The Service-Books of the Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis: Images of Ritual and Music in theMiddle Ages by Anne Walters RobertsonReview by: Bruno TurnerNotes, Second Series, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Sep., 1993), pp. 105-107Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/898701 .

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Book Reviews Book Reviews

Hymnologicum Augustanum, Monumenta li- turgica ecclesiae Augustanae, 10 [Aosta Ar- chives Historiques Regionales, 1989]; mel- odies in Emanuela Lagnier, ed., Corpus Musicae Hymnorum Augustanum, same series, 11 [1991]); the fourteen hymns of Ambrose (Ambroise de Milan: Hymnes, ed. directed by Jacques Fontaine [Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1992]); and finally, Die liturgischen Hymnen in Schweden II. In spite of the omis- sions mentioned above, Sz6verffy's Latin Hymns is a useful addition to the survey literature, impressive (as are all his works) for its geographic and chronological breadth.

Ann-Marie Nilsson's completion of the long-awaited second volume of Die liturgi- schen Hymnen in Schweden, a critical edition of the melodies of the Office hymns of me- dieval and Reformation Sweden, is a model of editorial practice and presentation. The first part, "Die Singweisen und ihre Vari- anten," consists of a methodological intro- duction and an edition of 129 melodies with variants followed by commentary on individual melodies, addenda and corri- genda to the first volume, and indexes. The second part, "Abbildungen ausgewaihl- ter Quellenhandschriften," contains twelve color and forty-eight black-and-white full- page facsimiles of selected hymn sources from the twelfth through the sixteenth cen- turies.

The first volume of Die liturgischen Hym- nen in Schweden, published in 1947, in- cluded an edition of hymn texts. The present volume (originally planned for publication in 1959-60) has been com- pleted using Carl-Allan Moberg's editorial principles and material, but with some modifications: since many melodies have al- ready been edited by Bruno Staiblein in vol- ume 1 of Monumenta monodica medii aevi: Hymnen (I) (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1956) the scope was restricted from Moberg's original plan of all Central-European melodies to those found in Swedish sources, enriched by the discovery of 150 more fragments.

The edition of each melody is based, when possible, on the version transmitted by the oldest preserved Swedish source. The base version is fully transcribed with the variants vertically aligned below it in chronologically ordered rows: variant pitches are indicated by their letter-names, agreement with the base version by unbro- ken horizontal lines. Since the melodies are

Hymnologicum Augustanum, Monumenta li- turgica ecclesiae Augustanae, 10 [Aosta Ar- chives Historiques Regionales, 1989]; mel- odies in Emanuela Lagnier, ed., Corpus Musicae Hymnorum Augustanum, same series, 11 [1991]); the fourteen hymns of Ambrose (Ambroise de Milan: Hymnes, ed. directed by Jacques Fontaine [Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1992]); and finally, Die liturgischen Hymnen in Schweden II. In spite of the omis- sions mentioned above, Sz6verffy's Latin Hymns is a useful addition to the survey literature, impressive (as are all his works) for its geographic and chronological breadth.

Ann-Marie Nilsson's completion of the long-awaited second volume of Die liturgi- schen Hymnen in Schweden, a critical edition of the melodies of the Office hymns of me- dieval and Reformation Sweden, is a model of editorial practice and presentation. The first part, "Die Singweisen und ihre Vari- anten," consists of a methodological intro- duction and an edition of 129 melodies with variants followed by commentary on individual melodies, addenda and corri- genda to the first volume, and indexes. The second part, "Abbildungen ausgewaihl- ter Quellenhandschriften," contains twelve color and forty-eight black-and-white full- page facsimiles of selected hymn sources from the twelfth through the sixteenth cen- turies.

The first volume of Die liturgischen Hym- nen in Schweden, published in 1947, in- cluded an edition of hymn texts. The present volume (originally planned for publication in 1959-60) has been com- pleted using Carl-Allan Moberg's editorial principles and material, but with some modifications: since many melodies have al- ready been edited by Bruno Staiblein in vol- ume 1 of Monumenta monodica medii aevi: Hymnen (I) (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1956) the scope was restricted from Moberg's original plan of all Central-European melodies to those found in Swedish sources, enriched by the discovery of 150 more fragments.

The edition of each melody is based, when possible, on the version transmitted by the oldest preserved Swedish source. The base version is fully transcribed with the variants vertically aligned below it in chronologically ordered rows: variant pitches are indicated by their letter-names, agreement with the base version by unbro- ken horizontal lines. Since the melodies are

transcribed without text, each verse of the strophe is indicated by a Roman numeral and each syllable of the verse by an Arabic numeral. This clear presentation of vari- ants seems to have been first devised by Moberg for his Uber die Schwedische Sequen- zen (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1927).

The commentary on each melody iden- tifies concordances with other editions, strophic forms, and texts transmitted with the melody, providing remarks on the date and diffusion of the melody, explanations of the instances in which versions are not presented in chronological order, com- ments on the variant versions, and sources of the melody in the Brigittine repertory. The addenda and corrigenda to Moberg's first volume are given in minute detail (in- cluding corrections of minor typographical errors); there are also descriptions of new sources, updates of locations and shelf- marks of Moberg's sources, inventories of selected sources, and editions of three new texts not in the first volume. Strophic forms of the melodies, and melody-text pairs, are given in indexes.

At a time when many texts of liturgical poetry are edited without melodies, it is encouraging to see such an excellent and thoroughly documented melodic edition. Unfortunately, the separation of text from music in the two volumes of Die liturgischen Hymnen in Schweden means that text-music combinations must be reconstructed in or- der to study their transmission. The fine editorial method and attention to detail in this edition serve to inform us of the con- tents of Swedish hymn sources, while their interrelationships are still to be explored.

SUSAN BOYNTON

Brandeis University

The Service-Books of the Royal Ab- bey of Saint-Denis: Images of Ritual and Music in the Middle Ages. By Anne Walters Robertson. (Oxford Monographs on Music.) Oxford: Clar- endon Press, 1991. [xix, 565 p. ISBN 0-19-31524-1 $125.00.]

The Service-Books of the Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis is a substantial work of meticu- lously careful and thorough scholarship. Its specialized pedigree and its wider back- ground are both excellent. The subtitle im-

transcribed without text, each verse of the strophe is indicated by a Roman numeral and each syllable of the verse by an Arabic numeral. This clear presentation of vari- ants seems to have been first devised by Moberg for his Uber die Schwedische Sequen- zen (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1927).

The commentary on each melody iden- tifies concordances with other editions, strophic forms, and texts transmitted with the melody, providing remarks on the date and diffusion of the melody, explanations of the instances in which versions are not presented in chronological order, com- ments on the variant versions, and sources of the melody in the Brigittine repertory. The addenda and corrigenda to Moberg's first volume are given in minute detail (in- cluding corrections of minor typographical errors); there are also descriptions of new sources, updates of locations and shelf- marks of Moberg's sources, inventories of selected sources, and editions of three new texts not in the first volume. Strophic forms of the melodies, and melody-text pairs, are given in indexes.

At a time when many texts of liturgical poetry are edited without melodies, it is encouraging to see such an excellent and thoroughly documented melodic edition. Unfortunately, the separation of text from music in the two volumes of Die liturgischen Hymnen in Schweden means that text-music combinations must be reconstructed in or- der to study their transmission. The fine editorial method and attention to detail in this edition serve to inform us of the con- tents of Swedish hymn sources, while their interrelationships are still to be explored.

SUSAN BOYNTON

Brandeis University

The Service-Books of the Royal Ab- bey of Saint-Denis: Images of Ritual and Music in the Middle Ages. By Anne Walters Robertson. (Oxford Monographs on Music.) Oxford: Clar- endon Press, 1991. [xix, 565 p. ISBN 0-19-31524-1 $125.00.]

The Service-Books of the Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis is a substantial work of meticu- lously careful and thorough scholarship. Its specialized pedigree and its wider back- ground are both excellent. The subtitle im-

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NOTES, September 1993

plies a promise of revelations and insights that will enhance our understanding of music and ritual in the monastic world at its peak in the Middle Ages; something with imaginative vision in the interpreta- tion of facts might well be expected. It has to be said that this is not the case. But our knowledge is certainly enhanced.

Any work, especially a monograph of great learning, should be judged on two counts: on whether it achieves its own ob- ject and whether the object itself is impor- tant. The latter seems in this case self- evident; the study of great centers of religion and culture such as Cluny, Notre Dame in Paris, and the Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis continues to produce books and articles from authors in many disci- plines that illuminate our understanding of that millennium we so loosely refer to as the Middle Ages. As to the achievement of the object of this work, Anne Walters Rob- ertson has been notably successful in amassing, organizing, and conveying the sense of an enormous body of material. She writes clearly and with precision, at times almost elegantly. Yet one has a feeling of pervading sameness throughout. There seems to be such an exhaustive concern for thoroughness with the details that nothing is allowed to stand out-nothing, one feels has significantly more importance or inter- est than anything else. Perhaps that is a little unfair as a generalization, yet that re- mains the impression after the first fully attentive reading.

So what is this vast forest of facts really about? And do we see the wood for the trees?

Saint-Denis is now a rather shabby in- dustrial suburb in the north of Paris. At the height of its medieval fame it was a sepa- rate town that had grown up around the ever more elaborate monastery complex from which it took its name. And that name, St. Denis, is itself a subject for study, a door by which one may enter at least some corners of the medieval Christian world. According to Gregory of Tours, De- nis (Dionysius) was sent from Italy to Gaul as a missionary, became the first bishop of Paris, was martyred around 250 CE, and buried northeast of Paris. Over his tomb a community grew up that eventually became one of the greatest, richest, and most in- fluential monastic establishments in Chris-

tendom. From Dagobert I (d. 638), the Ab- bey was patronized by the kings of France for whom it was the royal necropolis until the French Revolution. Adding to the Ab- bey's prestige and independence was the consistent aim of its most notable abbots who rebuilt, enlarged, or elaborated the successive buildings to the greater glory of God and of the community. Within one- and-a-half centuries of its foundation as an abbey, Saint-Denis forged its royal link in lasting strength under Fulrad, the abbot who negotiated with the Papacy in the es- tablishment of the Carolingian line and the coronation of Pepin in 751.

The influential and highly educated Hil- duin (d. 841) reinforced not only the pres- tige and permanence of recent liturgical reforms, and translated and put into use Greek texts from the Office of St. Diony- sius, but also probably introduced the sing- ing of the so-called Greek Mass. This Missa greca survived, albeit modified, even ex- tended, over the centuries until its final celebration in 1792.

From Hilduin's time, for nearly one thousand years, the historical St. Denis was deliberately amalgamated with two other figures: St. Paul's convert in Athens, Dionysius the Areopagite (martyred ca. 95 CE), and the fifth century pseudo- Dionysius whose writings had been trans- lated into Latin by Hilduin. This was all part of the unstinting efforts of successive abbots to increase the prestige of the Ab- bey, its independence from the power of Cluny (and later from other Benedictine houses), and above all to enhance the royal connection. The special cult of this extraor- dinary conflation of three persons was one of many ways in which Saint-Denis made itself special in its observances in its cal- endar of feasts, in its special hymns and sequences, unique offices and even unique music.

Robertson leads the reader safely and surely through all the rooms of this great complex of a monastic institution, its lit- urgy, the ritual and the music, the inter- action of these with architecture, art, and politics, with the performance practices and the crucial personalities that emerge. If it is sometimes difficult to comprehend the ordering of the chapters and their sub- sections, it would be equally difficult to de- vise approaches better than Robertson's.

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Book Reviews

In short, we can thank Robertson for a generous profusion of riches that are surely of interest to more than the spe- cialists in this field. The eleventh-century rhymed Office of St. Denis is given with its English translation opposite; the Dionysian hymn Celi cives is presented in the same way, a prime example of the blatant Ar- eopagite identification with the Abbey's saint and with royal favor, its last verse switching without a blush to state that Di- onysius came to Gaul at the bidding of Clement the Pope of Rome. Standing out like another fine jewel is the author's tran- scription of the sequence Salve pater dyonisi -a valuable piece in itself that happens to acknowledge for once the companion mar- tyrs of the "real" St. Denis, SS. Eleutherius and Rusticus.

Robertson's inspiration in this research originated in the international symposium and exhibition entitled "The Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis in the Time of Suger," which took place in New York in 1981. This and notably the writings of S. M. Crosby during the 1980s (but in fact extending back to the 1950s) stand in the line of pedigree with Robertson's own Yale University thesis (Ph.D., 1984), Music and Liturgy at the Abbey of Saint-Denis (567-1567): A Survey of the Primary Sources. It is on this foundation that the present book stands. The millennium that it covers is defined by the Council of Tours and the sacking of Saint-Denis by the Huguenots. The Abbey never recovered from the latter event. It was with some amusement that I recently happened upon a contemporary Spanish recounting of the Translation of St. Eugenius from Saint- Denis to Toledo in 1565, carried out at the personal request of Philip II, granted by the French King, in which the supposed bodily relics of Toledo's seventh-century bishop were returned. Wrong again: they actually got St. Denis's fellow laborer, also martyred in Paris about the year 250. Truth is what you believe. Toledo was happy, the Translation was just in time.

At the outset here I remarked on an im- pression of sameness, of a lack of differ- entiation between the significant and the unimportant. But there is another way to use and to value this book. It is a veritable mine into which scholars and even general readers may burrow-not casually, but for two specific purposes. For refreshment and

renewal of general interest in medieval mo- nastic practice there are whole chapters to be read more than just a second time, fas- cinating on their own and certainly more digestible that way. The other way in which this work will stand the test of time is in its capacity as a storehouse of information in concentrated detail or broad description. Examples include the studies of the Greek Mass, and chapter 5, with its sections on the singing duties of the members of the monastic community in their hierarchical classes and on the ordering and conduct of the canonical Hours and the Mass.

The tables are well done; in particular the calendar of the Abbey, with its sur- viving sources amply described, an alpha- betical list of Feasts, chronological notes thereon, and, of course, simplified and chronologically ordered calendar with aligned columns showing variants from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries. This and the other appendixes will contribute strongly to the longevity of this monograph as a source of reference for students and specialists. The plates are at least adequate in quality and not ungenerous.

One should not be fussy about small er- rors, especially the typographical sort. An eyebrow may be raised at an 'i' missing from Sacris solemniis, or a lip twitch at one appearance of Sugar for Suger, but it is odd to find St. Cecilia appearing twice (and only) as Cecelia (a spelling I have never seen before) in the calendar (appendix A). And whilst niggling, how is it that Rob- ertson can footnote a reference to Corpus Christi ("a later added feast") in relation to its hymns: "at Vespers, Pange lingua ... a 6th.-c. hymn by Fortunatus" (p.1 12, n. 54)? St. Thomas Aquinas, whilst surely acknowl- edging his model, would be rather put out by this.

Carping about such details cannot seri- ously detract from Robertson's consider- able achievement in producing this valu- able culmination (if not necessarily the final words) of her researches on the Sandion- sian world. If it suffers a little from tunnel vision, it is at least of our time in its clear focus upon its subject. It is a victim of its own thoroughness.

BRUNO TURNER London

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