Gallican chant
Encyclopedia
Gallican chant refers to the liturgical plainchant
Plainsong
Plainsong is a body of chants used in the liturgies of the Catholic Church. Though the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Catholic Church did not split until long after the origin of plainchant, Byzantine chants are generally not classified as plainsong.Plainsong is monophonic, consisting of a...

 repertory of the Gallican rite
Gallican rite
The Gallican Rite is a historical sub-grouping of the Roman Catholic liturgy in western Europe; it is not a single rite but actually a family of rites within the Western Rite which comprised the majority use of most of Christianity in western Europe for the greater part of the 1st millennium AD...

 of the Roman Catholic Church in Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...

, prior to the introduction and development of elements of the Roman rite
Roman Rite
The Roman Rite is the liturgical rite used in the Diocese of Rome in the Catholic Church. It is by far the most widespread of the Latin liturgical rites used within the Western or Latin autonomous particular Church, the particular Church that itself is also called the Latin Rite, and that is one of...

 from which Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...

 evolved. Although the music was largely lost, traces are believed to remain in the Gregorian corpus.

History

Several sources attest the existence of a distinctive Gallican rite
Gallican rite
The Gallican Rite is a historical sub-grouping of the Roman Catholic liturgy in western Europe; it is not a single rite but actually a family of rites within the Western Rite which comprised the majority use of most of Christianity in western Europe for the greater part of the 1st millennium AD...

 in the Frankish
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...

 lands between the 5th and 9th centuries. The Celtic Rite
Celtic Rite
The term "Celtic Rite" is applied to the various liturgical rites used in Celtic Christianity in Great Britain, Ireland and Brittany, sporadically in Galicia and also in the monasteries founded by the Irish missions of St. Columbanus in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy during the early...

 and Mozarabic rite
Mozarabic Rite
The Mozarabic, Visigothic, or Hispanic Rite is a form of Catholic worship within the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, and in the Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church . Its beginning dates to the 7th century, and is localized in the Iberian Peninsula...

, which are liturgically related to the Gallican, are sometimes collectively referred to as "Gallican" as opposed to the different structure of the Roman rite
Roman Rite
The Roman Rite is the liturgical rite used in the Diocese of Rome in the Catholic Church. It is by far the most widespread of the Latin liturgical rites used within the Western or Latin autonomous particular Church, the particular Church that itself is also called the Latin Rite, and that is one of...

. Lack of a central authority led to the development of local traditions of the Gallican rite in Francia, sharing a basic structure but varying in details. These traditions endured until the Carolingian
Carolingian
The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family with origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The name "Carolingian", Medieval Latin karolingi, an altered form of an unattested Old High German *karling, kerling The Carolingian dynasty (known variously as the...

 dynasty. During a papal visit in 752-3, Pope Stephen II
Pope Stephen II
Pope Stephen II was Pope from 752 to 757, succeeding Pope Zachary following the death of Pope-elect Stephen. Stephen II marks the historical delineation between the Byzantine Papacy and the Frankish Papacy.-Allegiance to Constantinople:...

 had Mass
Eucharist
The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...

 celebrated using Roman chant. According to Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

, his father Pepin
Pippin the Younger
Pepin , called the Short or the Younger , rarely the Great , was the first King of the Franks of the Carolingian dynasty...

 and Chrodegang of Metz abolished the Gallican rites in favor of the Roman use, in order to strengthen ties with Rome that would culminate in Charlemagne's elevation to Holy Roman Emperor
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...

. Charlemagne completed the job his father had begun, so that by the 9th century the Gallican rite and chant had effectively been eliminated. However, the Roman chant brought to the Carolingian churches was incomplete, and ended up incorporating musical and liturgical elements from the local Gallican traditions. The resulting Carolingian chant, which developed into Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...

, was a Romanized chant, but one in which traces of the lost Gallican repertory may still be found.

General characteristics

No chantbooks of Gallican chant have survived, although the first documented reference to a book of Western plainchant is of a Gallican text with psalms and chants. What we know of Gallican chant comes from contemporary descriptions of the chant, and Gallican elements that survived in later Gregorian
Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...

 sources.

Gallican chant was said to be recognizably different from Roman chant in both its texts and its music. Walahfrid Strabo, writing in the 9th century, judged Roman chant as "more perfect" and Gallican as incorrect and "inelegant." The Gallican rite and texts were often florid and dramatic compared with their Roman counterparts, which may be reflected in the importance of melisma
Melisma
Melisma, in music, is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic, as opposed to syllabic, where each syllable of text is matched to a single note.-History:Music of ancient cultures used...

tic music in Gallican chant compared with Roman. The use of two reciting tone
Reciting tone
In chant, a reciting tone is a repeated musical pitch around which the other pitches of the chant gravitate, or by extension, the entire melodic formula that centers on one or two such pitches. In Gregorian chant, reciting tones are used for a number of contexts, including the chanting of psalm...

s in Gregorian psalmody may derive from Gallican chant. Another element of Gregorian chant not found in Roman chant, which may reflect Gallican conventions, is the "Gallican cadence," in which the final neume
Neume
A neume is the basic element of Western and Eastern systems of musical notation prior to the invention of five-line staff notation. The word is a Middle English corruption of the ultimately Ancient Greek word for breath ....

, found only in Gaulish sources, is an upward step whose second pitch is repeated, such as C-D-D. Some types of Gallican chant show direct influence from Byzantine chant, including the use of Greek texts.

Compositional techniques included certain common incipit
Incipit
Incipit is a Latin word meaning "it begins". The incipit of a text, such as a poem, song, or book, is the first few words of its opening line. In music, it can also refer to the opening notes of a composition. Before the development of titles, texts were often referred to by their incipits...

s, cadence
Cadence (music)
In Western musical theory, a cadence is, "a melodic or harmonic configuration that creates a sense of repose or resolution [finality or pause]." A harmonic cadence is a progression of two chords that concludes a phrase, section, or piece of music...

s, and the use of centonization
Centonization
In music centonization is a theory about the composition of a melody, melodies, or piece based on pre-existing melodic figures and formulas...

.

The chief candidates for chants in the Gregorian repertory that may be Gallican fossils are those chants not occurring in the Roman tradition, but having counterparts in the Mozarabic chant
Mozarabic chant
Mozarabic chant is the liturgical plainchant repertory of the Mozarabic rite of the Roman Catholic Church, related to the Gregorian chant...

 and Ambrosian chant
Ambrosian chant
Ambrosian chant is the liturgical plainchant repertory of the Ambrosian rite of the Roman Catholic Church, related to but distinct from Gregorian chant. It is primarily associated with the Archdiocese of Milan, and named after St. Ambrose much as Gregorian chant is named after Gregory the Great...

traditions, and local and votive chants specific to French saints and locations.

External links

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