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Processional melodies in the Old Hispanic rite

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2022

EMMA HORNBY ,
DAVID ANDRÉS FERNÁNDEZ ,
CARMEN JULIA GUTIÉRREZ  and
DIANNE SCULLIN
EMMA HORNBY
Affiliation:
emma.hornby@bristol.ac.uk; david.andres@ucm.es; cjgutier@ucm.es; dianne.scullin@bristol.ac.uk
DAVID ANDRÉS FERNÁNDEZ
Affiliation:
emma.hornby@bristol.ac.uk; david.andres@ucm.es; cjgutier@ucm.es; dianne.scullin@bristol.ac.uk
CARMEN JULIA GUTIÉRREZ
Affiliation:
emma.hornby@bristol.ac.uk; david.andres@ucm.es; cjgutier@ucm.es; dianne.scullin@bristol.ac.uk
DIANNE SCULLIN
Affiliation:
emma.hornby@bristol.ac.uk; david.andres@ucm.es; cjgutier@ucm.es; dianne.scullin@bristol.ac.uk
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Abstract

Old Hispanic liturgy was practised across much of medieval Iberia until c.1080. In this article we analyse the extant Old Hispanic processional antiphons, focusing on: the presence or absence of verses; amount of text and relationship with the Bible; cadence placement; number of notes per chant (melodic density) and per syllable; and melodic repetition within and between chants. We demonstrate that the processional antiphons are neither a homogenous corpus nor clearly differentiated stylistically from other Old Hispanic antiphons. In a short case study of the Good Friday Veneration of the Cross, we situate the processional antiphons within their wider ritual context, including their likely staging in the ecclesiastical architecture. As we show, the interaction between melody and ritual directed the antiphon texts towards a particular devotional end.

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Research Article
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Plainsong & Medieval Music , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , October 2021 , pp. 99 - 118
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

Old Hispanic liturgy was practised across much of medieval Iberia until c.1080. This Christian, Latin liturgy had independent structures, texts and melodies from Roman liturgy and Gregorian chant. The lack of pitch information in Old Hispanic notation has previously constrained melodic analysis (with notable exceptions).Footnote 1 Here, we explore the forty-two Old Hispanic notated antiphons whose rubrics confirm a processional use. As we show, these antiphons, preserved only in five manuscripts, have diverse structures and musical characteristics.

Processional movement had several functions within medieval liturgy.Footnote 2 Some processions marked solemn days; others were primarily pragmatic – for example, transferring a corpse from the church to the cemetery. Some processions mirrored Gospel narratives, as on Palm Sunday, when participants processed into church with palms, accompanied by antiphons recounting Christ's entry into Jerusalem.Footnote 3 We have previously explored Old Hispanic processional rubrics: who was involved, where they moved, what was sung and which objects were carried.Footnote 4 Here, we focus on notated processional antiphons, which are assigned to eleven distinct ceremonies.Footnote 5 We analyse the presence or absence of verses; amount of text and relationship with the Bible; cadence placement; number of notes per chant and per syllable (melodic density); and melodic repetition within and between chants. We will demonstrate that the processional antiphons are neither a homogenous corpus, nor clearly differentiated stylistically from other Old Hispanic antiphons. Table 1 lists the four Old Hispanic manuscripts with rubricated and notated processional chants.Footnote 8

Table 1.

Old Hispanic manuscripts that include notated and rubricated processional chants

In Online Appendix A, we present our analytical data, including (for each chant): manuscript appearance(s); liturgical assignment and processional context; links to machine-readable transcriptions; full texts and translations of chant and biblical texts; manuscript images; and statistical data about numbers of syllables, numbers of notes, melodic density, and musical phrase lengths.Footnote 9 Some processional antiphons are preserved in two or three manuscripts. We specify the ‘relationship ratio’ between different versions of each chant and provide a comparison of the melodic shape in each manuscript.Footnote 10 The processional antiphons are closely related between Tradition A manuscripts,Footnote 11 although only four manuscripts contain these chants, from a limited area of Spain. This precludes wide-ranging conclusions about processional antiphons across medieval Iberia, although our findings do suggest a range of formal, textual and melodic possibilities for this type of chant.

In previous work, we assigned numerical labels to each occurrence of a ceremony involving liturgical movement (see Online Appendix B).Footnote 12 Eleven distinct ceremonies contain notated processional antiphons (Table 2). In what follows, we refer to each occasion by item number.

Table 2.

Old Hispanic ceremonies that contain notated processional antiphons

Antiphons are the most numerous type of processional chant. There are forty-two processional antiphons (including alleluiatici, a subgenre discussed later), but fewer chants in other genres are rubricated as processional: two prayers (item 3); one hymn (items 15–16);Footnote 13 two versus complexes (items 19 and 21); two responsories (item 31); and some preces (items 36–7). Old Hispanic processional antiphons have never been studied as a corpus although isolated Old Hispanic and Roman chants have been compared. For example, Clyde Brockett compared the Old Hispanic Palm Sunday antiphons Quum introires and Osanna with Aquitanian cognates.Footnote 14 He also made a partial inventory of Old Hispanic processional antiphons.Footnote 15 We take a different approach, exploring the Old Hispanic processional antiphons within the Old Hispanic stylistic context.

In the remainder of this article, we first define Old Hispanic antiphons, with processional antiphons as a subgenre. We then analyse the variables outlined previously. Finally, we present an illustrative case study of three Good Friday processional antiphons, to contextualise processional antiphons within a specific ceremony.

Defining Old Hispanic antiphons

In medieval manuscripts, particular genre labels are usually consistently assigned to chants in specific liturgical positions.Footnote 16 Chants within a genre can share characteristics,Footnote 17 or they can have diverse structures and/or musical characteristics. Old Hispanic processional antiphons are a corpus of this second type.

An Old Hispanic antiphon is a chanted text, rubricated ‘A’, ‘Ant’ or similar, and usually assigned to particular liturgical moments. Any accompanying verses are rubricated VR (or similar), and then II, III, etc. Together, we define these components as an ‘antiphon complex’. An Old Hispanic antiphon complex usually comprises an antiphon, single verse and doxology. We call these ‘conventional antiphon complexes’.Footnote 18 Conventional antiphon complexes were used at vespers, matutinum (the dawn service), and terce, sext and none on fasting days. Some manuscripts mark the point in the antiphon to which the singers return after the verse (first repeat; in L8) and after the doxology (final repeat; sometimes in the same place as the first repeat; in L8) (see Table 3).

Table 3.

Structure of conventional Old Hispanic antiphons

Alleluiatici, a subgenre of Old Hispanic antiphons, share the same formal structure but are usually rubricated ‘ALL’ or similar. In the regular liturgy, an alleluiaticus is always the last of a set of antiphons. Except on fasting days, alleluiatici always include one or more iterations of ‘alleluia’.Footnote 19 Sometimes – especially on fasting days – these chants are rubricated as antiphons. This confirms that the alleluiatici are a functionally specific antiphon subgenre, and we treat them together with the antiphons in the following analysis.Footnote 20

Particular moments in the Old Hispanic liturgy have antiphon complexes with multiple verses. Within matutinum, these moments include the (variable) canticle, the matutinarium (an antiphon with a whole variable psalm), and Psalms 3 and 50 (and sometimes 56), sung in full most days. Unlike the Benedictine liturgy, where psalms are dispersed across the twenty-four-hour day, the Old Hispanic psalm cycle (with antiphons) is assigned to night services.Footnote 21 Further, some special ceremonies have antiphon complexes with multiple verses.Footnote 22 Rarely, Old Hispanic antiphons have no verses, but were sung straight through, without repeats or alternation of singers.Footnote 23

In early medieval Iberia, Isidore of Seville wrote that antiphonal singing originated ‘with two choirs alternately singing together like two seraphim and two testaments exclaiming one after another’.Footnote 24 In Etymologies, Isidore wrote: ‘“antiphon” (antiphona) translated from the Greek, means “reciprocal voice,” specifically when two choruses alternate in singing with their order interchanged, that is, from one to the other’.Footnote 25 Isidore was describing antiphonal singing rather than antiphon chants.Footnote 26 There is a definition of the antiphon itself in L8's second prologue: ‘at the right and the left, they form choirs and sing the reciprocal strands of the antiphon. The ones begin, the others take up the Psalm and thirdly, after the Gloria, they sing together.’Footnote 27 Drawing on this prologue, we concur with other scholars in supposing that two alternating groups of singers sang conventional antiphon complexes, one group standing in the north side of the choir and the other in the south side.Footnote 28 Unlike the prologue, however, the manuscript rubrics have an additional ‘first repeat’ of the antiphon (see Table 3). The L8 prologue cannot therefore be taken at face value.

We define a processional antiphon as a chant complex rubricated both as processional and as an antiphon/alleluiaticus. In the Roman liturgy, some antiphons are exclusively processional and others are also used elsewhere in the liturgy.Footnote 29 In the Old Hispanic liturgy, only four processional antiphons also have non-processional uses.Footnote 30 There is no formal or stylistic distinction between these and other Old Hispanic processional antiphons, and we have not pursued it further as a sub-categorisation. The singers of Old Hispanic processional antiphons are not usually identified. Many rubrics are silent on the matter, or use non-specific plural verbs (‘they sing’) or the passive voice (‘it is sung’). Certainly, processional chants were not the exclusive preserve of a particular person or group of people within the ecclesiastical hierarchy: some are assigned to deacons (L8, item 4) or clergy (A56, item 43, and S4, items 44 and 49); some are intoned by the archdeacon (L8, item 5) or bishop (S4, item 24; L8, item 23). There is no correlation between particular formal structures or musical characteristics and specific performers.

Old Hispanic processional antiphons: textual and musical characteristics

In this section, we introduce the textual and musical characteristics of the forty-two identified Old Hispanic processional antiphons. In the first subsection, we engage with their textual aspects, and in the second subsection, we engage with musical aspects. As we demonstrate, the corpus encompasses considerable variety in each parameter.

Textual analysis

Although antiphon analysis sometimes engages with modality and verse recitation tones, scholars usually focus on the antiphon itself rather than the complete antiphon complex.Footnote 31 In liturgy, however, the entire antiphon complex is sung, resulting in a fundamentally different experience from non-liturgical performance of a lone antiphon.Footnote 32 Being primarily concerned with the liturgical experience, we consider each antiphon complex as a whole.

Presence or absence of verses

An antiphon's formal context usually informs liturgical practitioners (and modern scholars) how antiphon, verse(s) and doxology are interwoven in practice. The conventional antiphon complex was a common structure for Old Hispanic antiphons in general, but is only found in three processional antiphons.Footnote 33 Thirty-five processional antiphons lack verses entirely. Three antiphons have verse structures without parallels in the wider repertory. The antiphon part of Ecce grex (items 23–4) was repeated when arriving at the choir. Quodquod (item 26) has a rubric instructing: ‘when they get to the altar, sing the gloria and repeat [the antiphon] from the beginning’.Footnote 34 There is no evidence in either case of the usual ‘first repeat’. In Accipe (item 49), the ‘first repeat’ is used after each of the first and second verses. Then the antiphon is sung again, with the ‘first repeat’ signalled after each of a further eight verses (although some can be omitted, if the processional action has been completed). The doxology follows and then the ‘final repeat’ of the whole antiphon.

Domine deus virtus (item 49) may have been sung with an entire psalm, although it is not explicitly signalled. At the beginning of a war campaign, the cross-bearers preceding the king sang this antiphon while the procession left the church.Footnote 35 As notated, this antiphon is too short to fulfil this purpose. The same antiphon was sung with Psalm 139 in the night liturgy, however, at least once a week. In item 49, the antiphon almost certainly sufficed to prompt those living in community to embark on the whole of Psalm 139. Textually, this is plausible: Psalm 139 seeks God's protection in battle and praises God for such protection. In combination, Domine deus virtus and Psalm 139 are suitable topically and in length for this processional use. Generally, the Old Hispanic processional antiphons do not have unified formal structures. Most processional antiphons have no verses; those with verses do not all share a single structure.

Amount of text and relationship with the Bible

We can estimate the relative performance length of each antiphon complex by counting syllables (see Online Appendix A). As we will show, different processional antiphon complexes presented liturgical participants with widely varying amounts of text, ranging from twenty-six syllables to 484.

Twenty-seven processional antiphons without verses are among the shorter processional antiphons (26–68 syllables each). Texts comprising a single biblical verse,Footnote 36 or combining some or all of two consecutive biblical verses,Footnote 37 are easy to comprehend. Other antiphons combine some or all of two or three non-consecutive verses from one biblical chapterFootnote 38 or different chapters in the same biblical book,Footnote 39 or have a text of unknown origin.Footnote 40 Stimulating connections between biblical ideas presented in an unfamiliar sequence, these chants will have been more challenging to comprehend and interpret than those whose texts follow the familiar biblical narrative flow.Footnote 41

Processional antiphon complexes with verses are generally longer than those without verses. Although the antiphon itself comprises a single biblical verse, four (perhaps five) such antiphon complexes have 103–60 syllables each, counting verse(s), doxology and repetitions.Footnote 42 A repeated text becomes more familiar with each hearing, cementing it as key to the complex's meaning. For example, on Holy Saturday, the ‘first repeat’ after the verse in Lumen (item 23/24) shifts the textual meaning. The antiphon refers to ‘every man coming into this world’. The verse ends ‘the light’, followed by the ‘first repeat’: ‘coming into this world’. This reinterprets the biblical text: ‘every man coming into the world’ becomes ‘the light coming into the world’.Footnote 43 Seven processional antiphons without verses are on a similar scale to these antiphons with verses (85–133 syllables; and one has 203 syllables). In each case, the chant combines and alters different verses from a single biblical book.Footnote 44 For example, Haec … deserta (item 48) draws on Isaiah 32:16–17 (‘the eternal peace of justice is present in Carmel’) and Isaiah 33:20 (‘Jerusalem is an immovable tabernacle’). In Haec … deserta, instead, ‘Carmel will be abandoned in delight, and justice will hold eternally in the immovable tabernacle.’ When chant texts reshape biblical meaning like this, the resulting chants will have been interpretatively challenging because of their unfamiliarity.

The three processional antiphons with multiple verses have the longest syllable counts (216–484 syllables each). If sung with the whole of Psalm 139, Domine deus virtus (item 49) has 459 syllables. The other two chants have multiple verses drawn from different books.Footnote 45 For example, Accipe (ceremony when the king goes to war; item 49, 484 syllables) combines verses from Wisdom 5 and 6, Deuteronomy 33 and Psalm 120. In Wisdom, God provides justice, equity (as an invisible shield), power and strength. In Deuteronomy, power and strength are provided by the Lord, who is the shield of help and the sword of glory. In Psalm 120, God is protector and keeper. These biblical verses share similar meanings about God's strength but, by combining them, the chant's compilers have given Psalm 120 a military interpretation.

The Old Hispanic processional antiphons have diverse syllable counts. The most textually complex processional antiphons (Quodquod and Accipe) are melodically among the simplest, with recitation tones for their multiple verses. This situation is familiar from text setting across Western music history: long texts are often set syllabically, while short texts can be an opportunity for more ornate music.

Musical analysis

In the following sections, we analyse the processional antiphon melodies. We concentrate on the antiphons themselves, since antiphon verses are rarely notated.

Cadence placement

A chant text is punctuated through musical cadences. In Online Appendix A, gaps in our melodic density charts indicate cadence placement.Footnote 46 As in many other Old Hispanic chants, processional antiphon texts are usually divided into musical phrases of two to four words. Some musical phrases contain only a single word, and others include five or more words. These departures from the norm can lend rhetorical emphasis to the text.

We identified cadences through comparative text and notational analysis. In Western liturgical chant, musical phrases usually coincide with short grammatical text units, for example, a verb plus subject or a genitive.Footnote 47 Particular neume combinations recur at the ends of Old Hispanic chants, where by definition there is always a cadence.Footnote 48 The same recurring neume combinations also appear at the ends of sentences or smaller grammatical units within chants, most likely also with a cadential function.Footnote 49 Extra-musical information also contributes to our understanding of cadence placement. The ‘first repeat’ or ‘final repeat’, following the verse, probably begins a new phrase. Therefore, in the antiphon, these repeats are probably preceded by cadences. Further, some manuscripts (including L8) intermittently have small marks under the text that may indicate cadences.Footnote 50 We have drawn on all these sources of information to identify processional antiphon cadences.

Twenty-one processional antiphons have one or more musical phrases comprising a single word. This is most commonly ‘alleluia’ or a verb, which can stand alone grammatically. More rarely, it is a noun, although that requires further text to complete the grammatical unit. Such isolation of a noun may create emphasis. For example, several relics procession antiphons describe the priests carrying the ark of the covenant across the Jordan (item 48). There are separate musical phrases on ‘sacerdotes’ (priests), as well as ‘decrescant’ and ‘consistant’ (describing the water), drawing attention to these words. In Alleluia loquutus, a separate phrase on ‘hodie’ (today) perhaps situates the action in the intersection between biblical time and the liturgical present.Footnote 51 In De iherusalem, the text is punctuated by cadences to an extraordinary degree: ‘Out of Jerusalem / shall go forth a relic / alleluia / and salvation / from Mount Sion / alleluia / and there will be a solemnity / in this city’. This was the first relics procession chant, perhaps sung while clergy removed the relics from a previous location in another church. Metropolitan churches were known as ‘Holy Jerusalem’,Footnote 52 giving this text particular significance in this procession, articulated emphatically by the short phrases.

At the other end of the scale, twenty-two chants contain one or more longer musical phrases. We compared the neume combinations with hundreds of Old Hispanic melodies in our database.Footnote 53 Sometimes the textual grammar permits a musical phrase division, but the neumes do not signify cadences in our database. Usually in Old Hispanic chant, a melisma is used to provide a long temporal period of unbroken chanting. Nine processional chants lack long melismas; instead, in these chants, the continuous temporal flow was perhaps extended by avoiding cadences, rather than by the more common strategy of inserting melismas.

Long musical phrases occur in varying contexts. Sometimes the text drives their use, including lists, where a long musical phrase ties the text together as a single unit.Footnote 54 Other times, a long musical phrase may underscore the text. Three phrases appear with some or all of ‘Osanna benedictus qui venit in nomine domini’ (‘Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’), during the Palm Sunday procession. This procession echoes Jesus's entry to Jerusalem on a donkey, while a multitude sang ‘Osanna benedictus’. The acclamation is perhaps underlined by its appearance in a single musical phrase (although the grammar might suggest cadences before ‘qui’ or ‘in’). One five-word phrase may have arisen as the result of a textual link. In Alleluia egressus … domini, the single musical phrase ‘qui portabant archam foederis domini’ parallels the four-word phrase in Alleluia egressus … de (‘portantes archam foederis domini’). While at first sight, the five-word phrase is unusually long, it can perhaps be attributed to the textual link with a nearby chant, rather than being rhetorically significant.

Old Hispanic processional antiphons generally have musical phrases comprising short (and grammatically logical) text units. Exceptionally, musical phrases can comprise a single word, or five or more words, disturbing the usual text pacing and perhaps sometimes rhetorically motivated.

Melodic density (number of notes per syllable)

Melodic density is a music-based measure of a chant's size. Thirty-one processional antiphons are indistinguishable in their melodic density from many conventional antiphons, but eleven processional antiphons have unusually high melodic density: many syllables have many notes. Two processional antiphons have low melodic density, with up to three notes per syllable, akin to many night liturgy ferial antiphons.Footnote 55 Twenty-four processional antiphons have up to thirteen notes per syllable, paralleling many vespers and matutinum antiphons. Five processional antiphons have one longer melisma (up to 24 notes) approaching the final cadence.Footnote 56 These musical proportions, and the placement of the longest melisma, are similar to some conventional antiphons associated with important liturgical days.

Eleven processional antiphons in the relics procession have high melodic densities, distinguishing them stylistically from other Old Hispanic antiphons. In four chants, there are several short melismas as well as two longer melismas (up to 29 notes each).Footnote 57 The remaining seven chants each have up to ten short melismas, as well as one melisma of up to twenty-nine notes and one melisma of up to fifty-one notes.Footnote 58 The thirty-plus-note melismas include internal repetitions.Footnote 59 Such repetition is characteristic of soni and sacrificia, although their melismas can be longer, with several internal repetitions.Footnote 60 We do not usually encounter such repetition within antiphon melismas.

In most processional antiphons, one or two moments stand out as having more notes per syllable than the rest of the chant. This usually occurs at the beginning and/or end, as is common in Old Hispanic chant.Footnote 61 As in other Old Hispanic chants, ‘alleluia’ closing a chant often has a melisma: when all the text has been delivered, there is an opportunity for jubilation.Footnote 62 For example, Aperite has long melismas on praising words: ‘iubilantes deo. alleluia’.Footnote 63 Here, there are no short melismas in the earlier part of the chant, marking these two closing melismas even more.

In some chant genres, there are melismas in the middle of a chant, perhaps emphasising an important word.Footnote 64 In the processional antiphons this occurs only on ‘pax’ in Haec … deserta (item 48). This fifteen-note melisma invites liturgical participants to ruminate on ‘peace’. This remains an outlier among the processional antiphons, where long melismas seem primarily to act as structural markers, at the beginning or end of the chant.

By analysing a chant's melodic density, we can establish whether its proportions are typical or atypical for its genre. If atypical, then it would have been heard as such, giving the entire chant rhetorical weight. Eleven of the processional antiphons are exceptionally prolix, compared with other antiphons. Further, melodic density analysis helps us to identify moments that stand out from the prevailing flow of text delivery within the chant or genre, marking particular words.

Length of antiphon: number of notes per chant

Old Hispanic chant notation does not convey precise rhythmic information.Footnote 65 Each chant's performance time is therefore difficult to estimate, although the number of notes provides a rough measure of relative duration. The unnotated verses present a methodological difficulty here. Two chants have partially notated verses: in Accipe (item 49), S4 has a three-note rise on the penultimate syllable of each verse; and in Quodquod (item 26), each of the last five syllables of verse 1 has one to three notes.Footnote 66 In these two chants, we have calculated the note count as suggested by the partial notation. For the other antiphons, we have estimated the number of notes assuming one note per syllable in unnotated verses. Therefore, the resulting indicative note counts for antiphon complexes with verses are probably a slight underestimate.

The five processional antiphons with a single verse have 220–336 notes each,Footnote 67 including the verse, doxology and repeat aligning with the usual proportions for a conventional antiphon. Ten processional antiphons lacking verses are of a similar size (200–370 notes per chant): these have quite long texts and high melodic density.Footnote 68 The three multi-verse chants have 480–625 notes each,Footnote 69 while the three longest antiphons without verses have 415–40 notes each.Footnote 70 In isolation, these antiphons without verses seem exceptionally long, but they probably took a similar length of time to sing as the multi-verse antiphon complexes. The remaining twenty-one antiphons without verses have 50–185 notes. The shortest of these chants will have been experienced as very modest indeed, while the longest are almost as large as the processional antiphons with a single verse. As these data show, the performance times of the processional antiphons probably varied widely.

We can compare the melody lengths and syllable count lengths. Three multi-verse chants are the longest on both counts (484–623 notes and 216–467 syllables);Footnote 71 nine chants are ‘medium-sized’ (200–370 notes and 85–203 syllables);Footnote 72 and twenty-one chants are ‘smaller’. The three antiphons without verses (415–40 notes) have a ‘medium’ syllable count (120–203 syllables),Footnote 73 and six chants have a ‘medium’ note count (200–370 notes) but a ‘small’ syllable count (60–5 syllables).Footnote 74 The high melodic density of these nine chants (eight in the relics procession) makes them stand out from other processional antiphons: each has more notes per syllable than usual in the corpus.

In the absence of rhythmic information, this numerical analysis is the closest we can get to estimating the chants’ relative performance times. This gives us a sense of the pacing of the liturgy, and of roughly how long liturgical participants were exposed to each chant text.

Melodic repetition within antiphons

Proportionally more processional antiphons include internal melodic repetition than in the wider Old Hispanic antiphon repertory. Eleven of the forty-two processional antiphons (26%) include internal melodic repetition; from Palm Sunday to the Sunday after Easter (L8, 151v–189r), excluding processional antiphons, only 7 per cent of antiphons have internal repetition.

In processional antiphons, internal melodic repetition sometimes reflects a textual parallel. In Osanna (item 5), the melody for ‘Osanna benedictus qui venit in nomine’ recurs on ‘osanna benedictum quod venit regnum pueris nostri’. In Egredere (item 4), ‘angelus domini praecedet te’ shares melody, syllable count, accent pattern and vocabulary with ‘quoniam dominus dilexit te’. In five antiphons, a repeated ‘alleluia’ uses the same melody twice within the chant.Footnote 75 There are complex repetitions within Gloriam (item 52): the first two alleluias have the same melody; and ‘in pones super eum’ and ‘in benedictione’ share melody, with a similar gesture on ‘in saeculum saeculi’.

Three processional antiphons each have a stretch of repeated melody without a text parallel. In Quodquod (item 26), the melody on ‘Quodquod receperunt deum dedit eis’ is repeated on ‘filios dei his qui credunt’. After each of the three unnotated verses, ‘his qui credunt’ is cued. After the doxology, the entire antiphon is repeated. Thus, in performance, the melody on ‘his qui credunt’ (‘to them that believe in his name’) was heard seven times. The cumulative melodic underscoring heightens the relevance of this text to the baptisands participating in the procession. In Det tibi (item 52), ‘and all who bless you, let them be filled with blessings’ is divided into two phrases with parallel melodies (AA′). This melodic parallel reflects the shared vocabulary (‘benedi-’) and highlights the antecedent and consequent clauses. Cum iucunditate (item 48) comprises two sentences, with echoed verbal structure, and the same melody is used to begin each sentence.

As these examples demonstrate, internal repetition may have multiple functions, often mirroring text repetition or assonance. In Quodquod, it has a cumulative effect, underlining a key message. In Det tibi and Cum iucunditate, repetition underscores the textual structure.

Melodic repetition between chants

Processional chants employ the same musical language as other Old Hispanic chants, generally including neume combinations that recur across multiple Old Hispanic chant genres. Recurring neume combinations are easiest to recognise at cadences, where there are often distinctively notated melismas. For example, the neume combination given in Figure 1 is widely used at the end of a sentence; six processional antiphons have it on the penultimate or antepenultimate syllable of a phrase.Footnote 76 There is unlikely to be any significance in the use of such routine neume combinations beyond the insertion of a textually appropriate cadence.

Fig. 1.

Neume combination used on the penultimate or antepenultimate syllable.

Sometimes particular recurring neume combinations are concentrated in a set of chants or across a single folio. For example, the neume combination in Figure 2 occurs on the penultimate syllable of a phrase seven times in item 48.Footnote 77 It is noteworthy here because of its concentration within a single ceremony. It must have come repeatedly to mind while this group of chants was being codified. Such concentrated recurring neume combinations are common, giving particular gestural flavour to a service or ceremony; they cannot all be enumerated here.

Fig. 2.

Recurring neume combination (item 48).

Occasionally, processional antiphons use unfamiliar cadences. In Egredimini (item 48), for example, the chant's two sentences must each end with a cadence, but the shapes on ‘domini’ are rarely used cadentially in L8,Footnote 78 and ‘Israhel’ uses a non-standard cadence shape. This chant, while still drawing on Old Hispanic melodic idioms, is unconventional. It is tempting to speculate that this resulted in an aurally striking chant opening the relic procession.

Analytical summary

Old Hispanic processional antiphons share features with the wider Old Hispanic repertory. Those with a single verse parallel the conventional antiphon structure, while four have more than one verse. Most are distinct from other Old Hispanic antiphons in lacking verses. In the processional antiphons, biblical texts are combined and adapted towards particular theological and liturgical goals. Short grammatical units are punctuated by cadences that mostly use the same recurring neume combinations as the wider corpus. The pacing contrast of longer and shorter musical phrases perhaps lends rhetorical emphasis to the text. There are exceptionally long melismas with repetition patterns at the beginning and/or end of some processional antiphons, as in other Old Hispanic chants. Processional antiphons, however, have more internal musical repetition than the wider repertory. As in other chants, particular recurring neume combinations can be concentrated in processional antiphons copied close together. Finally, the processional antiphons have diverse sizes, as measured by the number and length of melismas, total number of syllables, or total number of notes.

Case study: processional antiphons at the Adoration of the Cross

A short case study of a specific liturgical ceremony shows how the processional antiphons’ melodic characteristics interact with the liturgical context and the antiphons’ likely staging within the ecclesiastical architecture. As we show, these elements combined to direct the antiphon texts towards a particular devotional end.

Most processions accompanied by antiphons moved between functionally distinct areas within a church (e.g., altar, choir, preparatorio).Footnote 79 Pre-1080 Iberian churches do not have a uniform design, although several have a triple apse at the east end, divided from the nave by the choir using a screen.Footnote 80 The central apse contained the high altar while the other apses were probably the treasury and preparatorio.Footnote 81 These spaces were architecturally distinct, and they are differentiated in the rubrics. For example, in three processional antiphons, the Gloria was sung at the sanctuary entrance, showing a shared understanding of suitable processional staging.Footnote 82

On Good Friday, according to L8 (item 14),

the wood of the Holy Cross is put in a paten up on the altar in the principal church. From there, the wood itself is lifted up by a deacon in the paten after the Gospel. And it is brought to the church/chapel of the Holy Cross, singing these antiphons: Signum habentes; Iter facimus ligno; Benedictum est lignum. And similarly, singing, this same holy cross is kissed by all of the bishop, priests, clerics and all the faithful people. And soon, when all has unfolded, they walk away singing similarly, and put away the wood in the treasury.Footnote 83

In this procession, the wooden cross was brought from the cathedral's main altar to the Holy Cross church or chapel.Footnote 84 If this was a separate church within an urban space, we can imagine a relatively short procession through the streets. If it was a chapel within the cathedral, its location remains uncertain. There is no direct evidence of the placement of chapels in pre-1080 Iberian churches,Footnote 85 although such a chapel may have been located in the nave, without being an architecturally defined structure.Footnote 86 The three antiphons for this ceremony are among the shorter processional antiphons (32–56 syllables and 97–166 notes each). This helps to explain the presence of three processional antiphons in a row. In total, they have 387 notes, lasting somewhere between three and a half minutes (at two notes per second) and six and a half minutes (at one note per second). During this time, the procession could reach a chapel within the cathedral, and possibly even a nearby separate church.

The three antiphons are drawn from Wisdom. Each chant text combines and alters more than one biblical verse. In Wisdom 14:5, men pass over the sea. In the chants, ‘we’ trust and journey, bringing the text into the liturgical present.Footnote 87 In Wisdom, men trust in the wood of a ship. The chant texts instead imply that the wood is the cross. In Iter, the biblical text is altered so that salvation comes through the wood. In Signum, the longest melisma of the three antiphons is on ‘liberemur’ (‘we are saved [by you saviour of all]’), encouraging rumination on this idea.Footnote 88 In Benedictum, two texts are juxtaposed to identify the wood as the agent through which justice comes, showing the enemies that the Lord delivers from evil. The ‘enemies’ topic connects the Adoration of the Cross to the preceding three weeks of Passiontide, in which many liturgical texts refer to enemies.Footnote 89 Further, Benedictum has a melisma on ‘you deliver us from all evil’, allowing rumination on the universal salvific power of the Cross. All three chants give Wisdom 14 a Christological slant, drawing on patristic understanding (e.g., Saint Ambrose's commentary on Psalm 118, where the wood is interpreted as the Cross, which is justice).Footnote 90

The three antiphons reflect the tendency for the same recurring neume combinations to cluster within chants copied closely together (see Table 4). The cadence in row 1, discussed previously, is associated with the ends of sentences, clauses and chants both here and in the wider repertoire. The cadences in rows 2 and 3 share a single pattern of rising and falling notes, but are visually distinct from each other, perhaps signalling a different pitch outline or performative nuance. The cadence in row 3 is used at minor text divisions in these antiphons. In row 2, the key concept of the ‘wood’ shares the same melody in the first two antiphons.Footnote 91 During this procession, the singers had to remember chants sung liturgically just once a year, move through a complicated ecclesiastical space, carry a precious ritual object, and walk amongst the laity. The concentrated recurrence of these neume combinations will have helped to relieve the memory burden amongst physical distractions.

Table 4.

Recurring neume combinations in the Good Friday processional antiphons

These performance circumstances may also help to explain the proliferation of cadences in Signum, which has three one-word phrases (on ‘salutis’, ‘mandati’ and ‘salvatorem’). During this chant, the clergy were probably filing from the choir to the nave, perhaps past a screen and down steps. The frequent division of musical phrases gave the singers space to coordinate musical timing and choreography. In a more abstract sense, the recurrence of cadential gestures gives the set of three antiphons a gestural and aural unity, mirroring their textual commonalities.

Conclusions

This article comprises the first musical study of Old Hispanic processional antiphons as a corpus. Rather than comparing isolated chants with (possibly) related Gregorian chants, we situate the antiphons within the wider Old Hispanic repertory. Our analysis shows that the antiphons use familiar Old Hispanic melodic gestures, with a greater concentration of internal repetition than the repertory in general. Although we cannot generalise about the musical characteristics of processional antiphons beyond the few manuscripts in which they are preserved with notation, we have detailed the diverse formal structures of the extant processional antiphons and their textual and musical characteristics. An Old Hispanic processional antiphon can be securely identified only by its rubrication, not by musical or textual characteristics.

As we have demonstrated, processional antiphons are not interchangeable chants that could be inserted at convenience into processions. Instead, as our Good Friday case study illustrates, each processional antiphon combines text, melody and liturgical choreography to give a particular theological slant to a ceremony. Our close reading of individual chants within a broad understanding of generic norms reveals the cultural richness of Old Hispanic chant specifically and medieval chant more broadly, situating Old Hispanic processional chants within their performative contexts.

References

1 Brou, Louis, ‘L'alleluia dans la liturgie mozarabe: Étude liturgico-musicale d'après les manuscrits de chant’, Anuario musical, 6 (1951), 3–90Google Scholar (laudes melody types and structures); idem, ‘Le Joyau des antiphonaires latins’, Archivos Leoneses, 8 (1954), 7–114 (stylistic traits of several genres); Don Michael Randel, The Responsorial Psalm Tones for the Mozarabic Office (Princeton, 1969) (formulaic melodies and regional dialects); idem, ‘Responsorial Psalmody in the Mozarabic Rite’, Études grégoriennes, 10 (1989), 87–116 and ‘Las formas musicales del canto viejo-hispánico’, in El canto mozárabe y su entorno: Estudios sobre la música de la liturgia viejo hispánica, ed. Ismael Fernández de la Cuesta et al. (Madrid, 2013), 83–94 (compositional process). Susana Zapke, El Antifonario de San Juan de la Peña (siglos X–XI). Estudio litúrgico-musical del rito hispánico (Zaragoza, 1995) (melodic structures); Nils Nadeau, ‘Pro sonorum diversitate vel novitate: The Singing of Scripture in the Hispano-Visigothic Votive Masses’, Ph.D. diss., Cornell University (1998) (melodic grammar); David Hiley, ‘Office Responsories in the León Antiphoner: Are They All “Original” Melodies?’ in El canto mozárabe y su entorno, ed. de la Cuesta et al., 405–12 (cadences); Hornby, Emma and Maloy, Rebecca, Music and Meaning in Old Hispanic Lenten Chants: Threni, Psalmi, and Easter Vigil Canticles (Woodbridge, 2013)Google Scholar (melodic grammar and rhetoric). The analytical methodology used in Music and Meaning is developed in the present article. For recent genre analyses, see Carrillo, Raquel Rojo, Text, Liturgy and Music in the Old Hispanic Rite: The Vespertinus Genre (Oxford, 2021)Google Scholar; Maloy, Rebecca, Songs of Sacrifice: Chant, Identity, and Christian Formation in Early Medieval Iberia (Oxford, 2020)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Two dozen chants are preserved in Aquitanian notation. See transcriptions in Casiano Rojo and Germán Prado, El canto mozárabe: Estudio histórico-crítico de su antigüedad y estado actual (Barcelona, 1929), 73–81; Manuel Pedro Ferreira, Antologia de Música em Portugal: na Idade Média e no Renascimento, Edições Musicais 2 vols. (Lisbon, 2003), 2: 15–16; Carmen Rodriguez Suso, ‘Les chants pour la dédicace des églises dans les anciennes liturgies de la Septimanie: leur contexte liturgique et leur transmission musicale’, in L'Art du chantre carolingien: Découvrir l'esthétique première du chant grégorien, ed. Christian-Jacques Demollière (Metz, 2004), 91–101.

2 Robin Darling Young, In Procession Before the World: Martyrdom as Public Liturgy in Early Christianity (Milwaukee, 2001), 7–8, 22–3 and passim; Kathleen Ashley and Wim Hüsken, eds., Moving Subjects: Processional Performance in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Amsterdam, 2001). On Christian stational liturgy, see John F. Baldovin, The Urban Character of Christian Worship: The Origins, Development, and Meaning of Stational Liturgy, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 228 (Rome, 1987). On processions in the Roman liturgy, see (inter alia) Helen Gittos and Sarah Hamilton, eds., Understanding Medieval Liturgy: Essays in Interpretation (Surrey, 2016); Susan Boynton and Diane J. Reilly, eds., Resounding Images: Medieval Intersections of Art, Music, and Sound (Turnhout, 2015); Helen Gittos, Liturgy, Architecture, and Sacred Places in Anglo-Saxon England (Corby, 2013); Megan Cassidy-Welch, ‘Space and Place in Medieval Contexts’, Parergon, 27 (2010), 1–12; Margot E. Fassler, ‘Adventus at Chartres: Ritual Models for Major Processions’, in Ceremonial Culture in Premodern Europe, ed. Nicholas Howe (Notre Dame, 2007), 13–62; Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin, eds., From Dead of Night to End of Day: The Medieval Customs of Cluny (Turnhout, 2005), especially the essays by Kristina Krueger and Carolyn Marino Malone; Harald Buchinger, David Hiley and Sabine Reichert, eds., Prozessionen und ihre Gesänge in der mittelalterlichen Stadt. Gestalt – Hermeneutik – Repräsentation (Regensburg, 2017).

For Iberia, Richard Bertram Donovan, The Liturgical Drama in Medieval Spain (Toronto, 1958) engages closely with Roman liturgy processions but does not mention Old Hispanic materials. Similarly, Karl Young, The Drama of the Medieval Church, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1933) documents numerous Western liturgical processions, but no Old Hispanic ones.

3 For the Old Hispanic texts, see Online Appendix A (http://plainsong.org.uk/publications/hornby-andres-gutierrez-and-scullin-processional-melodies-in-the-old-hispanic-rite-appendices/), where the Bible texts are taken from the Vulgate, except for the psalms, which are taken from the Mozarabic psalter as preserved in Madrid, Biblioteca nacional, 10001. We are – as ever – indebted to Don Randel's magisterial Index to the Chant of the Mozarabic Rite (Princeton, 1973), for information about chant concordances and biblical text sources. As well as the gospel texts, one Palm Sunday chant draws on Psalm 117:27, a verse linked by Cassiodorus to processions: ‘In confrequentationibus, id est processionibus crebris, quas populi turba condensat, et reddit celeberrimas devotione festiva.’ ‘With packed gatherings, that is, in crowded processions packed by flocks of people and celebrated with festive devotion’ translated by P.G. Walsh Cassiodorus: Explanation of the Psalms, vol. 3 (New York, 1991), 172.

4 David Andrés, Carmen Julia Gutiérrez, Emma Hornby and Raquel Rojo Carrillo, ‘Processions and their chants in the Old Hispanic liturgy’, Traditio, 75 (2020), 1–47.

5 The unnotated processional antiphons are: Sinite parvulos (item 29, S3, 28v; refer to Table 1 for manuscript sigla and Table 2 for item numbers; Hylaritate perfusa est (item 48, L8, 266v); and Det tibi dominus prudentiam, Dominus custodiat te, Da potestatem and Det dominus gratiam (item 52, L8, 271v). There is an unnotated incipit for alleluiaticus Gloriam in items 43 and 44 (S4, 39v; A56, 9r). We do not consider that usage here; the same text is given in full and notated in item 52 (L8, 271r).

6 On the debate about the origins of L8, see most recently Carmen Julia Gutiérrez, ‘“Librum de auratum conspice pinctum”. Sobre la datación y la procedencia del Antifonario de León’, Revista de Musicología, 42/2 (2019), 19–76.

7 On ‘occasional rituals’ in the Roman liturgy, see Gittos and Hamilton, ‘Introduction’, in Understanding Medieval Liturgy, 1–12.

8 On the dating and origin of the four manuscripts, see http://musicahispanica.eu/sources and also http://plainsong.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/PMM-Huglo-Hornby-Maloy-Figures-Appendices-Online-1.pdf (Appendix 1). All belong to liturgical Tradition A, preserved in eighth- to eleventh-century manuscripts, and in several later Toledan manuscripts. The fifth manuscript with processional antiphons, Toledo Cathedral 35–5 (T5), belongs instead to Tradition B, a distinct liturgical tradition preserved in three thirteenth-century manuscripts associated with particular Toledan parishes. The relationship between Traditions A and B is complex, and full engagement with the processional materials of T5 must await future investigation. On this relationship, see, inter alia, Jordi Pinell, ‘El problema de la dos tradiciones del antiguo rito hispánico: valoración documental de la tradición B en vistas a una eventual revisón del ordinario de la misa mozárabe’, in Liturgia y música mozárabes: ponencias y comunicaciones presentadas al I congreso internacional de estudios mozárabes, Toledo, 1975 (Toledo, 1978), 3–44; Ramon Gonzálvez Ruiz, ‘El canciller don Pedro López de Ayala y el problema de las dos tradiciones del rito hispánico’, in Liturgia y música mozárabes, 105–10; idem, ‘The Persistence of the Mozarabic Liturgy in Toledo after AD 1080’, in Santiago, Saint-Denis and Saint Peter: The Reception of the Roman Liturgy in León-Castille in 1080, ed. Bernard F. Reilly (New York, 1985), 157–85; idem, ‘La persistencia del rito hispánico o mozárabe en Toledo después del año 1080’, Annales toledanos, 27 (1990), 9–33; José Janini, Liber misticus de Cuaresma (Cod. Toledo 35.2, hoy en Madrid Bibl. nac. 10.110) (Toledo, 1979), xxix–xxx; and Hornby and Maloy, Music and Meaning, 5–12 and 302–14.

9 http://plainsong.org.uk/publications/hornby-andres-gutierrez-and-scullin-processional-melodies-in-the-old-hispanic-rite-appendices/.

10 The relationship ratio is 2A/(B+C), where:

  • A = number of compatible notes

  • B = number of notes in first manuscript

  • C = number of notes in second manuscript

See Hornby and Maloy, Music and Meaning, 20–1. Hornby and Maloy differentiate between melodies with a ratio of 0.9 (very closely related), 0.75 (related but not closely) and 0.5 (not related).

11 The seminal work on Old Hispanic melodic transmission is Randel, The Responsorial Psalm Tones. Building on that work, see Emma Hornby and Rebecca Maloy, ‘Melodic Dialects in Old Hispanic Chant’, Plainsong and Medieval Music, 25 (2016), 37–72; and eadem, ‘Fixity, Flexibility, and Compositional Process in Old Hispanic Chant’, Music and Letters, 97 (2016), 547–74).

12 http://plainsong.org.uk/publications/hornby-andres-gutierrez-and-scullin-processional-melodies-in-the-old-hispanic-rite-appendices/. See also Andrés et al., ‘Processions’.

13 An introductory stanza Ecce lignum, with (possible refrain) stanza Crux fidelis by Venantius Fortunatus, followed by twenty-four abecedary verses.

14 Clyde Brockett, ‘Osanna! New Light on the Palm Sunday Processional Antiphon Series’, Plainsong and Medieval Music, 9 (2000), 95–129, at 122–7, notes the limited melodic relationship between Old Hispanic and Gregorian textual cognates. On textual connections between a Palm Sunday processional antiphon in T5, Aquitaine and Byzantium, see Michel Huglo, ‘Source hagiopolite d'une antienne hispanique pour le Dimanche des Rameaux’, Hispania Sacra, 10 (1957), 367–74; Brockett, ‘Osanna!’, 111.

15 This list includes some chants lacking processional rubrics. Clyde Brockett, The Repertory of Processional Antiphons (Brepols, 2018).

16 On the ‘neutral connotation’ of genre in this sense, see Ritva Jacobsson and Leo Treitler, ‘Tropes and the Concept of Genre’, in Pax et Sapientia: Studies in Text and Music of Liturgical Tropes and Sequences in Memory of Gordon Anderson, ed. Ritva Jacobsson (Cologny-Geneve, 1986), 59–89, at 60.

17 Chant analysis routinely focuses on genre-specific characteristics. See, for example, David Hiley, Western Plainchant: A Handbook (Oxford, 1993); Willi Apel, Gregorian Chant (Bloomington, 1958). For genre-specific Old Hispanic chant analyses, see note 1. For summary analyses of each Old Hispanic chant genre, with further bibliography, see Emma Hornby, Kati Ihnat, Rebecca Maloy and Raquel Rojo Carrillo, Liturgical and Musical Culture in Early Medieval Iberia: Decoding a Lost Tradition (Cambridge, forthcoming).

18 Very few conventional antiphons have more than one verse. See Hornby et al., Liturgical and Musical Culture.

19 Iberian prohibition of ‘alleluia’ during Lent was attested at the Fourth Council of Toledo (ad 633). See Toledo IV, can. 11, La Colección Canónica Hispana, V. Concilios Hispanos: Segunda Parte, ed. Gonzalo Martínez Díez and Félix Rodríguez (Madrid, 1992), 199–200.

20 On alleluiatici as an antiphon subgenre, see Don Michael Randel and Nils Nadeau, ‘Mozarabic Chant’, Grove Music Online, www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/19269 (accessed 2 March 2020); Don Michael Randel, ‘Leander, Isidore and Gregory’, Journal of Musicology, 36 (2019), 498–522, at 511–12.

21 On an Old Hispanic psalm cycle, see Jordi Pinell, ‘Las missae: grupos de cantos y oraciones en el oficio de la antigua liturgia hispana’, Archivos Leoneses, 8 (1954), 145–85, at 154–72; idem, ‘El oficio hispano-visigótico I. Fuentes para su estudio’, Hispania Sacra, 10 (1957), 385–427, at 412–19; W.S. Porter, ‘Studies in the Mozarabic Office’, Journal of Theological Studies, 35 (1934), 266–86, at 283–6. Brou argued against the existence of Old Hispanic continuous psalmody in ‘Le Joyau’, 97–111. Randel and Nadeau noted the likelihood of psalmody in the ‘monastic office’ (see ‘Mozarabic chant’). For a recent argument in favour of continuous psalmody in the night services, see Emma Hornby and Kati Ihnat, ‘Continuous Psalmody in the Old Hispanic Liturgy’, Scriptorium, 73 (2019), 3–33.

22 For example, Aperiat tibi, sung during the deposition of a body (S4, 97 and 100v; S3, 25v; A56, 33v and 37r).

23 This correlates with the routine definition of processional antiphons in the Roman liturgy. See, for example, Hiley, Western Plainchant, 100.

24 Isidore, De Ecclesiasticis Officiis, trans. and intr. Thomas L. Knoebel (New York, 2008), 32; Isidore, De Ecclesiasticis Officiis, ed. Christopher M. Lawson, CCSL 113 (Turnhout, 1989), 7–8.

25 Isidore, Etymologies, trans., notes and intr. Stephen A. Barney, W.J. Lewis, J.A. Beach and Oliver Berghof, with the collaboration of Muriel Hall (Cambridge, 2006), 147; Isidore, Etymologiarum sive Originum, ed. W.M. Lindsay, Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1911), 1: (VI:xix:5).

26 For the distinction between antiphony and antiphons, see Michel Huglo and Joan Halmo, ‘Antiphon’, New Grove Online, www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000001023 (accessed 8 January 2020). See also Daniel Saulnier, ‘Des variantes musicales dans la tradition manuscrite des antiennes du repertoire romano-franc’, Ph.D. diss., Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Sciences historiques et philologiques) (2005), 25–71. On these passages, see Randel, ‘Leander’, 505.

27 ‘Ad dextra levaque coro consistunt, antiphone modos reciprocatos canunt: uni incipientes et alii subpsalmantes, tertio post gloriam pariter cantantes.’ Translation from Randel, ‘Responsorial Psalmody’, 87. See Randel, ‘Responsorial Psalmody’, 87–9 for detailed discussion of the L8 prologues (according to Randel, Prologue 3's description of three choirs should not be taken literally). See also Susana Zapke, ‘En torno a la nociones de publicus y privatus. Apuntes al contexto y funcionalidad de los textos preliminares del Antifonario de León’, in El canto mozárabe y su entorno, ed. de la Cuesta et al., 337–56; Manuel C. Díaz y Díaz, ‘Los prólogos del antiphonale visigothicum de la catedral de León (Leon, Arch. Cat. 8)’, Archivos Leoneses, 8 (1954), 226–57; Michel Huglo, ‘Les prologues de l'antiphonaire mozarabe de Leon’, in Cantus Planus: Papers Read at the 13th Meeting of the IMS Study Group. Neideraltaich/Germany, 2006, ed. Barbara Haggh and László Dobszay (Budapest, 2009), 317–25.

28 See Elena Quevedo-Chigas, ‘Early Medieval Iberian Architecture and the Hispanic Liturgy: A Study of the Development of Church Planning from the First to the Tenth Centuries’, Ph.D. diss., New York University (1996), 115–28.

29 David Andrés Fernández, ‘Fit processio et cantantur antiphonae sequentes. Tipología de las formas de música litúrgica en los libros procesionales’, Medievalia: Revista de Estudios Medievales, 17 (2014), 103–29, at 106–10, with further bibliography.

30 Domine deus virtus (item 49), preserved with Psalm 139 for the night liturgy (British Library, Add. 30851, 86v; and Madrid, Biblioteca nacional, 10.001, 72r). Educ (item 30, 36 and 37), preserved with a verse for matutinum, Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (L8, 236r and British Library, Add. 30845, 113r). Emitte (item 30, 36 and 37) preserved with a verse for Saturday terce of Lent, week five (L8, 151v). Resistite (item 4) is also used non-processionally (item 39).

31 There has been much important work on Gregorian and Old Roman antiphons. See, inter alia, Helmut Hucke, ‘Musikalische Formen der Offiziumsantiphonen’, Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch, 37 (1953), 7–33; László Dobszay and Janka Szendrei, eds., Antiphonen: Monumenta monodica medii aevi 5, 3 vols. (Kassel, 1999); Edward Nowacki, ‘Studies on the Office Antiphons of the Old Roman Manuscripts’, Ph.D. diss., Brandeis University (1980).

32 After the psalm recitation, the intervallic structure even of a relatively simple melody is highlighted by the contrast with the (literally) monotonous recitation tone, giving a quite different experience.

33 Adnuntiabitur and Egredere (item 4), and Lumen (items 23–4).

34 ‘Cumque acceserint ad altare dicta gloria, caput repetitur.’

35 ‘et cantant eam ante regem euntes quamdiu rex foras osteum ecclesiae egrediatur’. Roger Collins argues that this ceremony was specific to seventh-century Toledo, albeit preserved in the manuscript record much later. See Roger Collins and Anthony Goodman, ‘Continuity and Loss in Medieval Spanish Culture: The Evidence of MS Silos, Archivo Monástico 4’, in Medieval Spain: Culture, Conflict and Coexistence (London, 2002), 1–22.

36 Constituite (item 5), Emitte (items 30, 36 and 37), Cum iucunditate, Ecce porta, Haec … tempore and Alleluia egressus … domini (all item 48).

37 Resistite (item 4), Quum audisset (item 5), Osanna (item 5), Amen dico (item 5), Educ (items 30, 36 and 37), Egredimini, Introibimus, Ecce recordatus (all item 48), Gloriam and Det tibi (both item 52).

38 In nomine, Exite, De iherusalem and Leba iherusalem (all item 48).

39 Gloria in excelsis (item 5), Signum, Iter, Benedictum (all items 14–16), Ambulate and Haec … deserta (both item 48).

40 Visitationem (item 48).

41 On the theological potential of juxtaposing biblical texts in Old Hispanic chant, see (inter alia) Maloy, Songs of Sacrifice, 74–86.

42 Adnuntiabitur, Egredere (both item 4), Lumen and Ecce grex (both items 23–4), and possibly Benedictus es (items 43–4), depending on the repetition pattern.

43 On medieval concern for a textually harmonious repeat after a chant verse in early ninth-century Francia, see Kenneth Levy, ‘Abbot Helisacher's Antiphoner’, in Gregorian Chant and the Carolingians (Princeton, 1998), 178–86.

44 Joshua: Alleluia egressus … de, Alleluia audite, Alleluia loquutus; Exodus: Alleluia memores; Isaiah: Aperite (all item 48); Quum adpropinquaret and Quum introires (both item 5) draw from the Gospels.

45 Quodquod (item 26): verses from John, Romans and 1 Peter; 232 syllables.

46 For example, Adnuntiabitur (item 4) has cadences on ‘domino’, ‘ventura’, ‘eius’, ‘nascetur’ and ‘dominus’.

47 See (inter alia) Calvin Bower, ‘The Grammatical Model of Musical Understanding in the Middle Ages’, in Hermeneutics and Medieval Cultures, ed. Patrick Gallacher and Helen Damico (Albany, 1989), 133–45; Karen Desmond, ‘Sicut in Grammatica: Analogical Discourse in Chapter 15 of Guido's Micrologus’, Journal of Musicology, 16 (1998), 467–93; Emma Hornby, Medieval Liturgical Chant and Patristic Exegesis: Words and Music in the Second-Mode Tracts (Woodbridge, 2009), 23–37. On the Old Hispanic repertoire, see Nadeau ‘Pro sonorum’, 132ff.

48 A neume is a notational sign, signifying one or more notes. On the recurring patterns, see Hornby and Maloy, ‘Melodic dialects’, 42–51; Nadeau, ‘Pro sonorum’, 191–206.

49 See Hornby and Maloy, ‘Melodic dialects’; and Hornby et al., Liturgical and Musical Culture.

50 For discussion, see Hornby et al., Liturgical and Musical Culture.

51 Item 48. For this idea, see Margot Fassler, ‘The Liturgical Framework of Time and the Representation of History’, Representing History, 900–1300: Art, Music, History, ed. Robert Maxwell (University Park, PA, 2010), 149–71.

52 José Janini, ‘Cuaresma visigoda y Carnes Tollendas’, Anthologica Annua, 9 (1961), 22–4; and Juan V.M. Arbeloa Rigau, ‘Per una nova interpretació del Còdex Veronensis i les esglésies visigòtiques de Tàrraco’, Butlletí Arqueològic – Reial Societat Arqueològica Tarraconense, 8–9 (1986–7), 125–34.

53 www.neumes.org.uk/view (accessed 1 June 2021).

54 Aperite: ‘Hymnis et canticis’ (item 48); Quum introires: ‘legem et prophetas’ (item 5); Ecce recordatus: ‘cum summo studio et gaudio magno’ (item 48).

55 Cum iucunditate (item 48) and Domine deus virtus (item 49). Melodic density charts for each processional antiphon are given in Online Appendix A.

56 Ecce grex (items 23–4), Amen dico (item 5), Leba iherusalem (item 48), Gloriam (item 52) and Signum (items 14–16).

57 De iherusalem, In nomine, Haec … deserta, Ecce recordatus (all item 48).

58 Visitationem, Alleluia loquutus, Alleluia egressus … domini, Alleluia egressus … de, Alleluia memores, Alleluia audite, Aperite (all item 48).

59 AA′ in Aperite, Alleluia loquutus, Alleluia egressus … domini, and Alleluia memores; AAB in Visitationem; AA′B in Alleluia egressus … de, and Alleluia audite (all item 48).

60 Brou, ‘Le Joyau’, 19–22; idem, ‘L'alleluia’, 3–90; Hornby et al., Liturgical and Musical Culture; Maloy, Songs of Sacrifice. The sacrificium is the Old Hispanic offertory; the sono is a melodically complex matutinum and vespers genre.

61 On opening melismas as a ‘gleeful indulgence’, see Nadeau, ‘Pro sonorum’, 188–91.

62 For discussion, and further bibliography, see Emma Hornby, ‘Musical Values in Old Hispanic Chant’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 69 (2016), 595–650; Rebecca Maloy, ‘Old Hispanic Chant and the Early History of Plainsong’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 67 (2014), 1–76.

63 Item 48.

64 On Lenten psalmi, see Hornby and Maloy, Music and Meaning, ch. 4.

65 Herminio González Barrionuevo has published the most concentrated work on Old Hispanic notation, including ‘Relación entre la notación “mozárabe” de tipo vertical y otras escrituras neumáticas’, Studi gregoriani, 2 (1995), 5–112; and ‘La notación del Antifonario de León’, in El canto mozárabe y su entorno, ed. de al Cuesta et al., 95–120.

66 On the extant antiphon verse melodies, see Don Randel, ‘Antiphonal Psalmody in the Mozarabic Rite’, in International Musicological Society: Report of the Twelfth Congress. Berkeley 1977, ed. Daniel Heartz and Bonnie Wade (Kassel/Basel/London, 1981), 141–22; idem, ‘El antiguo rito hispánico y la salmodia primitiva en occidente’, Revista de Musicología, 8 (1985), 229–38.

67 Adnuntiabitur (item 4), Benedictus es (items 43–4), Lumen, Ecce grex (both items 23–4) and Egredere (item 4).

68 Quum introires (item 5), Haec … deserta, Leba iherusalem, De iherusalem, Ecce recordatus, Visitationem, Alleluia egressus … domini, Aperite, Alleluia memores, Alleluia loquutus (all item 48).

69 Domine deus virtutem, Accipe (both item 49), Quodquod (item 26).

70 Quum adpropinquaverunt (item 5), Alleluia audite and Alleluia egressus … de (both item 48).

71 Domine deus virtutem, Accipe (both item 49), Quodquod (item 26).

72 Adnuntiabitur, Egredere (both item 4), Quum introires (item 5), Lumen, Ecce grex (both items 23–4), Benedictus es (items 43–4), Aperite, Alleluia memores and Alleluia loquutus (all item 48).

73 Quum adpropinquaverunt (item 5), Alleluia egressus … de and Alleluia audite (both item 48).

74 Leba iherusalem, De iherusalem, Haec … deserta, Ecce recordatus, Visitationem and Alleluia egressus … domini (all item 48).

75 De iherusalem (with melodic parallel on the preceding three syllables as well; item 48), Alleluia loquutus (end of alleluia melisma only, with a repeated musical phrase on ‘universe terre’ and ‘sen ita ero tecum’), Alleluia egressus … de, Alleluia audite, Alleluia egressus est … domini (all item 48).

76 Signum (twice), Iter, Benedictum (twice) (all items 14–16), Alleluia audite (item 48), Ecce grex (items 23–4) and Resistite (item 4).

77 At the end of the introductory ‘alleluia’ (Alleluia memores, Alleluia egressus … de); before a preposition or ‘et’ (Ambulate, Alleluia memores, Alleluia audite, Haec … deserta); and at the end of the chant, mirroring the same chant's opening melisma (Alleluia memores). It is also used in Egredere (item 4), ‘Egredere’. We have encountered it elsewhere in both L8 and in S4, in varied contexts: on the first word or first small section of text; at a small text division; at the end of a clause; and at the end of a sentence.

78 The two single notes at the end of a phrase are rare in León albeit not unknown. See Hornby and Maloy, ‘Melodic Dialects’, 45.

79 See Online Appendix B.

80 As, for example, at the ninth-century rural church of Santa Cristina de Lena, twenty-three miles south of Oviedo. See Elena Quevedo-Chigas, ‘Early Medieval Iberian Architecture and the Hispanic liturgy: A Study of the Development of Church Planning from the 5th to the 10th Century’, Ph.D. diss., IFA-NYU (1995) for a discussion of choir screens during this time period. See also Eduardo Carrero and Daniel Rico, ‘La Organizacion del espacio liturgico hispanico entre los siglos VI and XI’, Antiquite Tardive, 23 (2015), 239–48; Luis Caballero Zoreda and Isaac Sastre de Diego, ‘Espacios de la liturgia hispana de los siglos V-X. Según la Arqueología’, in El canto mozárabe y su entorno. Estudios sobre la música de la liturgia Viejo hispánicax, ed. Rosario Álvarez Martínez, Ismael Fernández de la Cuesta and Ana Llorens Martín (Madrid, 2013), 259–91; Javier Martínez Jiménez, Isaac Sastre de Diego and Carlos Tejerizo, The Iberian Peninsula between 300 and 850: An Archaeological Perspective (Amsterdam, 2018).

81 Quevedo-Chigas, ‘Early Medieval Iberian Architecture’; Cristina Godoy Fernandez, Arqueologia y Liturgia. Iglesias Hispanicas (Siglos IV al VII) (Barcelona, 1995); Martínez Jiménez et al., The Iberian Peninsula between 300 and 850.

82 Accipe (item 49), Lumen (items 23–4) and Quodquod (item 26).

83 For the Latin, see Online Appendix B.

84 Pinell interprets ‘ad sanctę crucis ęclesiam’ as ‘to the chapel of the Holy Cross’. See Jordi Pinell, Liturgia hispánica (Barcelona, 1998), 309. For a brief description of the ceremony, where Old Hispanic elements are conflated with the later neo-Mozarabic liturgy, see John Walton Tyrer, Historical Survey of the Holy Week: Its Services and Ceremonial (London, 1932), 123.

85 See Arbeiter, Achim, ‘Early Hispanic Churches: When Did the Number of Altars Begin to Increase?’ in Church, State, Vellum: Essays on Medieval Spain in Honor of John Williams, ed. Martin, Therese and Harris, Julie A. (Leiden, 2005), 11–46Google Scholar; Quevedo-Chigas, ‘Early Medieval Iberian Architecture’; Carrero and Rico, ‘La Organización del espacio’.

86 Quevedo-Chigas, ‘Early Medieval Iberian Architecture’ discusses the use of curtains and a movable wooden cathedra. See also Carrero and Rico, ‘La Organización del espacio’, for a discussion of ephemeral liturgical furniture used in medieval Palazzo, Iberia. Eric, ‘Art, Liturgy and the Five Senses in the Early Middle Ages’, Viator, 41 (2010), 25–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar gives a general overview of movable liturgical furniture and furnishings in early medieval churches.

87 Fassler, ‘The Liturgical Framework’.

88 Eighteen notes in S4 and A56; twenty notes in L8.

89 Hornby and Maloy, Music and Meaning, 53–4, 79–80.

90 Expositio in Psalmum cxviii. Sancti Ambrosii opera, ed. Michael Petschenig, CSEL 62 (Vienna and Leipzig, 1918), 164.

91 The versions of these antiphons in S4 and A56 share many of the same recurring neume combinations, although not all of the same inter-relationships (see Online Appendix A).

Figure 0

Table 1. Old Hispanic manuscripts that include notated and rubricated processional chants

Figure 1

Table 2. Old Hispanic ceremonies that contain notated processional antiphons

Figure 2

Table 3. Structure of conventional Old Hispanic antiphons

Figure 3

Fig. 1. Neume combination used on the penultimate or antepenultimate syllable.

Figure 4

Fig. 2. Recurring neume combination (item 48).

Figure 5

Table 4. Recurring neume combinations in the Good Friday processional antiphons