(Fr. plaint, complainte; Ger. Klage; It. pianto, lamento; Provençal planh).
A song of lamentation. As a literary and musical genre it was widespread in the Middle Ages, both in Latin and in the vernaculars. There is evidence of the following types of planctus from the 9th century (classification from Dronke, 1970): (a) vernacular planctus to be sung by women; (b) dirges for the dead, especially for royal and heroic personages; (c) ‘Germanic complaints of exile and voyaging’; (d) fictional, as distinct from real-life, planctus on classical or biblical themes. From the 12th century onwards, (e) dramatic or semi-dramatic laments of the Virgin Mary and (f) complaintes d’amour are common.
The earliest planctus for which music survives are in the manuscripts associated with the abbey of St Martial at Limoges: they include A solis ortu usque ad occidua (type b) on the death of Charlemagne in 814, written in staffless neumes without mensural indications (F-Pn lat.1154; 10th century); and in F-Pn lat.1139 (11th–12th centuries) there is a ‘Lamentatio Rachelis’ (see Coussemaker), which is a dramatic trope to the liturgical responsory Sub altare Dei (type d).
Pre-eminent among the 12th-century planctus are six by Peter Abelard: the principal manuscript for them, I-Rvat Reg.lat.288, contains staffless neumes; his poetic subjects are laments of type d. Formally his planctus are related to the sequence (see Sequence (i)), two to the ‘classical’, four to the ‘archaic’ type. There is a close relation between the earlier planctus and sequences; indeed sequence melodies are sometimes named for planctus. From this relation arises another, between the planctus and the north French Lai of the 12th and 13th centuries: whichever came first, the ‘Lai des pucelles’ is sung to the same melody as Abelard’s ‘Planctus virginum Israel’; and the 13th-century (?)English Samson, dux fortissime, a dramatic lament with singing roles for Delilah and for a chorus (GB-Lbl Harl.978), is both formally and in melodic idiom related to the lai. (For more details of the planctus–sequence–lai complex, see Spanke, 1931 etc., and Stäblein, 1962.)
The principle of contrafactum, or writing words to a pre-existing melody, extends also to the Provençal planh: the planh is, then, a variety of the sirventes, with topical subject and with borrowed form and melody. The most famous troubadour planh, Gaucelm Faidit’s lament on the death of Richard the Lionheart (d 1199), is, however, thought to have an original melody. Literary texts in this genre are assembled and classified in Springer (1895); surviving music is available in the standard editions and anthologies (see Troubadours, trouvères).
The most important type of planctus in the 12th and 13th centuries is the planctus Beatae Virginis Mariae; it appears in all European countries (Wechssler, 1893, contains examples in Latin and seven vernaculars, not including English, for which see Taylor, 1906–7). The texts most commonly found are Planctus ante nescia and Flete, fideles animae (see Young, 1933, i, 496ff). The genre is non-liturgical; but planctus were certainly sung in church. At Palma (Mallorca), perhaps in the 13th century, laments were sung ‘by three good singers (‘a tribus bonis cantoribus’); later, in about 1440, at least six people took part, and their laments were sung ‘before the crucifix set up in the middle of the church’ (Donovan, 1958). Whether these ceremonies constituted a ‘play’ is not certain; but the importance of the planctus in liturgical drama is demonstrated by the centrality of the ‘complaints’ of the three Marys in plays of the Resurrection (see Visitatio sepulchri), of the Virgin Mary in the rarer Passion plays, of Rachel in plays of the Holy Innocents, and of Daniel in the Daniel plays. Earlier scholars (Chambers, Young) were inclined to see the origins of the Passion play in the planctus Mariae. This view is now questioned; the discovery of the extensive Monte Cassino Passion play from the 12th century with only the briefest planctus (Sticca, 1970) has increased doubt. See also Medieval drama, §§III, 2(i); III, 3(iv).
The Waldensians, a Protestant minority originally from France, developed their own practice of singing complaintes, that were narrative songs on Biblical themes (see Reformed and Presbyterian church music, §1, 4(i).
The music of the dramatic or quasi-dramatic planctus was not taken directly from, or composed in imitation of, Gregorian chant. Its emotionalism often contrasts with the restraint of the chant and may derive rather from the Totenklage (dirge for the dead) tradition.
The term ‘planctus’ has also been applied to the emotional utterances typical of domestic laments, where they are often used as choral refrains. See Lament.
C.-E.-H. de Coussemaker: Histoire de l’harmonie au Moyen Age (Paris, 1852/R)
E. Wechssler: Die romanischen Marienklagen (Halle, 1893)
H.W. Springer: Das altprovenzalische Klagelied mit Berücksichtigung der verwandten Litteratur, Berliner Beiträge zur germanischen und romanischen Philologie, vii (Berlin, 1895)
E.K. Chambers: The Mediaeval Stage (Oxford, 1903/R)
G.C. Taylor: ‘The English Planctus Mariae’, Modern Philology, iv (1906–7), 605–37
H. Spanke: ‘Über das Fortleben der Sequenzenform in den romanischen Sprachen’, Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, li (1931), 309–34
K. Young: The Drama of the Medieval Church (Oxford, 1933/R)
H. Spanke: ‘Aus der Vorgeschichte und Frühgeschichte der Sequenz’, ZDADL, lxxi (1934), 1–39
H. Spanke: Beziehungen zwischen romanischer und mittellateinischer Lyrik mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Metrik und Musik (Berlin, 1936/R)
H. Spanke: ‘Ein lateinisches Liederbuch des 11. Jahrhunderts’, Studi medievali, new ser., xv (1942), 111–42
G. Vecchi, ed.: I ‘Planctus’ di Pietro Abelardo (Modena, 1951)
G. Vecchi: ‘Il “planctus” di Gudino di Luxeuil: un ambiente scolastico, un ritmo, una melodia’, Quadrivium, i (1956), 19–40
R.B. Donovan: The Liturgical Drama in Medieval Spain (Toronto, 1958)
B. Stäblein: ‘Die Schwanenklage: zum Problem Lai-Planctus-Sequenz’, Festschrift Karl Gustav Fellerer zum sechzigsten Gerburstag, ed. H. Hüschen (Regensburg, 1962), 491–502
H. Wagenaar-Nolthenius: ‘Der Planctus Iudei und der Gesang jüdischer Märtyrer in Blois anno 1171’, Mélanges offerts à René Crozet, ed. P. Gallais and Y.-J. Riou (Poitiers, 1966), 881–5
L. Weinrich: ‘Dolorum solatium: Text und Musik von Abaelards Planctus David’, Mittellateinisches Jb, v (1968), 59–78
L. Weinrich: ‘Peter Abaelard as Musician’, MQ, lv (1969), 295–312, 464–86
P. Dronke: Poetic Individuality in the Middle Ages: New Departures in Poetry 1000–1150 (Oxford, 1970)
S. Sticca: The Latin Passion Play: its Origins and Development (Albany, NY, 1970)
W.L. Smoldon: The Music of the Medieval Church Dramas (London, 1980)
S. Sticca: Il Planctus Mariae nella tradizione drammatica del Medio Evo (Sulmona, 1984; Eng. trans., 1988)
J. Stevens: Words and Music in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1986)
R. Crocker and D. Hiley, eds.: NOHM, ii: The Early Middle Ages to 1300 (Oxford, 2/1990)
D. Hiley: Western Plainchant: a Handbook (Oxford, 1993)
JOHN STEVENS