Former monastery at Limoges (Aquitaine) in south-west France. An important repertory of medieval music, monophonic and polyphonic, has become associated with the abbey. Many scholars prefer the adjective ‘Aquitanian’ to describe the repertory and its manuscripts.
ALEJANDRO ENRIQUE PLANCHART (I, II), SARAH FULLER (III)
Among the French abbeys that from the 9th century to the 12th were centres of musical and poetic activity, none has left so rich a store of musical material as St Martial de Limoges, founded in 848 at the site of the tomb of St Martial, first Bishop of Limoges (3rd century). In the late 10th century a legend grew up claiming the saint's apostolicity; fervently supported by the monastery's chronicler, Adémar chabannes de (d 1034), the apostolicity was proclaimed by the councils of Limoges (1028) and Bourges (1031), beset by controversy but nevertheless increasing the abbey's prestige. Two significant factors mark the period 930–1130: the flowering of the Aquitanian school of poets and composers, and, towards the end of the period, the rise of Aquitanian polyphony. Despite the efforts of a few exceptional men, including the historian Bernard Itier (d 1224), a long decline began in the early 13th century; the monastery was secularized in 1535, dissolved in 1791 and demolished in 1792.
Beyond its artistic production, the importance of the abbey for music history owes much to accidental circumstances. Over the centuries the monastic library was fortunate to have suffered fewer depredations and sacks than the great northern French abbeys, and also, during its most prosperous period, to have been in the care of several librarians with a rare zeal for collecting. Thus the abbey became a repository of southern French liturgical manuscripts. The manuscripts were sold in 1730 to the Bibliothèque Royale, thus escaping dispersal and destruction during the French Revolution.
The St Martial manuscripts contain the richest surviving collection of West Frankish tropes, proses, sequentiae, prosulas and versus. They are listed below together with the other surviving Aquitanian chant books to 1200 (those marked with an asterisk are not from the monastery library). With regard to the dates and places of origin (shown in parentheses), it should be noted that many manuscripts are composite, additions being made subsequently at different times and in different places. In some cases the decisions about St Martial's apostolicity (1028–31) provide a useful basis for dating: earlier manuscripts or sources from outside St Martial have the Mass Statuit for the feast of the saint; after 1028 the Mass Probavit was instituted. Older sources, whether from St Martial or elsewhere, were often altered to conform to the new liturgy, and these show erasures and cancellations. A few manuscripts remained unaltered, either because they were no longer in use in the service or because they were acquired purely as library items.F-AI 44* (2nd half of 9th century; uncertain origin); APT 17(5)* (2nd half of 11th century; Apt); GB-Lbl Add.36881 (polyphonic source; late 12th century; region of Apt), Harl.4951* (mid-11th century; Toulouse); F-Pn lat.776 (2nd half of 11th century; Gaillac near Albi), lat.778 (12th century; Narbonne), lat.779 (2nd half of 11th century; ?Limoges), lat.780 (2nd half of 11th century; Narbonne), lat.887 (1st half of 11th century; uncertain origin), lat.903 (1st half of 11th century; St Yrieix), lat.909 (1025–30; St Martial), lat.1084 (late 10th century, 11th-century addns; Aurillac/St Martial), lat.1085 (late 10th century; St Martial), lat.1086 (12–13th century; St Léonard, Noblat), lat.1118 (987–96, 11th-century addns; S.W. France, ?Auch), lat.1119 (after 1030; St Martial), lat.1120 (c1000; St Martial), lat.1121 (after 1000; St Martial)F-Pn lat.1132 (2nd half of 11th century; St Martial), lat.1133 (c1050; Limoges), lat.1134 (late 11th century; St Martial), lat.1137 (1st half of 11th century; St Martial), lat.1138 and 1338 (originally a single MS; 1st half of 11th century; Limoges), lat.1139 (polyphonic source; 1096–1100, 13th-century addns; Limoges), lat.1154 (9–10th century; ?Limoges), lat.1240 (923–34, 10–12th-century addns; St Martial), lat.1834 (guard folios, c1000; St Martial), lat.2349 (guard folios; early 12th century; place unknown), lat.2826 (guard folios; 2nd half of 11th century; Aurillac), lat.3459 (polyphonic source; 12th century; ?Limoges), lat.3719 (polyphonic source; 12th century; ?Limoges), n.a.lat.1871* (2nd half of 11th century; ?Aurillac), n.a.lat.1177 (late 11th century; origin uncertain)
The group includes six graduals (F-AI 44/1, GB-Lbl Harl.4951, F-Pn lat.776, 780, 903, 1132), two antiphoners (F-AI 44/2, Pn lat.1085), one orational (Pn lat.1154) and four collections of polyphonic verse songs (GB-Lbl Add.36881, F-Pn lat.1139, 3459, 3719). The remaining manuscripts are tropers or sequentiaries, containing various combinations of tropes, proses, sequentiae, prosulas and a number of other chants including most often Mass Ordinary chants, acclamations, processional and Fraction antiphons, the Holy Week Offices, and the solo chants of the Mass (inventories in Chailley, 1957; Spanke, 1930–32; Emerson, 1962). Their notation ranges from the primitive neumes of F-Pn lat.1154 (see fig.1) and 1240 to the fully developed Aquitanian point notation of the 11th century and an incipient square notation in the 12th (see Staff, fig.2). The breaking of neumes into separate points led at an early stage to reasonably good diastematy, so that even late 10th-century sources often have transcribable melodies. Successive notation of polyphonic parts in Pn lat.1139 (see fig.2 below) has obscured the number of monophonic pieces in this manuscript and led some scholars to assume, incorrectly (see Fuller, 1971), that the notation represents monophonic arrangements of polyphonic works.
See also Notation, §III, 1 and Sources, MS, §II.
The main corpus of the earliest St Martial troper (F-Pn lat.1240) already contained a well-developed cycle of Proper tropes, a collection of Gloria tropes, prosulas to the alleluia and offertory, and an incipient proser. No other Ordinary tropes and no sequentiae appear in the original redaction. The troper included every category of Proper trope found in the later Aquitanian manuscripts. The proses, all of which show wide concordances in later sources, are fully developed works of the typical double-versicle structure, with some assonance as well as musical rhyme (the ending of all versicles with the same cadence), and often with a single versicle at the beginning and end of the piece. There is evidence that part of this repertory, particularly the Proper tropes, came to St Martial from the north (Evans: ‘Northern French Elements’, 1970). The Gloria tropes also represent an international repertory, but they already show the characteristics of extreme centonization and the addition of wandering versicles typical of later Aquitanian versions.
The late 10th- and early 11th-century sources indicate an enormous increase in the repertory. Sequentiaries, sometimes coordinated with a proser (Pn lat.887), made their appearance, together with systematic collections of Kyrie verses, Sanctus and Agnus tropes, and prosulas to the Regnum tuum solidum and the Fabricae mundi melismas, as well as a few purely melodic elaborations of the introits and their doxologies, usually connected with textual tropes. In the case of the proses, the writing of new texts for old tunes was responsible for much of the increase. A few of the sequentiae included short kernel verses which were retained when the rest of the words were omitted in the sequentiaries (see Stäblein, 1961); in these cases the new proses incorporated the kernel verses within their text. A different process obtained in the Proper tropes, where older texts were provided with new melodies. Often the replaced melodies seem to have been non-Aquitanian, for they survive in northern tropers or in some of the Aquitanian manuscripts that show conflationary contamination or northern influences (e.g. Pn 1240, 1118, 887). It is noteworthy that the later tropers from St Martial itself show the least amount of non-Aquitanian influence within this repertory.
Although the liturgical changes in the feast of St Martial gave rise to a few new pieces in about 1030, the repertory had become stagnant by this date. The late 11th-century additions formed a wholly different repertory, mostly of verse songs, rhymed tropes to the Benedicamus Domino closely related in style to the verse songs, a few Kyrie verses, Sanctus and Agnus tropes, and new-style proses including, at a later date, some from the Victorine tradition.
See also Prosula; Sequence (i); and Trope (i).
The early Aquitanian repertory of verse songs (including conductus and planctus) has an international rather than a Limousin character. The collection in F-Pn lat.1154 includes metra from Boethius's De consolatione philosophiae, poems by Gottschalk of Aachen and Paulinus of Aquileia as well as anonymous works of Spanish (Versus de die iudicii, f.121) and possibly north Italian (Planctus karoli, f.132) origin. The only certain Limousin piece is the prose Concelebremus sacram (f.142v). Although not all pieces are notated, Pn lat.1154 often has the only or the earliest notated version of several of them. Poetically they range from simple abecedarian hymns to verse songs with one or two refrains. Musical settings are often strophic, so that only the first stanza and the refrain are provided with neumes.
Although such pieces as Theodulf of Orleans's Gloria laus et honor or the Improperia for Good Friday were often labelled versus in the tropers (Pn lat.1240, f.21v; lat.1120, f.15v), the true verse song repertory of the late 10th century and the early 11th consists of a few works scattered throughout the manuscripts. Notable among them is the Versus de Sancto Martyrio (Pn lat.909, f.5), which goes beyond the double-versicle structure of the proses and has a four-versicle pattern, in effect rendering it a sacred lai. A few secular lyrics also found their way into the tropers, for example, Iam dulcis amica (Pn lat.1118, ff.246–7). In contrast to the international repertory of Pn lat.1154, the late 10th- and early 11th-century Aquitanian verse songs appear to have been a purely local repertory.
Both prose-like works and strophic verse songs are present in the late Limousin manuscripts. Though frequently set polyphonically, they are poetically similar to the pieces of Pn 1154. The most important difference lies in the use of rhythmic and rhymed verse, and in the presence in several of the texts of Provençal elements. The sponsus play in Pn lat.1139 (f.53) is essentially a cycle of verse songs, see (Medieval drama, §II, 1). The influence of this repertory upon later secular music has been rightly emphasized by Handschin (1929; 1930). The so-called tropes to the Benedicamus Domino in the late Aquitanian sources show no essential difference from the other verse songs beyond the incorporation of the liturgical formula in their texts.
See also Conductus; Lai; Planctus; and Versus (i).
Except for the facsimile publication of the St Yrieix Gradual (F-Pn lat.903: PalMus, 1st ser., xiii, 1925/R), the study of tropes and proses has taken precedence over that of Mass and Office chants in the St Martial sources. Recent studies of Aquitanian graduals, however, reveal a substantial number of non-standard chants for older as well as new feasts. Particularly notable is the large collection of new alleluias in Pn lat.903, which, structurally, form a very homogeneous group. Among the non-standard works there are also a considerable number of what seem to be old Gallican survivals (see Gallican chant, §4 see also Stäblein, ‘Gallikanische Liturgie’, MGG1).
The apostolicity proclamations (1028 and 1031) gave rise to new Offices, not only for St Martial but also for his companions Valeria and Austriclinianus; some of these Offices were written by Adémar de Chabannes (see Emerson, 1965). The processional antiphon repertory also shows traces of an indigenous Aquitanian tradition (see Roederer, 1974), although in about 1000 the Aquitanian versions of the antiphons began to be replaced by more widespread versions. The growth of the international antiphon repertory can be traced to sources originating at St Martial itself (Pn lat.1120 and 1121). There are, therefore, apparent cross-currents in the abbey's early 11th-century repertory: on the one hand there was a relatively restricted repertory of tropes and proses, almost completely devoid of the non-Aquitanian influences found in the earlier troper Pn lat.1240 and some of the manuscripts from outside St Martial; on the other hand, in the processional antiphons and other chant repertories (outside the music for the abbey's own local saints), Aquitanian versions were gradually rejected in favour of more widespread versions.
MGG1 (‘Gallikanische Liturgie’, ‘Sequenz (Gesang)’, ‘Tropus’, ‘Versus’; B. Stäblein)
C.-E.-H. de Coussemaker: Histoire de l'harmonie au Moyen Age (Paris, 1852/R)
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G.M. Dreves, C.Blume and H.M. Bannister, eds.: Analecta hymnica medii aevi, vii (Leipzig, 1889/R); xlvii (Leipzig, 1905/R); xlix (Leipzig, 1906/R); liii (Leipzig, 1911/R)
W.H. Frere, ed.: The Winchester Troper (London, 1894/R)
L. Delisle: ‘Les manuscrits de Saint-Martial de Limoges’, Bulletin de la Société archéologique et historique du Limousin, xliii (1895), 1–60
L. Delisle: Notice sur les manuscrits originaux d'Adémar de Chabannes (Paris, 1896)
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H. Spanke: ‘St Martial-Studien: ein Beitrag zur frühromanischen Metrik’, Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Literatur, liv (1930–31), 282–317, 385–422; lvi (1932–3), 450–78
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R.L. Crocker: ‘The Repertory of Proses at Saint Martial de Limoges in the 10th Century’, JAMS, xi (1958), 149–64
J. Chailley: L'école musicale de Saint Martial de Limoges jusqu'à la fin du XIe siècle (Paris, 1960)
B. Stäblein: ‘Zur Frühgeschichte der Sequenz’, AMw, xviii (1961), 1–33
J.A. Emerson: ‘Fragments of a Troper from Saint-Martial de Limoges’, Scriptorium, xvi (1962), 369 only
H. Husmann, ed.: Tropen- und Sequenzenhandschriften, RISM, B/V/1 (1964)
J.A. Emerson: ‘Two Newly Identified Offices for Saints Valeria and Austriclinianus by Adémar de Chabannes (MS Paris, Bibl. Nat., Latin 909, fols.79–85v)’, Speculum, xl (1965), 31–46
R.L. Crocker: ‘The Troping Hypothesis’, MQ, lii (1966), 183–203
A.M. Herzo: Five Aquitanian Graduals: their Mass Propers and Alleluia Cycles (diss., U. of Southern California, 1967)
K. Rönnau: Die Tropen zum Gloria in excelsis Deo, unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Repertoires der St. Martialhandschriften (Wiesbaden, 1967)
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P. Evans: ‘Northern French Elements in an Early Aquitanian Troper’, Speculum musicae artis: Festgabe für Heinrich Husmann, ed. H. Becker and R. Gerlach (Munich, 1970), 103–10
G. Weiss, ed.: Introitus-Tropen, i: Das Repertoire der südfranzösischen Tropare des 10. und 11. Jahrhunderts, MMMA, iii (1970)
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The term ‘St Martial polyphony’ is traditionally applied to a repertory of two-part music copied in Aquitanian neumes in the codices F-Pn lat.1139, 3549 and 3719 and GB-Lbl add.36881 (facs. with commentary by B. Gillingham, Ottawa, 1987). The music is more accurately designated Aquitanian polyphony, after its notational type, for although three of the codices were collected at the monastery of St Martial at Limoges by the early 13th century, there is no firm evidence that the surviving repertory originated there. The oldest layer of this polyphony, contained in F-Pn lat.1139 (fig.2) and in certain fascicles of Pn lat.3719, was copied about 1100. The latest layer (GB-Lbl add.36881) dates from the second half of the 12th century.
The total corpus of Aquitanian polyphony consists of some 70 pieces: 49 versus (see §II, 2), 12 proses (sequences), 2 prosae to responds, 3 plain Benedicamus Domino versicles, 2 prayers, a hymn and one epistle. The versus, which constitute over two thirds of the repertory, subdivide into one group of ordinary versus (29 pieces) and another of Benedicamus Domino versus (20 pieces). The latter typically conclude with the versicle Benedicamus Domino, or some variant of it. Apart from this difference, the two kinds of versus share a common musical and poetic style.
The Aquitanian composers appear to have been among the first creators of polyphony to move from note-against-note texture to a florid counterpoint in which several notes in one voice, the upper, are matched against only one or two notes in the other (seeex.1a). This florid style, though dramatically more ornate than earlier known polyphony, is more constrained than the spacious melismatic style of Notre Dame organa. Florid and note-against-note textures often occur side by side in one piece. The contrast frequently articulates some structural feature of the text or emphasizes the end of a poetic line or strophe in the versus. Some of the shorter versus are entirely note-against-note, or discantal, in setting, whereas others are florid throughout. The older proses and the prosae to responds maintain a quite florid polyphonic texture, but those with new-style rhymed poetic texts are more discantal.
The versus exhibit considerable variety in musical form, a reflection in part of their diverse poetic structures. Some are strophic, some are through-composed. Some are set in repeated phrases, sequence-style; others exhibit sporadic, unsystematic phrase repetition. The main phrases or divisions of a versus often conclude with an expansive melisma in both voices (see ex.2). Such terminal melismas serve to clarify poetic structure and bear an obvious resemblance to the caudas of the Parisian conductus.
Contrapuntally, the two voices in Aquitanian polyphony are governed by general, but not entirely systematic, principles of contrary motion and perfect consonance. These two principles are most evident when the voices move note-against-note (see ex.2) but also operate within florid style. Intervals of an octave, 5th, 4th or unison characteristically connect the ornate upper voice of a florid passage with the lower voice (see ex.1b). Substantial musical variants in florid voices found in more than one manuscript point to some degree of improvisatory flexibility in performance and to a process of oral transmission.
Certain stock contrapuntal figures permeate Aquitanian polyphony. These involve expansion or contraction from one perfect interval to another, as well as voice-crossing within the module of a 5th. Such figures are particularly prominent in terminal melismas where they often appear juxtaposed in a mosaic-like manner (ex.3). The interdependence of the voices in such passages indicates simultaneous, rather than successive, conception of the parts, and suggests training in standard patterns of two-voice improvisation.
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B. Bagby, B. Thornton and Sequentia: Aquitania Christmas Music from Aquitanian Monasteries (Deutsche harmonia mundi 05472 77383 2, 1997)