A Historical and Statistical View on Old-Roman, Gallican, and Gregorian Chant

Abstract

present-day scholars of monophonic liturgical chant adhere to the hypothesis that what we now call Gregorian chant originated from a blend of eighth-century local Roman chant and Gallican influences (Ober, 2006).¹ There is much to say for this hypothesis, particularly if account is taken with the historical data mentioned below. From a purely musical perspective, however, this hypothesis does not provide much information, because, strictly speaking, nothing is known about the melodies of eighth-century Roman and Gallican chant. However, some scholars have argued that the so-called Old-Roman repertory, that has been preserved in notated manuscripts from the late-eleventh to the thirteenth century (Huglo, 1954), must be considered the musical descendent of the eighth-century local Roman chant (Hiley, 1995; Dyer, 1998). Thus, according to Hiley (1995: 562), it is ‘highly likely that the Roman chant of the eighth century already had an ornate idiom, in other words, that Old-Roman chant preserves the spirit, if not always the letter, of the eighth-century state’. So, from this perspective, we may even use the known ornamental features of Old-Roman chant as a kind of substitute of the unknown ornamentation in eighth-century Roman chant. Others, however, have postulated that the Gregorian melodies, which were notated from the late-ninth century onwards, more closely reflect the eighth-century Roman chant (see, e.g., Lipphardt, 1950; Maloy, 2010). With respect to the Gallican repertory, little can be said with certainty, though it is known that some archaic musical traits in Gregorian chant are still reflective of the musical language of Gallican chant (Nardini, 2018).