Gregorian Chant
Part II: But why Gregorian?
The name Gregorian chant points to Gregory the Great (590-604), to whom a pretty constant tradition ascribes a certain final arrangement of the Roman chant.
It is first met in the writings of William of Hirschau, though Leo IV (847-855) already speaks of the cantus St. Gregorii. The tradition mentioned was questioned first by Pierre Gussanville, in 1675, and again, in 1729, by George, Baron d'Eckhart, neither of whom attracted much attention.
In modern times Gevaert, president of the Brussels music school, has tried to show, with a great amount of learning, that the compilation of the Mass music belongs to the end of the seventh or
the beginning of the eighth century.
His arguments led to a close investigation of the question, and at present practically all
authorities, including, besides the Benedictines, such men as Wagner, Gastoué, and Frere, hold that the large majority of plainchant melodies were composed before the year 600.
The principal proofs for a Gregorian tradition may be summarized thus:
- The testimony of John the Deacon, Gregory's biographer (c.872), is quite trustworthy.
Amongst other considerations the very modest claim he makes for the saint, "antiphonarium centonem. . .compilavit" (he compiled a patchwork antiphonary), shows that he was not carried away by a desire to eulogize his hero.
There are several other testimonies in the ninth century.
In the eighth century we have Egbert and Bede (see Gastoué, Les Origines, etc., 87 sqq.).
The latter, in particular, speaks of one Putta, who died as bishop in 688, "maxime modulandi in ecclesia more Romanorum peritus, quem a discipulis beati papae Gregorii didicerat".
In the seventh century we have the epitaph of Honorius, who died in 638 (Gastoué, op. cit., 93):
. . . . divino in carmine pollens
Ad vitam pastor ducere novit ovis
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Namque Gregorii tanti vestigia iusti
Dum sequeris culpiens meritumque geris
-- that is: "Gifted with divine harmony the shepherd leads his sheep to life . . . for while following the footsteps of holy Gregory you have won your reward."
According to this it was thought in Rome, less than forty years after the death of Saint Gregory, that the greatest praise for a music-loving pope was to compare him to his predecessor Gregory.
- The feasts known to have been introduced after St. Gregory use in the main melodies borrowed from older feasts.
See the detailed proof for this in Frere's Introduction.
- The texts of the chants are taken from the Itala version, while as early as the first half of the seventh century Saint Jerome's correction had been generally adopted.
- The frequent occurrence in the plain-chant melodies of cadences moulded on the literary cursus shows that they were composed before the middle of the seventh century, when the cursus went out of use.
GEVAERT, Les Origines du Chant Liturgigue de l'Eglise Latins (Ghent,
1890); IDEM, La Melopee Antique dans le Chant de l'eglise Latine (Ghent,
1895);
MORIN, Les Veritables Origines du Chant Gregorien (Maredsous, 1890); CAGIN, Un
Mot sur l'Antiphonale Missarum (Solesmes, 1890); BRAMBACH, Gregorianisch
(Leipzig, 1895, 2nd ed., 1901); FRERE, Introduction to the Graduale Sarisburiense
(London, 1894); Paleographie musicale, IV; WAGNER, Introduction to the
Gregorian Melodies, Pt. I (1901, English ed. by the Plainsong and Medieval Music
Society, London, chapter xi); GASTOUE, Les origines du Chant Romain (Pris, 1907),
pt. II, i; WYATT, St. Gregory and the Gregorian Music (London, 1904).
H. BEWERUNG
Transcribed by Thomas M. Barrett
Dedicated to Mother Angelica
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VI
Copyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton Company
Online Edition Copyright © 1999 by Kevin Knight
Nihil Obstat, February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Reprinted by permission of copyright owner.
See New Advent Catholic Website
Also see CNP "Booklets of Chant," Volumes 1-4
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