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St. Cyprian and Moissac: A Thirteenth-Century Sequence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2016
Extract
The discovery of an ancient sequence might not at first sight seem to deserve any special notice. No doubt its absence in the monumental collections of A. M. Dreves and C. Blume, and in U. J. Chevalier's Repertorium hymnologicum, may surprise us, but the poor quality of so many of the sequences there collected may justify an initial indifference to the unearthing of yet another. How was it missed by those indefatigable collectors? Perhaps the reason is that they confined themselves mainly to liturgical books whereas the sequence here presented for the first time is found in one single manuscript which is not a liturgical book but a collection of works by St. Cyprian. These had been transcribed round about the year 1100, and the sequence, words and music, was added to the beginning of the codex in the first part of the thirteenth century. That it was missed is, then, no surprise, but a full-length treatment seems to be called for, because of the light it throws on the history, both factual and literary, behind it, as also possibly on the music of the time and the way that a sequence was then constructed. At least some of its more interesting features can here be gathered together.
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References
1 For all these details and more, see Delisle, L., Cabinet des manuscrits I (Paris 1868) 456ff., 518ff.Google Scholar
2 Plate I. I should like here to acknowledge my debt to the authorities of the Bibliothèque Nationale for the permission to reproduce both this folio and fol. 1r of the same manuscript (Plate II). Google Scholar
3 Cf. Ph. Lauer, Bibl. Nat., Catalogue général des manuscrits latins 2 (1940) 112–13. From here is taken the first mention of our sequence in a volume that covers the liturgical poems of the Middle Ages: in Hans Walther's Initia carminum ac versuum medii aevi posterioris latinorum (Göttingen 1959) it is listed as no. 7343.Google Scholar
4 In 1047, by Abbot Odilo in person. Google Scholar
5 See Delisle, , Cabinet des manuscrits II (Paris 1874) 461. Two other copies of Cyprian are mentioned in the same catalogue.Google Scholar
6 On Cluny-Moissac relations see op. cit. I (Paris 1868) 518, where Delisle relies on a study on Moissac by Marion, J. in Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes 11 (1849) 89–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7 Vidal, M., Moissac et le Moissagais (Toulouse 1955) 54.Google Scholar
8 Edited by Paul Guérin: 11 (7th ed. Paris 1885) 140. Google Scholar
9 One may mention in passing a Breviary of Moissac (Paris, Institut Catholique, MS 1) dated the thirteenth century, which later came to be used by the Clunisian abbey of Arles-sur-Tech in the diocese of Elne (Perpignan). On page ix, where we find the calendar for July, there are the following entries: iiii Martini, Translatio S. iii [An erasure] ii Oct. Apostolorum Nonas Martialis episcopi If we ask what has been erased on the 5th, we find the answer in the chronological list of the little chapters to be said for those saints who have no proper office of their own. Thus on page 147 we read: Translatio Martini, S. Ecce sacerdos …Google Scholar
Cypriani martyris
Beatus vir qui suffert …
Marcialis episcopi
… etc.
It is clear that the erasure on page ix had eliminated the feast of the translation of St. Cyprian's relics. The feast, kept as it was at Moissac, had no relevance at Arles-sur-Tech. Only they forgot to erase the reference to it on page 147.
Moreover in a fourteenth-century missal written for the monastery of Saint-Benoît de Castres (Toulouse MS 106) there was inserted, soon after, a Moissac calendar (foll. 2–4) in which a feast of St. Cyprian on July 5th is also indicated (cf. Leroquais V., Les Sacramentaires et missels manuscrits II [Paris 1924] 295).
10 Cf. Petits Bollandistes, loc. cit.; and Vidal, Moissac 16. Google Scholar
10a The date 1125, given in the inscription, is probably an approximation, that date being mentioned in Gallia Christiana immediately before our quotation. We have positive evidence that the translation occurred in 1122 from the chronicle of Moissac by Aymeric of Peyrac, abbot of Moissac 1377–1406. This chronicle is still unpublished, but cf. Marion, J.'s study on Moissac referred to above, note 6. The date 1122 is also accepted by the Petits Bollandistes 11.140.Google Scholar
11 The sculptures of Moissac are famous, especially those of the main portal of the ehurch, and those on the seventy-six capitals of the pillared cloister. It is often said that one of these depicts the martyrdom of St. Cyprian. However, this seems to be a legend, for neither Rupin, E., L'Abbaye et les cloîtres de Moissac (Paris 1897), nor Anglès, A. L'Abbaye de Moissac (Paris 1911), nor Schapiro, M., ‘The Romanesque Sculpture of Moissac,’ The Art Bulletin 13 (1931) 250, mentions this scene, even where each of the capitals is described in detail. The legend must be ascribed to some visitor's vivid imagination: it merely witnesses to the already well-known cultus of Cyprian at Moissac.Google Scholar
12 This is also referred to in the Petits Bollandistes, loc. cit., and there exist some old documents referring to a cult of Cyprian's relics at Compiègne. But the earliest relevant information mentions only St. Cornelius's remains (brought from Rome): the conjunction of Cornelius and Cyprian in the calendar would easily explain the belief that Cyprian's were there too. Perhaps it was because Mabillon accepted this story wholeheartedly, that he ignored the transference to Moissac. Thus in Annales O.S.B., Tom. V, lib. LXX, n. 84, he writes: ‘Ei [Hanaldo] successerat anno MCXV Rogerius abbas, sub quo nihil memoratu dignum occurrit.’Google Scholar
13 See the attack made by Courtois, C., ‘Reliques Carthaginoises et légende carolingienne,’ Revue de l'histoire des religions 129 (1945) 57–87, where all the relevant texts are referred to and subjected to a meticulous scrutiny. Some of the criticism of the documents, however, does not seem entirely convincing.Google Scholar
14 Except for the presence of dactylic feet, the scheme corresponds to the general description of the Sequence given by Jacques Handschin in the New Oxford History of Music 2 (1954) 161. But cf. below p. 162. Google Scholar
15 Some slight deviations from this general purpose are noted as they occur in the translation. Google Scholar
16 MS: lenant, but cf. Aug. Serm. 309 (below). Google Scholar
17 MS: orrescant. Google Scholar
18 Serm. 309.2.3 (PL 38.1411).Google Scholar
19 Serm. 312.3 (PL 38.1421).Google Scholar
20 The association is quite lost in which, R.V. reads ‘a cluster of henna-flowers,’ and also in the text of A.V.: ‘a cluster of camphire.’ But in the margin of we, A.V. read: ‘Or, cypress,’ which agrees with the Douay, and has perforce been adopted in the translation.Google Scholar
21 ‘ And going forward as far as the torrent of the bunch of grapes, they cut off a branch with its cluster of grapes, which two men carried upon a lever ’ (Douay; but and, A.V. R.V.: ‘a staff’). Our poet was probably led to this passage by Maximus of Turin's homily on St. Cyprian that stood at the end of this same manuscript. Christ is there said to have poured out the spiritual wine of martyrdom on the cross, which ‘inebriates’ those who drink it. ‘Ipse est plane botrus quem duo exploratores illi … in phalango ad filios Israel propriis humeris detulerunt’ (PL 57.423). Combined with Augustine's explanation of ‘botrus Cypri,’ this made the application to Cyprian's martyrdom almost inevitable.Google Scholar
22 ‘ Alleluia’ (which here replaces ‘Gratulanda’—itself sufficiently expressed in the first line), was probably in the original from which the music was taken, the rest constituting a prolonged iubilus of the last syllable (without words). It also sets the tone or spirit of the whole.Google Scholar
23 ‘Glorious’: sung as a dissyllable. Google Scholar
24 ‘He shall abide between my breasts’: Gant. 1.13 (Douay). Google Scholar
25 MS: vite. Google Scholar
26 This would, in fact, sing better if three notes were given to ‘all’ instead of to ‘the.’ Google Scholar
27 The translator has taken certain liberties with the music in this and the next line. ‘Violets’ must be sung as a dissyllable; in ‘humility,’ the syllables mili are sung to the two notes assigned to the one syllable ta in ‘humilitatis’; and the puri in ‘purity’ calls for the duplication of the one note assigned to the ta in ‘puritatis.’ Google Scholar
28 MS: elisse. Google Scholar
29 Justin's ‘History’ was one of the works regularly found in the Arts section of medieval libraries (cf. Lesne, E., Les livres, scriptoria et bibliothèques du commencement du VIII e à la fin du XI e siècle, [Histoire de la propriété ecclésiastique en France 4; Lille 1938] 774 and index s.v. ‘Justin’).Google Scholar
30 It is interesting to note that Tertullian, a generation before Cyprian, used the same story several times in his campaign against second marriages. ‘Erunt nobis in testimonium et feminae quaedam seculares ob univiratus obstinationem famam consecutae; aliqua Dido, quae profuga in alieno solo, ubi nuptias regis ultro optasse debuerat, ne tamen secundas experiretur, maluit e contrario uri quam nubere’ (De exhort. cast. 13.3). Cf. De anima 3.9; Ad nat. 18.3, and Ad martyras 4.5: ‘Dido, ne post virum dilectissimum nubere cogeretur …’ Google Scholar
31 MS: honeravit. Google Scholar
32 ‘ Et cum se dalmatica exspoliasset et diaconibus tradidisset, in linea stetit et coepit spiculatorem sustinere. Cum venisset autem spiculator, iussit suis ut eidem spiculatori viginti quinque aureos darent’ (CSEL 3.cxiii).Google Scholar
33 ‘ Glorious’: sung as a dissyllable.Google Scholar
34 See Plate I. Google Scholar
35 This was not obvious at first, and caused some trouble in the decipherment. Comparison with the corresponding half-verse finally made it clear, though the first step came from a comparison with the ‘rough draft,’ on which see the Note at the end of this article. Google Scholar
36 These are marked d and c. In spite of that, the first part of the last line is undoubtedly ‘d,’ as a comparison with the preceding line will show. In a moment of abstraction, he just repeated the notation there. But it becomes c for the last two appended words. Google Scholar
37 Op. cit. 166 of the Introduction.Google Scholar
38 Op. cit. 172 and 173 n. 1.Google Scholar
39 At the very beginning of our sequence, before the music settles down syllabically, we find instances of the third possibility: the repetition of the same note at the end of a syllable. For this, our scribe uses the franculus, i.e. a punctum followed by an oriscus. This was also the practice of the Gradual of Saint- Yrieix; cf. Mocquereau, op. cit. 155 no. 13, 180. Google Scholar
40 See plates III and IV. I am profoundly grateful to my colleague, Fr. George Croft, S.J., for the careful layout of these Plates, which present music, text, and translation all in one. Google Scholar
41 For what they are worth, the present writer takes sole responsibility for the speculations in this note. Google Scholar
42 One might, at first sight, think that he added a note in the second verse—that on vec—in ‘vecte.’ But in the draft that note can be presumed so have been sliced off when the page was trimmed for a fresh binding, as obviously were so many of the high notes in the third verse, and also one in the fourth. Google Scholar
43 This last change in particular is conclusive evidence, it would seem, that the music was not created for this sequence. Had the intention been to compose music for such a regular sequence as this, the need for a repetition here would have excluded such a set of rising notes even from the rough draft. Google Scholar