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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Forty years after Charlemagne’s imperial coronation, Walahfrid Strabo, thirty-three-year-old abbot of the monastery of Reichenau, wrote a history of mid-ninth-century Frankish liturgy: Libellas de exordiis et incrementis quarundam in observationibus ecclesiasticis rerum—A Little Book about the Origins and Development of Certain Aspects of the Liturgy. It was the first account of liturgical development, and the topics ranged widely over thirty-two chapters, from bells to baptism, language to litany. Most of the subjects were in a state of change or expansion. Where there was controversy—for example, should a priest celebrate the Eucharist more than once a day—the history of a practice would help to underline the essential elements and to demonstrate the Christian constants as opposed to cultural diversity. Where there was development, such as the increasing number of hymns available for the Liturgy of the Hours, the history of that practice was appropriate and timely.
1 MGHCap., II, ed. V. Krause (Hanover, 1897), pp. 473-516. I have recently completed a translation of and liturgical commentary on this text as my doctoral thesis in the University of St Andrews, publication forthcoming in Mittellateinische Studien una Texte (E J. Brill).
2 In his fundamental article, ‘Eine Sammelhandschrift Walafrid Strabo’, Ausder Welt des Buches. Festschrift Georg Leyh (Leipzig, 1950), pp. 30–48; (repr. Mittelalterliche Studien, 3 vols (Stuttgart, 1967), 2, pp. 34-51), Professor Bernhard Bischoff has convincingly demonstrated that St Gallen MS 878 was written for and largely by Walahfrid over a period of about twenty-four years. It is Walahfrid’s commonplace book, or vade-mecum, a collection of texts and excerpts from texts that he found worthy of copying for additional study and use.
3 The two most recent editions are Visio Wettini, ed. and tr. D. Traill (Bern, 1974) and Visio Weltini, ed. and tr. H. Knittel (Sigmaringen, 1986).
4 Among several good accounts of Walahfrid’s life see Langosch, K., Die deulsche Literatur da Miltelalters: Verfasserlexicon, 4 vols (Berlin, 1955), 4, pp. 734–70 Google Scholar, with full references and extensive bibliographies; see esp. pp. 738-67, which provide an excellent analysis of Walahfrid’s writings.
5 See D. A. Bullough and Alice L. Harting-Corrêa, ‘Texts, Chant, and the Imperial Chapel’, in Peter Godman and Roger Collins, eds, Charlemagne’s Heir (Oxford, 1990), pp. 489-508.
6 MGHEp., V, ed. E. Dümmler (Berlin, 1899), pp.307-9.
7 For an excellent summary of this interesting and complex aspect of early music see Giulio Cattiti, Music of the Middle Ages, tr. Steven Botterill, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1984), 1, pp. 53–63, with full references.
8 The terminology has been widely accepted since H. Gneuss first proposed the terms, ‘Alte Hymnar’, ‘revidierte Alte Hymnar’ in Hymnar unàHymne» im englischen Mittelalter (Tübingen, 1968), pp. 10-40.
9 The folio references supplement the material in Bullough and Harring-Corrêa, ‘Texts, Chant and the Imperial Chapel’, pp. 502-3.
10 For the Latin text of all of the above quotations see MCH dp., II, pp. 505-6.