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MEDIAEVAL MUSIC
Bn Ibfstodcal Sftetcb.
ROBERT CHARLES HOPE, F.S.A., F.R.S.L.,
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1 A (il.OSSAKY OK MAtBCYAL W.ACK-NOMMNCl.ATOKK/ ' AN 1NVKNTORV OK
T1IK C1UJHCU I'J.ATK IN MUTl.AMV ' TUK UO'KK IN iCNtll-ANl),'
'UNtiUStt CiOUWMITiW,' 'TtllC ItOLV WHI.I.S OK ICNtlLANT),'
KTC, W1H1,
LONDON '
ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATBRNOSTEK ROW, E.G.
1894,
PREFACE.
IN compiling this elementary treatise on
' Mediaeval Music ' many and great diffi
culties have had to be coped with ; to solve them
the best authorities have been appealed to, and,
where such failed to supply the particular infor
mation sought for, that'" opinion which on mature
consideration appeared most feasible has been
given,
The difficulties in the treatment of the subject
have been largely increased by the amount of
prejudices and ignorance displayed by many
especially papistical writers on musical subjects,
who have never troubled themselves independently
either to trace out or follow up the history of
the very interesting subject of ' Mediaeval Music. 5
The short chapter on Harmonic or Monodic
Music IKIS been inserted with the object of
showing in. as clear and concise a manner as
vi Preface
possible the development the science of harmony
had attained by the end of the sixteenth and
beginning of the seventeenth centuries.
Any attempt to elucidate a complex and neg
lected subject like the present one, must of
necessity call forth criticism both from those
who are capable, and from those whose blind
prejudice renders them incapable of expressing an
opinion on the subject.
That this elementary work is perfect is not for
one moment claimed, the writer being painfully
aware of the inadequacy of his efforts to attain
to such a desired result; the kind indulgence
of the press and of the music-loving public for
all shortcomings on his part, with a sincere
desire to have made a contribution as accurate
as possible on a little known subject, is the desire
of the writer, who, in conclusion, tenders his
grateful thanks to Mr. T. L. Southgate and to
Dr. Wickham Legg, F.S.A., for looking over
certain proof sheets, and to the former for supply
ing valuable notes on the Music of Egypt and of
the East generally, and to the latter for much
learned information and advice on Liturgical
matters generally,
CONTENTS.
CHA1TKR PAGE
PREFACE V
'INTRODUCTION I
1. MUSIC OF THE EARLY GREEKS - , - - 14
II. THE MUSIC OF ANCIENT EGYPT, AND OF THE
EAST GENERALLY-- - - - - - 20
III. PYTHAGOREAN SYSTEMS 25
IV. THE CHRISTIAN ERA. PTOLEMY'S IMPROVE*
MENTS. SECOND CENTURY 36
V. THE CHRISTIAN ERA. CLAUDIUS PTOLEMY TO
ST, GREGORY THE GREAT, BISHOP OF ROME
596-604 42
VI. ST. GREGORY THE GREATr-HIS INDIFFERENCE
TO MUSIC 48
VII. INTRODUCTION OF THE ORGAN ITS EFFECT
ON MEDIEVAL MUSIC, A.D. 150-1350 - - 59
VIII. MEDIEVAL SYSTEM OF MUSIC, EIGHTH TO
TENTH CENTURIES 74
viii Contents
IX. USES OF THE ROMAN, MILANESE AND MOZA-
RABIC LITURGIES, EIGHTH TO ELEVENTH
CENTURIES 92
X. TETRACHORDAL AND HEXACHORDAL SYSTEMS
OF HUCBALD AND GUIDO ARETINO TENTH
TO THIRTEENTH CENTURIES 99
XI. MEASURABLE MUSIC. ELEVENTH TO SIX
TEENTH CENTURIES 114
XII. POLYPHON^^MUSIC. ORGANUM, FABURDON,
AND COuWjERPOINT 137
XIII. MONODIC OR HARMONIC MUSIC 137
NOTES 158
A. INDEX RERUM 1 66
B. NOMINUM 173
C. LOCORUM 177
D. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL 178
Mediaeval Music
INTRODUCTION,
THE Romans had no musical system of their
own ; they adopted that of Greece, but so
misapplied the Greek terms, that to-day they are
one of the chief causes of the difficulty in the way
of a right understanding and appreciation of the
Greek system. Greek music, therefore, cannot be
effectually learnt from Roman writers.' One who,
perhaps more than any other, has made 'con
fusion worse confounded,' is Boethius, born in
Rome 470, died 526 A.D. His tract on music con
tains nothing but matters of mere speculation and
theory, translated, often erroneously, or at best
not fully, from Greek writers of high antiquity;
his account of the musical systems of Greece is
mere chaos, and, to use the words of the late Sir F.
I
Mediaeval Music
A. Gore Ouseley, Bart., Mus. Doc., Professor of
Music in the University of Oxford, is ' no more
useful to a modern musician than Newton's
" Principia" to a dancer.' Rockstro, in his * History
of Music ' says of Boethius' treatise : ' Unfortun
ately, this work, though once regarded as an
indispensable text-book, is too abstruse and un
practical to render any real assistance to the
modern student ' (p. 13). He is now fortunately
, accounted as one whose writings are not to be
relied on, and yet, until within a few years ago,
his tract of mis-readings on music was a text
book at our Universities for obtaining musical
degrees.
Of the musical histories of Sir John Hawkins
and Dr. Burney, from which the padding of so
many similar works has been drawn, the late
W. Chappell remarked, alluding especially to
their accounts o Greek music : ' Sir John had
found that he could not understand Greek music ;
and my impression is, that he had not learnt the
Greek language, which would sufficiently account
for it. He therefore contented himself with
giving ' an impartial state of the several opinions,
that at different times have prevailed among the
moderns* He wrote quite unintelligibly for
general readers.' Of Burney he said : * Dr
Burney's system of writing upon ancient Greek
music was identical with that of Sir John
Introduction
Hawkins, so far as reliance upon the moderns to
"have done all that was possible towards under
standing it/
Of Boethius he said : ' The treatise on music
by Boethius, upon which Dr. Burney relied, has
proved a most unfortunate inheritance for modern
Europe. . . . No one scholar ever did, or could,
learn anything from it; he was unable to teach
that which he did not himself understand ; he
took up music simply as a branch of arithmetic.
He had no practical knowledge of music ; he could
not even tell whether a Greek scale began at the
top or the bottom ! the words nete and hypate
" lowest " and " highest " bewildered him/ which
was * inexcusable because he quotes from the
treatise on music by Nicomachus, who fully
explains these two words/ Having dispensed
with the only sound grammars of Greek music,
by rejecting the Greek treatises, Burney's diffi
culties soon began. At p. 17 of his first volume
he says : ' The perplexity concerning the scale, is
a subject that required more time and meditation
than I was able to bestow upon it 5 (!). ' He had
proved in his first volume that old English print
ing was too much for him to decipher, and what
could he do among manuscripts ? The reader
who desires to know more of the deficiencies of
these, until quite recently considered the two
standard historians, should consult the introduc-
Mediaeval Music
tion to the very able and exhaustive ' History of
Music/ by the late William Chappell, F.S.A., only
one volume of which he was spared to complete,
and from which the above is quoted.
A writer in the Sacristy (vol. L, p. 129) states
that ' Greek music is an almost insoluble prob
lem. It was complicated to a degree/ He
does not, however, make any attempt to solve
the problem, maybe for similar reasons to Dr.
Burney's.
So much darkness instead of light having been
poured on the subject of Greek music, there is
little wonder it should not be understood. With
regard to the so-called ' Gregorian J music the
greatest ignorance prevails. Histories after
histories of music merely retail to us, without
any original research, the old tale of St. Ambrose
and St. Gregory's wonderful improvements in the
music of the Church. This seems to be the
common starting-point of most modern historians,
of nearly all newspaper articles, pamphlets, lec
tures, etc., authorities for such statements never
being given.
It would seem a waste of time to attempt any
argument with that section of the Modern High
Church School who can see nothing c correct'
unless it is a copy of the Italian Church, whether
in music or ritual.
The English Church of which we have every
Introduction
reason to be proud has as fine a music and a more
suitable ritual than any the Italian Church can
produce. Why, then, should Englishmen be asked
to discard that which is national for an importa
tion of a foreign mission ?
By no possible reasoning can the crude, rude
music adopted at a period when in a state of
apparent chaos, from causes explained within
these covers be shown to be the sacred property
of the Church. Is it claimed that the state of
any art, be it music, painting, sculpture or
architecture at any particular period, because
made use of by the Church at such time, is the
sacred and peculiar property of the Church ?
This would infer that any advance which might
afterwards be made in one or all of these arts
was not so. It would thus divide the arts, not
only into two kinds, but into two periods, sacred
and secular, ancient and modern, and to make
use of one the sacred property of the Church
for secular purposes, would at least be an act
of irreverence, while, on the other hand, to in
troduce into the Church the profane would be
desecration !
The Church, as is well known, has done more
than any power to foster the arts ; she has in
corporated into her buildings and services the
most advanced and perfected of everything
that the arts can produce. With music -every
Mediaeval Music
advance towards the perfection attained at the
present day has been furthered by her ; each new
discovery was immediately adopted by her with
greediness. The organ was at a very early period
introduced into the Church, and mighty efforts
were made, often by her own saints, to bring the
instrument to perfection, to enable the vocal
music of the Church to be accompanied by it.
We find the early organ-builders endeavouring to
keep pace with the gradual advances made and
incorporated into the services of the Church
from the tenth century, when the first ' accidental,'
B flat, was added.
The attempt to reintroduce the crude chants
of the Middle Ages is felt to be unsatisfactory by
the very persons ignorant of their history who
would urge their universal adoption to the exclu
sion of what we may be justly proud of, our
National Chant, known as the Anglican Chant; for
we find not only are they compelled to call in the
aid of a nineteenth century florid accompaniment,
but a host of French and other light 'endings/ and
what Sir John Stainer calls * foliations.' To the
Continent recourse is had for the many clever
adulterations of ' plainsong/ for which the French
and Belgians are justly renowned.
Antiphons not now being used in the services of
the Church of England, these so-called Gregorian
chants rarely ever end on their final, and are
Introduction
therefore incomplete. To hear Psalm Ixxviii.
with its seventy-three verses, excluding the Gloria,
sung in octaves to a chant comprised of four
notes, or Psalm cvi. with forty-three verses, to
a chant of three notes only, will, it is believed, strike
most people as apt to become a trifle monotonous
and wearisome.
Then, again, the inconsistency of the advocates
of this music on the grounds of its antiquity, is
beyond question by the adoption and use of the free
modern accompaniment, an anachronism and a
gross incongruity. The late Dr. Dykes said that
* ancient melodies decked out in the license of
modern harmonies are revolting/ and so they are.
It is the fanciful and erroneous idea as to the
origin and use of the miscalled Gregorian music,
only, that has secured for the chants a place in
the service of the Church of England by a very
limited section of the sentimental clergy, who
imagine, prejudiced with the aforesaid opinion,
that there is some peculiar solemnity attaching to
them. That this feeling of solemnity is not
general, may be gathered from the expressions
regarding them held by men whose opinions
are, it will be admitted on all hands, entitled to
respect.
There should be no antagonism between those
who favour the Italian and those who favour the
Anglican music, each being quite distinct. Anglican
8 Mediaeval Music
music is music composed by Englishmen, especially
for Englishmen, for the services of the Church of
England, and has been the music adopted by the
Church of England only, of which there is proof
beyond a doubt; but as there are clergy in the
Church of England who prefer to adopt the ritual
and music of the Church of Italy, so are there those
whose national and patriotic instincts guide them
to adhere to the English ritual not Sarum and
English music.
Mendelssohn says : ' I can't help it, but I own
it does irritate me to hear such holy and touching
words sung to such dull, drawling music. They
say it is canto fermo, Gregorian, etc. No matter.
If at that period there was neither the feeling, nor
the capability to write in a different style, at all
events we have now the power to do so, and
certainly this mechanical monotony is not to be
found in the Scriptural words ; they are all fruth
and freshness, and moreover expressed in the
most simple and natural manner. Why, then,
make them sound like a mere formula? and m
truth such singing as this is nothing more. Can
this be called sacred music? There is certainly
no false expression in it, because there is none of
any kind; but does not this very fact prove the
desecration of the words ?' (In one of his letters
to Lady Wallace.)
The late Canon the Rev. Sir F. A. Gore Ouseley,
Introduction
Bart., M.A., Mus. Doc., Professor of Music at the
University of Oxford, and Precentor of Hereford
Cathedral, denounced the Plainsong as 'an
offence ' unto him.
The late Sir George Macfarren, M.A., Mus. Doc.,
Professor of Music at the University of Cam
bridge, and President of the Royal Academy of
Music, in his ' Lectures on Harmony/ 2nd edition,
p. 12 (Longmans), wrote: 'Those well-meaning
men who would resuscitate the standard use
of so-called Gregorian music in the Church of
England evince mistaken zeal, and false anti-
quarianism, illogical deductiveness, artistic blind
ness and ecclesiastical error.'
The late Rev. Dr. Dykes, M.A., Mus. Doc.,
described them as having had their day.'
The late Dr. Samuel Sebastian Wesley depre
cated 'the plainsong being intruded into our
choirs.'
The late Professor John Hullah spoke of it as
'strange, dull, uncouth sort of stuff.' : -
The following legend is gravely related by Da
Corte in his 'Storia di Verona/ p. 107 of the
Venetian edition of 1744 : * Gregory the Great,
to stimulate his devotion, used to visit the graves
of the departed. Whilst so engaged, he once saw
one of the tombs uplifted, and the head of a long-
buried man appear, with his pale tongue thrust
out, as if in agony. The saint, nothing daunted,
io Mediaeval Music
accosted the spectre, and was informed that he
was the Emperor Trajan, condemned to suffer
forever for his idolatry. Pitying so illustrious
a sufferer, the saint resolved to importune the
Divine mercy for him, and succeeded so well that
the Almighty at length set the Emperor free and
admitted him into Paradise. But, as the course
of Divine justice had been interrupted, He resolved
to inflict some bodily suffering upon the saint, who
had been the means of its interruption, and accord
ingly ordained that Gregory should be afflicted
with pain in the abdomen dolorc intestinale
except at such times as he should be occupied in
saying Mass. Gregory then bethought himself of
some way of avoiding his malady by prolonging
the service of the Mass to the utmost extent, and
so he instituted the chant called after him
Gregorian, which was at first more prolix and
dreary than it has since become. Some thought
this rather hard of the saint, because this style
of the chant, though it would relieve him of
his pains, would be very apt to give others the
pain in the abdomen from its length and dreari
ness.'
Another story of the Gregorian chant may
not inaptly follow this. A certain prelate having
attended service at an English church where this
music was in use, was asked afterwards by
the Vicar how he had liked the music. ' Oh, very
Introduction 1 1
well/ was the reply. * But/ said the Vicar, ' what
did you think of the Psalms ?' * Oh, pretty well/
said the prelate. ' It is traditionally recorded/
said the Vicar, ' that the tones are the original
ones to which David composed the Psalms.'
'Really/ replied the prelate, 'you don't say so!
Ah ! then I don't wonder at Saul throwing his
javelin at him.'
Mr. Birbeck's very sensible and pertinent
remarks, anent these chants and their place in
the Church of England, in the Newbery House
Magazine, vol. iii., 596, etc., should be noted.
* They are far from being devoid of interest, but
it is not on that account their use should be
urged to accomplish the speedy expulsion of
all Anglican chants from the services of the
Church.'
The study of the music of the Middle Ages is
indispensable to the would-be educated musician ;
a just appreciation and true understanding of
modern music can only thereby be attained. On
the other hand, the systems of ancient music
cannot be mastered and understood without the
knowledge of the principles on which modern
music is grounded.
6 It is impossible clearly to understand what the
established forms of musical structure meant, un
less we knew how they had grown' up : history
was as much a key to the true philosophy of
12 Mediaeval Music
music as acoustics, and that both ought to be
studied together, as such a mode of study
would assuredly clear away many of the fal
lacies by which musical theory was at present
encumbered.'*
Of the many valuable works on mediaeval music
now available to the musical and theological
student, the publications which include fac
similes of rare and ancient service books of the
Plain Song and Mediaeval Music Society cannot
be too highly recommended. The address of the
secretary is 14, Westbourne Terrace Road, W,,
from whom all information can be obtained.
The clergy, as a body, to whom the study and
knowledge of music, whether Gregorian so-called or
Anglican, is of such great importance, nay almost
an essential, considering how closely is music
interwoven with the services of the Church, rarely
ever trouble to learn anything respecting it, taking 1
for gospel any statement or assertion made by
members of their own profession, in pamphlets,
lectures, or letters in newspapers. Let them read,
mark, learn, and inwardly digest, the works of
trustworthy musical and liturgical writers, that
they may be enabled to see that their choirs are
taught to
SING WITH UNDERSTANDING.
* Dr. Pole, c Trans. Mus, Ass./ 1878-9, p. 97.
Introduction 1 3
It should not be forgotten that chants, hymns,
and services, can be, and are still, as of old, com
posed in these octave scales. It is a mistaken idea
that anything written on a stave of four lines in
square notes is an old ' Gregorian.'
CHAPTER I.
MUSIC OF THE EARLY GREEKS.
MUSIC differs from her sisters of the fine
arts in that she is transient, and more
nearly connected with pure sensation. Helmholtz
observes : 'The sensations of tone are the materials
of the art, and, so far as these sensations are
excited in music, we do not create out of them any
images of external objects or actions, nor, apart
from words, actions, or association of ideas can
emotions be conveyed by music.'
The art is purely conventional, and appeals to
the mind in a manner totally different from the
other arts. 'Music is incomparably the most
original of arts ; it is the pure creation of human
intellect. Music is the perfection of an art, for it
has no evil tendency ; it also has a far greater and
more immediate influence upon the mind than any
other art/*
Music is based on a trinity-jsensation, rhythm,
melody which cannot be divided, else music, a$
an art, would cease to be.
* Chappell, 'History of Music/ xlvi
Music of the Early Greeks 15
Music is either vocal or instrumental ; the former,
a gift inherent in man, is the most ancient, and is
more or less at the immediate command of all
mankind. Instrumental, on the contrary, is a
matter of cultivation, in which a certain amount
of technical labour is necessary to overcome
mechanical obstacles, before it can be made use
of. The three divisions of instruments are pulsa
tile, wind, strings, and the three appear to have
been adopted in this order. The wind, it is said,
has never been cultivated where the drum, in some
form, had not been in previous use, nor the strings
where the pipe had not first been adopted.
The earliest form of music was homophonic,
that is, one single part or melody. Helmholtz
informs us that this kind still obtains in China >
India, and among the Arabs, Turks, and the
modern Greeks, notwithstanding the greatly de
veloped systems of music possessed by some of
these people.
The Pentatonic or five-note scale is the most
ancient. It is found -not only among the Chinese,
but also the other branches of the Mongol race,
the Malays of Java and Sumatra, the inhabitants
of Hudson's Bay, and of New Guinea, the Fullah
negroes, the inhabitants of North Africa and of
Abyssinia, the Fijians, Hindoos, Siamese, Afghans,
and in Asia generally, also in Mexico, Scotland,
and Ireland. It is also said to be the natural
1 6 Mediaeval Music
scale with very young children Olympus intro
duced the Asiatic flute with a scale of five notes
into Greece, where the scale was at one period m
use *
The national instrument of Greece was the lyre
or phormmx It had four strings of equal length,
but of varying thicknesses, in the absence of a
finger-board, the strings could produce, on being
plucked, the notes only to which they were tuned
Instrumental solo playing was of purely Asiatic
origin, and in this way only was the Greek lyre
used , it never accompanied the voice Before a
recitation, a few notes by way of a prelude or
introduction were twanged on it, possibly for the
double purpose of arresting the attention of the
auditory and of giving the pitch to the reciter
Thus was the lyre, and the method of using it,
to the time of Terpander, the ^Eolian, a native of
Lesbos, the then centre of Greek civilization and
refinement, who flourished c 780 700 B c
Terpander not only increased the number of
the notes of the scale, but also the number of the
strings on the lyre to correspond to them , he also
introduced great improvements in the manner of
using the instrument
A period of his life was spent in the service of
the priests at Delphi, whilst here he is credited
with having been the composer of hymns, called
* Engel, ' Music of the Most Ancient Nations,' Chaptei IV
Music of the Early Greeks 17
nomes or laws, because the words were accom
panied with the lyre in a regular and systematic
order, a note for every syllable, for the first time.*
At another period he visited Sparta, the centre
of the Dorian civilization, by request, to reform
the music. The Dorian scale he found differed
from his own, the uiEolian; it comprised the
notes E F G A :
- "
whereas the Moli&n embraced the notes A B D E :
To these notes the strings of the respective lyres
were tuned.
It is not unlikely, therefore, that to him is the
credit due of joining the two scales at the common
note A ; the C in the ^Eolian portion of this octave
scale was omitted, being out of tune, owing to the
method in vogue of tuning the lyre, by which the
interval from A to C was greater than a major
third, whilst the interval from C to E was much
less than a minor third. This improved and
extended scale of seven notes Terpander applied
* Plutarch, c De Mus.,' 28.
2
1 8 Medieval Music
to the lyre of the Greeks by the addition of three
strings corresponding to the three notes B D E :
.CL
To Sappho, the poetess (c. 610), of Mitylene in
the Island of Lesbos, has been ascribed the
introduction into Greece of the Babylonian scale
B C D EFG A:
___, .., ? -""71
formed of two tetrachords conjoined at E ; and also
the use of the plectrum.*
An effort was made to assimilate the symmetry
of this seven-note scale of Sappho's. It was
accomplished, possibly by Terpancler, by lowering
B in the highest tetrachord of his seven-note scale a
semitone, filling up the gap between B and D, and
omitting the upper E :t
* Plutarch, ' De Mus.,' 16; Rowbotham, ' H. of M,, 1 II 136,
Suidas, art. l Sappho.'
t Rowbotham, ii. 52,
Music of the Early Greeks 19
The scale remained in this form to the time of
Pythagoras. 1 *
The method of using the lyre was still further
improved by one Archilochus, o. 680 B.C., a poet
of Pares, the accredited inventor of the elegy and
classic Iambic, a contemporary of Terpander.
Part of his life was spent in the gold-fields of
Thasos, a small island in the ^Egean Sea. Whilst
here he was brought into contact with traders
from Tyre, in Phoenicia, from whom he obtained,
and learnt how to use, an lambuca, a triangular-
shaped instrument, very closely resembling the
Egyptian Sambuca, The method of using this
instrument differed considerably from the accepted
custom of the Greeks with their lyre. The
Greeks accompanied the songs note for note with
the voice, whereas the accompaniment on the
lambuca was absolutely free and independent of
the voice, and was played above it, the melody
being in the bass.f
A true tetrachord with the Greeks always began
with a semitone, and proceeded upwards in this
order : semitone tone tone.
* Rowbotham, ii, 139,
f Plutarch, ' De Mus,/ cap. 28.
CHAPTER II.
THE MUSIC OF ANCIENT EGYPT, AND OF THE
EAST GENERALLY.
THE ancient Egyptians, it is inferred from the
contemporary sculptures and representa
tions found in the tombs at Gizeh and elsewhere,
were conversant with the diatonic system, prob
ably as much so as we of the nineteenth century.
The tombs of the great Pyramid of the kings at
Gizeh are as early as the sixth year of Usertesen II,,
taking us back to a period nearly three thousand
years before Christ.
Actual instruments found also in the tombs, not
only support, but prove unquestionably and beyond
all doubt this fact * A pair of double flutes dis
covered in the tomb of the Lady Maket by Mr.
Flinders Petrie, F.S.A., whilst excavating in the
Fayoum, are fully and admirably described, with
illustrations, in the ' Proceedings of the Musical
* Musical Times, vol. xxxi.
The Music of the East 21
Association,' 1890-1891, by Mr. T. L. Southgate,
who also played upon them at the Royal Academy
of Music, to an English audience, some 4,000 years
after they had been made.
Mr. Southgate* proved conclusively, from these
and other ancient Egyptian flutes, that the scale
of ancient Egypt was the same as our own ; and
that long before the Greeks had a scale at all, the
Egyptians were using every note which we employ
in our modern music. To this wonderful and
mysterious people we are indebted for our scale*
The Greek philosophers were merely the inter
mediaries in the descent of music, and were not
the inventors of the scale as has been commonly
supposed.
Fragments of these may be seen in the Louvre,
the British, Paris, Florence and Leyden museums,
and illustrations of these instruments will be
found . in the three volumes on the * Manners
and Customs of Ancient Egypt,' by the late
Gardner Wilkinson, and notably in Rosellini's
splendid work.
Their scale is assumed to have been diatonic,
whilst for their instruments portions of the Chro
matic and Enharmonic scales were employed.
The latter scale comprised two quarter tones in
the place of each of the two semitones and a major
* t Proceedings of the Musical Association,' 1890-1891.
22 Mediaeval Music
third in succession.* An account of the wonderful
flute found at Akhmin, giving these intervals, has
been described by Mr, T. L. Southgate.t
The musical systems of Babylon, Assyria,
Nineveh and Phoenicia, were probably very simi
lar, if they were not identical with that of the
Egyptians.
From the diminutive size of the instruments of
the Assyrians, as depicted, it is a reasonable sup
position that they were partial to shrill, high-
sounding notes, while the Egyptians, on the other
hand, from the ponderous size of the majority of
the harps depicted in the tombs, would seerai to
have favoured deep low sounds.
The lute or guitar tribe of instruments of
Egypt, unlike those of early Greece, were
furnished with a finger-board, enabling the sound
ing of two or more notes at one and the same
time, as is done on the modern violin and instru
ments of that species in our own day.
Each separate body of vocal and instrumental
performers was, according to the wall pictures,
provided with one or more performers keeping
time by clapping their hands, a proof that their
music was rhythmical.
The orchestras show combinations of instru
ments of various shapes and sizes of wind and
* Engel's ' Music of the Most Ancient Nations,' 164,
t 'Proceedings of the Musical Association/ 1890-1891,
The Music of the East 23
string being employed together This, with our
knowledge of their being able to produce different
notes simultaneously on their lyres, is fair pre
sumption that harmony was known to and prac
tised by them
The diatonic scale of Egypt has been proved,
from original instruments found in the tombs, to
have been the same as the Babylonian one said to
have been introduced into Greece by Sappho*
(c 610), and which was incorporated with that of
Greece
Egypt, until the reign of Psammetichus I , was
as impenetrable to the Greeks as the interior of
China is to Europeans at the present day
Psammetichus 1 , 666600 B c , threw Egypt
open to the Greeks, who were not slow to avail
themselves of the opportunity afforded them , and
from this period is to be traced the great advances
in all those arts and sciences in which afterwards
they so signally excelled
Can it for a moment be doubted but that the
Greeks, having borrowed both the lyre, the flute,
and the scale from Egypt, would hesitate to adopt
and incorporate into their musical system the
' harmony ' of that people also ? That they did
use harmony is certain, but of course it was not
so fully and completely developed as is our
modern system , with the finger-board added to
* Plutarch, 16
24 Mediaeval Music
their lyres they certainly possessed the means of
making or combining any notes.
The harps of Egypt, strange to say, are always
represented without a post to support the frame
bearing the great strain of the strings* so their
tone could only have been feeble.
The systems of notation adopted by the Egyp
tians, Assyrians, Hebrews, etc., are unknown.
With reference to that of Chaldsea, Sir Henry
Rawlinson en passant states in his account of
the clay tablets found at Nineveh, writing in
April, 1853 : ' On the clay tablets which we have
found at Nineveh, and which are now to be
counted by thousands, there are explanatory
treatises on almost every subject under the sun ;
the art of writing grammars and dictionaries,
notation, weights and measures, divisions of time,
etc/
The Chinese and Japanese use the same dia
tonic scale as we employ, but the music of the
Egyptians, Persians, and portions of Turkey in
Asia seems to be founded on the Arab scale, which
itself is probably derived from the more ancient
and complex system of the Hindoos, a system
which divides its octave into twenty-two notes.
* Chappell, 'History of Music 7 ; Gardner Wilkinson's
c Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, 1 corrected
by S. Birch, 3 vols., 1878.
CHAPTER III.
PYTHAGOREAN SYSTEMS.
PYTHAGORAS, the philosopher, born in
Samos B.C. 571, died 497, when about
twenty years of age went to Egypt and Chaldea,
where he spent some years investigating the sub
ject of the immortality of the soul, and other
matters. To him has been ascribed a further
extension of the Greek scale, and the increasing
of the number of strings on the lyre to fifteen.
The two systems which bear his name are
known as (i) the lesser or conjunct, and (2) the
greater or disjunct systems.
The lesser or conjunct system comprised the
scale of Sappho, the proslambanomenos or added
note below, with the upper tetrachord of Terpan-
der's later and improved scale added or conjoined
above at 'a/ the tetrachords of Sappho and Ter-
pander overlapping and being united or conjoined
at E and A : hence the term conjunct :
26 Mediaeval Music
The tetrachords are marked off for clearness.
The greater or disjunct system consisted of
Sappho's scale with the proslambanomenos below,
and repeated at the distance of an octave above,
forming a complete scale of two octaves. The
second and third tetrachords are disjointed at ' a,'
hence the term ' disjunct system. 5
These scales were transposed to any pitch
required.
The proslambanomenos, or added note, was a
note placed at the bottom of the scale, which
although used and counted from, was not reckoned
as part of the scale proper, because of the Greek
rule, which required that each tetrachord should
commence with a semitone.
MODULATION.
Four kinds of modulation, mutation, or change
were admitted :*
I. Genus, i.e., from diatonic to chromatic or
enharmonic. From chromatic to diatonic or en
harmonic. From enharmonic to diatonic or
chromatic.
II. System, i.e., from the greater to the lesser or
lesser to the greater systems.
* Chappell, 103. Euclid, p. 20.
Pythagorean Systems 27
III. Pitch, i.e., usually from a closely allied 'key'
by taking the fourth above or below for the new
mese or key-note, which necessitated the addition
of but one sharp or flat more or less than required
by the mode or key from which the transposition
was made, as from Dorian to Hypo-Dorian, or
Mixo-Lydian modes.
IV. Melopoeia, or change from gay to grave, and
so on.
The ' key-note ' was forbidden, under any
circumstances, to be approached by an interval
less than a tone.
t
,p, , Hyper- ) was used to express the f above
i ne term y interval of a fourth ^ below
Hyper-Dorian A = modern sub-
dominant.
as Dorian E-
Hypo-Dorian B = modern domi
nant
The names of the modes were afterwards changed
and were known as follows :
Mixo-Lydian =the key of G minor
Lydian = ,, F ,,
Phrygian = E
Dorian or Hypo-Mixo-Lydian= D ,,
Hypo-Lydian = C
Hypo-Phrygian == B
Hypo-Dorian = A ,,
When applied to the lyre, the Lydian and Hypo-
28 Mediaeval Music
Lydian modes were taken a semitone higher, Fff
and Cj minor being their equivalent modes, for
reasons explained on page 32.
MESE.
The key-note of the Greek modes was called
the mese, because, instead of being the first note of
the mode or scale, as is customary with us, it was
the middle note of the octave, or rather of the scale
of seven notes ; the eighth was not counted,
being but a repetition of the first note at a higher
pitch. From the mese or middle note, the octave
was reckoned by counting four notes down, from,
and including it, to five notes upwards from it ; thus,
in the Dorian mode the mese was G, and the
fourth note below and the fifth above it = D, d,
and within the range D d the octave of the
Dorian mode lay.
The mese may be likened to the key-stone in
the arch, it holds and binds together the two
tetrachords forming the octave.
But when a scale of two octaves was employed,
the term mese, the middle note, was also applied
to the note at the junction of the two octaves.
Thus, in the Hypo-Dorian mode of two octaves,
the note c a' in the middle of the two octaves extend
ing from A a a was called the mese. The mese,
therefore, had two meanings : in one case it
represented the key-note, i.e., the fourth note,
Pythagorean Systems 29
and in the other the eighth the fourth note, how
ever, was still the mese of each of the two octaves
It was, therefore, always the middle note of a scale
or mode, and of both single and double octaves
'All the supposed inscrutability of the Greek
modes rests upon the misunderstanding of this
simple point the difference between a complete
Greek scale of two octaves and a single octave of
the same It is that difference only which made
them an msolvable riddle to Sir John Hawkins, as
well as to others both before and after his time '
* If the Greeks would but have changed the name
of their key note to one less misleading, when they
made their lyres of eight or ten strings, it can
hardly be supposed that their system could have
remained so long a mystery to the moderns, or
that the thorough identity of the Greek with our
old minor scale should not have been perceived '*
In either case the mese, in its original place the
fourth note can be found , in any mode or portion
of a mode or octave, it is that note, which, counting
from and including it, has the interval of a semi
tone between the second and third notes, both
above and below it The mese being found, the
mode of which it is the key note is always that
which lies within the intervals of a fourth below
and a fifth above it When the scale includes
two octaves, the second octave is but a repetition
of the lower one, at a higher or lower pitch
* Chappell's
|
U~
h
" X-.S
o [i, iij
1
O
O fc W
^ i -o ja ro
1 3l f I
I - Illl
1 11
g, 83 P<
PsnJ rtfer^
e -s^
,g w a fl
fc W Q
SpMtpMM'PJt
Pythagorean Systems 31
The semitones, it will be observed in Diagram A,
occupy the first place, that is, they occur at the
beginning of each scale, and of all the above
tetrachords forming the scale, the proslambano
menos not being reckoned as a note of the scale,
though used The white keys of our organs,
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, form the intervals of the
ancient Egyptian and Greek diatonic scale
The diagrams of Alypius, of Claudius Ptolemy*
and others, down to that of Boethms, all alike
prove that one Greek scale differed from another
m nothing but pitch ' The tones/ says Bryenmus,
' differ from one another in no other respect than
m their positions as to acuteness and gravity, as
has already been shown ' Kal vr)$ teal rov opyavov a?
ev TOT? e^TTp'o? 6ev SeSeitcrat, f
METHOD OF TUNING THE LYRE
When tuning the octave, or seven stringed lyre,
the Greeks had a rule that the first string should
no matter what the mode was be constant , it
never varied, somewhat after the custom we have
of tuning one of the strings of our violins and
other instruments of that class to A, from which
all the other strings are then regulated
* Harmonicorum Libn ties ex Codd MSS , ed J Wallis,
Oxonn, 1682, 4to
t Bryenmus, p 481, fol, Walhs's ed , Chappell, i 115 116
32 Medieval Music
The first or lowest string of the lyre is usually
taken to have been A, and the other strings were
tuned from it To obviate the difficulty with the
Lydian and Hypo - Lydian modes which re
quired the A to be flat, these modes, as before
mentioned, were taken a semitone higher m Fjf
and C| minor respectively
Now, it is obvious that with the first string
always tuned to A, one only of the modes could
ever be applied to the lyre m its entirety What
was done, therefore, was this that portion of each
mode was taken, starting from A and proceeding
upwards, and applied to the lyre, 01 rather the
strings of the lyre were tuned to correspond with
the notes of the particular mode from this point
upwards the portions of each mode below A and
above g or a had of necessity to be omitted
The diagram B, p 34> explains this clearly
The only mode which could be applied in its
entirety was the Hypo Donan The vertical lines
contain the limited portion of each mode which it
was possible to transfer to the lyre
The semitones m the modes never vaned, they
always occurred between the first and second
intervals, excluding the proslambanomcnos, and
between the fourth and fifth
In the diagram, it will be seen that m those
portions of the modes between the vertical lines
to which the lyre was tuned, the semitones occur
Pythagorean Systems 33
in different places in each. Now, if these portions
are transposed to the key of A minor they appear
as in the diagram C. Compare these with the
mediaeval modes in Chapter VIIL, which have
not, however, the same names. The names to
the modes under (i) are the true Greek names,
those under (2) are the false Greek names given
to the Mediaeval modes by Glareanus, born 1488,
died 1563. It will be seen there is no affinity
between them, except with the Hypo-Dorian mode.
The Dorian mode always occupied the middle
of the system of modes. Each transposition,
which we term key, bore the name of some
Greek province.
If the method of tuning the lyre, as above de
scribed, is clearly understood, it will be obvious how
great would be the confusion caused by taking
the portions of the true scales on the lyre to be the
complete scales themselves. A careful study of
the diagrams B and C should render any such
course an impossibility. One continuous proof
runs throughout all ancient treatises on Greek
music, that every mode or scale was tuned in
precisely the same way, viz., always to its own
mese or keynote. For that reason alone it must
have been identical as to intervals, just as are
modern scales.*
Chappell, 115.
34
Medieval Music
Pythagorean Systems 35
DIAGRAM C.
The portions of each scale which could alone be pro
duced on the Lyre.
Portion on the Lyre.
The same transposed to
the key of A minor.
^Z3
_^_Q MM J
.0
--^^
**"" 1
^=2i^r=
7/4tf j//;a// lines under the notes mark the semitones*
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHRISTIAN ERA PTOLEMY'S IMPROVE
MENTS. SECOND CENTURY.
THE greatest of all improvements was made in
the second century of the Christian era by
Claudius Ptolemy, an Egyptian mathematician,
born at Pelusium, who flourished 139 A.D. He in
sisted on a scale of not less than two octaves,*
and rejected, therefore, the lesser system of
Pythagoras,t and adopted the greater system; and
here was the great improvement, which has con
tinued to the present time- The tones in both
the octaves were all major, and consequently
sounded very harsh ; he therefore ruled that the
tones between the intervals of the fourth and fifth,
and between the seventh and eighth, including
the proslambanomenos, should be minor. This
order of major and minor tones produced an effect
exactly the same as our old or true minor mode
does when played in tune.
* Chappell, 93. t Ibid.) 92,
The Christian Era 37
A B = major tone, f
B C = semitone,
C D = major tone,
D- E = minor tone, ^
E F = semitone,
F G = major tone, f
G A = minor tone, -V 1
f3 major tones \ (The seven notes
- = -j 2 minor tones [ = j of the diatonic
12 semitones J I scale.
These eight modes of Ptolemy's were formed
by a series of six perfect fourths, taken upwards,
or of perfect fifths downwards, starting from any
note of the diatonic scale, and arranged in alpha-
b etical order from the lowest note upwards, with
the proslambanomenos placed a whole tone be
fore this lowest note. Example : Let B equal
the note, then B to E, E to A, A to D, D to G,
G to C, C to F=B C D E F G A; place the
proslambanomenos a whole tone below B, and
the result is this scale, A B C D E F G A, or the
first octave of the Hypo-Dorian mode.
The diagram D, p. 39, founded upon one by
Zarlino, shows the perfected system of Ptolemy in
a clear manner.
The difference between a major tone and a
minor tone is f $. The upper note in a major
tone has nine vibrations to every eight of the lower
note, hence a major tone = I, while in a minor
tone the proportions are ^f- 9 and x &=.
The diminishing of the interval between the
seventh and eighth degrees of the octave, from a
major to a minor tone, was the first step towards
38 Mediaeval Music
the ultimate substitution of a semitone for a tone
between the interval of the seventh and eighth,
which modern music for some reason deems a
necessity (Chappell and others).
Lines and spaces, clefs and notes, as we under
stand the terms, were unknown prior to the
twelfth century.
The major scale does not appear to have been
generally adopted before the latter part of the
sixteenth century.
Ptolemy, to bring the octave of all the modes into
the middle of the voice, lowered or transposed
the seven scales the eighth being but a repetition
of the first at a higher pitch a fourth downwards.
The diagram E pp. 40-41 contains, side by side,
for clearness, the positions of the original and
transposed scales at the interval of a fourth.
This lowering of the strings necessitated the
use of either larger instruments or thicker strings.
The vertical lines mark off the portion of the
modes which could be accompanied on the lyre.
The proslambanomenos still appears as if it were
a part of the system, and consequently the semi
tone in each of the two tetrachords forming the
two octaves, seems to occur between the second and
third degrees of the .scale A B C D, D EF G.
The tendency to move the semitone upwards,
and the various attempts made to accomplish this,
form not one of the least interesting subjects for
observation.
The Christian Era
39
PTOLEMY'S PERFECTED GREEK SYSTEM.
The Syntonus or Intense Diatonic.
r greater semitone in the ratio of f.
The diatonic tetrachord =J a major tone 5> .
la minor tone ,, ,, ^.
The diapason = an octave (dia, through ; p all), in the ratio
off.
The diapente = a fifth (dia, through \ J>ente, five), in the ratio
ofj.
The diatessaron = a fourth (dia, through ; tessaron, four), in the
ratio off.
DIAGRAM D.
H. DORIAN
MIXOLYOIjW
LYDIAN "
PHRTC1AN
DORIAN
H.L
H.P
H.O
Hie rule for finding the roese, and th||ey, is described in Chapter III, p, 28,
CHAPTER V.
THE CHRISTIAN ERA. CLAUDIUS PTOLEMY TO ST.
GREGORY THE GREAT, BISHOP OF ROME 590-
604.
ANTIPHONAL SINGING.
A NTIPHONAL singing was essentially anti-
1~\ Greek, introduced from Jewish and Syrian
customs ; witness the tradition which ascribes its
introduction to St. Ignatius of Antioch, who was
martyred about A.D. 107. It appears to have been
incorporated into the service of the Church so
early as no A.D. ; for Pliny the younger, who in the
second century had been appointed Pro-consul of
Bithynia, reporting to the Emperor Trajan con
cerning the Christians, declared that, having
examined many of them, he found the chief of their
faults or errors was that they were ' accustomed to
meet before daylight on a certain day and sing
among themselves alternately seem invicemz
hymn to Christ as God.'
St. Irenseus, a native of Asia Minor, and Bishop
of Lyons in Gaul 177, is said to have intro-
The Christian Era 43
duced into his diocese a Liturgy called by some
the Ephesine Liturgy, but which is better known
as the Old Gallican Liturgy, and there is some
evidence that this Old Gallican Liturgy was used
in the British Isles before and after the coming
of St. Augustine in 596 ; St. Ignatius is reputed
to have introduced antiphonal singing into the
musical services of the Gallican Church in the
West.*
Sylvester, Bishop of Rome 314-336, is supposed
to have been the first to found singing schools at
Rome, and in several towns where the Christian
religion had become implanted.
During the episcopacy of Leontius, the semi-
Arian, c. 350, who organized processions through
the city, crying out, * Where are they who assert
that the Son is as great as the Father?' and
singing, ' Glory be to the Father, in the Son, and by
the Holy Ghost/ there were also in Antioch two
laymen, of great repute for the sanctity of their
lives, afterwards consecrated, the one Flavian,
Bishop of Antioch, and the other Diodorus,
Bishop of Tarsus. These holy men endeavoured
to counteract the heresy of Leontius and his
following, and, to further this end, organized
counter-processions, going about the city, after
the manner of the Arians, carrying lighted tapers
in their hands, walking in couples, and singing,
* Hawkins, i. 105.
44 Mediaeval Music
' Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to
the Holy Ghost/ thus giving, as the Church has
ever since, equal glory and praise to the three
Persons in the one blessed and ever undivided
Trinity. The method of singing was antiphonal,
the men singing one verse, the boys responding.
This antiphonal singing was exceedingly popular,
and became almost universal.* Its popularity is
said to have materially aided in drawing the people
from their attendance at the heretical services of
Leontius, the singing captivating the people.
St. Basil, Archbishop of Caesarea 371, d. 379,
was partly educated in Athens, where he became
acquainted with the antiphonal method of singing
known as the Alexandrian style, which was rather
speaking than singing, through the example of
St. Athanasius. He introduced the melodies of
the chanters of Antioch, and antiphonal singing
after the model of the singing in Egypt, Lydia,
Thebes, Palestine, and amongst the Arabians,
the Phoenicians, Syrians, and Mesopotamians,
into the 150 sees in his province on sandy Csesarea.
To this and other innovations some of his clergy
notably Sabellus and Marcellus in 363 ob
jected, and took ( occasion to incense the Church
* Full authorities on the point of antiphonary and anti-
phonal singing are given p. n, Chappell's ' H. of M.' Greek
antiphonal is our congregational singing ; where men sing,
naturally, the corresponding sounds an octave below women
and children.
The Christian Era 45
against him, as having been the author of new
devices in the service of God.'*
Damasus, Bishop of Rome 367-384, introduced
the custom of chanting, instead of reciting the
Psalms, into the Western Church and ordered
they should terminate with the Gloria Patri, etc.
St. Ambrose, once the governor of Liguria,
and who began life as a Roman magistrate,
became the eighth day after his baptism Bishop
of Milan, in the north of Italy, 374, being then
thirty-four years of age ; he died 398. He had a
great admiration for St. Basil, whose music and
antiphonal method of singing he introduced into
Italy.
He is frequently quoted, without any authority
whatsoever, as having founded, or introduced, a
system of music peculiar in its use and adoption
by the Church, fancifully called Ambrosian music,
or the use of Milan.
St. Ambrose never claimed such honour ; on the
contrary, in a letter to his sister, St. Marcelona,
he wrote that he merely wished to take upon
himself the task of regulating the tonality, and the
mode of execution of the hymns, psalms, and
antiphons, that were sung in the church which he
had founded at Milan.
There is some probability that his task consisted
* Hawkins (Novello's ed.), i. 106 ; ' Vales, in Socrat.,'
lib. iv., cap. xxvi.
46 Mediaeval Music
in the introduction of instrumental music as well
as antiphonal singing into his diocese, he also
ordained that the psalms and hymns should be
sung after the style of the oriental churches, as St
Basil had done
St John Chrysostom 380, died 407, was
ordained deacon by Meletms, and priest or pres
byter by Flavian, Bishop of Antioch He was
consecrated Archbishop of Constantinople 380,
in which place he introduced the antiphonal sing
ing and ceremonial gf Antioch
The ' Te Deum/ set to music, and known as the
Ambrosian * Te Deum/ was not the work of St
Ambrose + The hymn itself did not exist until
long after the deaths of St Ambrose and St
Augustine
St Celestme, Bishop of Rome 422 432, is
said to have ordained that the psalms should
be chanted through at the beginning of, or rathei
before, Mass, in the course of the year, by taking
sometimes one and sometimes another , and they
were called the Introits, because sung whilst the
priest entered, after vesting., and were sung
antiphonally, one side of the choir responding to
the other
The early Christians, having adopted the anti
phonal method of singing in use in Antioch, and
* Hawkins' * History of Music, 3 vol i , p 107, note a ,
Novello's edition
The Christian Era 47
introduced it into the West, made use of also,
there can be little doubt, the musical system of
Greece as finally settled by Claudius Ptolemy.
The musical system, as arranged by Claudius
Ptolemy, was common to the Church, the theatre,
and to the laity generally, with such modifications
as we shall presently see.
CHAPTER VI,
SAINT GREGORY THE GREAT. HIS INDIFFERENT
TO MUSIC.
TO St, Gregory L, the Great, Bishop of Rome
590-604, is ascribed by writer after writer,
musical historian after historian, none ever quoting
an authority in proof of their assertions or in sup
port of them :
(1) The compilation of an Antiphonary.
(2) The founding of a musical school in Rome.
(3) The invention, or arrangement or re
arrangement of a system of music peculiar to the
Church,
(4) The introduction of a system of notation by
means of Roman letters.
These fictions on examination vanish, like
smoke, into thin air.
(i) Did St. Gregory compile an Antiphonary ?
Platina, in his ' Lives of the Popes/ who en passant
does not mention or connect any Antiphonary with
St. Gregory the Great, informs us that Melchiades,
who was Bishop of Rome, 311-314, ordained, that
no Christian should keep a fast upon a Sunday or
St. Gregory the Great 49
a Thursday, because those days were so observed
and kept by the pagans.
In the year 589 the Council of Narbonne, by
Canon XV. solemnly condemned the observance
of Thursdays by the Churc^ in any way, because
that day was held sacred to Jupiter, and so kept
not only by the pagans, but by many of the
Christians also.
This prohibition remained in force until the
episcopacy of Gregory II., who occupied the See
of Rome, 716-731. This prelate enjoined the
celebration of the sacred rites on the Thursdays in
Lent only.
How remarkably this last detail is confirmed by
the Liturgical books, has been well pointed out
by Mons. Gevaert,* The Gelasian Sacramen-
tary, at the end of the seventh century, does not
provide a single Mass for any one of the Thursdays
in Lent, and yet in that ascribed to St. Gregory I.,
at a time, too, when the observance of these days
was solemnly forbidden, we find a Mass assigned
to each, and the music apportioned to them is not
new, but is borrowed from the Sundays after
Trinity, or as they are termed in the Roman
service books, e after Pentecost ;' they had no place
in the Gelasian Sacramentary, being unknown
until the end of the seventh or beginning of the
*. *Les engines du Chant Liturgique de l^glise latine,'
1890.
4
50 Mediaeval Music
eighth century. Trinity Sunday was not invented
till the eleventh or twelfth centuries.
The fact that the music was borrowed from pre
existing offices for the Sundays after Pentecost,
and not new composed for these Thursday Masses,
is reasonable proof that few, if any, melodies were
composed under either Gregory II. or Gregory III.
The Masses from which those for the Thursdays
in Lent borrowed their music do not, as before
stated, appear in the Gelasian Sacramentary, and
therefore were not in existence before the close ot
the seventh century.
St. Gregory I. has left us, in addition to a large
number of theological tracts and homilies, a
voluminous correspondence, including no less
than 800 letters, covering the whole of the public
as well as private life during his thirteen years'
episcopacy. In these there is not a single line,
allusion, or hint of any kind respecting either tfye
chant of the Church or of an Antiphonary.
Of ancient writers, there is but one, and one
only, who attributes the compilation of an Anti
phonary to St. Gregory I. John the Deacon, who
flourished c. 880, that is, about 286 years after the
death of Gregory I., whose assertions have re
mained uncorroborated to this day.
There is not an allusion in either the epitaph of
Gregory, nor the description of the Liber Pon-
tificalis, nor in any biography or eulogium of him.
St Gregory the Great 51
Isidore of Seville, Bp. 601, d. 636, his contem
porary, the Venerable Bede d. 735 in the next
century, Paul Warnefried under the Emperor
Charles the Great do not make the remotest
mention of or allusion to it. With regard to
Isidore and Bede, who were so much interested
and concerned with the Liturgy, hoth of them
being &lsd musical writers, the silence is more
remarkaSTe and significant.
^The attribution of the Antiphonary to St.
Gregory I. rests Ttben on the sole and uncorro
borated statement of John the Deacon; save
this one, all are silent on the matter.
The first record we have of the existence of an
Antiphonary is that of Paul I., Bishop of Rome
757-767, who sent one to Pippin, father of Charles
the Great, in 760, in which the music for the great
festivals is of the same character as that for offices
only introduced in the time of Sergius I., Bishop of
Rome 687, d. 701, who was a native of Palermo, of
Syrian parentage, and became master of the Choir
School at Rome. It is to him that Mons.
Gevaert attributes the principal part in the com
posing of these melodies, which were afterwards
collected and edited, he believes, by Gregory III.,
Bishop of Rome 731-741.
The documents from which John the Deacon
bases his assertions do not in any particular agree
with the calendar of the time of Gregory I.,
52 Mediaeval Music
whereas they do with that of the Roman Liturgy
at the beginning of the period 750. In con
sequence, the compilation of the Roman Anti-
phonary is antedated more than a century, and
therefore, says Gevaert, ' if the epithet " Gre
gorian " has any real import, it implies that of
Gregory II., Bishop of Rome 715-731, or, with
more reason, to his successor, Gregory III., 731-
741.'
(2) The founding of a musical school in Rome
by St. Gregory I. may, in the absence of one
tittle of evidence other than that of the romancing
John the Deacon, be dismissed at once as a
fable.
(3) It seems hardly necessary to discuss
seriously the question of his having invented, im
proved, or arranged any system of music, peculiar
or otherwise to the services of the Church, after
what has been stated above ; suffice it to add that,
in support of any such theory, of proof there is
none of any kind. On the contrary, St. Gregory I.
appears to have been very indifferent to, and to
have taken the very slightest interest in, Church
music.
In a synod of 595, he says : ' In this Holy Church
of Rome, which Providence has placed under my
direction, it has for a long time been a repre
hensible custom, and worthy of note, for the
sacred ministry of singers, before entering into
St. Gregory the Great 53
Deacon's orders, to devote their whole time to the
cultivation of their voices, altogether neglecting
their office of preaching and of the distribution of
alms ; and the priests, each cultivating his organ
to attain an edifying voice, irritating God, while
they please the people with their accents,' he
decrees 'that the Deacons shall not sing at all,
except in the recitation of the Gospels in the
Masses. As for the chants of the Liturgy, they
shall be executed by the Sub-Deacons, or, if
necessary, by the clerks of inferior degree. 5 *
(4) The invention of any system of notation
cannot be attributed to St. Gregory I. Isidore,
his contemporary, distinctly declares that no means
of recording music existed in his day, and further
that, ' unless sounds are retained in the memory,
they perish, because they cannot be written.'t
Amalarius Fortunatus, a principal ecclesiastic in
the chapel of Lewis the Debonnaire, who was sent
by Lewis to request of Gregory IV. 3 Bishop of
Rome 827-844, a sufficient number of singers to
instruct the people, tells us that * neither were
there in Gaul or at Rome any books wherein it '
the chant ' had been written.'
It is certain, therefore, that the music known
under the erroneous terms f Church music/ or
* Gevaert.
f * Nisi enim ab homine memoria teneantur, soul pereunt,
quia scribi non possunL' Bk. iiL, ''Origines] or 'Etymologies.'
54 Mediaeval Music
' Gregorian,' was the invention of neither St.
Gregory nor any other one man, but a recognised
system, of gradual growth and development, the
heritage of Church and lay folk alike.
It is quite a mistake to suppose that what is
called * Gregorian music ' is of the age of St.
Gregory. The word means nothing more than
the ' use of Rome.' ' Nos Gregoriani et nos
Ambrosiani,' * We who follow the use of Rome,
and we who follow the use of Milan.'* It is more
than probable, almost certain, that the system of
music to which St. Gregory's name has, without
any reason, been assigned, came into existence
between the eighth and tenth centuries. It was
unknown in the days of Hucbald or of Notker,
the monk and abbot of St. Gall, in the tenth
century. Hucbald distinctly states that his tetra-
chords have the same succession of intervals,
whether taken up or down see Chapter IX.
Notker says, in his ' De Octo Tonis/ that every
chant of the first and second tones ends in B, of
the third and fourth in C, of the fifth and sixth in
D, and of the seventh and eighth in E, which
differs much from the law of later times. f
The modern ' Gregorian tones ' have been
changed by altering the positions of the semi-
* * Dictionary of Musical Terms,' Stainer and Barrett,
1 Notation;
t Ibid.
St Gregory the Great 55
tones in the scales The first and second of later
dates end on D, the third and fourth on E, the
fifth and sixth on F, and the seventh and eighth
on G The music cannot be the same, because
the intervals follow in a different succession *
At the Synod of Cloveshoo, 747, while the
churches of the Anglo-Saxons are instructed to
regulate the liturgical chants, particularly those of
the Mass, on the official version sent from Rome,
no single allusion is made to, or the slightest hint
given of, a book of chants bearing the name of
St Gregory
SERVICE-BOOKS
Canon XIII
Among the Canons of Elfnc, A D 957, occurs
the following Now it concerns Mass-priests and
all God's servants to keep their churches employed
with divine service Let them sing therein the
seven tide-songs that are appointed them, as the
synod earnestly requires, viz , the uht song, the
prime song, the undern song, the mid-day song
12 o'clock, the noon-song the hora nona, our
3 o'clock, the even-song, the seventh or night
song ' Canon XIX , and again * The Priest shall
have the furniture for his ghostly work before he
is ordained, that is, the holy books, the psalter
* * Dictionary of Musical Terms, 7 Stamer and Barrett,
* Notation.'
56 Mediaeval Music
and the pistol-book, gospel-book, mass-book, the
song-book, the hand-book, the kalendar, the
Pasconal, or Martyrology, the Penitential, the
lesson-book. It is necessary that the Mass-priest
have these books, as he cannot do without them,
if he will rightly exercise his function and duly
inform the people that belongeth to him.' Canon
XXI.
The Coucher
J Ur , were abolished 3 and 4 Ed-
Portasses
Primers
Processionals .
ANCIENT SERVICE-BOOKS.
Mass Books.
The Sacramentary was the priest's book at the
altar ; it contained the collects, prefaces, and the
canon of the Mass.
The Antiphonary, gradual or graile, was the
choir-book of the Mass ; it contained the anthems
introits, graduals, alleluias, tracts, offertories,
communions, hymns, Sanctus, Creed, Kyrie,
Gloria in excelsis in fact, all the musical
portions of the Mass. That erroneously attri
buted to St. Gregory, of which there is an
imaginary transcript of the tenth century in the
monastery at St. Gall, contains only the following
portions of the service : 96 anthems, 150 introits,
St. Gregory the Great 57
in graduate, 99 alleluias, 23 tracts, 102 offer
tories, 147 communions, 15 responds, and 4
hymns. From internal evidence, other than
what has been pointed out by Mons. Gevaert,
it is quite clear the original cannot possibly be of
earlier date than the latter part of the eighth
century. The probability is that it is not a
transcript of so early a one, but is an original
compilation of the tenth century.
The Epistolarium, or Pistol-book, contained the
epistles, and the Evangeliarium, or Gospel-book,
the gospels.
The Troper, or Sequentiary, the short verses or
tropes after the epistle, together with tags to the
introits, kyries, Gloria in excelsis, Creed, Sanctus,
and other musical portions of the service.
About the eleventh century these are supposed
all to have been merged into the Missal, or Book
of the Mass.
The Ordinal was a directory of divine service,
containing the rubrics, and is by some supposed
to have been the same as the Pye.
The Manual, or Office-book, was the ritual book,
and contained the order for baptism and other
sacraments, blessing of holy water, order of pro
cessions, etc.
Hour Services-
The Breviary, Portiforium, or Portuary, was the
Book of the Seven Hours.
5 8 Mediaeval Music
The Psalter contained the psalms arranged for
the different Hours, and the litany as used on
occasions.
The Hymnarium, the hymns used at the Hours.
The Collectarium, the collects, orations, capi-
tula, or short lessons used at all the Hour
services except Mattins.
The Legenda, or Lectionary, the long lessons,
from whatever source taken, and read at Mattins,
the Nocturns on Sundays and certain other days.
The Prymer, or Primer, contained the little office
of our Lady, the vigils of the dead and other
prayers.
The Abbd Duchesne, the latest and best
authority on liturgical matters, assigns the date
of the Gregorian Sacramentary to the eighth
century, and attributes it to be the work, not of
St. Gregory, but of Adrian I., Bishop of Rome
772-795.
As St. Gregory died in 604, the Sacramentary
and Antiphonary which bear his name are at
least a century and a half later than his time.
The earliest mention of an Antiphonary was
during the episcopate of Paul I. of Rome, 757-
767.
CHAPTER VIL
INTRODUCTION OF THE ORGAN. ITS EFFECT ON
MEDUBVAL MUSIC. A.D. 150-1350,
HPHE Greeks and Romans derived their organs
J[ from ancient Egypt*
Thejeal home of organ-building in Europe was
Constantinople. The primitive organsjrore fur
nished with four, sixoreik^)^ About the
end of the second century the number of pipes
had increased to fifteen, as shown, not only by
engravings on coins, but from the express testimony
of a writer to that effect
By the time of Constantine the Great, at the
beginning of the fourth century, the number of
pipes had been increased to twenty-six. Optation,
c. 324, a court poet of the time, and a master of con
ceits, wrote a poem on an organ, and so arranged
his verse that it exactly represented the appearance
of the instrument itself; that is, the first verse is
of so many letters, the second of one letter more
* Chappdl, i*, xvi.
60 Mediaeval Music
than the first, the third one more than the second,
and so on. The appearance of th verses exactly
imitates the gradual rise of the front pipes of an
organ, pipe after pipe. To these are appended
shorter verses, all of the same length, which stand
for keys, and one is at the bottom of each pipe.
There are twenty-six verses in all, and twenty-six
keys to match. This shows the way organs were
made at this period.
The Emperor Julian, called the Apostate, who
died 363, is the reputed author of a Greek enig
matical epigram, the solution of which is evidently
the pneumatic-organ. It has been literally translated
by the late Dr. Rimbault as follows : ' I see a
species of reeds : surely from another and a brazen
soil have they quickly sprung rude. Nor are
they agitated by our winds, but a blast rushing
forth from a cavern of bull's hide, makes its way
from below the root of reeds with many openings,
and a highly-gifted man, with nimble fingers,
handles the yielding rods of the pipes, while they,
softly bounding, press out a sound.' The rods
were flat rules of wood. These rules were soon
afterwards, and continued for upwards of five
hundred years, to be called ' tongues/ doubtless
from the protruding ends which stood out in front.
There is a curious representation of an organ
depicted among the sculpture on an obelisk at
Constantinople, erected by Theodosius, who died
Introduction of the Organ 61
A - D - 393- An illustration is given in Grove's
' Dictionary of Music and Musicians/ ii., p. 576.
The water-organ, which was a novelty in the
reign of Nero, who died 68, had become so common
and so popular by the time of Honorius, 625-638,
that a nobleman's house was considered incomplete
without one. Bailable organs which could be
carried by slaves from house to house ^where
concerts or musical gatherings were attended by
their masters, were also made in great numbers.
St. Jerome, who flourished at the end of the
fourth and the beginning of the fifth century,
- 374j died A.D. 420, describes the organ of his
day as being composed of fifteen pipes ; of two
bellows; and of two elephants' skins united to
serve as a wind-bag.
Cassiodorus, Consul of Rome, in the early part
of the sixth century, who died A.D. 560, aged about
ninety, at his monastery of Viviers, says : e The
organ is like a tower, made of different pipes,
which, by the blowing of bellows, a most copious
sound is secured ; and in order that a suitable
modulation may regulate the sounds, it is con
structed with certain tongues of wood from the
interior, which the fingers of the master, duly
pressing, elicit a full-sounding and most sweet
song/
One is mentioned as existing in the most
ancient city of Grado, in Italy, in a church of the
6 2 Mediaeval Music
nuns anterior to A.D. 580. It is described as being
about two feet long and six inches broad, furnished
with fifteen playing slides and thirty pipes two
to each slide probably either in unison or at the
distance of an octave apart.
The organ was early used in the public service
of the Church. Platina, in his * Lives of the Popes/
says it was first employed for religious worship by
Vitalian I., Bishop of Rome 657-672, but, ac
cording to Julianus, a Spanish bishop, who
flourished A.D. 450, it was in common use in the
churches of Spain at least two hundred years
before Vitalian's time.
St. Aldhelm or Ealdhelm, 668, died 709, Abbot
of Malmesbury, and afterwards Bishop of Shir-
burn, fully describes the organ in his Laus
Virginitate. This was most likely the English
instrument. At the beginning of the eighth
century, he says : 'As he listens to mighty
organs, each with its thousand blasts, the ear is
soothed by the sound heard from the wind-giving
bellows, while the rest shines in gilt cases.' He
also tells us it was the custom of the Anglo-
Saxons to ornament the pipes of their organs by
gilding them.
The Venerable Bede, c. 673, a contemporary of
St. Aldhelm, and who survived him twenty-six years,
died 735, speaks with much minuteness of the
appearance, method of playing, and the musical
Introduction of the Organ 63
effect of the organ of his day ' An organum is
a kind of tower made with various pipes, from
which, by the blowing of bellows, a most copious
sound is issued, and that a becoming modulation
may accompany this, it is furnished with certain
wooden tongues from the interior part, which the
master's fingers skilfully repressing, produce a
grand and most sweet melody' The organ
appears to have been unknown in Gaul and
Germany at the time of Pippin, father of Charles
the Great, who is credited with having introduced
the singing and ceremonies of the Roman branch
of the Catholic Church into Gaul Being
urgently in need of an organ, both as an aid
to devotion and as a proper accompaniment and
support to the choir, he applied to the Byzantine
Emperor, Constantme, surnamed Copronymus,
soliciting him to forward one to Gaul The
Emperor complied with the request, and in the
year 757 or thereabouts, sent him as a present, in
charge of a special embassy, headed by Stephanus,
a Roman bishop 752-757, a great organ with
leaden pipes, which was placed in the Church of
St Corneille, at Compiegne * An organ, made
by an Arabian named Giafar, c 822-826, was also
sent to Charles the Great, in all probability the
one described by Walafhd Strabo, c 842, as ex
isting in a church at Aachen The following
* Grove's 'Dictionary of Music and Musicians/ Art ' Organ *
64 Mediaeval Music
account of this latter organ is m the mam from
Rowbotham's 'History of Music/ in 259, 260
It was when the Greek ambassadors came to
Aachen on a mission from another Constantme
to Charles the Great, that stones began to spread
about the Court of the wonderful instruments they
had brought with them, and among others of a
complicated instrument made of brazen cylinders,
and bulls'-hide bellows, and pipes, which could
roar as loud as thunder, and yet could be reduced
to the softness of a lyre or tinkling bell To gam
the knowledge of its construction, Charles the Great
sent artizans into the ambassadors' apartments,
bidding them pretend to employ themselves on
some other labour, but really to examine the
structure of the organ, so that they might make
another like it The organ thus made stood in
the Cathedral of Aachen
A new era in organ-building would seem to
have been inaugurated in the time of Lewis I , the
Pious, who died 840, by the arrival of one George,
a Venetian, a learned priest, at the court of that
monarch His organs were all water organs,
and were not provided with bellows, a retro
gression in the art of organ-building Most of the
instruments spread throughout Gaul and Ger
many at this date were built, if not under his
direct superintendence, on his pattern Withm a
century after George's time, we know not where-
Introduction of the Organ 65
fore, the home of organ-building had passed from
Italy and Gaul to Germany.
John VIII., Bishop of Rome 872, died 882,
writing from Rome to Bishop Anno in Germany,
said, ' Send me the best organ you can procure,
and along with it a tutor, for we have none here.'
England and Germany at this time appear as
centres of organ-buil3ing,71wfience the largest
organs 'aJe^'said to have come. The bellows,
many of which were used to keep a steady flow
and pressure of wind for as one or more were
filling, the others were exhausting now began to
be provided with feeders, instead of the old
hydraulic arrangement.
The great and spacious monastic and cathedral
churches of the Romanesque period, with their lofty
roofs, were now beginning to cover the land. Im
mense organs, too, came in vogue, suitable to the
large buildings which were to hold them ; the small
organs were totally inadequate, and would have
appeared ridiculous, as well as almost useless, in
such vast buildings. But, although the number
of the pipes, and of the bellows to blow them,
were greatly augmented, we do not find as yet any
addition to the plain diatonic scale, representing
the white keys of our present instruments. The
levers, or 'keys,' were.. so- broad, that- it required
the use of the. fists of the player or players to
strike them, hence the term organ-beater.
5
66 Mediaeval Music
St. Dunstan 924, died 988, was a maker of organs,
and is reputed to have supplied many great
churches with them, including the Abbeys of
Abingdon and Glastonbury. One, which he gave
to the Abbey of Malmesbury, continued in good
playing condition after a lapse of 130 years.
In the same century Count Elwin presented an
organ to the Convent of Ramsey, c. 980-990, with
copper pipes.*
St. Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester 963-984,
made organs with his own hands.t
Mr. Wackerbath,! gives a translation from an
account in Latin by a monk of the name of
Wulstan, who died in 963, of a remarkable tenth-
century organ, erected in Winchester Cathedral
by Bishop Elphege, who died 951 : 'Such organs
as you have built are seen nowhere, fabricated on
a double ground. Twice six bellows above are
ranged in a row, and fourteen lie below. These,
by alternate blasts, supply an immense quantity of
wind, and are worked by seventy strong men,
labouring with their arms, covered with perspira
tion, each inciting his companions to drive the
wind up with all his strength, that the full-
bosomed box may speak with its four hundred
pipes which the hand of the organist governs.
* Mon. Chron., R.S., 86.
f f Chron. Mon. de Abyngdon/ Rolls S., ii.
J * Music and the Anglo-Saxons, 3 pp. 12-15.
Introduction of the Organ 67
Some when closed he opens, others when open he
closes, as the individual nature of the varied sound
requires. Two brethren religious of concordant
spirit sit at the instrument, and each manages his
own alphabet. There are, moreover, hidden holes
in the forty tongues, and each has ten pipes in
their due order. Some are conducted hither,
others thither, each preserving the proper point
(or situation) for its own note. They strike the
seven differences of joyous sounds, adding the
music of the lyric semitone. Like thunder the
iron tones batter the ear, so that it may receive
no sound but that alone. To such an amount
does it reverberate, echoing in every direction
that everyone stops with his hand his gaping
ears ; being in nowise able to draw near and hear
the sound, which so many combinations produce.
The music is heard throughout the town, and the
flying fame thereof is gone out over the whole
country/ Dr. E. J. Hopkins, in his admirable
account of the ' English Mediaeval Church Organ/
pp. 17 and 18, gives an explanation and solution
of this enigma, which he was the first to unravel,
this result having also been published, with an illus
tration of the instrument, a few years ago in the
article on the organ in Grove's Dictionary. ' The
musical scale,' he says, * simply consisted of the
seven diatonic sounds, corresponding with the
sounds of the white keys of a modern pianoforte,
68 Mediaeval Music
with " the music of the lyric semitone/' or B flat,
added. No indication whatever can be traced as
to the ranges of the three sets of playing-slides of
this Winchester organ. I ventured, in the above
article, on the suggestion that the lower row of
tongues, which "the organist" governed, might
have consisted of a set exactly corresponding with
the two-octave range of Gregory's (sic) gamut of
sixteen notes, as follows :
'ABCDEFGabHcdefgaa;
while the two remaining alphabets entrusted to
the two religious brethren possibly consisted each
of a set of notes corresponding with those of the
Gregorian (sic) chants twelve making up the
exact number of forty tongues in all :
TA:o9=auctor et magister the master tone,
and Plagal, from 7r\ayt,o$, obliquus seu lateralis
subordinate or inferior.
The eight octave scales were placed in the
following order :
ist Tone...
2nd ...
3rd ...
4 th ...
5th ...
6th ...
7th ...
8th ...
DEFGabcd
ABCDEFGa
EFGabcde
BC D EFGab
FGabcdef
CDEFGabc
Gabcdefg
DEFGabcd
The odd numbers were called the Authentics,
and the even the Plagals.
If he did not arrange the scales as above, he
is the first to mention them.*. 'He speaks
of there being four Authentic and four Plagal
modes, and of their ordination by authority,
that of Adrian, Bishop of Rome, contemporary
with Charles the Great. A " Musical Catechism "
by Alcuin is now in the Library at Munich.'f
The key to the two diagrams F and G, which
illustrate the same thing, is as follows :
The first column contains the mediaeval true
* Sir G. M. Macfarren, ' Six Lectures on Harmony,'
pp. 10, ii. Dr. Riemann's Catechism of Music/ 89.
f Private letter from Mr, Rowbotham to the writer.
Medieval System of Music
82
DIAGRAM F.
TABLE
'SHOWING THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE MEDIEVAL AND ANCIENT GREEK
MODES, WITH THEIR TRANSPOSITIONS IN THE DIATONIC SCALE.
i.
2.
3-
4-
s.
6.
7-
8.
MEDLEVAL MODES.
i
Is*
g2
!-
g|
c ^
IQ
.S d
g
'i
Sc
'M
**
e-s
&
"
<
ttci
o m
Q H
W H
t,*
N
<
fpypo-Dorian
a
b
C
d
e
f
g
a
?MIxo Lvdl
S
a
b b
c
d
b
f
S
pa y
a
f
e
S
g
a
c
b
c
d
e
Semitone
Ph
rygian
Dorianand Hypo-Mixo-Lydian
-
c
T
d
e
f
g
a
b b
c
d
pypo-Lydian
-
|-
_
1
^
c
d
e b
f
g
b
bb
c
Hypo-Phrygian
-
-
|-
-
-
^-
b
4
d
e
4
g:
a
b
J u
Hypo-Dorian -
^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
a
tf>
jg
Mixo-Lydian
1
J
>;
1
hi
>,
G
a
bb
c
d
e b
f
G
Lydian
Phrygian -
I
1
S
1
S
t
F
E
G
G
b b
c
b
^b
c
d
F
u
11
fa
5
Dorian and Hypo- \
Mixo-Lydian /
Q
M"
Q
4
D
F
G
a
^b
c
D
3
,IJypo-Lydian -
tt
C
D
E b
F
G
a b
b b
C
6
Hypo-Phrygian -
B
C$
D
E
FJ:
G
a
B
jf
I
Hypo-Dorian -
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
A
10
T
/
_j^
v
i.
s. 3-
4-
5- 6.
7. 8.
1,
B -i
fj
3
Semitone.
Semitone.
c
.2
\s
c
M
s,
c
*.
c .2
SL
3
o
p
3
^
I
o o
o
:>
o
!?
U
s
.1
>i i Q
*1 i
j
3
!
Q*
!
6
a
n
I
3
j
1
>i
E
M
True Greek and real Mediaval Modes. -
This diagram is given in duplicate-see diagram G-showing the notes
j>ositions on the lines and in the spaces to make the subject perfectly clear.
* See p. 32.
6
in their
82
Mediaeval Music.
DIAGRAM G.
Hypo-Dorian. Semitone,
9
Semitone.
I
1
VII. Mixo-Lydian.
9- ;
V. Lydian.
va
III. Phrygian.
I. Dorian. VIII. Hypo-Mixo-Lydian*
VI. Hypo-Lydian.
. & IZ2_
IV. Hy$o-Phrygian.
II. Hypo-Dorian.
Pi
[This page should be read as if placed immediately over the following
page.]
The true Greek and real Mediaeval modes read left to right.
Mediaeval System of Music. 83
Semitone. Semitone.
VII. Mixo-Lydian.
A -2T
V. Lydian.
III. Phrygian-
\ o
"a
I. Dorian. VIII. Hypo-Mixo-Lydian.
VI. Hypo-Lydian,
IV. Hypo-Phrygian.
II. Hypo-Dorian.
The true Greek and real Mediseval modes read left to right.
62
84 Mediaeval Music
Hypo-Dorian mode in its normal position. Each
of the octave scales or miscalled Gregorian modes
starts from the note on the line immediately
opposite to its name or number in the first
column, and on reading upwards from this to its
octave contains the scale in order of tones and
semitones ; the latter differ in each one.
Transposition is effected by taking any note to
the right on the same line in which the name or
number of the octave scale occurs, and reading up
that column to the octave as before.
The key to which any octave scale strictly
belongs whether transposed or not will be found
to be (i) that of the note at either extreme end of
the column, in diagram F, containing the note from
which the original or transposition starts, and (2)
in the bottom stave, p. 83, of the diagram G*
Supposing it is required to transpose the seventh
or Mixo-Lydian mode a fourth higher, that is from
G to C, on examining either diagram, and reading
upwards from C, it will be seen to require B flat,
to keep the semitones in their proper positions,
and the extreme ends of the fourth column,
diagram E, or the fourth note to the right on the
lowest stave (p. 83), show that by this transposi
tion the mode has been moved from the key of
A minor into that of D minor, that is, from the
true Hypo-Dorian into the true Dorian mode.
The true or real scales, out of which the mis-
Mediaeval System of Music 85
called modes or octave scales are formed, that is the
scale of A minor transposed into keys or different
pitches, with the proper number of sharps and
flats required, will be found on taking the note
opposite the names of the modes as above, and
reading across from left to right, or from the same
note in the bottom line, and reading upwards; in
either case, the key-note will appear at each end of
the line or column, according to which way It is
read in diagrams F and G.
The positions of the semitones are marked by
brackets; those placed on the right of the
diagrams denote where they fall when reading
upwards, those at the top or bottom, when reading
across from left to right.
The rule given on page 28 for finding the mese,
or middle note of any true scale, and thence the key,
applies with equal force to the mediaeval modes ;
and it will be found that the note which has a
semitone between the second and third intervals
on both sides of it is the mese, and the true
mode or key to which the portion of the mode
really belongs that is, from which it is formed
is the fourth note below such note.
The Greek names applied to the false or mediaeval
modes are very misleading, they were only intro
duced by Glareanus in the sixteenth century (com
pare i and 2, p. 35) ; in the true Greek modes they
were used to represent the different pitches or
86 Mediaev^f Music
( ,-* ______
transpositions of the Hypo-Dorian mode, -or key
of A as we now call it. Instead of saying key of D
or E and so on, the Greeks said Dorian and
Phrygian mode, etc.
The 'Plainsong' chants to which the psalms
are occasionally sung are frequently irregular, not
ending as required on the final. The reason of
this is that the antiphon, which followed as a sort
of continuation, and always ended on the final,
has been almost entirely suppressed.
In the modern grammars of Plainsong a melody
is fancifully termed (i) perfect ; (2) imperfect ; (3)
superfluous ; or (4) mixed.
(1) When the melody includes the full octave of
a mode, it is said to be perfect.
(2) When the melody does not range the full
octave, imperfect.
(3) When the melody exceeds the octave,
superfluous.
(4) When the melody includes or overlaps both
the authentic and the plagal, it is known as mixed.
Should the melody include the tonic of the
plagal as well as the authentic ; or
Should the melody embrace a plagal with its
octave above its final, it was known as communis
perftdis.
It has been said that the authentics progress
smoothly by intervals, whilst the plagals move by
skips.
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MediasvalNSyst^m of Music 87
i\ \
Before the eleventh cerrfury It is certain the
number of modes was limited to eight. Glareanus,
1488-1563, in his Dodecachordon, treats of twelve.
The plagals, in a manner, corresponded to our
so-called relative minor keys; they commenced
a fourth below and ended on the tonic of the
authentic mode. In the East the plagals are
counted a fifth below their authentics.
The division into the so-called authentics and
plagals was made by taking those four modes
supposed to comprise a perfect fifth and a
perfect fourth, these were called the authentics ;
those four which were composed of a perfect
fourth and a perfect fifth, the plagals. The
former were also known as the Harmonic division,
and the latter as the Arithmetical. This
division, as will be seen, is a purely fanciful
one, for any one of the plagal modes, excepting
the fourth, Hypo-Phrygian has a perfect fifth
in each mode followed by a perfect fourth; and
the same with the authentics, with the exception
of the fifth the Lydian mode, all have a perfect
fourth followed by a perfect fifth. The division,
therefore, it is clear, is imaginary only.
In the Hypo-Phrygian mode only in mediaeval
music is the final approached by the interval of a
semitone, and that always by descent and never
by ascent.
The term dominant, in Mediaeval music, was
Mediaeval Music
used merely to describe the note which in the
chants and hymns predominated, and had no
other significance. In the so-called authentic
modes, it was always the fifth note unless that
note was B, when the sixth, C, was taken ; in the
plagal modes, it was always the third note below
that of the corresponding authentic.
The supposed differences between the authentics
and plagals were :
AUTHENTICS.
Formation of the octave by
5+4-
Final always the last note.
PLAGALS.
Formation of the octave by
4+5.
Final always the fourth note.
The first note of each octave of the authentics
was the final of the plagals as well as of the
authentics, but the last note also was the final in
the authentics only.
An Irregular or Confinal mode was one that
did not end on its final.
During the eighth and ninth centuries all
intellectual development appears to Kave"~~fceeiT
stagnant ; with the exception of a few rules on
descant, in the works of Aurelianus and a few
other writers at the end of the ninth century, little
progress, if any, in the art of music was made,
none is recorded. Early in the "tenth century
learning began to flourish all over Europe, espe
cially in the arts and sciences ; the study and con
sequent improvements made in music were soon
manifested.
Mediaeval System of Music 89
Although secular as well as sacred melodies
were alike written in these octave scales or modes,
it is not asserted that all secular music was re
stricted entirely to the limited compass and order
of these modes.
The interval of the tritone, that is of the three
whole tones in succession, which in the scale or
mode of A minor occurs between the second and
the sixth, that is F and B, was forbidden to be
used, being too harsh for the ears of our fore
fathers ; to obviate its occurrence, one of the
extreme Intervals forming the tritone was required
to be raised or lowered a semitone, either by
raising the F to F sharp, or by depressing B a
semitone to B flat.! IChis want does not appear
to have been supplied until the tenth century,
when, for the first time, the ( lyric semitone ' B flat
occurs, as has been previously noted In the account
of the organ at Winchester, and no doubt was
to be found on others of this and following
centuries.
Hucbald, in the tenth century, in his system of
tetrachords, which may or may not have been
generally adopted in the tenth and eleventh
centuries, has both the B flat and F sharp, but
the writer is not aware of any composition of this
period in which the latter was made use of.
Guido Aretino, in the eleventh century, intro
duces B flat in the third and sixth hexachords of
po Mediaeval Music
the system used by him. The systems of both
Hucbald and Guido will be found explained in
Chapter X.
The class of music which is now known as
' Plainsong,' can scarcely be of earlier date than
the latter end of the eighth century, assuming in
the absence of any other theory that it came into
existence with the introduction of the organ, the
common and general use of which may be taken
to date from this early period, although used here
and there, in isolated instances, some centuries
before. The earliest compilation of * Plainsong *
of which there is any record is of the latter half of
the eighth century, and to this period also is
assigned the first mention of the scales in the
form in which the * Plainsong' is written; and
further, that it was at this time the modes were
cast into that form in which we know them.
There is not a tittle of evidence, nor a shred
of information of any kind which even suggests^
that any alteration was intentionally made in the
form or arrangement of the scale as finally settled
by Ptolemy in the second century. The use oi
the organ as an accompaniment to the singing
in its primitive form must have compelled the
arranging of the vocal music in such a manner
that it should conform to' the exigences of the
instrument, and we find that at the time the sharps
and flats were added to the organ, then do
Mediaeval System of Music 91
also appear in the chants and hymn-tunes, or vice
versa, for the first time, which affords very strong
corroborative evidence of the influence of the
organ on the form and use of the mediaeval octave
scales.
It is also a significant fact, worthy of note in
support of the above, that the Mediaeval Regals
or Portatives,"* so called on account of the ease
with which they could be carried about, were
furnished with six, seven, or eight notes only, and
it will be found on examination that within the
compass of these limited diatonic scales nearly all,
if not the whole of, the early chants and hymn-
tunes were written.
The Positive was a small stationary organ.
* A Regal had reed pipes, a Portative had flue pipes.
CHAPTER IX.
USES OF THE ROMAN, MILANESE AND MOZARABIC
LITURGIES, EIGHTH TO ELEVENTH CENTURIES.
r I ^HE use of Milan, there can be little doubt,
J[ differed somewhat from the use of Rome,
not in the musical system there being but one
but in the method or style of singing. The
difference at the present day is striking, At
Milan the ancient Greek rule of a note to a
syllable appears to have been the custom, whilst
at Rome, on the contrary, a string of notes was
sung to a syllable, toying with it as long as the
unfortunate singer's breath would hold out.
The adherents of the Roman use, if the writers
quoted are to be believed, entertained the bitterest
ill-feeling and rancorous animosity against those
who upheld the use of Milan.
From the life of St. Eugenius, c. 775, we read*
that till his time the use of Milan was more used
by the Church than the use of Rome. Adrian I.,
Bishop of Rome, summoned a council for the
* Durandus, ' Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, 5 Lugd., 1574,
lib. IL, cap. ii., numb. 5, ' Div, Pin. Hist. Eccles.,' iii. 6.
Uses of Rome and Milan 93
purpose of decreeing the universal observance
of the use of Rome. Eugenius arrived three
days after the dissolution of the council; he,
however, persuaded the bishop to recall the other
prelates who had been present. Having re
assembled the council, it was the unanimous
opinion of all present that the Milanese and
Roman missals should be laid on the altar of
St. Peter < the Apostle, secured by the seals of
most of the bishops, and the doors of the church
shut, and that all persons should spend the night
in prayer that God would show by some sign
which of these missals He would choose to have
used by the Church ; and this was done in every
respect. Accordingly in the morning, when they
entered the church, they found the Roman missal
torn to pieces and scattered here and there,
but the Milanese missal opened and intact on the
altar. This was taken by the sapient bishops as
a sign of the rejection of the Milanese, which was
ever to remain only in that church in which it
was first instituted, whilst the Roman was ac
cepted, the sign teaching them that as the pages
were torn and cast asunder, so was the missal to
be dispersed throughout the whole world.*
The Emperor Charles the Great, 743, died 814,
at the instigation of, and being commissioned by,
Adrian I., Bishop of Rome, and a synod of
* Hawkins, \
S (E) . \ do / \ e / \ li / \rurn
T (D) \ coelis / \ coe / \lau
T (C) \
The above In modern notation :
Lau-da. - te do mi-mim de - coe - lis coc - li etc - lo-rum. lau-
The number of lines were not limited, but were
regulated by the extent of the scale used and
number of parts required.
He used certain signs before the spaces in place
of the letters inserted above for clearness.
EXAMPLE II. FOUR PARTS.
T
Do \
T
/ mini \
T
st ria / in \
cula, etc.
S
\ glo / Do \ s
se /
T
/ mini \
T
sit ri*. / in \
