Musical Offerings ⦁ 2024 ⦁ Volume 15 ⦁ Number 1 7 in the cults of the saints. In Medieval Cantors and Their Craft, the editors note that “[i]nstitutional history was shaped in and through hagiography, and cantors, time and again, did the work to foster, translate and maintain their communities’ treasured cults.”34 As a direct result of this framework, the Offices became focused on history as civic tradition merged with religious devotion.35 Cantors began to recast vitae (lives of saints) as historiae (biographical narratives which defended the holy status of the saint) through the medium of new, versified Offices. This was, as Richard Hoppin described it, “the final stage in the dissolution of antiphonal psalmody.”36 A versified Office is a liturgy for the Hours that is set with rhyming text. Over one thousand of these versified Offices have been found and catalogued, and most were written for the feast days of local saints.37 They were written across the continent of Europe, from Italy to Scandinavia, commemorating hundreds of traditions in a multitude of communities. 38 Within an Office for a saint, text was mostly drawn from the vitae of that saint and could be inserted into every element, from the lessons of Matins to the antiphons and responsories.39 In a stark contrast to the Benedictine office, while the basic structure remained, the content of each element no longer found its root in psalmody or scriptural quotations. It is not until the twentieth century that efforts have been made to compile such a vast repertoire, and there is not much contemporary literature that attempts to consider this complex genre as a whole.40 While case studies abound, it is not valid to draw general conclusions from individual Offices; yet the following examples do illustrate a sampling of the extent of liberties cantors employed, and they reveal motives that may have been widespread during the late Medieval period. 34 Aspesi, 3. 35 Aspesi, 1; Brand, 3. 36 Hoppin, 104. 37 Brand, 1-2. 38 Peattie, 1; Bergsagel, Introduction. 39 Baltzer, Ch. 7; Weinmann, 20–21. 40 Hughes, Late Medieval Liturgical Offices.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=