(b ?Solothurn, c995; d c1050). Priest, poet and chronicler. He studied at Solothurn, became chaplain to the Emperor Conrad II (d 1039) some time before 1020, and then teacher and confessor to Emperor Henry II (d 1056). In 1045 he went into seclusion as a hermit, when he wrote his biography of Conrad.
His musical importance lies in the attribution to him of Victimae paschali laudes by Schubiger on the basis of an Einsiedeln manuscript of the late 11th century (facsimile in Schubiger), which places the name ‘Wipo’ at the head of the sequence. Julian cited as evidence against this the appearance of the sequence in two manuscripts possibly dated too early in the 11th century for Wipo to have written the work (CH-SGs 340, to which the sequence is apparently added, and F-Pn lat.10510, from Echternacht). The Einsiedeln manuscript, however, may be one of those medieval sources that ascribes items, sometimes on less than good authority, to eminent persons; at least, the other items from this manuscript reproduced by Schubiger are also ascribed, including a Gloria ascribed to ‘Leonis pape’. In all, the attribution remains uncertain.
The sequence is generally taken to be representative of the transition from the early prose type to the later rhyming, scanning type. Beyond that, it is short, clearly focussed, and sets the dialogue with Mary to an ‘over-couplet’ phrase structure (AB1B2C1D1C2D2E1E2). Phrase E1, referring to the Jews, is omitted in modern performing editions. (Derivation of the incipit of the melody from the Alleluia Christus resurgens is speculative.) The work became incorporated into Easter dramas, and was popular; it was one of the five sequences to survive into the 20th-century Roman gradual.
MGG1 (S. Fornaçon)
A. Schubiger: Die Sängerschule St. Gallens vom achten bis zwölften Jahrhundert: ein Beitrag zur Gesanggeschichte des Mittelalters (Einsiedeln and New York, 1858/R)
J. Julian: A Dictionary of Hymnology (New York, 1892, 2/1907/R), 1222–4
F. Tack, ed.: Der Gregorianische Choral, Mw, xviii (1960), facs.51a
For further bibliography see Sequence (i)
RICHARD L. CROCKER