1

A Barometer of Religious Fervor

in the Catholic Church

BY

STEPHEN THUIS, O.S.B., M.Mus.





^hmi

A Barometer of Religious Fervor

in the Catholic Church

BY

STEPHEN THUIS, O.S.B., M.Mus.

GRAIL PUBLICATIONS

S^. Meinrad Indiana



Imprimi potest:

^ Ignatius Esser, O.S.B.

Abbot of St. Meinrad's Abbey

Nihil obstat:

Joseph G. Kempf, Ph. D.

Censor librorum

Imprimatur:

A* Paul C. Schulte, D.D.

Archbishop of Indianapolis

October 11, 19SI

Copyright 19S2 by

St. Meinrad^s Abbey, Inc.



GREGORIAN CHANT

A Barometer of Religious Fervor

in the Catholic Church





CONTENTS

Page

Preface Ill

Foreword V

Chapter I. Gregorian Chant— Introductory
Observations 2

Chapter II. First Period (The Beginnings of

Chant Until 600) 12

Chapter III. Second Period (600—1300) 24
Chapter IV. Third Period (1300—1517) .... 35
Chapter V. Fourth Period (1517—1850) ... 40
Chapter VI. Fifth Period (1850 Until the

Present') 53

Chapter VII. Conclusion 65

Appendix 72



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PREFACE

The Archdiocese of St. Louis

Office of the Archbishop

3810 Lindell Boulevard

St. Louis 8, Mo.

All will be happy to learn that there is a demand

for a reprint of the treatise on Gregorian Chant by

Dom Stephen Thuis of St. Meinrad’s Abbey. The

revival of appreciation of the Sacred Liturgy is neces-

sarily accompanied with renewed interest in the lit-

urgical music of the Church. Furthermore, as the

author illustrates, the measure of appreciation of

Gregorian Chant has always been a true measure of

the religious fervor of the Church.

This volume comes from the hallowed walls of

the great Abbey of St. Meinrad, where for almost one

hundred years the Chant has been sung with ever-

increasing beauty and perfection. Here one finds

Gregorian Chant in a perfect setting and at its best.

Within these sacred precincts the gifted author re-

ceived his early training, and here he spent many

years as instructor and choirmaster. For a number

of years, he has also conducted special schools and

iii



institutes of Chant at various Universities, and has

been associated with both the Pius X School and the
Gregorian Institute of America.

It is our opinion that this new edition of Dom

Stephen’s treatise will be well received and that it

will contribute much to the advancement of the cause

of the Liturgy and its Sacred Chant.

^ Joseph E. Ritter, S.T.D.

Archbishop of Saint Louis

June 3, 1951

IV



FOREWORD

Gregorian Chant has been for centuries the official

chant of the Catholic Church. If the Chant is an

external expression of the beauty and sanctity within

the Catholic Church—and thus part of the very life of
the Church—one is led to expect that the Chant has
shared, in the main, the same fortunes as have been

the lot of the Church through the ages. That this has

been the case, the writer has endeavored to show in

the following pages. In fact it does not seem too

much to say that the status of the Gregorian Chant

during the centuries may be considered a barometer

indicating the state of religious fervor in the Catholic

Church at the time.

We might dwell on the argument based upon the

very nature of the ideas concerned, by stating that

just as, according to the theological axiom, the lex

credendi becomes the lex orandi, so the lex orandi

should be the lex cantandi—that is, just as the "rule
of believing” becomes the "rule of praying,” so the

"rule of praying” should be the "rule of singing.”

This would result in the statement that that is the

best form of church music which best corresponds

V



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

to the lex orandi—the "rule of praying.” The next
step would be to show that Gregorian Chant is the

best musical expression of the prayer of the Church.

But history confronts us with the interesting fact that

periods of religious fervor have been periods in which

Chant flourished, and that periods of falling off in

religious fervor have been accompanied by the decline

of Chant. In fact, a survey of the synchronous his-

tories of the Church and Chant discloses a parallelism

that is both striking and significant.

It is of interest to note that to-day we are experienc-

ing a revived appreciation of the plain chant. This,

then, would indicate, from the study of the history of

the Chant, that we are in the midst of a reawakening

of the religious spirit. From the same study one is

led to believe that the extended use and perfected

rendering of the Chant today will, in its turn, inten-

sify the revived spiritual life of the Christian com-

munity.

A treatise such as this is usually liable to the charge

of the construction of facts in accordance with a pre-

conceived idea. It may be interesting to note how

Paul Bekker, in his The Story of Music, anticipates

this.

I shall probably be accused of "construing” the facts

in my own way. I shall not dispute the accusation save

to add that I know no presentation of history which is

not a "construction” in this sense. Every scientific

theory is a construction—we should not allow ourselves

VI



FOREWORD

to be pleasantly misled as to the significance of alleged

"facts.” The question is not whether facts are con-

strued, but what is the quality of the interpretation put

upon them. If it leads to a creative attitude, there must

be something alive in it, of which we must take heed,

even though it may not have received academic sanc-

tion.i

At the outset, the writer wishes to declare that he

is not endeavoring to prove that Gregorian Chant

should be used exclusively in our churches. Rather,

in the pages that follow, Gregorian Chant is being

considered as the supreme model of proper Church

Music, and thus a sort of embodiment of the ideals

of all proper Catholic liturgical music. That this is

not an overstatement we trust is clear from the of-

ficial language of the Church. Blessed Pius X, in his

Motu Proprto, which has the force of law for the

entire Catholic Church, lays down this norm:

Gregorian Chant has always been considered the

supreme model of sacred music. Hence with every

reason we lay down the following rule: the more close-

ly a church composition approaches Gregorian Chant

in movement, inspiration, and feeling, the more holy

and liturgical it becomes; and the more it deviates

from this supreme model, the less worthy it is of the

temple.

Here, too, the writer wishes to affirm that in treat-

ing of the traditional plain song he has not the least

idea of condemning the other forms of music, secu-

lar or sacred. The enthusiastic devotee of the plain

^Bekker, The Story of Music, p. 14.

vii



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

chant can consistently be also an ardent admirer of

the opera, as also of polyphony and the modern forms

of church music. But as to music that does not pos-

sess the necessary requisites of liturgical music, he

does insist that it remain in its proper place—and
that it do not invade the sacred precincts of the sanc-

tuary.

Just as we do not build a church on the same architec-

tural lines as we do an opera house; just as Catholic

priests do not wear, in the exercise of sacred functions,

an evening dress with silk hat, leaving aside the magni-

ficent church vestments used for centuries; so the sacred

Liturgy of the Church would not bear to be musically

clothed after the style of concert music, dances, and

love songs.2

Before beginning the comparative study of the

two histories—that of the Chant and the Church—it
has been thought advisable to preface the comparison

with an opening chapter including observations on

the Chant in general. This, it is hoped, will serve to

aid an appreciative understanding of the following

chapters.

2 Manzetti, Church Music and Catholic Liturgy, p. 4.

viii



^hajiiefi (One

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS

ON GREGORIAN CHANT

Music is the language of love. Hence the Church,

as the Bride of Christ, has always sung the praises of

her Divine Lover, Jesus Christ. Her praises, in turn,

are the echo of that ineffable canticle sung in the

Godhead from all ages. For the Eternal Word—^Jesus
Christ—is a divine canticle singing the Father’s
praise. This is the infinite hymn that ever sounds

"in the bosom of the Father,” the canticle that rises

up from the depths of the Divinity, the Living Canti-

cle wherein God eternally delights, because it is the

infinite expression of His perfection.

But Christ does not separate Himself from His

mystical Body—the Church. Before ascending into
Heaven, He bequeaths His riches and mission to His

Church. Christ, in uniting Himself to the Church,

gives her His power of adoring and praising the

Father; this is the Liturgy. It is the praise of the

Church united to Jesus, supported by Jesus; or rather

1



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

it is the praise of Christ, the Incarnate Word, passing

through the lips of the Church. Dowered with the

riches of Christ, the Church, His Bride, is introduced

by Him into the palace of the King of Heaven, into

the Father’s presence, and there, united to Jesus

Christ, she sings—as she will do until the end of
ages—the canticle sung “in the bosom of the Father”
by the Word, and brought by Him to earth. ^

Since, then, a lover is wont to sing—Cantare aman-
tts est, as St. Augustine says {Sermo 336, No. 1)—^the
Church has always made use of music, just as she has

summoned to her service the other fine arts. But this

music must be true art, as the sainted Pope of Sacred

Music, Pius X, admonishes in his immortal Motu

Proprio of 1903, on Sacred Music. To quote further

from the Moiu Proprio:

Sacred music, because it is an integral part of the

Liturgy, participates in the same general purpose of this

solemn Liturgy, that is: the glory of God and the sanc-

tification and edification of the faithful. It enhances

the beauty and splendor of the ceremonies of the

Church. Since its chief function is to clothe with suit-

able melody the liturgical text presented for the under-

standing of the faithful, its own proper end is to make

that text more meaningful for them. Through this

means they can more easily be moved to devotion and

better disposed to receive the fruits of grace coming

from the celebration of the holy mysteries.

Sacred music must, therefore, possess in the highest

3 cf. Marmion, Christ, the Ideal of the Monk, p. 297.

2



INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS

degree the qualities which characterize the Liturgy. In

particular it must possess holiness and beauty of form;

from these two qualities a third will spontaneously arise

—universality.
Sacred music must be holy, and therefore exclude

everything that is secular, both in itself and in its ren-

dition.

It must be true art. In no other way can it affect the

minds of the hearers in the manner which the Church

intends in admitting into her Liturgy the art of sound.

It must also be universal in this sense, that, although

individual countries may admit into their ecclesiastical

compositions proper forms native to each, still these

forms must remain so subordinate to the general char-

acter of sacred music that no hearer of another nation

might be disturbed thereby.

These qualities are found most perfectly in Gregorian

Chant, which is the proper chant of the Roman Church

—the only chant inherited from the ancient Fathers.
Jealously guarding it these many centuries in her lit-

urgical books, the Church directly proposes it to the

faithful as her own music and prescribes it exclusively

for some parts of her Liturgy. Happily, recent studies

have restored this chant to its original purity and in-

tegrity.

For these reasons Gregorian Chant has always been

considered the supreme model of sacred music. Hence

with every reason we lay down the following rule:

the more closely a church composition approaches Gre-

gorian Chant in movement, inspiration, and feeling,

the more holy and liturgical it becomes; and the more

it deviates from this supreme model, the less worthy it

is of the temple.

This traditional Gregorian Chant must be fully re-

3



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

stored to the functions of divine worship. It must

be accepted with certainty that the sacred Liturgy loses

nothing of its solemnity when the Chant alone is used.

That Gregorian Chant is really the ideal form of

liturgical musical expression has been admitted by

some of the finest musical minds. As Bewerunge

writes:

Melodies that have outlived a thousand years and are at

the present day attracting the attention of so many

artists and scholars need no apology. It must be kept in

mind, of course, that since the language of plain chant

is somewhat remote from the musical language of today,

some little familiarity with its idiom is required to ap-

preciate its beauty. Its tonality, its rhythm, as it is

generally understood, the artistic reserve of its utter-

ance, all cause some difficulty and demand a willing

ear. Again, it must be insisted that an adequate per-

formance is necessary to reveal the beauty of plain

chant.^

Paul Bekker, a non-Catholic writer, in his The

Story of Musk, which reviews the history of all

music from the viewpoint of the secular musical his-

torian, pays the following tribute:

Gregorian plain song, an achievement of the first rank

not only in music but in general culture, is the great

contribution of the first ten centuries of Christendom.

. . . The Gregorian Chant is not at all primitive, but

can only be regarded as a great, far-reaching, and in-

herently rich artistic and cultural expression.®

4 Bewerunge, "Plain Chant," Catholic Encyclopedia,

XII, 148.

® Bekker, op. cit., pp. 49, 65.

4



INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS

We recall how Halevy, although a Jew, has called

the Chant "the finest religious music in the world.”

Mozart’s statement, "that he would gladly exchange

all his music for the fame of having composed the

Gregorian Preface,” sounds almost hyperbolic. Ber-

lioz, who himself wrote a grandiose Requiem, de-

clared that "nothing in music could be compared with

the effect of the Gregorian Dks Irae” Gevaert con-

siders the most characteristic quality of the Chant to

be the fact that it never grows stale, "as though time

had no power over it.”®

It is a mistake to foster the idea that we today

have progressed from the ancient Gregorian Chant,

and that consequently it is to be looked upon with

disdain. It is a distinct creation of musical art, just

as polyphony and modern music. As Bekker points

out:

Development in the sense of progress, of higher degree

or improvement, I cannot admit; at least not in works

of art, in which I find only the metamorphosis of cease-

lessly working forces. The concern of history, there-

fore, lies not in presenting events themselves, but in

making intelligible the laws and forces which determine

their transformation. In these laws and forces life

itself is at work, while events are merely the effects of

their activity I beg the reader to keep in mind as

the basis for all further discussion of different periods

in history that the forms of art never develop, they can

only change; that the music of all times is artistically,

® Gietmann, "Music,” Catholic Encyclopedia, X, 649.

5



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

absolutely, ever the same; that it always reflects the

nature of the people who created it; and that tve, finally,

have no reason to believe that the intellectual and artist-

,
ic capacities of the people of former centuries were not

at least as high as our own.^

The mistake is very frequently made in regard

to Gregorian Chant of considering it simply as a

thing in itself. The musical critic, Bekker, has un-

derstood this excellently.

I repeat, we cannot sufficiently beware of looking at

the music of that time as a thing in itself. When we

think of music to-day, we thing involuntarily of music

for its own sake, as a concert, the performance of a

symphony or chamber music. But this kind of music

only came about with the shaping of modern life. To

men of ancient times music was conceivable only in

connection with some event, whether worship, dance,

or recitation of poetry. The word was the most power-

ful influence in giving such music form.®

It is the text, then, that is the important factor in

the ancient ecclesiastical music.

Since its [sacred music] chief function is to clothe

with suitable melody the liturgical text presented for

the understanding of the faithful, its own proper end

is to make that text more meaningful for them.

Through this means they can more easily be moved to

devotion and better disposed to receive the fruits of

grace coming from the celebration of the holy mys-

teries.®

’’Bekker, op. cit., p. 22.

8 Bekker, op. at., p. 42.

® Pope Pius X, Motu Proprio.

6



INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS

Edward Dickinson, who, though not a Catholic,

has written very sympathetically of the cause of sac-

red music and its ideals, says:

The Chant melodies are no mere musical accompani-

ment; they are the very life breath of the words. The

text is so exalted in diction and import, partaking of

the sanctity of the sacrificial function to which it min-

isters, that it must be uttered in tones especially conse-

crated to it.io

What, then, it might be asked, really constitutes

the liturgic ideal in sacred music? To answer this

fully would be beyond the scope of this paper. Yet

some idea of this will aid greatly in the proper un-

derstanding of the following pages. In the first place,

there is the intimate relation between the liturgical

text and the music, as spoken of above. The music

has blossomed forth from the text, which it adorns

and to which it is always subservient. But this alone

does not explain the ideal of church song.

Objectivity, absence of the stress and stir of indi-

vidual passion, a comprehensive expression of an ex-

alted spiritualized state of feeling which befits the

whole conception of worship—this is the motive which
properly gives to church music its characteristic tone.

The music is an element in the office of prayer, and in

prayer, as in all liturgic acts and uses, the Church re-

jects a highly realistic portrayal. The Church in its

arts subjects the literal to the ideal, the particular to

the general, the definitive to the symbolic. In the cru-

Dickinson, Music in the History of the Western

Church, p. 94.

7



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

cifix, for example, to quote Jakob, "Christ does not

appear in a strained, contorted position, with painfully

disfigured countenance, with wrenched arms, with naked

writhing body, streaming with blood; but His

earnest loving face, encircled with the nimbus and

crowned with thorns, is in repose, the arms are straight,

the body decently clothed, and free from an athletic

coarseness as well as from emaciation” , . . "The phrase

'emancipation of the individual from cramping fetters,’
”

says the same writer, "is not heard in the Church. Art

history teaches that the Church does not oppose the indi-

vidual conception, but simply restrains that false free-

dom which would make art the servant of personal

caprice or of fashion,” In the same manner ecclesiastical

music, according to the medieval ideal, is the expression

of the whole inner life of the Church directed toward

the eternal, not the utterances of single passionate mo-

ments or of arbitrary individual determination.^^

The older music is the praying priest at the altar,

expressing the deepest devotion in solemnly measured,

rubrically directed actions, whereby the particular is

merged in the universal, the individual and personal

disappear.^2

Incidentally, is it because of these same considera-

tions that the organ, which of all instruments least

obtrudes the personal character of the performer into

the divine services, is regarded as the ideal instrument

for ecclesiastical music?

Dickinson, "Medieval Church Music,” American

Catholic Quarterly Review, XXIV (April, 1899),
158-159.

12 Ambros, Geschichte der Musik, III, 29.

8



INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS

Gregorian Chant is essentially prayer sung—not
merely music rendered. It is prayer first, music

second. Here we see the difference from so-called

"religious music,” which is so often confounded with

liturgical music. By "religious music” here is meant

music which has a certain atmosphere of devotion:

such as the "prayer scences” in the operas, as the ora-

torios, as some "Masses” of the masters, like Bach and

Beethoven. "Religious music,” be it ever so beauti-

ful and artistic, is not necessarily liturgical music.

Liturgical music is prayer; "religious music” is the

expression of the personal emotional reaction in the

soul of the individual. In church the composer and

singer are there to pray, not to force their own per-

sonal mood on others; they are there to aid the faith-

ful to follow devoutly and to realize deeply the sub-

lime liturgical Action at the altar—they are not there
to direct attention to the choir loft.

The priest at the altar is re-enacting the greatest

Drama the world has ever known—and undoubtedly
with deep emotion. Yet he does not make wild

grimaces, does not dishevel his hair, does not utter

groans and piercing laments. Such belong to the

opera. But here all is idealized, and the individual

—

with his devotional intensity not at all suppressed,

only restrained, restrained from individual caprice

and arbitrariness,—is merged into the universal. The
exact ceremonies and rites of the Mass serve as an

aid and expression of religious feeling, at the same

9



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

time preventing the most sacred of rites from de-

generating into whimsical and arbitrary show. God

is here; and the music—like the priest at the altar

—

must observe the gravity and reserve proper before

the King of Kings, even though its suit and burden

be of the most urgent nature. This is as it should

be, even before a mere earthly monarch; how much

more so, then, before the Real Presence of the un-

speakable God Himself, before Whom the very angels

tremble.

Before taking up the actual comparison of the two

histories—that of the Chant and the Church—^the
writer takes the liberty of mentioning here a difficulty

that frequently suggests itself in regard to the plain

chant. Many a well-intentioned person complains of

an absence of relish for Gregorian Chant. Such a one

may, possibly, find it of benefit to ask himself the

three following questions. "In the first place, am I

really certain that I have ever heard Chant properly

and artistically sung.^”—^You would not judge a
Beethoven Sonata by its treatment at the hands of an

inexperienced school boy. "Secondly, am I actually

capable of judging according to the standards of ideal

liturgical music —^We have suffered much from
mal-education, especially in the sphere of church

music. In the world of music at large, not every

listener appreciates Bach and Beethoven. "Finally,

do I really love prayer.^”—Gregorian Chant is prayer

10



INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS

sung: it is prayer first, music second. Pray the words

as you sing—and then judge.
We shall now proceed to consider the various

periods of the history of the Chant in relation to the

history of the Catholic Church at large. It will be

well to recall the words of Dickinson, in writing of

the early Christian music:

It [the music of the early Church] was an outgrowth

of the conditions of the age, of the necessities of de-

votional expression, and of that peculiar genius of

Catholicism that has made every external phenomenon

symbolic of the spiritual life within. The Catholic

Church develops, but, in essence, she does not change.

The history of her music is likewise typical of her

whole history (Italics added.)

13 Dickinson, ''Music in the Early Christian Church,”

American Catholic Quarterly Review, XXIII

( 1898 ), 110 .

11



FIRST PERIOD

The Beginnings of Chant until 600

T O the student of the history of Gregorian Chant

the first great epoch is naturally the reign of St.

Gregory the Great (590—604). His name it is that
has been given to plain chant. For one, however, who

is interested in the comparative study of the history

of the Chant and the history of the Catholic Church,

there is much of importance during those memorable

first six centuries of the Christian era. Standing on

those ancient hills of Rome and, with Gregory, the

noble "Last of the Romans," looking back in a sweep-

ing glance over those first six centuries, he sees how

the infant Church leaves the hands of her Divine

Founder beautiful in the radiance of her baptismal

innocence; he sees, too, how, as she grows, she is

bathed and strengthened in the crimson blood of

her glorious martyrs; he notes her formation and or-

ganization, her development of doctrine, her difficul-

ties—and yet all preparing her for the great expan-

12



FIRST PERIOD—UNTIL 600

sion under him who was to be called “The Father of

the Christendom that was to come,” Gregory, the

first of that name to mount the throne of the Supreme

Pontiffs.

During the same period, in the world of sacred

music, the student observes the forces at work which

are to develop into that finished product of the litur-

gical song, Gregorian Chant. Meager as are his

sources of knowing the exact nature and content of

the music of the early Christian Church, he knows

that the Church dtd sing; and the music that devel-

oped during this formative period furnished St. Greg-

ory with the material for that masterpiece of liturgical

musical expression, the Roman plain chant, which has

been characterized as religious music in its baptismal

innocence, as religious music in its highest and most

intense form. Cast by Gregory, after this formative

period, into a definite mold, the Chant would be

prepared to set out upon its mission of diffusion, as it

accompanied the monastic missionaries to new fields

of conquest.

Little indeed is known of the exact nature of the

music of the early Church. We cannot forget, how-

ever, that Jesus Christ Himself has consecrated sacred

chant by using it at that most solemn of events, the

Last Supper (Mt. 26:30). Then, too, St. Paul exhorts

the early Christians to the singing of "psalms, hymns,

and spiritual canticles” (Col. 3:16).

13



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

A late Roman archeologist tells us:

The inscriptions of the Roman Catacombs give little

clue to the character of the chant used in the services

of the Church during the time of the first persecutions.

From this, however, we may not infer that there existed

no definite form of liturgical chant in the Christian

communities before the time of Constantine, who en-

larged the opportunities of public worship. The letter

of the Roman Governor Pliny to the emperor Trajan

(c. A. D. 103), the authenticity of which is unques-

tioned, indicates clearly that the Christians of Bithynia

and Pontus were accustomed to chant the psalter or the

praises of Christ, Whom they revered as God, at their
services in alternate choirs.^^

"The Christians,” the Governor writes, "are in the

habit of meeting in the early hours of the morning

in order to sing a hymn to Christ as unto God.” The

Province of Bithynia supplies us with yet another

document scarcely less important than Pliny’s letter.

The inscription is an epitaph "to the memory of a

young man, beloved and esteemed of all men ... he

trained all the faithful in the chant of the sacred

psalms and the reading of the holy books. He now

sleeps in a holy place, under the protection of Christ

without spot.” This inscription takes us approximate-

ly to the end of the second or the beginning of the

14 De Waal, "Liturgical Chant in Early Christian

Rome,” American Ecclesiastical Review, LXVI

(1922), p. 465.

14



FIRST PERIOD—UNTIL 600

third century, but it shows that the chanting of psalms

was then an already traditional practice.^®

If the epigraphy of the catacombs does not express

this fact, it is due to the necessarily brief and concise

form of lapidary records. The Christians who buried

their beloved dead in the hidden subways of the great

city were satisfied to express their faith, like their

affectionate relationship, in briefest manner and in sym-

bols understood by their brethren. . . . The sepulchral

inscriptions of the fourth and succeeding centuries, while

the loculi of the subterranean cemeteries were still

being filled with the remains of the children of the

martyrs, give here and there interesting glimpses of the

practice of the early Christians in the matter of the lit-

urgical chant.^®

In view of the fact that there was at times a certain

amount of reluctance in admitting music or singing

as part of the Liturgy, it is of interest to examine

somewhat closely the writings of the early Fathers.

But, in the first place, we must not forget the Hebrew

element in the music of the early Church. We know

from the Acts of the Apostles that the faithful con-

tinued to attend the Jewish public devotions. For

their private meetings they made use of the same

psalms and melodies that they had sung in the temple

or synagogue; for there was no need for them to

procure new tunes. Hence, we naturally associate

Benedictine Monks of Buckfast Abbey, “Ecclesias-

tical Chant,” Homiletic and Pastoral Review,

XXVIII (1927), 723.
i« De Waal, loc. cit., p. 466.

15



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

the melodies used for the hymns, psalms, and canti-

cles, of which St. Paul speaks to the Ephesians and

Colossians, with those used in the temple at Jerusa-

lem, or in the synagogues of the Diaspora.

Then, also, there was the Greek element among

the converts of the early Christian Church. And

the Greeks certainly brought with them a high regard

for the sacredness of music. For they could not

forget the example of their revered philosophers,

who treated music with an almost superstitious rev-

erence. Listen to Plato: "Music, I imagine, ought

to end in the love of the Beautiful. . . . The move-

ment of sounds, so as to reach the soul for the edu-

cation of it in virtue (we know not how), we call

music.” And he requires of the instructors of youth

that they carefully discern the good music from the

evil, and hymn and sing that into the souls of the

young, calling them forth to pursue the possession of

virtue, by means of likenesses.^^

But now to return to the references of the Fathers

concerning singing in the early Church. The author

of the "Ecclesiastical Hierarchy,” that sublime inter-

preter of sacred rites, teaches: "The sacred chants

produce, in those who recite them in holy disposi-

tions, an aptitude of either receiving or conferring

the different sacraments of the Church.”^®

Plato, Republica, III.

i^Migne, P. G., Ill, 431.

16



FIRST PERIOD—UNTIL 600

St. Chrysostom (d. 407) exclaims: "David for-

merly sang in psalms, also we sing today with him;

he had a lyre with lifeless strings, the Church has a

lyre with living strings. Our tongues are the strings

of the lyre with a different tone, indeed, but with

a more accordant piety.

St. Jerome tells us how the shepherds sang the

psalms of David whilst tending their flocks in the

fields of Bethlehem, and in the story of St. Paul,

the first hermit, we read that St. Anthony buried the

Saint, chanting hymns and psalms in accordance with

the Christian tradition. It might be remarked here

that St. Benedict (d. 547), the Patriarch of Western

Monasticism, in his Rule, takes it for granted that

his monks know the psalter by heart; if not, time is

appointed to learn it.

The work of St. Ambrose (d. 397), who is known

as the "Father of Ecclesiastical Music,” is too well

known to need elaboration here. The Milanese Chant

is called after his name "Ambrosian.” He it was who

introduced the singing of hymns into the West from

Syria as an important safeguard against the hymns

of the heretics. He is the great forerunner of St.

Gregory the Great.

Passages from the Fathers and early Christian

writers on sacred music might be multiplied. We

Dickinson, Music in the History of the Western

Churchy p. 55.

17



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

must not, however, leave the sayings of the Fathers

without mentioning one further fact: they are in-

sistent on jealously guarding the purity and unworld-

liness of the music destined for Christian worship. St.

Jerome (d. 420) is the author of an exhortation that

might well be written in letters of gold in every

church today:

Let the servant of God sing in such a manner that the

words of the text rather than the voice of the singer

cause delight, and that Saul’s evil spirit may depart

from those who are under its dominion, and may not en-

ter into those who make a theater out of the house of

the Lord.20

Clement of Alexandria (d. about 215), writing at

a still earlier period, warns against unchaste and arti-

ficial tone sequences, as also undiatonic melodies and

frivolous songs.

Gerbert tells us that already in the fourth century

the ecclesiastical music became more artificial than

it had been in the infant Church.^2

Instrumental music was strenuously opposed in the

churches. Clement of Alexandria speaks of the fact

that Christians use only one instrument—the word
(voice). "A Christian maiden,” says St. Jerome,

"ought not even to know what a lyre or a flute is, or

what it is used for.’’^^ The association of instruments

20 Opera Omnia, Migne Edit., VII, 652.

2iMigne, P. G., VIII, 443.

22 De Cantu et Mustca Sacra, Praef. Tom. I, p. 240.
23 Opera Omnia, Migne Edit., I, 686.

18



FIRST PERIOD—UNTIL 600

with superstitious pagan rites, and especially with the

corrupting scenes habitually represented in the de-

generate theater and circus, explain in large part such

a prohibition.

But we must leave St. Augustine (d. 430), that

prince of the patristic writers, to conclude for us the

opinions of the Fathers as to ecclesiastical music. The

conflict in his soul is so naively told, and his final

conclusion of such import to the cause of Church

music that the writer trusts the quite lengthy passage

is justified here. St. Augustine admits openly the

delight he took in the kind of chant which was used

at Milan about the time of his conversion: "How

did I weep at Thy hymns and canticles, touched to the

quick by the voices of Thy sweet attuned Church!

The voices flowed into mine ears, and Thy truth

distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my

devotion overflowed, and tears ran down and happy

was I therein. "24 There can be no question that

Augustine was deeply stirred by the sense of the

words so sweetly sung, though the melody added to

the persuasiveness of these words. But fifteen years

later, when he lays bare his heart before the whole

world, he admits that at times the melody itself holds

his spirit, and he feels a certain uneasiness by reason

of it. He almost betrays a desire to put back the clock,

24Migne, P. L. XXXIII, Tbe Confessions of St.

Augustine^ IX, 6.

19



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

by returning to the very plain and almost monoton-

ous chant which was used at Alexandria under the

great Athanasius. He regretfully admits that the

melody, of which the word of God is the life and

soul, at times captivates his emotions, especially when

sung by a sweet and well-trained voice. However,

his mind dwells more on the sacred text than on the

melody which causes the word of God to sink so

sweetly into the ear, and from the ear into the heart.

Augustine declares that

our minds are more holily and fervently raised unto

a flame of devotion by the holy words when thus sung,

than when not; for the several affections of our spirit,

however great be their variety, have their own proper

expression in the notes of music; by some hidden sym-

pathy with the melody they are stirred up by music

and singing.25

The holy Doctor goes so far as to style this grati-

fication of the emotional part of our being "a con-

tentment of the flesh.” In his anxiety to avoid such

sensual gratification, both in himself and in others,

he is in danger of falling into another extreme:

At other times, shunning over*anxiously this very de-

ception, I err by too great strictness; and sometimes to

such a degree as to wish the whole melody of sweet

music which is used to David's Psalter banished from

my ears, and the Church’s too; and that mode seems to

me safer, which I remember to have been told me of

Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, who made the reader

25 Ibid., X, 33.

20



FIRST PERIOD—UNTIL 600

of the psalm utter it with so slight an inflection of the

voice that it was nearer speaking than singing.

But this extreme and puritanical mood would not

last long, for he goes on to say:

When I remember the tears I shed at the psalmody of

Thy Church, in the beginning of my recovered faith;

and how at this time I am moved, not with the sing-

ing, but with the things sung, when they are sung with

a clear voice and most suitable modulation, I acknowl-

edge the great use of this institution.^^

He finally grants that the weaker members, at least,

of the Church are greatly helped to devotion by the

fuller melodies used in the West rather than by the

severe monotone of the East; hence, though not com-

mitting himself irrevocably, he approves the custom

of singing in church.

Although the name of St. Thomas Aquinas does not

belong to this period, the doubts of St. Augustine re-

call the views of the Angelic Doctor on singing in

church. Consequently this may be the best place to

mention his teaching. St. Thomas says that it is use-

ful to sing in church, because when we sing we lin-

ger over the text, which, consequently, has a chance

of sinking in more deeply than when we lightly glide

over it in all too glib recitation:

If the singer chant for the sake of devotion, he pays

more attention to what he says, because he lingers

Ibid., X. 33.

Benedictine Monks of Buckfast Abbey, Homiletic

and Pastoral Review, XXVII, 615.

21



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

more thereon. . . . The same applies to the hearers, for,

even if some of them understand not what is sung, yet

they understand why it is sung, namely for God’s glory;

and this is enough to arouse their devotion.^s

, Here the great theologian supplies an answer to

the difficulties experienced by those who are ignorant

of Latin. St. Augustine had made the same re-

mark, although in his day the faithful knew and

spoke Latin. "The faithful sing, and, if they under-

stand but little, they yet believe that something good

is the subject of their song.’’^^

Thus, during these first six centuries the Chant had

been developing and securing for itself a secure

place in the Liturgy of the Church. "Having been

brought into touch with two civilizations and two

forms of art—the Hebrew and the Greco-Roman
—^with exquisite tact she (the Church) borrowed
from each what best suited her ends.’’^° Or, as it

has been popularly expressed, the music of Holy

Mother has originated in Hebrew sources, has passed

through Greek channels, and was finally cast in the

Roman mold.^^ The Chant of the Church was now

ready for the master hand of St. Gregory.

It was, therefore, in the first six centuries, when the

Church was organizing and drilling her forces for her

victorious conflicts, that the final direction of her music,

28 St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, II-II, xci, ad 5.

29 Migne P. L., XXXV, Tractatus in Joannem, XXII.
39 Benedictines of Stanbrook, Gregorian Music, p. 4.

3iHuegle, Catechism of Gregorian Chant, 56.

22



FIRST PERIOD—UNTIL 600

as of all her art, was consciously taken. In rejecting

the support of instruments and developing for the first

time an exclusively vocal art, and in breaking loose from

the restrictions of antique meter which in Greek and

Greco-Roman music had forced melody to keep step

with strict prosodic measure, Christian music parted

company with pagan art, threw the burden of expres-

sion not, like Greek music, upon rhythm, but upon mel-

ody, and found in this absolute vocal melody a new

art principle of which all the worship music of modern

Christendom is the natural fruit. More vital still than

these special forms and principles, comprehending and

necessitating them, was the true ideal of music, pro-

claimed once for all by the Fathers of the Liturgy.

This ideal is found in the distinction of the church

style from the secular style, the expression of the

universal mood of prayer, rather than the expression

of individual, fluctuating, passionate emotion with

which secular music deals—that rapt, pervasive, ex-
alted tone which makes no attempt at detailed painting

of events or superficial mental states, but seems rather

to symbolize the fundamental sentiments of humility,

awe, hope, and love which mingle all particular ex-

periences in the common offering that surges upward

from the heart of the Church to its Lord and Master

.... This grand conception was early injected into the

mind of the Church, and has been the parent of all

that has been most noble and edifying in the creations

of ecclesiastical music.32

32 Dickinson, op. cit., pp. 68-69.

23



SECOND PERIOD

600—1300

C HURCH music had sufficiently developed during

the first six centuries of the Church to be ready for

a definite and lasting mold. This it was to receive

from a pope who still belonged to the old classical

world that was fast passing away, from St. Gregory

the Great. In its finished form the Chant would now

set out on its era of diffusion and perfection. But

before following the Chant on its conquest, we must

first take a hurried view of the condition of the

Church during this period.

The Church had been, for six hundred years, pre-

paring her forces for new and greater conquests; and

now her intrepid missionaries would set out with re-

newed 2eal to carry to many and distant lands the gos-

pel of civilization and salvation. First, we have St.

Gregory sending to England St. Augustine, the monk

who was to change "the Angles into angels,” and

24



SECOND PERIOD (600 to 1300)

thus become the Apostle of that land. Other monks

of St. Benedict were active elsewhere. The great St.

Boniface (d. 755) was effecting the conversion of

Germany; St. Willibrord (d. 738), that of Holland.

The blessings of the true faith were being brought to

the Saxons; then later to the lands of Denmark and

Sweden, to Moravia, Bohemia, Russia, Poland, and

Hungary. Determined to show their gratitude to the

Church that had brought them the treasures of civil-

ization and of the true Faith, the newly converted bar-

barians knew of only two ways to do so: to deal

vigorous blows to the enemies of the Church, and

to make large donations to the Churcch and her poor.

Yet this very generosity became a danger. As a re-

sult of their generosity, the rulers of the new Chris-

tian nations began to feel a right over the Church,

the spiritual and temporal were confounded, no longer

was there rendered to God what belonged to God, and

the evils of lay interference became manifest; and yet

the Church finally emerged from out of all this more

powerful than ever before, and we have the glorious

Ages of Faith, culminating in the "Thirteenth, the

Greatest of Centuries.” Having torn herself away

from the "embrace of feudalism, which desired to

make of her a religion of camp chapels and connect

her with its fleeting destinies,” the Church now "pre-

sided at the birth of communes and universities, she

covered with her prestige Gothic art and scholasticism,

she saw saints ascend the thrones of France and of

25



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

Castile. And during two centuries, the twelfth and

thirteenth, she became the supreme authority of West-

ern Europe, the oracle of the Christian world.”®®

And what of the history of the Gregorian Chant?

The Chant was experiencing, in large part, the for-

tunes of her whom it was serving so well. Despite

difficulties it was, like the Church, reaching the zenith

of its perfection and glory until it became the musical

oracle of the Christian world.

The Chant was borne by the missionaries to the

newly converted lands, thus extending its domain

until it permeated every phase of musical activity

and reigned supreme, not only in the realm of sacred

music, but, in fact, of all music. Difficulties devel-

oped, it is true. As familiarity with the Church had

led to interference, so in the Chant world familiarity

with the chants now led to a desire for novelty, which

resulted in interference with the traditional render-

ing of the sacred melodies. In the government of the

Church at large, much of the havoc of this time was

due to the confounding of the spiritual with the tem-

poral; in the world of music, the havoc to the Chant

would be due largely to the fact that the new musica

mensurabilis—^which was, of course, a perfectly legiti-
mate development—^was being confounded with mu-
sica plana; and the theorists were endeavoring to

33 Kurth-Day, The Church at the Turning Points of

History, p. 85.

26



SECOND PERIOD (600 to 1300)

treat both on the same basis, to the detriment of the

latter. However, this decadence belongs rather to

the subsequent period. The confusion of the spiritual

with the temporal led to the neglect of the spiritual,

though there was no great upheaval as yet; but the

way was being prepared for that. The confusion as to

the new music and the Chant led to the neglect of

the old, though there was no serious harm to the

Chant as yet; but the seeds of decay were being

slowly sown. In fact, after the year 950 the com-

positions that were being produced were in part in-

ferior to the earlier ones as regards simplicity, natural-

ness, and warmth of feeling; nevertheless, the Gre-

gorian Chant continued to hold its sway as the uni-

versal musical language of the one universal Church.

Furthermore, it was the monastic hearths that pre-

served and fed the sacred fire of Christian fervor;

likewise it was the monastic homes of the sons of

Benedict that preserved and fostered the sacred

Chant, for without them the Chant would have been

lost to the succeeding generations. And if St. Bene-

dict, through his Order, can be said to have saved

Christianity, he can also be said to have preserved

the Chant; just as his sons of a later day, in the nine-

teenth and twentieth centuries, were to be the prin-

cipal agents in the restoration of that exquisite tra-

ditional plain song.

For the writer on the Chant it is not enough to

review the interesting parallelism between the his-

27



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

tory of the Catholic Church and the history of the

Chant during this period: St. Gregory, the most im-

portant name connected with the Church’s official

music, must have his meed; also we must treat some-

what more at length the spread of the Roman Chant.

If, as one historian says, Gregory deserves far

better than either Brutus or Boethius the title of Last

of the Romans, certainly not the least of his ser-

vices rendered to the Church and art was his work

on the Chant which was later to bear his name. As

the first pope drawn from that Order which has al-

ways cherished the Opus Dei—the Divine Office

—

the Liturgy—as the most sacred charge consigned to
her zealous care by her founder, Benedict of Nursia,

Gregory would be expected to give largely of his

solicitude to the Liturgy—and what is inseparable
from the Liturgy—the Chant. As to the Liturgy, we
know, among other things, that the Canon of the

Mass is still the same as when it left his hands a mas-

terpiece at the end of the sixth century.

In the Middle Ages the legend long prevailed that

Gregory one night had a vision in which the Church

appeared to him in the form of an angel, magnificent-

ly attired, upon whose mantle was written the whole

art of music, with all the forms of its melodies and

notes. The pope prayed God to give him the power

of recollecting all that he saw; and after he awoke,

Stebbing, The Story of the Catholic Church, p. l6l.

28



SECOND PERIOD (600 to 1300)

a dove appeared, who dictated to him the chants

which are ascribed to him.^®

St. Gregory was, above all, the practical Roman;

he had that broadness of vision that characterized the

Roman lawgiver. His parents, as is known, belonged

to the Roman nobility; he himself had been Prefect

of Rome, when he renounced the honors and pleas-

ures of his station to become a lowly monk. His ac-

tivity in regard to the Chant—and this in particular
concerns us here—may be summed up in the words
of an early writer: "Multa subtrahens, pauca con-

vertens, nonnulla vero superadiciens”—removing
much, altering little, and adding some. This is to

say, as far as we can judge, St. Gregory composed few

of the melodies, if any; but he pruned and fashioned

existing material, and together with his school of

musicians characterized by "a keen perception for

strict form, for proportion in the parts, and for deli-

cacy, rich variety, and tenderness of melody,” brought

forth those melodies that for many centuries have

been, and still are, the admiration of the greatest

musicians.^®

According to an ancient writer, St. Odo, the second

Abbot of the renowned Abbey of Cluny, who died

in 942, the real merit of St. Gregory’s labors lay in

the fact that he suited the melody to the text in a

35 Montalembert, The Monks of the West, I, 391.

3« Johner, A New School of Gregorian Chant, p. 181.

29



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

really wonderful manner. The holy Abbot Odo is

delighted how, for example, Gregory, by the melodies,

summons us in the Introits of the Mass to the cele-

bration of the Divine Mysteries as with the trumpet

call of a herald; how the Alleluia is filled with sweet

joy; how in the nocturnal Responses he seems to

admonish us to throw off the fetters of drowsiness

and to watch; and the like. The original Latin fol-

lows:

Ex quo probatur, quod S. Papa Gregorius plus omnibus

per divinam gratiam hujus artis industriam sit adeptus.

Nam si perpendas, valde mirabile est, quod in noctur-
nis responsoriis somnolentorum more graviter et disso-

lute ad vigilandum nos exhortare videtur; in antiphonis

vero plane et suaviter sonet; in introitis (leg. introiti-

bus) vero quasi voce praeconia ad divinum clamet of-

ficium; in Alleluia suaviter gaudet; in tractu vero et

gradalibus plane et protense humiliataque voce ince-

dere videtur. In offerendis vero et earum versibus, maxi-

meque in Communionibus, quantum in hac arte valuerit,

patefecit.37

Enriched with this melodic treasury, the Choral

now set out into the world. Gradually it penetrated

throughout Italy (with the sole exception of Milan,

where the Ambrosian Chant held sway), then Gaul,

Spain (where, however, it found opposition on the

part of Mozarabic Chant), but especially England

(which received the Chant simultaneously with the

true faith), and Germany. Especially was Charle-

37Migne, P. L. CXXXIII, 785.

38 Johner, Der Gregorianische Choral, p. 24.

30



SECOND PERIOD (600 to 1300)

magne, King of the Franks, its great patron; he at

once commanded the introduction of the Roman

Chant books into his entire kingdom.

The missionaries sent from Rome took the Chant

with them. Augustine made his first entry into Can-

terbury amid the melodies of the Roman Chant—^the
Chant that was to be loved and sung in that land

for well-nigh a thousand years, until the Reformation,

by brute force, silenced those cherished melodies.

"Every monastery founded in the savage forests of

Germany, Gaul, or Britain became at once a sing-

ing school, and day and night the holy strains went

up in unison with the melodies of the far distant

sacred city,”—Rome.^^
Before concluding this period, it will be of interest

to the student of Gregorian Chant to read what has

been called the Papal Motu Proprio of the ninth

century. It is given here almost in its entirety, for it

is significant in that it shows the uniform practice of

the Church at that time; also in this that the ninth

century, the date of the letter, is the date of our old-

est manuscripts for the Chant, upon which is based

our present Vatican edition. The Letter is from Pope

St. Leo IV to a certain Honoratus, Abbot of a mon-

astery in the neighborhood of Rome.

A quite incredible story has reached our ears
It is averred that you have such an aversion for the

3® Dickinson, Music in the History of the Western

Church, p. 117.

31



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

sweet Chant of St. Gregory, and the system of singing

and reading which he drew up and bequeathed to the

Church, that you are at varriance in this matter, not

only with this See, which is so near you, but also with

almost every church in the West, and in fact with all

those who use the Latin tongue to pay to the King of

heaven their tribute of praise and song. All these

churches have received with such eagerness and such

devoted affection the aforesaid system [traditio} of

Gregory that, although we have communicated the

whole to them, they are so delighted that they leave

us no peace with their inquiries about it, thinking that

there must be more of the same remaining still with us.

It was indeed the holy Pope Gregory, that great servant

of God . . . who with great labor and much musical

skill composed this Chant which we still sing in the

church, and even elsewhere. It was his desire to rouse

and touch the hearts of men, so that by the sound of

these highly elaborated strains [artificiosae modulationis

sonitu] he might draw to church not only ecclesiastics,

but also those who were uneducated and hard to move.

I beg of you not to allow yourself to remain in op-

position to the Church, the supreme head of religion,

or to the other churches mentioned, if you desire to

live in entire peace and harmony with the universal

Church of God. For if,which we cannot believe, you

have such an aversion for our teaching and the system

of our holy Pontiff that you will not conform in every

point to our rite, whether in the chanting or in the

lessons, know that we shall reject you from our com-

munion, since it becomes you to follow the wholesome

practice which the Roman Church, the Mother of all

and your Mistress, does not disdain, but has eagerly

embraced and steadfastly adheres to. Wherefore we

command you under threat of excommunication, that

32



SECOND PERIOD (600 to 1300)

in chanting and reading in church you follow no other

system than that which Pope St. Gregory bequeathed

to us, and which we hold fast.^°

Thus we see that during this period, the Chant

spread throughout the Christian world until it be-

came the universal musical language of the Church

of God. This was the zenith of its glory—^which it
has never known since. In some of the monasteries

it reached its height in the so-called "laus perennis,”

in which bodies of monks, relieving each other at

stated watches, maintained an unbroken office of song

by night and day. To quote Dom Ambrose Kienle:

Plain song lived by the Liturgy and in the Liturgy. Day

by day its melodies were sounding from midnight till

after sunset in numberless cathedrals and abbeys. The

Divine Office was sung throughout, and that by a nu-

merous choir, for most of the abbeys contained over a

hundred monks; and the singers were men who looked

upon the Divine Office as a sacred work, the highest of

vocations, and the supreme object of their lives. The

monasteries were thus the privileged land, the native

soil, as it were, of plain chant. Its daily performance,

combined with profound knowledge and deep appre-

ciation of the liturgical Chant, gave the monks a greater

opportunity of entering more fully into the spirit of

Gregorian Chant than is possible for us to-day.^i

*0 Benedictine Monks of Buckfast Abbey, "Ecclesias-

tical Chant," Homiletic and Pastoral Review,

XXVII, 738.

Gatard, Plainchant, p. 42.

33



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

As Dom Gatard adds,

What is true of the monasteries is also true of the ca-

thedrals and collegiate churches, where the Chant was

a living tongue, where no pains were spared to obtain

cantors who could carry it out with the utmost pos-

sible degree of perfections^

Thus the entire Christendom prayed and sacrificed

and sung as one immense, united family. And the

common musical idiom uniting all their voices into

one mighty and irresistible chorus of divine praises

was the Chant of Gregory the Great.

p. 43.

34



THIRD PERIOD

1300—U17

I T is not a pleasant task to turn from the glory of

the thirteenth century, when religion entered into the

whole life of the age. The First Jubilee had just been

celebrated in Rome in 1300 amid magnificent pomp.

In this year of boundless enthusiasm, the power of

the Church seemed at its height, and the Pope seemed

to be almost more than a mere man. And yet the

Supreme Pontiff soon had reason to realize the signifi-

cance of the traditional ceremony on the day of his

coronation when tow is burnt at the foot of the Pon-

tifical throne and the Pope is addressed in the mem-

orable words: "Holy Father, thus passeth the glory

of this world.”

Only two years after the triumph of the Great

Jubilee, the Pope (Boniface VIII) was seized in his

own palace by the mercenaries of the "Most Chris-

tian King” (Philip the Fair, King of France), and

the attempt was made to crush the Roman See. This

35



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

was a forcible beginning of this era of decadence.

The framework of medieval Christendom was show-

ing unmistakable signs of decay. Three great forces

were at work: the so-called Humanism, emphasizing

a freer and more general culture; Nationalism, a keen-

er sense of a separate national existence, as opposed

to the common bond of union among nations of the

preceding centuries; and a new Spirit of Discovery,

striving after new conquests of knowledge.^® The

Renaissance was soon to make itself manifest, though

what really took place was not so much a revival of

learning as a flowering out of the learning of pre-

ceding centuries. And, of course, there was much of

good and bad in the Renaissance.

Thus as we gaze over this period, we see the

marked decline of the Middle Ages; the weakening

of the Papal power; the "captivity” of the Popes at

Avignon, in France; the great Schism of the West;

and, finally, the incipient ravages of the pagan Ren-

aissance, and the need of reform in the Church’s

Head and members. The seeds of decay were indeed

being sown, and deeply so, thus paving the way for

the convulsion of the world of religion—and the po-
litical world, as well—in the so-called Reformation of
the sixteenth century.

In the domain of ecclesiastical music, again the

Stabbing, The Story of the Catholic Churchy p.

377 ff.

36



THIRD PERIOD (1300 to 1517)

Chant is suffering quite the same fate. The novelties

of diaphony, or organum, and of discant caused no

small amount of confusion as to the right mode of

treatment of the non-metrical music, the traditional

Chant; and the Chant suffered. In fact, the Chant

was preparing for its downfall, even though the

melodies themselves were not altered until the end

of the sixteenth century. The serious break with the

past, in music as in religion, was to be reserved for

the sixteenth century.

The three great forces at work in the Church were

not without their effects also in the Chant world,

though the sweeping change due to the Renaissance

affected the other arts of poetry, painting, and sculp-

ture many years earlier than it did music. Yet we al-

ready begin to notice how the arbitrary standards of

Humanism will pronounce the austere yet powerful

simplicity of plain song barbaric; Nationalism will

develop its types of national music to the detriment

of the universal music of the Chant; and the Spirit

of Discovery will experiment with the Gregorian

melodies as a cantus firmus, and the result will be a

fatal effect on the rhythm of the Chant. These devel-

opments are not mentioned as condemnable in them-

selves. They are the product of their age. But just

as in the sphere of religious fervor they were dan-

gerous manifestations unless properly directed, so too

in regard to Gregorian Chant—the medium of the

37



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

expression of that religious fervor—^they would prove
fatal unless properly guided.

As Dom Gatard, mentions, the decay in

the plain song was, at this time, manifesting itself in

regard to its execution; no one had yet thought of

altering the melodies themselves.^^

From the fourteenth century forward the tradition

begins to go down. The growing interest taken in poly-

phony caused the plain chant to be neglected. The books

were written carelessly; the forms of the neums, so im-

portant to the rhythm, began to be disregarded, and

shortenings of melismata became general. No radical

changes, however, are found until we come to the end

of the sixteenth century.-^s

This period may be fittingly closed by quoting a

Decree from the old Canon Law of the Church, from

that part called the Extravagantes Communes. The

Decree was given by Pope John XXII, in the year

1322, while he was at Avignon. It seems that some of

the members of the clergy had been caught in the

fashion of the musical novelties of the times and had

begun to modernize the old sacred melodies by intro-

ducing unequal and strange time values, and other

innovations. Of course, as a consequence the smooth

execution and the well-tempered rise and fall of the

sequences of notes were necessarily lost sight of.

Pope John suspends from office for eight days such

^Gatard, Plainchant, p. 47.

Bewerunge, ''Plain Chant,” Catholic Encyclopedia,

XII, 146.

38



THIRD PERIOD (1300 to 1317)

offenders against the Chant.* The canon is interest-

ing for several reasons. It shows the changes that

were developing at that period in regard to the Chant.

It shows, also, the importance attached at that time by

the Church to her official Chant since she even sus-

pends offenders from office. (We recall, too, the

letter of Leo IV quoted in chapter III, which even

threatens a non-conformist of the Chant with ex-

communication.) Finally, it is of importance for the

fact that Pope John XXII has been quoted as con-

demning the use of discant in the Liturgy (e.g.,

Weimann, History of Church Music, p. 81). The

Decree, however, reads at the end: "non intendimus

prohibere,” i.e., the Pope concludes the Decree by

stating he does not intend to forbid that at times,

especially on feast days, other parts be added to the

simple ecclesiastical chant (provided the chant re-

main intact), as, for instance, an octave, a quint, a

quart, and such like.

* This document is given in the Latin original and

English translation on page 72.

39



FOURTH PERIOD

1317—1830

With the so-called Reformation of the sixteenth

century, the Catholic Church received the most crush-

ing blow she has ever sustained in the long history

of her existence. The Chant, whose history had been

largely that of the Church, was now again to share the

same fate. The Church shook to her very founda-

tions; but she did not fall: she was destined to live

on. The Chant, too, seemed hopelessly crushed; but

it did not suffer entire extinction: it too was destined

to live.

When in 1517 Martin Luther affixed his list of

theses to the church door in Wittemberg, he inaugur-

ated a movement that was to tear whole nations from

the bosom of that Mother who had cherished them

as her children for centuries. Reform was needed;

that cannot be doubted. But reform should come

from within; reform from without is revolution. And

this was revolution. Then followed the long years

40



FOURTH PERIOD (1517 to 1830)

of revolt throughout Europe. It is a depressing era

of religious upheaval and apathy. As we glance over

this period we see the wars, especially the religious

wars; we note, too, the rationalistic deism, which

originated in England, penetrated thence into France,

and soon made its way into Germany; corrupt phil-

osophic systems came and went; Febronianism and

Josephinism boldly lifted up their heads and sapped

the very vitals of the nations; Gallicanism and Jan-

senism wrought their ravages; Atheism, too, began its

withering influence.—^The Catholic student recalls
in passing that such immortal musical geniuses as

Mozart, Chopin, Liszt—sons of the Catholic Church
—did not escape being entangled, at least for a time,
in the insidious meshes of the then fashionable false

enlightenment.—And despite the worthy endeavors
put forth during this period in the religious world to

reawaken Christian fervor, no great results seemed

forthcoming.

Such, in brief, was the background of the history

of Gregorian Chant from 1517 to 1850, and we are

not surprised that the Chant suffers the same lot as

its Mistress, the Church, to whose undivided service

it had always devoted itself so intimately and un-

selfishly.

In the preceding period we had noticed at work

a keener sense of Nationalism. Now society was to

go still further. From the idea of a universal bond

41



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

of interest, it had gone to a more pronounced sense

of national existence; now it developed a spirit of

exalted Individualism. This Individualism was at

work throughout the entire machinery of society

—

in religion, in politics, in art, as in music. It is the

exaltation of the Ego at the expense of the Nos. A

questioning of authority—religious as well as civil

—

is a natural sequence. Among the reformers this in-

stinct takes tangible form in the doctrine of the right

of the Private Interpretation of Scripture. God’s

revelation was to be summoned before the tribunal

of individual private judgment, and there judged.

This instinct of Individualism underlying the phil-

osophy of the Reformation was no less marked in the

world of music than elsewhere. To quote from a

secular historian. Grove:

During the last decades of the sixteenth century a

sweeping change came over music in Italy. . . . The

spirit of the Renaissance, which had affected the other

arts of poetry, painting, and sculpture many years

earlier, gradually asserted an influence over music

Each individual now desired to think and speak for

himself, and was no longer content to be merged in

the mass. Thus ecclesiastical music was gradually

driven from the field by secular music; and choral or

collective song by pure solo-song, which was the medi-

um best fitted for the expression of the thoughts, emo-

tions, and actions of individuals.^’^ (Italics added.)

Grove, Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Art.,

"Song,” pp. 555-6.

42



FIFTH PERIOD (1830 TILL NOW)

Thus solo-singing becomes the normal expression

of this individualistic tendency. It is interesting to

note that the first recorded instance of pure solo-

singing is supposed to have occurred in 1539—the
very first years of the Reformation.^®

This spirit is entirely alien to that of the Gregorian

Chant. The Liturgy of the Catholic Church is es-

sentially a family worship, a common worship. The

liturgical ideal—in music as elsewhere—tends to-
wards a universal expression, an objective and im-

personal expression, free from the stress and stir of

individual passion. It is the blending of the indi-

vidual into the universal: the individual is not lost,

he is blended—I might say sublimated—into that
wonderful, mystic but real, living Body of all the

faithful whose Head is Christ. The Chant is the lan-

guage of the Communion of Saints. Holy Mother

Church will have her children pray, sacrifice, sing

as one colossal united family, under the one common

Father of all
—

'’Our Father, Who art in Heaven”

—

not "My Father.”

Solo-singing, as manifested in modern music, with

its strictly individual, emotional, earthly character,

is the very antithesis of the liturgic ideal pervading

the Chant. It is the product of the age of the Re-

formation. Even earlier part-singing has been char-

acterized as ”a blind revolt of the European mind

^8 Ibid., p. 555.

43



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

against bondage to an antique and restrictive form

of expression.”^®

True enough, Dom Johner, O.S.B., takes care to

deny the statement that solo-singing had not been

used in the Church’s ancient Choral.®® We are well

aware that the elaborate melismatic passages of the

Gradual Responsory and the Alleluia Versicle are

solo-chants. But the principle which produced the

solo-chants as part of the Mass Chants in the sixth

century is a far cry from that which called forth the

solo-songs of the sixteenth century. In the ecclesias-

tical chants, the soloist is still merely the representa-

tive of the people—just as the priest, the officiating
minister; he is not singing in the capacity of an

isolated, detached individual.

It is at this time, too, (about 1600) that the opera

makes its appearance. The fascination for the new

operatic style, for the Italian aria, and instrumental

art did much to wean the faithful away from the for-

mer love for the more austere and simple spiritual

chants. Soon the opera began to invade the sacred

precincts of the Church; and we begin the long line

of operatic Masses that have so sadly marred the his-

tory of Catholic ecclesiastical music.

It is not, of course, the writer’s intention to con-

demn these new manifestations of musical art, as the

^® Dickinson, Music in the History of the Western

Church, p. 235.

®® Johner, Der Gregorianische Choral, p. 9.

44



FOURTH PERIOD (1317 to 1830)

solo-songs and the opera. They were genuine achieve-

ments, and destined to enrich the world’s art beyond

calculation. They were, however, manifestations of

an unhealthy impulse in the world of ecclesiastical

music, and could lead to serious aberrations in Church

music; as they did. The opera did not, and does not,

belong in the sanctuary of the Catholic Church.

Yet even here the Catholic Church has shown her

wonderful power of adaptability to the conditions of

the times and places in which she has lived. She

has tolerated the new music that developed, provided

of course that the basic principles of ecclesiastical

art be not entirely lost sight of; and even today

she gives modern music a place in her temples beside

her official Chant and her polyphonic masterpieces.

Together with these forces at work in music, the

influence of the pagan Renaissance worked probably

the greatest havoc with the traditional Chant. Men

who called the architecture of some of the most glor-

ious monuments in the world "Gothic” in contempt;

who looked with disdain upon the “dog Latin” of the

Fathers of the Church; who went to the extreme of

even refusing to read the Latin Bible itself because

it was not Ciceronian—^men such as these assuredly
did not possess the refined insight to understand the

spiritual beauty of the simple but powerful sacred

Chants. Moreover, the rhythm was no longer under-

stood. Accordingly these masses of notes without

45



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

life, proportion, or plan must have seemed most tire-

some. The elaborate passages were doomed to mu-

tilation. The groups of notes on unaccented syllables

were pronounced barbaric. And the scissors of the

arbitrary esthetic standards of the Humanists began

their destructive work. The Chant books now pre-

sented a mutilated, inartistic copy of what had been

the grandest church music the world ever possessed.

Can we wonder, then, that the Chant now rushed to

its final decadence?

Thus the cooling of religious fervor attendant upon

the disorders of the Reformation, the fascination for

the new operatic style, and the sorry condition of the

truncated Chant melodies prepared to consign the

Gregorian Chant, once the glory of the early Chris-

tians and the Ages of Faith, to oblivion. The Chant

was driven out of the churches to make way for the

new types of modern church music.

Dickinson, writes of modern church music:

Modern church music, by virtue of its variety, splendor,

and dramatic pathos, seems to be tinged with the hues

of earthliness which belie the strictest conception of

ecclesiastical art. It partakes of the doubt and turmoil

of a sceptical and rebellious age, it is the music of

impassioned longing in which are mingled the echoes

of worldly allurements, it is not the chastened tone of

pious assurance and self-abnegation. The choral song

developed in the ages of faith is pervaded by the ac-

cents of that calm ecstasy of trust and celestial antici-

pation which give the mediaeval art that exquisite charm

46



FOURTH PERIOD (1517 to 1850)

of naivete and sincerity never again to be realized

through the same medium because it is the unconscious

expression of an unquestioning simplicity of conviction

which seems to have passed away forever from the

higher manifestations of the human creative intellect.®^

The new music which now invaded the churches

deprived the people of the last vestige of active par-

ticipation in the sacred rites of the Church, a parti-

cipation that had been their heritage for centuries

—

in fact, from the very rise of the Church’s Liturgy.

The congregation was reduced to the rank of mere on-

lookers—not unlike their role in the theater. With
the introduction of female voices into the choir,

which now necessitated the rear choir loft (women

were not permitted to sing in the sanctuary), the

atmosphere of the theater in the church became still

more marked; and only too often was the attention

of the faithful drawn rather to the rear gallery instead

of to the sacred mysteries being celebrated in the

sanctuary.

This hunger of the laity for a more active parti-

cipation in the divine service was understood by the

propagators of the new religions and made use of.

The German hymn was a powerful instrument in

the spread of the new doctrine, for it made it possible

for the people to take part in the divine service in the

vernacular: to form, as it were, an integral part therein.

This psychological moment must be duly appreciated, if

Dickinson, op. cit., p. 130.

47



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

we are to understand the saying of the Protestants that

Luther's songs won over whole towns to Protestantism.®^

Attempts to save religious fervor as well as to save

the Chant were not lacking in the Church; yet with-

out much avail. The Council of Trent, which opened

in 1545, was expected to stem the incursions of the

Reformers. At this memorable Council there was

manifested among the prelates a desire to see banished

permanently from the Church all but Gregorian music,

so little thought was there of any impending change

or of dissatisfaction in official circles with the tra-

ditional Chant. The popular story has it that it was

Palestrina who saved non-Gregorian music from

being placed under the ban by the Fathers of the

Council. At any rate, the Council was content to

recommend to the bishops to banish from their dio-

ceses all music wherein lascivious or impure elements

were mixed, and left to them the responsibility of

deciding the practical questions concerned with the

singing of the Divine Office.

The necessity, however, of an improvement in the

Chant books was evident. The new oflScial edition

of the Breviary and Missal only served to accentuate

this necessity.

The reform of Missal and Breviary, initiated by the

Council of Trent, gave rise to renewed attention to the

liturgical Chant. But as the understanding of its pecu-

liar language had disappeared, the results were disas-

Weinmann, History of Church Music, p. 66.

48



FOURTH PERIOD (1317 to 1830)

trous. Palestrina was one of the men who tried their

hands, but he did not carry his work through. Early

in the seventeenth century, however, Raimondi, the

head of the Medicean printing establishment, took up

again the idea of publishing a new Gradual. He com-

missioned two musicians of name, Felice Anerio and

Francesco Suriano, to revise the melodies. This they did

in an incredibly short time, less than a year, and with

a similarly incredible recklessness, and in I6l4 and 1615

the Medicean Gradual appeared.®^

One writer observes: 'Tn the Medicean edition

the Choral bleeds at a thousand places.”®^ Dom Ga-

tard, O.S.B., tells us in regard to the official charac-

ter of the Medicean Gradual:

Raimondi would have liked a Bull compelling the whole

Church to use the new books, but all he was able to

obtain was a brief commendation, in which the Pope

was content to advise the Church in all lands to take

them. Even then it seemed that this brief was found

too laudatory, for it was not printed in the Preface to

the first volume, which appeared in 16 14, after Rai-

mondi was dead: the publishers confined themselves to

a reprint of the Privilege of 1608, which was not enough

to make the edition official.®®

This book [Medicean Gradual] has considerable im-

portance, because in the second half of the nineteenth

century, the Congregation of Rites, believing it to con-

tain the true Chant of St. Gregory, had it republished

as the official Chant book of the Church, which position

®® Bewerunge, "Plain Chant,” Catholic Encyclopedia,

XII, 146.

®^ Mueller, Archiv fuer Musikwissenschaft, p. 127.

®®Gatard, Plainchant, p. 51.

49



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

it held from 1870 to 1904. During the seventeenth

and eighteenth centuries various other attempts were

made to reform the Gregorian Chant. They were

well-intentioned, no doubt, but only emphasized the

downward course things were taking. The practice of

singing became worse and worse, and what had been

the glory of centuries fell into general contempt.®*

These were dark days for church music. The need

of reform was realized, not only by musicians within

the Church, but by non-Catholic musicians as well,

as we see especially from the writings of Mendelssohn

and Wagner. That such musicians as Haydn, Mozart,

Liszt, and Wagner esteemed the Gregorian Chant is

known. As to the need of a reform, the words of

Mendelssohn are of more than passing interest. "Were

I a Catholic,” he writes, "I would set to work at a

Mass this very evening; and whatever it might turn

out, it would, at all events, be the only Mass written

with a constant remembrance of its sacred purpose.

But for the present I do not mean to do this; perhaps

at some future day, when I am older.” He speaks,

also, of sacred music as "subordinate to the sacred

function, co-operating with the wax candles and the

incense.” And as we read more of his words, it seems

a prophecy of the work of the Solesmes monks, the

great restorers of the traditional Chant in the nine-

teenth century, who went back to the ancient manu-

scripts. Mendelssohn says, "The men are yet to

®* Bewerunge, loc. cit., p. 146.

50



FOURTH PERIOD (1317 to 1830)

come who will advance on the right road, and who

will lead others onwards, or back to the ancient and

right path; which ought, in fact, to be termed the

onward path.”®"^

Richard Wagner, himself the genius of opera, at-

tributes the decadence of Catholic music to the intro-

duction into the churches of orchestral instruments

and of operatic arias. He says further:

To the human voice, the immediate vehicle of the sacred

word, belongs the first place in the churches, and not to

instrumental additions or the trivial scraping found in

most of the churches’ pieces to-day. Catholic church

music can regain its former purity only by a return to

the purely vocal style. If an accompaniment is con-

sidered absolutely necessary, the genius of Christianity

has provided the instrument worthy of such function,

the organ.58

As to the close of the period we have just been con-

sidering, Paul Bekker, the well-known German critic,

says: 'Tt [the nineteenth century} is an age without

religion, even an irreligious age, and therefore an

age of secular music. Church music exists but it is

secular in character.”®® Later he has a passage which

may be of interest to the Chant student:

Through the simplicity of his feeling Bruckner is the

first to return to the expression of an impersonal, a uni-

®^ ”H. S. B.,” "Mendelssohn on Catholic Church

Music,” The Cecilia, XLV (1918), 40.
®® Wagner, Richard, Gesammelte Werke, II, 337.

®® Bekker, The Story of Music, p. 202.

51



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

versal attitude. This it is which gives him his religious

trend and gives his music its tranquility. [Note the Gre-

gorian Chant’s characteristic of an “impersonal, univer-

sal attitude,’’ giving it its "tranquility’’ and religious

character.] The religious longing was common to all

romanticists; the more their intensely subjective atti-

tude towards life and art estranged them from it, the

more ardently they sought it. It appears in the early

romanticists of literature who frequently embraced

Catholicism. It appears in the romanticists of music as

well, in Wagner, Bruckner, Brahms.*®

When the nineteenth century has reached half its

course, the lover of true church music anxiously scans

the dark horizon; and there gleams a ray of light that

bids fair to bring a new and happier epoch in the

history of sacred music. That will be the work of

another chapter.

p. 246.

52



FIFTH PERIOD

1 8^0—Present

In the Catholic Church religious fervor may wane;

but it never dies. All the forces of evil may unite to

effect her ruin; but she has ever triumphed, because of

that bountiful Holy Spirit Who has been given her by

her Divine Founder, Jesus Christ. As our thoughts

turn to the Chant of the Church, we recall the words

of the French literary genius,
J.

K. Huysmans, in his

remarkable novel, En Route. Durtal, the hero, has

been listening to the chanting of the monks, as amid

the darkness of the somber church they sing their

Compline Office. Moved to the depths of his soul,

with tears in his eyes, Durtal exclaims, "Ah, the true

creator of plain music, the unknown author who cast

into the brain of man the seed of plain chant, was

the Holy Ghost!”

With the middle of the nineteenth century we

note a marked reawakening of the religious spirit.

53



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

The petulant child of the irreligious centuries had

tired of wandering amid the labyrinths of Rationalism

and Materialism and False Enlightenment: he yearned

after repose—for rest to his unsatisfied heart. He
had learned he must seek this from God. Hence, this

period is characterized by earnest attempts to

foster the reviving religious fervor, as well as by

the attempts to further the revival of Gregorian litur-

gical song,

Pius IX, despite the troublous days of his long

pontificate, took steps to better the condition of the

Chant. The Sacred Congregation of Rites, believing

the old Medicean Gradual to contain the true Chant

of St. Gregory, had it republished as the ofl&dal

Chant book of the Church, and it appeared as the

Mechlin Gradual edited by Pustet of Ratisbon, in

1871. In 1873 a Papal Brief granted a thirty years’

monopoly of this edition to Pustet, which, however,

according to Dom Gatard, was not made compulsory

either by this Brief or by the Decree of the Sacred

Congregation of Rites in 1883.®^ It cannot be denied

that this thirty years’ privilege was very unfortunate

for the cause of the restoration of the Chant, for

the Gradual was really "a sort of counterfeit skeleton

but remotely akin to the Gregorian Chant as pre-

served by the Church up to that date.”®^ So long as

Gatard, Plainchant, p. 70.

®* Gatard, Ibid.

54



FIFTH PERIOD (1830 TILL NOW)

this privilege lasted, the Holy See could not officially

approve the Solesmes books, which above all con-

tained the best version of the ancient melodies; but it

was most unwilling to condemn them, in spite of all

the efforts made with this object. Yet with all this,

the Ratisbon edition may have served a real purpose.

Pius IX approved in 1870 the Society of St. Ce-

cilia, which accomplished much good for the better-

ment of church music in Germany and elsewhere.

Yet one cannot close one’s eyes to the fact that the

strenuous endeavors on the part of its zealous mem-

bers to make the Ratisbon (Mechlin) Gradual su-

preme in the Chant world—all of course in good
faith—served to retard the restoration of the ancient
unabbreviated melodies of St. Gregory.

Leo XIII realized the sad plight of church music

and strove earnestly to awaken interest in the cause

of improvement, chiefly through the articles by the

Jesuit Fathers in the Civilta Cattolica. He frankly

declared that, as far as he knew, there was only cockle

in the field of church music. He warmly encouraged

the work of the French Benedictines at Solesmes;

but the final word of the Chant restoration was not

to be the achievement of this venerable Pontiff. This

was to be reserved to his sainted successor, Blessed

Pius X.

"Instaurare omnia in Christo”
—

"To restore all

things in Christ,” the chosen motto of Pius X, gives

55



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

the keynote to his activity. His it was to crown the

revival both of religious fervor and true church music.

His detection of the insidious errors of Modernism,

and condemnation of the same, seemed to betoken a

particular divine light. The return to the life-giving

practices of the primitive Qmrch by his decrees of

early Communion for children, and of frequent, even

daily. Communion for all, gave nourishment and a

quickening to religious fervor in our age that had not

had its equal for centuries.

But this remarkable Pope of the renewed fervor

would not stop here. He would "restore all things

in Christ;” and, accordingly, the official Chant of the

Church, the Gregorian Chant, must be restored to

its place of honor, and hence the text also

must be restored according to the ancient manu-

scripts. He had been elected Supreme Pontiff on

August 4
, 1903, and one of his first cares was the

liturgical Chant; for already on November 22
,
the

feast of St. Caecilia, only three months after the

beginning of his reign, he published the renowned

Motu Proprio on Sacred Music, in which, although

recommending the polyphonic masterpieces as well

as approving proper modern church music, he gives

the first place to Gregorian Chant, which alone of

all music the Church has recognized as her one official

Chant.

One of the first requisites, however, for a renewed

56



FIFTH PERIOD (1830 TILL NOW)

appreciation of plain song is that we have the genuine

artistic text of old. In this field of restoration many

attempts had been made during the period we are

considering. They were indeed praiseworthy. But

quite evidently the isolated labors of one or the other

scholar could not bring about the desired result. As

M. Choisnard says:

The Religious Orders, who in the Middle Ages and

the Renaissance had so effectively helped to preserve

and hand down to us unimpaired the monuments of

Greek and Latin literature, were by their nature marked

out to be the rebuilders of the great temple constructed

by the Fathers of the Gregorian art. We find in them
elements of success which we cannot expect in an iso-

lated priest more or less involved in pastoral cares.

Monks, on the other hand, can be told off in numbers

by their superiors for this work of restoration: some

living in the monastery studying the manuscripts which

come to them from all quarters, others being sent to

visit numerous libraries, able to pass whole weeks en-

tirely occupied with the task entrusted to them. In

this way work can be produced in accordance with a

progressive scheme, subjected to the scrupulous over-

sight of a manifold control, and edited with perfect

consistency.®^

Abbe Dabin points out yet another advantage:

The Benedictine is not merely a worker with a fine

equipment, he is by vocation, predestination, and busi-

ness first and foremost a singer. . .

.

Now it is the same
with the Chant as with virtue. If an ounce of practice

is worth two pounds of theory one day in the

pp. 57-58.

57



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

choir of a monastery will teach more, to him that hath

ears to hear, than will the researches of the most learned

students

Accordingly, much of the glory of this work has

been left to the Benedictine Monks of the Abbey of

Solesmes, in France. The restoration of the Abbey

of Solesmes in the nineteenth century reads like a

romance; but we have not time to tell it here. Un-

doubtedly Providence was working out Its special

plans. Dom Prosper Gueranger (1805-1875), the

founder and first Abbot after its revival in 1833

(made an Abbey in 1837), had reintroduced the

Roman Liturgy into France. By his labors in this

field, he probably contributed more than any other

to the solid religious revival of the nineteenth

century. In his attempts to solemnize the Divine

Office, according to the Benedictine ideal, he and

his monks soon realized the entirely unsatisfactory

conditions of the mutilated chants as had in the chor-

al books in his day. This could not be the Chant that

was the glory of the Middle Ages. A restoration was

imperative; that was evident. He recalled the famous

injunction of Charlemagne, when that monarch, in

787, noticed, while at Rome for the Easter solemni-

ties, the differences that had developed between his

singers in France and those of the Papal chapel.

"Revertimini vos ad fontem Sancti Gregorii,” he ex-

claimed to his singers
—

"Return to the source of St.

^^Ihid., p. 58.

58



FIFTH PERIOD (1830 TILL NOW)

Gregory." Accordingly, about I860, Dom Gueranger

deputed two of his monks, Dom Paul Jausions* and

Dom Joseph Pothier, to make a thorough examin-

ation of the codices and to compile a Gradual for the

monastery. After twelve years of close work the

Gradual was in the main completed, but another

eleven years elapsed before Dom Pothier, who on

the death of Dom Jausions had become sole editor,

published his Lll^er Gradualis in 1883. It was the

first attempt to return absolutely to the version of the

manuscripts, and, though capable of improvement

in details, substantially solved the question. Dom

Andre Mocquereau, Dom Pothier’s scholarly and

renowned successor, formed a regular school of criti-

cal research. A most valuable outcome of their stud-

ies is the Paleographie Musicale, giving photographic

reproductions of the principal manuscripts of plain

* According to information given the writer, Dom
Paul Jausions, O.S.B., was later sent to the United

States to gather material for the life of his saintly

uncle. Bishop Simon Brute de Remur, first bishop of

Vincennes. However, he contracted typhoid fever;

and his premature death at the age of 36, occurred in

the Cathedral Rectory at Vincennes, September 7, 1870.

His remains lie buried at Vincennes, Indiana. Enter-

ing the Order of St. Benedict, September 29, 1856, he

was the first member of the Benedictine Congregation

of France to follow serious studies of the Chant. (Cf.

also Heckenlively, Fundamentals of Gregorian Chant

(Desclee), p. 282.)

59



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

chant, together with scientific dissertations on the

subject, and Le Nombre Musical Gregorien, acclaimed
as the greatest of all the works on Gregorian Chant.

Dom Joseph Gajard, associated with Dom Moc-

quereau since the year 1911, has ably carried on this

work of restoration at Solesmes Abbey.

Pius X heartily welcomed the labors of the Soles-

mes monks; and the Vatican edition, which was large-

ly the fruit of their labors though printed at the

Vatican itself, was made the official edition of the

Chant of the Catholic Church, and its use binding up-

on all the faithful. The Gradual appeared in 1908,

the Antiphonary, in 1912, representing the fruits of

almost incredible painstaking journeyings and re-

search work on the part of the monks. (At times

there were some two thousand variant readings of

the old manuscripts.)

’’Pius X has restored the Gregorian Chant,” were

the words of the Sacred Congregation of Rites in

1904. And as part of his program of ’’restoring all

things in Christ,” we cannot doubt that the extend-

ed use and perfected rendering of plain chant, so ar-

dently desired by the Pontiff, will in its turn not

only raise the level of religious music and enhance

the dignity of Divine worship, but also intensify

the spiritual life of the Christian community.

Twenty-five years after the celebrated Motu Proprio

of 1903, Pope Pius XI integrally confirmed the pre-

60



FIFTH PERIOD (1830 TILL NOW)

scriptions of Pius X by issuing, December 20, 1928,
his solemn Apostolic Constitution, Divini Cultus

Sanctitatem, on promoting with daily increasing fer-

vor the Liturgy, Gregorian Chant, and Sacred Music.

Finally, because of the timeliness of the most

recent pronouncement of the Church in this matter

of Church Music, it is perhaps only proper that we

quote here more at length the words of Pope Pius XII.

In his great and comprehensive document. Mediator

Dei, issued November 20, 1947, Pius XII sums up

also the prescriptions of his illustrious predecessors.

”As regards music, let the clear and guiding norms

of the Apostolic See be scrupulously observed. Gre-

gorian Chant, which the Roman Church considers

her own as handed down from antiquity and kept

under her close tutelage, is proposed to the faithful

as belonging to them also. In certain parts of the

Liturgy the Church definitely prescribes it; it makes

the celebration of the Sacred Mysteries not only more

dignified and solemn but helps very much to increase

the faith and devotion of the congregation. For this

reason, Our Predecessors of immortal memory, Pius

X and Pius XI, decreed—and We are happy to
confirm with Our authority the norms laid down by

them—that in Seminaries and Religious Institutes,
Gregorian Chant be diligently and 2ealously promot-

ed, and moreover that the old Scholae Cantorum be

restored, at least in the principal churches; this has

61



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

already been done with happy results in not a few

places.

"Besides, 'so that the faithful take a more active

part in divine worship, let Gregorian Chant be re-

stored to popular use in the parts proper to the peo-

ple. Indeed it is very necessary that the faithful at-

tend the sacred ceremonies not as if they were out-

siders or mute onlookers, but let them fully appre-

ciate the beauty of the Liturgy and take part in the

sacred ceremonies, alternating their voices with the

priest and the choir, according to the prescribed

norms. If, please God, this is done, it will not happen

that the congregation hardly ever or only in a low

murmur answer the prayers in Latin or in the ver-

nacular.’ A congregation that is devoutly present at

the Sacrifice, in which Our Savior together with His

children redeemed with His Sacred Blood sings the

nuptial hymn of His immense love, cannot keep silent,

for 'song befits the lover’ and, as the ancient saying

has it, 'he who sings well prays twice.’ Thus the

Church militant, faithful as well as clergy, joins in

the hymns of the Church triumphant and with the

choirs of Angels, and, all together, sing a wondrous

and eternal hymn of praise to the most Holy Trinity

in keeping with words of the Preface: 'with whom

our voices too. Thou wouldst bid to be admitted.’

"It cannot be said that modern music and singing

should be entirely excluded from Catholic worship.

62



FIFTH PERIOD (1830 TILL NOW)

For, if they are not profane nor unbecoming to the

sacredness of the place and function, and do not

spring from a desire of achieving extraordinary and

unusual effects, then our churches must {oportet in the

Latin original] admit them since they can contribute

in no small way to the splendor of the sacred cere-

monies, can lift the mind to higher things and foster

true devotion of soul.

”We also exhort you. Venerable Brethren, to pro-

mote with care congregational singing, and to see to

its accurate execution with all due dignity, since it

easily stirs up and arouses the faith and piety of large

gatherings of the faithful. Let the full harmonious

singing of our people rise to heaven like the bursting

of a thunderous sea and let them testify by the melody

of their song to the unity of their hearts and minds,

as becomes brothers and the children of the same

Father.”

The tribute of Edward Dickinson will form a fit-

ting close to this period.

In the last few decades, probably as a detail of the

reawakening in all departments of a study of the great

works of older art, there has appeared a reaction of a

renewed culture of the Gregorian Chant. The tendency

toward sensationalism in church music has now begun

to subside. The true ideal is seen to be in the past.

Together with the new appreciation of Palestrina, Bach,

and the older Anglican Church composers, the Catholic

Chant is coming to its rights, and an enlightened modern

taste is beginning to realize the melodious beauty, the

63



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

liturgic appropriateness, and the edifying power that

lie in the ancient unison song In the restoration

of the plain song to portions of the ritual from which

it has long been banished, 'we see evidences of a move-

ment which promises to be fruitful, not only in this spe-

cial sphere, but also, as a direct consequence, in other

domains of church music which have been too long

neglected.

The historic status of the Gregorian Chant as the

basis of the magnificent structure of Catholic Church

music down to 1800, of the Anglican Chant, and to a

large extent of the German people’s hymn-tune or

choral, has always been known to scholars. The re-

vived study of it has come from an awakened percep-

tion of its liturgical significance and its inherent beauty.

The influence drawn from its peculiarly solemn and

elevated quality has begun to penetrate the chorus work

of the best Catholic composers of the recent time.

Protestant church musicians are also beginning to find

advantage in the study of the melody, the rhythm, the

expression, and even the tonality, of the Gregorian song.

And every lover of church music will find a new pleas-

ure and uplift in listening to its noble strains. He must,

however, listen sympathetically, expelling from his

mind all comparison with the modern styles to which

he is accustomed, holding in clear view its historic re-

lations and liturgic function. To one who so attunes

his mind to its peculiar spirit and purport the Gregorian

plain song will seem worthy of the exalted place it holds

in the veneration of the most august ecclesiastical insti-

tution in history.®®

®® Dickinson, Music in the History of the Western

Church, pp. 127-128.

64



eleven

CONCLUSION

We have followed the fortunes of Gregorian Chant,
as also those of the Catholic Church, down through

the long and varied vista of the centuries unto our

present day. As is evident, much has been treated

superficially; the nature of a dissertation such as this

necessarily precludes any detailed consideration of

events and ideas reaching over almost two thousand

years. Yet we have seen, in the main, that the his-

tory of the Chant is largely the history of the Catho-

lic Church. In fact, this need not surprise us. Is not

the Chant part of the very life of the Church, an

external manifestation of that throbbing, vital princi-

ple of sanctity and beauty within?

We are still in the somewhat early years of the

plain chant revival. What will the future bring? We

do not know. Nevertheless, we cannot forget that

the Gregorian melodies "have maintained for cen-

turies the inevitable comparison with every other

65



GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

form of melody, religious and secular, and there

is reason to believe that they will continue to sustain

all possible rivalry, until they at last outlive every

other form of music now existing.”®®

To Ernest Oldmeadow we are indebted for a beau-

tiful observation on the Chant.

The oldest music of the world is the Chant of the

Church—the Chant which she uplifts week after week,
year after year, century after century, in every clime

and nation, amid white men, black men, red men, bronze

men, yellow men; under arctic darkness and under the

equatorial blaze, in metropolis and in hamlet, in narrow

shrine and vast basilica. It is in the self-same strain that

the eager young priest in French Canada, the bearded

missionary in Tibet, and the silver-haired Pontiff in

Rome must all alike chant "Sursum Corda” and "Vere

Dignum” and "Pater Noster.”

Yet, while the Chant is the oldest of surviving music,

it is also the youngest. It is old not in the sense that

Gothic armor and Roman coins and Egyptian urns are

old. It is old, like the sea and the mountains and the

stars and the sun and the moon. It is old without being

old-fashioned. It is old in nothing but years, for its

heart is a fountain of beautiful and eternal youth.®^

Paul Bekker gives a conclusion from a study of the

history of all music, a conclusion written without any

thought of Gregorian Chant, which is of more than

passing interest to the plain chant student.

®® Dickinson, Music in the History of the Western

Church, p. 100.

®’’ Our Sunday Visitor, August 21, 1949, p. 2.

66



CONCLUSION

The nineteenth century was a period of national

music and therefore, in accord with our picture of the

wave-like progress of events, the new music will strive

toward universality. The nineteenth century was a per-

iod of secular music and therefore, according to the

same law, the new music will be the cult type—^music
with a universal spiritual appeal. The nineteenth cen-

tury cultivated music in which the emotional significance

of tone was paramount; the new music will instead

reveal once more the essential quality of the tone itself.

The music of the nineteenth century represented the last

stage in the harmonic expansion of tone that was instru-

mentally conceived; the new music will represent the

unified intensity of tone that is vocally conceived.^^

(Italics added.)

Not every one, perhaps, will agree with Mr. Bek-

ker; but it may be remarked in regard to the present

revival of plain song that the Gregorian Chant is

characterized by its "universality”—it is of course
"the cult type,” with a "universal spiritual appeal”

—the "emotional significance of tone” is not para-
mount—it is "vocally conceived.”

In regard to the popularizing of the Chant, is i^

perhaps true what the late Dr. Wilhelm Middel-

schulte, internationally renowned organist and contra-

puntalist, once said to the writer: "What the Catholic

Church needs is a modern Bach to popularize these

Gregorian melodies; he might do for the Gregorian

Chant what Bach did for the German Choral”?

Above all, liturgical singing must be restored to

6® Bekker, op. cit., p, 266.

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GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

the people, as Popes Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII

so earnestly urge. They must not continue to have

to remain mere onlookers. And we hope for this as

a result of a more intimate participation of the faith-

ful in the ecclesiastical offices due to the present Lit-

urgical Movement.—It is no little inspiring thought
for the faithful to recall in singing that these iden-

tical melodies as sung today have been loved and

sung with ecstatic joy down through the ages by the

noblest souls that have ever graced this world of

ours. Nay, as in our psalmody, it is even possible we

are singing the same melodies that were used by the

blessed Apostles and our Divine Savior Himself.

A saint of our own day well understood the evils

of our time. With the heart of an intensely devoted

spiritual father. Blessed Pius X would urge as "the

first and indispensable source” of acquiring the true

Christian spirit "the active participation in the most

sacred mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer

of the Church;” and accordingly we hear his plea:

"Special efforts are to be made to restore the use of

Gregorian Chant by the people, so that the faithful

may again take a more active part in the ecclesiastical

offices, as was the case in ancient times” (JMotu Pro-

prio). In this participation of the faithful in the

singing is there not something more besides only

the matter of obedience in complying with the ardent

wish of Holy Mother Church? Even musically there

68



CONCLUSION

is a beauty in the large ensemble of a chorus or a

symphony orchestra, though some of the members

are less well trained, which is not to be found in a

smaller group of even expert soloists. But there is

yet more than this. Congregational singing has a

moving effect which is explained, I think, only by

the fact that it is a symphony of souls—not merely
voices. If, as one writer has said: "The voice is man

himself, man in all his nakedness, projected from

the visible into the invisible, ringing air, and the

ear, by which we apprehend man as singing voice,

gives us a much more sensitive impression of his

being than the eye which sees but the actual body,"®®

and if, moreover, every soul before God is a distinct

creation, possessing a particular beauty no other soul

has ever known, then, I say, we have here a magnifi-

cent, thrilling, overpowering symphony of souls,

rising up before the very Throne of God.

Finally, if, as we have seen from our comparative

study, the appreciation of the Gregorian Chant went

largely hand in hand with the state of religious fer-

vor in the Church, and if we are now in the midst of

a religious awakening, should we not expect a re-

newed interest in and love for the sacred Chant,

which will in turn foster the revived religious fer-

vor?—^The world today is being torn asunder by
the fruits of exalted individualism and exaggerated

®»Bekker, The Story of Music, p. 74.

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GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

nationalism. The remedy for these evils must be the

restoration of the common bond uniting the world

intp one brotherhood under God, the common Father.

The I must again be blended into the we. We must

pray together, sacrifice together, sing together—as
one united, common family under the one common

Heavenly Father. And the sublime medium for this

we find in the unison song of the Gregorian Chant,

the official Chant of Christ’s Mystical Body, the

Church.

A scarcely more appropriate conclusion could be

found than that of Dom Gatard, O.S.B., in his

Vlainchant.

All seems to point to a new future opening up for

Gregorian music. Of course we shall not expect it to

reign supreme and alone as in the Middle Ages; modern

music has attained to a place in the Church which it

does not intend to give up. Can plain chant at least

hope for a seat of honor by the side of its rival.^ We
have no hesitation in answering "Yes,” for plain chant

contains within itself all the elements of the Beautiful.

The greatest musicians have not been able to resist the

attractiveness of these compositions It would be a

fascinating task to analyze the works of the great mas-

ters with the object of finding out what they owe (often

unconsciously) to plain chant. And if they have been

influenced by the liturgical melodies at a time when

they were reduced to inanimate skeletons and sung

without rhythm, what will it not be now that they have

recovered the plentitude of their existence and the

rhythm has restored them to life? Independently of its

own internal merits, then, we believe that plain chant

70



CONCLUSION

has a call to infuse a new life into religious music—^we
are not referring to what may be performed at sacred

concerts, but to what accompanies liturgical services.

In fact, it has in the highest possible degree all the

factors which make for suitability in church music: it

is in structure one with the liturgical text, so much so

that it loses its meaning when divorced from it; it is

impersonal, and for that reason supremely appropriate

for expressing the feelings of a gathering; finally, it

prays, and disposes the mind to prayer, and that is not

the least of its qualities. Modern music has greater pow-

er over the emotions: it can excite them to anger, or to

sacrifice; it can lull them to sleep in a sort of sensual

apathy. Such conditions might perhaps be favorable for

the celebration of pagan mysteries; but the intimate

relationship with God, of which prayer consists, requires

a balance of the faculties, to establish which Gregorian

Chant is eminently suited both by the austere beauty

of its melodies and by the restraint of its movement.

No one has more vividly depicted this atmosphere of

Gregorian Chant that Brizeus, a Breton poet of the nine-

teenth century, whose fragrant verses describe the scenes

which cradled his infancy in the heaths of Amorica. We
cannot close in a better way than by quoting him:

Up rose the song and up; while I prostrate.

Bent o’er my book, with bliss inebriate.

Trembling, the tears a-coursing from my eyes;

When, as if God Himself had reft the skies.

Installing me among the saints to sing,

I felt my very nerve with praises ring.

And, sinking in the tide of love and light.

Abased myself before the Infinite.'^®

Gatard, Plainchant, pp. 64-65.

71



APPENDIX

Docta sanctorum Patrum dccrevit auctoritas, ut in

divinae laudis officiis, quae debitae servitutis obsequio

exhibentur, cunctorum mens vigilet, sermo non cespitet,

et modesta psallentium gravitas placida modulatione

decanter. Nam in ore eorum dulcis resonabat sonus.
Dulcis quippe omnino sonus in ore psallentium resonat,

cum Deum corde suscipiunt, dum loquuntur verbis, in

ipsum quoque cantibus devotionem accendunt; inde ete-

nim in ecclesia Dei psalmodia cantanda praedpitur, ut

fidelium devotio exdtetur; in hoc nocturnum diurnum-

que officium, et Missarum celebritates assidue Clero ac

populo sub maturo tenore, distinctaque gradatione can-

tantur, ut eadem distinctione collibeant, et maturitate

delectent. Sed nonnuUi novellae scholae discipuli, dum

temporibus mensurandis invigilant, novis nods inten-

dunt fingere suas, quam antiquas cantare malunt, in

semibreves, et minimas Ecclesiastica cantantur, notulis

percutiuntur; nam melodias hoquetis intersecant, dis-

cantibus lubricant, triplis et moteds vulgaribus non-

nunquam inculcant, adeo ut interdum antiphonarii et

gradualis fundamenta despidant, ignorent super quo

aedificant, tonos nesdant, quos non discernunt, imo

confundunt; cum ex earum multitudine notarum as-

censiones pudicae, descensionesque temperatae, plani

cantus, quibus toni ipsi secernuntur ad invicem obfus-

centur: currunt enim, et non quiescunt: aures inebriant,

et non medentur: gestibus simulant, quod depromunt.

72



APPENDIX

quibus devotio quaerenda contemnitur, vitanda lascivia

propalatur. Non enim inquit frustra ipse Boetius, las-

civus animus vel lascivioribus delectatur modis, vel

eosdem saepe audiens emollitur et frangitur. Hoc ideo

dudum nos et fratres nostri correctione indigere perce-

pimus: hoc relegate, imo prorsus abjicere, et ab eadem

Ecclesia Dei profligare efficacious properamus. Quocirca

de ipsorum fratrum consilio districte praecipimus ut

nullus deinceps talia, vel his similia in dictis officiis,

praesertim horis canonicis, vel cum Missarum solennia

celebrantur, attentare praesumat. Si quis vero contra

fecerit, per ordinarios locorum, ubi ista commissa fuerit,

vel deputandos ab eis in non exemptis, in exemptis vero

per Praepositos seu Praelatos suos, ad quos alias cor-

rectio et punitio culparum et excessuum hujusmodi, vel

similium pertinere dignoscitur, vel deputandos ab eis-

dem, per suspensionem ab officio per octo dies auctori-

tate hujus canonis puniatur. Per hoc autem non in-

tendimus prohibere, quin interdum diebus festis prae-

cipue, sive solemnibus in missis, et praefatis divinis offi-

ciis aliquae consonantiae, quae melodiam sapiunt, puta

octavae, quintae, quartae, et hujusmodi supra cantum

Ecclesiasticum simplicem proferantur; sic tamen, ut ip-

sius cantus integritas illibata permaneat, et nihil ex hoc

de bene morata musica immutetur: maxime cum hujus-

modi consonantiae auditum demulceant, devotionem pro-

vocent, et psallentium Deo animos torpere non sinant.

Actum et datum **«

46 Extravagantturn Communium, Liber III, Tit. I,

Cap. I.

The following is the translation:
* The learned authority of the holy Fathers has de-

creed that in the offices of divine praise, which are

performed in the spirit of due homage, the minds of

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GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

all should be attentive, the words should not falter, and

with serene gravity the chanters should sing on in

peaceful modulation; for "from their lips resounded

sweet melody.” Now, melody truly sweet resounds

from the lips of the chanters when, while speaking to

God with their words, they also speak to Him with their

hearts, and thus by their singing arouse the devotion of

others towards Him, It is for this purpose—namely, to
arouse the devotion of the faithful—^that the singing of
psalms is prescribed in the Church of God; and for

this same reason, the night and day offices, as well as the

celebration of the Mass, are regularly sung by the clergy

and by the people to melodies which are grave yet

varied, so that whilst they are pleased with this variety,

they also are delighted with their gravity.

But certain followers of a new school, giving great

attention to the laws of measured time, are intent upon

composing their own melodies according to a new sys-

tem of notes, and these they prefer to the ancient music.

The ecclesiastical melodies are sung in semibreves and

minimae, and are struck with gracenotes; moreover, they

break up the melodies by hoqueti [the "hochets” were

probably a form of sighing or sobbing}, they rob them

of their virility by discantus [two parts], sometimes

they mix in tripla [three parts] and moteti [middle

voice] in the vernacular. This is done to such an ex-

tent that at times they completely ignore the basic

principles of the Antiphonary and the Gradual, they

have no knowledge of what they are building upon,

they are ignorant of the Modes, which they do not dis-

tinguish between, nay, they even confuse them entirely.

From the very number of these notes, the modest rise

and tempered fall of the plain chant, which indicate the

Mode, are all confused. Indeed, these men run without

pausing, they intoxicate the ear without satisfying it,

74



APPENDIX

what they sing they imitate by gestures; and thus the

desired devotion is completely ignored, and a for-

bidden frivolousness is introduced. Thus, not without

good reason, Boetius has said: "Either it is a frivolous

mind that takes delight in frivolous melodies, or a

person by frequently hearing such music becomes ef-

feminate and succumbs.”

Consequently, We and our Brethren have realized for
a long time that this condition of things requires cor-

rection; and now we make haste to prohibit, nay, com-

pletely to cast out and banish such things from the

Church of God.

Wherefore, with the advice of these same Brethren,

we strictly command that hereafter no one shall presume

to attempt such things, or others of a like nature, dur-

ing the above-mentioned offices, especially during the

Canonical Hours or whilst the solemnities of Mass are

being celebrated. If, however, any one acts contrary to

this, he shall, by the authority of this canon, be pun-

ished by suspension from his office for eight days: this

punishment to be applied by the Ordinaries of the places

where these things have been committed, or by their del-

egates, in the case of those persons who are not ex-

empt; for those who are exempt the punishment shall

be applied by their Superiors or Prelates whose duty it

is to correct and punish faults and excesses of this and

similar kinds, or by their delegates.

By this, however, we do not intend to prohibit that

occasionally, especially on festive days, during solemn

Mass and the above-mentioned divine offices, certain

consonant intervals be added to the simple ecclesiastical

chant, provided these intervals are in accord with the

melodies themselves, as, for instance, the consonance of

the octave, the fifth, the fourth, and the like; but on

the condition that the chant itself remain intact in its

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GREGORIAN CHANT—A BAROMETER

integrity, and that no change in the chant be made

from music having the proper rhythm. We permit this
especially since such consonances please the ear, arouse

devotion, and prevent torpor in the minds of those who

are chanting to God.

Done and promulgated at Avignon in the Ninth Year

of Our Pontificate.

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V