Focusing on the Traditional Benedictine Office in accordance with the 1963 Benedictine calendar and rubrics, including the Farnborough edition of the Monastic Diurnal.
Today's Advent responsory is used on Sunday and Friday in the second week of Advent.
You can listen to it in a setting by Lassus below, but it focuses on the imagery of Jerusalem, and above all the vineyard which the Lord plants and calls his labourers to tend. The text is actually from Jeremiah 31: 5-7:
R. Ierúsalem, / plantábis víneam in móntibus tuis: † exsultábis, quóniam dies Dómini véniet: † surge, Sion, convértere ad Dóminum Deum tuum: gaude et lætáre, Iacob: * Quia de médio géntium Salvátor tuus véniet.
V. Exsúlta satis, fília Sion: iúbila, fília Ierúsalem.
R. Quia de médio géntium Salvátor tuus véniet.
V. Glória Patri, et Fílio, * et Spirítui Sancto.
R. Quia de médio géntium Salvátor tuus véniet.
R. Thou shalt yet plant vines upon thy mountains, O Jerusalem thou shalt sing for joy, for the day of the Lord cometh; arise, O Zion, and turn unto the Lord thy God; rejoice and be glad, O Jacob. * For thy Saviour cometh from the midst of the nations.
V. Sing aloud for joy, O daughter of Zion; shout with gladness, O daughter of Jerusalem.
R. For thy Saviour cometh from the midst of the nations.
V. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
R. For thy Saviour cometh from the midst of the nations.
The original text of the respond though reads as follows:
5 Once more thou shalt plant vineyards over the hill-country of Samaria; planted they shall be, and the men who planted them await the appointed time before they gather the vintage. Watchmen there shall be, when that day comes, in the hill-country of Ephraim that will cry aloud, Up, to Sion go we, and there worship the Lord our God! Rejoice, the Lord says, at Jacob’s triumph, the proudest of nations greet with a glad cry; loud echo your songs of praise, Deliverance, Lord, for thy people, for the remnant of Israel! (Knox translation)
The verse is from Zachariah 9:9, which then continues 'See where thy king comes to greet thee, a trusty deliverer; see how lowly he rides, mounted on an ass, patient colt of patient dam'.
For today's Advent responsory I have selected Ecce Dominus veniet, which is used both on Thursday in the second week of Advent, and on the Second Sunday of Advent.
It's a nice example of Advent texts with something of an eschatological dimension to them. Here is the text, which is based on Zachariah 14, and Isaiah 40:
R. Ecce / Dóminus véniet, et omnes Sancti eius cum eo, † et erit in die illa lux magna: † et exíbunt de Ierúsalem sicut aqua munda: et regnábit Dóminus in ætérnum * Super omnes gentes.
V. Ecce Dóminus cum virtúte véniet: † et regnum in manu eius, et potéstas, et impérium.
R. Super omnes gentes.
R. Behold, the Lord shall come, and all His saints with Him, and it shall come to pass in that day that the light shall be great; and they shall go out from Jerusalem like clean water; and the Lord shall be King for ever, * Over all the earth.
V. Behold, the Lord cometh with a host, and in His hand are the kingdom, and power, and dominion.
R. Over all the earth.
One of the intriguing aspects of this particular responsory is that a recent study has identified it as one of a group of responsories that may have entered into the Roman repertoire from Gaul and/or Spain, since the adaptations to the text are mirrored in a responsory in the Old Hispanic repertoire, and although the melody is different too the Gregorian chant version, the number of notes allocated to each syllable is essentially the same in the Gregorian and Old Hispanic versions (1).
And that brings us nicely to the topic I want to start exploring today, namely, when and where did responsories originate, and how did the repertoire develop to the form that we know know it in?
Pretty much everything about these questions, it has to be said upfront, is highly contested, with no clear answers on many points.
Different chant traditions for responsories?
The repertoire of responsories used today in the Office (to the very limited extent that they are actually used) are examples of Gregorian chant, or as musicologists prefer to call it, Franco-Roman chant, to reflect the fact that what emerged as Gregorian chant somewhere around the twelfth century probably represents (largely) the interaction of two different styles and repertoires of chant, Old Roman and Gallican.
The best known and arguably earliest unambiguous reference to the great responsories of Matins is in the Rule of St Benedict (circa 510-28).
Roman origins?
For this reason, most liturgiologists have long assumed that responsories originated in Rome sometime in the fifth century with a set of psalm based responsories derived repertoire of refrains used with psalms displaced by the shift from responsorial (soloist sings the verses, people sing the refrain) to antiphonal (two choirs singing alternating verses) singing of the psalms (2).
They also argue that a particular set of psalm based responsories, used since the eighth century reform of the Matins reading cycle in the period after Epiphany, represent a set of proto-responsories that attest to a shift to a fixed weekly psalm cursus before St Benedict, some time in the late fifth century (3).
The alternative theory is that responsories - as for several other elements such as hymns - were introduced into the Roman Office at some point, perhaps through the influence of the Benedictine Office.
I'll go into the arguments for and against these theories in due course, but suffice to note now that many musicologists have long been skeptical of the Roman origin theory, and there is a growing body of evidence to support those doubts.
Non-Roman responsory repertoire
Those doubts have rather been amplified by the discovery, in recent decades, that responsories seem to have been a part of all of the major Western chant traditions that we know about from late antiquity and through the early middle ages.
In some cases, such as Ambrosian and old Hispanic chant, the distinct responsories of these traditions survived long enough to be recorded in some form, and continued to evolve along side the Gregorian tradition.
Similarly, although Beneventan and Old Roman chant were eventually suppressed in favour of Gregorian, musicologists have been able to identify a number of manuscripts that preserve at least some of the distinctive repertoire or versions of responsories of these traditions.
The Gallican repertoire dissapeared rather earlier (from the late eighth century onwards, under Pepin the Short, compared to the tenth century for Beneventan for example) and was more thoroughly suppressed, though some work aimed at identifying the traces it has left on the repertoire has been done.
How far back do these various responsory sets go though, and do they all originate from one common source?
More on that anon.
In the meantime, here is a polyphonic setting of the respond to today's responsory by Praetorius to listen to.
Notes
(1) Rebecca Maloy, Mason Brown, Benjamin Pongtep Cefkin, Ruth Opara, Megan Quilliam And Melanie Shaffer, Revisiting ‘Toledo, Rome, and the Legacy of Gaul’: new evidence from the
Divine Office, Plainsong and Medieval Music, 31, 1, 1–35, 2022.
(2) The most developed version of the theory is set out in R. Le Roux: ‘Etude de l’office dominical et férial: les répons “de psalmis” pour les matines de l’Epiphanie à la Septuagésime selon les cursus romain et monastique’, EG, vi (1963), 39–148.
(3) For the most recent articulation and summary of this theory, see Lazlo Dobsay, The Divine Office in History, in Alcuin Reid (ed), T&T Clark Companion to the Liturgy, London, 2016, pp 207-238.
Today is the feast of St Lucy, martyred in 304, after she distributed her dowry to the poor, her betrothed denounced her as a Christian. Here is the Matins reading on her for the feast:
Lucy a virgin of Syracuse, noble by birth and by her Christian faith, went to the tomb of St. Agatha at Catheria and obtained the cure of her mother, Eutichia who was suffering from a hemorrhage. Soon after, she gained her mother's permission to distribute to the poor all the possessions which were to have served as her dowry. As a result of this charitable action, she was accused of being a Christian and brought before Paschasius the Prefect. When neither promises nor threats could induce her to sacrifice the idols, Paschasius became enraged and commanded Lucy to be taken to a place where her virginity would be violated. But the power of God gave the virgin a strength that matched the firmness of her resolution, so that no force could move her where she stood. And so the prefect commanded a fire to be kindled all around here, but the flames did not harm her. After she had suffered many torments, therefore her throat was pierced through with a sword. So wounded she foretold that the Church would have peace after the deaths of Diocletian and Maximilian, and on December 13 she gave up her spirit to God. Her body was first buried at Syracuse, than taken to Constantinople, and finally transferred to Venice.
You can listen to one of the responsories for the feast here:
The text is as follows:
R. Lúcia virgo, quid a me petis quod ipsa póteris præstare continuo matri tuæ? nam et fides tua illi subvenit, et ecce salváta est: * Quia jucúndum Deo in tua virginitate habitáculum præparásti. V. Sicut per me cívitas Catanensium sublimátur a Christo, ita per te Syracusana cívitas decorábitur. R. Quia jucúndum Deo in tua virginitate habitáculum præparasti.
R. Maiden Lucy, why seekest thou of me that which thou thyself canst presently give thy mother? For thy faith hath helped her, and, behold, she is made whole * Because thou hast made in thy virginity a pleasant dwelling-place for thy God. V. Even as Christ hath by me glorified Catania, so by thee shall He glorify Syracuse. R. Because thou hast made in thy virginity a pleasant dwelling place for thy God.
Today I want to continue my series on the history and function of the responsories of the Night Office, with a focus on the Advent set.
In each post I plan to highlight one of the responsories, but also discuss some of the context around their development, which, I should note, is a subject on which there is no consensus among musicologists and/or liturgiologists!
Rejoice ye heavens
So for our Advent focus, today's responsory is actually the second responsory for Monday in weeks 1& 2 of Advent, also used as the eighth responsory in the Benedictine Office on the First Sunday of Advent.
The text of this responsory received several polyphonic settings, including by Orlando di Lasso, and Byrd, the latter of which I've chosen for today, as it gives a wonderful sense of the joy of the season that is one of its sub-themes, along with the focus on Our Lady, and preparation for Christmas - and the Second Coming - through repentance for sins.
The text of the respond section has been adapted from Isaiah 49:13; the verse comes from Psalm 71:7, although there are two alternative verses associated with this respond preserved in various sources.
Here is a translation of the text showing the structure of the responsory when it is used as the last responsory of a set (as it is on the First Sunday of Advent) - in its other uses it ends after the first repetition of the second half of the respond.
R. Læténtur / cæli, et exsúltet terra, iubiláte, montes, laudem: † quia Dóminus noster véniet, * Et páuperum suórum miserébitur.
V. Oriétur in diébus eius iustítia, et abundántia pacis.
R. Et páuperum suórum miserébitur.
V. Glória Patri, et Fílio, et Spirítui Sancto.
R. Et páuperum suórum miserébitur.
R. Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains, for our Lord will come; * And will have mercy on his afflicted.
V. In his days shall righteousness flourish and abundance of peace.
R. And will have mercy upon his afflicted.
V. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
R. And will have mercy upon his afflicted.
This text also nicely illustrates the adaptation process that is typical of responsories - while the first half of the respond follows the biblical text closely (the variants probably just reflecting different versions of the Biblical text, the second part is heavily adapted, in order to help us apply the text to its liturgical context:
Isaiah 49:13 actually reads (I've bolded the words where alternatives have been substituted into the respond):
Laudate, cæli, et exsulta, terra; jubilate, montes, laudem, quia consolatus est Dominus populum suum, et pauperum suorum miserebitur.
Stock responsories (2)
I noted in an earlier post that this repertoire of chant seems to have been preserved largely through oral transmission. Some eighth century (and a few other, mostly non-Roman earlier) sources give incipits or even full texts for some of them, but it wasn't until the development of neumes around the mid-ninth century, that the melodies were notated. I also noted that there is evidence the number of responsories expanded substantially over time, particularly once musical notation made the transmission process easier.
Most of the expansion in the repertoire, after the eighth century at least, though, relates to specific feasts, displacing the use of the Commons, rather than those relating to the annual bible reading cycle or the seasons.
Even now, for most of the year, for example, rather than new responsories, the Sunday responsories are said again during the week, as was the case for the responsory discussed above.
But there do also seem to have been other key sources of 'stock' responsories that could be drawn on to fill out the necessary number on Sundays and major feasts.
Individual semi-fixed responsories
One source was individual responsories that had some broader appropriateness, such as that relating to the patron saint of a church. St Peter's in Rome, for example, seems to have used the responsory Petro amas me (Peter do you love me) throughout the year.
Similarly, Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) composed the responsory Duo seraphim clamabant, (two seraphim called out, each to the other) and mandated its use as the last responsory of Sunday Matins for much of the year.
De Psalmiis responsories
A second source of 'stock' responsories seems to have been those based on the psalms, as one of the Roman 'ordines', XVI, which (probably) dates from circa 680, mentions a set of of psalm based responsories used throughout the year and for feasts.
Unfortunately Ordo Romani XVI (and the other Ordines and other early sources), don't actually tell us which particular responsories were used this way.
In the forms of the Office that have come down to us, there are actually several groups of psalm based responsories: some are used for particular feasts (in some cases parts of sets used at other times of the year as well), but the main ones are three sets now used in conjunction with Biblical 'letters', namely Jeremiah in Holy Week; the Catholic Epistles in Eastertide; and the letters of St Paul, in Epiphanytide.
It is the last set, those used in Epiphanytide since the reorganisation of the Matins reading cycle in the eighth century, that are of especial interest, since the liturgists have long claimed them as evidence that Rome had a fixed weekly psalm cycle before St Benedict's Office.
My own view is that the particular organisation of them in the Office as we know it is more likely to be a product of the eighth century reforms than witness to the earlier organisation of the psalter.
But to understand the debate, we need first, I think, to look at the history of the Matins readings cycle in Rome, and some of the possible sources for the responsories, on which more anon.
I want to alert readings to a wonderful new resource, a Psalterium Monasticum designed to help you sing the Office by 'pointing' the psalms, put together and published by the monks of Chavagnes-en-Paillers (aka The Community of Our Lady of Glastonbury).
The book details are:
Dom Bede Rowe, Psalterium Monasticum: Horae Diurnae, 2023; $US18 for the paperback version; $US22.23 for the hardback), available from Amazon (search in your country's Amazon version to minimise postage costs).
The book will be a key resource for anyone who wants to sing or already sings the Benedictine Office - and that should be everyone - the Office is intended to be sung, not said, after all!
What the book provides
In essence, the new Psalter sets out 'pointed' versions (ie the text of the psalms with embedded cues for where to change note when chanting it) of the Latin text of the psalms for the day hours.
It has been designed to supplement the Antiphonale Monasticum of 1934, and so follows the same ordering of the text, and provides the page number for the corresponding page in the Antiphonale.
In essence, if you want to sing the Office, the Antiphonale gives you the chants for the fixed parts of the hours, hymns, antiphons and so forth.
When it comes to the psalm though, it just tells you which of the several psalm tones and many endings for those tones to use - you then have to apply that psalm tone to the particular psalm being said, and the Antiphonale doesn't give you any help with this. This book fills that gap.
It therefore includes a complete version of the psalms of the psalter section of the Antiphonale, along with a selection of other psalms needed for particular feasts (such as Christmas, the Triduum, Commons, and so forth).
So if you want to sing Prime on Monday for example, you go to page 1 of the Antiphonale for the hymn, antiphon and other texts, but then turn to the Psalterium for the pointed versions of the psalms.
Universal psalm pointing
There is, it has to be said, a bit of a learning curve involved in the particular system (universal psalm pointing) used in this book, but the learning curve is not a steep one, and once mastered, it is extremely powerful tool indeed.
In general, psalm pointing provides a series of cues (such as bolding and italics) in the text of the verses of the psalm that tell you when to change note for each of psalm chant tones and endings (there are eight basic tones, but several others used at various times in the monastic office, and each chant tone can have a number of different endings).
Most traditional Office books offering pointed psalms (such as the Liber Usualis and assorted older Benedictine books for Vespers) point the psalms for each chant tone and ending individually. Indeed, there are a couple of excellent psalm tone generators available online that will automatically generate pointed psalms for any particular psalm tone and ending variant that I've long relied on.
This book, however, lets us in on something entirely new to me at least - what appears to be some 'secret monk business' (possibly secret newer office business, in which case this is a wonderful case of 'mutually enrichment!) - namely a 'universal' pointing system that provides one set of pointing for a verse that can be used to sing all of the different psalm tones and endings.
The system uses four different cues - bolding, italics, upper case and a circumflex (^) - but which ones you pay attention to and how depends on the particular psalm tone and ending of the psalm being sung.
The monks have put up an explanation of the system on their website - I hope though, that a version of this will be included in the next edition of the book, as it is not self-evident, and I haven't been able to find anything online that explains the system (or even much that mentions its existence!).
How it works
Consider for example, the first verse of Psalm 1 as it appears in the new Psalter:
Beátus vir, qui non ábiit in consílio impiórum, † et in via peccatôrum non stetit, * et in cáthedra
pestiléntiâe non sedit :
To use the universal pointing, you need a key which tells you which of the markings in the psalm to take note of, and how.
For the first half of the psalm (up to the asterix), for example, the flex indicated by the dagger sign aside, some psalm tones (I, III, VII and tonus irregularis) have two change points from the reciting note, so you change on the two bolded syllables.
For a second group of psalm tones (II and V), the change note occurs at the second bolded syllable, so you simply ignore the first bold.
For tones IV and VI, the note change occurs two syllables before the second bolded syllable, while in the Tonus Peregrinus, you change on the syllable with the cirumflex.
A similar set of cues for each tone is used for the second half of the psalm.
Easy to use
That might all sound a bit complicated, but in fact provided you have the key to the psalm tones you want to sing, I have found that with a bit of practice, it is actually fairly straightforward to use.
Some of the psalm tones are much easier than others in the universal system (counting back a syllable or two from bolded syllables, for example, takes more effort than simply changing on the relevant symbol).
But after testing it out for a few of the hours, I've found that it quickly becomes normal and with time would become automatic.
The power of the system
And the learning time you put in upfront is worth it for the incredible power of the system: instead of having to leaf through several pages of a book or print out a separate page for each of the ten main chant tones and thirty eight or so possible endings, one set of pointing in combination with the key for each tone will do the job.
That certainly makes it worth the effort to learn the system.
It also means that this book can be a relatively small, relatively slim volume, instead of a massive tome like the Liber Usualis!
Singing the Office
Psalm pointing, I would suggest, is important for all levels of those who sing the Office, from absolute beginner to seasoned monk or nun, so I strongly urge you to buy it.
Psalm pointing is pretty much essential for absolute beginners learning to sing the psalms in chant.
But it is also extremely helpful for the more advanced singer, particularly for days where the standard antiphons (and thus chant tones) are not used, such as feasts and in particular seasons; and useful even to those who know the psalms and psalm tones very well indeed, as a way of avoiding those inevitable slipups that occur from time to time.
It will be particularly useful for monastic communities.
The book also contains, by way of introduction, the relevant sections of the Rule of St Benedict in Latin) dealing with the office, a useful reminder that the version of the Office being used is one that actually follows the Rule rather than more recent experimentation; as well as a longer version of the psalm tones and endings.
I highly recommend buying this, the Chavagnes (Glastonbury) monks have done a great service for us all here.
Late antique mosaic in St.Ambrogio church in Milan Source: Wiki commons
St Ambrose
Today is the feast of St Ambrose, a wonderful saint, who Pope Benedict XVI, in a General Audience you can read here credited with the introduction of lectio divina to the West.
One of his key works to this end is his commentary on Psalm 118, which has as its base a translation and adaption of Origen's (now lost except in the form of catena extracts) commentary on the longest of the psalms, which had also been translated into Latin (with some amendments) independently by St Hilary of Poitiers a few decades earlier.
St Ambrose's commentary though, is some four times larger than St Hilary's version, expanded by instruction on lectio divina; its links to contemplation through an embedded commentary on the Song of Songs; as well as an extended discussion of humility that may have influenced the ordering of the twelve steps of humility in the Rule as well as the organisation of Psalm 118 in the Benedictine Office (1).
The responsories and memory
I hope to come back to St Ambrose's influence on St Benedict in due course, but today I want to continue my discussion of the responsory repertoire of Matins, picking up from the point I made yesterday about it being a largely oral repertoire for several centuries.
One of the key questions for the responsories is, what strategies did monks use to maintain the repertoire?
Memorising
Most people's memories in late antiquity were, of course, much better trained than ours. Monks for example, were expected to memorise the entire psalter and be able to sing it from memory.
But then as now, some found it much easier to do than others. There are two nice saint's stories that draw out just how major an undertaking this could be. Many monks could learn the psalter in a year or so. St Alexander the Sleepless, however, a Syrian monk who eventually ended up in Constantinople, and famous for the perpetual liturgy he established there, which involved shifts of monks, apparently took seven years to learn the psalter, because, his biographer tells us, he insisted on knowing their meanings as he learnt them (2).
Similarly, when the seventh century Northumbrian monk (later bishop) St Wilfrid decided to make a pilgrimage to Rome, he first headed for Kent, where he spent a year relearning the psalter according to the version in use in Rome, as he had previously learnt St Jerome's other translation (3).
Collective memory
Even with this effort though, it is unlikely that all monks learnt all of the responsories.
Monks generally learned large chunks of Scripture by heart for example, but some early sources suggest that different monks in a community would learn different sections of Scripture, and then would be responsible for those particular readings in the Office. Over time of course, greater availability of books, certainly implied by St Benedict's Rule, probably reduced the need for this. But something similar could well have occurred with responsories, with different monks responsible for maintaining different parts of the repertoire.
The other key factor in their maintenance though, was the repurposing of responsories for different feasts and occasions.
'Stock' responsories (1) The saints
For feasts like today's of St Ambrose, for example, there are actually no responsories specific to the saint in the Roman or Benedictine Offices even today. Instead, the responsories linked to the feast are those of the 'Common of a confessor bishop and doctor'.
Similarly, two of today's 'Advent' responsories actually are actually also used on the feast of the Annunciation, possibly remnants of the original placement of this feast before Christmas rather than in March.
This practice of reusing responsories for different feasts is nicely attested to by a ninth century antiphoner from Prüm dating from the 860s which represents the earliest surviving Benedictine antiphoner, and which Todd Mattingly has argued is derived from a now lost exemplar that was intended to serve as a kind of how to say the Benedictine (rather than Roman) Office starter-kit, including where to source the additional responsories needed, such as from the various Commons (4).
Properization?
And unlike the Mass, where 'properization' (fixing of texts to particular feasts) seems to have largely finalised by at least the eighth century (and probably a lot earlier for many days), there seems to have been a great deal more flexibility around which responsories were used and when until quite late, probably reflecting that earlier reliance on memory and perhaps dependence on the availability of particular singers for particular chants.
The late tenth century Hartker MSS, for example, gives a choice of fourteen different responsories for the common of a confessor, for example, two more than could ever be needed. By contrast, it only lists three responsories for the feast of All Saints. That doesn't mean that only three responsories were said however - even in the 1960 version, the feast has only two unique responsories; the rest are drawn from the feasts of various saints and from the commons.
All of this has important implications for the history of the Office, not least because several historians have pointed to the lack of a sufficient number of responsories in early antiphoners as a key plank for their claims that the Benedictine Office was not said in Gaul or Anglo-Saxon England until the tenth century, and that the Carolingian reforms aimed at imposing the Rule and Office on all monks were probably never fully implemented in practice (5).
But more on this anon.
Missus est angelus
In the meantime, enjoy this version of one of today's responsories, also used for the feast of the Annunciation:
R. Missus est / Gábriel Angelus ad Maríam Vírginem desponsátam Ioseph, † núntians ei verbum; et expavéscit Virgo de lúmine: † ne tímeas, María, invenísti grátiam apud Dóminum: * Ecce concípies, et páries, † et vocábitur Altíssimi Fílius.
V. Dabit ei Dóminus Deus sedem David, patris eius, et regnábit in domo Iacob in ætérnum.
R. Ecce concípies, et páries, † et vocábitur Altíssimi Fílius.
R. The Angel Gabriel was sent to Mary, a Virgin espoused to Joseph, to bring unto her the word of the Lord, and when the Virgin saw the light, she was afraid. Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace from the Lord. * Behold, thou shalt conceive and bring forth a son, and He shall be called the Son of the Highest.
V. The Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David, and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever.
R. Behold, thou shalt conceive, and bring forth a son, and He shall be called the Son of the Highest.
1. For a discussion of the differences between Hilary and Ambrose's translations, with comparisons to the Palestinian catena, see Isabella Image, The Human Condition in Hilary of Poitiers The Will and Original Sin between Origen and Augustine, Oxford, 2017.
2. Translations of the Life of St Alexander the Sleepless can be found in Daniel Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity, University of California Press, 2002, pp 250 - 280 and Jean-marie Baguendard (trans), Les Moines acémètes, Vies des Saints Alexandre, Marcel et Jean Calybite, Bellefintaine, 1988.
3. Eddius Stephanus, Life of Wilfrid. A translation by J F Webb is available in Penguin under the title the Age of Bede. It is not clear that Wilfrid needed the entire year to relearn the psalter - his hagiographer claims he was held up in Kent in part by the need to find a satisfactory escort and obtain royal permission for his departure. But as Susan Rankin pointed out in 'Singing the Psalter in the Early Middle Ages' (in Daniel J Di Censo and Rebecca Maloy eds, Chant, Liturgy and the Inheritance of Rome Essays in Honour of Joseph Dyer, London 2017), it was not simply a matter of learning the variant texts, but also absorbing differences in how the psalms were divided into verses and sub-divided for pause places.
4. Todd Matthew Mattingly, "Trier Stadtbibliothek 1245/597:A Ninth-Century Antiphoner and the Conciliar Origins of the Monastic Office", paper given at the Leeds Medieval Congress, July 2014.
5. Anne Walters Robertson, The Service-Books of the Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis Images of Ritual and Music in the Middle Ages, Oxford, 1991; Jesse Billett, The Divine Office in Anglo-Saxon England, 597-c.1000. London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 2014.
I want to continue today, my series on the Matins responsories with a look at the second responsory for Tuesday in weeks I&II of Advent, Ante multum tempus, which offers a nice example of the use of responsories as keys to interpretation of the Scriptural texts. I also want to provide the first of a few posts looking at the history of the repertoire.
Ante multum tempus
Here is the text of the responsory, laid out as it is sung.
R. Ante / multum tempus prophetávit Ezéchiel: Vidi portam clausam; † ecce Deus ante sæcula ex ea procedébat pro salúte mundi: * Et erat íterum clausa, demónstrans Vírginem, † quia post partum permánsit virgo.
V. Porta quam vidísti, Dóminus solus transíbit per illam.
R. Et erat íterum clausa, demónstrans Vírginem, † quia post partum permánsit virgo.
R. A long time ago, said Ezekiel the Prophet, I saw the gate shut: behold, God went forth from it before the ages for the salvation of the world. * And it was shut again, for it is a figure of the Virgin, in that after childbirth she remained a Virgin still.
V. The Lord alone shall enter by the gate that thou savest.
R. And it was shut again, for it is a figure of the Virgin, in that after childbirth she remained a Virgin still.
The text of both the respond and the verse is based on Ezekiel 44:1-2, though with some obvious non-Scriptural glossing in the second part of the respond.
Here are the relevant verses from Ezekiel, with some of the verbal allusions to the responsory text highlighted:
Et convertit me ad viam portæ sanctuarii exterioris, quæ respiciebat ad orientem: et erat clausa. 2 Et dixit Dominus ad me: Porta hæc clausa erit: non aperietur, et vir non transibit per eam, quoniam Dominus Deus Israël ingressus est per eam: eritque clausa principi. Princeps ipse sedebit in ea, ut comedat panem coram Domino: per viam portæ vestibuli ingredietur, et per viam ejus egredietur.
And the Vulgate translation:
Then he brought me back the way of the gate of the outward sanctuary which looketh toward the east; and it was shut. Then said the LORD unto me; This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the LORD, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut. It is for the prince; the prince, he shall sit in it to eat bread before the LORD; he shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate, and shall go out by the way of the same.
The interpretation of the text provided by the responsory is very conventional, reflecting a long line of exegesis on Ezekiel's text as references to Our Lady's perpetual virginity that can be found in St Ambrose, St Augustine and many other Fathers.
The doctrine itself, though, was formally defined at the Lateran Council of 649, and there is at least one other Advent responsory (which I'll come to, Bethlehem civitas) that may have come into the repertoire at this time to reflect that.
The history of responsories: oral transmission
You can find the chant for it at the top of the post, but it is worth keeping in mind that up until the tenth century (or thereabouts), as far as we know, the transmission of the responsory (and other) chants was entirely oral.
There are a few early sources that preserve the texts of responsories in different (mostly non-Roman, at least for the earliest sources) traditions, and rather more that just provide the initial words of the responsory (incipit) for the relevant season or feast, but the melodies associated with them had to be committed to memory and passed down through generations of singers.
The transmission process could be fragile at times and places: if almost the entire body of monks was wiped out by illness (as happened during St Bede the Venerable's childhood at Wearmouth-Jarrow), invasions or other factors, the sources might have to be reimported from outside.
That oral traditions could be preserved faithfully over relatively long periods, though, is attested to by the similarities in many chants from quite diverse regions when they were finally written down.
It represents an extraordinary achievement, particularly given that the responsory repertoire is far larger than that of Mass propers.
It has been estimated that in the seventh century, for example, there were around 200 responsories in use; the late tenth/early eleventh century (monastic) Hartker Manuscript contains around 600 responsories (annotated with neumes); but by the high middle ages the number had expanded to over 2000. By way of comparison, the 1963 breviary contains around 800 responsories.
A Benedictine link...
Today's particular responsory, Ante multum tempus, doesn't appear in all that many manuscripts - the Cantus database lists only sixteen, most of them allocating it to the Third Sunday of Advent.
Nor does it appear in the Old Roman manuscripts (which are thought to represent seventh century Roman practice).
It does, however, appear in one that has many similarities to them, suggesting it may date from the same period, and appears in a manuscript written in Rome in the eleventh century preserved in the Biblioteca Vallicelliana, C.5.
This particular manuscript was used until 1219 by the Benedictine nuns of San Sisto on the Via Appia. It was then taken to the (by then Benedictine) Monastery of Sant' Eutizio in Norcia, near St Benedict's birthplace. That monastery was originally founded in the fifth century by Abbot Spes and St Eutychius, both monks (along with other hermits who settled near Norcia around this time whom St Benedict may well have known) displaced from Syria by heresies there, mentioned in Book III of St Gregory's Dialogues (ch 38).
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