Credo

(Lat.; Eng. ‘Creed’).

Affirmation of Christian belief, sung as part of the Latin Mass between the Gospel and the Offertory. Three Latin Creeds have come down to us (‘Apostles'’, ‘Nicene’, ‘Athanasian’), but the history of the texts is complex; the one used at Mass is that usually called ‘Nicene’.

The original liturgical use of the Credo was at baptism, at a time when the articles of faith were delivered to the catechumens as part of their reception into the Church. (The use of the first person, ‘I believe’, is ascribed to these circumstances, for the phrase seems inappropriate to a communal affirmation at Mass.) The baptismal use of the Credo, or Symbolum as it was called in this function, lasted throughout the Middle Ages, and was incidentally responsible for the persistence of a Greek text in Latin manuscripts representing practices in northern France and Germany.

The Credo, in the so-called ‘Nicene’ (or ‘Nicea-Constantinople’) version (so called because it sums up the doctrines agreed at the Councils of Nicea, 325, and Constantinople, 381), was introduced into the eucharistic liturgy in the east early in the 6th century and soon afterwards into the Visigothic rite by the Council of Toledo (589). In both cases its introduction occurred in the wake of doctrinal controversies, and with the intent of clarifying the belief to be shared by all participating in the Eucharist. Furthermore, in neither case was the Credo placed at its received position after the Gospel; in the Visigothic rite it preceded the Pater noster, and was to be said, not sung.

As part of the major revision of western liturgies and doctrine undertaken in the Carolingian reforms, the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle in 798 required the Credo to be sung at Mass, between the Gospel and the Offertory. For this purpose Alcuin (Charlemagne's liturgical adviser) pressed into use a new Latin translation that had just been made by Paulinus of Aquileia in 796; but Alcuin may well have had the idea for a sung Credo at Mass from an Irish practice of the 7th–8th centuries (which Alcuin would have known at York – see Capelle).

Smaragdus told how, when Charlemagne inquired of Pope Leo III, the latter sanctioned this use for the Franks, while taking exception to the addition of the ‘filioque’ which Charlemagne felt was necessary (the issue is still with us). The Credo was not actually incorporated into the Roman Mass, however, until the German Emperor Henry II required it of Pope Benedict VIII in 1014.

With characteristic enthusiasm and optimism for widespread liturgical reform, Charlemagne (or Alcuin) apparently envisaged the singing of the Credo in Latin specifically by the people. As has been pointed out, the singing of the long, complex Latin text, in a new version, by the northern peoples was an impossibility at first, and must have remained only an ideal in many places for centuries to come; but there is evidence of attempts at accommodation, including vernacular substitutes.

In any event, from 798 a new musical setting had to be provided, presumably that represented by the ‘authentic’ tone of Credo I in the Liber usualis. Huglo has shown that the melody of a Greek Credo, preserved in a 14th-century Cologne manuscript (D-KNu W.105), has certain important points of resemblance with Credo I and may have been its source. This is in itself believable, for a Carolingian adapter could have had access to a melody traditionally associated with the Greek text used at baptism; there are obscurities not yet explained, however, for manuscripts of the 10th and 11th centuries apparently preserve different melodies for the Greek Credo. Alternatively, the melody may have come straight from Aquileia along with Paulinus's text.

The tone for Credo I is documented first in the 11th century, and the connections between it and the antecedent of Huglo's melody current in 800 may well have been complex. Credos II, V and VI preserve variants – some more or less remote – of the formulae in Credo I and represent other medieval traditions of this common melody. Indeed, there are relatively few medieval settings that are completely new, a fact that reflects the persistence of the Carolingian ideal of a universal sung Credo.

Credo I recites on g, with an intonation rising from e; this first phrase is linked to a second by moving through d; the second phrase involves a rise to a–b; the terminal cadence, incorporated into the second phrase or placed in a separate third phrase as needed, is on f–a–g; but the last cadence (Amen) falls to e through a Carolingian Gloria in excelsis formula (Gloria I). The bipartite melodic formula is used throughout the text, but neither the formula itself nor the technique of adaptation bears much resemblance to ‘psalm tones’ as used for psalmody in the Franco-Roman Office; they are more closely related to the techniques of Gloria settings. And the nucleus (e) g (a) of the tone may be part of the old eucharistic G-tone postulated by Levy.

Paulinus of Aquileia's new text replaced the previous plural opening ‘Credimus’ with the singular ‘Credo’. Vatican VI opens with ‘Credimus’ in the 11th-century source from which it was taken for the modern edition, F-Pn lat.887. So also does another member of the same melodic family found in the 11th-century Pn lat.776 (ed. D. Hiley, Western Plainchant, Oxford, 1993, p.170).

Credo IV, also known as the ‘Credo cardinalis’, is often found in manuscripts and printed books of the 15th century onwards with mensural notation (see illustration in Tack, 50).

The Credo is very rarely notated in early chant books, and in the manuscript tradition it remained apart for many centuries from the other chants of the Mass Ordinary. Unlike these chants, it was not usually susceptible to being troped. In the early 13th-century Circumcision Offices of Sens (F-SEm 46; ed. H. Villetard, Office de Pierre de Corbeil (Office de la Circoncision) improprement appelé ‘Office des fous’, Paris, 1907) and Beauvais (GB-Lbl Egerton 2615; ed. W. Arlt, Ein Festoffizium des Mittelalters aus Beauvais in seiner liturgischen und musikalischen Bedeutung, Cologne, 1970), the Credo is farsed, that is, supplemented by phrases drawn from other liturgical chants, performed antiphonally with the phrases of the Credo. Credo VII of the Vatican edition is, in fact, the Sens Circumcision Credo stripped of its farse verses.

During the 14th century, however, the Credo seems to have acquired equal status with the other movements as far as polyphonic settings are concerned. There are polyphonic Credos in the so-called masses of Tournai, Toulouse and Barcelona, in Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame, and in such collections as the Apt, Ivrea and Old Hall manuscripts (F-APT 16bis, I-IV, GB-Lbl Add.57950).

For reasons not yet clear, the number of monophonic plainchant settings increased dramatically from the 15th century onwards. Miazga's catalogue (1976) lists 701, with over 400 new melodies in the 18th century alone. The fashion seems to have been particularly strong in Italy, Germany and Poland, principally among the religious orders. As many as 30 composers' names are known. The best known melodies are perhaps those in Henry Du Mont's Cinq messes en plain-chant (Paris, 1669; see Tack, 64–5). Many melodies bear names denoting their reputed place of origin or the pre-existing melody on which they are based. Many are mensural.

The two other Credo texts have less liturgical importance. The Athanasian Creed, Quicumque vult salvus esse, is said, not sung, at Prime. The Apostle's Creed, Credo in Deum, patrem omnipotentem, creatorem caeli et terrae, is a text for baptism dating back to the 3rd century; legend attributes its composition to the apostles themselves, each of whom contributed a phrase. The Apostle's Creed was said before Matins and Prime and again after Compline. Medieval musical settings are unknown except for a farsed setting in the Sens Circumcision Office. A memorable 13-voice canonic setting was made at the beginning of the 16th century by Robert Wilkinson of Eton College, where the text of the 12 apostles is combined with the start of the Compline antiphon Jesus autem transiens (ed. F. Ll. Harrison, MB, xii, 1961).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MGG2 (K. Schlager)

A. Marxer: Zur spatmittelalterlichen Choralgeschichte St. Gallens: der Codex 546 der St. Galler Stiftsbibliothek (St Gallen, 1908) [with edn of many late medieval Credo melodies]

A. Mocquereau: ‘Le chant “authentique” du Credo selon l'édition vaticane’, Antiphonale missarum Sancti Gregorii, IXe–Xe siècle: codex 239 de la Bibliothèque de Laon, PalMus, 1st ser., x (1909/R), 90–176 [pubd separately as Monographie grégorienne, iii (Tournai, 1922)]

M. Sigl: Zur Geschichte des Ordinarium Missae in der deutschen Choralüberlieferung (Regensburg, 1911) [with edn of many late medieval Credo melodies]

B. Capelle: ‘Alcuin et le Symbole de la Messe’, Recherches de théologie ancienne et mediévale, vi (1934), 249–60

J.A. Jungmann: Missarum sollemnia (Vienna, 1948, 5/1962; Eng. trans., 1951–5/R, abridged 2/1961)

M. Huglo: ‘Origine de la mélodie du Credo “authentique” de la Vaticane’, Revue grégorienne, xxx (1951), 68–78

K. Levy: ‘The Byzantine Sanctus and its Modal Tradition in East and West’, AnnM, vi (1958–63), 7–67

F. Tack: Der gregorianische Choral, Mw, xviii (1960; Eng. trans., 1960)

T. Miazga: Die Melodien des einstimmigen Credo der römisch-katholischen lateinischen Kirche: eine Untersuchung der Melodien in den handschriftlichen Überlieferungen mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der polnischen Handschriften (Graz, 1976)

C.M. Atkinson: ‘Zur Entstehung und Überlieferung der “Missa graeca”’, AMw, xxxix (1982), 113–45

K. Schlager: ‘Eine Melodie zum griechischen Credo’, AcM, lvi (1984), 221–34

RICHARD L. CROCKER/DAVID HILEY