The lost chant tradition of early Christian Jerusalem: some possible melodic survivals in the Byzantine and Latin chant repertories

1992 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 151-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Jeffery
Keyword(s):  
Tenth Century ◽  
Early History ◽  
Central Problem ◽  
Close Relative ◽  
Gregorian Chant ◽  
Complex State ◽  
Annual Cycles ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
History Of ◽  
As If

The medieval chant traditions of the Eastern and Western churches can generally be traced back to about the tenth century, when the earliest surviving notated manuscripts were created. In these earliest sources, the various traditions are already distinct from each other and fully formed, each with thousands of chants that are assigned to at least eight modes and belong to dozens of melody types or families, carefully distributed across the daily, weekly and annual cycles of a complicated liturgical calendar. Yet we have hardly any information at all as to how these traditions evolved into the highly complex state in which we first find them. Where did they come from and when did they originate? How and when did they achieve the relatively fixed form in which we know them? Questions such as these have been important in chant research during the last thirty years, ever since Willi Apel outlined what he called ‘the “central” problem of the chant, that is, the question concerning its origin and development’. But attempts to investigate these questions have often been conceived too narrowly, overlooking as much evidence as they include or more. For instance, many scholars have written about ‘the central problem’ as if it belonged mainly to Gregorian chant and its close relative, the Old Roman or special Urban repertory, when in fact the origins and early history of almost every tradition of Eastern and Western chant are equally obscure.

Two pre-Conquest manuscripts from Glastonbury Abbey

1987 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 197-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
James P. Carley
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Early History ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fine Collection ◽  
Irish School ◽  
William Of Malmesbury

The earliest identified surviving manuscripts from Glastonbury Abbey date from the ninth and tenth centuries, but there are reliable post-Conquest traditions claiming that valuable books were found at the monastery as early as the reign of Ine, king of the West Saxons (688–726). By the tenth century at the latest there are reports of an ‘Irish school’ at Glastonbury, famous for its learning and books, and St Dunstan's earliest biographer, the anonymous. B., relates that Dunstan himself studied with the Irish at Glastonbury. During Dunstan's abbacy (940–56) – that is, at the period when most historians would place the beginnings of the English tenth-century reform movement – there was a general revival at Glastonbury which included a concerted policy of book acquisition and the establishment of a productive scriptorium. Not surprisingly, Dunstan's abbacy was viewed by the community ever afterwards as one of the most glorious periods in the early history of the monastery, especially since the later Anglo-Saxon abbots showed a marked falling off in devotion and loyalty to the intellectual inheritance of their monastery. Æthelweard and Æthelnoth, the last two Anglo-Saxon abbots, were especially reprehensible, and confiscated lands and ornaments for the benefit of their own kin. Nor did the situation improve immediately after the Conquest: the first Norman abbot, Thurstan, actually had to call in soldiers to quell his unruly monks. In spite of these disruptions, a fine collection of pre-Conquest books seems to have survived more or less intact into the twelfth century; when the seasoned traveller and connoisseur of books, William of Malmesbury, saw the collection in the late 1120s he was greatly impressed: ‘tanta librorum pulchritudo et antiquitas exuberat’.

The Development of the “Apostolic Tradition” in Early Christian Worship

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxwell E. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Early History ◽  
Christian Initiation ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Liturgical Year ◽  
Language Groups ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Hours ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Worship

Contrary to the assumptions often held by previous scholars, contemporary liturgical scholarship is coming increasingly to realize and emphasize that Christian worship was diverse even in its biblical and apostolic origins, multi- rather than monolinear in its development, and closely related to the several cultural, linguistic, geographical, and theological expressions and orientations of distinct churches throughout the early centuries of Christianity. Apart from some rather broad (but significant) commonalities discerned throughout various churches in antiquity, the traditions of worship during the first three centuries of the common era were rather diverse in content and interpretation, depending upon where individual practices are to be located. Indeed, already in this era, together with the diversity of Christologies, ecclesiologies, and, undoubtedly, liturgical practices encountered in the New Testament itself, the early history of the “tradition” of Christian worship is, simultaneously, the early history of the developing liturgical traditions of several differing Christian communities and language groups: Armenian, Syrian, Greek, Coptic, and Latin, We should not, then, expect to find only one so-called “apostolic” liturgical tradition, practice or theology surviving in this period before the Council of Nicea (325 ce) but, rather, great diversity both within the rites themselves as well as in their theological interpretations. This essay highlights the principal occasions for Christian worship in the first three centuries for which the textual and liturgical evidence is most abundant: Christian initiation, the eucharistic liturgy with its central anaphoral prayer, daily prayer (the liturgy of the hours), and the feasts and seasons of the liturgical year.

The “Sic et Non” of Stephanus Gobarus

1923 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 205-234
Author(s):  
Adolf von Harnack
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Church History ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come ◽  
History Of Doctrine ◽  
As If

In the older, as well as in the current, books on church history, and at some points in New Testament introduction, patristics, and the history of doctrine, a certain work is referred to under the name of “Stephanus Gobarus.” The problems arising out of the quotations from this book are of great interest; but we are given virtually no information about the author beyond his name, and the book itself remains a complete mystery. Only the industry of Walch, in Part VIII of his “Entwurf einer vollständigen Historie der Ketzereien” (1778, pp. 877 ff.) has analyzed it, or, rather, made unsatisfactory and incorrect extracts from it, to which he has added a few observations of his own. With this exception, it seems as if ever since the tenth century scholars had entered into a conspiracy to maintain complete silence about this work, or at least to content themselves with a few scanty remarks.In the following pages I shall endeavor to come closer to the work and its author. I do not undertake to give a commentary, for that would require a book; but shall confine myself to the main points, going into detail only with reference to passages that relate to the literature of the first three centuries.

The decoration of the Tanner Bede

1992 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 115-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Gameson
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Early History ◽  
Considerable Importance ◽  
Primary Concern ◽  
Bodleian Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Facsimile Edition ◽  
History Of

Oxford, Bodleian Library, Tanner 10 is the oldest extant copy of the Old English translation of Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. The volume dates from the early tenth century. This in itself adds significantly to its interest, for manuscripts produced in England during the sixty or so years from s. ix2–x1 are scarce. It is ornamented with a remarkable set of decorated initials which are of considerable importance for understanding the characteristics and development of manuscript art during this period, and this is our primary concern here. The text of Tanner 10 was edited at the end of the last century, its codicology and palaeography have recently been reviewed, and a complete facsimile edition is currently being prepared: an examination of its extensive decoration is long overdue. To put this art-work in its context, before turning to the manuscript itself, it will be helpful first to review briefly the main classes of decorated initials which appear in late Anglo-Saxon books as a whole, and then to examine the early history of the particular type that was used in the Tanner Bede.

The Origins of Early Christian Graphic Signs

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ildar Garipzanov
Keyword(s):  
Early Development ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Early History ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Imperial Period ◽  
Symbolic Meanings ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Discourse

The first two sections delineate the early history of the nomina sacra, staurogram, and chi-rho, from the late first to third centuries AD as well as relevant early Christian discourse on the symbolic meanings of certain letters and graphic signs, and show how the staurogram and chi-rho developed from utilitarian abbreviation signs into symbolic visual proxies for God and Christological concepts. The next two sections provide an overview of the use of graphic signs as protective seals among various religious communities, with reference to artefacts such as the Bruce Codex and votive leaves from Water Newton, and compare the early usage of more acceptable Christian signs with the concurrent culture of the so-called ‘magical’ characteres. The final section underscores that the early development of Christian graphicacy should be seen in the context of a general predilection for apotropaic graphic devices in the Imperial period, and in late antiquity in particular.

Gregorian Chant and the Romans

2003 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Levy
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Central Problem ◽  
Gregorian Chant ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Old Roman

Abstract A central problem in plainchant studies has been the relationship between the two “Roman” repertories, “Old Roman” (ROM) and “Gregorian” (GREG). Many attempts have been made to penetrate the “mystérieuse alchimie” that links them. Almost without exception, these have embraced the notion that ROM music was the supplier of GREG. This paper advances an alternative hypothesis. It recognizes initial transfers of ROM musical material to the Franks under Pippin III (before 768)—ROM music that was generally improvisational in process and style. However, still under Pippin or later under Charlemagne, the Franks rejected the ROM music and, in their effort to establish GREG, turned to familiar Gallican chants, which tended to have fixed, memorable melodies. Later, perhaps during the tenth century renovatio imperii under Otto I, though perhaps even during Charlemagne's reign, the authorized GREG repertory reached Rome, where it was supposed to supplant the local ROM. But the Roman musicians resisted; rather than abandon ROM, they compromised by accepting certain portions of GREG music and remodeling them so they conformed with ROM style. This sequence of events would explain the musical relationships between ROM and GREG.

The English Coronation Oath

1941 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 129-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. G. Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Tenth Century ◽  
Early History ◽  
History Of ◽  
William The Conqueror ◽  
The Church

To the early history of the coronation oath it would be difficult to add, unless, which seems unlikely, some altogether fresh documents are discovered. In any case, the course of history is plain. The king bound himself by a threefold promise to preserve peace and protect the church, to maintain good laws and abolish bad, to dispense justice to all. This oath had been taken by English kings from the tenth century: it was taken by William the Conqueror and by his successors. But more than this, Henry I, Stephen, and Henry II all issued coronation charters. Neither Richard I nor John did so, but Henry III went back to the practice that had been followed by his grandfather, and the great charter as it was reissued in 1216 was, in effect, a coronation charter.

The Origin and Early History of Proportion Signs

1988 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Maria Busse Berger
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Early History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Fifteenth ◽  
As If

In the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries rhythmic proportions were indicated through coloration, Italian note shapes, mensuration signs, and fractions. Even though Johannes de Muris had introduced in 1321 a division of the breve into from two to nine equal parts, theorists and composers used only those proportions which could be indicated by a combination of various mensuration signs with the assumption of breve equivalence: 3:2 shown by ○:⊂ or ⪽:⊂; 4:3 by ⊃:○ or ⊃:⪽; 9:4 by ⊙:⊂; 9:8 by ⊙:⊄; 2:1 by ⊂:⊄; 8:3 by ⊄:⪽. Other proportions were not used because musicians lacked adequate signs to indicate them. The invention of the fraction to show rhythmic proportions presented, therefore, a true innovation because it permitted the indication of proportions not naturally inherent in the mensural system. However, fractions were used until the late fifteenth century as if they were mensuration signs, that is, they were not cumulative and they determined the mensuration of the following section. It was not until the late fifteenth century that Johannes Tinctoris and Franchinus Gaffurius emancipated proportions from mensuration signs and used fractions in an arithmetically correct way.

A Temporarily Resurrected Dog and Other Wonders: Thomas of Margā and Early Christian/Muslim Encounters

2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (2-4) ◽  
pp. 209-242
Author(s):  
Michael Philip Penn
Keyword(s):  
Ninth Century ◽  
Early History ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Word Choice ◽  
Medieval History ◽  
Important Data ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
History Of

AbstractIn the mid-ninth century, the east Syrian bishop Thomas of Margā composed a lenghy monatic history now known as The Book Of Governors. Amidst Thomas’s numerous anecdotes concerning the exploits of Christian holy men, appear over a dozen stories involving Muslim characters. A critical examination of these tales focusing on issues of word choice, characterization, and narrative assumptions provides important data for the development of Christian depictions of Muslims, as well as for the early history of Christian/Muslim relations. Despite their value, modern scholarship has almost completely neglected Syriac monastic histories such as The Book Of Governors. A recognition of how useful these texts can be for medieval history forces us to rethink modern genre distinctions and argues against a sharp delineation between the often used categories of history and hagiography.

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