(b 988/9; d Jerusalem, 1034). French monk, composer of liturgical music and scribe. He was associated with the abbey of St Martial in Limoges. Born into a family with strong ties to the ecclesiastical hierarchy of Limoges, Adémar was pledged as an oblate to the abbey of St Cybard in Angoulême, probably before 1000. By 1010 he was at the monastery of St Martial, where he studied history, computus, liturgy and music under the tutelage of his paternal uncle Roger of Chabannes, later cantor at the abbey. After a failed attempt to become abbot of St Cybard, he returned to St Martial in 1028, where he supported the pilgrims’ tales about the apostolicity of Martial and pressed for its official acceptance. As part of his promotion of the idea, Adémar wrote a new liturgy for the saint’s feast, consisting of both Office and Mass. Much of the music for the feast is borrowed and adapted from the existing episcopal liturgy, but Adémar also contributed several original compositions, including the Proper chants of the Mass, Proper tropes for the introit, offertory and communion, a Gloria trope, one untexted sequence and several items for the Office. Adémar’s music for the feast is preserved in a manuscript (F-Pn lat.909; 1025–30, St Martial) written in his own hand, making him the earliest known medieval composer for whom a compositional autograph survives.
The new liturgy for St Martial was first celebrated at the Cathedral of St Etienne in Limoges on 3 August 1029. A Lombard monk, Benedict of Chiusa, immediately denounced it as heretical and criticized the clergy and people of Limoges for endorsing such a manifest fraud. Adémar left for Angoulême the following day, where he spent the rest of his life producing forged documents, including a letter by Pope John XIX, that would affirm the apostolic status of Martial. Before departing on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he died in 1034, Adémar deposited his books in the library at the abbey of St Martial. His writings eventually supported a revival of the apostolic cult later in the 11th century, and the saint was venerated as an apostle in Limoges until the end of the 19th century.
In addition to the liturgy for the feast of St Martial, Adémar also composed Offices for the saints Valeria and Austriclinianus (F-Pn lat.909), companions of St Martial, and for St Cybard (lat.1978; frag.). His melodies demonstrate a fluency with the prevailing plainchant styles. Many of his compositions, including those for the Mass Propers and responsorial chants for the Office, are clearly influenced by the sequence and its idiosyncratic melodic style; this characteristic distinguishes his music from that of previous generations of plainchant composers. In particular, sweeping passages of conjunct motion across a relatively broad range – a feature typical of the sequence – occur frequently in Adémar’s compositions for other genres. This blend of melodic gestures indicates an original synthesis of different compositional styles.
Adémar’s work as a music scribe is preserved in a number of manuscripts (F-Pn lat.909; lat.1121, ff.58–72; lat.1978, ff.102–3; lat.1118, f.248), which show that he was fully conversant with all the latest developments in the Aquitanian style of notation. He belonged to the first generation of Aquitanian scribes who used heighted neumes to show relative pitch or precise intervallic information. He was also among the first to employ systematically the custos to fix the relationship between the last note of one line and the first of the next; when the same note is repeated the custos takes the form of the littera significativa ‘e’, representing equaliter. Elsewhere in his manuscripts other litterae significativae, including ‘alt’ (altius: ‘higher’) and ‘io’ (iusum: ‘low’), are used to confirm large melodic leaps that are already accurately heighted.
L. Delisle: ‘Notice sur les manuscrits originaux d’Adémar de Chabannes’, Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale et autres bibliothèques, xxxv (1896), 241–358
L. Saltet: ‘Une discussion sur Saint Martial entre un Lombard et un Limousin en 1029’, Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique, xxvi (1925), 161–86, 279–302
L. Saltet: ‘Une prétendue lettre de Jean XIX sur Saint Martial fabriquée par Adémar de Chabannes’, ibid., xxvii (1926), 117–39
L. Saltet: ‘Les faux d’Adémar de Chabannes: prétendues décisions sur Saint Martial au concile de Bourges du 1er novembre 1031’, ibid., 145–60
L. Saltet: ‘Un cas de mythomanie historique bien documenté: Adémar de Chabannes (988–1034)’, ibid., xxxii (1931), 149–65
P. Hooreman: ‘Saint-Martial de Limoges au temps de l’abbé Odolric (1025–1040): essai sur une pièce oubliée du répertoire limousin’, RBM, iii (1949), 5–36
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
M. Huglo: ‘Codicologie et musicologie’, Miscellanea codicologica F. Masai dicata MCMLXXIX, ed. P. Cockshaw, M.-C. Garand and P. Jodogne (Ghent, 1979), i, 71–82
J. Grier: ‘Ecce sanctum quem deus elegit Marcialem apostolum: Adémar de Chabannes and the Tropes for the Feast of Saint Martial’, Beyond the Moon: Festschrift Luther Dittmer, ed. B. Gillingham and P. Merkley (Ottawa, 1990), 28–74
R. Landes: Relics, Apocalypse, and the Deceits of History: Ademar of Chabannes, 989–1034 (Cambridge, MA, 1995)
J. Grier: ‘Editing Adémar de Chabannes’ Liturgy for the Feast of St Martial’, PMM, vi (1997), 97–118
J. Grier: ‘Scriptio interrupta: Adémar de Chabannes and the Production of Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS Latin 909’, Scriptorium, li (1997), 234–50
JAMES GRIER