Songs for Saint Edmund - liturgy and identity at Bury St Edmunds

 


Today is the feast of Saint Edmund Martyr, the king of East Anglia who was killed by Danish Vikings in 869, and who became one of the most important native saints of medieval England. This year's feast is, moreover, a special occasion, as it is the millennial anniversary of the founding of the monastic community at Edmund's shrine in the town that came to be Bury St Edmunds, and which is referred to in Edmund's saint-biography by Abbo of Fleury from c.987 as Bedricurtis, or Bedricsworth. The shrine of Edmund had been established shortly after his death, although the actual historical circumstances were in all likelihood very different from how they are depicted in Abbo's Passio Eadmundi. What we do know, however, is that Edmund's shrine was the centre of a local cult for most of the tenth century, but one that attracted the veneration of several magnates and bishops and was a significant feature in the religious life of East Anglia. Based on the miracle stories included in Passio Eadmundi, this shrine was maintained by priests and recluse women, and it had amassed a trove of wealth that was sufficiently large to attract the attention of a group of thieves. So while it was not a monastic community, it certainly had both monastic elements and a great status - which is probably why the shrine was selected to be reformed as a Benedictine abbey. 

The reformation of the community took place under the auspices of King Knud I of England, Denmark and Norway. Knud was an active patron of religious houses in England, and Bury St Edmunds was one of several to which he turned his attention. However, the Danish background of the king must have been particularly poignant aspect of Knud's patronage of Bury, as his father, Svend Forkbeard, had died only six years prior during his invasion of Denmark, and according to the local legends it was Saint Edmund himself who had killed the Danish king for having exacted a heavy tribute from Edmund's shrine. This episode became one of the most iconic scenes to be depicted in pictorial renditions of Edmund's legend. 

In its first few decades, the change to a monastic community at Bury is likely to have been important, but not necessarily dramatic beyond the introduction of a monastic liturgical use, which was more elaborate than the one that was performed previously - although we do not know anything about the details of that liturgy. In the second half of the eleventh century, however, Bury became a major cult centre that established connections with other religious houses on the continent, and that actively promoted and disseminated Edmund's cult beyond its own territory. The man in charge of this dissemination programme was Abbot Baldwin, a former monk at Saint-Denis who had been the physician of Edward the Confessor, and who was appointed by the king to the abbacy. During Baldwin's reign, Bury was the location of a significant textual production, which included the copying of books as well as the composition of new material. Arguably, the most important of the new productions was the liturgical office, because it was through this medium that the abbey formulated its own relationship to its patron saints, and formulated its own identity through its presentation of the life and history of that patron. This identity - this blend of history and iconography - was taught to the monks of Bury through the annual celebrations of Edmund's feast day, November 20, and through this communal, immersive performance the community reminded itself of its role in the holy scheme of God, of the merits of its patron, and of the place of Bury St Edmunds in the fabric of Creation. This kind of identity-construction and identity-perpetuation was a key element of liturgy, and one of the reasons why a new monastic office was composed under the auspices of Abbot Baldwin. It is perfectly possible that another monastic office existed prior to Baldwin's abbacy, but I for my part find it unlikely. 

The office for Saint Edmund is of great interest to us, not only because of its key position in the cult of Edmund and the life and identity of the abbey, but because it has come down to us in one of the oldest surviving sources from Bury: A manuscript dated to around 1070, København Kongelige Bibliotek GKS 1588, in which an almost-complete version of the office can be found, along with the earliest known copy of Passio Eadmundi. For the millenary of the abbey of Bury St Edmunds, I here present a little selection of the content of this office. The translations are based transcriptions and translations from my PhD thesis. A modern arrangement of the office of Saint Edmund can be found here.  

København Kongelige Bibliotek GKS 1588, f.28r

The first song of the office as it has come down to us from MS GKS 1588 is the Magnificat antiphon, performed in conjunction with a psalm during the hour of Vesper. In this chant, Bury's identity vis-à-vis its wider geography, as the chant asks the church of the entire English people - i.e. not only the local branch of East Anglia - to celebrate Saint Edmund. This imparts the idea that Edmund is of so great a standing in the senate of God - a typical metaphor for Heaven - that he can intercede for all the English people, not just those of his own community at Bury. 


Exulta sancta ecclesia totias gentis anglice ecce in manibus est laudatio eadmundi regis inclyti et martyris inuictissimi qui triumphato mundi principe celos ascendit uictoriosissime sancta pater eadmundo tuis supplicibus intende

Rejoice, holy church of the entire English people, behold in [whose] hands is Edmund praised, the illustrious king and invincible martyr, who triumphing over the prince of the world ascended victoriously in heaven. Holy father Edmund, hold out your prayers

København Kongelige Bibliotek GKS 1588, f.28v

The next chant I want to emphasise is third antiphon of Matins. The hour of Matins was the climax of the liturgical celebration of the feast day. This was the longest of the eight services of the daily round, and it was here that the community shared in the story of their patron to chants and readings. The chants of the office were chanted by all the monks, and chants are thus an immensely powerful vehicle of identity construction since the singing makes each individual monk of the community take part in the perpetuation of the institution's collective memory.

This antiphon, Legem dedit, is of particular interest because it adds a new element to the iconography of Saint Edmund. It introduces the idea that the Danish chieftain, Hingwar, threatened Edmund with exile lest he submit to him. The invocation of exile is not mentioned in Passio Eadmundi, but it is a signficant addition in the liturgy, because even though the legend does include an exile for Edmund, the mere threat invokes the image of the exile, and the archetype of exiles for all saints was Christ, who had gone into exile as a child to escape the slaughter by Herod. Since the efficaciousness of saints was often measured in the extent to which they imitated Christ, an added element of this imitation, the threat of exile, served to impress upon the community at Bury how Christlike was their patron.  

Legem dedit rex crudelis hinguuar / ut eadmundus exilio relegarent / aut capite potius detruncarent / si eum suis legibus inclinare aut subdere non possent

The cruel king Hingwar gave the condition / so that Edmund would be banished into exile / or else decapitated, if he could not / bend to his laws and place himself under them

København Kongelige Bibliotek GKS 1588, f.29r

The final example for this millenary blogpost is the first responsory of the office, also performed during Matins. A responsory is a chant sung after a lesson, and it is comprised of three parts: The main part which is the responsum (literally, the response, as it responds to the lesson), then comes the verse, v, and then finally the repetenda, r, which repeats the last line of the responsum for emphasis.

The first responsory comes after the first lesson, in which we learn about Edmund's characteristics and his merits as a king and saint. The responsory emphasises that Edmund was pre-destined to become a saint, and that his entire life was planned by God so that Edmund would join him in Heaven as one of his soldiers in the fight against the devil. This pre-ordained destiny was typical of all saints and not unique to Edmund, but it was nonetheless an important trait, and by repeating this aspect of Edmund twice in the same chant, the community at Bury were reminded, and reminded themselves, that their patron was one of the elect of God, and could therefore aid them in their needs. Such a comfort, the idea of a patron who was especially beloved by God, should be understood as a crucial aspect of a cult centre's identity construction.

Sancte indolis puer eadmundus ex antiquorum personis regum natiuitatis sumpsit exordium quem sue milicie informauit rex celestis ut sibi coheredem transferet in celis.
[v] Cuius infantium illustrauit spiritus sancti gratia quoniam complacuit sibi in illo anima domini iesu

[r] ut sibi

With inborn holiness, the boy Edmund, born from old royal lineage, was taken from the beginning, whom the heavenly king shaped [into] his soldier so that as His coinheritor He could transfer him to heaven.
[v] Whose childhood shone with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, since it was acceptable to him in this soul
[r] so that

The examples I have pointed to here are only three of many. The office is of course a unit in the sense that it conveys a unified legend in a short space of time, but it is also comprised of episodes in which particular aspects of the saint, the saint's qualities and the institution's identity are given particular attention. The full scope of the programme of identity construction begun under Abbot Baldwin requires an immersion in the entire office, not just its texts but its texts performed with music, but even by these few examples we manage to see some of the key aspects of this identity-construction. 

Harmonious disharmony - Pär Lagerkvist and Carlo Gesualdo

This evening I finished reading the novel Dvärgen (The Dwarf) by the Swedish novelist Pär Lagerkvist. The novel is narrated by the dwarf of a late-medieval Italian prince, who is an extreme misanthrope and observes the world through a filter of hatred and incomprehension, interpreting the actions and natures of those around him from his vantage point of the outsider who is often mocked and ignored, yet who thereby manages to come closer to the realities of courtly life. It is a wonderful novel, but in an extremely discomforting way. Since the protagonist considers himself in opposition to the doings of humans - whom he considers a different species of beings altogether - he also breaks norms, performs impieties, and presents the twisted, childish view of the world of a supreme egotist who feels insufficiently powerful and who is dissatisfied with everything - everything but violence, that is. This contradictory nature of the protagonist runs like a jarringly discordant note through the entire novel, a note made all the more discordant because his hatred is of such a petulant nature. It has taken me significantly longer to finish this novel than I expected, and it is precisely because of this disharmony.

As I began reading the novel, I was struck by the idea that a fitting soundtrack to my reading would be something by Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613), one of the most notorious composers of Renaissance music, known for his heavy use of dissonance which is in notable contrast to earlier Italian composers. It is not quite clear to me why his music came to mind, as I have not listened to it since the months following a conference in Italy back in 2013, which coincided with the anniversary of his death. Perhaps it was the late-medieval/Renaissance setting of Lagerkvist's novel that prompted the connection. Perhaps it was that like the novel's protagonist, Gesualdo also broke the norms of his day and also committed murder (I misremembered and thought he had murdered his father - I realised later that he had murdered his wife and her lover). Whatever the reason, I found that the homicidal composer's disharmonious music suited the murderous disharmony of the novel's narrator disconcertingly well, as if the two horrible human beings - one real, one fictional - echoed each other and brought something more living into the art. It was an uncomfortable exercise at times, but one that was rewarding in strange ways, as the disharmony of it all allowed me to immerse myself somewhat more deeply into the twisted reality of the novel's nameless misfit of a protagonist. And it served also as a reminder that - as shown by both the novel and the music - the idea of the Renaissance as a time of glory is a gross misconception that only survives because it fits certain grand narratives, and because we give too much credence to the art it left behind and not the circumstances in which that art was made, or by whom or to whose cost that art came into being. Although fictional, Lagerkvist's misanthropic narrator helps us remember that.    

O magnum mysterium, by Tomás Luis de Victoria

This weekend sees the end of November and the beginning of Advent, and as a way to mark this transition, I present to you, in this brief blogpost, the responsorial chant O magnum mysterium, as it was arranged by the Spanish composer Tomás Luis de Victoria (c.1548-1611).

An antiphon for John the Baptist

Yesterday, August 29, was the feast of the beheading of John the Baptist, also known as Decollatio in liturgical calendars. Decollatio is a minor feast for John the Baptist, as his main feast is his birthday on June 24. I have a particular fascination with this feast, and it is almost entirely owing to a fragment from a liturgical manuscript that I researched as part of a side project during and shortly after my PhD. The fragment in question is one of three fragments used as bindings for a three-volume collection of music by Michael Praetorius, a collection titled Polyhymnia. All the three fragments come from the same manuscript, which I believe to have been a breviary of Northern German provenance, tentatively dated to the fourteenth century.

The reason why this particular fragment, fragment XII, has fuelled my fascination with the feast of the Decollation is that it contains part of the office for precisely this feast. In the picture below, we see the full text of the Magnificat antiphon Preco superni iudicis (CID: 206802). An antiphon is a chant that is performed in connection with another text, for instance as a refrain to its theme. Most antiphons are performed in conjunction with psalms, but the Magnificat antiphon precedes the Magnificat, which is Mary's response to the archangel Gabriel in the Gospel of Luke. It is a fixed text always read at Vesper. This particular antiphon, Preco superni iudicis, was one of the first texts I transcribed as a part of my collaboration with the university library of University of Southern Denmark. My fascination is, in other words, of a sentimental nature, as it reminds me of the exciting detective work of working with a fragment that no one has ever worked on before, while putting your growing experience in transcription, Latin and liturgical studies to test after test.

Detail from the feast of Decollatio

Syddansk Universitet RARA Musik M 4

The text of this fragment has been transcribed in an hitherto unpublished report I wrote as a part of a four-month pilot project which was a collaboration between the university library and the Centre for Medieval Literature. As it was a pilot project and therefore of a very limited duration, I did not have time to work as closely on the individual fragments as I had hoped. For instance, I have not taken the time to translate it, a task I hope to do as a sort of completion of my work on the fragment - even though I'm sure there exist translations of the text elsewhere already. However, in lieu of a proper translation of the text, and on the occasion of yesterday's feast, I here present to you my transcription of the Magnificat antiphon in Fragment XII. I have kept the spelling of the fragment, rather than the standardised spelling you encounter in databases. One day I might take the time to finally translate it. Or rather, one week, as my Latin is quite rusty.

It should be noticed that while the text in the fragment is continuous, I have here chosen to divide the text into its strophes in order to bring out the antiphon's rhyme scheme.


Preco superni iudicis

Preco superni iudicis 
precursor summi uindicis 
paranymphus sponsi ueri 
multa passus ludibria 
triumphauit per omnia 
nec potuit aboleri 
domus in petra posita 
nam iusti recordatio  
pigmenti compositio  
ut mel dulcis et musica 
in uini conuiuio 

Ana Vidovic, Pierre Bensusan and a Norwegian mood

Even her wretched weather
was poetry- Derek Walcott, Exile



Norwegian summers are the best types of summers when they are comprised of a good balance between warm and chilly, wet and dry, and so I have been anticipating with great excitement the coming weeks which I will spend among the mountains back in the fjords. However, so far it has been a rather cold and wet summer, and in the days ahead we are likely to encounter more of the same. It is not what I had hoped for, and I'm already starting to feel tired of it. But at times I forget the duration of this weather and I catch myself becoming immersed in this particular pensive, dreaming mood that emerges late at night in the fjords and which feel out of time. Last night I experienced this mood as I sat with a cup of warm tea in the living room of my grandparents' house and saw the enveloping darkness without. And so I stepped out on the verandah and enjoyed this familiar darkness, while I listened to Ana Vidovic's performance of Pierre Bensusan's guitar piece Altiplanos, a song that for me evokes the highland plateaus of Morocco, which might - to a descendant of Jewish refugees fleeing Spain in 1492 - have appeared as a memento of those Spanish plateaus left behind generations ago. This instrumental, pregnant with a mood of longing and exile, felt to me very suitable for how I felt as I stood at home, having returned to my village after years living abroad in a voluntary - and immensely beneficial and pleasurable - academic exile in Denmark.

Ana Vidovic plays Pierre Bensusan's Altiplanos

The hagiographic function of liturgy - the case of a motet for Saint Sebastian

Our modern minds, so accustomed to neat categorisations and precise labels, are often struggling to understand the fluidity between medieval genres of text. This is especially apparent in the traditional approach to the term “hagiography”, widely used as a synonym to a saint’s life written in prose. However, because the cult of the saints was such a fundamental aspect of medieval life, formulations of a saint’s story – their life, passion, death, related miracles – could be found in many different renditions in medieval media. The art historian Cynthia Hahn has even argued, in her monograph Portrayed on the heart, that medieval art depicting the lives of saints should be understood as “pictorial hagiography”. I agree completely with this, as paintings, statues, textiles and carvings could display condensed representations of the legend of a saint, highlighting the most important scenes or iconographical details.         

Just as the hagiographic quality of medieval art is sometimes overlooked, it is similarly common to overlook that liturgy in the honour of a saint likewise serves to tell the saint’s story. The main venue for this liturgical retelling of a saint’s legend is in the office for the saint’s feast-day, in which chants and readings are combined in a cycle of performed text and music in which the most important aspects of the saint are highlighted and told. An important aspect of the liturgical office is that it teaches the performers, as well as those few non-performing listeners who comprehend Latin sufficiently well to understand what is being said, about the saint’s legend. Another, and just as crucial, aspect is that the liturgical office serves as a form of communication with the saint. In this communication with the saint, it appears to be very important to allude to the most important aspects of the legend and the iconography, most likely as a way to demonstrate to the saint that their story is known and venerated. In short, a liturgical performance aimed at thanking or placating the saint – who served as the community’s ambassador before the throne of God – must also demonstrate knowledge of the saint’s legend on the part of those who are beseeching the saint for their intercession.

Martyrdom of Sebastian -

Aix-en-Provence - BM - ms. 0016, f.278, Book of Hours, Use of Paris, between 1480-90

(Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr)

As an example of the importance of displaying knowledge of the saint, I will here rely on a motet by Guillaume Dufay (1397-1474), who spent the 1420s and part of the 1430s in Italy, where he came into contact with the d’Este family who ruled the city state of Ferrara. The motet in question, O sancte Sebastiane, is traditionally held to have been composed for the city of Ferrara following an outbreak of plague, and it addresses Saint Sebastian who was considered one of the foremost patron saints to help against the plague. It is unclear whether the motet was composed with the purpose of calling for Sebastian’s help, or whether it is a motet of thanksgiving after the plague had left Ferrara.

While there is much to say about this motet, I will here limit myself to one point striking at the heart of what I’m addressing in this blogpost, namely the function of liturgy as a venue for presenting the legend of a saint. The text of the motet consists of three parts, one for each of the voices: triplum, motetus and contratenor. Of interest to us here is the text for the triplum voice, which consists of four strophes. The first strophe is an address to Sebastian, exhorting him to guard against the plague with lines such as “Me protege and conserva”, protect and preserve me. The second strophe continues, opening with “Tu de peste hujusmodi / Me defende et custodi”, defend and protect me against the plague in your manner, and continues the exhortation. In the third and four strophes, however, the content of the text shifts from the purely exhortative address to what is in effect a condensed rendition of the legend of Sebastian.

O sancte Sebastiane

Motet by Guillaume Dufay

The third strophe signals this shift by addressing Sebastian as “Tu Mediolanus civis”, you citizen of Milan, thus demonstrating to the saint that the singer is well acquainted with the legend. It is tempting to suggest that the version of the legend on which Dufay based his motet was that of Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda Aurea, in which the opening of the legend – after the customary etymological explanation of Sebastian’s name – states that Sebastian was a native of Narbonne and a citizen of Milan. After establishing the singer’s knowledge of Sebastian’s citizenship, the text continues the exhortation for the saint to rely on his meritum – i.e. the merit accumulated in the course of the saint’s earthly life – and beseech God for His help against the plague.                   

In the fourth strophe of the triplum voice, the text returns to the hagiographic description, referring to the first miracle God performed through Sebastian, namely the healing of the muteness of Zoe, the woman in whose house Sebastian preached Christianity during Diocletian’s persecutions. Then the second and third strophes allude to the healing of Zoe’s husband Nicostratus, while the rest of the triplum text addresses how Sebastian consoled others who were to be martyred, reminding them of the eternal life that lay ahead.         

What we see here in this cursory overview of the motet O sancta Sebastiane is that the legend of the saint is an important foundation for the singer’s pleading with the saint. While the first two strophes of the triplum voice attempt to persuade the saint through straightforward exhortation, the last two strophes demonstrate the singer’s knowledge of Sebastian’s story and thus shows part of the reason why the saint should come to the singer’s aid: This is not some idle request, this comes from someone who is intimately familiar with the saint’s legend and therefore turns to the saint out of veneration and knowledge.    

Saint Sebastian comforting Marcus and Marcellinus in prison

Amiens - BM - ms.0108, f.219, Bible and legends of the saints, 1197, Pamplona

(Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr)

In this way, we see how knowledge of the life of a saint served an important function in what we might call the negotiating process, whose endpoint was to have the saint serve as the ambassador in Heaven and bring about help through the intervention of God. In other words, liturgy – even in such a brief form as the motet – served a hagiographic function, and it also served to convey history.

Translating the lexicon of sainthood - rethinking virtus

Since 2010 I have been researching the cult of saints, and since 2011 I have been doing translation work of texts pertaining to saints, for the most part liturgical texts but also saints' lives. In the course of this research, most of my secondary literature, and most of the translated saints' lives I have read, have been in English, in great part because I have worked extensively on material from medieval England. Increasingly, however, I have become dissatisfied with how certain key terms pertaining to the cult of saints have been rendered into English, and I have often found - particularly in older scholarship - that the Latin terms have been inaccurately translated. Frequently, this inaccuracy owes to the fact that many Latin terms have become part of the standard English language, but have had their meaning altered in the course of the centuries. One particularly problematic word here is the Latin "virtus", which can be found in English as "virtue". But what does "virtue" actually mean, and what does it signify in the context of the cult of saints? Many translators of saints' lives from Latin into English tend to merely render "virtus" as "virtue" without adding any further nuance to the issue. This is highly unfortunate, given that both the Latin and the English words have several different meanings. Consequently, to translate "virtus" as "virtue" is not really a translation, because the meaning of the Latin term depends so very much on the context of the work, the passage, and indeed the sentence. In this blogpost, I wish to address one single instance of such a failed translation in order to demonstrate my point, and the need for careful consideration when choosing how to render "virtus" in modern English. This blogpost touches on merely one case, and I might address others later on.


The inspiration for this blogpost came from listening to the chant Orientis partibus is a song performed at the cathedral of Beauvais in the thirteenth century. The song was part of the liturgical ritual of the mass on January 14, a feast that commemorates the flight into Egypt, and which had elements of the feast of fools embedded into it, such as the procession of the ass (hence the term Festum asinorum, "feast of the ass", which is sometimes applied to this day). An ass, either a live animal or a figure, was brought into the cathedral to the mock-celebratory strophes of Orientis partibus, each strophe ending with the refrain in the vernacular "hez sire asne hez" (hail Sir Donkey, hail).

Orientis partibus

The Latin text of the song, with English translations, can be cobbled together from this and this website. The structure of the song is modelled on liturgical chants, but does itself not fit in any established, formal liturgical category, as it draws elements from different chant types and because it contains a vernacular refrain (chants for mass and offices were in Latin).

I will not here go into detail about the song, the ritual or the text, but I will instead focus on one of the strophes which runs like this.


Aurum de Arabia
Thus et myrrham de Saba
Tulit in ecclesia
Virtus asinaria


An incorrect translation of this strophe can be found here, in which the final verse is translated as "this gallant donkey". This translation presupposes that "virtus" is an adjective and a qualifier to subject of the sentence, and this is a common rendition of "virtus" in many scholarly translations into English (though I do not guarantee that this particular translation is scholarly).

The problem here, however, is that "virtus" cannot possibly be rendered as an adjective. Instead, it is "virtus" which is the subject and to which "asinaria" serves as a qualifier. This is also seen from the fact that the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh are rendered in the accusative and therefore are direct objects. In other words, "virtus" cannot simply be translated into a synonym for modern English virtuous, but must be understood from its Latin etymology, namely "strength" or "power".

In this particular case I favour "strength" because this reflects more accurately what is needed to bring, "tulit", the gifts of the three wise men into the church. Consequently, "asinaria" is thus the qualifying adjective to the strength, and the text should be rendered as follows.


The strength of the donkey
Carries in the church
Gold from Arabia,
Frankincense, and myrrh from Saba


In this way we see how different the results can be when translating a text containing the word "virtus". In this case, "virtus" is best understood as strength and as the subject of the sentence, but in other instances there might be other nuances that demand a different translation. In short, "virtus" is a very complicated word to translate, as shown by this single strophe from Orientis partibus.

Eg synger jolekvad - a Christmas hymn in translation

For the Christmas season, I wish to present to you one of the musical staples of Norwegian Christmas in my part of the country.The song in question is a Christmas hymn - not a carol, mind you - that goes back to the fourteenth century, namely In Dulci Jubilo. The song was retained in the Protestant liturgical repertoire, and it was translated into Danish already in 1569. The first translation into Norwegian was executed in 1861 by the priest M. B. Landstad (1802-80), into what was the first draft of a Norwegian hymnal that was supposed to be a renovation of the old and by then somewhat old-fashioned liturgy. After heavy linguistic revisions, Landstad's translation was accepted and published in 1869. The title of the hymn was then Jeg synger julekvad (I sing Christmas songs).

The hymn was later translated into Nynorsk by the Norwegian theologian Bernt Støylen (1858-1937), and it was included in a Nynorsk hymnal presented to the public in 1925. The title had retained Landstad's rendition, but with the Nynorsk vocabulary, making it Eg synger jolekvad. The clip I include in this blogpost is a performance of Støylen's translation, as this is the one with which I have grown up in the Norwegian fjords.

Merry Christmas.

Music for the season - Ana Vidovic and Isaac Albéniz

Even though it is a significantly warmer October than usual, there is still an unmistakably autumnal feel about these days, a certain crispness in the air, and the scent of rotting leaves and distant aromas of mulch and soil. Somehow, this mood seems to me to be perfectly encapsulated by the instrumental piece "Asturias" by the Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909), here mesmerisingly performed by Ana Vidovic.

A requiem by Cristóbal de Morales

As the autumn takes hold on Denmark and various signs of ending and transition appear in my everyday life, it somehow feels fitting to share with you a mass for the dead by one of my favourite composers, the Spanish Cristóbal de Morales (c.1500-53), whose music is among the most beautiful things in this world.

Cristóbal de Morales, Missa pro defunctis

A requiem by Duarte Lobo

Since so much of my work consists of researching medieval liturgy, much of the music to which I listen in the course of a workday is also liturgical, albeit early modern rather than medieval. Currently, one composition that both reflects my late-August mood and is well worth sharing is a requiem composed by Duarte Lobo (c.1565-1646), one of the most important composers of polyphonic music in early modern Portugal.

 

 

Working with liturgical manuscripts, part 13 - the intertextuality of an antiphon

I have recently returned to work on manuscript fragments at Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek, and it is very gratifying to sit down with these old treasures again. Currently, my attention is partly focussed on the cover fragment of Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek RARA L 31. This fragment contains parts of the matins of the liturgical office for Sundays, and its most visible feature is the opening antiphon of the first nocturne, marked by strongly blue initial. I already identified this antiphon during previous research on this fragment, but as I sat down to consider it more closely, I noticed just how rife it is with biblical intertextuality.       

Antiphons are relatively short chants that are sung in responses to psalms. The very name, antiphon or counter-sound, points to its function as a kind of refrain. In the regular services of the liturgical year, where there is no major saint or important event to celebrate, the antiphons used are very often drawn from an old repertoire. Accordingly, their dates and the names of their composers are lost to us, and were in all likelihood not known by those who performed the antiphons as a part of the annual liturgical cycle.   

Because of the relationship between the antiphons and the psalms, it comes as no wonder that a lot of antiphons rely on language and imagery based on the psalms themselves. However, it is often easy to forget just how intricate this intertextuality of antiphons can be, and so in this blogpost I wish to show the echoes of the psalms and other biblical passages that can be found in the antiphon Beati qui in lege tua from RARA L 31. It is important to note that my aim here is merely to highlight the intertextual potential of the antiphon as a chant. I do not claim that the biblical echoes of the antiphon that I suggest here are the ones intended by the long-lost composer of the antiphon. It might very well be that he or she aimed for a different intertextuality than the one I present here. This is, in other words, merely an exercise to become more aware of biblical echoes that can be found in the antiphon. Moreover, I wish to emphasise that the antiphon necessarily has a musical side – as can indeed be see in the picture below – and this music could also have its connections to other chants or other musical repertoires, an intermusicality for want of better words. I do not possess the expertise to talk about this aspect, and accordingly I will leave that out of the present discussion. Nonetheless, it is important to be reminded that I here treat merely on the textual level, also had a very significant musical level that affected how it was received and performed in the liturgical setting.                

Beati qui in lege tua

Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek RARA L 31

Photograph by Jakob Povl Holck

The text of the antiphon is as follows (I have dissolved abbreviations but retained the spelling otherwise):

Beati qui in lege tua iugiter meditantur domine beati qui in te confidentes tibi seruiunt in timore de monte sancto tuo nos clemens exaudi nec nos arguas in die furoris tui


This translates roughly to (with modernised punctuation):

Blessed are they who continuously meditate on your law, Lord. Blessed are they who trust in you and who serve you in fear. From your holy hill, listen to us in clemency, and do not accuse us on the day of your fury.                  


In order to unpack some of the potential intertextuality of this antiphon, I will in the following list some strings of words which can be found, either verbatim or with minimal difference in text, in biblical passages. The text in Latin is taken from the Vulgate, while the translations into English are from the Douay-Rheims edition.                 


Beati qui      

See Psalm 83:5: Beati qui habitant in domo tua, Domine; in saecula saeculorum laudabunt te

(Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, O Lord: they shall praise thee for ever and ever)       

 
in lege tua iugiter meditantur                 

See Psalm 1:2: in lege ejus meditabitur die ac nocte (and on his law he shall meditate day and night)


beati qui in te confidentes

See Psalm 10:2: In Domino confido; quomodo dicitis animae meae : Transmigra in montem sicut passer? (In the Lord I put my trust: how then do you say to my soul: Get thee away from hence to the mountain like a sparrow?)

See also Wisdom 16:24: Creatura enim tibi Factori deserviens, exardescit in tormentum adversus injustos, et lenior fit ad benefaciendum pro his qui in te confidunt (For the creature serving thee the Creator, is made fierce against the unjust for their punishment; and abateth its strength for the benefit of them that trust in thee)


tibi seruiunt 

See Psalm 118:91: Ordinatione tua perseverat dies, quoniam omnia serviunt tibi (By thy ordinance the day goeth on: for all things serve thee)    


in timore      

See Psalm 2:11: Servite Domino in timore, et exsultate ei cum tremore (Serve ye the Lord with fear: and rejoice unto him with trembling)

See also Psalm 5:8: Ego autem in multitudine misericordiae tuae introibo in domum tuam; adorabo ad templum sanctum tuum in timore tuo (as for me in the multitude of thy mercy, I will come into thy house; I will worship towards thy holy temple, in thy fear)

See also Psalm 118:38: Statue servo tuo eloquium tuum in timore tuo (Establish thy word to thy servant, in thy fear)                     


de monte sancto tuo          

See Psalm 3:5: Voce mea ad Dominum clamavi; et exaudivit me de monte sancto suo (I have cried to the Lord with my voice: and he hath heard me from his holy hill)

See also Psalm 14:1: Domine, quis habitabit in tabernaculo tuo? aut quis requiescet in monte sancto tuo? (Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle? or who shall rest in thy holy hill?)       


nos clemens exaudi           

See Psalm 19:9: Domine, salvum fac regem, et exaudi nos in die qua invocaverimus te (O Lord, save the king: and hear us in the day that we shall call upon thee)            

See also Psalm 64:6: Exaudi nos, Deus, salutaris noster, spes omnium finium terrae, et in mari longe (Hear us, O God our saviour, who art the hope of all the ends of the earth, and in the sea afar off)


nec nos arguas in die furoris tui            

See Psalm 6:2: Domine, ne in furore tuo arguas me, neque in ira tua corripias me (O Lord, rebuke me not in thy indignation, nor chastise me in thy wrath)                    

This verse is also found in Psalm 37:2.   


This is not an exhaustive list of references, neither to biblical passages in general nor to psalm verses in particular. The psalms provided the backbone of the liturgical performance at a monastic or a secular church, as can be seen from the Rule of Saint Benedict where it states that all 150 psalms should be performed in the course of one week. It is therefore no wonder that antiphons were composed in order to resonate with this foundation. In order to comprehend this intertextuality, we must keep in mind that the monks or priests who performed the antiphon found in RARA L 31 were well familiar with the psalter. Each psalm was performed at least once a week, sometimes more often depending on the calendar of the institution, and the performers of the antiphon Beati qui in lege tua would have no difficulty recognising its intertextuality. For each of the phrases taken from another psalm, or reminiscent of another psalm, the performers would catch in during their own performance of the antiphon, and they would connect it to the other psalms in question.                    

As for the content and the meanings of these psalm verses, the understanding would vary from individual to individual. There were commentaries on the psalms which expounded the different layers of meaning, most famously the one by Cassiodorus, but this knowledge is not likely to have been evenly distributed. We therefore do not know the full depth of the intertextuality of this antiphon that was accessible to the members of the institution from which the fragment of RARA L 31 derived. What is clear, however, is that even the novices would be able to recognise what psalms were echoed in this antiphon, and depending on individual levels of knowledge and insight, they would understand the theological depth of the antiphon beyond the words of the antiphon itself.   

Tu es Petrus - chants for the feast of the apostles Peter and Paul

In two days, June 29, it is the feast of the apostles Peter and Paul, a feast which commemorates both their martyrdoms. This is their primary feast, and is of great importance in the liturgical year. I was reminded of this as I was listening to a mass composed by Palestrina called Missa Tu es Petrus, a mass specifically addressing the history of Peter and to be performed on June 29. Its incipit is taken from Matthew 16:18, where Christ says to Peter: You are Peter, and on this rock [petram] I will build my church. This passage has been of vital importance in the emergence of Rome's primacy in Western Christendom, as the traditional interpretation has been that the site of Peter's martyrdom signifies the location of the heart of the Christian church. This interpretation has not been uncontested, and it did take a long time before Rome ascended to the primary position it eventually came to possess within Latin Christianity.

RARA M 28

Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek
Photo by Jakob Povl Holck

Although I have listened to Palestrina's mass several times, today I was reminded of how this mass connects with my own research. During my months as a research assistant at the university library of University of Southern Denmark, one of the medieval manuscript fragments I worked on, RARA M 28, contained texts for the mass for the apostles Peter and Paul, and among the few chants that could be read, though badly damaged by moisture, were two chants that both bear the incipit Tu es Petrus. The exact type of these chants is not yet ascertained, though one of them is most likely a versicle.

 

RARA M 28

Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek
Photo by Jakob Povl Holck

RARA M 28

Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek
Photo by Jakob Povl Holck

This is, in short, one of those occasions when pleasure and professional life overlap to some degree, which I think to be very common to most medievalists.

Missa Tu es Petrus, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c.1525-94)

Music for writing a thesis

I am nearing the end of my PhD thesis, at least that is what the calendar tells me. For the next few months I will be shoulder-deep in writing and editing, trying to tie together the loose ends and bringing three years of research to an orderly and legible conclusion. I also want to combine this with continuous blogging, which has provided me with a great outlet for thinking of and reflecting on my work and various things related to my work. But how to write blogposts when you're so tired of writing, and when you don't want to write about the things you really want to write about out of fear that it will take too much time? For this reason, I'm now cheating a bit and present to you two albums which have been of great relish to me in the past few weeks during my thesis writing.

The first one is a collection of twelfth-century chants, some of which are taken from Santiago de Compostela and are composed in honour of Saint James the Greater, also known as Santiago, while some are taken from the monastery of Saint-Martial in Limoges.

The second album is a collection of chants for the office of Saint Louis IX of France (d.1270) who was canonized in 1297 and who became a saint of major importance in fourteenth-century France.

These albums have brought me much happiness and much calm in the past weeks, so I leave it to my faithful readers to explore their wonders on their own.

The martyrdom of Saint James the Greater
Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek, RARA M 15
German translation of Legenda Aurea with additions, Lübeck, 1492

Chants from Santiago de Compostela, and Saint-Martial in Limoges

Chants for the office of Saint Louis IX

The typology of decapitation - the case of Edmund Martyr and John the Baptist

When working on the cult and literature of saints, one of the most noteworthy aspects one comes across is the many ways in which one holy person is typologically connected with other holy men and women of Christian and biblical history. This means a saint is understood as the antitype, i.e. as a kind of later reconfiguration, of an earlier type, hence typology. All saints are expected to be an antitype to Christ, but one saint can be typologically connected to a number of saints, either by shared features, belonging to the same category of saints, by intertextuality, or by other means. Mapping these connections is sometimes the most fun part of working with saints.

These days I am returning to Edmund Martyr, the king of East Anglia who in 869 was killed by Danish Vikings and who was venerated as a saint from at least the late ninth century. The first biography of Saint Edmund was written by Abbo of Fleury c.985, and this was the foundation for the later texts that were produced at Bury St Edmunds, the centre of his cult.

Edmund tortured by Vikings
BL MS Harley 2278, John Lydgate's life of Edmund and Fremund, England, between 1434 and 1439

(Courtesy of British Library)

In Abbo of Fleury's Passio Eadmundi, we are told how Edmund was tied to a tree and pierced by arrows while the Danish chieftain Hingwar (usually identified as Ivar Boneless) tried to make him subdue to Danish overlordship. When Edmund refused, his head was chopped off and thrown into the bushes lest a veneration of the deceased monarch should emerge. The head was later found, guarded by a wolf, and when it had been interred in a simple wooden chapel, the head and body miraculously merged into an intact unit.

 

The finding of Edmund's head
BL MS Harley 2278, John Lydgate's life of Edmund and Fremund, between 1434-39
(Courtesy of British Library) 

 Passio Eadmundi was the fundamental text for the later composition of a liturgical office at Bury St Edmunds. This office is today recorded almost completely in Pierpont Morgan MS 736, which was written and put together c.1130. The office for Edmund's feast day - November 20 - consists of a collection of chants and readings to be performed at the hour of Matins on the night of his dies natalis, his heavenly birthday and his death-day on earth. This office forms the centrepiece of my chapter on Saint Edmund for my doctoral thesis.

One night I was playing with one of my most important research tools, the CANTUS database in which liturgical chants from the Middle Ages are catalogued. While doing so, I serendipitously discovered that one of the chants for Saint Edmund - the seventh antiphon, i.e. a chant sung before the seventh of the psalms during the night office - shared some features with an antiphon for the feast of the beheading of John the Baptist.

Decollation of John the Baptist

Amiens - BM - ms. 0195, f.133v, pontifical of Corbie, thirteenth century, Northern France

(Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr)

According to Matthew 14, Mark 6, and Luke 9, John the Baptist was beheaded on the orders of King Herod Antipas. The reason for the beheading was that Herod's wife Herodias hated John the Baptist and told her daughter Salome that should Herod ask what she wanted as a gift, Salome would request the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter. Salome then danced for the king, and Herod was overcome with delight and told his step-daughter to ask for anything she wanted as a reward for her dance. Salome then heeded her mother's words, and John the Baptist was duly beheaded.

The death of Saint John the Baptist is marked with its own feast in the Catholic liturgical calendar, and it is celebrated on August 29. Unlike most other saints, however, the death-day of John the Baptist is not his principal feast, which is his nativity on June 24. Nor is the day marking the day of his beheading, but instead it marks the finding of his head. This is why the day is known as the feast of the decollation, rather than the dies natalis.

Even the marginal hybrids turn their face away in sorrow 

Limoges - BM - ms. 0002, f.182v, gradual, Fontevrault, c.1250-c.1260

(Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr)

Since both John the Baptist and Edmund Martyr were beheaded, it is no wonder that the venerators of Saint Edmund should think that the two saints were typologically connected, especially the hagiographers and liturgists at Bury whose job it was to emphasize such connections through musical borrowings, textual allusions, and iconographic similarities. To illustrate how this was done, I will here present you the antiphon of Edmund and that of the feast of the decollation to illustrate how this typological connection was made through liturgical borrowings.

The antiphon for Saint Edmund:

Misso spiculatore de crevit tyrannus
dei adletam eadmundus dum capite
detruncari sicque ymnum deo personuit
et animam celo gaudens intulit.

(The thrown stabs increased by the tyrant, the athlete of God, Edmund, when his head was cut off, and thus resounded with hymns for God and brought the soul rejoicing to Heaven)

The antiphon for the decollation of John the Baptist:

Misso Herodes spiculatore praecepit
amputare caput Joannis in carcere
quo audito discipuli ejus venerunt et
tulerunt corpus ejus et posuerunt
illud in monumento
(The thrown stabs ordered by Herod amputated the head of John while in prison. When his disciples heard this, they came and interred his body and placed it in a monument.)

Praecepit amputare caput Joannis in carcere

Cambrai - BM - ms. 0189, f.161v, Evangeliar, Use of Cambrai, c.1266, Cambrai

(Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr)

As can be seen from the words put in bold, it is likely that the antiphon for the feast of the decollation served as the foundation for the antiphon of Edmund Martyr. This relationship is also strengthened by some of the words that are not identical but nonetheless carry the same meaning. While the Edmund antiphon uses "detruncari" and the decollation antiphon uses "amputare", it is nonetheless clear that they signify the same form of execution. Similarly, while the primary antagonist in the antiphon for the decollation is identified as Herod, the antagonist of the Emund antiphon is not named but instead referred to as "tyrannus", a term which in medieval liturgical chants is sometimes used about Herod (such as this hymn verse for the feast of the Holy Innocents).

These two antiphons, therefore, provide a good example of how the typological connection of two saints could be emphasized through liturgy. By borrowing key words and phrases from an antiphon for the decollation, the liturgists pointed to the fact that Edmund and John the Baptist both were beheaded, and that they therefore had a relationship in the collegium of saints. Such connections were important to bring out because that way the typological roster of Saint Edmund - i.e. the list of his features shared with other saints - could be mapped out more completely, and thus Saint Edmund's role in the history of Creation could be understood more clearly. This in turn would mean that he could be addressed more accurately, more flatteringly, which might bring about his help more effectively.

Although such a connection might seem arcane to us who do not perform medieval liturgy, we must remember that the monks at Bury St Edmunds would sing both these antiphons. And even though the antiphons were sung at different times in the year, they would nonetheless be performed by the same monks year after year, and thus be remembered. In this way, the monks who venerated Saint Edmund would be reminded that their patron also shared features with the forerunner of Jesus Christ.

Songs for the new semester

The new semester is well underway, and for me it has already been a very busy semester with a lot of writing already past me and even more writing ahead of me. This year is the last of PhD thesis, and even though I feel on top of things as of now, I also know that there is a significant amount of work waiting in the months to come. Although I enjoy this kind of work, although I enjoy doing the necessary research, the writing, and the thinking that is required when putting together a coherent academic text, I also need some stimuli to ward off that sense of emptiness which can engulf you when you work on one and the same thing for a longer period of time. For me, one such stimulus is music.

Since I work on materials mostly pertaining to medieval history and the history of the church, I find it very suitable - and soothing - to listen to liturgical pieces from the medieval and the early modern period. I have presented some favourites in previous blogposts (such as here and here). In this blogpost, I offer you a selection of musical pieces which I have been particularly enjoying these past weeks, and which have dominated the soundtrack for my research so far this year.

Thomas Tallis (c.1505-85)
Lamentation

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-94)
Missa Papae Marcelli

Duarte Lobo (c.1565-1646)

Missa Vox Clamantis

Manuel Cardoso (1566-1650)

Missa Pro Defunctis