Songs of Sacrifice: Chant, Identity, and Christian Formation in Early Medieval Iberia

336 Pages·2020·4.247 MB·English

by  Rebecca Maloy

SONGS OF SACRIFICE
AMS Studies in Music
W. Anthony Sheppard, General Editor
Editorial Board
Anna Maria Busse Berger Christine Getz
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The Critical Nexus:
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Charles M. Atkinson
Music, Criticism, and the Challenge of History:
Shaping Modern Musical Thought in Late Nineteenth-Century Vienna
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Jewish Music and Modernity
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Changing the Score:
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Details of Consequence:
Ornament, Music, and Art in Paris
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Sounding Authentic:
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Opera for the People:
English-Language Opera and Women Managers in Late 19th-Century America
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Taken by the Devil:
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Margaret Notley
Beethoven 1806
Mark Ferraguto
Songs of Sacrifice:
Chant, Identity, and Christian Formation in Early Medieval Iberia
Rebecca Maloy
SONGS OF SACRIFICE
Chant, Identity, and Christian
Formation in Early Medieval Iberia
Rebecca Maloy
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in-P ublication Data
Names: Maloy, Rebecca, author.
Title: Songs of sacrifice : chant, identity, and Christian formation in
early medieval Iberia / Rebecca Maloy.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2020. |
Series: AMS studies in music series | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019048598 (print) | LCCN 2019048599 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190071530 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190071554 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Mozarabic chants—History and criticism. |
Catholic Church—Mozarabic rite—Liturgy. |
Sacred vocal music—Spain—500–1400—History and criticism.
Classification: LCC ML3070 .M35 2020 (print) | LCC ML3070 (ebook) |
DDC 782.32/2200946—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019048598
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019048599
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America
Acknowledgments
My first thanks go to the colleagues who read and commented on the com-
plete draft of this book and improved it immeasurably: Emma Hornby, Luisa
Nardini, Jamie Wood, and Series Editor Tony Sheppard. In addition, Kati Ihnat
and Molly Lester gave invaluable feedback on earlier drafts of several chapters.
This book has been inextricably shaped by the methodological framework
developed with Emma Hornby in our collaborative work on Old Hispanic
chant, which began in 2009. My other collaborators in the EU- funded Old
Hispanic Office Project at the University of Bristol (2013– 2018), Elsa De Luca,
Kati Ihnat, and Raquel Rojo-C arillo, have also been deeply influential, as
has Paul Rouse’s work in developing and maintaining the Chant Editing and
Analysis Programme (CEAP). Thank you for all you’ve taught me and the fun
we have had in the process.
Although this book took conceptual shape over many years, the final stages
of work were supported by the Edward T. Cone Membership in Music at
the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, an ACLS fellowship from
the American Council of Learned Societies, and a sabbatical leave from the
University of Colorado. The magical, stimulating environment at IAS left
a deep imprint. Many friends and colleagues lent support and help of vari-
ous kinds in the 2016– 2017 academic year. I am grateful especially to Roland
Betancourt, Jennifer Davis, Patrick Geary, Nina Glibetic, Molly Lester, Gabriel
Radle, Jamie Reuland, Nancy Sinkoff, Despina Stratigakos, Columba Stewart,
and Anne Yardley.
For tolerating the long absence it took to finish this book, I thank my
departmental colleagues and students in the College of Music at the University
of Colorado, especially Rob Shay. For pushing me to be a better writer, I am
indebted, as ever, to Elissa Guralnick, and to Steve Bruns and Patti Peterson for
reading very early drafts of this material.
Those of us who work in chant, liturgical, and Medieval studies are blessed
with a generous community of fellow travelers. My heartfelt thanks are due to
Don Randel for fruitful conversations over many years. Presenting this work at
numerous conferences and colloquia over the years provided essential feedback,
questions, and stimulating discussions. I am particularly grateful to Charles
vii
viii Acknowledgments
Atkinson, James Borders, Susan Boynton, Tom Burman, Santiago Castellanos,
Nathan Chase, Thomas Deswarte, Daniel DiCenso, Margot Fassler, the late Max
Haas, Andreas Haug, Elaine Hild, Lori Kruckenberg, Jeremy Llewellyn, Sarah
Long, Aaron Moreno, Edward Nowacki, Susan Rankin, and the late Roger
Reynolds.
For permission to reproduce images, I  thank the following institu-
tions: Archivo de la Catedral de León; Archivo de la Catedral de Toledo;
Biblioteca de la Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid; Monasterio de Santo
Domingo de Silos; Museo de Santa Cruz, Toledo; the British Library Board;
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and the Stiftsbibliothek Sankt Gallen.
Finally, I am grateful, as always, to my spouse Cynthia Katsarelis for her sup-
port and love.
About the Companion Website
www.oup.com/ us/ songsofsacrifice
Oxford University Press has created a companion website to accompany Songs
of Sacrifice. The online appendices are supplements to the content of Songs of
Sacrifice, providing additional bibliography, examples, and data. Appendix 1 con-
tains a full bibliography on the manuscripts. Appendices 2–7 provide additional
examples and supplementary data for Chapter 4, and Appendices 8–1 0 are sup-
plements to Chapter 6.
ix
Introduction
Old Hispanic Chant and the Visigothic Context
I
n 587, the Visigothic king Reccared converted from Arian Christianity to the
Catholic, Nicene faith. In the previous decades, the military successes of his
father Leovigild had brought much of the Iberian Peninsula under Visigothic
control. Despite his efforts toward political centralization, Leovigild’s policies
had left a deep divide between the Arian Visigoths and the Nicene, Hispano-
Roman population.1 The preceding decade had seen the revolt and defeat of
Leovigild’s son Hermenegild, who had converted to Catholicism, and the exile
of prominent Nicene clerics such as Leander of Seville, John of Biclaro, and
Masona of Merida.2 Reccared’s conversion thus marked a turning point in
royal efforts to unify the Peninsula. Following a series of rebellions, the Third
Council of Toledo observed the Nicene victory, with great ceremony, in 589.
Addressing the council, Reccared envisioned a kingdom and church united in a
holy, mutually reinforcing authority. In his closing sermon, Leander lauded the
Visigoths’ conversion as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy and requested the
bishops’ prayers that the king and people, glorified by Christ on earth, would
likewise be glorified in heaven.3
1. On the historiography and interpretative questions surrounding Leovigild’s relation-
ship to Nicene Christians and differences of religious belief, see Molly Lester, “The Word
as Lived: The Practice of Orthodoxy in Early Medieval Iberia c. 500–7 11” (PhD diss.,
Princeton University, 2017), 41–5 2. On the nuanced nature of groups typically called “Arian,”
see the recent collection Arianism: Roman Heresy and Barbarian Creed, ed. Guido M. Berndt
and Roland Steinacher (New York: Routledge, 2016).
2. See the accounts in, inter alia, Santiago Castellanos, Las godos y la cruz: Recaredo y
unidad de Spania (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2007), 191–2 33; E. A. Thompson, The Goths in
Spain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 56– 91; José Orlandis, Historia del reino visigodo español
(Madrid: Editions Rialp, 1998); and Roger Collins, “King Leovigild and the Conversion of
the Visigoths,” in El concilio de III de Toledo: XIV centenario, 589– 1989, ed. Marcelo González
Martín (Toledo: Arzobispado de Toledo, 1991), 1–2 2.
3. “. . . ut regnum et gens, quae Christum glorificavit in terris, glorificetur ab illo non
solum in terris sed etiam in caelis.” José Vives, ed., Concilios visigóticos y hispano- romanos
Songs of Sacrifice. Rebecca Maloy, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190071530.001.0001
2 Songs of Sacrifice
Although this vision of a cohesive Gothic society, built on twin pillars of
church and kingdom, was never realized, it profoundly shaped the rhetoric
of ecclesiastical and social elites in the next generations. The episcopacy of
Leander’s brother Isidore of Seville (ca. 600– 636) and the reign of Sisebut
(612–6 21) gave birth to a cultural rejuvenation among these leaders: “an intel-
lectual renaissance, a moral rearmament, a religious revival, and a construction
of a new political, royal, and national ideology.”4 Sisebut’s ideal of Christian
kingship, equally moral and political, was enacted through his anti-A rian
polemic, his forceful suppression of Judaism, and his production of political
hagiography.5 Although Isidore came to be known as the last of the church
fathers, producing works that were copied and cited throughout the Middle
Ages, he was very much a product of this historical moment. In his history
writing, Isidore glorified the gens Gothorum and fashioned the past according
to the agendas of the kingdom’s rulers.6 Central to the aims of the cultural
renewal was Christian formation through the education of clergy. Isidore and
(Barcelona; Madrid: Consejo superior de investigaciones científicas, Instituto Enrique
Flórez, 1963), 38. On Toledo III’s political rhetoric, see especially Rachel L. Stocking, Bishops,
Councils, and Consensus in the Visigothic Kingdom, 589–6 33 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 2000).
4. Jacques Fontaine, “King Sisebut’s Vita Desiderii and the Political Function of Visigothic
Hagiography,” in Visigothic Spain: New Approaches, ed. Edward James (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1980), 93–1 29. The classic study of Isidore is Fontaine’s Isidore de Séville et la culture
classique dans l’Espagne wisigothique (Paris, Etudes augustiniennes, 1983). On the “Isidorian
Renaissance,” see especially 863–8 8. Both the long- standing characterization of this move-
ment as a “renaissance,” and the “Isidorian” nature of it, have been challenged from differ-
ent angles. See, for example, Manuel C. Díaz y Díaz, “La cultura de la España visigótica del
siglo VII,” in Caratteri del Secolo VII in Occidente (23–2 9 Aprile 1957), ed. Francesco Congasso
(Spoleto: Presso la Sede del Centro, 1958), 813– 44, see especially 826– 27; Michael J. Kelly,
“Writing History, Narrating Fulfillment: The ‘Isidore Moment’ and the Struggle for the
‘Before now’ in Late Antique and Early Medieval Hispania,” PhD thesis, University of
Leeds, 2014; and Markus Mülke, “‘Isidorische Renaissance’ oder: Über die Anbahnung einer
Widergeburt,” Antiquité Tardive 23 (2015): 95– 108.
5. Yitzhak Hen, “A Visigothic King in Search of an Identity: Sisebutus Gothorum
Gloriosissimus Princeps,” in Ego Trouble: Authors and Their Identities in the Early Middle Ages,
ed. Richard Corradini (Institut für Mittelalterforschung [Österreichische Akademie der
Wissenschaften], 2010), 89– 99; Yitzhak Hen, Roman Barbarians: The Royal Court and Cultural
Patronage in Early Medieval Europe (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 124– 52; Fontaine,
“King Sisebut’s Vita Desiderii”; Stocking, Bishops, Councils, and Consensus, 123– 28. On Sisebut’s
anti- Jewish policies, see Chapter 3, pp. 96–103.
6. Jamie Wood, The Politics of Identity in Visigothic Spain: Religion and Power in the Histories
of Isidore of Seville (Leiden: Brill, 2012); Jamie Wood, “Religiones and Gentes in Isidore of
Seville’s Chronica Maiora,” in Post- Roman Transitions: Christian and Barbarian Identities in the
Early Medieval West (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), 125– 68; Walter Pohl and Philipp Dörler,
“Isidore and the Gens Gothorum,” Antiquité Tardive 23 (2015): 133– 41.
Introduction 3
other bishops distilled a vast corpus of patristic writings into accessible works
for this purpose.7 The goal, to form a society unified in Nicene belief under
the Visigothic kings, received its fullest articulation in the canons of the Fourth
Council of Toledo (633).8
This book is about the role of liturgical music in this project, and how it
helped to shape a Nicene, Visigothic identity. Assessments of Christian educa-
tion and formation in Visigothic Iberia have often centered on the production
of theological texts, particularly Isidore’s.9 Just as important, however, were the
ways men and women worshipped, including the music they sang and heard.
Between the seventh and eleventh centuries, Christian worship on the Iberian
Peninsula was structured by rituals of great theological and musical richness,
known as the Old Hispanic (or Mozarabic) rite. Although it had earlier roots,
much of this liturgy was a product of the Visigothic cultural renewal. The Old
Hispanic liturgy and chant, I argue, worked toward its goals by promoting
patristic teaching and shaping belief in particular ways.
I focus on the longest and most elaborate musical item in the Old Hispanic
mass: the offertory chant known as the sacrificium. Sung in tandem with a
procession of bread and wine to the altar, the sacrificium marked a central point
in the mass: the transition between the liturgy of the word and the Eucharist.
While the sacrificia have attracted scholarly attention because of their connec-
tions to the Franco- Roman (“Gregorian”) offertory chants,10 they differ from
those chants both in their preference for non-p salmic Old Testament books
and in the crafting of their biblical sources. Through extensive reworking of the
Old Testament, the creators of the chants molded scripture in ways that link
both to the patristic traditions distilled through the works of Isidore and other
Iberian bishops and to contemporaneous Visigothic anti-J ewish discourse.
These reworked texts were designed to teach exegesis of scripture, and the mel-
odies underline central elements of the texts, helping to convey their meaning.
Although the melodies are preserved in notational signs, called neumes, that do
not show pitch, they bear witness to elaborate, complex melodies. When care-
fully read, the neumes convey much about the style and form of these chants,
as well as the relationship between text and melody. A close examination of
7. See discussion and references in Chapter 2, pp. 43-51.
8. Vives, Concilios visigóticos y hispano- romanos, 186– 225.
9. The work of Jacques Fontaine has been particularly influential. For example, “Fins
et moyens de l’enseignement ecclésiastique dans l’Espagne wisigothique,” in La scuola
nell’Occidente latino dell’Alto Medioevo (Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di studi sull’Alto
Medioevo, 19: 15– 21 Aprile 1971), vol. 1 (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo,
1972), 423– 24. For further references, see Chapter 2.
10. See especially Kenneth Levy, “Toledo, Rome, and the Legacy of Gaul,” Early Music
History 4 (1984): 44– 99; Rebecca Maloy, Inside the Offertory: Aspects of Chronology and
Transmission (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).