Chapter 2 The beginnings of Gregorian chant; other rites and other sorts of chant Gregorian chant was established as the chant repertory of the Carolingian Empire, the dominant political power in the late eighth and ninth centuries, and this ensured its survival through the rest of the Middle Ages and, in various transformations, down to the present. Which is how Gregorian chant comes to occupy a central position in this book. But it was not the only sort of medieval chant. In the Latin West other chant repertories were sung for Latin rites independent of Rome. And in the Eastern Roman Empire yet others – the chant of the rites of Jerusalem, Antioch and Constantinople, the Georgian and Armenian rites, and various types of Slavonic chant – achieved a greater or lesser degree of fixity, enabling us to study them today. Even if they cannot be described in detail in this short book, their existence should be borne in mind as a parallel to the Gregorian chant repertory dominant in the West. 2.i The Christian church in the late Roman Empire; Rome and the Franks The early centuries Gregorian chant is the musical element in a rich ritual, a ritual developed and performed by a stable religious community. Instability threatens or destroys the tradition, if things cannot be remembered and repeated year after year. The stable conditions in which chant could flourish were achieved in principle (if not every- where in practice) after Christianity was recognized as one of the official religions of the Roman Empire under Constantine the Great (324–37). We cannot trace par- ticular pieces of chant back to the fourth century, but the progressive elaboration of religious ritual can clearly be observed in documents from that time onwards. The earliest Christians were Jews, and it has often been speculated that musical elements of Jewish ritual were perpetuated in early Christian worship. While this may indeed have been the case, it is very difficult to demonstrate with concrete examples. If one could point to a particular melody or melodic pattern, used for a similar text (allowing for the difference of language) in a parallel ritual situation in 83 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Chinese University of Hong Kong, on 13 Sep 2019 at 00:47:14, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use , available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511807848.005 84 Gregorian Chant the two religious traditions, all with a reasonable claim to date back to the first three or four centuries AD, one would feel to be on firm ground. But such examples are practically non-existent. The threat to, and partial collapse of, social order in the last phase of the Roman Empire is the main reason why the record of Christian worship in the early centuries is incomplete. Under Constantine’s successor, Constantius II (337–61), the heretical form of Christianity called Arianism was declared official. The next emperor, Julian the Apostate, actually favoured non-Christian cults, whereas Theodosius the Great (379–95) declared Christianity to be the official state religion in 391 and banned heathen cults. After Theodosius the unity of the empire ended. In 404 the capital in the West was moved from Rome, under threat from the Goths, to Ravenna, while Constantinople/Byzantium, refounded by Constantine in 324, maintained itself as the great capital of the Eastern Roman Empire after the end of the Western Empire in 476. Conditions were therefore more favourable in the East, where not only Constantinople but also Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria were centres of great importance and developed their own forms of worship. While the Roman church was recognized as pre-eminent, its authority in matters of worship was inevitably limited. In the West, where political and social instability during the centuries of migration by Germanic tribes was greater than in the East, some essential elements of worship remained common. But there are considerable differences, in their Latin texts and their melodies, between the liturgies for which we have concrete evidence: on the one hand Rome, and on the other Milan, Benevento, the Spanish peninsula, and Gaul. We cannot describe chanting in early Christian worship with any precision. New songs seem to have been just as important as psalms from the Old Testament. The seemingly obvious connection with Jewish worship is not straightforward. Although psalms were sung in the temple of Jerusalem before its destruction by the Romans in 70, temple worship was a very special, indeed unique, ritual, not imitated by Christians or anyone else. Meetings in the Jewish synagogue were primarily for reading, instruction and prayer, but not psalm-singing or other community singing. (Psalm-singing in the synagogue is not actually documented before the eighth century.) Christians met privately, often for a common meal at the house of a prominent member of their community, and here the eucharistic service might also be performed. So, while it would be foolish to deny the possibility that singing in Christian worship drew upon tones and patterns sung by the Jews, one cannot speak of a simple transfer of ritual practices. The Eucharist had become separated from the evening meal by the second century, and was preceded by readings, prayers and instruction. A description of it by Justin Martyr (d. c.165) does not specify chanting, whereas singing still accompanied Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Chinese University of Hong Kong, on 13 Sep 2019 at 00:47:14, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use , available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511807848.005 The beginnings of Gregorian chant; other rites and other sorts of chant 85 the evening gatherings. There is some evidence that psalms were beginning to be preferred to non-biblical songs by the third century, psalms being safer in a time of controversy with heretical sects. A great stimulus to psalm-singing came in the fourth century, when many Christians joined groups of ascetics in the deserts of Egypt. The chief occupation of the monks and hermits was prayer, achieved effectively by the continuous chanting of the Psalter. Those who lived in communities would not sing the Psalter in unison together. One monk would sing a psalm while the others listened, sometimes adding a refrain. This practice remained constant when monasticism spread to Europe. For example, the Rule of the Master (written near Rome c.520) and the Rule of St Benedict (about a decade later) organize monastic life around set times of prayer, and specify the content of each service, including a considerable number of psalms. For both, solo singing of the psalms, by single monks in order of seniority, is the norm. The community would frame the recitation by singing antiphons. St Benedict Most of what is known about St Benedict (c.480–c.550) is found in the second book of the Dialogues of St Gregory (PL 77, 149–430). He was born at Nursia (modern Norcia,´ near Spoleto). About 500 he withdrew to a life of seclusion in a cave at Subiaco. Disciples gradually joined him and he eventually founded twelve monasteries, each with twelve monks. Internal disputes caused him to move with a small band to Montecassino in about 525, where he died. His sister Scholastica was buried with him. The Rule which he composed about 530 or 540 to direct the way of life of his monks was partly influenced by the slightly earlier anonymous ‘Rule of the Master’, and by other monastic rules, and it also draws upon the practice of Roman urban monasteries of the time. The most important task of the monks is the celebration of the Divine Office, referred to as the ‘Opus Dei’, the work of God. (Passages from the Rule are given in text box 1.2 above.) The Rule of St Benedict was adopted by more and more communities across Europe over the next three centuries. It was brought to England c.690 by St Wilfrid, and established in Germany by St Boniface in the early eighth century. By the time of Charlemagne later in the century it was known everywhere. St Benedict’s life, as recounted by St Gregory, became the pattern for many monastic saints, or at least their biographies. Worship in towns and cities differed from the meditative practices of monasticism. In the fourth century a morning and an evening service became established, whose chief character was one of praise. The psalms to be sung (148–150 in the morning, 140 in the evening) did not change – quite different from the way monastic commu- nities would repeatedly sing their way through the whole Psalter. Of great interest Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Chinese University of Hong Kong, on 13 Sep 2019 at 00:47:14, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use , available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511807848.005 86 Gregorian Chant are the descriptions of services in Jerusalem in the early fifth century by the pilgrim Aetheria (or Egeria). Here the morning and evening services are preceded by sessions of psalm-singing by monks. (The services take place at sites connected with Christ’s death and resurrection.) On the other hand, the holding of a popular nightly vigil service became common in the same period, where people sang hymns and psalms. A famous description of this practice in St Ambrose’s church in Milan in 386 by St Augustine speaks of it as something recently introduced from the East. St Ambrose (d. 397) is the author of hymns in a simple style very suitable for congregational singing.