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Stability and change in the composition of a ‘Plague Mass’ in the wake of the Black Death

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2016

CHRISTOPHER MACKLIN
CHRISTOPHER MACKLIN*
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Abstract

In the mid-fourteenth century the Black Death inflicted one of the most devastating losses of life in human history. This was met by exercises of collective piety such as the singing of psalms and the celebration of special votive masses, which encouraged social cohesion in the face of the tragedy. This article presents results from an analysis of fifty-seven manuscripts containing copies of the monophonic ‘Recordare domine’ Mass, reportedly created at the behest of Clement VI at Avignon during his Black Death-spanning pontificate. Of these, seven manuscripts contain fully notated renditions of each of the chants for the Mass Propers, enabling us to decouple questions concerning the organisation and transmission of the melodies from those of the texts set to them. When the different versions of the Mass are compared, two major findings emerge. First, differential patterns of consistency within the texts and melodies suggest that the texts of the ‘Recordare domine’ Mass may have circulated separately from the melodies set to them, with the choice of music left to the discretion of the local performing clergy. Second, the patterns of variation between different versions of the Proper texts and melodies allow us to see how a variety of composition strategies (including mnemonic processes) were used to create new music for the mass. The ‘Recordare domine’ Mass thus sheds light not only on the performance of organised sacred music at a pivotal point in European history, but also more generally on the processes of chant composition as a tool for use in response to social stress.

Type
Research Article
Information
Plainsong & Medieval Music , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , October 2016 , pp. 167 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press, 2016 

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References

1 Though historians of the twentieth century debated the causes, reach and scope of the Black Death, there is now a solid consensus based on bio-archaeological data that the outbreak of the mid-fourteenth century was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis which has prompted a re-appraisal of the ways historical and scientific data can be combined to understand changes in human ecology. The special inaugural issue of the journal The Medieval Globe is specifically devoted to these issues. Green, Monica and Symes, Carol, eds., ‘Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World: Rethinking the Black Death’, The Medieval Globe, 1 (2014), 1–336 Google Scholar.

2 For example, Benedictow, Ole J., The Black Death 1346–1353: The Complete History (Woodbridge and Rochester, 2004)Google Scholar; Byrne, Joseph P., Daily Life During the Black Death (Westport, 2006)Google Scholar; and the many citations in the bibliographies of the special issue of The Medieval Globe, especially Campbell, Bruce M. S., ‘The Great Transition: Climate, Disease and Society in the 13th and 14th Centuries’, The Ellen McArthur Lectures, University of Cambridge, 2013 Google Scholar, www.econsoc.hist.cam.ac.uk/podcast-campbell.html (accessed 15 May 2016); Stearns, Justin K., Infectious Ideas: Contagion in Premodern Islamic and Christian Thought in the Western Mediterranean (Baltimore, 2011)Google Scholar. A conference on ‘Plagues in Nomadic Contexts: Historical Impact, Medical Responses and Cultural Adaptations in Ancient to Medieval Eurasia’, organised by Kurt Franz, Ortrun Riha and Charlotte Schubert, was held in Leipzig, 7–9 October 2010. See the report at http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/tagungsberichte/id=3431 (accessed 15 May 2016).

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4 One notable exception to this trend is a 1977 article by Howard Mayer Brown which investigated the ballate with which the young noblemen and noblewomen amuse themselves at the end of each day waiting out the Black Death in the Decameron. See Mayer Brown, Howard, ‘Fantasia on a Theme by Boccaccio’, Early Music, 5 (1977), 324–39Google Scholar. Other important predecessors are discussed in Christopher Macklin, ‘Musica sanat Corpus per Animam: Towards an Understanding of the Use of Music in Response to Plague, 1350–1600’, Ph.D. diss., University of York (2008), 10–13.

5 Leonardo da Vinci, Trattato i.52, in The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, ed. and trans. by Edward MacCurdy (repr. New York, 1954), 1052.

6 Macklin, Christopher, ‘Plague, Performance, and the Elusive History of the Stella celi extirpavit’, Early Music History, 29 (2010), 1–31 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chiu, Remi, ‘Music, Pestilence, and Two Settings of O Beate Sebastiane’, Early Music History, 31(2012), 153–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, Music for the Times of Pestilence, 1460–1600 (Cambridge, forthcoming).

7 Though this is the most common designation, the Mass is also called the ‘missa contra plaga mortalitatis’ (in GB-Lbl Egerton 3036), the ‘missa pro mortalitate’ (in GB-Lbl Add. 38723 and F-Pn, lat 861), the ‘missa pro pestilencia’ (in GB-Ob Rawl. Liturg. b.1 and GB-Ob Hatton 1) and the ‘missa pro quacumque tribulatione’ (in GB-Ob Canon. liturg. 386 and GB-Ob Canon. liturg. 380), among others.

8 Macklin, ‘Musica sanat Corpus per Animam’, 65–129.

9 See Table 1.

10 Namely, F-Lm 23 and 28. See Viard, Jules, ‘La Messe Pour La Peste’, Bibliothèque de l'école des Chartes, 61(1900), 336–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 338.

11 Ibid., 336.

12 Ibid., 337.

13 Graduale sacrosanctae Romanae Ecclesiae de Tempore et de Sanctis, ed. Benedectine Monks of Solesmes (Tournai, 1938, repr. 1961), [139]–[41]; Graduale de Tempore et de Sanctis (Ratisbon, 1871), [112]–[14].

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15 Hampshire Record Office, Reg. Edyngdon, 21M65 A1/9, fol. 17. Translated in The Black Death, ed. and trans. Rosemary Horrox (Manchester, 1994), 116–17. Minor emendations made after consultation of a facsimile of the manuscript.

16 ‘In dem êrsten jâr des grôzen ertpidems was der jâmer sô grôz, daz der pâbst Clemens der sehst ain new mess machte für den tôt ob man got gevlêhen möht, daz er sich über daz volk erparmt. Diu mess huob sich an: recordare domine testamenti tui.’ Konrad von Megensberg, Das Buch der Natur, Bk. II, ch. 32 (listed as chapter 33 in some editions). The passage appears on fol. 73r of D-Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 300, available at http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpg300/0005?sid=f4382cf58cbcf229a2950c0b54fdf626 (accessed 27 June 2016). A modern German edition of the work was edited and published as Das Buch der Natur von Konrad von Megenburg: Die erste Naturgeschichte in deutscher Sprache. In Neu-Hochdeutscher Sprache bearbeitet und mit Anmerkungen versehen von Dr. Hugo Schulz (Greifswald, 1897), 89. Also quoted in Adolph Franz, Die Messe im Deutschen Mittelalter (Darmstadt, 1963), 183–4.

17 ‘immisit Deus pestilentiam in Israhel, de mane usque ad tempus constitutum, etmortui sunt de populo a Dan usque [ad] Bersabee, septuaginta milia virorum’. Viard, ‘La Messe Pour La Peste’, 337.

18 ‘Surgens Jhesus de synagoga introivit in domům Symonis. Socrus autem Symonis tenebatur magnis febribus; et rogaverunt ilium pro ea; et stans super illam imperavit febri; et statim dimisit illam. Et continuo surgens ministrabat eis. Cum autem sol occidisset, omnes qui habebant inflrmos variis languoribus ducebant illos ad eum. At ille, singulis imponens manus, curabat eos.’ Ibid., 337–8.

19 ‘Misit dominus verbum suum et sanavit eos.’ Ibid., 337.

20 ‘Multitudo languentium, et qui vexabantur a spiritibus immundis veniebant ad eum, quia virtus de illo exibat et sanabat omnes.’ Ibid., 338.

21 ‘Recordare Domine testamenti tui.’ Ibid., 336.

22 ‘Dic angelo percutienti cesset iam manus tua.’ Ibid., 336.

23 ‘Stetit pontifex juxta mortuos et viventes habens thuribulum aureum in manu sua: et offerens incensum [in conspectu] Domini et cessavit plaga a [Domino].’ (The high priest stood between the living and the dead, with golden thurible in his hand, and offering incense [in the sight of] the Lord, and the plague ceased [issuing] from [the Lord]). Ibid., 338.

24 ‘Salvabo populum meum in medio Jherusalem, et его illius in veritate in Deum et justicia.’ Ibid., 337.

25 Bergeron, Katherine, Decadent Enchantments: The Revival of Gregorian Chant at Solesmes (Berkeley, CA, 1998), 95 Google Scholar.

26 A full list of these sources appears in Appendix 1. Three of the sources listed (EV-TALam 237.1.228a, DMA 1011, US-NYpm 905) were examined in digital facsimile, while the remainder were examined physically.

27 Solesmes Graduale Romanum, [139]–[41]; Missale ad Usum insignis et praeclare Ecclesie Sarum, ed. Francis Henry Dickinson, 4 vols. (London and Oxford, 1861–83), 2:886*–90*.

28 Manuscripts dating from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century containing the prayers for the ‘Recordare domine’ Mass are commonplace across Western Europe, with no regional patterns discernible.

29 Seventeen manuscripts contain the historical ascription to both Clement and Avignon, while a further nine specify the Mass's association with its particular papal indulgence without reference to any particular city. In other cases where the rubric is absent, the Mass is identified simply as a ‘Mass     to be said in times of plague’ (Missa     tempore peste dicenda) as it is in Paris, BNF Ars. 156, fol. 241v, or as a ‘Mass for pestilence’ (Missa pro pestilencia) as in Oxford, Bodleian Rawl. Liturg. b.1, fol. 281r and Oxford, Bodleian Hatton 1, fol. 207v.

30 Christopher Macklin, ‘The Making of a Plague Mass: Clement VI and the Ecclesiastical Response to the Black Death’, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society (AMS), Society for Music Theory (SMT), and Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) in New Orleans, LA (3 November 2012).

31 Hesbert, René-Jean, ed., Antiphonale Missarum Sextuplex (Brussels, 1935)Google Scholar, 21a, 24b, 144 and 188.

32 According to Walter Howard Frere's Graduale Sarisburiense, the ‘Recordare domine’ Mass gradual Misit dominus and its verse Confiteantur domino are also specified for use in the second Sunday after Epiphany, the sixteenth Sunday after Epiphany, and for the Feast of the Transfiguration, while the Communion chant Multitudo languentium is also indicated in the Sanctorale for the Feast of Sts Fabian and Sebastian. See Howard Frere, Walter, Graduale Sarisburiense: A Reproduction in Facsimile of a Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century with a Dissertation and Historical Index Illustrating Its Development from the Gregorian Antiphonale Missarum (London, 1894; reprint, 1966), i–ciiGoogle Scholar.

33 Macklin, ‘The Making of a Plague Mass’.

34 Specifically, while 67 per cent of the manuscripts consulted end the introit with the phrase ‘ut non desoletur terra, ne perdas omnen animam vivam’ (‘so that the earth is not laid waste and you do not lose every living soul’), a significant minority (33 per cent) substitute the word ‘viventem’ for ‘vivam’. Similarly, in the offertory, half (50 per cent) of the manuscripts consulted say the high priest was standing ‘iuxta mortuos et vivos’ (between dead and living), while the other half substitute ‘viventes’ for ‘vivos’. There is no correlation between using ‘vivam’ in the introit and ‘vivos’ in the offertory, nor is there an easily discernible geographical pattern to the variants.

35 Namely, US-Cn 45.5, fol. 51v–53v, which contains significantly more space between lines of the Proper chants than that given between lines of the celebrants’ prayers.

36 Klugseder, Robert, Quellen des gregorianischen Chorals für das Offizium aus dem Kloster St. Ulrich und Afra Augsburg, Regensburger Studien zur Musikgeschichte, 5 (Tutzing, 2008)Google Scholar.

37 Tallinn, Eesti Ajaloomuuseum (Talinn, Historical Museum), Ms 237.1.228a (XIX.184; 24075), ed. Victoria Goncharova, Publications of Mediaeval Musical Manuscripts, 35 (Ottawa, 2008).

38 British Museum, Department of Manuscripts, Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum for the Years 1916–1920 (London, 1933).

39 Montague Rhodes James, The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge: A Descriptive Catalogue, 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1900–4).

40 Victor Leroquais, Les Sacramentaires et les missels manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, 4 vols. (Paris: [chez l'auteur], 1924); Sarah Ann Long, ‘The Chanted Mass in Parisian Ecclesiastical and Civic Communities, 1480–1540: Local Liturgical Service Practices in Manuscripts and Early Printed Books’ (doctoral thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008).

41 Ingeborg Neske and Elisabeth Remak- Honnef, ‘Codicological Description of the Geese Book, New York, Pierpont Morgan Library M. 905.’ At http://geesebook.asu.edu/docs/Codicological%20description%20English.pdf (accessed 19 November 2015).

42 Young, John and Aitken, P. Henderson, A Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Library of the Hunterian Museum in the University of Glasgow, Planned and Begun by the Late John Young, Continued and Completed (Glasgow, 1908)Google Scholar.

43 The lone exception, GB-Gu Hunter 432, is the subject of a separate forthcoming article.

44 Hingeston-Randolph, Francis Charles, The Register of Thomas De Brantyngham, Bishop of Exeter (A.D. 1370–1394), 2 vols. (London, 1901)Google Scholar, 1:464.

45 Burns, Charles, ed., Calendar of Papal Letters to Scotland of Clement Vii of Avignon (Edinburgh,1976), xxiii Google Scholar.

46 D-Ada DMA 1011, fol. 223r–v.

47 de Voragine, Jacobus, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. William Granger Ryan (Princeton, 1993)Google Scholar, 2:202–3.

48 Namely, F-Pn fons latin 17315 and F-Pn fons latin 17324.

49 CANTUS Database, http://cantusdatabase.org/id/007510 (accessed 18 May 2016). For convenience, Figure 8 shows GB-Ctc 340 against only one of these exemplars, that of A-Gu 30, a fourteenth-century antiphoner from the abbey of Sankt Lambrecht (in Styria, Austria) fully digitised in CANTUS.

50 Observed in the course of studying the ‘Recordare domine’ Mass in French sources. For more on the contents of French liturgical manuscripts, see Sarah Ann Long, ‘The Chanted Mass’.

51 See fol. 2v. Ars 204 is unique among the musical exempla of the ‘Recordare’ Masses in specifying the use of this tract, though as Viard indicates, other (non-noted) sources do indicate it with sufficient frequency to give the tract a place in modern editions of the mass. See Viard, ‘La Messe Pour La Peste’, 337, and SOLESMES Graduale Romanum, [139].

52 This is one of the longest-studied effects in cognitive psychology, being noticed first by Hermann Ebbinghaus in the early decades of the twentieth century: Ebbinghaus, Hermann, On Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology (New York, 1913)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. See also Coleman, Andrew, Dictionary of Psychology, 2nd edn (Oxford, 2006), 688 Google Scholar.

53 The same melody is also shared by other alleluia verses, such as ‘Iste est qui pro lege’, attested among other places in the eleventh-century Aquitanian gradual F-Pn lat 904.

54 Busse Berger, Anna Maria, Medieval Music and the Art of Memory (Berkeley, CA, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Treitler, Leo, ‘Oral, Written, and Literate Process in the Transmission of Medieval Music’, Speculum, 56 (1981), 471–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Karen Desmond, Greedy for New Things: The Meaning of Novelty in Early Fourteenth Century Music (forthcoming).

56 See Leonardo da Vinci, Trattato i.52 and the first paragraph of this article.