to the Georgian-
Jahrbuchfur Liturgiewissenschaft 3 (1923), 114-16; Jacques Handschin, 'Gesungene Apologetik', Greek comparison. In the Syriac, Latin and apparently Armenian traditions, too,
Miscellanea liturgica in honorem L. Cuniberti Mohlberg, 2 vols., Bibliotheca «Ephemerides
Liturgicae» 22-3 (Rome: Edizioni Liturgiche, 1948-9), 2:75-106, especially 92-8. 192 Husmann, 'Hymnus und Troparion', 33^46.
the earliest evidence of the modes dates from the eighth and ninth centuries. The It is the Georgian tradition that shows us most clearly how to interpret the
Syriac and Armenian traditions corroborate the Georgian and Greek evidence that evidence of the other traditions, and how to fit all the traditions into a single
points to Jerusalem and Palestine, and to an association with the kanon genre and consistent picture. As far back as we can trace it, at the most primitive stages we
with liturgical texts for Sundays and commons. The Syriac, Slavonic and especially can still observe, the modal system was first cultivated in the Holy City and the
the Latin traditions confirm that what we are really witnessing is not a repertory of monasteries that surrounded it. It was first used as a descriptive framework for
shared texts, nor a common agreement on principles of music composition, but a ordering liturgical chants that already existed, before it became a set of
generic procedure, in which chant texts that already existed were assembled - prescriptive rules for the creation of new chants, and as such it was first applied
independently in each language area - around a bare framework of eight categories to the chants for Sundays and Commons, and the kan5n genre favored in the
designated by a few Greek words. We still do not know why the system took the circle around John Damascene. The central role of Jerusalem in the development
form of four pairs, rather than some other number. Nor do we know who exactly of medieval liturgy and chant made possible the rapid and widespread adoption
were the first musicians to create music that was deliberately intended to fit this of the eight modes in East and West during the eighth and ninth centuries. And
eightfold scheme. What we do know now is that the Georgian evidence demon- the central importance that the eight modes have had in the development of our
strates what the other traditions only suggest, and that future research on the origin own musical culture over the last millenium is one of the most lasting and
of the modes must begin at the time and place where the evidence of all the important legacies of this ancient city, that has contributed so much to the
traditions converges - that classification into eight modes was first used in the human religious and artistic imagination.
eighth century, and in the neighborhood of Jerusalem.
There is in fact no more plausible point of origin for a concept that spread so
quickly and so widely, that was applied so religiously to so many musical
repertories despite their many and great differences. When the Latin, Greek,
Armenian, Georgian and Syriac traditions are viewed together, they can be seen
to form a kind of circle, with its center at Jerusalem, the Greek-speaking Holy
City they all revered. No other center exercised such far-reaching influence on
such a broad range of medieval chant traditions, because no other city was so
persistently visited by pilgrims from all over the Mediterranean world, or so
lovingly imitated by those who returned or remained at home. Not even
Constantinople could exert such far-reaching influence until centuries later,
when its own local tradition had intermingled with those of the monasteries
around Jerusalem. It is no accident that the Syriac traditions closest to Jerusalem,
Melkite and Jacobite, know the eight modes, while those stemming from Babylon
and the Persian empire, Assyrian and Maronite, do not. The Armenian liturgical
tradition is even more directly descended from the ancient rite of Jerusalem,
where there is an Armenian Quarter even today.193 In the West, too, the liturgical
influence of Constantinople was certainly felt, particularly when the special
ceremonial of the bishop of Old Rome followed practices of the court of the
emperor of New Rome. But the influence of Jerusalem was far more pervasive,
touching every Western tradition at many levels. Hence no other place is more
likely to have been the original home of the eight modes than the very city that
medieval maps located at the center of the world.194
Victor Azarya, The Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem: Urban Life Behind Monastery Walls
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984).
David Woodward, 'Medieval Mappaemundi', in J. B. Harley and David Woodward, The History
of Cartography 1: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterra-
nean (Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1987), 286-370 see 340-2; Patrizia Licini, 'La regione
armena nella «Mappa mundi» medievale di tradizione occidentale', OCP 58 (1992), 515-25.
The Study of
Medieval Chant
PATHS AND BRIDGES, EAST AND WEST
In Honor of Kenneth Levy
Edited by
PETER JEFFERY
Kenneth Levy
THE BOYDELL PRESS

© Editors and Contributors 2001
All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation

no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast,
transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, Contents
without the prior permission of the copyright owner
List of plates vii

First published 2001
List of tables viii
D. S. Brewer, Cambridge
List of examples x
Bibliographical abbreviations xiii
ISBN 085115 800 5
Biblical citations xvii
Musical pitches and modes xxi
Acknowledgements xxii
Introduction xxiii
Part I. Emerging and Converging Textual Traditions 1
1 Liturgical psalmody in the Sermons of St. Augustine: an

introduction
The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP 12 3DF, UK James W. McKinnon^ 7
and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.
2 The first Marian feast in Constantinople and Jerusalem: chant texts,
PO Box 41026, Rochester, NY 14604-4126, USA
website: http://www.boydell.co.uk readings, and homiletic literature
Margot Fasskr 25
A catalogue record for this book is available 3 The Cantatorium, from Charlemagne to the fourteenth century
from the British Library Michel Hugh 89
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 4 A new folio for Mt. Athos MS Chilandari 307, with some
The study of medieval chant : paths and bridges, east and west : in honor of Kenneth
Levy/edited by Peter Jeffery.
observations on the contents of the Slavic Lenten Sticherarion and
p. cm. Pentekostarion
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. Nicolas Schidlovsky 105
ISBN 0-85115-800-5 (alk. paper)
1. Gregorian chants - 500-1400 - History and criticism. I. Levy, Kenneth,
1927- II. leffery, Peter, 1953- Part II. Mode and Melos 125
ML3082. S79 2001
782.2'92'0902-dc21 00-058552
5 The modes before the modes: antiphon and differentia in Western
chant
This publication is printed on acid-free paper
Keith Falconer 131
Typeset by Joshua Associates Ltd, Oxford
6 The earliest oktoechoi: the role of Jerusalem and Palestine in the
Printed in Great Britain by beginnings of modal ordering
St Edmundsbury Press Ltd, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Peter Jeffery 147
fi Contents
1 Guide's Tritus: an aspect of chant style

David G. Hughes 211
Part III. Turning Points in the History of the Neumatic Notations 227 Plates
8 The other modus: on the theory and practice of intervals in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries
Charles M. Atkinson 233 Frontispiece Kenneth Levy
9 Russian musical azbuki: a turning point in the history of Slavonic 3.1 Tile floor pattern at St. Riquier 90
chant 3.2 The Carolingian Psalter, called The Psalter of Charlemagne'
Milos Velimirovic 257 (Paris, Bibliotheque nationale, MS lat. 13159, fo. 43) 91
3.3 Antiphoner fragment dating from the end of the ninth century,
originally from the abbey of Anchin, near Saint-Amand (Douai,
Part IV. Case Studies in Melodic Transmission 269 Bibliotheque municipale, MS 6, fo. 136r) 94
3.4 Ivory plaques of the ninth century, forming the binding of a
10 Kontakion melodies in oral and written tradition fourteenth-century cantatorium (Aachen, Domschatz) 102
J0rgen Raasted^ 273
4.1 Sticherarion Chilandaricum-Petropolitanum, fo. '41 A' recto, the
11 On the verses of the offertory Elegerunt leaf separated from Mount Athos, Chilandari MS 307, now in St.
Ruth Steiner 283 Petersburg, Library of the Academy of Sciences, A. A.
Dmitrievskii Collection, no. 44, recto 111
12 The trisagion in some Byzantine and Slavonic stichera
4.2 StichChil-Petrop fo. '41 A' verso, the leaf separated from Mount
Dimitrije Stefanovic 303
Athos, Chilandari MS 307, now in St. Petersburg, Library of the
13 Proses in the sources of Roman chant, and their alleluias Academy of Sciences, A. A. Dmitrievskii Collection, no. 44, verso 113
Alejandro Planchart 313
6.1 Pans, Bibliotheque Arsenal, MS 1169, fo. 39r (dated 996-1024) 166
8.1 Didactic versions of the Psalm tones, Munich, Bayerische

Conclusion 341
Staatsbibliothek, elm 14965, fo. 30r 239
Publications of Kenneth Levy 343 8.2 Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Reg. lat. 577, fo. 80 244
Index of manuscripts 347 8.3 Diapente et diatessaron, Paris, Bibliotheque nationale, n.a. lat.
Index of chant incipits 355 1235,fo. 146 246
Index of Biblical references 359 9.1 St. Petersburg, Rossiiskaia natsional'naia biblioteka, Kirillo-
Subject index 364 Belozerskoe sobranie, 9/1086, fo. 302r 263
10.1 St. Petersburg, Russian National Library, MS gr. 674, as

reproduced in Thibaut 274
11.1 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale, lat. 9436, fo. 72r (detail) 297
11.2 Brussels, Bibliotheque royale, MS II 3822, fo. l O l v (detail) 300

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The Earliest Oktoechoi:

The Role of Jerusalem and Palestine

Kenneth Levy's review of Huglo, Tonaires, in 1974b:126.

terminology played a role in the emergence of the major/minor tonality that

Before undertaking a truly cross-cultural examination of modal origins, it is C

In Honor of Kenneth Levy

THE BOYDELL PRESS

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation

List of plates vii

Part I. Emerging and Converging Textual Traditions 1

1 Liturgical psalmody in the Sermons of St. Augustine: an

1 Guide's Tritus: an aspect of chant style

8.1 Didactic versions of the Psalm tones, Munich, Bayerische

10.1 St. Petersburg, Russian National Library, MS gr. 674, as

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