(Gk., from heirmos: ‘stanza’).
A liturgical book containing the heirmoi for the ōdai (odes) of the kanōnes (see Kanōn), used at the Byzantine Office of Orthros. The heirmoi texts are invariably paraphrases of the biblical canticles, which the kanōn had supplanted in Orthros as celebrated in Byzantium by the end of the 7th century.
A heirmologion contains only the first stanza (i.e. the heirmos) of each ode and is thus a handbook to remind the singers of the melodies of the heirmoi: these melodies, in full performances of the kanōn, would be repeated during the singing of the additional stanzas (troparia) of each ode. The mēnaia contain the troparia for the immovable feasts of the church year, and the triōdion and pentēkostarion those for the movable feasts. Since, therefore, heirmologia were auxiliary manuscripts containing only model stanzas, they were well suited to serve a didactic purpose; the chanters would use them to learn the basic melodies necessary for performing the kanōnes, which required the knowledge of a different melody for each of the nine odes. The mēnaia occasionally gave the texts of the heirmoi in full but more often cited only their incipits; the full texts of the heirmoi together with their melodies were always found in the heirmologia. After the golden age of kanōn poetry (8th–10th centuries), poets and musicians frequently composed new kanōnes, most often adapting new texts to pre-existing melodies.
Heirmologia with neumatic notation survive from about the mid-10th century, the earliest known being GR-AOml B.32. A number of heirmologia without musical notation have yet to be examined. Unnotated heirmologia from later centuries may have functioned simply as auxiliary manuscripts, that is, to remind singers of the full texts of the most frequently used heirmoi whose melodies would have been universally known to professional chanters. A singer would probably be required to master the melodies assembled in a heirmologion and then be able to sing any text, when reminded of its original incipit, by adapting it to the melody associated with that text.
Approximately 40 heirmologia survive from the period between the 10th and 15th centuries. However, a proper comparative study of the melodies of the heirmoi contained in them would require an examination of the notated triōdia and other types of Byzantine manuscript in which heirmoi occasionally appear, especially the 14th- and 15th-century Akolouthiai. No such work has yet been undertaken, and many later heirmologia also await investigation.
There are fewer heirmologia than other types of Byzantine medieval music manuscript. It may be that because heirmologia were required for mastering the basic chant melodies, they were used more frequently than other manuscripts (e.g. stichēraria) and therefore wore out more quickly. They might also have been more susceptible to variation in content as well as in melodic style: those melodies sung once a week or more frequently would have evolved more easily than melodies sung only once a year; the latter, which are mostly found in stichēraria, have fewer melodic variants, since they were copied with great care and in greater number. There is another probable reason for the comparatively short life of heirmologia: once the basic melodies were learnt, a manuscript could, at least theoretically, be discarded, or, if it were being copied, the order of heirmoi could be rearranged according to their content. This view is supported by variations of arrangements of heirmoi in existing manuscripts, and it seems likely that in the course of time only the most popular heirmoi (i.e. those needed most frequently) were copied, the less popular being omitted.
Since heirmologia dating from after 1500 have yet to be studied in depth, the following discussion is restricted to the medieval material. Medieval heirmologia may be divided into two groups according to their means of organization, both having in common a division according to the eight modes; subdivision within each mode accounts for the differences between the two groups.
In the first group – designated KaO in the modern literature – the heirmoi are given in the order of the kanōnes: the heirmoi are copied for each ode of a kanōn, one after the other, that is, the heirmos for Ōdē 1 of Kanōn 1 is followed by the heirmos for Ōdē 2 of Kanōn 1; after the first kanōn, the heirmoi for each ode of Kanōn 2 will follow, etc. After all the heirmoi for kanōnes of the 1st mode, there follow the heirmoi of kanōnes sung to the melodies of the 2nd mode, etc., ending with the heirmoi for kanōnes sung in the 4th plagal mode.
The second type of heirmologion – designated OdO – again divided into eight segments, one for each mode, has a different arrangement of heirmoi within each mode: all the heirmoi for Ōdē 1, regardless of the kanōnes to which they belong, are grouped together; these in turn are followed by the heirmoi for Ōdē 2, etc. This means that all eight segments are further subdivided into nine sections, each of which contains the heirmoi for one particular ode of the kanōn. When using this type of manuscript for a specific feast on which a particular kanōn was prescribed, the chanter would presumably locate the heirmos for Ōdē 1, sing it, then turn over a number of pages until he located the heirmos for Ōdē 2 etc., and would thus perform the whole kanōn, provided that the necessary heirmoi for that kanōn were included in the manuscript. In the case of feasts for which no particular kanōn was prescribed, or if the required kanōn had become obsolete, the chanter might have improvised a kanōn by choosing one of the heirmoi of Ōdē 1 and then making a selection from the available heirmoi for Ōdai 2, 3 etc., singing only those heirmoi that he considered appropriate. This procedure could (and did) lead to composite kanōnes: in at least one manuscript (the ‘Washington Heirmologion’ in US-Wc) the heirmoi were assembled haphazardly, with no regard for their sequence in the original kanōn.
Yet another, unusual type of organization of the heirmoi occurs in GR-AOml 95. The kanōnes in this manuscript are copied in the order of feasts without regard to the modes.
It has been suggested that the OdO type of heirmologion came into existence when the selection of the most popular heirmoi led to the elimination of the less common heirmoi. However attractive this theory may be, heirmologia of both types appear together as early as the 12th century. The KaO type is exclusively Greek, whereas the OdO type, though unquestionably of Byzantine origin, is found only in a small number of Greek specimens but in all surviving Slavonic heirmologia, the earliest of which dates from the 12th century. It is possible that regional preferences account for this difference in internal organization, but too little is presently known about the origin of surviving copies to permit such a deduction.
With regard to the number of heirmoi, three stages may be distinguished in the evolution of the KaO heirmologia. To the first stage belong the five oldest manuscripts, dating from the 10th century to the 12th, with Chartres- and Coislin-type neumes from the earliest stages of Byzantine neumatic notation (see Byzantine chant, §3(i)). While there are distinct differences in the number of kanōnes within any given mode, the average number of kanōnes per mode is close to 40, and thus there are about 300–350 kanōnes in such a manuscript, and about 2500–3200 heirmoi. There is no uniformity in the order of kanōnes in these manuscripts.
From the second half of the 12th century to the end of the 13th, the number of kanōnes was reduced to approximately 20–25 per mode, amounting to about 160–200 kanōnes, and about 1200–1800 heirmoi. The six known manuscripts representing this stage show an unusual degree of uniformity in the ordering of kanōnes, although there are minor differences, particularly in the choice of some heirmoi.
The final stage of evolution of the KaO heirmologion in the Middle Ages, from the 14th century until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and perhaps later, shows a further reduction in the number of kanōnes per mode. At this stage the number of kanōnes seldom exceeded 12–15 for any mode, or about 100–120 kanōnes in all, and only about 800–1000 heirmoi. The reduction in the number of heirmoi is in fact more drastic than the figures suggest, because a certain percentage of the heirmoi copied were missing in the second stage and may be located only in the earliest stage. Such heirmoi appear to have enjoyed a revival after a period of neglect.
The OdO heirmologia on the other hand first appeared in Byzantium as early as the 12th century, yet surviving fragments are far too small to give a reliable picture of the repertory. The number of manuscripts increased in the 13th century and there are a few from the 14th; none is known from the 15th. Generally, these manuscripts seem to have been compiled in the first instance with a relatively small number of heirmoi for each ode, and to have been expanded somewhat at about the beginning of the 14th century. The OdO manuscripts, like the KaO heirmologia of the third stage, contain individual heirmoi that had been omitted at the second stage of the KaO heirmologia but which reappeared after a period of neglect.
Our knowledge of the melodies contained in the heirmologion depends on the notation employed. Manuscripts copied in the so-called Middle Byzantine neumatic notation, that is, those dating from approximately the last quarter of the 12th century, may be transcribed relatively easily. Studies of Byzantine neumatic notation have progressed considerably since the publication in facsimile of three manuscript heirmologia in the series Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae: GR-AOi 470 and I-GR ε.γ.II belong to the second stage of the KaO type and use the round notation; IL-Jgp Sabas 83 belongs to the earliest stage of the KaO type with early Byzantine notation, although a number of its heirmoi were later retouched and their notation modernized, presenting some problems with regard to transcription.
The melodies contained in the heirmologion are generally syllabic, with occasional mildly melismatic passages. These melodies have frequently been cited as examples of formulaic structure in Byzantine chant. The heirmoi on the whole use a wide spectrum of melodic formulae for each of the modes. (For a discussion of melodic formulae see Ēchos; for illustration see Byzantine chant, fig.3)
C. Høeg, ed.: Hirmologium athoum, MMB, Principale, ii (1938) [GR-AOi 470]
L. Tardo, ed.: Hirmologium cryptense, MMB, Principale, iii (1950–51) [I-GR ε.γ.II]
J. Raasted, ed.: Hirmologiun sabbaiticum, MMB, Principale, viii (1968–70) [IL-Jgp Sabas 83]
H.J.W. Tillyard, ed.: Twenty Kanons from the Trinity Hirmologium, MMB, Transcripta, iv (1952)
A. Ayoutanti, M. Stöhr and C. Høeg, eds.: The Hymns of the Hirmologion, I, MMB, Transcripta, vi (1952) [preface with J. Raasted]
A. Ayoutanti and H.J.W. Tillyard, eds.: The Hymns of the Hirmologium, III/2, MMB, Transcripta, viii (1956)
M. Velimirović: Byzantine Elements in Early Slavic Chant, MMB, Subsidia, iv (1960)
R. Jakobson: ‘Methodius’ Canon to Demetrius of Thessalonica and the Old Church Slavonic Hirmoi’, SPFFBU, ser.F, ix (1965), 115–25 [Racek Fs, 60th birthday]
M. Antonowycz: ‘Ukrainische Hirmen in Lichte der byzantinischen Musiktheorie’, Musik des Ostens, v (1969), 7–22
R. von Busch: Untersuchungen zum byzantinischen Heirmologion der Echos Deuteros (Hamburg, 1971)
M. Velimirović: ‘The Byzantine Heirmos and Heirmologion’, Gattungen der Musik in Einzeldarstellungen: Gedenkschrift Leo Schrade, ed. W. Arlt and others (Berne, 1973), 192–244
E. Métrévéli and B. Outtier: ‘Contribution à l'histoire de l'hirmologion: anciens hirmologia géorgiens’, Le muséon, lxxxviii (1975), 331–59
C. Hannick: ‘Aux origines de la version slave de l'hirmologion’, Fundamental Problems of Early Slavic Music and Poetry, MMB, Subsidia, vi (1978), 5–120
E. Follieri: ‘The “Living Heirmologion” in the Hymnographic Production of John Mauropus, Metropolitan of Euchaita’, Studies in Eastern Chant, ed. M. Velimirović (London, 1979), 54–75
Ya. Yasinovsky: ‘Belorusskiye irmoloy: pamyatniki muzïkalnogo iskusstva XVI–XVIII stoletiy’ [Belarusian heirmologia: documents of the musical art of the 16th–18th centuries], Mastatstva belarusi, ii (1984), 51–5
C. Hannick: ‘Kyrillos und Methodios in der Musikgeschichte’, Musices aptatio (1984–5), 168–77
J. Raasted: ‘Byzantine Heirmoi and Gregorian Antiphons: some Observations on Structure and Style’, Musica antiqua VIII: Bydgoszcz 1988, 837–62
P. Jeffery: ‘The Earliest Christian Chant Repertory Recovered: the Georgian Witnesses to Jerusalem Chant’, JAMS, xlvii (1994), 1–38, esp. 23–33
MILOŠ VELIMIROVIĆ