Conclusion

This chapter provides a summary and conclusion for the book and explores some potential areas for future research. Through the education of clergy and laity, the bishops strove to create a Visigothic kingdom unified in the Nicene faith. The chant texts and melodies were carefully constructed to serve these ends. Liturgy and chant were a practical way of instilling doctrine and modeling biblical exegesis, as part of a cultural program that was at once theological and ideological. By the time of the surviving manuscripts with notation, the Iberian cantors had developed a distinctive culture of musical literacy, in which particular neumes and neume patterns signaled specific melodic functions. Through analysis of these neume shapes, I have posited a sophisticated melodic grammar that is closely tied to textual syntax and aural aspects of the text such as word accent and assonance. Strategic placement of melismas, cadences, and melodic repetition underlined words and images that were central to the text’s typological meaning or liturgical use. Finally, I have considered the relationship of the sacrificia to offertories in other liturgical traditions. Further reportorial, textual, and melodies parallels between Western chant repertories remain to be discovered and explored through similar methodologies.

Introduction

Provides an introduction to the book’s central objectives, to the Old Hispanic rite, and to the Visigothic cultural program. The book argues that much of the Old Hispanic chant was created as part of an intellectual and cultural project initiated by Iberian bishops in the late sixth and seventh centuries. A central part of this project was the education of clergy, and through this, the formation of a Nicene Christian society. Chant was a central part of this endeavor. The chapter examines primary sources related to the history of the Old Hispanic liturgy and chant, such as the church councils and the works of Isidore of Seville, and traces, in summary form, the later developments of the tradition. The author also provides an overview of each chapter’s central argument.

Sounding Prophecy

This chapter considers the relationship between the melodies and the semantic content of the texts, thus bearing on the contentious question of whether chant melodies can relate to textual meaning. In the case of the sacrificia, the answer is a resounding yes. Central to this argument is the understanding of textual meaning established in Chapter 3. The author considers the occasion on which the text was sung, its meaning in biblical exegesis, and how and why the creators of the text reworked the biblical source. On this basis, I show that the melodies employ certain strategies of musical rhetoric to fashion a particular understanding of the text. The sacrificia thus pose a challenge to a long-standing belief that chant melodies are indifferent to the texts’ semantic content. On the contrary: their creators possessed an erudite knowledge of biblical interpretation, reworking biblical passages to foreground their Christian interpretation and deploying melody as a rhetorical device to shape how the text was heard. The melodies highlight images of liturgical or doctrinal importance, and underline the strategic reworking of the biblical text. Although the existing melodies do not date from the Visigothic period, it is probable that melody contributed to the bishops’ goals of forming a Nicene Christian kingdom and society.

The Melodic Language

This chapter posits a set of principles that underlie the melodic grammar of the Old Hispanic melodies though close analysis of its neumes. In the Old Hispanic notation, certain neumes and neume combinations were used to signal particular structural points in the melodies, pointing to a distinctive culture of musical literacy associated with the rite in the tenth and eleventh centuries. By examining the contexts in which these neumes occur, the author identifies melodic repetitions, and posits which neume patterns served as cadences and openings. Through this analysis, a sophisticated melodic grammar emerges. The melodies are closely tethered to aspects of the text, such as syntax, accent, and syllable division. While melodic variety and individuality are core traits of the repertory, the creators of the chants drew on a large vocabulary of standard melodic formulas, combining it in ever varying ways.

Connections beyond Hispania

This chapter explores how the sacrificium relates to offertory chants in other liturgical traditions, yielding insight into its prehistory and the influences that shaped its development. The textual, exegetical, and musical connections explored in this chapter establish that the sacrificium was part of a larger, pan-European tradition, whose practice extended into southern Gaul, northern Italy, North Africa, and Rome. The Old Hispanic repertory was nonetheless exceptional in its concentration of these particular kinds of chants, perhaps because they were so well suited to the educational and devotional milieu of Visigothic Iberia. After exploring these other repertories, the chapter turns to musical questions, illustrating certain commonalities in style between the Old Hispanic and Gregorian offertories and posing questions for further research.

Liturgy, Patristic Learning, and Christian Formation

This chapter explores the role of liturgy and chant in the bishops’ project of cultural renewal, from the perspectives of both production and reception. The author looks to the textual culture of Visigothic Iberia for clues as to why the compilers of chants reworked scripture in particular ways, exploring how scripture and patristic texts were read, understood, and disseminated by members of the clerical elite who were likely to have produced the chants. The focus then turns to Christian education and formation in Visigothic Iberia, yielding insight into the tools that monks, clergy, and laity are likely to have brought to the understanding of these chants.

The Sacrificium

This chapter introduces the Old Hispanic offertory chant, called the sacrificium, as a prelude to the closer analysis presented in subsequent chapters. The author considers the musical and textual structure of the genre, its performance, and the thematic shape of the repertory as a whole. The genre connects thematically to Isidore of Seville’s description of the genre. Although the genre is likely to have emerged in the sixth century, a handful of sacrificia are probabe additions from the tenth or eleventh century. The use of different biblical versions suggests that these chants were created a different times, rather than being the product of a single effort. The texts develop the theme of sacrifice, themes associated with each part of the liturgical year, and with general characteristics of sainthood. The creators of the repertory used and adapted scripture to enhance these themes, sometimes in ways that were typical of the genre.

The Broader Old Hispanic Tradition

This chapter compares the sacrificium melodies throughout the corpus of the Old Hispanic manuscripts. The author examines the Old Hispanic melodies through the lens of questions that have shaped scholarly thought on Franco-Roman chant, such as the nature of their oral and written transmission and their formative roles in the existing tradition. A comparison of the melodies in existing manuscripts suggests a multilayered melodic transmission, with both oral and written elements. Certain music writing habits are common to all early manuscripts, indicating their basis in a shared culture of musical literacy and, in some cases, descent from common exemplars. The tradition was nonetheless variant and flexible at certain points. The late manuscripts from Toledo associated with liturgical tradition B are far more distantly related to the early sources, with no evidence of connection through writing. The manuscripts thus lie at different points along continuums of aural-written and fixed-flexible.

From Scripture to Chant

Chapter 3 shows that the sacrificium texts were shaped by traditions of patristic biblical exegesis that circulated on the Iberian Peninsula, through the writings of Isidore and others. In this way, the chant advanced the bishops’ goals of identity formation and the teaching of doctrine. Passages of the Old Testament are transformed through an extensive repositioning and rewording, often changing the semantic meaning of the original. The new texts promoted a Christianized experience and understanding of the Old Testament. Through their delineation of clear boundaries between Christian and Jewish observances, the chants are connected to contemporaneous anti-Jewish discourse and law, and were a conduit for the formation of a Gothic, Nicene identity. As a product of the distinctive intellectual culture that produced them, the chant texts were designed in accordance with the goals of the Visigothic cultural program: shaping a kingdom and church unified in Nicene belief.