The History of Judite Chant: An Essay.

[thesmellypocket 1839]

 

 

DEDICATION.

 

BISHOP BENEDICT: Your Excellency, I know that you regard this subject with special interest. Therefore, please accept this little apple tree in thanks for the veritable orchard you have given me over the years. It was you who received me into the splendid bosom of Holy Mother Church, you who catechised me, and you who used to make the arduous journey to the wastes in order to hear my Confession. I have tried to imitate your zeal for the salvation of souls, that all men might love God. But I am entirely helpless and feeble. Please continue to pray for me, and add the Saints and Holy Angels to your choir for good measure. I remain totally yours in God,

 

Father Pius, Priestly Fraternity of Saints Kristoff and Jude. 

 

 

"To sing well is to have prayed twice!"-Ven. Humbert, O.S.J.

 

Judite Chant, also known as Plainsong, may perhaps be the oldest form of music in terms of its origins. The simple and clear but beautiful melodies are uniquely perfect for the liturgy precisely because they are conducive for meditation. I might also call Chant the sound of silence, that is, if the soft and beautiful moan of the silent winds had a voice with which to praise God, they would choose Plainsong. Knowing, however, that in recent times the importance of so splendid a garden, lovingly cultivated by Holy Mother Church, has been somewhat neglected, I thought it would be a profitable and godly work were I to categorise and record the history of such music for the benefit of both present and future generations.

 

I.EARLY DEVELOPMENT (Until c.1400.)

 

By most people, Scroll of Virtue was heard before it was read, and the same holds true for the Scroll of Spirit. Ven. Humbert, who spent years trying to produce a final and critical edition of the Flexio manuscripts of the Scrolls, noticed something very interested in reference to these two texts. "I could perceive" writes he to one Judite brother "Or, God allowed me to perceive something entirely unnoticed by previous generations. Something fascinating and tantalising. I saw little marks above certain words, like an apostrophe. Naturally I thought that these marks were some early form of punctuation lost to us now, for example, how there is no longer any indication in modern Flexio writing of the differentiation between long and short vowels, where once there was. But a closer examination forced me to considered this quite natural conclusion. The marks ALWAYS correlate with some kind of meter, as in, when we would normally go up or down in say, singing the Epistle to the Orcs, so these marks appear there. They appear in the same repetitions which correlate exactly with how we sing. This has entirely convinced me that these represent some very early form of musical notation."

 

It is fascinating that the tones with which the earliest Flexio manuscripts express the Scrolls are still sung in a very similar way by modern Judites. It testifies to the very ancient origins of Chant, it perhaps being, the earliest form of human music. These primitive melodies were faithfully recorded and passed down to successors, a process which has endured down the centuries to this very day. This gives Plainsong a special and moving symbolism. It is a living and breathing beacon bearing witness to the Church's faithful adherence to tradition. Whilst the world moves back and forth going from musical craze to musical craze, the Church has faithfully built upon the foundation given her.  The priesthood passed on to Everistus and Clement is still with us, therefore let the melodies softly breathe this truth into your hearts. When we hear Chant, we hear a faithful echo of the prophetic voice of Owyn. When we hear Chant, we, albeit in an indirect way, hear the voice of God as He has spoken to the Church. 

 

Another thing ought to be noticed about the Scrolls. And that is their use of repetition. Owyn repeats in every Epistle "admoneo", etc., and it is well to ask why. I think that, if the Scrolls were sung so early, they may have been written to have been sung as much as read, perhaps more. There is nothing rhetorically to be gained from such repetition. Owyn is writing them to separate persons and peoples, and therefore, in no way would the one benefit from, say, the repititon of the word admoneo. That benefit God has rather reserved for us, the faithful.  Such repetitions enrich the first two Scrolls by turning them not into rusty old books, but into living melodies. 

 

And hence it is that Plainsong was preserved chiefly in the High Priesthood. Around the 13th century, it seems to have grown heavily in influence and popularity. There are even references to Gaius Marius and the Teutonic Order singing Chants before battle. This shows that the knowledge of Chant had passed from the priestly class to the soldiery, to the point where even knights and footmen could be known to sing them. An account of Marius' death tells us that the mourning Teutons united in Chant, "thundering hymns of solemn peace from each citizen knowledgeable of their different chants that day." 

 

Through such singing, men could turn their work into prayer by singing the Virtue and so forth in their daily lives. And it was in the 14th century that the notation evolved beyond the very primitive ones contained in the early Virtue and Spirit manuscripts. From the time of the Prophet Godfrey it became popular to sing "Deus Magnus!" or "God is great!" in various tones of Chant. That Prophet, as we know, spoke in Proverbs and lessons, and it is interesting to note that we have manuscripts of square notation from this period of the Proverbs. It is even possible, dare I say probable, that the first recordings of Godfrey's Proverbs are in Plainsong. This means that Godfrey's words were orally transmitted into music by his followers, and this is how his Proverbs would originally have been known. Below can be seen one such - the Magnificat of St. Julia, as we know it in Proverbs.

 

Translation of the below Chant: "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God, my saviour. For He hath looked kindly on the lowliness of His handmaid, for behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For He that is mighty hath done great things to me, and holy is His Name. And His mercy is on them that fear Him, throughout all generations. He hath shewed might in His arm, He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their hearts. He hath cast down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He hath sent empty away. He, remembering His mercy hath holpen His servant Oren, as He spoke to my husband, to Horen and his seed forever."

 

 

II.SAINT KRISTOFF OF HANSETI (c.1440-1497.)

 

We have cause to bless the Lord in that we have exited the early development and have entered the stage at which specific changes can be attributed to specific persons. For all of Saint Kristoff's many shining virtues, he was not a man of spectacular learning. He was wise enough to lean on the brilliance of his disciple, Saint Jude. He wrote very little, but the fact that, besides a treatise on the treatment of wounds, his only written word is A Collection of Hymns and Litanies speaks highly of the importance they occupied in the 15th century and to this Saint in particular. 

 

Kristoff's role was to be one of the first collectors of these popular Chants. It is to him we owe the most popular tone of the Sanctus, and the Hosanna Filio Horeni. And it is in him that the notation reaches its peak period of development from which it has never evolved, for then it would lose its charming simplicity. Now I will enumerate the musical notes which can be identified in Kristoff's Chants. A system of music had developed, based on four lines instead of the more modern five, and are written down in Neumes, that is, a note sung on a SINGLE SYLABULL. ((Special thanks to: https://www.lphrc.org/Chant/ 

 

The simple Punctum is the first neume and represents a simple note. From whence this system owes its name "square notation." 

 

The Virga is the same as the Punctum. 

 

The Podatus indicates that the bottom note ought to be sung first, and then the top note. 

 

The Salicus shows three or more notes going upward. 

 

The Climacus shows three or more notes going downward.

 

The Torculus represents three notes that go up and then go down.

 

The Porrectus: A high note, a low note and then a high note.

 

The Scandicus Flexus: Four notes, going up and then going down.

 

The Porrectus Flexus: A porrectus with a low note at the end.

 

The Climacus Resupinus: The opposite of a scandicus flexus.

 

The Torculus Resupinus: Low-up-down-up.

 

The Pes Subbipunctus: One note up and two notes down.

 

Virga Subbipunctus: Four notes in a row, going downwards.

 

Virga Praetripunctus: Four notes in a row, going up. 

 

We owe a great deal to our Venerable Father, Saint Kristoff. Below I have attached a couple of hymns which he preserved. The first is translated: "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God of Hosts! Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory! Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord! Hosanna in the Highest!" The second is similar: "Hosanna son of Horen! Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord! The King of Oren! Hosanna in the highest!"

 

 

 

 

 

III.SAINT JUDE OF PETRUS. (c.1460-1541.)

 

Our most glorious and wonderful Patriarch, Angelic among the Holy Doctors, outstanding in splendour and charity among the Saints, and our guiding star, Saint Jude, who was of great learning, saw he ought to continue with his own learning the work began by Saint Kristoff. He writes about this work in his Thesis on the Monastic Life. "In order to become a monk, one must learn both hymns and prayers. He will memorize these prayers and will possibly be tasked with writing a hymn or prayer. These two forms of worship are a big role in the life of a monk."  Saint Jude, the Father of Monasticism, tells us that the Judites would rather together at least thrice a day to pray. No doubt, given the high importance to which he attaches liturgical music, this included the chanting of psalms and so forth in common.

 

By instituting the simple rule whereby a monk would be expected to learn, explain, and decipher hymns in great detail and often to compose their own, St. Jude sowed a great seed which was to be reaped in the following centuries by Blessed Wigbrecht and Venerable Humbert. The previous work, such as that of Saint Kristoff and those that recorded the Proverbs, had been in preserving Chants handed down to them. Now, at last, we see the composing of new Chants and antiphons, many of them of splendid beauty, by the Judite monks. Tradition attributes the splendid Lucis Creator Optime to him. The reason it is called Judite Chant is, because, although far from originating with him, it is he and his successors who have contributed greatly to its development. 

 

Moreover, Jude's insistence that monks musically analyse hymns led to a revolution in the musical world. It is at this time that we see modern musical notation and polyphonic hymns emerge. It was perhaps Jude himself who set the Sanctus to polyphony. Therefore it is certainly to Judite Chant that modern notation owes its origins.

 

Below I attach the notation for The Lucis Creator and the polyphonic Sanctus attributed to Jude. The lyrics of the former I translate as:

 

 

"O blest Creator of the light,

Who mak'st the day with radiance bright,

Thou didst o’er the forming earth

Give the golden light its birth.

 

Shade of eve with morning ray

Took from thee the name of day;

Darkness now is drawing nigh;

Listen to our humble cry.

 

May we ne’er by guilt depressed

Lose the way to endless rest;

Nor with idle thoughts and vain

Bind our souls to earth again.

 

Rather may we heavenward rise

Where eternal treasure lies;

Purified by grace within,

Hating e'ry deed of sin. Amen!"

 

 

 

 

IV.BLESSED WIGBRECHT, O.S.J. (d. C.1690)

 

An history of Chant would be unjust if it did not mention that excellent monastic, Blessed Wigbrecht the Martyr. It is he who laid the foundations for the work completed by Ven. Humbert, by codifying the teachings of St. Jude into a set rule, and establishing hours of prayer such as Compline. These were able times at which to sing in choir. Whilst no set numbers of Psalms were to be said, this was an early form of the Pontifical Office and it is to him we owe many antiphons and the setting of many Psalms. For example, what would become Tone or Mode 1 we owe to him, to which he set a Psalm translated into Common. However I think he was afar of in this, as Chant sung in Common does not sound very good. This is attached below.

 

 

 

V.VEN. HUMBERT, O.S.J. (1696-1731.)

 

The compiler of all of this 1700 years or so of development was to be the Ven. Humbert. In a gargantuan exercise of Horenian effort, he gathered together all the Psalms, antiphons and tones together into a Liber Usalis, which he used to officially codify, with the approval of Daniel VI, the Pontifical Office. He gathered together every single tone of every single Psalm and hymn. He categorised the Psalms into 8 modes of Chant, which he used to set any canticle to music, and composed antiphons for each and every one. Below I attach printed manuscripts from Father Humbert.

 

 

 

 

The Peregrinus tone is especially beautiful. This categorisation enabled Humbert to set the entire liturgy to Chant. He was not only a categoriser, but a composer. An Epistle of Clare of Reza confirms that he regularly composed antiphons, and Cardinal Coppinger tells us he also loved sacred polyphony. He also, as can be seen in the Comprehensive Book of Prayers, set Litanies to Chant. He also set the Asperges to music by refining the Asperges Me, Vidi Aquam and Rorate Caeli. Below is attached his tone for the Litanies, the Asperges Me, and his polyphonic rendering of the Miserere. 

 

 

 

Translation: "Thou wilt sprinkle me with hyssop, Lord, and I shall be cleansed; Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow. Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy! Thou wilt..."

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSION.

 

In the modern world, there is a temptation to neglect Chant in favour of changing and evolving forms of music. But as Cardinal Coppinger argued in his Thesis on Sacred Music, Chant must always occupy a special place. It is the organic result of centuries of development, starting with the first Prophets. It is a direct and tangible link to the entire history of salvation. It is a sacred treasure, whose simplicity and beauty lends itself perfectly to the worship of Almighty God. Men, if they are to live, cannot be slaves to the spirit of the age. As Ven. Humbert himself said as one of his Maxims, the man who marries the spirit of the age finds himself a widower in the next. The Church cannot be a slave to passing fashions, but rather, what was sacred for previous generations remains sacred for us, now. Chant represents a connection to something ancient and primordial, but yet sophisticated and beautiful. It is both ever old and ever new. And there is one Being who is ever old and new, and this is Almighty God, the source of all Being, Who, being outside of time, is ever old and ever new. It is clear therefore that these developments reflect and worship best our Almighty God. May we in the Church guard this treasure jealously. Saints Jude and Kristoff, all ye Holy Prophets and Judites, pray for us. Amen.

Edited December 13, 2020 by thesmellypocket