Bernardus Claraevallensis (Bernard of Clairvaux)
(On the Antiphonary of the Cistercian Order)
Table of Contents
Prefatory Note to Treatise XIII
1. The book on the theory of Chant, attributed to Bernard, was once supplied to me by Joannes Bona, of pious and revered memory, then abbot general of his congregation, and afterward Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church. Prefixed to the book is a letter which I judged to be Bernard's; but the treatise itself must be assigned to those whom he enlisted as collaborators in this work, as indeed the letter itself suggests. In the Foisny manuscript, the same treatise is attributed to Guido, abbot of Cherlieu, under this title: Letter of Lord Guido, Abbot of Cherlieu, on Chant. This begins with these words: The chant which the churches of the Cistercian Order had been accustomed to sing, etc. The treatise, however, begins with these: Moreover, we wish to forewarn, etc. Guido, abbot of Cherlieu in the diocese of Besancon, is the one for whose benefit Bernard wrote his one hundred and ninety-seventh letter and the two following. What keeps me from being entirely convinced that he is the author of this treatise is that the author toward the end calls the churches of Reims, Beauvais, Amiens, and Soissons "neighboring." Furthermore, when he mentions the Soissons Antiphonary, he adds, which you have practically at your door. From this it seems more probable that the author was a monk or abbot of Longpont, not far from the city of Soissons. Perhaps he was the author of the book together with Guido, the abbot of Cherlieu; for Bernard enlisted several collaborators for this work. Could it have been Gerard, abbot of Longpont, praised in the seventh book of the Life of Bernard, chapter eleven? Or was there perhaps another Guido who was then abbot of Cherlieu near Senlis?
2. Some doubt whether this treatise was actually written during Bernard's lifetime, since from certain initial words of both the letter and the treatise it may be inferred that these were written long after the beginnings of the Cistercian Order. In fact, however, a treatise of this kind had recently been bound together in the exemplar of the Bible which had been corrected by Stephen, the third abbot of Citeaux, according to whose standard all Bibles of the same Order were required to be corrected — and this same rule was prescribed for the Antiphonary. Such was the care and solicitude of the first members of this Order in sacred matters. The treatise, I say, was appended to that primary corrected exemplar of the Bible, but was afterward torn away from it, as I myself discovered from the table of contents and from the empty space. And certainly this treatise is understood to have been composed in those earliest times of the Order from its beginning, where mention is made of the Cistercians who then held to the truth or purity of the Rule, setting aside the dispensations of others — which must be understood of the earliest times. And in the book of the Institutes of the Cistercians, which are believed to have been collected by Rainard, abbot of Citeaux, in the year 1134, among those books that are necessary for new monasteries, the Antiphonary is listed in chapter twelve, and this treatise was prefixed to it in the Cistercian manuscript. But all doubt is removed by the Life of Stephen, abbot of Obazine, by his contemporary, recently published by the learned Baluze in the fourth volume of Miscellanea, where these words are read in the thirteenth chapter of the second book: But it should be known that the books which the Cistercians first used in the divine offices were very corrupt and defective, and they remained so until the times of St. Bernard. For then, by the common decree of the abbots, they were corrected and amended by that same holy abbot and his cantors, and arranged as they are now held. Nothing more illuminating than this testimony can be adduced.
3. In the Supplement to the Fathers, which the Reverend Father Jacques Hommey, an Augustinian, published at Paris in the year 1684, a treatise on the Method of Singing the Gradual is appended to the booklet on the Method of Singing the Antiphonary. Since no mention of this is made in Bernard's letter, but only of the Antiphonary, one may justly doubt whether it should be attributed to Bernard or to his collaborators in this work; much more so the other pieces found in Hommey, which we do not believe to be Bernard's. Here must be added the prefatory note of the most pious Joannes Bona, of blessed memory, transmitted to me regarding this treatise, which reads as follows.
Letter of Joannes Bona
Dom Joannes Bona, abbot general of the reformed congregation of St. Bernard, of the Cistercian Order, to the reader, greetings.
In the celebrated monastery of San Salvatore on Monte Amiata, of the Cistercian Order, in the diocese of Siena, there exists an ancient Antiphonary of the same Order, which the monks brought with them from Citeaux when the Cistercian Reform was first introduced into that house by the Venerable Abbot Raynerius in the year of our Lord 1231. Prefixed to this Antiphonary is this treatise, attributed to Dom Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux. Nor do I doubt that other copies of it may be found in other abbeys of the Order. Charles de Visch in his Cistercian Library mentions one in these words: "In the monastery of Loos in Flanders there is preserved" St. Bernard's "Letter on the Theory of Chant, not yet published, whose beginning is: Bernard, humble abbot of Clairvaux." Possevinus in his Select Library, book fifteen, chapter six, numbers St. Bernard among the other writers who have written on Music. The Franciscan Angelo of Pizzighettone published at Venice in 1547 two books of "The Angelic Flower on Plainchant and Figured Music," in the first of which he cites many passages from this treatise, specifically in chapter twenty-nine: "This," he says, "St. Bernard confirms in his Music, saying: where a softer sound is needed, B molle is sometimes placed, but stealthily, lest the chant appear to take on the likeness of another mode." Likewise in chapter forty-six, on the termination of the modes: "The most learned St. Bernard, in both divine and human sciences, describes these letters in his well-weighed Music, where he says that the letters D, E, F, G are the terminative notes of the chants." And in chapter forty-seven, on the ascent and descent of the modes: "Every mode," he says, "can have ten notes, as the no less truthful than learned St. Bernard plainly describes in the well-considered prologue to his Music, assigning three principal reasons: namely, the authority of the Psaltery, the equality of dignity, and the necessity of notation." Since all these things are found precisely in this treatise, it is sufficiently evident from this that its author is Bernard. Nor does the style object, insofar as the proper technical terms of Music allow. The barbarous word maneria or maneries, which is often repeated here, is used everywhere by musicians. It is also found in the little book on Practical Music attributed to Bede — though the musical notation, nearly three hundred years later than Bede, and many passages taken word-for-word from the Doctrinale and Micrologus of Guido of Arezzo, prove that it is wrongly attributed to him. Bernard himself also used this word in his four hundred and second letter, to Baldwin. From all this it is apparent how carefully our forebears ensured that in the divine offices, with all indecency and novelty removed, ecclesiastical gravity and majesty were preserved in both chant and words. It was my intention to illuminate this treatise with more ample notes, but upon more mature reflection I refrained from this, for they would be superfluous to those skilled in the discipline of Music, and useless to the ignorant. See meanwhile what I discuss concerning ecclesiastical chant and the modes in my Harmony of the Singing Church, chapter 17, sections 3 and 4.
Letter, or Prologue
Bernard, humble abbot of Clairvaux, to all who will copy this Antiphonary, or sing from it.
Among the other things which our fathers — that is, the founders of the Cistercian Order — most excellently emulated, they also took the greatest care, with the utmost devotion and religious zeal, to sing in the divine praises what could be found most authentic. Having therefore sent men to copy and bring back the Antiphonary of the Church of Metz (for it was said to be the Gregorian one), they found the matter to be far otherwise than they had heard. And so, upon examination, it displeased them, because it was found to be defective in both chant and text, exceedingly ill-composed, and almost entirely contemptible. Nevertheless, since they had already begun, they used it and retained it down to our own times. At length, when the brother abbots of our Order could no longer endure it and it was agreed that it should be changed and corrected, they imposed this task upon our care. For my part, having summoned from among our own brothers those who were found most skilled and experienced in the art and practice of singing, from many and diverse sources we at last compiled a new Antiphonary into the present volume — irreproachable, as we believe, in both chant and text. Indeed, any singer, provided he be knowledgeable, will confirm this. As it has now been revised, therefore, and as it is contained in this volume, we wish it to be maintained henceforth in all our monasteries everywhere, in both word and note; and we forbid it to be changed in any respect by anyone, by the authority of the entire General Chapter, where it was unanimously received and confirmed by all the abbots. Furthermore, if anyone desires to know the cause and rationale of this revision more clearly and fully, let him read the short preface appended below, which the aforementioned examiners of the old Antiphonary took care to prefix for this very purpose: so that once the defects of both chant and text which were in it had been made plain, the necessity and usefulness of the renewal and correction might appear more clearly.
Preface, or Treatise on Chant, or The Correction of the Antiphonary
1. The chant which the churches of the Cistercian Order had been accustomed to sing, although grave and manifold absurdity obscured it, was nevertheless long commended by the authority of those who sang it. But since it seemed utterly unworthy that those who had resolved to live according to the Rule should sing God's praises in an irregular manner, with their consent you will find the chant corrected in such a way that, with the filth of falsehoods eliminated and the illicit liberties of the incompetent expelled, it is supported by the full truth of the rules, and is rendered more convenient for notating and singing than the chants of others, to which it had been inferior. For it is fitting that those who hold to the truth of the Rule, setting aside the dispensations of others, should also possess the correct science of singing, having repudiated the liberties of those who, attending more to resemblance than to the nature of the chants, disjoin what coheres and conjoin what is opposed — and thus, confounding everything, begin and end, lower and raise, compose and arrange the chant as they please, not as is lawful. Let no one therefore wonder or be indignant if he finds the chant changed in most respects from what he had heard until now. For in those places either the progression is irregular, or the opposition contradicts the progression or disposition (variant: composition), or the opposition dissolves the opposition. Since all these are defects against the rules, destroying perfection rather than defining it, they are utterly remote from those who know how to cut away defects rather than to tolerate them. In short, since music is the correct science of singing, all chants of this sort are excluded from music, which are plainly sung not correctly but irregularly and in disorder. As for the alteration of the texts, the justification is easy, unless we are mistaken. We found them in most cases so sparse and restricted that in the same Office-history the same verse was repeated three or four times, as though in the entire Old and New Testament nothing could be found that might be suitably substituted. In many histories, moreover, we found that Postcommunions had been inserted in place of Responsories by those who are ignorant of the simple chant of the Antiphonary, with verses appended that cohered so wretchedly that it was impossible to notate them in accordance with how they needed to be pronounced.
2. We have therefore taken care that in no Office-history should the same verse be found more than once; indeed, unless we are mistaken, you will hardly find three verses in the entire Antiphonary that occur even twice. We have removed certain Postcommunions, substituting customary and authentic responsories in their place; but retaining the text of some as holy and evangelical, we have adorned them with the beauty and dignity of chant, while everywhere preserving a sober and modest music. In many places, moreover, we found the text of the old Antiphonary to be of such laxity and dissolution that, bespattered with many falsehoods and the nonsensical songs of apocryphal writings, it inspired in its readers not only weariness but actual loathing — so that novices who had been trained under ecclesiastical discipline, finding the Antiphonary distasteful and baffling in both text and notation, were rendered slower and drowsier in the divine praises. We wish especially to forewarn those who will notate the books not to separate notes that are joined, nor join notes that are separated; for through such variation a serious dissimilarity in the chants can arise. Furthermore, they should take care to terminate each chant on its proper final note (finalis), through whose heedless transposition so great a confusion has arisen in the chants that many of them belong to one mode-group (maneria) yet are assigned to another.
3. For there are four diversities or mode-groups (maneriae) of chants, by which their entire multiplicity is encompassed. Among the Greeks these are called protus, deuterus, tritus, and tetradus. They are opposed to one another and differ from each other by definite properties. The first mode-group (maneria) is that which, from the note on which it terminates, ascends by a whole tone then a semitone (semitonium), and descends by a whole tone. This has only two finals, D and A, each of which has above it first a tone, then a semitone, and below it a tone. The second mode-group is that which, from the note on which it terminates, ascends by a semitone and a tone, and descends by a tone. This likewise has two finals, E and B quadratum (B-natural), at which you will indeed find that ascent and descent naturally. The third mode-group is that which ascends by two tones and descends by a semitone; this likewise has two finals, F and C, as being receptive of such properties. The fourth ascends by two tones and descends by a tone; and this has only one final, G. The first mode-group contains two modes, commonly called tones, namely the first and second; the second contains two, the third and fourth; the third contains two, the fifth and sixth; the fourth contains two, the seventh and eighth. The two tones contained under each mode-group are distinguished from each other not by a difference of finals, which they share entirely, but by progression and composition: the former determining quantity, the latter quality. You who are going to notate the books, therefore, impress diligently upon your memory that all chants of the first mode-group, which have been composed or which can be composed according to the rules, must terminate only on D or A; and whatever chant can be placed on either of those notes is assuredly of the first mode-group, that is, of the first or second tone. Both claims are false, you will say: because not all chants of the first mode-group can terminate only on those notes, since some also end on G through B rotundum (B-flat); nor are all that terminate on those notes of the first mode-group, since Benedicta tu in and Petre, amas me and many similar antiphons can terminate only on A, and yet they are assigned to the second mode-group under the fourth tone. This opinion has already deceived many — an opinion introduced by the addition of B rotundum, through which the presumption of the incompetent has stained music with many errors. Indeed, the distinctive property of the finals is determined not according to something accidentally added, but according to the primary and proper arrangement of the letters, at which the principal and most important judgment concerning chant is exercised. In the natural reckoning of the letters you will find seven, which are called low (graves). These were doubled so that chant might range more freely; some of them were even tripled: in the doubling you will find the high notes (acutae), in the tripling the highest (superacutae). Having considered the properties of each individual letter — the relationships they have to the letters placed on either side of them — you will find none besides D and A that ascends by a tone and a semitone and descends by a tone. Hence these alone are the finals of the first mode-group, whose proper character is to ascend and descend in this way. G is therefore excluded, because in the natural order of the letters, both where it is first placed and where it recurs, it ascends not by a tone and a semitone at all, but directly by two tones.
4. In this order of letters, B rotundum (B-flat) is not counted. For it is plain to all that it is not one of the low notes, since it is nowhere placed among them; nor is it one of the high notes, since it is not joined to any low note by the double proportion. It was invented not to determine the properties of the finals, but to preserve euphony in most chants, which the tritonus (tritone) — terminating at B quadratum (B-natural) — would diminish or destroy in them. Hence in any mode-group, where a softer sound is needed, B rotundum is sometimes placed in lieu of B quadratum, but stealthily and fleetingly, lest through it a resemblance to another mode be generated in the chant — since indeed it occupies no line and no space through the designation of any letter in the books unless it is specifically marked. And if B quadratum once comes afterward, let all memory of B rotundum be erased from the book until, the aforementioned necessity pressing, it is marked again. If therefore you were to terminate some chant of the first mode-group on G by means of B rotundum, you would be acting entirely against its purpose and opposing the institution of the finals, because no chant should terminate outside the final of its own mode-group. But if you say that G is the final of the first mode-group through B rotundum, I reply that this cannot be. For in order for it to be a final of the first mode-group, it would be necessary for it to ascend by a tone and a semitone according to the natural arrangement of the letters, which neither B rotundum nor anything else can confer upon it. Although it may therefore be conceded that chants of the first mode-group can somehow be notated or sung on G through B rotundum, it must by no means be conceded that G is the final of that mode-group, whether in this way or any other, the necessity we have stated preventing it. What use, then, or what skill is it to notate a chant accidentally on a foreign final, when you can notate it on its natural and proper one — the more securely as it is more irreproachable, the more laudably as it is more diligent, the more agreeably as it is more true? Therefore, lest you be found faulty or superfluous, take care to apply B rotundum where it is necessary, for it was devised by necessity. No chant that can be notated without it should be notated with it. Which chants cannot be notated without it? Those that have at the same letter now a tone, now a semitone. Because, however, imperfect singers are less familiar with the highest notes and those adjacent to them, custom, condescending to their weakness, notates certain chants lower down with B rotundum that could more conveniently be notated at the aforementioned higher letters without it. We, however, wishing that the higher notes be held in use and knowledge just as the lower ones are (for otherwise they would be possessed in vain), have ensured that whatever chants nature assigns to the lower notes, you will find them terminated on those very notes; while those that naturally have the higher notes as their finals are terminated on the higher ones. Likewise it should be known regarding the antiphon Benedicta tu and similar ones, which can terminate only on A, that according to this arrangement they are without doubt of the first mode-group, and are to be assigned not to the fourth tone but to the second. For behold, this antiphon Benedicta tu in a certain place above the final has naturally a tone, then a semitone through B quadratum; elsewhere it has first a semitone, then a tone through B rotundum. What perspicacity is it, I ask, in judging to which mode-group that chant belongs, to prefer the accidental to the natural — and when it is of the first according to the natural arrangement, to judge it to be of the second according to the accidental? And that you may marvel more and abhor this kind of ineptitude, examine the antiphon Petre, amas me and many other such: you will indeed find that they naturally have above the final a tone and a semitone through B molle (B-flat), and nowhere a semitone and a tone through B rotundum. Why, then, are they judged to be of the second mode-group? Similarly the antiphon Nos qui vivimus, as it is sung nearly everywhere — when it should properly and principally terminate on D and is of the second tone — those wicked transgressors notate it on G with B rotundum and swear on oath that it is of the eighth tone, even though among those same people G with B rotundum terminates chants of the first rather than the fourth mode-group. What musician, I ask, would patiently bear that a chant whose proper and natural final is D should be attributed to the eighth tone, while one whose proper and natural final is A should be contained under the fourth tone?
5. For these chants terminating on A, therefore, in which resemblance suffocates nature, correction is necessary: because, loosened by the addition that contaminates the parts of the composition, they give off the flavor of one tone at the beginning and another at the end. In the most ancient libraries of great monasteries a most elegant compendium of the art of music is found, which begins thus: Quoniam pauci sunt ("Since there are few"). I read it in part, but I do not recall having read the author's name. In it, if I remember rightly, chants of this sort are called nothoi — that is, degenerate and not legitimate — because, as it reads there, they begin in the seventh tone and, maintaining it in the middle, degenerate near the end, some concluding in the first tone, others in the fourth: in the first, like Ex quo facta est; in the fourth, like Benedicta tu. With the ending therefore suitably changed, you will find all chants of this sort restored to the seventh tone. Among these chants there are two varieties. Some of them, from the letter on which they begin, ascend with a lively motion to the fifth and rest on it — and unless below that fifth there were first a tone, then a semitone, then three tones (a disposition that can be found only below the letter that is a fifth above the final of the seventh tone), the remaining parts of those chants could not be notated there. This you can see in Benedicta tu and similar chants, which, using such a disposition both at the head and throughout the whole body, by transposing the semitone near the end through B rotundum, receive in orderly fashion the nature of the second tone and the likeness of the fourth. Because of this, needing alteration near the end, they have been corrected in that part. Others, however, from the letter on which they begin are immediately lowered by a tone, and returning to the fourth rest on it, which seems more characteristic of the plagal modes, as Dominus regit me and Post partum. These, therefore, you will find changed not only at the end but also at the beginning, so that they accord with the seventh tone throughout. Again you must be forewarned about the finals of the third and fourth mode-groups, where a similarly great confusion is found. For there are certain most wretched chants, possessing the properties of no mode-group, that can equally well terminate on C and on G, which are finals of different mode-groups. Some who have examined this matter more carefully say — and rightly say — that all those chants are irregular whose certainty no mode-group distinguishes; and they judge that the progression of all such chants should either be extended or their composition varied so that they can by no means terminate on the finals of different mode-groups. In these most wretched chants, therefore, you will find their uncertainty lightly and briefly removed, so that you will no longer be in doubt as to which finals each should be assigned. All chants of the first mode-group, then — that is, of the first or second tone — you should terminate, as we have said, on D or A. All chants of the second mode-group — that is, the third and fourth tones — on E or on B quadratum (B-natural): which, although it is by nature receptive of both authentic and plagal modes, you will nevertheless find no authentic chant in the Antiphonary that you can terminate on it. For if it is a Responsory, the verse of that authentic mode cannot suit it, since it has a semitone below the sixth note on which it begins; and if it is an antiphon, it cannot receive the Saeculorum Amen ending of that same authentic mode, for the same reason.
6. You can terminate no chant that ascends to the sixth by a fifth (diapente) and a semitone on B quadratum, which does not have a fifth above it. For this reason, they did not find it sufficiently convenient to compose a verse, a neuma, and a Saeculorum Amen in the third tone. Nevertheless, they perhaps considered both the barrenness and the capability of B quadratum: the barrenness, in composing the verse, neuma, and Saeculorum Amen suitable only for chants terminating on E; the capability, by using the sixth in place of the fifth, so that if ever fruitfulness should succeed the barrenness of that final, a letter would be ready to receive its authentic elevation. In our practice, however, you will find an authentic chant terminating on B quadratum, namely Euntibus (variant adds: and Te Deum Patrem): which cannot terminate elsewhere. This chant neither has nor can have the common verse, but has its own proper one. Furthermore, all chants of the third mode-group — that is, of the fifth and sixth tones — you should terminate on F or C, assigning F to the greater part of the authentic chants and C to nearly all the plagal ones. All chants of the fourth mode-group — that is, of the seventh and eighth tones — you must terminate on G alone. Know that of these seven letters, not one is more and another less, but all are equally principal and proper finals, having indeed both the elevation of the authentic modes and the depression of the plagal. They begin from low D and end at high C; for above or below you will find none that does not lack the perfection of either elevation or depression. But so that each of them might excel in fullness of progression, the musicians made the arrangement of letters from low Gamma (Greek G) up to the highest ee: not because they preferred abundance to deficiency, but because they wished neither to have excess nor deficiency, making an arrangement that could not be more contracted without inconvenience nor more extended without superfluity. For why would you add anything, when this arrangement suffices for the aforementioned fullness? And conversely, if you were to subtract anything, you would assuredly strip some final of the beauty of that same fullness.
7. Furthermore, there are many chants in which, where they used to have a double elevation and a depression of a hemiolion (minor third) or epitriton (major third), you will find the depression removed. Such as Cornelius, Sancte Paule, and many others. For all chants of this kind are double and irregular: double, because they are partly authentic, partly plagal. That they ascend and descend in this way against the rules is attested even by those very teachers of error; but they say it is done by license, confounding the rules so as to retain the defects, rather than cutting away the defects so as to preserve the rules. What sort of license is this that, roaming through the region of dissimilarity, bringing in the confusion of uncertainty, the mother of presumption and the refuge of error, suppresses truth and disturbs judgment? What, I say, is this illicit license that, joining opposites and transgressing the natural boundaries, inflicts upon nature the ugliness of the juncture as much as the injury? For it is clearer than daylight that a chant is badly and disorderly composed which is either depressed so far that it cannot be heard as befits, or elevated so high that it cannot be sung. For it should be done so that in the lower notes it has a hearer, and in the higher notes a performer. Some have held the standard of this moderation to be eight notes, others nine, considering the capability of moderate voices, not shouting ones. Nevertheless, according to those whose opinion seems more exacting, chant can extend to ten notes, on account of the authority of the Psaltery which has ten strings; and so that the individual notes of the octave (diapason), which are eight, may be of equal dignity: so that the last notes, like the middle ones, may have a twofold relation — namely, to be raised and to be lowered — with two notes placed on either side, one above and one below. For chant has only this range of eight notes through which to course, and no more, which is why the octave suffices for the regular progression of chants. Although in the progression of chants, with two notes placed on either side as has been said, ten notes are found, the chant is not to range through ten notes but only through the eight middle ones, and may reach the notes placed on either side but may not go or return through them. And what is more, according to the arrangement of tones and semitones that the musicians have — who assign a tone on either side to the first, fourth, and seventh letters; to the second and fifth, a tone below and a semitone above; to the third and sixth, conversely, a tone above and a semitone below — not omitting B rotundum at times for the harshness of the tritonus (tritone): according to this arrangement, I say, no chant of ten notes or fewer can be made that cannot be notated; but a chant of eleven notes can be made that cannot be notated. For suppose you compose a chant that is an authentic of the third mode-group, and give its arrangement a tone in one place and a semitone in another, and raise that chant to ten notes, so that there are eleven with the one added in the depression: know assuredly that that chant cannot be notated, because it cannot terminate on high C, since in the depression below the final it has now a tone, now a semitone; nor there either, since the chant would exceed the highest ee.
8. There is therefore a threefold reason why ten notes are assigned to chants: the authority of the Psaltery, the equality of dignity, and the necessity of notation. According to this sufficiency of ten notes, the musicians considered the fullness of progression, for the sake of assigning which to each final they extended the aforementioned arrangement from low Gamma to the highest ee: otherwise the scale would be insufficient and would not give each final a complete ascent. The plagal modes arrange these ten notes differently in their progression. We call authentic those that are of greater authority — the first, third, fifth, and seventh — which do not wish to be weighed down or depressed but, light in their leaps and agile in their movements, frequent the fifth and the notes above it. These place one note below the final (which is one of the ten notes) and eight above it. The plagal modes are those of lesser dignity — namely, the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth — which rarely touch or cross the fifth but wish to linger gravely below it. These place their finals roughly in the middle, setting four notes below them and five above, by a beautiful reasonableness of proportion, so that by as many notes as they are exceeded in elevation, by so many they exceed the authentic modes in depression. No plagal mode, therefore, should be raised beyond the sixth, and no authentic mode should be depressed by more than one note. They are therefore plainly mad who presume to raise a plagal mode through an entire octave (diapason) and to depress an authentic mode by a fifth (diapente) or a fourth (diatessaron). For what is the purpose of making or having such chants, difficult to notate, more difficult to sing, varying the staff lines, torturing the throats, having a scarred (variant: cauterized) progression, now ascending to the heavens, now descending to the abyss? Indeed, lest chants of this kind be made, the counsel was — as Guido testifies — that each of the four modes, namely protus, deuterus, tritus, and tetradus, should be divided into two, that is, authentic and plagal, and with the rules distributed, high notes would suit the high and low notes the low. For since chants of this kind are in one part low and flat and in another part high and elevated, psalm-verses and psalms delivered in one and the same manner cannot be suitably fitted to their various parts. For what is appended, if it is low, does not agree with the high parts; if high, it disagrees with the low. The same Guido also forbids this abuse of elevation and depression from occurring in antiphons and responsories, to whose chants psalms and verses must be fitted. For since the chant is mixed and double, while the verse and the Saeculorum Amen are sung either only authentically or only in plagal fashion, they cannot be suitably fitted to a chant of that kind, since there are many in which low and high are so confused that it can scarcely be perceived to which — that is, the authentic or the plagal — they should be assigned.
9. With the necessary bounds of nature therefore forbidding it, it is impossible for more than four mode-groups (maneriae) to be found. These are themselves expressed in eight modes according to the depression of the plagals and the elevation of the authentics, of which the paired modes — that is, the authentic and its plagal — agree entirely in mode-group but differ, on one hand, in the depression and elevation of the progression, and on the other, in the liveliness and gravity of the composition: the authentic modes claiming the elevation and liveliness, while the plagal modes retain the depression and gravity.
10. To distinguish these modes from one another, neumata (melodic formulas) were invented to be appended to each antiphon. Among some these are called stivae, and among the Greeks they are signified by the words Hoa noeane and noeais and the like, which indeed signify nothing, but were devised by the Greeks solely so that through their diverse and dissimilar sounds the marvelous variety might be grasped simultaneously by ear and mind. These neumata should express the mode-group and the composition of their modes in such a way that, after they have been more carefully impressed upon your memory and you have practiced the diversities of the chants for some time, you may easily recognize by hearing alone to which chants they correspond. Each of them, therefore, should be both sufficient and singular for its mode: sufficient in that it can suit any final of its mode; singular in that it cannot suit a chant of another mode. For the neumata would not have been competently invented for distinguishing modes from one another unless each one were sufficient for its mode and clearly distinguished it from the others. It should therefore express the mode-group and form, both common and proper, of its mode: the mode-group through the disposition, the form through the composition. Setting aside for now the neumata of the plagal modes, which seem to have been competently invented — being both sufficient for their modes and singular — regarding the neumata of the authentic modes, it should be known that all have been badly invented or corrupted after their invention, except the neuma of the first tone. The neuma of the fifth tone, for instance, you will find incompetently invented, because it is neither sufficient nor singular for its mode. For although it ascends by two tones and a semitone and naturally has C as its final, it cannot terminate on F except accidentally. Hence it is not sufficient, because it should naturally suit both finals, not through B rotundum, which is entirely excluded from distinguishing the properties of the tones. For it is utterly absurd that within the very same letters in which the whole chant is comprised, it cannot accommodate its own neuma — which should display its nature — a situation that occurs for you in this mode with chants ascending through the tritonus (tritone). Again, it is not singular, because it naturally and properly has to terminate on G, which is the final of the fourth mode-group. Consider the neuma of the seventh tone and compare it with this one: you will find them of entirely the same disposition and nearly the same composition, so that you could fit this one to the seventh tone and that one to the fifth with the same ease as this one to the fifth and that one to the seventh. Hence the neuma of the seventh tone too has been irrationally invented, since it can suit the final of the third mode-group. There is another very unseemly thing in both neumata: each has at its beginning a plagal elevation, ascending by a tone and a semitone and lingering on the fourth, just as you will find precisely in the neuma of the eighth tone, which is plagal. Therefore neither expresses the common composition of the authentic modes nor the proper composition of any particular authentic mode, and each could no less suitably be assigned to the eighth tone, which is plagal. For this reason you will find both changed, so plainly that each is sufficient for its mode and singular, and uses no superfluous circumlocution. The neuma of the third tone is likewise insufficient, because it cannot suit authentic chants that can terminate on B quadratum; and therefore you will find the semitone below the sixth removed. Know that these exquisite properties of the neumata are exceedingly necessary for distinguishing certain authentic modes from their plagal counterparts. For this antiphon, Lex per Moysen data est (variant: Sede a dextris meis), which touches the fifth only once and gathers itself entirely below it, would be altogether plagal were it not that it has the proper composition of its authentic mode, which you will find in its neuma: namely, to descend from the final by a tone (variant: a whole tone) through B, and thence to rise through a fourth (diatessaron) consisting of two tones and a semitone; then to ascend by two tones to the fifth; and from there through certain intermediary notes to return to the final. Run through any antiphons of the first mode: you will find this composition in nearly all of them. The same can be found in the neumata of the other authentic modes. Let all who wish to have perfect knowledge of the distinction of the chants beware lest, out of some desire for brevity, they pass over these neumata as superfluous. For the advantage gained from the brevity attained would not be worth as much as the harm done by the loss of the convenience forfeited.
11. By these and other probable arguments we have been compelled to correct this Antiphonary against the practice of all Churches, emulating nature rather than custom. Nor did presumption alone suggest this, but obedience enjoined it. If, therefore, we are blamed for having made a work that is singular and different from all other Antiphonaries, this consolation remains to us: that reason has made ours different from the others, whereas chance — not reason, nor anything else that outweighs chance in the matter — has made the others different from one another. For although nearly all agree in their defects, in those matters where they could reasonably agree they disagree so greatly that no two provinces sing the same Antiphonary. It may therefore seem remarkable why falsehood has been of greater authority and more widely known than truth, the defective than the sound. To speak of neighboring Churches: take the Antiphonary of Reims and compare it with that of Beauvais, or Amiens, or the Antiphonary of Soissons, which you have practically at your door; if you find them identical, give thanks to God. We do not wish it to be hidden from posterity that, at the urging of our lords and fathers, we retained many things from the old Antiphonary that were indeed tolerable but could be had much better. Two things, however, we left uncorrected, though thoroughly worthy of correction: namely, the psalm-tone formula (metrum) of the fourth tone and that of the seventh. Although we corrected these in the Gradual, we were unable to correct them in the Antiphonary on account of the psalm usage, our fathers themselves protesting, with whose consent and blessing we carried out the rest to the best of our ability. The reason why the aforementioned formulas are defective is readily at hand. The psalm chant of the fourth tone, solely because of its formula, cannot be fitted to any antiphons that terminate on B quadratum; and the formula of the seventh tone pauses on a note on which that tone never begins — which is permitted to no tone. For every tone should pause on those notes on which it most frequently begins.