Medieval Greek Chant Theoretical Streams as Scholia on the Harmonica of Claudios Ptolemaios: The Online Sources

In the present blog I’ll try to avoid terminologies and elements of Greek chant that, for one with no intimacy with the subject -a Gregorianist for example – can be perceived as foreign, difficult and laborious to deal with; mainly something exotic that should be left to those devoted to (Latin and / or Greek) music theory. I am aware that it could appear as more “neutral” and “unbiased” if I chose to simply list the online sources, but I prefer to go into more detail, adding some comments in the end about modern vocabularies. Addressing Latin chant specialists about online sources of Musica Enchiriadis is, after all, more straight-forward than informing them about Greek chant theory stuff. Last but not least, those who still believe that “it’s all Greek” to them can enjoy the diagrams and the schemes of the MSS; some of them are really beautiful.

A small introduction

The earliest Byzantine MSS of ancient Greek music theory (below I give the links of about 130 online MSS from 11th century onwards) appear to us –believe it or not- only after the 11th century. The D-Heu: Cod. Pal. gr. 281 (Mathiesen, 1988 No 14 [=Math. 14]) is written on 14 January of 1040 (or 6548 W.E.). The other MSS of 11th and 12th centuries are I-Vnm: Gr. app. cl. VI/3 (coll. 1347) (Math. 270, Vitrac 2019 [=Vitrac] p. 142, Acerbi-Gioffreda 2019, p. 655), I-Vnm: Gr. 307 (coll. 1027) (Math. 261, Vitrac p. 142) and later I-Rvat: Gr. 2338 (Math. 234, Acerbi-Gioffreda 2019 Va [13th century], p. 661) with I-Vnm: Gr. app. cl. VI/10 (coll. 1300) (Math. 273, Düring 79 M, additionally the 14th century hand of Grēgoras has been identified [Bianconi 2005, p. 413 No 12, Acerbi 2016, p. 186, No 10, e.g. he added the numbers and titles of chapters of book I of Ptolemaios’s Harmonica, see also Vitrac, p. 66 and p. 142]). But for us it is important to know the relation of them (and of the later ones) to medieval music.

Indeed, some of the, for example, 13th and 14th century Greek manuscripts that contain the treatises of ancient musicographers (who go back to 4th century B.C.), are full of medieval scholia and paratextual diagrams (mainly on Claudios Ptolemaios’s Harmonica [2nd century A.D.]) about Greek chant theory; a good deal of them (especially those connecting ēchoi to the names Dōrios, Phrygios etc.) never published. But first, let us begin with a useful note which shall underline the importance of these relatively late sources about the modern prospects of medieval chant in general.

A pattern? The earlier the sources the later the socio-cultural entity

We do not have in our disposal – in contrast to Latin chant- any text of chant theory in Greek (excluding few ekphonetic signs lists) from the 1st millennium. But in the neumes table of M. Lavra Γ 67, f. 159r (10th / beginning 11th century) there is the following - not rudimentary- chant theory sentence: the voices are seven, but the ēchoi four, three mesoi, two phthorai and four plagioi, voice 1st, voice 2nd, voice 3rd, voice 4th, voice 5th, voice 6th, voice 7th, that is the “fin(e)-al” (τελεία, more economically in French: “fin-al,” a medieval Latin speaking scholar would tended to translate it with the meaning of perfect, David Cohen, “‘The imperfect Seeks Its Perfection’: Harmonic Progression, Directed Motion, and Aristotelian Physics,’’ Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 23, No. 2 [Autumn, 2001], p. 155 with n. 58 and 62). The, now conventionally named, Hagiopolitēs is a 14th century manuscript; we do not know how the 1st millennium appearance(s) of this treatise was. The first question is what happened and, given the cultural importance of medieval Jerusalem and New Rome, an earlier material didn’t reach us. As most people of M.M. know, the same question applies to the scarcity of indigenous sources from Old Rome before the Carolingian times [1*], not to mention theoretical treatises or even something like “primitive” considerations of – let us accept the linear phraseology for the moment – a not “full-fledged” Octoēchos. Rome was -and still continues frequently to be- thrown inferentially, together with any kind of material that “we” do not feel comfortable / understand, into the convenient box with the label “pre-theoretical period” (of exactly what and concerning whom?). The problematic on such speculations acquires even more importance if one thinks that we have MSS of Boethius’s De Institutione Musica already from 9th century – thanks to the preferences of the new Carolingian realm - and that the first Greek text of the Harmonica of Claudios Ptolemaios (who is quoted by Boethius) is appeared only in an above-mentioned 12th century MS (the MS Math. 273). Indeed, the sources that reached us [2*] didn’t appear in the past ex nihilo and / since, among others, they are the residues of many of historico-ideological sieves (like the issue of the existence of an Old Tropologion in Greek).

[1*] I am not referring here, of course, to the later notated sources of the so-called Old Roman chant.

[2*] Of disparate nature; as for the much better studied mathematical material see now, Vitrac, 2019, and for music already in Barbera’s edition of the Euclidean Division of the Canon (1991), especially pp. 104-111, see also p. 205 and n. 6 of my contribution to the 13th meeting of Cantus Planus (2006, here).

How music historiographies could be a projection to the past of modern conceptual frameworks

Let us now return to our subject. Surprisingly enough some of the above mentioned scholia / diagrams reflect, among others, Hagiopolitan music theory topics by quoting - and thus connecting them to - certain chapters of the Harmonica. One can assume that such an important material would attract the attention of the scholars of Byzantine chant of the 20th century, but this wasn’t the case and the aforesaid material remained a terra incognita. Why this happened is mainly the work of the ethnomusicologist of the future (here I give only some samples), but it is so amusing that Jorgen Raasted in his, “Quis Quid Ubi Quibus Auxilis… Notes on the transmission of the Hagiopolites,” Scriptorium 42-1 (1988), p.91 (Persée), passed just next to this Hagiopolitan material of Vat. gr. 192 since he referred to this MS but had not had the chance to consult it!

One can find such kind of information sporadically not in studies of Greek chant but in the book Ancient Greek Music Theory, by Thomas J. Mathiesen, RISM (BXI), 1988. In the bibliography (and mainly in the description of some MSS) Mathiesen gives information that there are interlineated and marginal scholia (extensively or not) mainly to the Harmonica of Ptolemaios and in some cases he understands that they have relation to Greek chant theory. Interestingly, he uses an atypical wording about the modern classification of Byzantine music theory in two classes (indeed, medieval reality appears to be more complex if one consults the MSS of ancient Greek music theory): “There are at least two major classes of Byzantine music theory, one dealing primarily with practical problems of musical notation and liturgical chant (the papadikai), and the other representing an archaicizing attempt to preserve ancient Greek music theory and philosophy and to apply it to Byzantine music theory” (emphasis mine). As a matter of fact the phrasing is not inaccurate if one recalls that even the earliest papadikai of the 14th century, report also a certain correlation of Dōrios Phrygios etc. with (i.e. apply them to) the numbering of the ēchoi in which, for example, the Lydios / Hypolydios is correlated to 2nd / pl.2nd ēchos respectively. Moreover, the papadikai system was also a product of intellectual (and “archaicizing”) effort (not only about the above mentioned correlation) [3*]. But for the above Mathiesen’s (1988) passage and his wider rationale and decisions see pp. xxx-xxxi (and about his hopes - some of them relative to our subject here - on p. xxxv-xxxvi). In my opinion, the high degree of isolation of these two frameworks in modern academia 1) on ancient Greek music and 2) on Greek (and other Eastern and Oriental) chant is the main reason that all this material remained unpublished, not catalogued and uncommented. A fitting analogy would be the scholia on Martianus Capella and Boethius having the same treatment. Adding to that is the seemingly established approach (based on our reconstructions) that Byzantine chant theory (whatever relation “had” this theory to actual practice) and ancient Greek music theory (whatever relation “had” this theory to actual practice) are treated as more separate entities in accordance to the degree of interaction they really had (especially after the documentation of the MSS of the 13th or 14th centuries we will see below). So this little presentation of online MSS is concerned with this “gray area” [4*] between the somewhat well-defined boarders of these two modern disciplines beginning the discussion with a primary selection of some online MSS just to realize the Byzantine chant status of affairs (or, the “accepted facts”) during the 20th century (and the first fifth of the 21st). The D. Touliatos-Banker, “Check List of Byzantine Musical Manuscripts in the Vatican Library,” Manuscripta. A Journal for Manuscript research 31 (1987) has to be seen under this paragraph’s prospect.

[3*] The exceptional use of a Hagiopolitan correlation in a papadikē would just demonstrate that a) in performance practice the results would be not of so much difference (at least, for us) and b) that all that theoretical effort and different streams was something important (for them), not only in terms of periphery-center.

[4*] As André Barbera, J.A.M.S., 43 2, 1990, p. 363 named it in his review of Mathiesen (1988) referring also to the importance of Vat. gr. 191 and connecting it, after A. Turyn of course, mainly to Maximos Planoudēs

N.B. A somehow exhaustive list of MSS, persons and scholia, given the problems of Düring’s edition of the Harmonica of Ptolemaios, could be possible only after a real critical edition of this text (Mathiesen, 1988, p. xxxiv and 2000, p. 432) and the inclusion of further paleographical studies (especially after the identification of the inks via spectral imaging) of the relative MSS. But the progress already made in the last few decades is of remarkable importance and any kind of skepticism based on the latest or future technologies (implying that the current state is not “convincing enough”) would be unfair, only alluding on supposed “neutrality” and an absence of “bias” and “ideology” of the wo/man who expresses such skepticism. The field is continuously being studied, with new additions being published; regarding earlier “codicological and palaeographic units” of the MSS we are dealing with, see now F. Acerbi-A. Gioffreda, “Harmonica membra disjecta,” Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies 59 4, Winter 2019 [=Acerbi-Gioffreda 2019] (here), accessed 24 November 2019. And one can also add the Mathiesen’s (1992) “Hermes or Clio…” (here), especially on p. 4 (on Why and How these treatises survived), p. 7 and pp. 14-15 with n. 22.

Below, slowly but surely, I have advanced my older work on the subject by giving a selection of eight MSS that include Greek chant information mainly on two - and occasionally on more - chant related topics i.e., α) on the I.16 of Ptolm. Harm. i.e., concerning the medieval use of equal diatonic genre and β) on the II.10 of Ptolm. Harm. i.e., concerning the correlation of Dōrios Phrygios etc. with the numbering of the ēchoi.

Eight online MSS with Greek chant information

I-Vat: Gr. 191 (Math. 214 [13th], Dür. 64 W [13th /14th], Acerbi 2016 p. 195, Vitrac [1296-1298] p. 145)

Content and Bibliographic References and at Pinakes (here)

According to Ingemar Düring, the editor of Harmonica (1930), it is stemming from the m-class and gives rise to the recension of its own subclass [W]. This is one of the most studied codices in relation to the included astronomical and mathematical material. Importantly, in some scholia the hand (the revisoris manus R of A. Turyn) of the intellectual and deacon Ioannēs Pothos Pediasimos recently has been identified (Pérez Martín, 2010) and he “assembled, and annotated at least between 1296 and 1302/3 the early Palaiologan mathematical encyclopaedia in Vat. gr. 191” (Acerbi 2016, p. 183 No. 3). His hand is also responsible for some crucial chant related scholia, within Harmonica, and a small theoretical text just after it. What, at first glance, we have here is:

α) As far as Ptol. Harm. I.16 (entitled, in Jon Solomon’s tr.: How Many and Which Genera Are More Familiar to the Hearing), on f. 331r, there is not any remarkable marginal or interlinear scholion in connection to equal diatonic.

β) Referencing to II.10 of Harmonica, on f. 340r, there is one extra correlation of the names Dōrios Phrygios etc. with the ordinals (and additionally, here, to the martyriai [modal signatures]) of the ēchoi. This correlation was the most proximate to the more widespread of the Latin chant and is different to the Hagiopolitan and the one of the Bryennios’s stream. I transliterate and provisionally translate in English:

Dōrios (is the name of) the 1st ēchos, Phrygios the 2nd, Lydios the 3rd, Mixolydios the 4th, Hypodōrios the plagios of the 1st, Hypophrygios the plagios of the 2nd, Hypolydios the plagios of the 3rd, that is the Varys, Hypomixolydios the plagios of the 4th. Ptolemaios, not properly (?!), says that the ēchoi of them are seven. And other people, speaking nonsense, name them otherwise. (emphasis mine, then follows the same nomenclature and the relative martyriai, I transliterate:)

Picture 1

The pneumata (spirits) are four, hypsilē, chamēlē, kentēma and elaphron, because we are in need of pneuma (both) for ascending and descending.

The tension in the wording is indicative of the tension among personalities of the time. Here most probably it is the monk Maximos Planoudēs (his friend Manuēl Bryennios and the historian and deacon George Pachymerēs represent the same ēchoi correlation stream [see them on f.101v of the autograph of Pachymerēs I-Ra: Gr. 38, not included in Math.]) that is implied to “speaking nonsense.” Remind also that –not only- in Hagiopolitēs the “schemes of diapason” are not numbered, as I wrote some years before, here in M.M., in the ancient way from 1 to 7 but from 2 to 8 (the online MSS that contain this form of Anōnymos III passage are: [Math. 87=] F-Pn: Gr. 2458 68r-v, [Math. 89=] F-Pn: Gr. 2460 27v, F-Pn: [Math. 95=] Gr. 2532 82r-v, [Math. 219=] I-Vat: Gr. 221 pp. 388, [Math. 230=] I-Vat: Gr. 1364 f. 134v, [Math. 238=] I-Vat: Barb. gr. 265 p. 458, [Math. 253=] I-Vat: Ross. gr. 977 pp. 178-179 and of course its ρ recension, the Hagiopolitēs MS F-Pn: Gr. 360 f. 229v together with the EG-MSsc: Gr. 1764, f. 94r-v [the very last MS, numbered 299, that Mathiesen decided to include in his Catalogue]). Vincent (p.224) already at 1847 realized that there is an interesting variation here and, reasonably, felt the need of an explanation.

Additionally, we have a totally unknown and unpublished small theoretical chant text on f. 359v, just after the Harmonica, with strong affinity, even in wording, to Pseudo-Damaskēnos [=Ps-D] text. Thus, we can legitimately label it as proto-pseudodamaskēnos and it is also important for the “pre-history” of Ps-D. The earliest testimony of the latter belongs to the 15th century. I provisionally translate the half of the whole text, in order to understand some of its content. It is also interesting regarding modern phraseologies about Latin chant in which we see terms like sign and neume. The relative concordances to Ps-D are given in parentheses as its editors did not use at all this early (as far as the Byzantine chant) text:

The principal (κύριοι) tonoi (are) ison, oligon and apostrophos (Ps-D 42-43): oxeia and petastē (are) so-called tonoi because they (are) dominated and diminished (συστέλλονται) (Ps-D 44) by the ison: as tonoi (are) called also the compound (σύνθετα) signs (contra [?] in Ps-D 49), but signs (σημάδια) (are) called when they are placed and written, and tonoi when they are sung (Ps-D 50-51):-

Ēchos and melos are different, because ēchos precedes melos (Ps-D 79-80), and there is not melos without ēchos, but ēchos exists without melos, and the ēchos always begins with the ison, but the melos begins with tonos and pneuma (spirit):

Psalm (is) melody with the use of a musical instrument, but Ōdē (is) the one with the use of mouth and without an instrument (Ps-D 85-88). The tonoi (are) fifteen since the (main) frets / bridges [5*] in Music are fifteen (Ps-D 152-153), and Ptolemaios said all these:-...

And then continues with another categorization of the 24 signs.

That means that the above text, one of the oldest best dated complete [6*] treatises of Greek chant, is not found in a papadikē and the like “church” MSS, as most people would expect, but just next to Ptolemaios, in a MS of ancient Greek music theory! This is an example of how “innocent” prospects predispose modern narrative as well as… findings.

Of the other online subclasses of Harmonica’s m-class we have 1) the E i.e., I-Vat: Gr. 186 (Math. 210, Vitrac p. 145, 13th c.), 2) the I-Vat: Pal. gr. 60 (Math. 242, Vitrac p. 165, where we see for α) the “softer of the intense diatonic” together with “equal diatonic” in the same scheme on f. 16r [like BNF gr. 2450, see below] and for β) ēchoi and enēchēmata (the intonation syllables of the ēchoi), on f. 26r in the order of Bryennios / Grēgoras) and 3) the 13th century I-Vat: Pal. gr. 95 (Math. 243, Dür. 73 13th/14th century, Pinakes [here]) of the M subclass.

[5*] Καβάλια / kavália (or καβάλλια / kavállia in Hagiopolitēs, as well as κάβαλα / kávala in other sources of Ps-D), in the edition of Ps-D a not good reading is adopted: kavála, see MS Dionysiou 570, 8r; best translation in French: chevalet (=almost a transliteration). In modern Greek something like καβαλάρηδες or better γέφυρες / περντέδες (from Ottoman-Turkish perde).

[6*] Complete, because there was plenty of space - in this initially blank page- for Pediasimos to continue to write if there was more text to add, but he didn’t. This text is not like 1) the (one) question-(one) answer material of the MS RUS-SPsc: Gr. 495, ff. 1v-4v, or 2) collections of en-ēchēmata (in-tonation formulas of the ēchoi) (here) without theoretical text, or 3) neumes material like F-Pn: Gr 260 ff. 253v or even 4) the dated 1289 F-Pn: Gr. 261 ff. 139v-140r that includes headings, and on f. 140v we have the oldest testimony - in the form of a “table”- of the widespread nomenclature of the papadikai. Here is not the place to discuss these –and more- cases (and their one by one labeling).

I-Vat: Gr. 192 (Math. 215 [13th], Dür. 65 V [13th /14th], Vitrac p. 145 [second half of 13th century])

Bibliographic References and at Pinakes (here)

This is a “mathematical miscellany” stemming from the m-class that gives rise to the recension of Düring’s subclass labeled V. It seems that this MS is the immediate (not entirely in chronological terms) predecessor of Vat. gr. 191 and unfortunately, it didn’t acquire so much –and not only - paleographical attention like that until now (consider e.g., the above Bibliographic References where some 11 works are sited in relation to the 116 for the Vat. gr. 191). As far as the content there are learned scholia written within and after the Harmonica linking it to the Hagiopolitan theoretical tradition of the Greek chant. But in this case we have one personality that published such an important material of scholia. He was the French polymath Théodore Reinach (1860-1928) in his - more than a century before – “Fragments Musicologiques Inédits,” Revue des Études Grecques, Tome X, No 39, July-September 1897, pp. 313-327 (Persée). Reinach transcribed and commented the theoretical texts / diagrams found - only after - the main texts of the MS Vat. gr. 192, leaving aside the scholia within the Harmonica. I will not elaborate, for the moment, on Reinach’s work. In relation to Greek chant and Ptolemaios we have the α) on f. 201v (and f. 223 [here there is only the name of “softer of the intense diatonic,” on that, see the next MS below] i.e., two times) and the β) on f. 225v (a scheme using whole tones and leimmata and in an name-order that Bryennios’s stream inverts in an absolute manner) respectively. Terms like mesos, phthora, enēchēmata, epēchēmata and apēchēmata and a trochos like scheme on f. 227r are found.

Other online MSS of this subclass [V] of Harmonica are F-Pn: Gr. 2451 (Math. 80) and F-Pn: Gr. 2453 (Math. 82).

F-Pn: Coislin gr. 173 (Math. 103 [15th], Dür. 51 [14th], see Acerbi 2016, p. 151, Vitrac p.154 [first half of 14th]) see also: Notice rédigée par Anne Lapasset, Fevrier 2015 (here) and at Pinakes (here)

On f.1 there is a possession note of the Megistē Lavra monastery at Mount Athos / Greece. Christos Terzēs in his edition of Dionysios (Athens, 2010, p. 115*) believes that the hands had not been identified (quoting Mathiesen, 1988) and that the MS is produced in Mount Athos. As far as the Harmonica the text belongs to Düring’s g-class that represents the recension of Nicēphoros Grēgoras (ca. summer 1293/June 1294 - 1358/1361 [after Divna Manolova’s Dissertation, Budapest, 2014, academia.edu]). Indeed, “concerning the musical treatises, I-Vat.: Gr. 198 [Math. 218, Vitrac p. 146] is an apograph of Paris gr. 173” (Acerbi 2016, p.160). Note among Grēgoras’s autograph scholia (Bianconi, 2005, p. 415, No 25), the partly autograph one at the beginning of Harmonica on f. 32r (B. Mondrain, “Maxime Planoude, Nicéphore Grégoras et Ptolémée,” Palaeoslavica 10, 2002, p. 321 n.26).

α) On f.58r as scholion to I.16 of Harmonica. Here Ptolemaios begins accepting that the diatonic genera in general are more familiar to hearing than the enharmonic and the soft chromatic and continues extensively with the equal diatonic genus. Then he presents some other genera and their tunings / positions in musical instruments, and finally, he “can hardly fail to accept” the ditonal diatonic (roughly saying, the one using semitones and whole tones). But, since the “equal diatonic is a logical modification [and “more even / ὁμαλώτερον”] of the intense diatonic” (Mathiesen, 2000, pp. 450-451) the scheme here, together with “equal diatonic,” gives another title - referencing the position (numbers 24 to 18) – to it, this is the “softer of the intense diatonic”; thus uses the same ratios! The naming of the equal diatonic as (and its connection to) softer (μαλακώτερον, see also in Ptolm. Harm. I.12.28ff.) of the intense diatonic, has important consequences for the use of equal diatonic in the theory and the actual musical praxis in medieval times. A variation of this scheme exists also in the next F-Pn: Gr. 2540 (and I shall transliterate that form there).

β) On f. 74v, in relation to II.10, a scheme is given with the correlations of Dōrios Phrygios etc. with the ēchoi, their enēchēmata and the four phthorai. This correlation, at first glance, is the same as the tradition of Bryennios i.e, the prōtos ēchos is placed at the highest position (Hypermixolydios). For the moment, I have not any definitive opinion if it is exactly the same system as the one of Bryennios since we know that Grēgoras’s work consisted of, more or less, a new “adjustment” of the ancient material in order “to save the phenomena.” Here is a transliterated form of that diagram:

Picture 2

See also the trochos like schemes on ff. 110v-111r.

Other online MSS of this Grēgoras’s recension of Harmonica are: GB-Ob: Bar. gr. 124 (Math. 134), F-Pn: Coislin gr. 336 (Math. 105), and F-Pn: Gr. 2456 (Math. 86) (from [?, Math. p. 226] I-Vat.: Gr. 2365 [Math. 235]), I-Rvat: Pal. gr. 389 (Math. 245), I-Rvat: Pal. gr. 390 (Math. 246).

F-Pn: Gr. 2450 (Math. 79 [14th], Dür. 42 [14th /15th], Acerbi 2016 p. 152, [about 1335], Vitrac p.157 [about 1335]) see also: Notice rédigée par Anne Lapasset, Fevrier 2015 (here) and at Pinakes (here).

According to Düring’s Harmonica edition the text of this MS belongs to the g^p-subclass that stems from the main Grēgoras’s g-class. Is this a representation of a separate choice (to the degree Düring’s classes are reliable), in relation to the text / content, of (or someone close to) him? His hand is identified in some scholia of the ff. 57r, 59r, 71v, 72v, 73r. (Pérez Martín, 2008). As far as the schemes in relation to Greek chant the α) and the β) of F-Pn: Gr. 173 are found on 32r (in a different form but “better” as for our understanding) and 53r (again in Bryennios’s order) respectively. A transliterated form of that 32r diagram is the following:

Picture 3

See also the trochos like scheme on 89v.

Other online MSS that belong to the g^p recension of Harmonica are I-Vat: Gr. 221 (Math. 219, ēchoi, phthorai and enēchēmata on p. 106), I-Vat: Barb. gr. 265 (Math. 238, ēchoi, phthorai and enēchēmata on p. 138) that we’ve already met and note the transcription of Ismaël Boulliau (in 1656), in F-Pn: Sup. gr. 292 (Math. 111).

F-Pn : Coislin gr. 172 (Math. 102 [15th], Dür. 50 [14th /15th], Vitrac [14th /15th] p.154) see also: Notice rédigée par Anne Lapasset, Mars 2015 (here) and at Pinakes (here).

It is somewhat posterior to the aforementioned F-Pn: Coislin gr. 173, but this time its Harmonica, according to Düring, belongs to his f-class stemming from D-Mbs: Cod. gr. 361a (Math. 22 [13th-16th], Dur. 28 [13th-16th], see Vitrac p. 153, Acerbi-Gioffreda 2019 Mo, [2nd half of 13th century] p. 659). Again, is this a representation of one more separate choice, in relation to the text / content, of (or someone close to) Grēgoras? The relative scheme of α) is found on f. 13r (with no reference to “softer of the intense diatonic”). Note the diagrams on ff. 17r-18v on dynamis and thesis phenomena in relation to Ptolem. Harm. II.5-6.

There is another online MS that belongs to f-class the I-Vat: Barb. gr. 257 (Math. 237).

I-Vat: Gr. 187 (Math. 211 [14th], Dür, 61 [14th], Vitrac [14th] p. 145)

Bibliographic References and at Pinakes (here)

This is a MS that represents the circle of the monk Barlaam the Calabrian as the I-Vat: Gr. 196 (Math. 217 [14th], Dür, 66 [14th], Vitrac p. 146 [14th]) and F-Pn: Gr. 2452 [Math. 82]). Note the diagrams on ff. 32r, 34v and 35r on thesis and dynamis phenomena in relation to Ptolem. Harm. II.5-6.

I-Vat: Gr. 176 (Math. 208 [14th], Dür. 58 [14th], Vitrac [14th] p. 145)

Bibliographic References, and Pinakes (here).

Acerbi (2016, p. 173) notes: “A further recension of Harmonica was redacted by Isaac Argyros, whose fair copy is preserved (but recall that Argyros was used to correct in scribendo) in the autograph Vat. Gr. 176, ff. 101r-159v.” It is the A-subclass of Grēgoras’s g-class but this time “favoring the readings of the f-class” (Mathiesen 2000, p. 431).

The other online MS that belong to the same reduction of Harmonica is the F-Pn: Sup. gr. 449 (Math. 114).

F-Pn: Sup. gr. 1101 (not in Math., A. Gastoué 70 [14th]) See a description (here) and Pinakes (here)

The MS contains mainly the early translations of Maximos Planoudēs into Greek of Boethius’s, De Consolatione Philosophiae, Cicero’s, Somnium Scipionis and Macrobius’s Commentary on it and other material. But importantly enough for us, at the last folia, there are music related schemes on 162r, 163v, 164r and 165v. Also another small music related scholion on 137r. On 162r we see the correlation of ēchoi with the Dōrios Phrygios etc. in the order of Bryennios / Grēgoras (ie. prōtos ēchos placed in the position of Hypermixolydios) and a trochos like diagram; compare it with two small schemes in the later F-Pn: Gr. 2339 f.59v. On f. 163v there is a scheme of the 7- and 8-stringed lyres of Hermēs (or Orpheus in other MSS) and Pythagoras respectively. See them in F-Pn: Gr. 2339 f. 60v, and, together with Bryennios’s MSS, on f. 47r of Pachymerēs’s aforementioned autograph I-Ra: Gr. 38).

A note on modern classifications and vocabularies

Indeed, why 20th century people didn’t “see” all this set of sources of Ptolemaios with their relative to Byzantine chant material and why the studies for chant wasn’t so decisive as the other disciplines (especially for the medieval Greek MSS on mathematics, see Vitrac, 2019, 6.B, p. 48 and 7.B, p. 59)? A possible answer of mine is already known to the list of Μ.Μ.: “we” “see” only what we have pre-theorized to see or more simply, when two people look at the same direction (and set of things) they do not acknowledge (and taxonomize) the same phenomena, although ‘all of them’ are there. Think of the results if they look at different directions….

And some final notes on the grand narrative of the society, the time and our vocabulary remembering Christian Troelsgård’s, “Ancient Musical Theory in Byzantine Enviroments,” Cahiers de l’Institute du Moyen-Âge Grec et Latin 56 (1988), (here) in p. 229 where he writes: “On the other hand we find an increasing interest [7*] in copying, exerpting and commenting on the remains of ancient theory [are we sure that there wasn’t an – perhaps even more – “increasing interest” before?]. It is an accepted fact that these activities were centered around two different milieus in Byzantine society, the church [7*] on the one side and the scholarly circles of quadrivial study [7*] on the other. But I think there are some very important points or area of contact and interaction between these milieus.” And also, in the concluding p. 237, he speaks of “… the interaction between the two hemispheres [7*] of the musical culture of Byzantium. They imply that the Byzantines took a far more active and dynamic interest in the ancient musical theory than usually accepted.”

In my view, and after what we saw here, we can speak of an even far more active and dynamic interest in the ancient Greek theory and this, not only because we added the Harmonica, the main sholiated treatise in relation to chant.

But as it becomes obvious, the issue isn’t exactly the potential infinite discussions (past or future) on a degree of interaction of “two” domains. All these medieval theoretical constructions in this kind of sources are related to the everyday ecclesiastical music of the ordinary – differentiating, case by case, on degree of knowledge- faithful people (and psaltes). In contrast with other branches of knowledge, like Geometry or Arithmetic (with problems that sometimes still a modern wo/man, can’t understand), the ecclesiastical music circles or “parties” of people (recorded by the sources [remember the “many people” / πολλοì of Bryennios]), give us an idea about our narrative on the structure of that world. These intellectuals weren’t debating as isolated personalities because, among others, they had a vision about their society as a whole. I ask and explain: in our mind, where do we have to place an intellectual? Over, next to, in parallel or among ordinary people? Especially if we remember the other similar ecclesiastical case of theological debates among highly educated people (we met some of them already above) like Barlaam, Grēgoras, and others, not music related figures, like Grēgorios Palamas etc. who were also supported by their (larger or smaller) circles or “parties.”

Last but not least, referring to the current vocabulary (I will not criticize, for the moment, nation-centered vocabularies here in Greece) used on music related issues of the time: a generalized view of “church” and “scholarly circles of quadrivial study” would be misleading [8*] since a lot of the personalities (belonged to all the theoretical streams) we are dealing of were highly educated clerics, monks etc. And again, we have the same problematic with the “theoretical hemispheres.” In which MSS, who is theorizing, at what music(s) exactly? Are there more than two interacted “spheres” (including their “middle grounds,” a] and b], as I described them in my above given paper, pp. 217-218), thus not “hemispheres,” that we have to use in the narrative of the earlier or later medieval chant?

[7*] This is not a comment on what (and when) meant by “increasing interest,” “scholarly circles of quadrivial study,” “church” etc. as I have no intention to interfere in any kind of interpretation of “what the X scholar means,” but I make use of this quotation in order to express my skepticism – separately- on the use of certain terms.

[8*] Giving room even to potential polarization and not interaction, in other words, this could be a case of ‘glass half empty and glass half full’ within the same proposition.

MORE SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Acerbi, Fabio. “Funzioni e modalità di transmissione delle notazioni numeriche nella trattatistica mathematica Greca: Due esempi paradigmatici.” Segno e Testo 11 (2013). (academia.edu)

----------------. “Byzantine recensions of Greek mathematical and astronomical texts: A survey.” Estudios Bizantinos 4 (1016). (academia.edu)

Bianconi, Daniele. “La biblioteca di Cora tra Massimo Planude e Niceforo Gregora. Una Questione di mani.” Segno e Testo 3 (2005).

----------------.“La controversia palamitica. Figure, libri e mani.” Segno e Testo 6 (2008). (academia.edu)

Düring, Ingemar (ed). Die Harmonielehre des Klaudios Ptolemaios. Göteborg, 1930.

Gastoué, Amédée. Catalogue des manuscrits de musique Byzantine de la Bibliothèque de Paris et des Bibliothèques publiques de France. Paris, 1907. (Archive.org)

Mathiesen, Thomas. Ancient Greek Music Theory. A catalogue raisonné of manuscripts (RISM, B XI). München, 1988.

---------------. Apollo's Lyre : Greek music and music theory in antiquity and the Middle Ages.Lincoln and London, 2000.

Mondrain, Brigitte. "Les écritures dans les manuscrits byzantins du XIVè siècle." Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici (2008).

Pérez Martín, Inmaculada, “El estilo Hodegos y su proyección en las escrituras constantinopolitanas.” Segno e Testo 6 (2008). (academia.edu)

----------------. “L’ecriture de l’hypatos Jean Pothos Pédiasimos d’après ses scholies aux Elementa d’ Euclide.” Scriptorium 64 (2010). (Persée) and (academia.edu)

Ruelle, Charles-Émile. Études sur l’ancienne musique grecque. Paris, 1875. (BSBdigital)

Turyn, Alexandrer. Codices Graeci Vaticani saeculis XIII et XIV scripti annorumque notis instructi. Citta del Vaticano, 1964.

Vincent, Alexandre Joseph Hidulphe. Notice sur divers manuscrits Grecs relatifs à la musique. Paris, 1847. (Gallica)

Vitrac, Bernard. “Quand? Comment? Pourquoi les textes mathématiques grecs sont-ils parvenus en Occident?” (academia.edu), April 2019, accessed 29 November 2019.

Wolfram, Gerda – Hannick, Christian (eds). Die Erotapokriseis des Pseudo-Johannes Damaskenos zum Kirchengesang. Vienna, 1997.

THE ONLINE GREEK MANUSCRIPTS OF ANCIENT MUSIC THEORY

The links of the online MSS that has relation to the Harmonica of Claudios Ptolemaios are given above, together with a small description of some of them, since this is the treatise that medieval Greek speaking theorists scholiated the most in connection to chant theory. The other online MSS of ancient Greek musicographers I have located so far are the following (the MSS links that have already given in the above text are just referred to below with no link):

AUSTRIA

Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek

A-Wn: Cod. Phil. gr. 64 (Math. 2), A-Wn: Cod. Phil. gr. 176 (Math. 5, Vitrac p.194).

GERMANY

Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek

D-Heu: Cod. Pal. gr. 281 (Math. 14), D-Heu: Cod. Pal. gr. 415 (Math. 15).

Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek

D-Leu: Rep. I 2 (Math. 39).

München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek

D-Mbs: Cod. gr. 104 (Math. 17, Vitrac p.179), D-Mbs: Cod. gr. 301 (Math. 21, Vitrac p.180), D-Mbs: Cod. gr. 385 (Math. 23, Vitrac p.180), D-Mbs: Cod. gr. 403 (Math. 24, Vitrac p. 180), D-Mbs: Cod. gr. 418 (Math. 25), D-Mbs: Cod. gr. 487 (Math. 26).

Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek

D-W: Cod. Guelf. 3 Gud. gr. (Math. 29, Vitrac p.195).

SPAIN

Madrid, Bibliotheca Nacional

E-Mn: Gr. 4621 (Math. 57, together with C. Laskarēs the codex has a relation to Sultan Cem), E-Mn: Gr. 4625 (Math. 58), E-Mn: Gr. 4678 (Math. 59), E-Mn: Gr. 4690 (Math. 60), E-Mn: Gr. 4692 (Math. 61).

FRANCE

Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Fonds Grec

F-Pn: Gr. 1671 (Math. 66), F-Pn: Gr. 1672 (Math. 67), F-Pn: Gr. 1806 (Math. 68, Vitrac p.185), F-Pn: Gr. 1819 (Math. 70, Vitrac p.185) F-Pn: Gr. 1820 (Math. 71, Vitrac p.185), F-Pn: Gr. 2013 (Math. 72), F-Pn: Gr. 2014 (Math. 73, Vitrac p.185), F-Pn: Gr. 2379 (Math. 74, Vitrac p.188), F-Pn: Gr. 2381 (Math. 75), F-Pn: Gr. 2397 (Math.-, Vitrac p.188) F-Pn: Gr. 2430 (Math. 77, Vitrac p.188), F-Pn: Gr. 2449 (Math. 78), F-Pn: Gr. 2450 (Math. 79), F-Pn: Gr 2451 (Math. 80, Vitrac p.188), F-Pn: Gr 2452 (Math. 81, Vitrac p.188), F-Pn: Gr 2453 (Math. 82, Vitrac p.188), F-Pn: Gr. 2454 (Math. 83, Vitrac p.188), F-Pn: Gr. 2455 (Math. 84), F-Pn: Gr 2456 (Math. 85, Vitrac p.188), F-Pn: Gr. 2458 (Math. 87), F-Pn: Gr. 2459 (Math. 88, Vitrac p.188), F-Pn: Gr. 2460 (Math. 89, Vitrac p.188), F-Pn: Gr. 2461 (Math. 90, Vitrac p.157), F-Pn: Gr. 2462 (Math. 91), F-Pn: Gr. 2463 (Math. 92), F-Pn: Gr. 2464 (Math. 93), F-Pn: Gr. 2531 (Math. 94, Vitrac p.189), F-Pn: Gr. 2532 (Math. 95), F-Pn: Gr. 2533 (Math. 96), F-Pn: Gr. 2534 (Math. 97), F-Pn: Gr. 2535 (Math. 98, Vitrac p.188), F-Pn: Gr. 2549 (Math. 99), F-Pn: Gr. 2622 (Math. 100), F-Pn: Gr. 3027 (Math. 101, Vitrac p.190).

Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Fonds Coislin

F-Pn: Coislin 172 (Math. 102), F-Pn: Coislin 173 (Math. 103), F-Pn: Coislin 174 (Math. 104, Vitrac p.154), F-Pn: Coislin 336 (Math. 105, Vitrac p.185).

Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Fonds Supplément Grec

F-Pn: Sup. gr. 20 (Math. 106), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 59 (Math. 107, Vitrac p.190), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 160 (Math. 108), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 195 (Math. 109, Vitrac p.190), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 213 (Math. 110, Vitrac p.190), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 292 (Math. 111, Vitrac p.190), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 335 (Math. 112, Vitrac p.190), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 336 (Math. 113, Vitrac p.190), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 449 (Math. 114, Vitrac p.190), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 450 (Math. 115, Vitrac p.190), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 1101 (Math. -).

GREAT BRITAIN

London, British Library

GB-Lbm: Harley gr. 5691 (Math. 128), GB-Lbm: Additional 19353 (Math. 130, Vitrac p.175).

Oxford, Bodleian Library

GB-Ob: Barocci gr. 41 (Math. 133, Vitrac p.182), GB-Ob: Barocci gr. 124 (Math. 134, Vitrac p.182).

Oxford, Magdalen College Library

GB-Omc: Magdalen Col. gr. 12 (Math. 150), GB-Omc: Magdalen Col. gr. 13 (Math. 151, Vitrac p.184).

ITALY

Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria

I-Bu: Gr. 2048, v.1 (Math. 154, Vitrac p.162), I-Bu: Gr. 2048, v.2 (Math. 155, Vitrac p.162), I-Bu: Gr. 2048, v.5 (Math. 156, Vitrac p.162), I-Bu: Gr. 2280 (Math. 157, Vitrac p.162), I-Bu: Gr. 2432 (Math. 158, Vitrac p.162), I-Bu: Gr. 2700 (Math. 159).

Firenze, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana

I-Fl: Ms Plut.28.11 (Math. 160), I-Fl: Ms Plut.28.12 (Math. 161), I-Fl: Ms Plut.56.1 (Math. 162), I-Fl: Ms Plut.58.29 (Math. 163, Vitrac p. 151), I-Fl: Ms Plut.59.1 (Math. 164), I-Fl: Ms Plut.80.5 (Math. 165), I-Fl: Ms Plut.80.21 (Math. 166), I-Fl: Ms Plut.80.22 (Math. 167), I-Fl: Ms Plut.80.30 (Math. 168), I-Fl: Ms Plut.86.3 (Math. 169).

Napoli, Biblioteca Nazionale

I-Nn: Gr. 261 (f. 53r, Math. 202, Vitrac p. 153).

Roma, Biblioteca Angelica

I-Ra: Gr. 35 (Math. 205), I-Ra: Gr. 101 (Math. 206).

Citta del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

I-Rvat: Gr. 139 (Math. 207), I-Rvat: Gr. 176 (Math. 208), I-Rvat: Gr. 186 (Math. 210, Vitrac p. 145), I-Rvat: Gr. 187 (Math. 211), I-Rvat: Gr. 191 (Math. 214), I-Rvat: Gr. 192 (Math. 215), I-Rvat: Gr. 196 (Math. 217), I-Rvat: Gr. 198 (Math. 218), I-Rvat: Gr. 221 (Math. 219, Vitrac p.166), I-Rvat: Gr. 1013 (Math. 221), I-Rvat: Gr. 1033 (Math. 222), I-Rvat: Gr. 1048 (Math. 225, Vitrac p.167), I-Rvat: Gr. 1060 (Math. 226), I-Rvat: Gr. 1364 (Math. 230, Vitrac p.167), I-Rvat: Gr. 1374 (Math. 231), I-Rvat: Gr. 2338 (Math. 234), I-Rvat: Gr. 2365 (Math. 235, Vitrac p.168), I-Rvat: Barb. gr. 257 (Math. 237), I-Rvat: Barb. gr. 265 (Math. 238, Vitrac p.164), I-Rvat: Barb. gr. 278 (not in Math.), I-Rvat: Ottob. gr. 372 (Math. 237), I-Rvat: Pal. gr. 53 (Math. 241), I-Rvat: Pal. gr. 60 (Math. 242, Vitrac p.165), I-Rvat: Pal. gr. 95 (Math. 243), I-Rvat: Pal. gr. 303 (Math. 244, Vitrac p.165), I-Rvat: Pal. gr. 389 (Math. 245, Vitrac p.165), I-Rvat: Pal. gr. 390 (Math. 246, Vitrac p.165), I-Rvat: Pal. gr. 392 (Math. 247), I-Rvat: Reg. gr. 80 (Math. 248), I-Vat: Ross. 977 (Math. 253, Vitrac p.165), I-Vat: Ross. 986 (Math. 254), I-Vat: Urb. gr. 78 (Math. 256, Vitrac p.166), I-Vat: Urb. gr. 99 (Math. 257).

Venezia, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana

I-Vnm: Gr. app. cl. VI/3 (coll. 1347).

SWEDEN

Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket

S-Uu: Gr. 45 (Math. 292, Vitrac p.193), S-Uu: Gr. 47 (Math. 293, Vitrac p.193), S-Uu: Gr. 52 (Math. 294, Vitrac p.193).

UNITED STATES

New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript

US-NHub: MS 208 (f.30v, Math. 295)

EGYPT

Mount Sinai, St. Catherine’s Monastery

EG-MSsc: Gr. 1764 (Math. 299).

Additionally, a small collection of online MSS of BNF that include medieval music theory (some of them referred to in Vincent [1847]) is given below although I didn’t include, for example, all the Pachymerēs, Pediasimos etc. music related MSS. All these MSS need a fresh look together with the similar MSS of other libraries.

F-Pn: Gr. 2338, F-Pn: Gr. 2339, F-Pn: Gr. 2340, F-Pn: Gr. 2341, F-Pn: Gr 2448 see Notice rédigée par Anne Lapasset Mars 2015 (here) and (Pinakes), F-Pn: Gr. 2536, F-Pn: Gr. 2762 see: Notice rédigée par Morgane CARIOU (here) and (Pinakes).

And also: F-Pn: Gr. 1810 see: Notice rédigée par Jocelyn Groisard (novembre 2008) (here), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 51.

Ruptures and discontinuities as systemic explanations? Besides, it is ambitious to apply any kind of canonicity that could produce a generalized “systemic” metanarrative where the greater the rupture the more the innovations and the greater the associated “Renaissance,” “Reforms” and the like; and thus, on a more general level, one civilization could inherently be assessed as “more changed” than another, especially diachronically and in the long term.

Not all ruptures lead to the same kind (and degree) of results, as there are ruptures, of any kind, in the Global past that did not lead to similar intellectual achievements in truly Global synchronic or diachronic consequences, as is the case with the Abbasids or the Carolingians.

Therefore, is any explanation/strategy based on a systematic way (and comparative, that is, on deriving results such as, "since this "reason"/"phenomenon" exists for "them" but not for "the others", then...") on musical (or non-) "ruptures" (or not) sufficient enough to explain the medieval lack of musical sources in Iran and the two Romes (Ancient Greek Music Theory sources included), or is it too risky/dangerous to assume that the sources we have reflect, to a large extent, the "real" medieval realities (see again my 2009 paper pp. 204-205 with note 6) and, even, even more risky (with "reassuring" qualities) that there is n o t h I n g s t r a n g e in this phenomenon? This musical theme deserves much more attention and needs more than one focus on medieval musical cases in order to include this problematic to modern narratives. In particular, for Byzantine music(s) theorizing(s), there is no need to smooth out (or, conversely, to emphasize) the discontinuities and the alleged “renaissances” in any (implied [consciously or not] or not) connection with an outstandingness or even an uprooting of Byzantium. Anyhow, a “seismic event” as reason for, a specific, later, something should be proven to be an inevitable event or, more technically, causal. (i.e. the one phenomenon [e.g., a discontinuity] is – to a whatever extent - the cause of the other, at least according to the sources). Or, just because two events are nearly simultaneous or consecutive does not always mean they are causally related (especially if a "retrospective reasoning" is proposed).

More specifically, if we "see" the Frankish “chant repertory discontinuity” alongside previous e.g. the insular, developments: Was such a “large-scale revision of chant repertory” indeed so radical and as a form of detachment, be imagined more momentous than it deserves? E.g. for “The Nature and Character of the early Irish Liturgy” in relation to the then Frankish usage with some Roman elements of “the Gallican rite” see the relative article of Yitzhak Hen. Why don't we have such pioneering developments, even "earlier," in music theory and phenomena such as Tonaries or neume-notation(s) among the insular peoples on whom Roman chant was also imposed (another discontinuity? Rupture?), let's say, about a century earlier? (For an explanation of "why notations in the Carolingians?" see Rankin 2018, pp. 337 ff., especially pp. 353 ff. On p. 354 she writes (bold emphasis is mine): “In comprehensive fashion, the emergence of ways of representing music in writing in the ninth century sits very comfortably within what we know about Carolingian interest in literacy, not only as a direct basis for spiritual health and access to God but also as support for the collection of knowledge and its communication between people.”) When one “zooms in,” the objects being observed give the impression being larger (or more “important”) as do the spaces between them. In such a situation s/he will see large “gaps.” Otherwise, how could someone calibrate the information provided by the Frankish musical microscope(s) towards more balanced perspectives trying to avoid any kind of a Carolingian chant “exceptionalism”? Moreover, how all those – “new” for specific perspectives – musical concepts that we “see” in the Frankish sources allow us to classify them under a broader label such as “the western chant”?

True, Jeffery’s article as well as Atkinson’s short “paragraph” (which was not fully understood by me, especially for its “earlier”/ “later” side. Note that I did not address here his main point regarding modulation, as well as his terminological preferences and a few more issues in this Plainsong and Medieval Music, 34.1 article) was a good occasion to record here some of my problematics on these and more issues.

Source “survival.” Furthermore, why have these specific sources preserved, under what conditions have they survived and, as we have already asked, are they representative, to a greater or lesser extent, of medieval reality(-ies)? (indicatively as for yet another case of chant [not music theory and the like] namely for pre-Carolingian Ambrosian chant and some relative problematics, see T. Bailey “Ambrosian Mass chants before the Carolingian intervention,” 2012) Problems of this kind have also been taken into account here in this blog since the very first post. So, I will continue to insist on issues of this “grand narrative” theme, which indeed deserves much more attention:

Unconscious Intentional Focuses? Certain Régimes d'historicité musicales? À la Carte Retrospectivities? We often encounter cases of retrospective argumentation (and not only in chant literature) where a later result is linked and explained in our days using previous events or series of them (such as ruptures, etc.) even though, sometimes, there are no sources that directly connect them. Under certain circumstances, this is a normal strategy in order to fill in certain gaps with educated conjectures based, sometimes, again, on convictions. Remember a conviction of Rosamond McKitterick, already expressed in the introduction of her 1989 book on p. 3: “This book is also in some ways a reaction against the preoccupation with the later middle ages of most recent studies of mediaeval literacy. It is based on the conviction that the roots of later mediaeval developments are to be sought in the centuries immediately succeeding the period of Roman rule.”

Why, then, is such a retrospective approach not used in the case of musical Byzantium at least as a possibility (and not conviction)? I.e. why should the possibility that the Byzantines had essentially literate treatises on Greek chant such as, at least, the Enchiriades, be ruled out? (I am not referring, only, to the Musica Enchiriadis and Trochós) Because a certain “break” of the Carolingians “extinguishes” this possibility? Or, because the advent of the surviving medieval music-theoretical Greek chant treatises (and not only chant) of the later Middle Ages could only(?) be "explained" e.g. as an exclusive/isolated event and as a result of such a "rupture" i.e. after - the tiny Empire of Nicaea that is, 1261 CE? Only such a kind of rupture can cause a so-called "Renaissance," such as the Palaiologan with an analogous (or not) degree of radicalism, or are these Greek chant sources of the later Middle Ages the tip of an iceberg whose total volume represents the continuous change of previous musicotheoretical currents even of the first millennium? More carefully, in relation to the 10^th c. Souda Lexicon as a product of a specific Byzantine “Renaissance,” as we demonstrated in this blog on the occasion of the term καβάλη/kabálē/kaválē (post dated June 24, 2024, entitled “Exoticizing the Global?”) and how it was treated by some MMB’s: Are the cultural products of such –Trompe-l’oeil – “Renaissances” only those we “see” in the surviving sources (using, especially for the musical case, a certain perspective) or are there, legitimate, perspectives from which we can connect some of such literate musical products with later attested material? Ιs it more natural e.g. to write about the ancient tribal “mode”-names (as we see them in the Ancient Greek Music Theory treatises as Dōrios, Phrygios, etc) and the chant “mode”-ordinals (as plagal prōtos, deuteros etc.) as a case in Byzantium which “looks like a misapplication of the Western medieval series”? [11*] (And recall that the Byzantines were the people[s] who preserved and processed [like “Baccheios” or Dionysios and not only them; for music this processing existed even during the middle Byzantine period] the source material of AGMT, in its original language, and which material we possess to this day.) One aspect of the issue is whether AGMT (and what about its relation to chant?) was “for them” (and not only for the learned elites and what they represented in the society) of “philological/mathematical interest,” a “cultural capital,” or was it something more than that? The passion in the episode of the musicotheoretical debate, later, in Nikolaos Mesaritēs’s narrative (see my 5 March, 2021 post) is indicative of this (given that in Byzantium the preservation of ancient Greek sources was not a priority per se).

[11*] Prof. John Caldwell (“Modes and Modality: a unifying concept for Western chant?” in Music in Medieval Europe, Studies in Honour of Bryan Gillingham, ed. by T. Bailey and A. Santosuosso, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007, p. 45, n. 24, writes (square brackets and bold emphasis are mine): “The Hagiopolites treatise lists the names of the eight modes […] This looks like a misapplication of the Western medieval series of octave species from A-a to a-a’ (as in Alia musica; see GS 1, 127) [I will not go into the intricacies of Alia Musica here, P.E.], with Hypomixolydian substituted for Hypermixolydian, as later in the West, to allow for its identification with the fourth plagal mode (octave d-d’). The Papadike is said [?] to incorporate the Western order: Dorios, Phrygios, Lydios, Mixolydios, followed by their ‘hypo’ equivalents; but the list is again disordered in Vatican, BAV Barb. lat. [sic] 300; see L. Tardo, L’ antica melurgia bizantina, (Grottaferrata 1938), p.152.”

I wonder: Do I simply have unjustified, ex silentio and naïve convictions that are not based on the survived sources? What on earth happened to medieval musical centers like Old-Rome, New-Rome or Iran "even earlier" or when the Carolingians and the Abbasids began theorizing/speculating about music? All in all,

as for the Carolingians and music: Do, let me repeat, (1) the “other” sources that have survived and (2) our interpretive perspectives and hermeneutics of them tell us the real (and whole?) story of those times and so we must “reject” the medieval tales about the transmission of Roman chant to the north? If so, then of course we need an explanation (we have already seen in the beginning of this series of posts, an Legitimationsproblem explanation by A. Haug, of which I am not convinced) If not, then one must disaggregate the available data using different perspectives, in order to find hints (at least, through the source “windows” at our disposal) with the aim of a more complete medieval picture.

Moreover, when in the post of November 10, 2024, I made Charlemagne think after his coronation, on the way back to Aachen I ended with these words: “…I will continue my efforts to have the Cantors of my lands “integrated” into Cantilena Romana, BUT, for this Cantilena, I… and as for ‘my’ Cantors…” I wrote this about him because, this time, it’s me who’s convinced, he knew that his strong will would never be strong enough to realize his dream in practice and in its entirety. He was wise enough to know the limits of his “power” towards his Cantors (the local and the “central” ones; and not only from the center-periphery perspective) and that, most importantly for “us,” such a “project” would never be so short and fully successful. In practice, things were not so “easy” and radical (e.g. from the Frankish mid-8th to the mid-9th century) and musically not so complete, we must admit. (Guido a few centuries later will write about his contemporary state of affairs: “… that scarcely one agrees with another, neither the pupil with his master, nor the pupil with his fellow pupils? It is for this reason that the antiphoners are not one, nor yet a few, but rather as many as are the masters in the single churches; and that the antiphoner is now commonly said to be, not Gregory’s, but Leo’s, or Albert’s, or someone’s else. And since to learn one is most difficult, there can be no doubt that to learn many is impossible… since masters change many things arbitrarily…” in Source Readings in Music History [See the Table of Contents to understand whose Music History this is. P.E.] Selected and Annotated by O. Strunk, 1950, p. 118) Thus, I used ellipsis (...) for Charles's thoughts on "his" “reforms” in chant, both for himself and for “his” beliefs about how his Cantors would receive his initiative, because, despite the limited knowledge of exactly how this medieval chant “reform” was implemented in practice, it is very well known that the words used “by them" in relation to it mostly obscure what was actually happening at the time: admonitio, emendatio, correctio. Indeed, our “window” sources need calibration in order to avoid meta-narrative romanticism. I think that if historians, with their advanced tools, make more decisive use of the wealth of musical (not just Liturgical) documentation, then many new perspectives will be possible, especially in addition to what Rutger Kramer, “The Problem(s) with the Carolingian Reform(s),” 2023, writes with caution about “palace-centric” metanarratives (p. 42): “One of the problems with Carolingian reforms resides in the fact that we, as historians, have a tendency to take the prescriptive and hierarchical nature of our courtly sources at face value, and use that to explain changes to the system— … And that, whether any “educational reform” was ever planned at court; and consider, from a literacy point of view, Notker's story of the way musical readings were performed. BTW, in my view, the Tonaries have the best chance of being something recently “innovated,” although not exactly educational/instructional in nature or to gain, some, control to the repertory. Furthermore, as a case study of the actual processes by which liturgical reforms were implemented in practice, one could think of Amalarius with Florus and of course, among other relevant things, how Agobard of Lyons advised the cantors.

Regarding “the seductive nature of Carolingian discourse” (R. Kramer 2023, p. 37): Are the Franks, in Global terms now, the “only ones” subject to continuous and, to a large extent, “radical” musical change because some of their sources have survived? A musicotheoretical point zero? A teleological and cataclysmic turning point in music? On the contrary, wasn't there a continuous change (in practice/s and musical theory/-ies), at least as far as human nature is concerned, of the peoples of Rome and the peoples of New Rome in their respective Latin and Greek chant traditions? Given that discontinuities are ubiquitous features and mainly "windows" of change (and in our case, of sources [12*]), is it, all of a sudden, a specific Carolingian "radical and fatal change" that should be addressed on the scale of "less or more change" in relation to other cultures (especially in a diachronic changing course)? Or, alternatively, should musical metahistorical perspectives be based on a different reading of the extant Frankocentric Latin musical sources and their relative environments, which, over time, favored, perhaps unconsciously, the preservation of specific texts that represented specific “ideological” (and identity) currents?

Thus, the extant sources would be explained only as (1) representations of Frankish literary/musical “innovations” (such as the connection/nexus of Ancient Greek Music Theory and chant) and (2) as a result of (2.a) a “large-scale revision of the chant repertory” or within (2.b) the Carolingian “reforms” [13*]? (I.e., using various combination(s) and schemes of the cases 1, 2.α and 2.β) In my opinion, as I already have said about ruptures, indeed, a “rupture” (musical or not) of any kind, certainly has some, among other things, musicotheoretical implications, but this does not automatically mean meta-narratively that the more the crack the “more change” (and innovations), especially since the Francocentric sources in local (and Karolus himself “centrally”) level seem, in my mind, to employ a common “via media ↔ distinction” process (each on their own agenda) of a “learned” cultural gentrification/appropriation (and this not only Liturgically). The short/long term results in practice are indicative of an inconsistent and uneven adoption of this, as opposed to the reforms narrated top-down.

[12*] The knowledge of some First millennium Greek Chant affairs: Ex Occidente Lux. We should not think that we “see” the landscape from inside the room using the window of the Frankish sources. For this window gives us the opportunity to put our head out and to “see” right and left and to understand what was happening e.g. in Byzantium. But we must be careful not to go too far out because from our enthusiasm we will fall down, since, indeed, it is a very difficult task (but, sometimes, not entirely impossible) to argue, to some extent, ex silentio. The point for the present state of affairs, is not whether there are sources that we “don’t see” (as I did in this blog with the chant scholia/annotations in some AGMT sources) and that testify what happened musicotheoretically during the first millennium of Greek (or Latin chant in Rome), but that we should not be so convinced by some current narratives based on a particular reading of the surviving sources. “West”-“East.”

[13*] With similar or less similar causes that led e.g. to their almost contemporary “translation movement” in Islamicate civilization and the relative rise of speculative musical treatises alongside this movement. What about the chant with the AGMT of the Byzantine peoples, especially since in Byzantium they preserved and worked with the original AGMT treatises. Nothing? Not very “Byzantine” in nature? “Pagan things”? Only as a “later” “cultural capital”?

As for the Byzantines – and their “less changed” (?!) – music(s): I will not focus of whether ancient Greek literature and scientific culture was endemic to Byzantium. Only on music: α)How certain are we that the ancient tribal names of modes (Dōrios, Phrygios etc.) that are referred as the “principal/proper names” (κύρια ονόματα) of the modes of medieval Greek chant is a "later" development (when exactly and why?) and "after" the related "earlier" "Western" case? β)Moreover, based on the sources we have available, even as hints, until when in medieval Greek chant was the “common singing tradition” “not yet been lifted” into the sphere of the scientific study of ancient Greek music theory? Otherwise, when do we first have in Greek chant attempts at some "intellectual" nexus/“lifting” of chant with ancient Greek music theory? In the time of Patmos 52? Psellos? Or, Hagiopolitēs? For P. Jeffery, “The earliest Oktoēchoi: The Role…,” pp. 185-186: “… the material (it begs several questions [? P.E.] to call it a ‘treatise’) known as the Hagiopolitēs.” Prof. Jeffery treats, in this article, Hagiopolitēs after Papadikē.

Was this nexus (and if yes to what degree) performed as “rudimentary experiments in the establishing of a theory of church music” (Ch. Troelsgård, “Ancient Musical Theory in Byzantine environments,” Cimagl 56, 1988, p. 229, here )? Moreover, among other related things, G. Wolfram, “The Byzantine Modal System in Relation to Ancient Greek Music Theory” in IMS-RASMB, Series Musicologica Balcanica 1.2, 2021, e-ISSN: 2654-248X 2021, p. 202 here used wordings related to the authors of the treatises on medieval Greek chant (=after the 12^th and mainly after the 14^th c.) such as “in a simple way” and wrote: “On the other hand, the authors try to show in a simple way that Byzantine church music has a connection with the ancient modal system and classical Greek music theory.”

A Working Hypothesis. And a general concluding “Byzantine” comment as hypothetical syllogisms of mine (i.e. not as an interpretation of what any author might mean by specific terms and wordings): If the Papadiκē of the late 13th-14th centuries [yes, late 13th-14th c. CE] represents something “central” or in a linear way, the “peak,” or even “the criterion” in a (a posteriori “unified”?) “common singing tradition” of Byzantium, then, indeed, the, larger or smaller, “theoretical” expositions of chant that preceded the Papadiκē (if I were hypothetically interpreting the Papadiκē as “central/peak”), become (1) “secondary” or “rudimentary material/experiments” and (2) almost every earlier, here and there, specimen of chant “theory” (not Lavra 67, of course) could be classified as “proto-Papadiκē.” (Again, I am not interpreting here what Troelsgård, who coined this term, means and how he uses it. That is his own business.) And let's think that we are talking about a Greek chant singing tradition (one? a common? a "Byzantine"? or one as a posteriori musically "unified[?]" in the 20th century?) that chronologically dates back – unchanged, or less changed? – to, say, the Old Tropologion or perhaps even earlier, that is, about a millennium. Note that the first complete and "real" Papadikē is from 1336 CE!!

Now, think about Europe (except for its southeastern part): how many things changed in music theory and Latin chant from let's say 836 to 1336? Then, think about the same period a state of affairs for medieval Greek chant where things in music (and chant theory) were primarily as described in a treatise of 1336. If there is nothing strange in such, hypothetical, views as "unified" syllogisms based, mainly, on Papadikē (and the ways in which it would describe, r e t r o s p e c t I v e l y, this entire period of 500 years of Greek chant) and everything is fine, then there is indeed no reason to continue working with "unverified" explanations, convictions or conjectures.

But then, for example, I might wonder, why in the early "theoretical" exposition of ēchoi (almost half a sentence) in the manuscript Lavra 67, the Mesoi Ēchoi are three and not two or four as one might conclude from the “later” material and therefore outside the “rules” regarding Mesoi Ēchoi (and Phthorai) of a "Byzantine unified theory/perspective" based on (and making convenient choices from?) this "later" not so "unified," as it seems, material. [14*] So, think again: this, so rare for Greek chant, early "theoretical" half of a sentence conveys to us something different from the later material that is "usually used" today for "Byzantine music"! That is, we have an indication of a “more changing” status just from half a, survived, sentence…

[14*] E.g. it should first be examined whether in all the extant Greek treatises, especially in relation to Hagiopolitēs, the term Mesoi Ēchoi means always the same thing! The same examination must be conducted for the Phthorai and then investigated if, how and under what conditions there is any connection with the Absonia, Vitia, Nothae, Parapteres, Medii Toni (if they all meant the same thing) of the “earlier” Latin chant sources. Oops, I said I wouldn't address the main, modulation, point of Atkinson's article. In the same way, how closely is “a” Hemiphōnon=ημίφωνον/Hemitonon=ημίτονον related to “a” Semivocalis/Hemivocalis/Semitonus? Which exposition regarding the connections of medieval Latin with Greek chant is valid? More than one educated explanation? Or, just preferences? Selective conjectures? Convictions?

And besides, if the above paragraphs were my real and not a "working hypothesis," then, personally, I would be discouraged from looking for further, "earlier" or "later," sources which could reflect a "more changed" and dynamic state of affairs, e.g. (1) as yet another possibility, old layers of Latin chant as they could be represented in certain Armenian sources, i.e. not only as an intra-Armenian (or even early intra-Byzantine [and not only]) chant case, or (2) if (and this is not a possibility but a real evidence) there are references to Greek chant in the MS sources of Ancient Greek Music Theory (=almost equally "later" with the Greek chant ones). That is, an entire category of "unseen" (by the scholars of Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae in the 20th and first 5th of the 21st centuries) but important primary sources about “pure” chant theory; not one or two excerpts or fragments here and there. Certainly, in this way, new primary theoretical sources, real evidence and facts (not even "accepted facts") and more enriched – medieval music theory –perspectives come to the fore and things become, so to speak, not so "unverified."

More generally now, it seems that the state of affairs regarding medieval Greek chant is not much different from that which we described in the case of the various modern interpretations about medieval neumes: α) If there is a rhetoric that implies, insists or believes that a particular perspective/mindset uses the “only” “verifiable facts” or “confirmed evidence” and therefore the associated “explanations,” “convictions,” and “expectations” are the “more positive,” then we should not rule out that it may be just that. Rhetoric. β) At the same time, I think, it would be evasive for someone to confidently (and in a reassuring manner) reiterate what J. Bryant criticizes by writing on p. 42: “This we can know and only this.”

Let us hope that all this will trigger the interest also of more young scholars with or without medieval Latin chant background, who will become interested in the Global Chant affairs (following the paths, but not necessarily the conclusions, of professors Charles Atkinson, Peter Jeffery or Constantin Floros) and thus be able to check and recheck, fully and not partially, narratives on topics such as those examined here.

This was the last in these series of posts on the various modern explanations about medieval chant(s).

Now it is time for season’s greetings:

Καλά Χριστούγεννα και

Αίσιον και Ευτυχές

το Νέον

Έτος.

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Comments

pavlos erevnidis August 3, 2026 3:58

Dear Oliver,

Thanks for the clarification. Just to be absolutely clear: I never meant to imply that you had insulted me in the past. My comment was simply a general reminder about maintaining a welcoming environment for everyone on this platform, not a personal critique.

I wrote in my last post:
“And do not forget it again, my dear Oliver: you are not disturbing me. Feel free to write and criticize ideas, methodologies, and the like on medieval music as you see fit, as long as it is done without, of course, any personal insults on this platform. You are also welcome to use this space to inform both me and this blog's readers about your current or upcoming projects and books.”

I certainly hope you didn't get the impression that I felt personally insulted by you in any way; that was not the case at all. As I said, I value your insights and you are always welcome to share your musicological work and projects here.

Your critique of "global musicology," the ideological traps of postmodernism, and your personal academic memories from Paris and Bucharest make for an engaging theoretical discussion.

However, my initial observation was much more grounded and strictly factual. You explicitly wrote that the manuscript containing the list of the signs was preserved there (in Chartres). My point was geographical: that crucial list is famously found in the Lavra Γ.67 manuscript on Mount Athos, not in France. Only “a fragment” was kept in Chartres before its unfortunate destruction. This is said because you wrote:

“Now Byzantine history, I understand your problems with Old Byzantine notation whose names "Chartres" (because the manuscript with a list of its signs was preserved there) and "Coislin" to honour a certain bishop of Metz…”

No matter how many ideological layers, neo-colonial theories, or academic perspectives one synthesizes, a manuscript on Mount Athos cannot simultaneously be in France. It’s a straightforward error of location, not a deep debate about "Eastern" or "Western" schools. But don't worry, the summer heat gets to the best of us!
pavlos erevnidis August 2, 2026 19:00

Dear Oliver,

Good to see you here again. You never disturbed me. On the contrary, as I have previously noted (post dated December 8, 2019—that is, from the very inception of this blog), you are always welcome to contribute here whenever, and on whichever topic, you see fit. Your notes are almost always interesting—as, I am entirely certain, your current book will prove to be.

I would merely urge you to ensure that your contributions here remain as accessible as possible to all readers of this blog, regardless of their specific subdivision within medieval music. The goal is to foster shared understanding—allowing, for instance, a specialist in medieval Greek chant to easily follow discussions on the Latin tradition (and vice versa), without encountering sentences that depend on overly specialized terminology or historical references that are unfamiliar to non-specialists. After all, expanding on facts and figures that a non-specialist cannot readily connect within a narrative can inadvertently shift the focus away from clear communication. Personally, I have consistently attempted to maintain this level of clarity as far as possible even with much more specialized topics. Consider, for instance, the transfer of an equestrian statue to Aachen by Charlemagne (post dated November 10, 2024, titled “Avoiding the Danger(s) of ‘Global Perspectives’ Becoming Unproductive: The ‘Eastern’ Aspects of Priscian and Boethius and the Power of Distinction for Theoderic and Charles”), or the rivers of paradise in the mosaics of Rome (post dated May 27, 2025, titled “The Source, its Streams and What Karolus Saw in Rome”). This is how I want this blog to be. I aim for my narratives to be fully self-sufficient in every single post, providing, for instance, the necessary references verbatim, which naturally makes the posts somewhat long. Even so, they remain accessible to broader audiences without requiring further lookup, even though reading the original sources is always encouraged. Ultimately, keeping the core narrative compact gives the non-specialist the opportunity to follow even if s/he feels unfamiliar with the subject. At least, this is what I strive for.

More broadly, and this extends well beyond you or me, it is remarkably easy to speak about “Byzantine music” to Latin chant specialists, and vice versa—particularly in venues where the majority cannot verify the information provided. However, this réseau Musicologie Médiévale constitutes a public space, where all contributions are readable by every subfield. It is genuinely excellent that what we write here is public and open to criticism!

As I write this, and on this very occasion, I recall certain debates some thirty years ago here in Greece. Interlocutor A would assert: "this particular issue of ecclesiastical music in, say, the seventeenth century, is explained 'thus'." Interlocutor B, eager to display a breadth of knowledge, would interject, "yes, but in this case, there is a nuance in Ottoman music that functioned 'otherwise'." The Interlocutor C would then object: "you see, within “our” Byzantine sector, things are as A described, though in Ottoman music—which I, of course, also know—matters are not exactly as you depict, my dear Interlocutor B. There is a secondary nuance of which you might be unaware." To which Interlocutor B would retort, "yes, but in Persian music, things stand 'thus', and..." All discussions of this nature, instead of achieving validity, degenerated into a mere display of who could advertise familiarity with the most—preferably "eastern"—traditions and their respective nuances, with each participant establishing their own subjective baseline of what was "relative" to the topic. [*]

This is precisely what I refer to as "seemingly Global." Perhaps this explains my particular sensitivity toward various romanticized theorizations about global prospects. Generally speaking, I want to emphasize public spaces where utterances remain open to public scrutiny, as well as to non-public criticism within “private conversations.” Yet, ultimately, this is the true advantage of a public critique: it can subsequently be re-examined privately as well. The reverse simply does not always hold true; private exchanges often remain confined to the shadows of the background. This is exactly why we must praise Musicologie Médiévale for contributing to bona fide public discourse, regardless of how intense or uncomfortable it may become. It is no coincidence that this emanates from a réseau rooted in France—a country where critique and protest are rightfully celebrated as a "sport national."

[*] I have observed that similar private exchanges occasionally transpired not only here in our beloved Balkans, but also within environments that are seemingly open yet could, in fact, be effectively closed—such as certain gatherings, events, or even conferences. I prefer to avoid contemplating hypothetical gatherings where the participants might happen to subscribe to a single school of thought, and where the resulting proceedings might attempt to close a discussion or sweep it under the rug, relying merely on the authority of one or two of the figures assembled. Naturally, a published proceeding can never be truly closed; consequently, a future ethnomusicologist or critical musicologist will possibly have ample material to dissect when examining such potential events.

Regarding the verification of the aforementioned “information,” you write, for instance—introducing the detail of the famous neume (among other elements) list found in a manuscript from a Mount Athos monastery, specifically Lavra Γ.67 [link]—the following: “Now Byzantine history, I understand your problems with Old Byzantine notation whose names 'Chartres' (because the manuscript with a list of its signs was preserved there)…” The entire manuscript was in Chartres? I find it difficult, Oliver, to believe that you drafted this sentence with due care. You were likely in a hurry to conclude this July 30, 2026 post of yours because the facts of the matter are somewhat different. To be fair, we are discussing in the dead of summer, and the urge to swim in the nearby sea is admittedly invincible. Turning to the alternative nomenclature you propose for the “Byzantine neumes,” I simply must disagree. Furthermore, as for the label "Lotharingian," I never even implied that “it sounds strange to me.” With regard to Italian affairs, I have already noted that "for the moment I shall suspend further discussion, particularly regarding (1) Beneventan notation and some cases of (2) 'Italian' phenomena, whether notational or otherwise. Although these latter elements could be discerned within early or subsequent Northern European environments, they are typically assimilated into prevailing North and Central Eurocentric narratives where the 'donor' is almost always the North."

You also have the kindness to inform me and your readers on this blog about your current work: “My current book is about it, and already for Cantus planus last time in Hungary, I tried to get a double slot as keynote, because it takes at least 40 minutes, since scholars of Western and Eastern chant do different discussions (even if they talk about the same problem), and additionally you have to explain, why. I will present my book in Hungary, because it has proved to be better connected to the Balkans, but without Cantus planus.”

Your reference, Oliver, to “Western and Eastern chant” prompts me to share a few thoughts regarding Professor Charles Atkinson’s terminological preferences in his recent work, specifically his contribution, “On Modulation in Eastern and Western Chant,” Plainsong and Medieval Music 34.1 (April 2025), published online by Cambridge University Press (11 June 2025): 1–10 here . While this article—alongside three others by different authors—was the focus of my previous targeted critique in my posts of 2025, my next post will revisit it (with full appreciation for Atkinson’s broader body of work). For the time being, I will focus strictly on isolating his specific terminological preferences like “Eastern” and “Western” chant. I will also examine terminologically the concepts of “diatonic modulation” and “chromatic modulation.” Alongside this, I intend to address the legitimacy of their associations with one or two terms of medieval Greek chant, and perhaps their broader consequences for global chant narratives. This issue is worth looking into precisely because it can be conceptualized not only by a specialist in Latin or Greek chant or a general musician, but also by an art historian, or even a historian, more broadly.

And do not forget it again, my dear Oliver: you are not disturbing me. Feel free to write and criticize ideas, methodologies, and the like on medieval music as you see fit, as long as it is done without, of course, any personal insults on this platform. You are also welcome to use this space to inform both me and this blog's readers about your current or upcoming projects and books.
Oliver Gerlach July 30, 2026 1:49

You will let me know, if I am disturbing you again, but you can likewise answer me here, even if "Saint Martial school" sounds very specific to you like the name "Aquitanian notation". The answer about periphery and centre (basically Wulf Arlt's way to call it, because he brought the question up in the very first Basler Jahrbuch and with respect to this school) is a question about political power and political history which is definitely connected with church history (if one likes it or not).

The name "Lotharingian" might sound strange to you, it is not for a French scholar, because as a geographic adjective it is precise, since it means a neume dialect which was precisely used by scriptoria of this region and not elsewhere (Saint Gall notation on the contrary was used all over Germany).

Italy is quite a different story, because already Guido in his Micrologus makes a distinction between Gallian and Hispanic cantors, but he does not mention "Italian cantors" instead he refers to the double presence of Latin and Greek cantors which both referred to his country (to the Western "periphery" of Magna Grecia, not to its "centre" which was without any doubt Constantinople, at least untl 1201), already during the eleventh century (the period of Norman Italy and Norman cantors on Sicily and in the region Apulia used central-French neumes and in its stilistics very close to Aquitanian manuscripts, Cluny was the centre where Norman cantors like William of Volpiano were once educated, until 1071 Bari was the residence of the Catepanate and thus, the capital of Byzantine Italy).

My current book is about it, and already for Cantus planus last time in Hungary, I tried to get a double slot as keynote, because it takes at least 40 minutes, since scholars of Western and Eastern chant do different discussions (even if they talk about the same problem), and additionally you have to explain, why. I will present my book in Hungary, because it has proved to be better connected to the Balkans, but without Cantus planus.

When it comes now to both Romes, we have to bear in mind that both use the same legal (Latin) titles for the paid singers and both used cheironomia. Thus, they did not need musical notation, they had a gestic communication to lead a choir. The notation was needed within the Frankish empire and also in Italy, because there they had the transfer of the oktoechos by the use of the Latin book tonary which was never used in Rome. Beneventan and Ambrosian script is the main occupation of Italian scholars, because they identify with it and less with Norman central-French manuscripts (in French the term does not exist, it refers to « Île-de-France ») which had anyway be sold away to Madrid as response to the revolt of the Sicilians against the Spanish rulers (much later). But unlike Lotharingian neumes, this does not work at all with Beneventan neumes and script. The first Roman gradual and antiphonary was likely written at the scriptorium of Montecassino also durng the last decades of the 11th century, but why call them "Beneventan", because they were used in the whole Adriatic, and also at the West coast in the region of Tuscany? The answer is very likely abbot Desiderius at Montecassino as the key figure who became later pope and was born and educated at the Campanian town Benevento (unlike later popes who were educated at French monasteries).

Now Byzantine history, I understand your problems with Old ByzantIne notation whose names "Chartres" (because the manuscript with a list of its signs was preserved there) and "Coislin" to honour a certain bishop of Metz as one of the private owners of the fonds Coislin, the library usually names the person who made the "donation" even in cases it did not care about it (quite frankly nobody uses Tillyard's Coislin typology nowadays, but rather a 3 step simplification!). You could use alternative names and call manuscripts with "Coislin" notation geographically Sabaite or Sinaite (bearing in mind that the manuscripts went with the monks from Hagios Sabbas to Mount Sinai, and the "Italian periphery" with its scriptoria were associated to it) and those with "Chartres" notation Constantinopolitan-Athonite or better Stoudite-Athonite.

In both histories we deal with a bizzare relationship to the Romes which is indeed hard to understand, unless we bare in mind that since 1201, that the Constantinopoltan rite was saved by monastic scriptoria elsewhere (with exception of the Hagia Sophia of Thessalonica) whose books sticherarion and heirmologion were over-regional and its notation was originally designed for them. Due to the late asmatikon of Kastoria, we might ask, was this notation really appropriate or just a second line to translate the gestic notation of the first line? Was it an asmatikon or a kondakarian notation, since the latter adjective derived from the Slavic book kondakar'? Fact is, the notation developed outside Constantinople and Middle Byzantine notation is the result, not only developed in "monastic" books sticherarion and heirmologion (the older unnotated tropologion was used until the 13th century!), but also in Constantinopolitan books asmatikon and kontakarion-psaltikon, or in case of the Sicilian scriptorium of the archimandritate Saint Saviour of Messina the combination kontakarion-asmatikon. It was definitely a synthesis of a few Chartres and many Coislin signs, and behind the Papadic uniformity, we should not oversee that both oktoechoi the "monastic" and the "secular" of the cathedral rite as well as their use of tone systems had not very much in common than just a handful echemata as the exception of the rule.
Oliver Gerlach July 29, 2026 22:31

As far as I am concerned, I have nobody to turn to, it is rather the other way round that others turn to me (like you in this case, even if you prefer vague allusions which do not provoke me the least), and even if I could offer you ready-made solutions, you can simply make your own ones. The only problem is, if you teach students, they have to learn anyway the bizzare common ones, because they need not only to understand you, but also make themselves understood in communication with others.

I mean this as encouragment. There is nothing against questioning them and the demonstration that history becomes much clearer, if you look at it from another angle. It requires nothing more than some own proper thinking, and anyone can do that (at least this is my aim concerning the students, making them think their own way, it was never my aim to make them think my way, they have to question it). The important thing is never terms (Byzantine history is always tiring to students, because they have to learn so many of them, and quite frankly there is nothing we can do about it), but looking behind them and what they really mean, is what we always have to learn. It is the way and we will always stay on it, but we move on.

There is nothing which needs to be "decentralised", because it is a historical fact, with the exile of the court and the patriarchate for some decades, the centre Constantinople had moved away, the new "centres" became educated singers as notators who worked at monastic scriptoria such as Patmos, Sinai, Athos, and with respect to the "two redactions" of Floros' edition (his habilitation) two other "peripheries" in Italy: Saint Neilos' abbey at Grottaferrata with the convention of asmatikon and kontakarion-psaltikon and the unconventional kontakarion-asmatikon created at the scriptorium of the archimandritate Saint Saviour of Messina.

The good question is: was it a continuation elsewhere or a reception in a monastic context? The history which is always complex beyond the narrow horizon of human imagination, had answered this question. The former cathedral rite did not return to Constantinople, and the reception in a monastic context was too creative to speak about a simple "continuation", whereever this periphery was. When the court and the patriarchate returned to Constantinople, they had to start with something new.
pavlos erevnidis July 27, 2026 22:28

In my last post, “Decentering Northern and Central Eurocentric perspectives in Medieval Chant(s),” a few paragraphs were accidentally formatted in italics. Below is the full “Naming the Notations” section, properly displayed.

Naming the Notations

Highly indicative of these somewhat biased perspectives is the nomenclature used for medieval Latin chant notations, where “Frankish-something” labels typically prevail.

I wrote as [1β*] in the post dated April 22, 2025 :

In the Name of the Medieval Notation: We see notations (I do not agree with the term “script” for certain reasons) with names like the “so-called” (= Ch. Atkinson, 2009, p. 108) / “overdetermined” (=Ch. Page, 2010, p. 360) “Paléofranque,” or a “Panfränkisch” or “West / East Frankish” or “Lotharinigian” etc.; as well as we see notations chronologically “restored”: e.g. “Palaeofrankish” to be considered earlier than “East-Frankish.” BTW and as food for thought: why is it “Lotharingian” and not “Central Frankish”? Is this issue “not important,” “obvious” and “easy” to answer? After all, is it an innocent choice to accept certain labels? Even in an (un)conscious intentional way? This kind of naming problems (historical or of “us”) comes from a long time ago for me since I have been dealing with names for a long time (at least 2004), e.g. of the Names of the Modes “West”-“East.”

Indeed, accepting certain labels is never an innocent choice, even when they appear to “beg no questions,” as will be demonstrated below. Instead of focusing further on the nomenclature of Latin chant, I prefer to examine the labels of Medieval Greek chant. This approach offers a constructive, I believe, vantage point; since most members in Musicologie Medievale specialize in Latin chant, they will be able to consider this issue as “neutral” outsiders and, additionally, evaluate their own notation-naming processes within a broader context.

Among the medieval Greek chant notations, two are widely known by “European” rather than Greek names: Coislin Notation and Chartres Notation. Let us now examine Oliver Strunk’s account of the reasoning behind this in his Specimina Notationum Antiquiorum (Pars Suppletoria, Copenhagen 1965) [bold emphasis mine]:

[p. 2] Other terminologies, put forward by Gastoué in 1907 (5), by Hugo Riemann in 1909 (6) and by Tillyard in a long series of publications extending from 1913 to 1960 (7), […] In 1921, however, after characterizing all these designations as “equally unscientific”, Tillyard proposed still another, calling this latest stage the “Coislin System” in honor of its best-known representative, the Hirmologion Coislin 220 at the Bibliothèque nationale, and as a compliment to French scholarship (9). This designation soon found wide acceptance, and the name “Coislin” — “a short name which begs no questions”, as Tillyard said at the time— has by now become firmly established. […]

[p. 3] Based on his views—views which they aim to amplify and to develop [p. 6]—they aim also to simplify and to offer a provisional solution of the problem presented by the notation of Lavra Γ.67. With Tillyard, I have called this the “Chartres notation” after the fragment from Γ.67 formerly preserved at Chartres (14), not only because it was through the Chartres fragment that this notational variety first became widely known, but also because the name is “a short one which begs no questions,” to use Tillyard’s own phrase.

For Henry Julius Wetenhall Tillyard and Oliver Strunk, it seems that a condition for a notational label is that it should be “short” and “beg no questions,” even if offered, initially, only as a “provisional solution.” For instance, using this rationale in the context of Latin chant, “Laon” could be considered “better” than “Lotharingian” because… it begs no questions! But really, no questions? Does this label truly beg no questions, or does it simply sweep the problem under the rug? Are we sure that this kind of naming—derived from a library collection—begs no questions? Always? Or is Henry Julius Wetenhall Tillyard’s characterization “equally unscientific” more an attempt to advance his own “‘scientific’” preference? A matter of strategies, perhaps? Interestingly, in his recent study, “Byzantine Musical Manuscripts: A Chrono-Typological Overview” (in Byzantine Liturgical Books: An Introduction, 2025), Christian Troelsgård wrote (p. 334):

“Chartres and Coislin notations are named after manuscript collections in France where examples were first observed and studied towards the end of the nineteenth century.”

Specifically, in the case of the Chartres notation, the name is derived—as seen in Strunk’s excerpt—from a now-lost fragment of a “complete” manuscript that still survives today in a monastery on Mount Athos. Leaving aside the question of where a notation was “first observed” (in Troelsgård’s formulation) or “first became widely known” (in Strunk’s words), as well as by whom, we must discern some old-fashioned, orientalizing aspects of the early scholars associated with the Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae (MMB). This extends to the auto-orientalizing attitudes of some Balkan scholars, such as Markos Dragoumis (a student of Egon Wellesz) or MMB member Miloš Velimirović. To illustrate this, consider a hypothetical “Lotharingian” scenario. Imagine if the recently discovered lost fragment of Laon 236—found by Dominique Gattè here (congratulations on this discovery, Dominique!) in the Northwestern University Library in Evanston, Illinois—had instead been discovered in the central library of... Cairo. What would you think if this European notation were named not, as it is today, after Laon, Lotharingia, Metz or other, but after the “actual origin” of the fragment: the “Dar al-Kutub notation”?! No questions, indeed...

What Are the Criteria for Whom to Consult?

Interestingly, within the “Chantworld,” we often observe “Western” researchers—particularly when seeking “ready-made” answers—turning almost exclusively to […]
pavlos erevnidis June 16, 2026 20:10

Decentering Northern and Central Eurocentric perspectives in Medieval Chant(s)

In this blog, we have already discussed how a Eurocentric perspective on Ancient Greek Music Theory (AGMT) can mislead the understanding and skew the “solution” to its riddles (post dated, June 27, 2024, section entitled: “Beyond Eurocentrism in Ancient Greek Music Theory”). Now, building upon our previous posts regarding modern narratives, along with the related explanations and convictions surrounding medieval chant, the time has come to address a peculiar form of Eurocentrism in relation to certain southern Christian chant traditions.

Italy as a Center, “Periphery,” or “Creative Receiver”? Indeed, are Ancient and Medieval Greek musical heritages the only subjects skewed by Eurocentric biases? Or do other regions of the European South share a similar fate within this medievalist framework? Can we conceptualize the musical traditions of these two peninsulas—namely, those of the Italian (with Rome’s special position, of course) and the Iberian—and, most importantly, their neume notations (such as Beneventan or even Nonantolan in the Italian case) as “central,” or at least as constituting additional parallel “centers” within the wider European landscape? Or was Italy more or less a “passive” recipient in this field—or, more “diplomatically,” a... creative receiver? One is compelled to return once more to Minniti’s formulation in his 2021 Harvard thesis; though I have referenced it elsewhere, his statement on p. 224 demands repetition here [bold emphasis mine]: “The practice of writing sounds in the Beneventan zone was not an autonomous pursuit as if, in a land far away from the Carolingian ‘core-land’ where all of innovation was blooming—repertoire, notation, theory—,…” (The reader is encouraged to consult his full paragraph, which employs terms such as “proactive adaptation.”) For the moment, however, I shall suspend further discussion, particularly regarding (1) Beneventan notation and some cases of (2) 'Italian' phenomena, whether notational or otherwise. Although these latter elements could be discerned within early or subsequent Northern European environments, they are typically assimilated into prevailing North and Central Eurocentric narratives where the “donor” is almost always the North.

Moreover, is the “legend of Pope Gregory” an entirely fabricated construct, or did this wise man genuinely contribute to the affairs of Roman chant—just as his friend Leander, whom he befriended during his stay in New Rome, did for the repertoire of the Iberian Peninsula? Was this myth invented from scratch by medieval writers? Finally, as we have argued in earlier posts [1*], would a particular piece of chant within the intra-Roman environment of Gregory I’s time remain “identical” to the same piece during the later reign of, say, Pope Adrian I? Indeed, Roman chant (earlier or later) was never static.

[1*] E.g. post dated, November 16 2024, entitled: “A clarification of my use of ‘cantilena romana’ and good news”

Naming the Notations

Highly indicative of these somewhat biased perspectives is the nomenclature used for medieval Latin chant notations, where “Frankish-something” labels typically prevail.

I wrote as [1β*] in the post dated April 22, 2025 :

In the Name of the Medieval Notation: We see notations (I do not agree with the term “script” for certain reasons) with names like the “so-called” (= Ch. Atkinson, 2009, p. 108) / “overdetermined” (=Ch. Page, 2010, p. 360) “Paléofranque,” or a “Panfränkisch” or “West / East Frankish” or “Lotharinigian” etc.; as well as we see notations chronologically “restored”: e.g. “Palaeofrankish” to be considered earlier than “East-Frankish.” BTW and as food for thought: why is it “Lotharingian” and not “Central Frankish”? Is this issue “not important,” “obvious” and “easy” to answer? After all, is it an innocent choice to accept certain labels? Even in an (un)conscious intentional way? This kind of naming problems (historical or of “us”) comes from a long time ago for me since I have been dealing with names for a long time (at least 2004), e.g. of the Names of the Modes “West”-“East.”

Indeed, accepting certain labels is never an innocent choice, even when they appear to “beg no questions,” as will be demonstrated below. Instead of focusing further on the nomenclature of Latin chant, I prefer to examine the labels of Medieval Greek chant. This approach offers a constructive, I believe, vantage point; since most members in Musicologie Medievale specialize in Latin chant, they will be able to consider this issue as “neutral” outsiders and, additionally, evaluate their own notation-naming processes within a broader context.

Among the medieval Greek chant notations, two are widely known by “European” rather than Greek names: Coislin Notation and Chartres Notation. Let us now examine Oliver Strunk’s account of the reasoning behind this in his Specimina Notationum Antiquiorum (Pars Suppletoria, Copenhagen 1965) [bold emphasis mine]:

[p. 2] Other terminologies, put forward by Gastoué in 1907 (5), by Hugo Riemann in 1909 (6) and by Tillyard in a long series of publications extending from 1913 to 1960 (7), […] In 1921, however, after characterizing all these designations as “equally unscientific”, Tillyard proposed still another, calling this latest stage the “Coislin System” in honor of its best-known representative, the Hirmologion Coislin 220 at the Bibliothèque nationale, and as a compliment to French scholarship (9). This designation soon found wide acceptance, and the name “Coislin” — “a short name which begs no questions”, as Tillyard said at the time— has by now become firmly established. […]

[p. 3] Based on his views—views which they aim to amplify and to develop [p. 6]—they aim also to simplify and to offer a provisional solution of the problem presented by the notation of Lavra Γ.67. With Tillyard, I have called this the “Chartres notation” after the fragment from Γ.67 formerly preserved at Chartres (14), not only because it was through the Chartres fragment that this notational variety first became widely known, but also because the name is “a short one which begs no questions,” to use Tillyard’s own phrase.

For Henry Julius Wetenhall Tillyard and Oliver Strunk, it seems that a condition for a notational label is that it should be “short” and “beg no questions,” even if offered, initially, only as a “provisional solution.” For instance, using this rationale in the context of Latin chant, “Laon” could be considered “better” than “Lotharingian” because… it begs no questions! But really, no questions? Does this label truly beg no questions, or does it simply sweep the problem under the rug? Are we sure that this kind of naming—derived from a library collection—begs no questions? Always? Or is Henry Julius Wetenhall Tillyard’s characterization “equally unscientific” more an attempt to advance his own “‘scientific’” preference? A matter of strategies, perhaps? Interestingly, in his recent study, “Byzantine Musical Manuscripts: A Chrono-Typological Overview” (in Byzantine Liturgical Books: An Introduction, 2025), Christian Troelsgård wrote (p. 334):

“Chartres and Coislin notations are named after manuscript collections in France where examples were first observed and studied towards the end of the nineteenth century.”

Specifically, in the case of the Chartres notation, the name is derived—as seen in Strunk’s excerpt—from a now-lost fragment of a “complete” manuscript that still survives today in a monastery on Mount Athos. Leaving aside the question of where a notation was “first observed” (in Troelsgård’s formulation) or “first became widely known” (in Strunk’s words), as well as by whom, we must discern some old-fashioned, orientalizing aspects of the early scholars associated with the Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae (MMB). This extends to the auto-orientalizing attitudes of some Balkan scholars, such as Markos Dragoumis (a student of Egon Wellesz) or MMB member Miloš Velimirović. To illustrate this, consider a hypothetical “Lotharingian” scenario. Imagine if the recently discovered lost fragment of Laon 236—found by Dominique Gattè here (congratulations on this discovery, Dominique!) in the Northwestern University Library in Evanston, Illinois—had instead been discovered in the central library of... Cairo. What would you think if this European notation were named not, as it is today, after Laon, Lotharingia, Metz or other, but after the “actual origin” of the fragment: the “Dar al-Kutub notation”?! No questions, indeed...

What Are the Criteria for Whom to Consult?

Interestingly, within the “Chantworld,” we often observe “Western” researchers—particularly when seeking “ready-made” answers—turning almost exclusively to the members of Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae for insights into medieval Greek chant. Is it, perhaps, because they perceive these scholars as “part of their own”? If this is true, this gatekeeping attitude in medieval music studies is hardly unique; it reflects a broader pattern found across art, popular culture, and believe it or not, fashion. [2*] A striking contemporary example can be seen in cinema: in Christopher Nolan's highly anticipated film The Odyssey, not a single Greek actor has been cast. [3*]

[2*] See Pavlos Erevnidis, “The Geography of Music, Cross-Cultural Comparison and a Mid-13th-century Event Described by the Byzantine Theorist George Pachymerēs,” in Papers read at the 13th meeting of the IMS Study Group Cantus Planus (Budapest, 2009), p. 217, n. 33 (a near-final version of the text was distributed as an offprint at the 2006 meeting). There, I quote François de Grenaille’s La Mode, ou Caractère de la religion, de la vie, de la conversation, de la solitude: des compliments, des habits et du style du temps (Paris, 1642) here to illustrate the issue of making choices under the state of taste or fashion.

[3*] Without commenting extensively, here in Musicologie Medievale, on the heated debate surrounding Helen of Troy being embodied by the beautiful black actress Lupita Nyong'o in that production, a broader point must be made. Aesthetic extremism does not automatically equate to open-mindedness, artistic merit, or intellectual depth. Conversely, a meticulously historically informed artwork—whether visual or auditory—is not guaranteed to be a masterpiece of art. This parallel is strikingly evident in the performances of modern medieval music ensembles. Ultimately, the “Artworld”—to borrow Arthur Danto's famous concept—cannot be reduced to a single ideological monoculture, nor is it governed by a fixed set of ideas that some nowadays try to impose upon it.

To be fair, one reason some “Western” researchers rarely consult experts from our beloved Balkans—even on matters of medieval Greek chant—is that local commentators often, but not always, behave as cultural mediators who adopt an auto-orientalizing and self-exoticizing stance. When approached, they sometimes introduce extraneous, seemingly “dramatic” details, or employ “exotic” musical instruments like the tanbur or kanun to demonstrate musical intervals and other associated phenomena. In reality, these instruments lack the acoustic precision such demonstrations imply. This long-standing challenge in relying on such instruments recalls Ptolemy’s discussion in Harmonics II.12 (entitled: “On the Difficulty in Using the Monochord”); see also Andrew Barker's commentary in Scientific Method in Ptolemy’s Harmonics (pp. 203 ff.). Furthermore, for the relation of the ancient monochord with musical instruments like the phandouros or pandoura, see the comprehensive study by David Creese, The Monochord in Ancient Greek Harmonic Science (2010), pp. 89 ff.; see also J. Solomon’s translation of Harmonikà on p. 92, n. 198.

Turning again to Italia: as a result, a student of medieval Christian chant with global interests (but lacking deep familiarity with the subject) would arrive at an opinion that is superficially global, yet distorted, heavily influenced by a north- and central-Eurocentric perspective. This framework postulates an image of Italy as a, more or less, “creative receiver” for Latin chant notations, while simultaneously viewing Italy's Greek chant—through, again, a specific Northern-Eurocentric school of thought—as representing a state of affairs, as far as possible, independent of New Rome.

Operationalizing the “Global” in Practice. Hence, alongside the global, there emerges what might be termed the seemingly- or even the pseudo-global. Consequently, any idealistic “global” or “world” musicography could remain far removed from actual practice, rendering much of the related literature a redundant and superfluous exercise in overtheorizing. This gap underscores a deeper tension between global perspectives and actual legitimacy, now. Does the fact that musicologists have gone global now automatically render any rationale equally valid, and valid for any individual perspective now? Crucially, encouraging a critique of the current, seemingly global perspectives opens up new opportunities for a genuinely global future. Otherwise, global musicography (and its fashionable theorizations) will be seen less as a genuine pursuit of validity and more as a benevolent but separate honnêteté, similar to the way De Grenaille once theorized. As I have noted elsewhere with reference to François de Grenaille’s 1642 treatise La Mode, this situation is reminiscent of the broader phenomenon of making choices under the influence of taste or fashion (on this point, see once more my note [2*] in the present text).

In the closing of my section “Exoticizing the Global” in the post dated July 6, 2024 I concluded: “Global, okay, there are good reasons for this, but Global how, is the question I am asking, for my part, in this short paragraph, not as an amuse-bouche, but this time as… a meze.” This “how” has nothing to do with abstract calls to discard (or not) maps (be they cultural or other ones) or freeze (or not) historical progress. Rather, by bypassing both (1) the dangers of romanticized overtheorization, and (2) a certain honnêteté it focuses instead on a grounded, empirical praxis. Hence, I invite the reader to a really grounded meze-table, of which the following two dishes are served, among others:

α)Toward the Cultural Decolonization of the US and Canada: A Distant Goal? Paradoxically, much of the historiography (of art [and its geography] or not) produced in the US and Canada (where current scholarship, as we hear here in the Balkans, frequently proclaims itself as "global" or "international") has also yet to undergo a thorough process of cultural and intellectual decolonization from European paradigms—specifically within Christian chant studies—which either created or were created by the notion of the “cultural West.” I use the qualifier “much” because US and Canadian researchers do not represent a monolith, just as the Chinese scholars discussed below display a diverse range of perspectives.

β)And some—Chinese—food for thought: How would an independent narrative—a Chinese one, for instance—conceptualize the history of global Christian chant from Imperial Roman times to the end of the medieval era (ca. 1500)? Would it merely replicate a “pseudo-global” framework (Eurocentric or not), or would it constitute a genuinely autonomous— and, regardless of its degree of validity, a fundamentally alternative yet global—narrative?
pavlos erevnidis April 30, 2026 20:41

Four more MSS of Ancient Greek Music Theory are available online:

E-Mn : Gr. 4713 (Numéro diktyon: 40189, Math. 62, 1554 in Venice, Vitrac p. 175, 1554, Pinakes )

V-CVbav : Gr. 1800 (Numéro diktyon: 64429, Math. 233, 16^th c., Vitrac p. 167, 15^th c., Pinakes )

NL-Uu : Hs. 1.A.02 (Numéro diktyon: 64498, Math. 291, 1651, Vitrac p. 193, 1651, Pinakes )

US-NHub : MS 272 (Numéro diktyon: 46520, Math. 298, 26 March 1585, Pinakes )
pavlos erevnidis December 19, 2025 20:40

Ruptures and discontinuities as systemic explanations? Besides, it is ambitious to apply any kind of canonicity that could produce a generalized “systemic” metanarrative where the greater the rupture the more the innovations and the greater the associated “Renaissance,” “Reforms” and the like; and thus, on a more general level, one civilization could inherently be assessed as “more changed” than another, especially diachronically and in the long term.

Not all ruptures lead to the same kind (and degree) of results, as there are ruptures, of any kind, in the Global past that did not lead to similar intellectual achievements in truly Global synchronic or diachronic consequences, as is the case with the Abbasids or the Carolingians.

Therefore, is any explanation/strategy based on a systematic way (and comparative, that is, on deriving results such as, "since this "reason"/"phenomenon" exists for "them" but not for "the others", then...") on musical (or non-) "ruptures" (or not) sufficient enough to explain the medieval lack of musical sources in Iran and the two Romes (Ancient Greek Music Theory sources included), or is it too risky/dangerous to assume that the sources we have reflect, to a large extent, the "real" medieval realities (see again my 2009 paper pp. 204-205 with note 6) and, even, even more risky (with "reassuring" qualities) that there is n o t h I n g s t r a n g e in this phenomenon? This musical theme deserves much more attention and needs more than one focus on medieval musical cases in order to include this problematic to modern narratives. In particular, for Byzantine music(s) theorizing(s), there is no need to smooth out (or, conversely, to emphasize) the discontinuities and the alleged “renaissances” in any (implied [consciously or not] or not) connection with an outstandingness or even an uprooting of Byzantium. Anyhow, a “seismic event” as reason for, a specific, later, something should be proven to be an inevitable event or, more technically, causal. (i.e. the one phenomenon [e.g., a discontinuity] is – to a whatever extent - the cause of the other, at least according to the sources). Or, just because two events are nearly simultaneous or consecutive does not always mean they are causally related (especially if a "retrospective reasoning" is proposed).

More specifically, if we "see" the Frankish “chant repertory discontinuity” alongside previous e.g. the insular, developments: Was such a “large-scale revision of chant repertory” indeed so radical and as a form of detachment, be imagined more momentous than it deserves? E.g. for “The Nature and Character of the early Irish Liturgy” in relation to the then Frankish usage with some Roman elements of “the Gallican rite” see the relative article of Yitzhak Hen. Why don't we have such pioneering developments, even "earlier," in music theory and phenomena such as Tonaries or neume-notation(s) among the insular peoples on whom Roman chant was also imposed (another discontinuity? Rupture?), let's say, about a century earlier? (For an explanation of "why notations in the Carolingians?" see Rankin 2018, pp. 337 ff., especially pp. 353 ff. On p. 354 she writes (bold emphasis is mine): “In comprehensive fashion, the emergence of ways of representing music in writing in the ninth century sits very comfortably within what we know about Carolingian interest in literacy, not only as a direct basis for spiritual health and access to God but also as support for the collection of knowledge and its communication between people.”) When one “zooms in,” the objects being observed give the impression being larger (or more “important”) as do the spaces between them. In such a situation s/he will see large “gaps.” Otherwise, how could someone calibrate the information provided by the Frankish musical microscope(s) towards more balanced perspectives trying to avoid any kind of a Carolingian chant “exceptionalism”? Moreover, how all those – “new” for specific perspectives – musical concepts that we “see” in the Frankish sources allow us to classify them under a broader label such as “the western chant”?

True, Jeffery’s article as well as Atkinson’s short “paragraph” (which was not fully understood by me, especially for its “earlier”/ “later” side. Note that I did not address here his main point regarding modulation, as well as his terminological preferences and a few more issues in this Plainsong and Medieval Music, 34.1 article) was a good occasion to record here some of my problematics on these and more issues.

Source “survival.” Furthermore, why have these specific sources preserved, under what conditions have they survived and, as we have already asked, are they representative, to a greater or lesser extent, of medieval reality(-ies)? (indicatively as for yet another case of chant [not music theory and the like] namely for pre-Carolingian Ambrosian chant and some relative problematics, see T. Bailey “Ambrosian Mass chants before the Carolingian intervention,” 2012) Problems of this kind have also been taken into account here in this blog since the very first post. So, I will continue to insist on issues of this “grand narrative” theme, which indeed deserves much more attention:

Unconscious Intentional Focuses? Certain Régimes d'historicité musicales? À la Carte Retrospectivities? We often encounter cases of retrospective argumentation (and not only in chant literature) where a later result is linked and explained in our days using previous events or series of them (such as ruptures, etc.) even though, sometimes, there are no sources that directly connect them. Under certain circumstances, this is a normal strategy in order to fill in certain gaps with educated conjectures based, sometimes, again, on convictions. Remember a conviction of Rosamond McKitterick, already expressed in the introduction of her 1989 book on p. 3: “This book is also in some ways a reaction against the preoccupation with the later middle ages of most recent studies of mediaeval literacy. It is based on the conviction that the roots of later mediaeval developments are to be sought in the centuries immediately succeeding the period of Roman rule.”

Why, then, is such a retrospective approach not used in the case of musical Byzantium at least as a possibility (and not conviction)? I.e. why should the possibility that the Byzantines had essentially literate treatises on Greek chant such as, at least, the Enchiriades, be ruled out? (I am not referring, only, to the Musica Enchiriadis and Trochós) Because a certain “break” of the Carolingians “extinguishes” this possibility? Or, because the advent of the surviving medieval music-theoretical Greek chant treatises (and not only chant) of the later Middle Ages could only(?) be "explained" e.g. as an exclusive/isolated event and as a result of such a "rupture" i.e. after - the tiny Empire of Nicaea that is, 1261 CE? Only such a kind of rupture can cause a so-called "Renaissance," such as the Palaiologan with an analogous (or not) degree of radicalism, or are these Greek chant sources of the later Middle Ages the tip of an iceberg whose total volume represents the continuous change of previous musicotheoretical currents even of the first millennium? More carefully, in relation to the 10^th c. Souda Lexicon as a product of a specific Byzantine “Renaissance,” as we demonstrated in this blog on the occasion of the term καβάλη/kabálē/kaválē (post dated June 24, 2024, entitled “Exoticizing the Global?”) and how it was treated by some MMB’s: Are the cultural products of such –Trompe-l’oeil – “Renaissances” only those we “see” in the surviving sources (using, especially for the musical case, a certain perspective) or are there, legitimate, perspectives from which we can connect some of such literate musical products with later attested material? Ιs it more natural e.g. to write about the ancient tribal “mode”-names (as we see them in the Ancient Greek Music Theory treatises as Dōrios, Phrygios, etc) and the chant “mode”-ordinals (as plagal prōtos, deuteros etc.) as a case in Byzantium which “looks like a misapplication of the Western medieval series”? [11*] (And recall that the Byzantines were the people[s] who preserved and processed [like “Baccheios” or Dionysios and not only them; for music this processing existed even during the middle Byzantine period] the source material of AGMT, in its original language, and which material we possess to this day.) One aspect of the issue is whether AGMT (and what about its relation to chant?) was “for them” (and not only for the learned elites and what they represented in the society) of “philological/mathematical interest,” a “cultural capital,” or was it something more than that? The passion in the episode of the musicotheoretical debate, later, in Nikolaos Mesaritēs’s narrative (see my 5 March, 2021 post) is indicative of this (given that in Byzantium the preservation of ancient Greek sources was not a priority per se).

[11*] Prof. John Caldwell (“Modes and Modality: a unifying concept for Western chant?” in Music in Medieval Europe, Studies in Honour of Bryan Gillingham, ed. by T. Bailey and A. Santosuosso, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007, p. 45, n. 24, writes (square brackets and bold emphasis are mine): “The Hagiopolites treatise lists the names of the eight modes […] This looks like a misapplication of the Western medieval series of octave species from A-a to a-a’ (as in Alia musica; see GS 1, 127) [I will not go into the intricacies of Alia Musica here, P.E.], with Hypomixolydian substituted for Hypermixolydian, as later in the West, to allow for its identification with the fourth plagal mode (octave d-d’). The Papadike is said [?] to incorporate the Western order: Dorios, Phrygios, Lydios, Mixolydios, followed by their ‘hypo’ equivalents; but the list is again disordered in Vatican, BAV Barb. lat. [sic] 300; see L. Tardo, L’ antica melurgia bizantina, (Grottaferrata 1938), p.152.”

I wonder: Do I simply have unjustified, ex silentio and naïve convictions that are not based on the survived sources? What on earth happened to medieval musical centers like Old-Rome, New-Rome or Iran "even earlier" or when the Carolingians and the Abbasids began theorizing/speculating about music? All in all,

as for the Carolingians and music: Do, let me repeat, (1) the “other” sources that have survived and (2) our interpretive perspectives and hermeneutics of them tell us the real (and whole?) story of those times and so we must “reject” the medieval tales about the transmission of Roman chant to the north? If so, then of course we need an explanation (we have already seen in the beginning of this series of posts, an Legitimationsproblem explanation by A. Haug, of which I am not convinced) If not, then one must disaggregate the available data using different perspectives, in order to find hints (at least, through the source “windows” at our disposal) with the aim of a more complete medieval picture.

Moreover, when in the post of November 10, 2024, I made Charlemagne think after his coronation, on the way back to Aachen I ended with these words: “…I will continue my efforts to have the Cantors of my lands “integrated” into Cantilena Romana, BUT, for this Cantilena, I… and as for ‘my’ Cantors…” I wrote this about him because, this time, it’s me who’s convinced, he knew that his strong will would never be strong enough to realize his dream in practice and in its entirety. He was wise enough to know the limits of his “power” towards his Cantors (the local and the “central” ones; and not only from the center-periphery perspective) and that, most importantly for “us,” such a “project” would never be so short and fully successful. In practice, things were not so “easy” and radical (e.g. from the Frankish mid-8th to the mid-9th century) and musically not so complete, we must admit. (Guido a few centuries later will write about his contemporary state of affairs: “… that scarcely one agrees with another, neither the pupil with his master, nor the pupil with his fellow pupils? It is for this reason that the antiphoners are not one, nor yet a few, but rather as many as are the masters in the single churches; and that the antiphoner is now commonly said to be, not Gregory’s, but Leo’s, or Albert’s, or someone’s else. And since to learn one is most difficult, there can be no doubt that to learn many is impossible… since masters change many things arbitrarily…” in Source Readings in Music History [See the Table of Contents to understand whose Music History this is. P.E.] Selected and Annotated by O. Strunk, 1950, p. 118) Thus, I used ellipsis (...) for Charles's thoughts on "his" “reforms” in chant, both for himself and for “his” beliefs about how his Cantors would receive his initiative, because, despite the limited knowledge of exactly how this medieval chant “reform” was implemented in practice, it is very well known that the words used “by them" in relation to it mostly obscure what was actually happening at the time: admonitio, emendatio, correctio. Indeed, our “window” sources need calibration in order to avoid meta-narrative romanticism. I think that if historians, with their advanced tools, make more decisive use of the wealth of musical (not just Liturgical) documentation, then many new perspectives will be possible, especially in addition to what Rutger Kramer, “The Problem(s) with the Carolingian Reform(s),” 2023, writes with caution about “palace-centric” metanarratives (p. 42): “One of the problems with Carolingian reforms resides in the fact that we, as historians, have a tendency to take the prescriptive and hierarchical nature of our courtly sources at face value, and use that to explain changes to the system— … And that, whether any “educational reform” was ever planned at court; and consider, from a literacy point of view, Notker's story of the way musical readings were performed. BTW, in my view, the Tonaries have the best chance of being something recently “innovated,” although not exactly educational/instructional in nature or to gain, some, control to the repertory. Furthermore, as a case study of the actual processes by which liturgical reforms were implemented in practice, one could think of Amalarius with Florus and of course, among other relevant things, how Agobard of Lyons advised the cantors.

Regarding “the seductive nature of Carolingian discourse” (R. Kramer 2023, p. 37): Are the Franks, in Global terms now, the “only ones” subject to continuous and, to a large extent, “radical” musical change because some of their sources have survived? A musicotheoretical point zero? A teleological and cataclysmic turning point in music? On the contrary, wasn't there a continuous change (in practice/s and musical theory/-ies), at least as far as human nature is concerned, of the peoples of Rome and the peoples of New Rome in their respective Latin and Greek chant traditions? Given that discontinuities are ubiquitous features and mainly "windows" of change (and in our case, of sources [12*]), is it, all of a sudden, a specific Carolingian "radical and fatal change" that should be addressed on the scale of "less or more change" in relation to other cultures (especially in a diachronic changing course)? Or, alternatively, should musical metahistorical perspectives be based on a different reading of the extant Frankocentric Latin musical sources and their relative environments, which, over time, favored, perhaps unconsciously, the preservation of specific texts that represented specific “ideological” (and identity) currents?

Thus, the extant sources would be explained only as (1) representations of Frankish literary/musical “innovations” (such as the connection/nexus of Ancient Greek Music Theory and chant) and (2) as a result of (2.a) a “large-scale revision of the chant repertory” or within (2.b) the Carolingian “reforms” [13*]? (I.e., using various combination(s) and schemes of the cases 1, 2.α and 2.β) In my opinion, as I already have said about ruptures, indeed, a “rupture” (musical or not) of any kind, certainly has some, among other things, musicotheoretical implications, but this does not automatically mean meta-narratively that the more the crack the “more change” (and innovations), especially since the Francocentric sources in local (and Karolus himself “centrally”) level seem, in my mind, to employ a common “via media ↔ distinction” process (each on their own agenda) of a “learned” cultural gentrification/appropriation (and this not only Liturgically). The short/long term results in practice are indicative of an inconsistent and uneven adoption of this, as opposed to the reforms narrated top-down.

[12*] The knowledge of some First millennium Greek Chant affairs: Ex Occidente Lux. We should not think that we “see” the landscape from inside the room using the window of the Frankish sources. For this window gives us the opportunity to put our head out and to “see” right and left and to understand what was happening e.g. in Byzantium. But we must be careful not to go too far out because from our enthusiasm we will fall down, since, indeed, it is a very difficult task (but, sometimes, not entirely impossible) to argue, to some extent, ex silentio. The point for the present state of affairs, is not whether there are sources that we “don’t see” (as I did in this blog with the chant scholia/annotations in some AGMT sources) and that testify what happened musicotheoretically during the first millennium of Greek (or Latin chant in Rome), but that we should not be so convinced by some current narratives based on a particular reading of the surviving sources. “West”-“East.”

[13*] With similar or less similar causes that led e.g. to their almost contemporary “translation movement” in Islamicate civilization and the relative rise of speculative musical treatises alongside this movement. What about the chant with the AGMT of the Byzantine peoples, especially since in Byzantium they preserved and worked with the original AGMT treatises. Nothing? Not very “Byzantine” in nature? “Pagan things”? Only as a “later” “cultural capital”?

As for the Byzantines – and their “less changed” (?!) – music(s): I will not focus of whether ancient Greek literature and scientific culture was endemic to Byzantium. Only on music: α)How certain are we that the ancient tribal names of modes (Dōrios, Phrygios etc.) that are referred as the “principal/proper names” (κύρια ονόματα) of the modes of medieval Greek chant is a "later" development (when exactly and why?) and "after" the related "earlier" "Western" case? β)Moreover, based on the sources we have available, even as hints, until when in medieval Greek chant was the “common singing tradition” “not yet been lifted” into the sphere of the scientific study of ancient Greek music theory? Otherwise, when do we first have in Greek chant attempts at some "intellectual" nexus/“lifting” of chant with ancient Greek music theory? In the time of Patmos 52? Psellos? Or, Hagiopolitēs? For P. Jeffery, “The earliest Oktoēchoi: The Role…,” pp. 185-186: “… the material (it begs several questions [? P.E.] to call it a ‘treatise’) known as the Hagiopolitēs.” Prof. Jeffery treats, in this article, Hagiopolitēs after Papadikē.

Was this nexus (and if yes to what degree) performed as “rudimentary experiments in the establishing of a theory of church music” (Ch. Troelsgård, “Ancient Musical Theory in Byzantine environments,” Cimagl 56, 1988, p. 229, here )? Moreover, among other related things, G. Wolfram, “The Byzantine Modal System in Relation to Ancient Greek Music Theory” in IMS-RASMB, Series Musicologica Balcanica 1.2, 2021, e-ISSN: 2654-248X 2021, p. 202 here used wordings related to the authors of the treatises on medieval Greek chant (=after the 12^th and mainly after the 14^th c.) such as “in a simple way” and wrote: “On the other hand, the authors try to show in a simple way that Byzantine church music has a connection with the ancient modal system and classical Greek music theory.”

A Working Hypothesis. And a general concluding “Byzantine” comment as hypothetical syllogisms of mine (i.e. not as an interpretation of what any author might mean by specific terms and wordings): If the Papadiκē of the late 13th-14th centuries [yes, late 13th-14th c. CE] represents something “central” or in a linear way, the “peak,” or even “the criterion” in a (a posteriori “unified”?) “common singing tradition” of Byzantium, then, indeed, the, larger or smaller, “theoretical” expositions of chant that preceded the Papadiκē (if I were hypothetically interpreting the Papadiκē as “central/peak”), become (1) “secondary” or “rudimentary material/experiments” and (2) almost every earlier, here and there, specimen of chant “theory” (not Lavra 67, of course) could be classified as “proto-Papadiκē.” (Again, I am not interpreting here what Troelsgård, who coined this term, means and how he uses it. That is his own business.) And let's think that we are talking about a Greek chant singing tradition (one? a common? a "Byzantine"? or one as a posteriori musically "unified[?]" in the 20th century?) that chronologically dates back – unchanged, or less changed? – to, say, the Old Tropologion or perhaps even earlier, that is, about a millennium. Note that the first complete and "real" Papadikē is from 1336 CE!!

Now, think about Europe (except for its southeastern part): how many things changed in music theory and Latin chant from let's say 836 to 1336? Then, think about the same period a state of affairs for medieval Greek chant where things in music (and chant theory) were primarily as described in a treatise of 1336. If there is nothing strange in such, hypothetical, views as "unified" syllogisms based, mainly, on Papadikē (and the ways in which it would describe, r e t r o s p e c t I v e l y, this entire period of 500 years of Greek chant) and everything is fine, then there is indeed no reason to continue working with "unverified" explanations, convictions or conjectures.

But then, for example, I might wonder, why in the early "theoretical" exposition of ēchoi (almost half a sentence) in the manuscript Lavra 67, the Mesoi Ēchoi are three and not two or four as one might conclude from the “later” material and therefore outside the “rules” regarding Mesoi Ēchoi (and Phthorai) of a "Byzantine unified theory/perspective" based on (and making convenient choices from?) this "later" not so "unified," as it seems, material. [14*] So, think again: this, so rare for Greek chant, early "theoretical" half of a sentence conveys to us something different from the later material that is "usually used" today for "Byzantine music"! That is, we have an indication of a “more changing” status just from half a, survived, sentence…

[14*] E.g. it should first be examined whether in all the extant Greek treatises, especially in relation to Hagiopolitēs, the term Mesoi Ēchoi means always the same thing! The same examination must be conducted for the Phthorai and then investigated if, how and under what conditions there is any connection with the Absonia, Vitia, Nothae, Parapteres, Medii Toni (if they all meant the same thing) of the “earlier” Latin chant sources. Oops, I said I wouldn't address the main, modulation, point of Atkinson's article. In the same way, how closely is “a” Hemiphōnon=ημίφωνον/Hemitonon=ημίτονον related to “a” Semivocalis/Hemivocalis/Semitonus? Which exposition regarding the connections of medieval Latin with Greek chant is valid? More than one educated explanation? Or, just preferences? Selective conjectures? Convictions?

And besides, if the above paragraphs were my real and not a "working hypothesis," then, personally, I would be discouraged from looking for further, "earlier" or "later," sources which could reflect a "more changed" and dynamic state of affairs, e.g. (1) as yet another possibility, old layers of Latin chant as they could be represented in certain Armenian sources, i.e. not only as an intra-Armenian (or even early intra-Byzantine [and not only]) chant case, or (2) if (and this is not a possibility but a real evidence) there are references to Greek chant in the MS sources of Ancient Greek Music Theory (=almost equally "later" with the Greek chant ones). That is, an entire category of "unseen" (by the scholars of Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae in the 20th and first 5th of the 21st centuries) but important primary sources about “pure” chant theory; not one or two excerpts or fragments here and there. Certainly, in this way, new primary theoretical sources, real evidence and facts (not even "accepted facts") and more enriched – medieval music theory –perspectives come to the fore and things become, so to speak, not so "unverified."

More generally now, it seems that the state of affairs regarding medieval Greek chant is not much different from that which we described in the case of the various modern interpretations about medieval neumes: α) If there is a rhetoric that implies, insists or believes that a particular perspective/mindset uses the “only” “verifiable facts” or “confirmed evidence” and therefore the associated “explanations,” “convictions,” and “expectations” are the “more positive,” then we should not rule out that it may be just that. Rhetoric. β) At the same time, I think, it would be evasive for someone to confidently (and in a reassuring manner) reiterate what J. Bryant criticizes by writing on p. 42: “This we can know and only this.”

Let us hope that all this will trigger the interest also of more young scholars with or without medieval Latin chant background, who will become interested in the Global Chant affairs (following the paths, but not necessarily the conclusions, of professors Charles Atkinson, Peter Jeffery or Constantin Floros) and thus be able to check and recheck, fully and not partially, narratives on topics such as those examined here.

This was the last in these series of posts on the various modern explanations about medieval chant(s).

Now it is time for season’s greetings:

Καλά Χριστούγεννα και

Αίσιον και Ευτυχές

το Νέον

Έτος.
pavlos erevnidis November 29, 2025 9:00

The Medieval Cultural (and Chant) Geographies of Syria and Italy and the last section of the neumes of Medieval Latin chant and their families: What do we really know about their “original” elements and delivery? And a few more observations on the Cultural Geography of the Iberian Peninsula (Continued from the previous post.)

Expectations. Moreover, more complexity is added, and among the results some of them will be characterized, ambitiously (in my mind), as “expected.” (1) To return to the 2022 article in Plainsong and Medieval music, an expected state of melodical contour affairs (that emanates from a specific abstract understanding of the neumes) is, also, imagined: “formulas outside their expected contexts.” More specifically for the neumes now: (2) we “see” and recognize cases that do not meet convictions about e.g. that the “gravis” must be located “plus bas que l’on attendrait.” Incidentally, one could encounter the performative dimensions of the verb, to expect, also in relation to Latin chant notations of another European peninsula, the Italian one, but that is another story.

Medieval Neumes as treated today and an old argument discussed by Cognitive Philosophers/Scientists: The Chinese Room (John Searle [1932-September 17, 2025], 1980). Clearly, my own or any third party's, perspectives/convictions/recognitions and my criticisms/interpretations (considered by someone or not) are not primarily important in such a case, as primarily important would be a detailed self-evaluation of any such "method" for neumes; that is, to indicate in a self-referential manner, the boundaries between possible plausibilities and how objective/subjective an author's possible personal "convictions," mind-sets and abstractions (as well as the "expectations" derived from them) are. (I.e., not, mainly, to refer to the “positive” results and why these are “better” than those of other “methods” and that “this method” could be useful for other medieval notations) This means, to recognize, that manipulating (to say it in “Chinese Room” phraseology), to a larger or smaller part, symbols is not the same as understanding their, full, meaning [8*] and especially to recognize how a particular “method” for neumes deals with and controls, certain, data which we cannot even appreciate how crucial these data were in the first place. At least this is the most important, for me, expectation.

[8*] I.e., again in “Chinese Room” phraseology, syntax versus semantics. Especially considering that “our” direction/ality(-ies) (and relative features) consist of a very, very primitive, “elastic” and poor form of (if any) syntax; not to mention semantics in general.

So, imagine now how important and useful such a detailed “self-examination” by a scholar, from Europe (continental or insular), or “from the East and the other side of the Ocean,” would be for a, now real, Chinese wo/man who decided to start working with medieval Christian chant and more specifically, with the medieval “one” in Latin. This is said because it is not the same state of affairs for a Chinese viola student to go to Berlin for masterclasses or to buy a fine handmade bow from one of the world-famous archèteries in France with the different state(s) of affairs of learning one, the other or a third restoration/reconstruction of medieval Latin chant(s).

J. Bryant’s Edition Imaginaire problematics and Imagination as a common component of modern methods regarding neumes. To summarize, and not only for medieval notations but also for more general chant perspectives (when these are based on the surviving sources without, among other things, calibration and without examining why only these sources have reached us) regarding medieval chant(s): Any rhetoric that insists or believes that a particular perspective uses “more verifiable facts” or “more confirmed evidence” and therefore the associated “explanations,” “convictions,” and “expectations” are the “more positive” ones is, more or less, that, rhetoric. Moreover, one should be aware that any "‘seriously’ informed" reconstruction/comparison of any chant is, indeed, a candidate for a "usable" treatment (and in a way, receptive [or not] to "persuasiveness") with another, more/less abstract one (as far as the common to all characteristic of "imagination" is concerned). Regardless how many publications or supporters the one or the other reconstruction receives; or what any new, newer, or retrieved article says in a musical (or not), online (or not) encyclopedia (or not); or whether which AI machine “preferred” [hmm!] one or the other reference; or who automatically decided, in Hubert H. Humphrey’s terms, which case is the serious one; or, even, which of the proposed “imaginations” is preferred by Communis opinio or an “aspiring wo/man from the western side (form north to south) of the Pacific Ocean”(from continental or insular Asian geographies), etc. etc.

As for the melodies and their contours in the medieval Iberian and Italian (as we shall see) Peninsula, I will not analyze here how and whether (or to what extent) the melodies “changed” intra-communally or inter-communally over time for both the “donors” and the “receivers,” since all of these, e.g. “rendering,” “motif,” “outlining principle,” “close multiples,” “melodic cells,” “module,” “raw material,” “thésis/θέσις,” “formula,” “abstract contour,” “adaptation,” “melodic skeleton,” “Melodiegestelt,” “Melodietyp, “Melodiemodell,” “melodischem Gestalttyp,” “modaler Melodietyp,” “Raummodell” and the endless “similar” exist for both the “donor” (also in diachronic terms) and the “receiver” (also in diachronic terms) and are subject to constant change for both, forming what Józef Pacholczyk wrote as “the treacherous waters of cross-cultural comparison” and often provoke what I call here “explanations (and… expectations) in quicksand.”

Multiple musical communities that are dissolved (completely or not) by a “rupture” which, perhaps, creates, once again, multiple musical communities that await (“need”) a new one. Diachrony and an interpretative cyclical pattern? What was the image(s) of Christian, Catholic (or not [9*]) chant(s) in the Iberian Peninsula of southwestern Europe approximately before the 600 CE? Especially in our very days it would be a bit strange to forget this aspect, because the 1700 years from the First Council of Nicaea (İznik, Türkiye) is being commemorated in Türkiye. Did the Visigoths and especially later the Arabs "cause" a rupture that resulted in a “more/less changed and innovative" cultural environment? And as an indication of the multiplicity of the Rites, recall a sentence, already belonging to the Fourth Council of Toledo (633 CE): “Unus igitur ordo orandi atque sallendi a nobis per omnem Spaniam atque Galliam conservetur, unus modus in missarum sollemnitatibus, unus in vespertinis matutinisque officiis.” I saw it in Michael Randel’s recent article (Journal of Musicology, 36, 2019, p. 501 with note 15). Remember, at the same time, that a multiplicity of Rites existed, even later, especially in Gallia, and that "Charles himself" tried, more than once, to unify them again, as described, at least, in the medieval stories we saw in the previous posts. See also the article of Molly Lester, with the meaningful title, “Making Rite Choices,” in the Damián Fernández, Molly Lester, Jamie Wood, Rome and Byzantium in the Visigothic kingdom: beyond imitatio imperii. Late antique and early medieval Iberia, Amsterdam, 2023, who writes on p. 182 (bold emphasis and square brackets are mine), “Demarcating a regional rite risks producing a static rendition that fails to acknowledge fluidity and variation, and broad similarities between all Christian liturgies necessitate a [P.E., ‘really,’ especially in musical terms,] fine-grained approach to identifying transfers between rites.” See also the relative note 13 and the p. 183 reference on “that the Frankish princess Bertha practiced [“the then,” P.E.] Frankish rites in England in 596–597.” Remember also the major, especially in terms of humanness, contribution on pre-ca.600 Iberian Peninsula chant(s) of Christopher Page. But don’t forget to remember, at least as inspiration, the chant-related concluding paragraphs, of the old, 1946, article of Paul Goubert, “L’Espagne Byzantine…” in Revue des études Byzantines, t. 4, who wrote at that time on pp. 122 ff. on Influences Liturgiques here . He writes e.g. on p. 123: “…il ne faut pas oublier que les Wisigoths venaient d'Orient. L’arianisme …” See also the articles of 1) Cristóbal Carvajal-López, José; Román-Punzón, Julio Miguel; Jiménez-Puertas, Miguel; Martínez-Jiménez, Javier, “When the East came to the West: the seventh century in the Vega of Granada (south-east Spain): Visigoths, Byzantines, and Muslims,” and mainly of 2) Thomas J. MacMaster, “Afterword: Why the Seventh Century? The Problem of Periodization across Cultures,” both in The Long Seventh Century: Continuity and Discontinuity in an Age of Transition, Bern, 2014.

[9*] I think that, as I have already written, the MS sources of the non-Catholic communities (e.g. Arians and not only) in the Iberian Peninsula of that era passed through later “ideological” “sieves,” (not only one) and are thus lost for “us.” This explanation, to give another dimension, seems to me more logical than a possible conjecture that would believe that there were no sources of "non-Orthodox chant(s)" at all (and therefore, no confirmed evidence) or, also possibly, that there is nothing strange in the absence of first-millennium musical sources from such non-Catholic people (or even from the peoples of Old and New Rome). See also my aforementioned “The Geography of Music, Cross-Cultural Comparison and a Mid-13th-century Event Described by the Byzantine Theorist George Pachymeres,” pp. 204-205 with note 6, on that the sources we possess do not reflect the entire medieval landscape or that they did not survive o n l y haphazardly; additionally, for the scarcity of medieval Greek (and Roman-Latin) theoretical, and other, sources see also the first post December 1, 2019, of this blog.

Non-Carolingian Music Theory(-ies) in Iberian Peninsula? There are also one or two, pre- or non-Carolingian Iberian aspects related to chant and AGMT theory, perhaps predating even M. Huglo’s diagrammatic findings (the important music theory implications of them, especially of Huglo’s work, we’ll discuss in the future), for this particular European Peninsula …

I stop here with an excerpt from Ann Christys’s article as a final contribution to the above-mentioned volume; on p. 346, writes that (bold emphasis is mine) “…imitation, reinvention or the strategic adoption of the Roman and Byzantine past can inform the debate about rupture and continuity in Iberia after 711.”

Now it is time to go into more cases and their narrative perspectives or about, “Constant Change,” Continuity-Discontinuity (and Rupture) and Medieval Christian Chant(s).

PART 2. “Gaps” for Ancient Greek Music Theory and “Breaks” for medieval Christian chant(s): indicators of certain Régimes d'historicité musicales? More on Discontinuities (and Ruptures) and Continuities of medieval chant(s).

Non-Melkite Syrian/Jerusalemite Orthodox in Italy? Leaving aside the Iberian Peninsula, we will move east. And we will examine yet another case of discontinuity. P. Jeffery in note 16 writes: “Wellesz’s views regarding Syrian influence on the West seem to have been shaped by the controversial art historian Joseph Strzygowski.” I think there is also, once again, an implicit involvement of François-Auguste Gevaert (La Mélopée Antique Dans le Chant de l’Église Latine, 1895), that is, without reference, by Wellesz, to him. Gevaert made the connection of certain phenomena of medieval Latin chant with his relevant views (and the literature of the time) on pp. xxxii ff. on the migration of Middle Eastern Christians to the Italian Peninsula: “jusqu'à la moitié du VIIe siècle, après le mouvement d'émigration provoqué chez les chrétiens de Syrie par la conquête musulmane.”

Melkites and non-Melkites Orthodox-Catholic in Syria? Allow me, in parentheses, to put forward a not only musical perspective. Why didn't those people go to the closer and more militarily powerful Byzantium? Did they decide to take refuge in the more distant and "safe" Christian lands of Italia? I think not, because Muslim forces would have started launching raids on Sicily as early as 652. On the contrary, I suspect that in Syro-Palestine at that time there were not only Christians (=the Melkites) who were in favor of the Emperor of New Rome, but also Eastern-Orthodox people from the same region who, even in the 7^th c., did not "like" him, but favored Rome, and thus, some of them, fled to the Christian countries of Italia, where his power was being diminished by the authority of the Pope. People "from Syria" even “produced” Popes like Sergius I (687-701), known for his musical abilities and his courageous stance "against" New Rome. See how vividly John Osborne describes certain incidents of his life in his work Rome in the Ninth Century: A History in Art, 2023. (on p. 10, or for the well-known case of the Agnus Dei, p. 91) But all this, of course, is a simplified for here, and provisional explanation of a much more complex series of episodes and nuances of the past (which are related with the work of Marie-France Auzépy).

In relation to the Musical Geography of Italia: what was the state of the symbiotic “musical community(-ies)” in Italy, after the migration of those people “from Syria” within other native peoples? Were there, non-verifiable of course now, melodic contours from Syria in the Latin chant(s)? Is this a “positive,” a far-fetched one or some other kind of conjecture?

Parapteres in Rome during the Pre-Carolingian times? The Armenian Evidence. In this blog (post dated December 27, 2019) I demonstrated that the medieval Armenian chant-theory texts published by Anna S. Arevšatyan in Revue des Études Arméniennes, Tome 26 (1996-1997) have much more implications on medieval, Global, chant-theories than one might initially think. (See P. Jeffery’s “The Earliest Oktōēchoi: …,” the section C. The Armenian Evidence, pp. 181 ff.). Among them is the phenomenon of parapteres, which one could consider exclusively within the Carolingian state of affairs. I elaborated then that also the “Armenian” (and, more broadly, a Middle Eastern) factor should, possibly, be added to the “Syrian” “influence” of “Western” chant (ibid., p. 151. Specifically for Egypt: Egyptian cultural geography is n o t identical with Coptic Church and see, ibid. p. 161 with n. 46) The pattern of things "eastern" passing to the Carolingians not directly but via Old Rome (or Italia, generally) is not an unfamiliar pattern to historians of Carolingian affairs. What is an "unusual" “affair” that deserves more attention is how a "music theory" term like parapteres could, possibly, be part of a Roman theory of chant (a completely unknown aspect, as no related "insider" “early medieval” "pure" Roman sources have survived) and this before the "large scale repertory revision" in the Frankish lands and all those "innovations" of music theory/didactic content, usually attributed to the Carolingians (from which a large part of the sources have survived). I hope, at least, that there is no prejudice that denies, even the possibility, of several pre-existing elements of chant-theory in Rome (and which prejudice could systematically favor the intra-community interests/narratives of the survived, mostly Francocentric, musicotheoretical sources). Thus, the non-survival of “early” theoretical sources for medieval Greek (and Roman-Latin) chant does not automatically mean that they did not existed at all. For example, as I put forward (in the same post dated December 27, 2019), the Armenian evidence (which refer to personalities such as Synerges [Kinyras?] and to terminologies “‘lost’ in the transliteration” like plaimin i pratoi [for plagios tou prōtou], or even to terms like “corruptions”) indicates the existence of chant treatises (I wrote about the author(s) of the “original” treatises: “At least, we cannot suppose that, if they weren’t Greeks, they “Grecizing” in similar ways for similar phenomena with Latin speaking theorists.”) that have not survived to this day in their original language. That's all for now regarding this type of sources.

A similar "Syrian" perspective is embraced not only by E. Wellesz but also by M. Huglo. And, indeed, in this case we have the musical “rupture” of the immigration/"implantation" in Italy of people who were carriers of a specific musical tradition. Gevaert's subjective proposal/explanation/connection regarding a possible relationship between the migration of “Syrians” to Italy and "Western" chant was recently revived at the end of an article by Andreas Pfisterer, “Zur Vorgeschichte des lateinischen Acht-Tonarten-Systems” in Papers read at the 16th meeting (Vienna, 2011) of the IMS Study Group Cantus Planus, Vienna, 2012, p.324, see also his p. 321, n. 3. The problems of such, possible, theoretical and melodic transmissions (i.e. contours and the like) of such a discontinuity event are significantly greater if, for example, we make a comparison of them with the modern Jews of Syrian background in Brooklyn, because for these Jews we have at least… a CD.

The New Tropologion (Νέον Τροπολόγιον): A Discontinuity of a New Hymnography (and Melodies)? Regarding all the Melkites Christians who remained (a number of Eastern-Orthodox-non-Melkites [I know, the term seems strange] as well as other local Christians like e.g. Oriental Christians also remained) in the Levante: What about the transition from Old Tropologion (which had in a certain, “later,” stage 8000 στίχοι, based on the stichometry as given in later MSS of the Doctrina Patrum) to the New one? The New Tropologion was then a new and larger, entirety of hymnography of 12000 στίχοι. We have the case that (1) both existed, at least in the beginning, simultaneously as separate, not mixed, entities with their respective stichometries. As a result, let us say, we have 150% new hymnographical repertory for the Νέον Τροπολόγιον. If (2) the Old was part of the New then we have “Liturgically” a difference of 4000 στίχοι, i.e. 50% (also in “musical” terms?) “new” hymnography. Moreover, we certainly have more than one major “ruptures” of just 20 years here with the occupation of the Holy City by the Sasanians (614), the “restoration” by Heraclios (628), which certainly created “reasons” for new hymnography, but almost immediately Jerusalem was conquered by the Caliphate (634). Will we directly connect the new hymnographic developments as the inevitable result (something like a counter-self-fulfilling prophecy) with these major non-musical events or is the explanation not so simplistic and with aspects of retrospective determinism? (Incidentally, we do not know for sure whether there even was a Patriarchate of Jerusalem [in Jerusalem itself], around the second half of the seventh century.) Additionally, if we add the non-Greek-speaking communities (think of the Georgian case[s]), was this new hymnography yet another discontinuity that was completed relatively soon? [10*] Moreover, the possible “greater/lesser” music-theoretical consequences of such a “chant repertory” “discontinuity” occurred because this phenomenon was, musically now, in terms of canonicity, a, “greater/lesser,” repertory crack or did we have in medieval Greek chant(s), also during the first Millennium, constant changes and what one focus on and consider as rupture was simply one of the omnipresent features of a, especially from the point of view of human nature, continuous change based on the needs of differentiation and distinction with the past, from the point of view of diachrony, or with other contemporary “rivals” (also the ones on Doctrine/Δόγμα as a major cause [together with new saints] for a new hymnography) from the point of view of synchrony? See an analysis of these two in my aforementioned 2009 paper, especially the last two drawings.

[10*] Indeed, it would be interesting to have more research, rather than estimates, on medieval cases of “new hymnography” in relation to “what quantity in what timeframe and which period.” (And more on how these new hymnographies spread geographically) There are several cases of Eastern (e.g. “later” new hymnography found in the Menaia) and Oriental chants. To give also an Oriental example: in what time-span did Severus of Antioch (Antakya, Türkiye) “compose his Hymnal”? (= a completely new liturgical [also, in pure musical terms] repertoire?) And how long did it take for this hymnography to be adopted and by whom (e.g. by his flock in Antioch. But also, for wider populations?) and how?

Subjective Explanations based on certain Convictions. Now, along with the Carolingian discourse (and its “seductive nature”), we must continue with questions and examining it together with another musical case in the Middle Ages. How could we explain that we have more information and sources about medieval Iranian music from the "new", then Abbasid state of affairs (just like Byzantium and Old-Rome with the “new” Carolingians) and not from "original/internal" "medieval" Iranian sources? We have a relatively recent explanatory scheme for the Abbasid translation movement (but not for the musical state of affairs) by D. Gutas (examined with reservations nowadays e.g. Marco di Branco [2012], Y. Tzvi Langermann [2018] or more recently the already mentioned “Uprooting Byzantium…” by F. Acerbi and Michele Trizio [2022]). But how could we, moreover, "explain" that the -new at the time- Arab sources are "earlier" and the Iranian ones "later"? Here we have not of course a “break” or even “a large-scale revision” of any “chant repertory.” Is there any explanatory scheme here for any kind of systemic connection within the Abbasid case? Or there is a dynamic balance between distinction and “community dreams” that lead to specific musical "innovations/differentiations"? In such balance the reference to the “others” is recorded only if it fit to current interests. I.e. the “others” are recorded intra-culturally as having “their own things” only if it fits to the agenda of an intra-cultural actor, e.g. to reinforce a particular agenda. But clearly, those “other” not so well-documented medieval communities/collectivities had also “dreams” about their future and thus were not as static as “we imagine,” but objects of a constant – among others – musical/intellectual change just like the Franks who were a “community” who also imagined/dreamed their distinct future (“a bright and burning dream” according to M. Gabriele, see Rutger D. Kramer, “The Problem(s) with the Carolingian Reform(s),” 2023, p. 43 with n. 95).

But why don't we have sources from all these "old" cultures of the first millennium? And think that in Baghdad we had, additionally, a serious Persian presence, like the Barmakids and that according to what we know until now, there is one known case where the scholarly literature of Byzantium during the “Dark Ages” has mostly disappeared. In contrast, how sure are we that the “non-Dark Ages” literature we possess is representative of the whole picture(s) and that what remained is a certain category of (e.g. “cultural capital”?) sources? The phenomenon of the, in my opinion, “strange” distribution of surviving sources is broader than medieval chant(s) and the contents of certain “central” medieval libraries, such as the Papal one; but knowledge of the evolution of music theory in those times (on Global level) can offer important clues to the whole picture …
pavlos erevnidis November 19, 2025 22:21

The neumes of Medieval Latin chant and their families: What do we really know about their “original” elements and delivery? (The continuation from the previous post.)

Gravis-6): Furthermore, we could, perhaps, accept the low position of a “gravis” with the note suivant (fa-la, a third) on the same SG359, 155/6 (Aeuia Justi Epulentur, Triplex p. 461, Synopticum 0366) in epuLENtur and this although the “gravis” (with iusum) is not the “distanced” – last and “unusually lower” – sign/note from the previous punctum but the punctum is the distanced one (=an interval of a third again, si-sol) from its previous virga. And in this case, using current views, there is not any persistent context where a “gravis” would further clarify something that a tractulus would do anyway (as we saw e.g. in the “alternative” version of gravis-3). On the contrary, the use in this case of a “gravis” after a punctum at a second, would confuse “them” in the clarification, to put it in the modern way, of the size of intervals of the notes; i.e. where is the “usual” small, the second and where the “unusual large, the… third[s]; whatever this meant for a medieval “aural” cantor. So, notations as aide-mémoire for what aspects of the delivery exactly?

Gravis-7): see also another different interpretation for Triplex and Synopticum for two “same” cases within the Aeuia Te Martyrum Candidatus (in the end of Jubilus and in domiNE) i.e. on 155/2, 155/4 (see the G. Triplex, p. 465 in relation to the versions of the G. Synopticum, 0432; the piece is not present in Novum). In my view, even if we accept the X of Synopticum, we have, at least, two consecutive inclined strokes the first after a third and the second before a third. But, the second “gravis” is placed an interval of second above after the first “gravis,” or at unison in the case of Triplex. The next note, a virga, is as we said at a third. And a not isolated case of “gravis”:

Gravis(?)-8) Compare, also, the “East Frankish” MSS for the two at the beginning consecutive “torculi” of the Gr. Salvum Fac Populum (Triplex p. 354, Novum p. 343, Synopticum 0268) a directional case (?) at the output for the first “torculus,” but not for the output of the second. Clearly, since we have two consecutive “same” neumes in this case, there is not any slip of pen, calligraphy, not standardized writing or anything like. There is intentionality here. And note that even this case of an inclined output is not present in all the “East Frankish” MSS. [6*] The E121 most times writes this “kind of ‘torculus,’” in a standardized way, with inclined wavy strokes both at the input and the output. Calligraphy now? There are more, and not only for “gravis,” cases where the direction/ality(-ies) (whatever direction/ality[-ies] and other “relative” features) is not as central to “them” as to “us.” In my opinion, it does not even deserve (as do the modern “rules” that stem from it) to be so much a taxonomy criterion for notation (not even at intra-notation/family level) ...

[6*] But an interesting point, I think, is that for many of the aforementioned cases of “gravis” in SG359, Bam. Lit. 6 (especially for gravis-4= 4v and gravis-5=44r) and Guelf. Helmst.1008 [gravis-4=13r and gravis-5=141v] agree with SG 359 more or less. The majority of SG MSS, including the “nearby” E121, as I checked them briefly via MMMO, have on the same syllables different versions (with episema or not) of the horizontal stroke, tractulus, with or without (and not always as Nota Bene) iusum.

The “seductive nature” of certain modern conceptions: A Second Conclusion. I am aware that, perhaps, someone could “explain” (more “elastically” or not, persuasively or not, using a “different direction/ality” or not, or simply using échappatoire arguments or not) the above eight, or other, cases in a different way that I did. Although it is unpleasant (and sometimes, I have to confess, boring) for me to enter into endless debates, the reason I decided to write the above in a bit more detail is to show that the modern ““rules"” we hear about 1) neumes (virga is e.g. another example) 2) their position(s) in terms of hightedness (and their related melody/contour) or 3) direction/ality (and not only) are not, at least, absolute and must be based on exhaustive analysis, with particular emphasis on cases where these ““rules”” are not met. Otherwise, they are simply compromises (with the possibility of being misleading) and, therefore, constitute just one attempt, among the many plausible ones, to control the available data.

Plausibilities. At the same time, among other things, how could we “explain” the existence of the two forms wavy and straight for “gravis”? (=1) the Naples MS: 1a) isolated “wavy” and 1b) straight for the “gravis”-input of Pes Quadratus for, 2) “straight” in both (isolated and in pesQ) for SG359, and 3) wavy for the “gravis”-input of Pes Quadratus of e.g. SG375, SG388, SG343)

I recognize, so far, two a posteriori scenarios of “ours” for “both” forms/graphs of “gravis,” wavy and straight: α) they could be explained in an abstractive way as “the same thing.” Calligraphy? Less standardized musical writing? For calligraphy, apart from the recent 2011 book, see e.g. Rankin for “Old “Hispanic notation(s),” who used wordings like “many of the forms and procedures [? P.E.] are so similar to those of Frankish examples that there can be no doubt about their basis in a Frankish script,” “could be calligraphically extended” on p. 228 and on p. 333 for the “extensive calligraphic alterations” in Lotharingia and also G. Varelli’s p. 47 n. 18 in MUSAM 2, 2024). Instead, we can also accept and explain that β) we have the two graphic expressions of “two” distinct “theoretical” views (unknown to “us”) about “gravis” within the same context of St. Gall and “the same” notational family.

As for my general explanation, on the basis of the eight aforementioned indicative examples (there are more and not only for "gravis") we can say that “direction/ality(-ies)” was not, as is for a number of modern scholars, so important, at least for this particular notational family (although as we have already said we can see features of "anti-direction" in other families as well. Try to think on this). More generally, even when “modern ‘rules’” were involved, even as, hermeneutically, elastic ones, these “rules” were "integrated" into a broader, and more important for "them," (probably including the “unrecoverable effect[s]” on p. 139 of S. Rankin) contextual, not primarily “calligraphical,” environment where, even, e.g. an "ascending" melodic movement (also in terms of hightedness) could be presented "normally" with "inclined downwards" signs. Or, more generally, in cases where "hooked" neumes or other graphs can appear regardless the “syntactic” or “orthographic” “rules” of the modern era. Furthermore,

Shrinking contexts 1: A little more on the placement of the signs. As I have already written a few words about these very fashionable topics of our days: the placement of neumes (or signs/sēmádia, for Cardine also “tableau de signes neumatiques” in his St Gall table and “tavola dei neumi” in Semiologia) on the writing surface could also, among other possible things, mean “further” “rhythmic information” (whatever this rhythmic could mean for any interpretative school). I have also already written briefly about Neo-Cardine or Neo-Vollaerts modern views or on Suzan Rankin’s 2018, p. 185. Moreover, the overestimation of direction/ality(-ies) in modern views lead us to,

shrinking contexts 2: LOW-HIGH “instead” of “Pes”? Neumes names, as used in the traditional Solesmes description methods (as well as MANNO) are labels of “entire neume-worlds,” or of “entire contexts” even if these names belong to certain notational family. (see also, e.g. Minniti’s PhD thesis, p. 201, n. 98 who writes: “It is under this light that the utility is most evident of the German tabulae neumarum. The names they specify truly only work best inside of the East Frankish script, not universals that Solesmes affixed to every script…”) When I say a “torculus” or even let’s say, a “Lotharingian torculus” then I am using a term that existed in the Middle Ages and I am aware that it includes elements that I cannot decipher. If I say NHL or LHL, then I am, perhaps unintentionally, prioritizing my understanding (as opposed to the medieval, unknown to me, conceptual worlds), allowing, among other things, for the, in my view, misleading impression that I prefer... "accuracy," rather than leaving room for different future interpretive approaches (not just for Levy’s "niceties of delivery" such as quilisma). There is more to be said on the issue.

Explaining “coupure,” “joining and separation” and “Grouping and Ligation”: On p. 203 and n. 102 G. Minniti among his explanations regarding what he calls in his 2021 Harvard PhD thesis “Beneventan resupinus” (pp. 201 ff., e.g.: “It creates low-high shapes not seen in other families…”) writes (bold emphasis is mine): “Further suggesting that coupure might likely have been a rule for how to write musical notation, rather than an exclusive rhythmic indication as how Cardine saw it.” On p. 50 (within the section Joining of Notes) Minniti explains that (bold emphasis is mine): “The recourse to gradata could suggest more prominent [? P.E.] singing […] or this may be yet another case of less standardized musical writing on the part of the [Vat. lat.] 10673 scribe.”

Grier 2021 on p. 27, among other things, in the end of the chapter The Earliest Neumes: Grouping and Ligation, p. 22, he writes (bold emphasis is mine): “With these strategies of ligation and grouping, therefore, these early scribes provided information of great importance to the singers who used these manuscripts, namely the alignment between text and the melody to which they were to sing it.”

For Rankin 2018 see pp. 190-191 on the terms used (and as Agustoni and Göschl “explain”) such as “(not)current” ([not-]running ) or light (by Cardine). And of course, on her On Joining and Separating on pp. 248 ff. with n. 19 on the “désaggrégation” procedure of Ménager regarding normal or faster delivery.

For my part, I could suggest a “more legato” vocal delivery (but not, exactly and always, “faster” or “less emphasized”) for joining; but this presupposes (α) a performance style where the remarkably “lower” degree of sung “elasticity” (a term (1) with strong performative dimensions, both hermeneutically and for a “restored” singing style and (2) a very flexible content per se) allows for musical phrases with different deliveries in terms of legato phrasing with, as a direct consequence, (β) deferent vocal deliveries for every MS.

On her p. 333 Rankin will write (bold emphasis is mine): “By integrating the oriscus graph, the procedure whereby continuous forms would indicate faster, less emphasized and unbroken passages, while separated forms would indicate slower, more emphasized, or articulated, passages, could be worked out quite extensively.” And then she will continue with a comparison between Breton and Lotharingian “scripts.”

Shrinking contexts 3: the use of the term “script.” See Rankin 2018, p. 8 n. 22. I won’t write anything about that now.

Medieval Neumes “recognized” by modern Humans 2. But, how many kinds of “hooks” are there? Was the hook of a “Lotharingian epiphonus” “the same” as the hook of an “East Frankish pes” although both were LH? See for example one (among plausible) explanatory model about classes of difference by S. Rankin 2018 pp. 176 ff. and after a modern-hand reproduction of medieval neumes. Or, I wonder now, how many kinds of “episematic” virgae (virE) exist even in one MS, e.g. SG359? The, “unintentioned,” flow of the pen? When an “episema” (a term used also by C. Floros for Paleobyzantine notations…) on the top of an “East Frankish” clivis: is it a “liquified” “episema” or a curve? Calligraphy? Another kind of “Rhythmic” indication? (see also M. P. Ferreira, “Les neumes spéciaux…,” pp. 153 ff.)

Medieval neumes “recognized” by machines? Is it AI that will address and, perhaps, “understand” the “differences,” or – how, what and ultimately – who will teach computers? By the way, the real task in these “state-of-the-art” neume encoding endeavors/projects we see today is to ensure that the horses are, at least… before the cart, i.e. not to be constructed according to known categorizations, shrinking semantics or better yet primitive syntaxes [7*]. Otherwise, and in terms of performativity, there is a high probability that any use of such tools could determine/dictate the (“expected” or not) results.

Indeed, in a more general level, we are not even able to evaluate whether the “core convictions” of the one “method” (e.g. a “neo-Vollaerts” one) are necessary and sufficient or are more critical (and useful), than the, perhaps less/more abstractive, imaginations/explanations of another “method” (e.g. a “neo-Cardine” one).

[7*] See “Visual or Symbolic? Best Practices for Encoding Neumes,” by Elsa De Luca, Inga Behrendt, Ichiro Fujinaga, Kate Helsen & Stefan Morent in IMS-RASMB, Series Musicologica Balcanica 5, (e-ISSN: 2654-248X2024), 2024, p. 161, n.12 Here (bold emphasis is mine): “…Deciding the encoding rules (hierarchy of elements and their relative attributes) implies that we must clarify if our interpretation has a solid foundation or if it is, simply, an educated guess.” But even more about such interpretation issues and the more decisive steps that need to be taken towards “self-criticism,” see below. Medieval Neumes “recognized” by Modern Humans 3. What exactly, quantitatively and qualitatively, are the semantic elements and meaning of the neumes that a modern agent “understands”? All of them? A small/large part of them? The “critical” part? So, some… “Oriscology”: Many pages could be written about the various forms of e.g. the oriscus or quilisma, among medieval Latin chant’s notations (the aforementioned “gravis” is a relatively rare sign and that is why I chose it in order to briefly present some of my views) E.g. an “easy” case in Lotharingian notation for isolated oriscus: it is, of course, the angled upwards form and a horizontal one and there are not orisci in terms of “angle.” Therefore, how many kinds of isolated orisci are there in each, separately, notation? Does a human being recognize, only, calligraphy here? See also the different forms of a joined oriscus at the output of 1) a torculus in L266 and L239 in the verse of Gr. Laetatus sum in Fiat PAX. And in the output of 2) the two signs (with loop in the input) in the Gr. TenuiSTI (and in maNUM) specifically in L266 (in L239 they are both like the one of TenuiSTI of L266). Calligraphy again? Not standardized forms in the same neumated line of L266? And if you tried but didn't find any features of non-direction in Lotharingian notation: Does the angled upwards orisci (but also the horizontal ones), only and always, indicate direction? Because, of course, not always a repeated pitch is meant by an oriscus, see Semiologie, pp. 100-101, not only for the virga strata. (Which, anyway, is a sign with an “intriguing” “context of meanings” and so any “usual” shrinkage of this particular context seems even greater than that of the other neumes)

The survived sources as “windows.” It seems that the landscape of medieval notation(s) of Latin chant(s) – and not only for notation issues – is seen, not exactly ex silentio but, from the “window” of the, mostly neumated, survived sources. What actually happens is the shrinking of this window to make sure that one will not fall when looks through it; but then the "visible" part of the landscape from this window is significantly reduced. There is much more to be said (and examples to be given) about such issues, and the degree of ex silentio argumentation, including central and northern European notations as well as about the almost equally with the old-notation(s) from Iberian Peninsula, the complicated world of the Beneventan one(s), or about significative letters (as Nota Bene or [also?] symbols for further expressive and rhythmical effects?) or phenomena such as e.g. angles, intra-neume curves, hooks, or even loops (at the input of a sign [e.g. in I-Ra 123], in the middle or in the output as in a Cephalicus [differently, but not always {calligraphy in the same MS? Or, “elastically,” less standardized musical writing?} as early as in A-Wn sc3645]).

At the same time, I think, it would be evasive for someone to confidently (and in a reassuring manner) reiterate what J. Bryant criticizes by writing on p. 42: “This we can know and only this.”

Expectations. Moreover, more complexity is added, and …

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