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GENERAL HISTORICAL SITUATION (c. 800) 145
(In the midst of the church the Lord opened his mouth and filled him with
the spirit of wisdom and of understanding. He fed him with the bread of life and
of understanding, and gave him to drink the water of saving wisdom, and the
Lord filled him with the spirit of wisdom and of understanding. Glory be to the
Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now,
and ever shall be, world without end, Amen. In the midst of the church . . ., &c.)
If we compare this version with those printed by Dom Pothier and
Wagner we shall find that what is here the first melisma corresponds
to the second in their versions, and vice versa, while the third neuma
of our version is nearer to Pothier's text than to Wagner's. The
present version is, in fact, unique, in that it includes not only the
triple neuma but also other melismata in the main part of the Responsory.
1 The melismatic beginning of the verse, however, and the Gloria
agree with Amalar's description, though the verse which he quotes is
different. 2 The manuscript is also unique in that the third neuma is
marked with the rubric *
Qui septem', for which no explanation seems
to be forthcoming. Dom Pothier suggests the following method of
performance: Principal section solo, repeated by the choir with the
insertion of the first melisma; verse solo; principal section (or only
the second half of it) choir, with insertion of the second melisma;
Gloria Patri solo; principal section, with insertion of the third
melisma choir.
The transference of melismata from one Responsory to another,
which, as we have seen, recalls Ambrosian practice, raises the ques
tion whether the inserted melody fits one Responsory as well as
another. In this case, at any rate, both Responsories mentioned by
Amalar are in the first mode, and this applies also to the Responsory
'Centum', with which the melismata are associated in the Laon
manuscript. It may be added that the same triple neuma occurs in a
St. Denis manuscript of the twelfth century with three different
Responsories: 'Post passionem* (in the first mode) for the patron of
the church, 'Descendit', and 'In medio'. 3 In the first two cases the
three melismata are practically the same as in the Laon manuscript,
but in the reverse order; in the third case we have only one melisma
(the first in the other versions in this manuscript), which appears in
syllabic form as well as melismatic.
The age of Amalar the early ninth century was one when the
1 Cf. the versions reproduced in Processionale Monasticum (1893), pp. 226 and 227.
2 It is included in the second version in Processionale Monasticum, p. 227. The verses
of Responsories were often interchanged.
8
Paris, Bibl. Nat. lat. 17296, fo. 229V , 21, 36. The first of these is printed in Schweizer
Musikbuch (1939), pp. 46-49.
B 325 L