PD1131

Plainsong Book
Author: Unknown
Origin: Coimbra, Portugal
Dating: 16th-17th century
Material: Parchment, Leather & Wood
Dimensions (cm): 65,8 x 49,5
Inv. no.: MNMC2271

With the advent of Christianity – still within the Roman Empire – a new type of music began to emerge, through which the first Christians expressed their feelings of faith, hope and love. Hidden in the catacombs beneath the city of Rome, due to persecutions, Christians created their own forms of religious and musical practice, intoning a type of prayer: Gregorian Chants – monophonic chants consisting of a simple melodic line, without musical accompaniment, with a characteristically prosodic rhythm in Latin.

Roman plain chant is what is called Gregorian Chant, whose unique characteristics were inherited from Jewish psalms, as well as from Greek modes, which in the 6th century were selected and adapted by Pope Saint Gregory the Great or use in religious celebrations of the Catholic Church.

Following the Second Vatican Council (1965), Latin ceased to be the official language in the Church’s liturgy and celebrations began to be held in the vernacular language of each country. The practice of Gregorian chant became limited to monasteries and groups of admirers.

“Music in the Palace’s Collections”
«A Kyriale is a book containing the music for the fixed parts during Mass (ordinary or common) that were sung until the reforms of the Second Vatican Council: Kyrie eleison, Gloria in excelsis, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei. It contains several versions of these chants for Masses of varying solemnity, depending on the liturgical calendar and in different “tones”. Masses were classified as “simple”, “semi-double” and “double”, depending on their importance.

It was quite common for these books to contain other music, or simply texts, to meet the needs of the community they served, hence the name Mixed.

This Kyriale contains the Ordinary of the Mass – biblical texts without music and some Marian antiphons.

[This Kyriale] has some particularities that differentiate it from others in Guimarães. One such feature is a Gloria in excelsis with an “unusual” (non-liturgical) text inserted in the middle of this Doxology. These texts are called “tropes”. They were very common, especially during the Middle Ages. The tropes inserted here are “Marian” suggesting that it would be sung during feasts to the Virgin, as indicated at the beginning of the chant (Domina Nostra).

The importance of these books in the musical practice of Christian religious liturgy is evident in the care with which they were produced, both in terms of the support for the texts and in the music, using parchment – a very expensive material – and in the decoration of the initial capital letters.

Due to the high value and scarcity of parchment, liturgical changes over time or the introduction of new texts led to the scraping of the original – as in this book – and the new music and/or text would be rewritten, which are called, thereafter, “Palimpsests”.»
Eduardo Magalhães

cloisonné