Two chants for Saint Cecilia

Today, November 22, is the feast of Saint Cecilia, a saint whose historicity is doubtful - a matter treated more extensively here - but who was nonetheless one of the virgin martyrs universally venerated in the medieval period. On the occasion of this day, I'm presenting to you a fragment on which I have been working together with my colleague Jakob Povl Holck at Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek.

The fragment is from a late-medieval liturgical manuscript, quite probably a breviary, and because of the bigger size of the original manuscript folios relative to the book which they now cover, a lot of the original text is now lost. We have only identified two chants for the feast of Saint Cecilia - two other texts on the other folio from the feast of Saint Martin are tentatively identified as well.

Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek RARA 47
Photograph by Jakob Povl Holck

The two chants that have survived in fragmentary form have tentatively been identified as one versicle and one responsory. The texts of these chants, in reconstructed form, are as follows.

Versicle

 [Angelus domino descendit de celo et lumen r]efulsit in habitaculo

The angel of the Lord came down from Heaven at light shone in the house

(This text is taken from Acts 12:7)

Responsory

[D]omine ihesu christe pastor bo[ne se]minator casti consi[lii susc]ipe seminum fructus quos [in cecilia se]minasti. Cecilia famula [tua] quasi ouis tibi argumento[sa deseruit]

Lord Jesus Christ, good shepherd, sower of chaste counsel, receive the seed of the fruit which you have sowed in your handmaiden Cecilia, who thus serves as rich proof for your flock



This little text is interesting for its play on the biblical images of Christ as gardener of the vineyard and shepherd, and its paradoxical invocation of chastity and germination. It is typical of texts for the virgin saints, and a fascinating example of how paradox is used in Christian literature to enhance its imagery.