This page was created by Carson Riggs. The last update was by The Dartmouth College Digital Scriptorium.
Glossary
- Abbreviations Since parchment was expensive, copying texts was time-consuming, and the text of the chants was in fact well known to the worshippers, words are frequently abbreviated. Some common abbreviations are indicated by symbols. Other words are simply shortened.
- Antiphoner A book containing chants for the Divine Office (also antiphonal, antiphonary)
- Antiphon A short chant sung before and after a psalm or canticle, used in every office. The earliest antiphon texts are adaptations of the Psalms themselves and of other biblical passages; later texts come from a variety of sources.
- Canticle A poetic text from the New Testament, sung to psalm tones, preceded and followed by an antiphon. The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), associated with Vespers, and the Benedictus (Luke 1:68-79), associated with Lauds, are the canticles for which our manuscript provides antiphons.
- Capital A capital letter, as distinct from a lower-case letter. In our manuscript, large, calligraphic capitals, the height of the text and the stave together, mark the beginning of most chants. Unlike the decorated initials that mark the beginning of some particularly significant chants, these large capitals were written by the scribe at the same time that the rest of the text was written, and consist only of penwork in black ink, often with a highlight in gray. (Hughes, p. 104)
- Differentia The terminating cadence at the end of a psalm, which links back to the antiphon’s first pitch. In our text the differentia is noted above the incipit of the psalm (although it is not sung with the incipit).
- Folio A leaf of parchment; in our manuscript, two sheets of parchment were glued together to make a bifolium (two folios); several bifolia are nested together to make a quire, or gathering. The front side of each folio is referred to as the recto; the back as the verso.
- Gathering A collection of bifolia nested one within another (also quire)
- Incipit The beginning word or words of a psalm, canticle, hymn, or other chant. For material that is well known and sung to a well known (e.g. a hymn) or simple (e.g. a psalm or versicle) melody, incipits replace the full text and musical notation.
- Incise A vertical line on the stave that clarifies the association of notes with syllables.
- Initial A letter at the beginning of a significant chant that is larger than the rest of the text, and decorated. In our text, we have many initials in red, with a blue background, or blue, with a red background, as well as several inhabited initials, which contain human or animal figures and are painted in many colors.
- Invitatory An antiphon sung at the beginning of Matins, between the verses of Psalm 94 (Venite, exsultemus Domino)
- Mode A theoretical formula “by which medieval theorists attempted to classify the musical formulas which recur constantly in most plainsongs.” (Hughes, p. 111)
- Psalm Poetic text from the Old Testament, sung to psalm tones. Our numeration is that of the Vulgate.
- Psalm Tone One of 9 well known melodic formulae, dominated by a reciting pitch (for declaiming text), and with ornamentation at the beginning, middle, and end.
- Quire A collection of bifolia nested one within another (also gathering)
- Responsory A more complex and melismatic chant than an antiphon, with a two-part structure. A responsory is sung during the office of Matins, in response to a lesson. Each responsory consists of a respond and a verse. The entire respond is sung, followed by the verse, and then the last portion of the respond (the repetendum) is sung again. A repetendum cue marks the point in the respond where the repetendum begins. Thus a whole responsory takes the form: respond (including repetendum) - verse - repetendum. The texts of responsories are drawn primarily from the historical books of the Bible and from the writings of the early Church.
- Rubrics Instructions or descriptions indicating the feast or office being celebrated, the genre of a chant, and the constituent parts of a chant. Rubrics take their name from the red ink in which they are written.
- Versicle and Response A short, sung sentence followed by a short, sung response, primarily on a single pitch. In our text, the musical notation for versicles and responses is not given.