Saint Martial school

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The Saint Martial School was a medieval school of composition centered in the Abbey of Saint Martial, Limoges, France. It is known for the composition of tropes, sequences, and early organum. In this respect, it was an important precursor to the Notre Dame School.

History of the Abbey Saint Martial de Limoges

Sequence composed by the Plagi proti intonation. Sequentiary from Aquitaine, end 10th century (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds lat., Ms. 1118, fol. 114r)

Earlier musicological studies which were concerned about a "Saint Martial School," had been mainly focussed on four manuscripts with remarkable innovative compositions for the 12th century.[1] These manuscripts (Pa 1139, 3549, 3719, and Lo Add. 36881) were rather fragments collected and bound together by the librarian Bernard Itier.[2] Despite the concordances between these manuscripts, the collection shows a lot of variants and combines modern forms of poetry with modern forms of musical compositions, they include proses, tropes, sequences, liturgical dramas, organa in all possible combinations, even a polyphonic setting of an epistle recitation as florid organum. The assumption that these fragments derived from different Southern French monasteries, and that usually no names of the cantors had been written in the rubrics, convinced Sarah Fuller to write about the "myth of a Saint Martial school", which seemed to be rather a collective activity of the Abbey's librarians than a didactic activity of the Abbey's cantors.[3] Recent studies by James Grier changed the focus on some monophonic Proser-Sequentiaries,[4] which had been created 100 years earlier in the scriptorium of the local Abbey Saint-Martial and explicit for the liturgical use at Limoges by Roger and Adémar de Chabannes. The concept of a local school of cantors which documented their innovations in new designed liturgical books with the libellum structure, later imitated elsewhere, even in the Parisian Magnus liber organi, could be rehabilitated—at least for the 11th century.

Roger and Adémar de Chabannes and the troper-sequentiary

Already in the time of William V of Aquitaine, Adémar de Chabannes educated as a cantor and poet by his uncle Roger de Chabannes[5] created troper-prosers and sequentiaries with a new diastematic form of neume notation, which became soon much more popular than the letter notation by William of Volpiano (Pa 1240, 1120, 1121, 909).[6] They belonged to a new type of chant book which was no longer simply a liturgical book, it rather collected new poetry based on liturgical forms (in music as well as in poetry). This new chant book was not just one book, it consisted of several books ("libelli"), the "proser" or "troper" for verses and tropes, the "sequentiary" for prosulae and sequences (troped elaborated alleluia refrains), the processional with processional antiphons, the offertorial for offertories etc. and the tonary.[7] The type became soon popular in France and Normandy—not only in whole Aquitaine, since the Cluniac Monastic Association expanded its influence and its great need for an extravagant liturgy found a productive and innovative school of cantors at the Abbey of Saint-Martial.[8] Cluny Abbey was once founded by William I and already in Adémar's time its laic association had gained its power over more and more abbeys, their cantors and their scriptories. Adémar's fruitless efforts to become an abbot at Saint Cybard of Angoulême was a personal disappointment, but his ambitions were quite symptomatic for monasteries under Cluniac influence.

According to James Grier Adémar de Chabannes also contributed within two troper-sequentiaries (Pa 1121, 909) which have the finest tonaries of the region. He regards this late activity as a craftship which he learnt from his uncle, while he was revising older manuscripts, often by adding modal signatures to earlier manuscripts. But the intonation formulas of the tonaries had as well an explicit creative function, which can be demonstrated by an earlier manuscript already written in diastematic neumes (Pa 1118, fol. 114r). Some composed sequences of this earlier troper-proser-sequentiary are nothing else than a simple repetition of a more and more elaborated intonation, but the verse units cut the melodic motive into different parts, often against its modal structure. These early permutation technique already anticipated later isorhythmic composition techniques.

Early polyphony and the Cluniac influence on liturgical reforms

The scriptorium of Limoges continued its activities after Adémars death in 1034, but it was no longer the only scriptorium of the Limousin diocese.[9] William Sherill made the hypothesis, that the Gradual of St Yrieix with Gallican preces in its appendix (Pa 903) has not been written at Limoges, but by the cantors of the Abbey itself which was possible since it promoted as canon chapter during the second half of the 11th century and depended directly of the Monastery of St Martin at Tours. He even went so far to assume that this gradual has copied from Beneventan graduals, because the included Cassinese chants for the patronal feast of St Benedict, and might have served to copy for the gradual of Gaillac, while the latter could have served to write the later gradual for Toulouse.[10] In this comparison the liturgy of the Saint-Martial Gradual (Pa 1132) is rather dependent on Cluniac reforms and especially the one of Narbonne, written by the end of the 11th century at er resembles to many others written with the same notation in Spain after the conquest of Northern Andalusia, and after Aquitanian aristocrats had been related with the Castilian family by marriage.[11]

Polyphony was neither invented at Limoges nor did it appear the first time in the notation of its scriptorium. An oral tradition of a polyphonic performance can be traced back to the time, when the Musica enchiriadis had been written,[12] and Adémar was a contemporary of Guido of Arezzo, who described in his treatise Micrologus a similar practice as "diaphonia" (discant), which already allowed to sing more than one note against the cantus during cadences ("occursus"). Notated evidence of alternative practices, where the organal voice changes between different strategies of heterophony (parallel and counter movement) and holding notes which support the modal colour of the cantus, can be found as later added exemplification in monophonic manuscripts of the Abbeys in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, Fleury, and Chartres.[13] The only exception was Winchester Cathedral, where a systematic collection of organa can be found in the troper part—the so-called "Winchester Troper".[14] The earliest polyphony developed in a rather secular context and Cluny played a prominent role in it.

What was exactly the role of the Abbey of Saint Martial for a school of anonymous cantors associated with Aquitanian polyphony?

The earliest evidence can be found in an older troper-proser with libellum structure (Pa 1120). In some late additions cantors made exemplifications of a polyphonic performance of organum similar to those additions in the Gradual of the Abbey of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés (Pa 12584, fol. 306). Under Cluniac influence the latter abbey developed an extravagant liturgy since 1006, when it was ruled by a new Abbot, who was sent from Cluny, where he had served as a cantor.[15] The polyphony can be easily recognized, because the notator used a method similar to a modern partition. But there had been other methods as well. Some additions in Pa 1120 on folio 73v and on 77v look monophonic on the first sight, but the melody is organized in pairs and each verse of it has to be sung together by an organal voice which sings the first verse with the melody of the second and vice versa. On folio 81r and 103r we have three examples of florid organum. This notation technique had already developed in the manuscripts notated in parts by Adémar, in cases where the scribe of the text did not leave enough space for the neumes, so the notator used vertical strokes, which have to indicate how the melismas have be coordinated with the syllables. Here, a Benedicamus domino was notated separately from the florid organum. The both techniques of polyphonic performance, the punctum contra punctum (discant) and florid organum as puncta contra punctum have been once discussed in a 15th-century treatise from Italy, which had been obviously associated with the treatise "Ad organum faciendum".[16]

The manuscripts of Aquitanian Polyphony

In comparison with the few late traces of a polyphonic singing in the earlier manuscripts, the four main manuscripts and a lot of similar manuscripts of Aquitaine are so full of later developments, that their manifold forms, the calligraphy, the illuminations, and the poetry have not lost their attraction for philologues and musicians.

A well-known example is "Stirps iesse", which is nothing else than a florid organum over a "Benedicamus domino" cantus which was widespread within the Cluniac Monastic Association including the Magnus liber organi of the Notre-Dame school. As "Benedicamus domino" verses nearly concluded every divine service, Cluniac cantors were supposed to know a great variety of them. Many of them had been new compositions and became favored subjects for new experiments in poetry and musical composition.[17] Florid organum itself like any tropus can be regarded in two ways, as a useful exercise to memorize a certain cantus precisely note by note on the one hand or, as a very refined amd embellished performance by a well-skilled soloist or precantor. "Stirps iesse" was actually a combination of both, as a Benedicamus performed "cum organo" it was rather a longer performance during an important liturgical feast, but the troped organal voice added a certain Marianic poem to it, which fixed it within the week between Christmas and New Year:

The manuscripts "Saint-Martial C" und "D" even were nothing more than additional quaternia within a homiletic collection of sermons. Most of the manuscripts with polyphonic compositions are not just from the Abbey of Saint-Martial at Limoges, but as well from other places of Aquitaine. It is unknown to what extent these manuscripts reflect the products of Saint Martial in particular, it rather seems that there were prosar collections from various places in Southern France.

During the 12th century, only a very few composers of the school are known by name, and the new poetic experiments were not only in Latin, they obviously inspired as well courtly poetry of the Troubadours. However, all St-Martial poetry (versus, tropes and sequences) is in Latin. Before the collections of the chansonniers, there is only Old Occitan song with musical notation for all stanzas which has been written at the scriptory of Saint-Martial Abbey: O Maria, Deu maire.[18]

See also

References

  1. ^ See Alejandro Enrique Planchart's and Sarah Fuller's article "St Martial" (New Grove Dictionary).
  2. ^ Already Marion Gushee (1964) emphasized the fragmentaric shape of these sources. The libellum structure in itself, often bound together from quaternios of different age (Pa 1139), might also have made a certain impression, because polyphonic pieces had been usually added by a later hand at the end of quaternio to older monophonic manuscripts.
  3. ^ Sarah Fuller (1979). A parallel discussion was concerned about a unifying centre which was actually less Limoges than Cluny, and in relation with the Cluniac Monastic Association also Fleury and Paris, especially the Notre-Dame School, the Abbey of Saint Denis, and the Abbey Saint-Maur-des-Fossés. Hence, the question about periphery and centre (Arlt 1975) has been finally answered by the research of political and church history around Cluny (Huglo 1982, Gillingham 2006).
  4. ^ James Grier (1995).
  5. ^ A first study of the manuscripts which had been written or revised by Roger de Chabannes together with his nephew, was made by James Grier (1995).
  6. ^ James Grier (2006).
  7. ^ See Helmut Spanke (1930-1933) who studied the poetic innovations of the manuscripts of the Abbey of Saint Martial.
  8. ^ Bryan Gillingham (2006), Susan Boynton (2006).
  9. ^ Sister Anthony Marie Herzo (PhD thesis, 1966) has already made a comparison of 5 Aquitanian graduals and found two groups—the one of St Martial of Limoges (Pa 1132) and the Cathedral of Narbonne (Pa 780) and the other between the Cathedral of Toulouse (British Library, Harley 4951), Saint Michel-de-Gaillac (Pa 776), and Saint Yrieix (Pa 903).
  10. ^ William Manning Sherill (2011, pp. 158-162). Concerning the tonaries Michel Huglo (NGrove) had so far regarded the tonaries of the cathedral rite around Toulouse as one group together with Pa 1118, but according to James Grier the latter already influenced Adémar's tonaries, because it has later additions from his hand concerning his new liturgy dedicated to Saint Martial.
  11. ^ See also the activities of the Imperial Abbey Farfa (Boynton 2006).
  12. ^ Giovanni Varelli (2013) found recently practical examples of this early organum practice which he dated back to the 10th century.
  13. ^ A systematic discussion of the various treatises and of the examples given in chant manuscripts offers Sarah Fuller (1990).
  14. ^ See the reconstructions of the Winchester Troper organa by Susan Rankin, and those of the French organa by Wulf Arlt (Rankin 1993).
  15. ^ Michel Huglo (1982) also discussed hagiographic sources which document, that this change caused serveral conflicts and that part of the monastic community left the Abbey.
  16. ^ In a recent critical edition, Christian Meyer (2009) could prove that certain parts of it can be traced back to the 12th century and belong to an abbot and cantor Guy de Cherlieu of the Cistercian reform groupe. In fact, there is no evidence that "discantus" and "organum" have been distincted this way already during the 11th century. Guido of Arezzo's term was "diaphonia", about 1100 the term "organum" became more common for all kind of polyphony without being specified, whether it was florid or simple like in "diaphonia". Concerning Cecily Sweeney's hypothesis that the Cistercian reform prohibited polyphonic performance of liturgical chant, which could not convince Christian Meyer, we cannot exclude the possibility, that Guy de Cherlieu's ideas failed to convince Bernard of Clairvaux and other reformers. Nevertheless, even in that case an implicit prohibition had no real effect on the liturgical tradition of Cistercians, because one of the earliest treatises dedicated to the practice of fauxbourdon and its ornaments has a Cistercian provenance and the Las Huelgas Codex rather prove that Cistercian customs were also here not so far from Cluniac ones.
  17. ^ The aformentioned folio of the Gradual-Antiphoner of the Abbey Saint-Maur-des-Fossés (Pa 12584) is probably one of the earliest sources for this popular tune, which seemed just be an intonation formula of plagis protus with a final melisma.
  18. ^ Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, fond latin, ms. 1139, fol. 49r.

Sources

  • "Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds lat., Ms. 776". Gradual of Saint-Michel-de-Gaillac (Albi, about 1079). Retrieved 20 December 2012.
  • "Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds lat., Ms. 780, fol. 123'-130". Gradual and Tonary from the Cathedral of SS Just et Pastor, Narbonne (late 11th century). Retrieved 30 December 2011.
  • "Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds lat., Ms. 903". Gradual of the Abbey Saint Yrieix near Limoges (11th century). Retrieved 30 December 2013.
  • "Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds lat., Ms. 909". Troper, Sequentiary, and Tonary of St. Martial de Limoges (1028). Retrieved 30 December 2013.
  • "Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds lat., Ms. 1085". Abridged Antiphonary from the church St. Salvator Mundi, St. Martial Abbey in Limoges, with later modal classifications by Roger & Adémar de Chabannes (late 10th century). Retrieved 30 December 2011.
  • "Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds lat., Ms. 1118". Troper, Tonary, Sequentiary and Proser from Southwestern France, Région d'Auch (987–96). Retrieved 30 December 2011.
  • "Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds lat., Ms. 1120". Troper, Proser, Processional of St. Martial de Limoges (late 10th century). Retrieved 30 September 2013.
  • "Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds lat., Ms. 1121". Troper, Sequentiary, and Tonary of St. Martial de Limoges, Adémar de Chabannes (ca. 1025). Retrieved 30 December 2013.
  • "Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, fonds latin, ms. 1132". Gradual-Proser of the Abbey Saint-Martial at Limoges (late 11th century). Retrieved 2 October 2013.
  • "Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, fonds latin, ms. 1135". Sequentiary, Offertorial, and Troper of the Abbey Saint-Martial at Limoges (12th century). Retrieved 2 October 2013.
  • "Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, fonds latin, ms. 1139". Troper-Proser of the Abbey Saint-Martial at Limoges (12th & 13th century) [St-M A]. Retrieved 2 October 2013.
  • "Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds lat., Ms. 1240". Troper from the church St. Salvator Mundi, St. Martial Abbey in Limoges with neumes added by Adémar de Chabannes (933-936). Retrieved 30 December 2013.
  • "Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, fonds latin, ms. 3549, fol. 149-169". Troper-Proser of the Abbey Saint-Martial at Limoges (12th century) [St-M B]. Retrieved 2 October 2013.
  • "Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, fonds latin, ms. 3719, fol. 15r-100v". Troper-Proser of the Abbey Saint-Martial at Limoges (12th century) [St-M С]. Retrieved 2 October 2013.
  • "Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, fonds latin, ms. 12584". Gradual, Antiphonary and Processionnal of the Abbey Saint-Maur-des-Fossés near Paris (11th century). Retrieved 24 January 2014.
  • London, British Library, Add. 36881. Polyphonic fragment of the region of Apt and South Catalonia, small south French-Catalan square notes on 7 to 9 staves of 4 or 5 dry-point lines (12th and 13th century) [St-M D] (see description at DIAMM).
  • "London, British Library, Harley 4951". Gradual of Saint-Etienne of Toulouse, including a tonary (end of 11th century). Retrieved 30 December 2011.

Studies

  • Arlt, Wulf (1975). "Peripherie und Zentrum vier Studien zur ein- und mehrstimmigen Musik des hohen Mittelalters". Forum musicologicum — Basler Studien zur Musikgeschichte. 1: 169–222.
  • Boynton, Susan (2006). Shaping a Monastic Identity: Liturgy & History at the Imperial Abbey of Farfa, 1000-1125. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801443814.
  • Danckwardt, Marianne (1999). "Das "Stirps iesse" der Handschrift Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, fonds latin 3549 und sein Verhältnis zum Saint-Martial- und Notre-Dame-Repertoire". Compositionswissenschaft: Festschrift Reinhold und Roswitha Schlötterer zum 70. Geburtstag. Augsburg: Wissner. pp. 11–30. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
  • Fuller, Sarah Ann (1969). Aquitanian polyphony of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Berkeley: University of California.
  • Fuller, Sarah (1979). "The Myth of "Saint Martial" Polyphony – A Study of the Sources". Musica disciplina. 33: 5–26. Retrieved 23 January 2014.
  • Fuller, Sarah (1990). "Early Polyphony". The Early Middle Ages to 1300. New Oxford History of Music. Vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford UP. pp. 485–556. ISBN 0193163292. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
  • Gillingham, Bryan (2006). Music in the Cluniac Ecclesia: A Pilot Project. Ottawa: Institute of Mediaeval Music. ISBN 1896926738.
  • Grier, James (1995). "Roger de Chabannes (d. 1025), Cantor of St Martial, Limoges". Early Music History. 14: 53–119.
  • Grier, James (2006). The musical world of a medieval monk: Adémar de Chabannes in eleventh-century Aquitaine. Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521856287.
  • Gushee, Marion S (1964). "Romanesque Polyphony — A Study of the Fragmentary Sources". Yale University. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  • Hankeln, Roman (1999). Die Offertoriumsprosuln der aquitanischen Handschriften: Voruntersuchungen zur Edition des aquitanischen Offertoriumscorpus und seiner Erweiterungen. Regensburger Studien zur Musikgeschichte. Tutzing: Schneider. ISBN 3-7952-0973-0.
  • Herzo, Anthony Marie (1966). "Five Aquitanian graduals, their mass propers and Alleluia cycles". Los Angeles: University of Southern California. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  • Huglo, Michel (1955). "Les Preces des Graduels aquitains empruntées à la liturgie hispanique". Hispania sacra. 8: 361–383.
  • Huglo, Michel (1982). "La tradition musicale aquitaine. Répertoire et notation". Liturgie et musique (IXe-XIVe s.). Cahiers de Fanjeaux. 17: 253–268.
  • Huglo, Michel (1982). "Les débuts de la polyphonie à Paris : les premiers organa parisiens". Forum musicologicum — Basler Studien zur Musikgeschichte. 3: 94–163.
  • Kaden, Christian (1985). "Notation - frühe Mehrstimmigkeit - Komposition". Musiksoziologie. Wilhelmshaven: Heinrichshofen. pp. 334–447. ISBN 3795904463.
  • Karp, Theodore (1967). "St. Martial and Santiago de Compostela: An Analytical Speculation". Acta musicologica. 39: 144–160.
  • Karp, Theodore (1992). The polyphony of Saint Martial and Santiago de Compostela. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • Meyer, Christian (2009). Le traité dit de Saint-Martial revisité et réédité. Retrieved 15 January 2014.
  • Planchart, Alejandro Enrique. "St Martial". Grove Music Online. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Music in the Medieval English Liturgy. Plainsong & Mediaeval Music Society Centennial Essays. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1993. ISBN 0193161257. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
  • Sherill, William Manning (2011). "The Gradual of St. Yrieix in eleventh-century Aquitaine". Austin: University of Texas at Austin. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  • Spanke, Helmut (1930-1933): ‘St. Martial-Studien – Ein Beitrag zur frühromanischen Metrik’, Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Literatur, 54 (1930–31), 282–317, 385–422; 56 (1932–3), 450–78
  • Treitler, Leo (1964). "The Polyphony of St. Martial". Journal of the American Musicological Society. 17: 29–42. doi:10.2307/830028.
  • Treitler, Leo (2003). With Voice and Pen — Coming to know Medieval Song and How it was made. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198166443.
  • Varelli, Giovanni (2013). "Two Newly Discovered 10th-Century Organa". Early Music History. 32: 277–315. doi:10.1017/S0261127913000053.
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