Musical Offerings ⦁ 2024 ⦁ Volume 15 ⦁ Number 1 9 Not all cults enjoyed the same wide-spread support and expression as the Virgin’s. In 768 the Italian city of Benevento in Lombardy was rising in political power as it sought to retain independence from the neighboring city states and the invading armies of Charlemagne.47 In that same year, the Duke of Benevento sought to reinforce his power through acquiring relics and establishing cults around them, most prominently the cult of St. Mercurius and the cult of the Holy Twelve Brothers. Essential to this process was the creation of liturgies, specifically Offices, to recount the historiae of these saints in the local style. Benevento had a unique compositional method for their chants, employing melodic formulae as units which could be repeated throughout the chant (similar to Galant style schemata) and were drawn from a common repertory, and these new Offices should have been completed in this distinct style.48 Unfortunately, Charlemagne succeeded in his conquests and gained full control of Lombardy in 774. To consolidate his authority, he began to standardize the liturgies into the neo-Gregorian style, eliminating the local styles.49 This rapid power shift is observable in the Offices for St. Mercurius and the Holy Twelve Brothers which use mostly neoGregorian style but also include three antiphons in Beneventan style.50 Such an eclectic style evidences the power local Benevento culture exerted even after Carolingian standardization. This musical mixture of compositional styles demonstrates how the Offices were influenced by regional and national politics, even beyond the text. Numerous examples could be cited to demonstrate how the Offices could function politically. Count Rainulf of Caiazzo in Italy commissioned an Office for a recently translated relic to “minister instruction to the simple folk of the region,” uniting rural and city dwellers under his domain.51 The Count of Hainaut in Belgium stole the relics of St. Veronus and then commissioned an Office to confirm they were his.52 These and the other examples mentioned show how the arenas of religion and politics were thoroughly integrated, perhaps to a degree that the modern age finds difficult to understand. Political use of Offices did not necessarily imply 47 Peattie, 240. 48 Peattie, 247. 49 Peattie, 260. 50 Peattie, 245. 51 Page, 401. 52 Page, 403.
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