The Silesian Tradition of Hymns to Czech Saints

The Silesian Tradition of Hymns to Czech Saints Veronika M. Mráčková Univerzita Karlova, Praha

First, if I may be forgiven for starting from a personal viewpoint, I would like to explain my own situation, and why I’m involved in this Czech-Polish musical cooperation. Five years ago I began to investigate the hymns written in the so-called Strahov Codex.1 As part of this work I became concerned with the hymn to St Procopius, Confessor Dei lucidus, which is of interest with regard not only to the origin of the Strahov Codex but also to the late-medieval hymn tradition in the Czech lands more generally. I don’t want to bother you with all the details about why this hymn to St Procopius is so important for my research, but I should clarify why Wrocław recently became my chief hunting ground. The main reason for my repeatedly visiting the Wrocław libraries is to look for the hymn to St Procopius in Silesian manuscripts. The motive for my research is very simple. Discovering the hymn to St Procopius in Silesian manuscripts could support the hypothesis expressed by Robert Snow, that the Strahov Codex was compiled in this region. But I must exclude his speculation about Silesia as a provenance for the Strahov Codex, and can report that I have not found any hymn to St Procopius in Polish manuscripts. This is actually a very curious and unexpected finding for me, because the hymn to St Wenceslas can be identified in several sources from Silesia in general, and Wrocław in particular. Therefore the first question is: Why isn’t the hymn to St Procopius present in Silesian manuscripts, given that we have plenty of evidence for the cult of this Czech saint in this region? The second question is related to the chant melody of the St Procopius hymn with which I’m concerned. This tune is, surprisingly, present in a different version in two psalters from Wrocław as well as a manuscript from Cracow. The Present State of Research The first study devoted to Polish medieval hymns, which was concerned only with the texts, was written in 1930 by Bronisław Gładysz,2 who also focused on the Silesian tradition. Simultaneously, in the same year, Zdzisław Jachimecki published the first study concerning the melodies of Polish monophonic hymns.3 Then followed a number of partial studies about the tradition of hymns in the particular areas of Silesia

1 Prague, Knihovna Královské kanonie premonstrátů na Strahově, MS DG IV 47. 2 Bronisław Gładysz, ‘O łacińskich hymnach kościelnych z polskich źródeł średniowiecznych’,

Przegląd Teologiczny 11 (1930), pp. 105–134. 3 Zdzisław Jachimecki, ‘Średniowieczne zabytki polskiej kultury muzycznej 1. Jednogłosowa

muzyka religijna. Łacińskie historiae, hymny i sekwencje kościoła polskiego’, Muzyka Kościelna 5 (1930) no. 3, pp. 41–45; no. 4, pp. 63–65; no. 5, pp. 89–90; no. 6, pp. 108–112.

24 Veronika M. Mráčková

or Poland. Three authors paid close attention to Polish and Silesian hymns: Henryk Kowalewicz,4 Jerzy Morawski5 and Antoni Reginek6 in studies published collectively in Monumenta medii aevi in 1991. In this edition of Polish hymns we can observe not only the texts but also the tunes with all verses that survived mostly in manuscripts from Silesia and Cracow. As the result of the collation of the hymns Antoni Reginek with Jerzy Morawski have revealed that the sources they used contain seventy one tunes and one hundred fifty nine hymn texts.7 On this basis it is possible to observe the transmission of the tunes throughout Europe. This publication is indispensible to me for the very useful list of the manuscripts containing hymns with and without notation deposited in Wrocław archives. These hymns are written primarily in antiphonals, psalters, hymnals and breviaries. An important study, which points to the interconnection of Czech-Polish relationships in the Middle Ages, mainly in the 14th and 15th centuries, was written in 1939 by Stanisław Kolbuszewski.8 This philologist outlined that at the end of the 14th century we have translations and adaptations of works that were originally Czech – most of them religious hymns and poems. Important for me is the fact that Czech-Polish connections were not only restricted to certain subjects but also to certain areas, that is Silesia and the district of Cracow. The Strahov Codex The Strahov Codex is one of the most important manuscripts from Central Europe containing polyphonic hymns from the fifteenth century. Dobroslav Orel, the Czech musicologist, linked it with Bohemia on account of its inclusion of two hymns to the local saints Procopius and Wenceslas.9 However, the provenance of the codex remains uncertain, and we don’t even know how it first arrived in the Strahov library in Prague. Robert Snow located the Strahov Codex in Silesia (Eastern area, near the Bohemian border) because of the presence there of both Czech and German populations.10 But in fact we can arguably exclude this area since there is no hymn to St Hedwig, patroness of Silesia, in the Strahov Codex. Furthermore in this codex there are no hymns to St Stanislaus or St Hyacintus, which we can often find in the Silesian manuscripts. Reinhard Strohm agrees on Olomouc in Moravia as a possible origin.11 Certainly the cathedral of St Wenceslas in Olomouc was an important 4 Henryk Kowalewicz, ‘Hymny polskie’, in: Musica medii aevi, vol. 8, ed. Jerzy Morawski,

Cracow 1991, pp. 10–26. 5 Jerzy Morawski, ‘Hymny polskie’, in: ibid., pp. 27–38. 6 Antoni Reginek, ‘Repertuar hymnów diecezji krakowskiej’, in: ibid., pp. 142–372. 7 Morawski, ‘Hymny polskie’, p. 32. 8 Stanisław Kolbuszewski, ‘Influences of Czech Culture in Poland in the Middle Ages’, Slavonic

and East European Review 18 (1939) no. 52, pp. 155–169. 9 Dobroslav Orel, Počátky umělého vícehlasu v Čechách, Bratislava 1922, p. 7. 10 Robert J. Snow, The Manuscript Strahov D.G. IV. 47, Ph.D. dissertation, University of

Michigan 1969, p. 2. 11 Reinhard Strohm, The Rise of European Music 1380–1500, Cambridge 1993, p. 513.

The Silesian Tradition of Hymns to Czech Saints 25

episcopal seat, but we can’t yet either confirm or refute its connection with the Strahov Codex. More recently Martin Horyna has suggested that the manuscript originated in České Budějovice (Budweis) in Southern Bohemia.12 Horyna formulates his supposition on the basis of the presence of an acrostic “Nicolaus“ in some pieces of music in the codex. According to Horyna this source may have been compiled for the use of a Latin school next to the church of St Nicholas, whose schoolboys sang occasionally in the churches of Sts Wenceslas and Procopius. Horyna bases this theory on the activity of the native scholar Václav Mondl, who worked successively in Vienna, Prague and České Budějovice. This theory is compatible with the existence of a mixed Czech and German population in this city. However, this hypothesis is not confirmed by any other historical evidence.

A valuable separate chapter to the Strahov Codex has been given by Paweł Gancarczyk in his book Musica scripto.13 Based on analysis of the paper, Gancarczyk was able to refine the dating of the codex to the period between 1467 and 1470. The Codex consists of a total of 307 folios, and is in quarto format and thus of small dimension, which would make its use by performers in a practice context unlikely. Musicologists have long debated the possibility that this source may have been merely the product of a collector. The manuscript comprises twenty-nine gatherings. A total of five scribes have been distinguished, whose identities remain unknown. Most heavily represented is Scribe 1, who notated most of the hymns. The compositions are written mainly in void mensural notation. In all, the Strahov Codex contains 291 compositions, most of which are liturgical. The repertoire of the Strahov Codex is arranged according to the Catholic liturgy. It includes settings of the mass proper (mainly introits) and the mass ordinary, Latin contrafact versions of secular songs, motets, hymns, and magnificats. We can identify pieces by leading composers of the time – including Johannes Pullois, Johannes Tourout, and Walter Frye – but there are also a large number of anonymous pieces, many of which are evidently of local origin. Hymns in the Strahov Codex The Strahov Codex contains sixty three- and four- voice polyphonic hymns, most of them arranged according to the liturgical year. The majority are Office hymns, which are complemented by two processional hymns. The hymns are found in gatherings XXIV to XXVI in the fourth section of the source. Most of these hymns were entered by Scribe 1, who copied 62% of the manuscript. Twenty-two of the hymns

12 Martin Horyna: ‘Česká polyfonie 1470–1620, hudba v životě konfesijně rozdělené společnosti

Království českého a tvorba českých skladatelů renesanční epochy’, in: Littera Nigro scripta manet, eds. Jan Baťa, Jiří K. Kroupa and Lenka Mráčková, Prague 2009, pp. 110–125.

13 Paweł Gancarczyk, Musica scripto. Kodeksy menzuralne II połowy XV wieku na wschodzie Europy Łacińskiej, Warsaw 2001, pp. 45–70; cf. also idem, ‘The Dating and Chronology of the Strahov Codex’, Hudební věda 43 (2006) no. 2, pp. 135–145.


have concordances with other European sources, especially with the Trent codices,14 but also with the Żagań partbooks (Glogauer Liederbuch).15 The majority of the hymns in the Codex are anonymous, and are preserved here uniquely. These polyphonic hymns include mainly even-numbered stanzas, the odd-numbered stanzas having probably been sung as chant. The alternation of polyphonic and monophonic stanzas (the so-called alternatim) is a specific feature of the polyphonic hymn. The plainchant melody is always located in the upper voice. The identification of the cantus firmus and its comparison with monophonic hymns in local or European plainchant sources can, of course, help us to recognize the provenance of polyphonic hymn compositions in the Strahov Codex. As I mentioned before, there are two hymns to local saints in the Strahov Codex: the hymn to St Procopius, Confessor Dei lucidus, and the hymn to St Wenceslas, Dies venit victoriae. Again, it is worth repeating that the hymn to St Hedwig, which might indicate a Silesian provenance for the Strahov Codex, is not present in this manuscript. Both hymns are in three parts and the chant melody is hidden in the upper voice. The Cult of St Procopius in Bohemia and Poland It is worth emphasizing, though, that St Procopius was much less widely venerated in Bohemia than St Wenceslas. This is precisely why the identification of the hymn to St Procopius, which was not so widely distributed in other manuscripts as that to St Wenceslas, provides us with a potentially important clue to the provenance of the Strahov Codex. St Procopius was born in Bohemia around 970.16 We know that he had a wife, and a son whose name was Jimram. Later he lived as a hermit and founded the Sázava monastery according to the Benedictine rule. St Procopius died in 1053 and was canonized by Pope Innocent III in 1204. He is the patron saint of miners and a protector from demonic activity, and is often depicted holding a chain by which the devil is fettered. The cult of St Procopius was promoted by King Charles IV in the fourteenth century not only in Bohemia and Moravia, but also in Silesia. St Procopius’s rotunda in Strzelno which belongs to the 12th century is evidence of the cult of this Czech saint, which was also widespread in Poland. Musicologist Tadeusz Maciejewski remarked in his study, that we have some references to St Procopius in the calendars and litanies written in three Silesian missals from the fourteenth century.17 Two of these missals originate directly from Wrocław. The sequences to

14 Trento, Museo Provinciale d’Arte, Castello del Buonconsiglio, MS 1375 (TrentC 88) and

MS 1377 (TrentC 90); Trento, Museo Diocesano, MS BL (TrentM 93). 15 Cracow, Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Mus. ms. 40098 (KrakJ 40098). 16 For more informations about St Procopius see Jaroslav Kadlec, Svatý Prokop, český strážce

odkazu cyrilometodějského, Prague 2000. 17 Tadeusz Maciejewski, ‘Kult św. Prokopa w XIV–XVI w. na terenie Polski Południowej’,

in: Muzyka a społeczeństwo. Przegląd zagadnień socjologii muzyki. Materiały z VII Ogólnopolskiej Konferencja Muzykologicznej w Brzegu 1973, Brzeg 1975, pp. 111–115.


St Procopius or other prayers are also present in many fifteenth century liturgical books from Cracow, Lviv, Sandomierz, Gniezno, Głogów and Wrocław. For instance the sequence to St Procopius Plaudant chori monachorum et laetentur fratres quorum written in the Głogów missal from the 15th century, is present in some codices from Olomouc.18 Therefore it is even more difficult to understand why the hymn to St Procopius has not survived in any Polish liturgical books. As mentioned before I failed to trace any copies of the St Procopius hymn Confessor Dei lucidus, as found in the Strahov Codex, in any of the Silesian codices with or without notation I studied in 2011 in Wrocław. On the other hand the hymn to St Wenceslas Dies venit victoriae does appear in a couple of Silesian manuscripts. For instance the hymn to St Wenceslas is written in the 15th century psalter of Nysa and in two hymnals from Głogów (Figures 1 and 2, pp. 28–29).19 This hymn is also present in many Cracow psalters and antiphonals. Interestingly one version of this chant melody appears in all Czech and Silesian or other Polish manuscripts without differences. The Chant Melody Stäblein 75220 Now let us return to the chant melody that occurs in the upper voice of the hymn to St Procopius written in the Strahov Codex. The chant has number 752 in Bruno Stäblein’s edition of hymns in Monumenta Monodica Medii Aevi.21 This chant melody was used in Bohemia during the second half of the 14th and in the 15th century, not only for the hymn to St Procopius, but also in conjunction with various other texts. The range of this tune is very unusual in that it contains both very high and very low pitches. In 2011 I undertook an exhaustive search for this chant melody in Polish manuscripts, for the purposes of comparison. I have seen around seventy manuscripts, containing the hymns, deriving from Silesia or Cracow. Among the manuscripts I consulted were antiphonals, psalters and hymnals. What I found in them was that this tune exists in two versions that may be distinguished by melodic variants (see Example, p. 30). One of these versions was used mostly in Bohemia, while the other can be identified mainly in Franciscan codices in the hymns to St Francis Proles de caelo prodiit. When we compare these two versions we see that the “Bohemian” type has more notes than the “Franciscan”. This is the most obvious way to distinguish between them. 18 Ibid., p. 114. 19 Wrocław, Archiwum Archidiecezjalne i Biblioteka Kapitulna, MS 74n, fol. 139r (psalter

from St James of Nysa, 15th century); Wrocław, Biblioteka Uniwersytecka, MS I F 453, fol. 150r (hymnal from Głogów, 1509); Wrocław, Biblioteka Uniwersytecka, MS I F 454, fol. 153r (hymnal from Głogów, 1509). I’m very grateful to all, who kindly allowed me to work on mentioned manuscipts in both libraries.

20 For more see Veronika M. Mráčková, ‘The Transmission of Hymn Tune Stäblein 752 in Europe during the Middle Ages’, Hudební věda 49 (2012) no. 1–2, pp. 19–32.

21 Bruno Stäblein, Monumenta Monodica Medii Aevi I. Hymnen. Die mittelalterlichen Hymnenmelodien des Abendlandes, Regensburg 1956, p. 443.


Figure 1. Hymn to St Wenceslas in hymnal from Głogów (Wrocław, Biblioteka Uniwersytecka, MS I F 453, fol. 150r, 1509).


Figure 2. Hymn to St Wenceslas in hymnal from Głogów (Wrocław, Biblioteka Uniwersytecka, MS I F 454, fol. 153r, 1509).


Example. Two types of the melody Stäblein 752 (collation).22

22 Munich, Franziskanerkloster St. Anna – Bibliothek, MS 120 Cmm 1 (breviary, 1235); Kielce,

Biblioteka Kapituły Katedralnej, MS 1 (antiphonal, 1372); Wrocław, Biblioteka Uniwer-sytecka, MS I F 437 and MS I F 438 (psalters, 1485); Prague, Archiv Pražského hradu, MS Cim 7 (Roudnice psalter, 2nd half of the 14th century); Cracow, Archiwum Krakowskiej Kapituły Katedralnej, MS 35 (psalter, 15th century); Hradec Králové, Muzeum východních Čech, MS II A 7 (Speciálník Codex, ca. 1485–1500).


The main characteristic of the “Bohemian” type is the group of descending notes at the beginning, which consists of three notes, whereas the second, “Franciscan”, type has only two descending notes. There are also some melodic variants. Interestingly the Bohemian type of this melody is present in the hymn De stella sol oriturus written in the 15th century psalter probably from the Cracow diocese.23 Most strikingly this tune merely looks the same as the “Bohemian” type, but it has too many additional notes in relation to the Czech manuscripts. Nevertheless this is a very similar version of the melody to that found in the Bohemian codices. The Franciscan melody type is present in the hymn to St Francis Proles de caelo prodiit in two psalters from the Franciscan monastery of St Bernard in Wrocław from 1485 (Figures 3 and 4, pp. 33–34).24 This is the version of the melody I refer to as “Franciscan” because it is often used for the hymn to St Francis. The tune was probably very popular because we can see it sixteen times with different texts in a single codex. Square notation is used in these codices. The Franciscan hymn is also written in the antiphonal from Kielce from 1372.25 The question is how this Franciscan melody got to Wrocław and Kielce. Likewise we don’t even know how the Bohemian type of tune came into Cracow.

The Distribution of the Tune Stäblein 752 One of the main characteristics of the monophonic Office hymn is the

transmission of its melodies across Europe. The melody Stäblein 752, which I found in 14th and 15th century manuscripts from Poland, Silesia, Germany, Austria, Spain and Italy, is surely one of the most widely disseminated tunes in European sources. The first occurrence of the tune is probably as a hymn to St Francis in a Franciscan breviary from Rome from the first quarter of the 13th century.26 Then, we can identify this tune in the upper voice in polyphonic hymn written in Trent Codex 9127 and in the Modena manuscript.28 The answer to the question, of how this Franciscan melody came into Central Europe, could be simple – the distribution of this melody is probably connected with the expansion of the Franciscans across Europe, especially in the 15th century when the missionary Giovanni da Capistrano crucially imported the Franciscan culture from Italy to Wrocław, Cracow and other cities of central Europe. In all probability, as Petr Hlaváček said in his study about Franciscans,29 the Monastery of St Bernard in Wrocław, which possessed a big scriptorium, was the centre of Franciscan

23 Cracow, MS 35 (see n. 22). 24 Wrocław, MSS I F 437 and I F 438 (see n. 22). 25 Kielce, MS 1 (see n. 22). 26 Munich, MS 120 Cmm 1 (see n. 22). 27 Trento, Museo Provinciale d’Arte, Castello Buonconsiglio, MS 1378 (TrentC 91), fol. 189r. 28 Modena, Biblioteca Estense e Universitaria, MS α.X.1.11, fols. 29v–30r. 29 Petr Hlaváček, Čeští františkáni na přelomu středověku a novověku, Prague 2005.


observance in medieval Central Europe. Another potential way in which this melody might have got to Wrocław could be the influence of the superiors of the monastery of St Bernard, who were often of German or Italian origin. But the presence of Bohemian melodic elements in the melody I found in Cracow suggests that it got there directly from Bohemia.

Conclusion Maybe we cannot answer the question why the hymn to St Procopius doesn’t appear in any Silesian or Polish manuscripts whereas the hymn to St Wenceslas is present in several sources from Wrocław, Cracow or other areas. We don’t even know to what extent the cult of St Procopius was practised in Silesia when we discovered only few liturgical texts to this Czech saint in the codices from Wrocław. It remains the secret equally just as the provenance of the Strahov Codex. But what I can say is that thanks to this research I have recognized that we have two types of the melody Stäblein 752 which were used throughout all medieval Europe, even in Wrocław and Cracow. It remains unclear from where and through whom the Bohemian or Franciscan type of melody got into the areas as mentioned before. Therefore I believe – on account of the fact that neither any hymn to St Procopius nor any copy of the Bohemian version of tune Stäblein 752, appears in manuscripts from Silesia – that the Strahov Codex demonstrably was not compiled in this area. Anyway, on the model of the transmission of this melody we can observe the spreading of Franciscan culture in Central Europe, especially in Wrocław. The Bohemian type of melody likewise confirms the portability of the melodies to different texts even in different areas, apparently including Prague and Cracow. I believe that these findings help us to trace which ways and through whom the hymns and their tunes were propagated in Central Europe. It is necessary to make further progress along these lines by looking for and comparing other hymns and their melodies with the Polish tradition, primarily in Silesia. I believe I will be able to clarify these results in a broader historical context.


Figure 3. Hymn to St Francis in psalter with hymns (Wrocław, Biblioteka Uniwersytecka, MS I F 437, fol. 129r, 1485).


Figure 4. Hymn to St Francis in psalter with hymns (Wrocław, Biblioteka Uniwersytecka, MS I F 438, fol. 244v, 1485).

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The Silesian Tradition of Hymns to Czech Saints