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The invitatory antiphons in Cantus sororum: a unique repertoire in a world of standard chant

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2018

KARIN STRINNHOLM LAGERGREN
KARIN STRINNHOLM LAGERGREN*
Affiliation:
[email protected]
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Abstract

This is the first study to examine the seven invitatory antiphons of the Birgittine weekly Office, the Cantus sororum, offering complete transcriptions of the melodies and texts. An important general finding is that these invitatories share many melodic similarities with great responsories, but on a more detailed level this article investigates precisely how these chants relate to known models, both complete melodies as well as individual melodic motives. Four patterns of composition among the Cantus sororum invitatories emerge: (1) unique texts may be combined with melodies that resemble other known chants outside the Cantus sororum; (2) texts and melodies that resemble other variants outside the Cantus sororum may be combined in new ways; (3) both text and melody are unknown outside the Cantus sororum.

Overall, these invitatory antiphons, like the rest of the Cantus sororum, represent creative work with existing melodies and texts, including reworkings, borrowings and consistent use of melodic motifs, comprising a significant part of a repertoire at once distinctly Birgittine in character and yet conforming to the common stock of Gregorian Chant. Melodic correspondences within the Cantus sororum as well as in the Birgittine Mass repertoire thus afford an interesting perspective on a soundscape in which the Birgittines functioned and where, through music, their identity was created and maintained.

Type
Research Article
Information
Plainsong & Medieval Music , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , October 2018 , pp. 121 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press, 2018 

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References

1 For an overview of invitatory antiphons, see Ruth Steiner and Keith Falconer, ‘Invitatory’, Grove Music Online. www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/13882 (accessed 3 February 2017). See also Steiner, Ruth, ‘Tones for the Palm Sunday Invitatory Source’, Journal of Musicology, 3/2 (Spring, 1984), 142–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; eadem, ‘Local and Regional Traditions of the Invitatory Chant’, Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 27, fasc. 1/4 (1985), 131–8.

2 Gy, Pierre-Marie, ‘L’Office des Brigittines dans le contexte général de la liturgie médiévale’, Nordiskt kollokvium II i latinsk liturgiforskning 12–13 maj 1972, Hässelby slott (unpublished typescript) (Stockholm, 1972), 13–27Google Scholar.

3 Much of the extensive body of secondary literature on St Birgitta and her Order is in Swedish. Overviews and introductions in English include Morris, Bridget, St Birgitta of Sweden, Studies in Medieval Mysticism 1 (Woodbridge, 1999)Google Scholar; and Sahlin, Claire L., Birgitta of Sweden and the Voice of Prophecy, Studies in Medieval Mysticism 3 (Woodbridge, 2001). Olsen, Ulla Sander, Nyberg, Tore and Carlsen, Per Sloth, eds., Birgitta Atlas: Saint Birgitta's Monasteries: A Transeuropean Project (Die Klöster der Heiligen Birgitta: Ein transeuropäisches projekt) (Uden, 2013)Google Scholar, surveys all Birgittine foundations, including the reformed branches. See also Nyberg, Tore, Birgittinische Klostergründungen des Mittelalters: Inaugural-Dissertation, Bibliotheca historica Lundensis 15 (Lund, 1965)Google Scholar.

4 The Revelations of St. Birgitta of Sweden, Vol. 4, The Heavenly Emperor's Book to Kings, The Rule, and Minor Works, trans. Denis Searby, introduction and notes by Bridget Morris (Oxford, 2015), 109. It is impossible to date this incident precisely, but it certainly occurred before Birgitta's departure from Sweden to Rome in 1349.

5 For lack of sources, the extent and contents of this first version at the time of its creation are unknown, although the activity itself is documented. See Lundén, Tryggve, Officium parvum beate Marie Virginis: Vår Frus tidegärd (Uppsala, 1976), xxi–xxixGoogle Scholar; and The Revelations of St. Birgitta of Sweden, ed. Searby.

6 This form of monastic organisation was unusual but not unique in medieval Europe. See Griffiths, Fiona J. and Hotchin, Julie, eds., Partners in Spirit: Women, Men, and Religious Life in Germany, 1100–1500 (Brepols, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Today preserved in the Uppsala University Library, C-collection, which contains some five hundred manuscripts in all. See Mittelalterliche Handschriften der Universitätsbibliothek Uppsala: Katalog über die C-Sammlung, Acta Bibliothecae R. Universitatis Upsaliensis 26 (Uppsala, 1988–95).

8 The double abbey was dissolved in 1652. For further information on its history, see Sander Olsen et al., Birgitta Atlas, 212–23.

9 The present author has investigated the abbey's liturgical music manuscripts in the research project ‘The Transmission of the Cantus Sororum in the Low Countries’. See Strinnholm Lagergren, Karin, ‘The Birgittine Mass Liturgy Through Five Centuries. A Case Study of the Uden Sources’, Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft, 57 (Freibourg, 2017), 49–71Google Scholar; eadem, ‘Save Us from Plague, Sudden Death, and Every Tribulation. The Antiphon Hec est preclarum vas in the Birgittine Context’, Journal of the Alamire Foundation, 7 (Brepols, 2015), 101–14; eadem, ‘A Reformed Cantus Sororum in Maria Refugie around 1800’, Continuity and Change in the Birgittine Order. Papers from the Conference at Dartington Hall 21–24 July 2015, ed. Elin Andersson and Claes Gejrot (Stockholm, 2017), 325–37; eadem, ‘The Birgittine Abbey of Maria Refugie – Five Hundred Years of Manuscript Production’, Cantus Planus, Proceedings of the 2014 Venice Meeting (forthcoming). The abbey library in Uden is catalogued in Olsen, Ulla Sander, Bibliotheca Birgittina Birgittinessenabdij Mariënwater, Maria Refugie: Uden N.Br.: gesticht ca. 1437 – overgeplaatst naar Uden 1713 (Brussel, 2002)Google Scholar.

10 ‘Despite some research into certain local traditions, no comprehensive study of invitatory tones and antiphons has yet been published.’ Steiner and Falconer, ‘Invitatory’.

11 René-Jean Hesbert and René Prévost, eds., Corpus Antiphonalium Officii. Vol. 3: Invitatoria et antiphonae (Rome, 1968).

12 Hiley, David, Western Plainchant: A Handbook (Oxford, 1993), 99Google Scholar. Invitatories in modes I and VIII do not appear to exist; mode IV has several Venite tones associated with it (ibid., 66–7). Steiner, ‘Tones for the Palm Sunday Invitatory Source’, 143, which examines invitatories from an Italian perspective, notes a preference for mode IV.

13 Steiner, ‘Local and Regional Traditions’, 137.

14 Lundén, Officium parvum beate, xxix.

15 Viveca Servatius, ‘Cantus sororum: musik- und liturgiegeschichtliche Studien zu den Antiphonen des birgittinischen Eigenrepertoires: nebst 91 Transkriptionen’, Ph.D. diss., Uppsala University (1990).

16 Viveca Servatius, ‘Benedicamustroperna i Cantus sororum’, Master's thesis, Stockholm University (1977).

17 Hilkka-Liisa Vuori, ‘Neitsyt Marian yrttitarhassa. Birgittalaissisarten matutinumin suuretresponsoriot’ (‘In the Herb Gardens of Oure Ladye. The Great Responsories of Matins in Bridgettine Sisters’ Liturgy of Hours), Ph.D. diss., Sibelius Academy Helsinki (2011). A short English summary of the most important findings is accessible at www.voxsilentii.fi/11 (accessed 5 April 2018).

18 Ann-Marie Nilsson, ‘En studie i Cantus Sororum: hymnerna och deras melodier’ (‘On Liturgical Hymn Melodies in Sweden during the Middle Ages’), Ph.D. diss., Gothenburg University (1991), 91–120.

19 Michelle Ann Urberg, ‘Music in Devotional Lives of the Birgittine Brothers and Sisters at Vadstena Abbey (c. 1373–1545)’, Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago (2016).

20 Treitler, Leo, ‘The Transmission of Some Aquitanian Tropes’, in With Voice and Pen: Coming to Know Medieval Song and How It Was Made (Oxford, 2003), 268Google Scholar.

21 This study will not deal with later developments in Mariënwater, where the music around 1800 was subject to revisions. This topic is discussed in Strinnholm Lagergren, ‘A Reformed Cantus Sororum’; and eadem, ‘The Birgittine Mass Liturgy’.

22 The other six manuscripts are Uden HS K:An 2, Uden HS K:An 3, Uden HS K:An 4, Uden HS K:An 5, MRK 072 (catalogued in Sander Olsen, Bibliotheca Birgittina, 121–2) and NL-DHa KB 71 A 21 (catalogued in van Boeren, Petrus Cornelis, Catalogus van de liturgische handschriften van de Konijnklijke Bibliotheek (’s-Gravenhage, 1988), 41–3)Google Scholar.

23 Based largely on documentary evidence, Sander Olsen (Bibliotheca Birgittina, 12, and appendix 2; Sander Olsen et al., Birgitta Atlas, 215) argues that a semi-professional scriptorium reached its peak at the abbey c.1480–1500. Art historian Alie van Veenendaal, ‘Gedecoreerde handschriften uit Mariënwater’, in In Buscoducis 1450–1629 kunst uit de Bourgondische tijd te ’s-Hertogenbosch: de cultuur van late middeleeuwen en renaissance: tentoonstelling Noordbrabants Museum, ’s-Hertogenbosch, ed. A. M. Koldeweij (Maarssen, 1990, 498), offers 1475, the year construction on the abbey church was begun. Van Veenendaal dates the group of six manuscripts between the 1460s and 1490s based on their decoration.

24 Léon van Liebergen, 300 jaar Abdij Uden (Uden, 2013), 33–4.

25 Cantus database http://cantus.uwaterloo.ca/ (accessed 5 April 2018).

26 We do not know which sources were available when the Birgittine liturgy was created in the 1350s and 1360s, but Petrus Olavi, a Dominican friar native to and active in the diocese of Linköping, probably had this liturgy in mind when he established the foundation for the Order's liturgy. The Linköping connection has not yet been studied. Besides the Breviarium Lincopense, the CAO was also consulted.

27 The themes were reinforced in customaries, in which the content of the liturgy was translated, commented upon and further explained to the sisters in the vernacular. An example of such a book is Jungfru Marie örtagård (the Garden of the Virgin Mary), published in 1510 for use in Vadstena, which explains in Swedish the content of the Latin liturgy. See Geete, Robert, ed., Jungfru Marie örtagård vadstenanunnornas veckoritual i svensk öfversättning från år 1510 (Stockholm, 1895), 36–121Google Scholar.

28 The ensemble Gemma has recorded these antiphons on the CD, Maria! Maria! 400 Years of Birgittine Chant (Sterling CDA 1828–2).

29 The approach taken is based on Saulnier, Daniel, Les modes grégoriens (Solesmes, 1997), 45–6, 103Google Scholar.

30 Cantus database http://cantus.uwaterloo.ca/ (accessed 1 March 2018).

31 Of course, the Liber Responsorialis is not an exhaustive source of all Venite tones, but the present limited study has not been able to determine whether or not this tone was exclusive to the Birgittines.

32 Cantus database (accessed 26 October 2016).

33 Cantus database (accessed 1 February 2017).

34 Nilsson, Ann-Marie, S:t Eriks Hystoria. The Historia of St. Erik, King and Martyr, Patron Saint of Sweden (Bromma, 1999), 49Google Scholar.

35 Cantus database (accessed 3 April 2018).

36 Cantus database melody search (accessed 23 March 2018).

37 A Cantus search uncovers eight exact matches and five transpositions of this opening formula, which seems to be a very widespread and not dependent on any particular mode. Cantus database melody search (accessed 30 January 2017).

38 Klosterneuburg, Augustiner-Chorherrenstift – Bibliothek, 1012 (A-KN 1012, 44v). Cantus database (accessed 30 January 2017).

39 The Birgittines had an elaborate sequence repertoire since they sang one sequence per day. They were borrowed from the standard repertoire except for the Sunday sequence, which is believed to have originated in Vadstena. See Lundén, Officium parvum beate, xlv–l; Strinnholm Lagergren, ‘The Birgittine Mass Liturgy’, 63–4.