AMS Philadelphia 2009 Abstracts - American Musicological Society

118 saturday morning AMS Philadelphia 2009
Carolingian mosaics, the bannisters of the second floor, the bronze doors, and the structure
itself. That the Carolingians attributed rich symbolism to the number eight is known; Alcuin
emphasizes that number in a letter. Precedents for the octagonal plan have also been identified.
Yet there is other evidence that the numbers of the plan were intended to represent the
eight tones, the octave, and its division into fourth and fifth—the foundation of the psalmody
that would bind Charlemagne’s kingdom in a rebirth of Christian faith. For example, John
Scot Eriugena’s verses composed for the dedication of the octagonal chapel at the palace of
Compiègne in 877, the chapel of Charles the Bald, grandson of Charlemagne, explain the
meaning of the number eight in this way. Furthermore, floor titles of identical design as
those in Aachen, and octagonal spires, existed at St.-Riquier, the destination of Charlemagne’s
tonary. Finally, the theoretical explanations of the consonances and division of the octave were
known to Charlemagne’s advisers from Calcidius’s Commentary on Plato’s timaeus, copied at
Corbie or St.-Riquier. Plato’s view that arithmetic proportions were the basis of harmony and
the “Soul of the World,” commented upon by Calcidius, could thus be applied to produce the
harmony of Charlemagne’s architecture.
MONASTIC LITURGY IN NINTH-CENTURY FRANCIA
AND THE CHANTS OF THE DIVINE OFFICE
Jesse Billett
University of Cambridge
Much of the Gregorian chant repertory is for use in the Divine Office, the round of liturgical
services that punctuated daily life in medieval religious communities. In later medieval
books, the Divine Office always conforms to one of two patterns: a “secular” Office used by
priests, canons and friars, and a “monastic” Office used by monks and nuns. This arrangement
only came about through a series of early medieval developments. One possible reading identifies
three main stages: an initial imitation of “Roman” liturgy in Frankish churches in the
eighth century; the imposition of a Roman form of the Office on the whole Frankish Church
(both secular and monastic) during the reigns of Pippin III and Charlemagne; and finally,
under Louis the Pious, the promotion for exclusive monastic use of a form of the Office based
on the Rule of St. Benedict.
It is not at all clear that current theories of the origins of Gregorian chant, which aim primarily
at an account of the proper chants of the Mass, are adequate as explanations of the
chants of the Office. The simpler chants of the Office offer striking examples of the changes
that might have been expected to occur in a process of oral transmission from Rome. Ninthcentury
liturgists remark on the “great variety” or even “corruption’’ of local Office repertories.
Moreover, hypotheses of a royally sanctioned “archetype” of chant sit uneasily with the emerging
secular and monastic forms of the Office, a boundary separating two streams of the oral
tradition.
Among the surviving ninth-century sources of Office chant, Trier, Stadtbibliothek, MS
1245/597 has been almost completely ignored in the musicological literature (noted by Siffrin
(1949) and Huglo (1971), but ignored in Hesbert’s Corpus Antiphonalium officii and
Stenzl’s 2006 list of early antiphoners). A monastic “choirbook,” it contains several roughly
contemporary sections, all copied around the 860s and bound together at the Abbey of Prüm
before 899. It includes a table of Office chants for the whole year, arranged in liturgical order.
This table probably predates the two earliest witnesses to the complete annual cycle of Office