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)