responding to recent theories on roman chant by kenneth levy, this article argues, on the basis of liturgical and textual evidence, that non-psalmic offertories were included in the roman chant repertory before carolingian times, that the composition of the offertory cycle was finished by the beginning of the seventh century, that pieces of non-roman origin can be found among psalmic offertories, and that ‘non-roman’ can mean african as well as gallican.