(b northern France, c850; d St Amand, 20 June 930). Benedictine monk, theorist, poet, composer, teacher and hagiographer. Though chiefly known as a theorist – ironically for works that have proven not to be his own – he was also a writer (of both verse and prose) and a composer, whose reputation has grown considerably with the progressive discovery of works that can positively be attributed to him. Coming immediately after Aurelian of Réôme (Musica disciplina, ?c840s), he was probably a contemporary of the anonymous authors of the Musica enchiriadis and other related treatises to which his name was assigned (Commemeratio brevis, Alia musica, De modis), composed in the same area at the end of the 9th century. He remains one of the foremost expositors of music theory in the Carolingian era.
Apart from a few sketchy indications found in his own works or in the contemporary Annales elnonenses, most of what is known of Hucbald's life derives from the Translatio S. Cyrici of Guntherus of St Amand (d 1108). According to this highly rhetorical document, Hucbald, who probably entered the abbey of Elnon (later St Amand) as a puer oblatus, was first taught by his uncle Milo, an accomplished poet. A dispute having arisen between pupil and master about the former's success as a composer, Hucbald supposedly left for Nevers, where he became the confidant of the bishop; it was from Nevers that he returned to Elnon with the relics of St Quiricus and St Julitta. There is no evidence that he studied at Auxerre, but he was certainly familiar with the works of his fellow contemporaries Heiric and Remigius of Auxerre and with the ideas of the great philosopher of Charles the Bald's court, Johannes Scottus Eriugena. When Milo died in 872 Hucbald succeeded him as schoolmaster at St Amand, a position he held until the Norman invasion of 883, when he left for the abbey of St Bertin (formerly Sithiu) in St Omer. Remaining there until 893, he was then asked by Archbishop Fulco of Reims, together with Remigius, to revive the cathedral and rural schools that had been destroyed by the Vikings. After Fulco was murdered in June 900 Hucbald most likely returned to St Amand, where much of his output was accomplished. Two charts dated 24 September 906 confirm his presence at the abbey, where he later died.
Only since Weakland's studies have Hucbald's liturgical compositions become known. They consist of (1) Pangat simul, a prose or sequence in honour of St Quiricus and St Julitta, whose words have been skilfully extracted from Hucbald's Passio SS. Cyrici et Iulittae: it belongs to a special group of about a dozen ‘da capo’ sequences, so called because they repeat the same melodic fragment for different verses in the middle of the piece; the melody itself is similar to the sequence tune ‘Frigdola’ found in northern France at the end of the 9th century, and has served as a model for a sequence for the feast of the Holy Innocents, Pura Deum laudat innocentia, in the Winchester and Cerne troparies. (2) Quem vere pia laus, a Gloria trope (probably for Eastertide) based on the melody of Gloria A possibly of Gallican origin, model of the actual Gloria I (LU, 16–18): preserved in at least 16 manuscripts and the earliest trope whose author has been identified, it consists of 10 dactylic hexameters, concluding with a long melisma on the prosula Regnum, tuum solidum permanebit in aeternum (also akin to Gloria A), frequently found in northern France from 850 onwards; it has served as vox principalis and vox organalis for one of the organa of the Winchester Troper (GB-Ccc 473, f.63v–4 and 141v–2) composed by Wulfstan, precentor of Winchester Old Minster, at the end of the 10th century. (3) In plateis ponebantur infirmi, a versified Office (historia) for the feast of St Peter on 22 February, probably composed during Hucbald's tenure at Reims: its main characteristic is the disposition of its 9 antiphons in sequential order of the modes (antiphons 1–8: modes 1–8; antiphon 9: mode 1), a practice also found in the Office of the Trinity composed by Stephen, bishop of Liège and friend of Hucbald. (4, 5) O quam venerandus es egregie confessor Christi and Exultet Domino mente serena, two hymns written for the canons of Mont d'Or near Reims: these were inserted into an Office for the monastery's patron saint, St Thierry, on 11 December, but it cannot be ascertained that the entire composite Office preserved in 3 manuscripts, one only being notated (F-DOU 295, f.58v–64; 12th century), was composed by Hucbald. Guntherus also attributed other compositions to Hucbald, namely antiphons for St Andrew and an Office for St Cilinia, mother of St Remigius of Reims, but these works are yet to be identified.
Whatever his merits as a composer, Hucbald's fame still rests on his reputation as a theorist. Since he was not the author of the much-praised Musica enchiriadis and other treatises traditionally attributed to him, his achievement in the field is limited to a single work (De) Musica, formerly De harmonica institutione, a title that derives from Gerbert's edition of 1784 (GerbertS, i, 104–21, after a late 15th-century manuscript, I-CEc Plut. XXVI.1). Transmitted in ten manuscripts dating from the 11th to the 15th centuries, the Musica is not a speculative treatise after the Boethian tradition but a practical handbook for the education of young monks in the proper performance of psalmody, a function that is clearly evident in the 67 chant pieces and 22 charts, tables and diagrams, some of them ingeniously devised and elegantly designed, used to illustrate each theoretical concept.
The pedagogical nature and intent of the treatise is also reflected in its structure. There are no self-contained divisions into chapters as in Boethius's De institutione musica, Aurelian's Musica disciplina or in Musica enchiriadis, but rather a series of short propositions and concepts closely linked and articulated progressively: first, the definition of the notes (voces), subdivided into voces aequales (unison) and voces inaequales (all notes that move up and down); then intervals, grouped into nine species (minor and major 2nds, 3rds and 6ths, 4th, 5th, octave); consonances (three simplices – octave, 5th and 4th, and three compositae – octave + 5th, octave + 4th, double octave); phtongus and sonus (i.e. musical or rational sounds as opposed to simple acoustical noise); tone and semitone as found in the liturgical repertory and on musical instruments such as the organ and the crwth; tetrachords and systems, musical notation; and finally the tones or modes that regulate psalmody.
The
subject matter of the Musica is not dissimilar to that of the treatises
of Aristoxenus, Cleonides and Aristides Quintilianus, which were themselves
unknown to Hucbald but whose contents were to a large extent reflected in Boethius,
the leading source for Hucbald's treatise. Sources of lesser influence include:
Martianus Capella – the etymology of the names of the strings of the Greek
lyre; Calcidius – the distinction between ‘phtongus’ and ‘sonus’; and Johannes
Eriugena – the classification of the six consonances. Hucbald, however,
retained from the ‘doctor mirabilis’ only those elements useful for the
accurate performance of a Romano-Frankish repertory still in the making, and he
laid the foundation of a musical ‘grammar’ based on the undisputed authority of
the Boethian model. Thus the mechanism of the Greek tetrachords and systems and
their difficult terminology are explained at length, for they lead to the
construction of the diatonic scales used in instrumental music, and, with some
modifications, to the scheme of the eight modes based on four finals (d–e–f–g),
closely tied to their fifth degree above by the principle of socialitas
(tenor or upper finals – the text is not very explicit on this point). Again,
the delicate question of the b
(present in modes 5 and 6, for instance) is
elucidated through the tetrachord of the synēmmenōn (conjunct
notes) and illustrated with many charts and chants. The ‘modulation’ from b to b
and conversely is accomplished
through the passage of the tetrachord of the diezeugmenōn (disjunct
notes) and vice versa, an important step before the introduction of the
hexachordal system by Guido of Arezzo in the 11th century.
Another innovation, typical of Hucbald's pedagogical approach, concerns the notation of melodies. Stressing the ‘uncertainty of the road’ presented by neumatic notation – ‘useful as a guide for the memory’ and for the expression of some agogic and ornamental details of chants – Hucbald exposes the principles of Greek alphabetical notation and proposes to add some of these letters, in their lower-case forms, to the neumes to render their pitches accurately. In a manner even more graphical, he suggests placing the syllables of chants between the lines of a six-line staff, where the intervals of tone and semitone between each line are indicated in the manner of a clef (see Notation, §III, 1(v)(a)). Ingenious as they were, these notational devices, also found in the Scolica enchiriadis, did not gain general acceptance, owing to the progress and rapid dissemination of the various types of neumatic notation, such as the ‘Palaeo-Frankish’ (developed in St Amand), the Breton and the Messine.
C.V. Palisca, ed. and trans: Hucbald, Guido, and John on Music: Three Medieval Treatises (New Haven, CT,1978), 13–44
A. Traub, ed. and trans.: ‘Hucbald von Saint-Amand: De harmonica institutione’, Beiträge zur Gregorianik, vii (1989)
Y. Chartier, ed.: L'oeuvre musicale d'Hucbald de Saint-Amand: les compositions et le traité de musique (Montreal, 1995) [critical edn of musical works and the Musica, with Fr. trans. and commentary]
H. Müller: Hucbalds echte und unechte Schriften über Musik (Leipzig, 1884)
R. Weakland: ‘Hucbald as Musician and Theorist’, MQ, xlii (1956), 66–84
H. Potiron: ‘La notation grecque dans l'Institution harmonique d'Hucbald’, EG, ii (1957), 37–50
R. Weakland: ‘The Compositions of Hucbald’, EG, iii (1959), 155–62
H. Potiron: ‘Complément au traité d'Hucbald: De harmonica institutione’, EG xi (1970), 187–92
R.L. Crocker: ‘Hermann's Major Sixth’, JAMS, xxv (1972), 19–37
M. Huglo: ‘Les instruments de musique chez Hucbald’, Hommages à André Boutemy, ed. G. Cambier (Brussels, 1976), 178–96
R.J. Wingell: ‘Hucbald of St Amand and Carolingian Music Theory’, Festival Essays for Pauline Alderman, ed. B.L. Karson (Provo, UT, 1976), 19–28
Y. Chartier: ‘Hucbald de Saint-Amand et la notation musicale’, Musicologie médiévale: Paris 1982, 88–98
Y. Chartier: ‘Clavis operum Hucbaldi elnonensis’, Journal of Medieval Latin, v (1995), 202–24
YVES CHARTIER