A prosula is a text created to fit a melisma in Gregorian chant. Alternative terms similarly employed in the medieval manuscripts include ‘prosa’, ‘tropus’ and ‘verba’ (see Prosa and Trope (i)).
There are prosulas for chants of both the Mass and the Office, and, within the Mass, for both the Ordinary and the Proper. Best known are those for the Kyrie eleison; but more numerous than these in 10th- and 11th-century sources are those for offertory verses and alleluias. The prosula is nearly always in strictly syllabic style, with one syllable for each note of the melisma. As a rule, the contours, phrasing and articulation of the melody were carefully observed by the prosula writer, so that the phrases of text match those of the melody and accented syllables fall on appropriate notes. The beginnings and endings of words in the text often coincide with the beginnings and endings of neumes in the melisma.
Since prosulas appear in virtually all the earliest manuscripts containing tropes and sequences, it could be argued that they are earlier than the manuscripts themselves, very likely dating from the 9th century. A particularly early example may be Psalle modulamina, a prosula to the alleluia Christus resurgens, which appears with neumes in D-Mbs Clm.9543, a collection of writings by St Ambrose. If the prosula were copied by Engyldeo, the manuscript’s main scribe, not only would its date be earlier than the mid-9th century, but the manuscript itself would possibly be the earliest to include neumes. (For a persuasive presentation of this case, see Möller; although the argument is not entirely convincing, it is nevertheless significant that Psalle modulamina has neumes, whereas some other prosulas have none or only a few.)
The prosula seems to have served two purposes: to enrich the liturgy with new devotional texts and to make it easier for singers to memorize the melodies. The offertories of Gregorian chant, when their verses are considered, have relatively long texts, and the prosulas written for them can be properly appreciated only in this full context. Most of them restate in new words, sometimes in striking phraseology, the subject matter of the offertory; a few add new images and ideas. In one respect, however, the existence of prosulas signals a decline. The apparently subtle rhythmic distinctions represented in the notation of melismas in manuscripts such as those of St Gallen must have been lost when words were applied to these melodies.
Among the offertories for which prosulas were provided is that for Quinquagesima, Benedictus es. (It is noteworthy that offertory prosulas were sung frequently on days when, because of the liturgical season in which they occur, there are no tropes, and perhaps no Gloria or prosa.) The long melisma on the syllable ‘me-’ of ‘cor meum’ at the end of the third verse of this offertory is given a prosula in various sources; it is shown with two prosulas from the 11th-century Aquitanian gradual F-Pn lat.776 inex.1. Occasionally the prosulas use more or fewer notes than the melisma, making it evident that the melismatic and texted versions could not have been sung simultaneously. The third text in the example appears with this melody when it is borrowed for use in the Responsory Petre amas me in the 13th-century Sens antiphoner F-Pn n.a.lat.1535; in it the structure depends rather less than usual on that of the melisma, and more on the principle of having several phrases in succession, wherever possible containing the same number of syllables, having the same pattern of accents and ending in the same sound.
Alleluia prosulas were written to fit the music for the word ‘Alleluia’ and the jubilus that followed, and often also for one or more melismas in the alleluia verse. Occasionally the prosula was made to cover the entire verse, incorporating all or most of the existing text, as in this alleluia from F-Pn lat.776:
Alleluia.
V. Letabitur iustus in domino et sperabit in eo et laudabuntur.omnes recti
corde.
[Prosula] Alleviata christe lumine clara illustra corpora nostra
munda hac animas gaudia sanctorum coniungas splendore in aeterna requie.
V. Letando sublimabitur iustus fulgidus nec non et fide actus in
dominico.populo fervens domino et sperat ut sua capiat regni premia
christus cum.regnaverit ad iuditium micans gaudebit et rutilabit in eo et
laude dignissima tunc gloriabuntur florigero solio sedentes omnes
recti probi et casti corpora simul corda cum quibus redemptor te
gaudent te alme pneumate feliciter congaudenter una protecti tuo
iuvamina.
Texts for the Kyrie eleison of the Mass, on the other hand, often omit the word ‘Kyrie’; they are not regarded as prosulas by some writers, who believe that in these works the music was written after the text, to fit the expanded version.
The manuscripts in which prosulas appear vary in character (see Sources, MS). Some are graduals, in which the prosulas follow immediately the melismas to which they are set (F-Pn lat.776., 903, n.a.lat.1235; I-BV VI-34). Others are tropers. In some of these the prosulas appear together, in the order in which they fall in the liturgical year (F-Pn lat.1084, 1118, 1338, n.a.lat.1871; D-Mbs Clm.14322). In others, each of them stands with the tropes and prosae for its day, in the order in which they appear in the service (F-Pn lat.9449; I-Rc 1741; Rn 1343; the troper of Ra 123). An exceptional case is the manuscript D-W Gud.lat.79 which, though not strictly a liturgical book, gives an enormous collection of alleluia prosulas ordered according to the liturgical year. Its early date (10th century) raises the possibility that the repertory of prosulas in southern France was once much larger than the surviving manuscripts would suggest. It must be added that when the melodies are not notated, or are written imprecisely (as is the case with W Gud.lat.79), sorting the prosulas out and identifying the melodies that underlie them can be difficult.
When prosulas for the Office are found, they are for the responsories of Matins or Vespers; such texts are usually given in antiphoners and breviaries, although a few appear in tropers. Prosulas may occur at two points in a responsory: in a melisma towards the end of that part of the responsory that serves as a refrain after the verse (itself sometimes a later addition to the work), or in the verse, where the prosula is fitted in around the existing text. Descendit de celis, an old responsory for Christmas, is the one most frequently given prosulas; it has a full complement of them in, for example, the 11th-century Nevers Troper F-Pn lat.9449. Another instance where prosulas are written for a melody that is a later addition to a chant occurs in troped versions of the Gloria in excelsis, where various texts, known as ‘Regnum prosulae’, are set to a melody interposed between the phrases ‘Jesu Christe’ and ‘Cum Sancto Spiritu’.
MGG1 (‘Tropus’; B. Stäblein)
L. Gautier: Histoire de la poésie liturgique au Moyen Age, i:Les tropes (Paris, 1886/R)
P. Wagner: Einführung in die gregorianischen Melodien (Fribourg, 1895, 3/1911/R; Eng. trans., 1901/R)
R.L. Crocker: ‘The Troping Hypothesis’, MQ, lii (1966), 183–203
K. Rönnau: ‘Regnum tuum solidum’, Festschrift Bruno Stäblein, ed. M. Ruhnke (Kassel, 1967), 195–205
R. Steiner: ‘The Prosulae of the MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, f.lat.1118’, JAMS, xxii (1969), 367–93
R. Steiner: ‘The Responsories and Prosa for St. Stephen’s Day at Salisbury’,MQ, lvi (1970), 162–82
P. Evans: The Early Trope Repertory of Saint Martial de Limoges (Princeton, NJ, 1970)
H. Hofmann-Brandt: Die Tropen zu den Responsorien des Offiziums (Kassel, 1973)
O. Marcusson, ed.: Prosules de la messe, i: Tropes de l’alléluia, Corpus troporum, ii (Stockholm, 1976)
T.F. Kelly: ‘New Music from Old: the Stucturing of Responsory Proses’, JAMS, xxx (1977), 366–90
O. Marcusson: ‘Comment a-t-on chanté les prosules? Observations sur la technique des tropes de l’alléluias’, RdM, lxv (1979), 119–210
D. Bjork: ‘Early Settings of the Kyrie Eleison and the Problem of Genre Definition’, Journal of the Plainsong and Medieval Music Society, iii (1980), 40–48
D. Bjork: ‘The Early Frankish Kyrie Text: a Reappraisal’, Viator, xii (1981), 9–35
G. Björkvall and R. Steiner: ‘Some Prosulas for Offertory Antiphons’, Journal of the Plainsong and Medieval Music Society, v (1982), 13–35
T.F. Kelly: ‘Melisma and Prosula: the Performance of Responsory Tropes’, Liturgische Tropen, ed. G. Silagi (Munich, 1985), 163–80
E. Odelman, ed.: Prosules de la messe, ii: Les prosules limousines de Wolfenbüttel, Corpus troporum, vi (Stockholm, 1986)
G. Björkvall: ‘Offertory Prosulas for Advent in Italian and Aquitanian Manuscripts’, Cantus Planus Study Session III [Tihány 1988], ed. L. Dobszay and others (Budapest, 1990), 377–400
H. Möller: ‘Die Prosula “Psalle modulamina” (Mü 9543) und ihre musikhistorische Bedeutung’, La tradizione dei tropi liturgici, ed. C. Leonardi and E. Menestò (Spoleto, 1990), 279–96
A.E. Planchant: ‘Old Wine in New Bottles’, De musica et cantu: Studien zur Geschichte der Kirchenmusik und der Oper: Helmut Hucke zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. P. Cahn and A.-K. Heimer (Hildesheim, 1993), 41–64
RUTH STEINER/KEITH FALCONER