Shared Sounds: Using Borrowed Melodies to Create Shared Contexts in Late Medieval Saints’ Offices

Abstract

This article explores the use of borrowed chants and melodies to create and affirm sanctity in late medieval martyr saints’ liturgies, with a focus on Jan Hus, St Adalbert, and St Demetrius within the Bohemian and Hungarian liturgical traditions. Common, Semi-Common, and Proper chants with contrafacted melodies played an important role in providing intertextual nuance and establishing a shared sound with earlier repertories. This shared context then imbued both familiarity and authority on the new chants, and therefore the celebration, legitimising a new feast from its inception and adding a layer of sonic complexity reaching beyond the words. The borrowed sounds thus underpinned the sanctity of the new feasts and anchored new liturgical practices within established musical traditions.

1. Introduction

As David Hiley so eloquently writes, ‘chant is embedded in the heart of the religious life of the Middle Ages’ (Hiley 2003, p. 475).1 While the carefully chosen words conveyed meaning to the literati—monks, clergy, and those with access to a Latin education—the music became a vehicle for universal understanding.2 The melodies alongside the performative rituals of the liturgy imparted key information to worshippers: the location of the service within the church calendar, the importance of the event or person being celebrated, and even the type of person being commemorated within a particular service.3 Within churches, chant acted as the oral and audible articulation of worship, and thus a sonic expression of sanctity.4

With the introduction of new feasts in the late Middle Ages, the application of established chants and melodies provided context for the new celebration, imbuing it with a sense of familiarity and legitimacy. This is seen clearly and effectively within regional liturgies which often had a gradual genesis and integration into the repertoire.5 For these, the first celebrations mainly or completely used existing chants from a ‘Commune’ or another Office,6 which were gradually substituted by Proper chants with texts specific to the occasion, a characteristic form of Office composition termed ‘properisation’.7 Many Offices survive in manuscripts in a state that captures the properisation process in action, with borrowed chants sung alongside new Proper texts.8

Along with the more obvious textual re-use, musical borrowing is also seen within some Proper items through the creation of contrafact chants. Contrafacture, where a new text is set to pre-existing music, was a very common feature of late medieval chant composition and allowed composers to play with identity in subtle ways.9 The melodies, firmly situated within their original feasts, act as sonic transmitters, allowing the context of the original chant to be retained within the new, establishing a shared sound between the new feast and earlier repertories. This technique allowed composers to reinforce certain elements within the new chant by taking advantage of these prior musical links.

This article explores the use of borrowed chants and melodies within the feasts of three regional ‘martyr saints’—Jan Hus, St Adalbert, and St Demetrius—and their role in creating and confirming sanctity for worshippers. For Jan Hus, a heretic, familiar martyrial repertory was used to promote his sanctity to his followers; for St Adalbert, the use of common chants places his feast within the pan-European martyr sphere and affirms his sanctity; and for St Demetrius, the contrafacta chants which use established ‘saintly’ melodies bring through a similarly ‘saintly’ context to the new feast. Three aspects will be considered. First, the use of familiar chants and melodies to confer established authority and legitimacy, situating new saints within the broader network of celebrated saints. Second, the creation of a shared auditory memory, in which the textual and musical echoes of a particular person, group, or event shape the reception and acceptance of a new feast. Third, the subtle or overt intertextuality within contrafact chants employed as ideological tools to place a new feast within existing theological frameworks.

2. Jan Hus: A Saintly Sound

To begin an article on medieval chant with an examination of music for a heretic may be considered an unusual step. However, as Aviad Kleinberg notes, ‘sanctity is in the eyes of the beholder’10 (Kleinberg 1989, p. 186) and the liturgy and chants used following Hus’ death reveal the ways in which familiar chants for martyrs were used to colour the celebration of this new ‘martyr’ for his followers.

Jan Hus [c.1370–1415] was a Catholic preacher, author, and reformer who, after preaching against the corruption of clergy members, the sale of indulgences, and the use of only Latin in church life, was condemned as a heretic by the Roman Church.11 Hus was ordered to attend the Council of Constance to recant, and, when he refused, was burnt at the stake on 6 July 1415. After his death, celebrations in his honour were held by the Hussites in defiance of the Catholic Church.12 The first recorded festal commemoration in Olomouc in 1416 provides evidence that the reuse of familiar chants was recognised. Proper texts were quickly composed, but the earliest feasts used chants from the Commune plurimorum Martyrum, including the popular introit Gaudeamus omnes in domino (Holeton and Vlhová-Wörner 2009, 2015; Hallas 2025). Before Hus’ death, this introit was used within the funerial Mass for three Hussite martyrs—Martin, Jan, and Stašek,13 executed on 11 July 1412–bringing the chant into a Hussite context.14 Its use within the feast for Jan Hus in 1416 cemented its position within the reformatory Hussite repertoire, where it remained until at least the early-sixteenth century.

A letter, dated to December 1416, survives from the canons of Olomouc to the Council of Constance regarding the feast and the behaviour of the Hussites. The author makes specific reference to the use of familiar melodies strongly associated with the host of martyred saints: ‘for Jan Hus and Jeroným, condemned heretics, [they–Hussites] perform public exequies in the churches … as if for the faithful deceased, others make feasts and sing Gaudeamus and others as if for martyrs, comparing the same merits and punishments to St. Laurence the martyr…’.15 This complaint regarding the reuse of Common items within a new context clearly shows that these chants and melodies were recognised, and that their conferring of an old ‘saintly’ context into a new ‘unapproved’ liturgical situation was understood by worshippers. The use of these sounds, associated with a specific kind of sanctity, outside the ‘approved’ context was offensive to the canons, despite (or more likely because of) their meaning to the Hussites. Complaints against the opposite—melodies not associated with sanctity used in a liturgical context—can be seen in the fifteenth-century writings of Conrad von Zabern, who argued that ‘worldly’ tunes should not be sung to sacred texts because the evocation of their original context through the melodies overshadows the underlying text.16 In the case of Jan Hus, the use of the traditional ‘saintly’ Catholic Gaudeamus omnes in domino was clearly used to convey liturgical authority and legitimise the martyrial sanctity of the feast in the eyes of both the participants and the surrounding Catholic authorities.

Two incomplete sources with the Latin liturgy for Hus survive: the early sixteenth-century Czech antiphoner H-Ek I.313 (pp. 501–11),17 and the 1520s D-Z Mus.118.2 (ff. 33r–50r).18 The Office for Hus (Iublians olim honore) grew through properisation, and manuscript evidence traces the addition of Proper items.19 H-Ek I.313 includes only Proper chants (aside from the rubric ‘Alia de martyribus’ following the second Matins responsory), but the Office and Mass transmitted in D-Z Mus.118.2 contain a combination of Proper chants alongside Common items such as Gaudeamus omnes in domino, the Alleluia Vox exultationis, and an indication that the Kyrie should be ‘Kyrie paschale vel de martyribus’. These chants act in the same way as the solo Gaudeamus omnes in domino chant in the very first celebrations of Hus, providing legitimacy and an unbroken line of tradition from the Catholic church to the new ‘heretical’ Hussite celebrations for their martyred leader. The old chants bring the martyrial context of not only the Common and earlier martyr feasts, but also the funeral of the three early Hussite martyrs and the subsequent celebrations of Hus.

Three of the Proper chants within the two manuscripts use pre-existing melodies, described in detail in (Hallas 2025): the hymn Pange lingua gloriosi is set to the tune of the popular hymn with the same incipit often used for hymns within feasts for martyrs; the Matins hymn Plaudat chorus fidelium is provided with the melody of the hymn Plaudat chorus fidelium cetus for St Anne; and the Mass sequence Clericalis turma gaude is a contrafact of Virginalis turma sexus for St Ursula and the eleven thousand virgins. In all three, the new chant for Jan Hus is provided with both textual and musical links to the original melodic source, with the same or similar words placed in the same position, and thus under the same melodic phrase. These overt textual references make the musical links between the old and new context more explicit.

The complaint made by the canons reveals that the chants from the Common of Martyrs were associated with the sanctity of the martyrs themselves: and thus ‘saintly sounds’ in themselves, differentiated from music used outside the Church. Within the liturgy for Hus, therefore, the use of shared Common chants and melodies with an established saintly sound, specifically associated with the celebration of sanctified martyrs, melodically created the sanctity of Hus, solidifying his acceptance as a martyr saint and legitimising his celebration by the Hussites who considered themselves true Catholics worshipping in ‘Catholic’ forms.

3. St Adalbert: A Common Sound

Having established that chants and melodies created for, and performed within, a liturgical setting became themselves an acknowledgement and representation of sanctity, their use within a different but still sacred setting should be examined. The Hungarian Office for St Adalbert, O immarcescibilis rosa, is filled with familiar items—mostly Common and Semi-Common, with one Proper chant with contrafacted melody—which situated the new feast within its calendrical position and made it immediately recognisable as a feast for a martyr saint.

Adalbert (Vojtěch) of Prague [c.956–997] was canonised as Bishop of Prague in 982 after the death of Bishop Dietmar. After a tumultuous episcopacy he left for pilgrimage in 996 and travelled as a missionary bishop in modern-day Hungary and Poland. While in northern Poland Adalbert was received with hostility in a town. He refused to cease his preaching and was stoned by the crowd. He and his fellow missionaries left the town, and he was soon after executed by Prussians.20 In the late Middle Ages he was particularly venerated in Central Europe and is now the patron saint of Poland, the Czech Republic, and the archdioceses of Esztergom and Prague.

Many different Offices for Adalbert appear in sources within Central Europe, celebrating both his death on 23 April and the translation of his relics (which was celebrated in Bohemia on 25 August, in Poland on 20 October, and in Hungary on 6 November), including Ad festa pretiosi,21 Benedic regem cunctorem, Sanctus Adalbertus, and O immarcescibilis rosa.22 The O immarcescibilis rosa Office is predominantly found in Strigonium manuscripts (those that follow the Esztergom Use) although also in some sources from the medieval Hungarian regions of Transylvania and Kalocsa.23 As 23 April falls within Eastertide, the Matins was provided with only one nocturn with three lessons as was traditional.24 This Office is preserved within the fifteenth-century antiphoner SK-BRsa SNA 2 and the fourteenth-century Antiphonale Strigoniense, TR-Itks 42.25

These two manuscripts capture an Office in an early stage of properisation, with a combination of Common, Semi-Common, and Proper chants (see

Table 1. Office for St Adalbert in SK-BRsa SNA 2 (ff. 191v–195r) and TR-Itks 42 (ff. 173r–174v). * indicates the chant is provided as incipit only.

Position	Chant Incipit	Type
VA	O immarcescibilis rosa	Proper
VR	Exora dilecte Dei v/ Dissimiles tibi moribus	Proper Contrafact
VH	Vita sanctorum *	Common
VAM	Magna vox laude	Semi-Common
MI	Alleluia regem martyrum	Common
MA1.1	Tristitia vestra alleluia	Common
MR1.1	Beatus vir qui v/ Potens in terra erit	Common
MR1.2	Filiae Jerusalem venite v/ Quoniam confortavit seras	Common
MR1.3	Miles Christi gloriose v/Ut caelestis regni	Semi-Common
LA1	Sancti tui Domine	Common
LA2	Sancti et justi	Common
LA3	In velamento clamabunt	Common
LA4	Spiritus et animae	Common
LA5	In caelestibus regnis	Common
LH	Tu tuo laetos *	Common
LAB	Vox laetitiae in tabernaculis	Common
V2A	Sancti tui Domine *	Common
V2R	Christi martyr Adalbertus v/ Mortem autem quam	Common
V2H	Vita sanctorum Deus *	Common
V2AM	Gloria Christo Domino	Proper

). Many of the Common chants are found within both the Commune Sanctorum in Tempore Paschae (the Common of Saints during Eastertide) and the Commune unius Martyris/plurimorum Martyrum in Tempore Paschae (the Common of a Martyr/Martyrs during Eastertide), as well as within Offices for other saints. The use of these familiar Common chants from Offices celebrating martyrs was likely an economical choice for a new feast; having a set of chants immediately suitable for the occasion from which to pick and choose would ease the introduction of a new celebration into the minds and voices of worshippers. However, their use also intrinsically and ideologically links the new Office for Adalbert to the wider corpus of church martyrs, thus affirming both his sanctity and his martyrial status.

Chants such as the first Lauds antiphon Sancti tui Domine would likely have been heard frequently throughout the year: the late fifteenth-century antiphoner A-Wda C-10 from Vienna, for example, gives the antiphon in six different Offices—Sts Tiburtius, Valerian, and Maximus (martyrs); St George (martyr); Mark the Evangelist; for the Common of Saints in Eastertide; John before the Latin Gate (martyr); and the translation of St Stephen’s relics (martyr). This textual and melodic repetition in disparate yet ideologically related offices would reinforce the chant’s connection with martyrial sanctity, strengthening its association with the commemoration of martyrs in the minds of worshippers, thus cementing St Adalbert’s position within the host of martyred saints.

The process of properisation commonly begins with the antiphons for canticles (those for the Magnificat in First and Second Vespers and for the Benedictus in Lauds) and the first antiphon in First Vespers, which lends its incipit to the entire Office. The Hungarian Office for St Adalbert contains a mixture of Proper and Semi-Common chants in these positions, some of which are found in other Offices for St Adalbert, although not always in the same position. The Hungarian Office for the translation of Adalbert’s relics contains O immarcescibilis rosa as the antiphon for the Magnificat in First Vespers, Exora dilecte Dei as the First Vespers responsory, Christi martyr Adalbertus as the sixth responsory in Matins, and Gloria Christo Domino as the antiphon for the Benedictus at Lauds. The latter is also used as the Lauds canticle antiphon within the Bohemian Office Benedic regem cunctorum.26

The Magnificat antiphon Magna vox laude is adapted from the tenth-century Office for the martyr saint Lambert, the Bishop of Maastricht [c. 636–c. 705] traditionally ascribed to Stephen of Liège. The text differs from the Lambert original only in the saint’s name, the substitution of resultat for exultet, and the addition of an alleluia as is common in chants in Eastertide (

Table 2. Text of Magna vox laude in the Offices of St Lambert (in the sixteenth-century Franciscan antiphoner B-Br 6434 from the diocese of Liège, ff. 89r–v)27 and St Adalbert (in SK-BRsa SNA 2, f. 192v). Differences are highlighted in bold.

St Lambert	St Adalbert
Magna vox laude sonora te decet per omnia quo poli chorea gaudet aucta tali compare terra plaudit et resultat digna tanto presule o sacer Lamberte martyr nostra vota suscipe.	Magna vox laude sonora te decet per omnia quo poli corea gaudet aucta tali compare terra plaudit et exultet digna tanto presule o sacer Adalberte martir nostra vota suscipe, alleluia.

). Musically, the chants are nearly identical, differing in only minor details and in the cadences on compare and in the final line, where the descending phrase on vota from a to C is extended to also cover suscipe before the addition of a concluding alleluia (see Figure 1).

The chant was also used within other Offices, with the text further adapted for each saint. In the twelfth-century antiphoner CH-SGs 388 (pag.299) the chant is given in the Office for Remaclus with the text ‘et resultat digna tanto praesule o sacer Remacle praesul nostra’. In the thirteenth-century antiphoner F-R 248 the chant is used for both Philibert and Aichardus (ff. 72r and 91r, respectively). The fifteenth-century Antiphonale Scepusiense SK-Sk 2 includes it within the feast for Aegidius (f. 148r), with the wording ‘et resultat digna tanto abbate o sacer Aegidi confessor nostra’. The recurrence of versions of the chant for St Lambert across multiple Offices underscores the adaptability of Semi-Common chants in the creation of a shared context. In this chant, the emphasis is not on Adalbert’s martyrial identity, but rather his dual role as missionary and Bishop of Prague, despite both Lambert and Adalbert being martyrs. Set amongst a backdrop of chants from the Common of Martyrs, the inclusion of this antiphon in the wider sphere of saint’s offices musically highlights Adalbert’s place among the bishops (St Lambert, of Maastricht-Liège; St Remaclus, of Maastricht), missionaries (St Remaclus), and church leaders (St Philibert and St Aichardus, abbots at Jumièges) within the host of saints.

At first glance, the Proper responsory Exora dilecta Dei appears to also musically move Adalbert away from the realm of martyrial sanctity, being a contrafact of Accessit ad pedes from the Office for Mary Magdalene (see Figure 2). However, there does exist an underlying martyrial link. In the Middle Ages, Mary Magdalene was viewed by some as a spiritual martyr, one who suffered through spiritual or compassionate agonies. As noted by Katherine Ludwig Jansen (Jansen 2001, p. 37):

‘The Franciscan cardinal Matteo d’Aquasparta (d.1302) preached similarly when he suggested that the Virgin Mary, Mary Cleopas, and Mary Magdalen standing at the foot of the cross were themselves crucified by the compassionate agony they felt at the Crucifixion. Another Franciscan, François de Meyronnes, awarded Mary Magdalen the quadruple tiara. It will be remembered that one coronet—that of precious gemstones—was destined for martyrs. François argued that indeed Mary Magdalen herself was a martyr because she had been “impaled by the sword of the death of Christ.” Eudes de Châteauroux preached simply that the Magdalen was a martyr on account of her compassion.’28

Similarly, Andrew Louth argues that within the early church, the ‘martyr becomes pre-eminently one of the saints who has successfully and finally borne witness to Christ with his death’ (Louth 2011, p. 5), yet again linking Adalbert as a martyr witness to Mary Magdalene who first witnessed Jesus’ resurrection (John 20:11–18). Thus, despite the very different Proper texts between Exora dilecta Dei (which pleads with the saint to intercede on the behalf of sinners) and Accessit ad pedes (which references Mary’s washing of Jesus’ feet), the two feasts share a common understanding of sanctity, reinforced by the shared sound.

The Magdalene responsory is found in manuscripts from the Central (Strigonium) Hungarian Dum redemptoris nostri Office (e.g., on f. 91v of the Antiphoner of Bratislava, SK-Bra BAI ECLad.3).29 Thanks to the similarity in text length, the melody of Accessit ad pedes fits over the new Exora dilecta Dei text with limited modification. In the first line, the notes over the three-syllable peccatrix are expanded by a rising F-ac opening to fit the four-syllable Adalberte, and the melisma on osculata est is expanded through the process of dieresis to supply notes for the longer qui summus pro culpis phrase.30 In the second half of the chant, the Magdalene phrase et tersit capillis is expanded by the splitting of the ter- ligature to match the Adalbertine te iungi mereamur, and the EFGabGF cadence on -to is changed to GF-F on -tio. The verse of the new Adalbertine chant is longer than the Magdalene chant, so small changes have been made in the first half to accommodate the extra syllables, allowing the melismatic ending to be retained.

The most noticeable difference between the two responsories is the addition of two concluding Paschal alleluias within the Adalbertine text, which required the creation of new melodic material. Alleluia (‘Praise ye the Lord’) is a jubilant phrase which by its very nature was itself sacred. This was a common feature of Semi-Common and Proper chants planted into a new Paschal context. While alleluias were sung throughout the year, their suppression during the Lenten period and following abundance during Eastertide would mean that their addition to chants used in an office at this time would reinforce its position amongst the other Paschal celebrations.31

In Exora dilecte Dei the alleluia melody is composed in a fairly melismatic style consistent with the rest of the chant, with the second syllable of both words rising to c, dropping a fifth to F and rising again to b, and cadencing on the finale F. Alleluias were also added to other Semi-Common and Proper chants within the Office, such as Magna vox laude discussed above.

Removal of alleluias was also common in chants which moved from a Paschal setting to elsewhere in the liturgical calendar. The Proper responsory Mors lictorum velox for St Ludmilla, for example, is a contrafact of Felix spina cuius for De corona spinea, in which the original concluding alleluia is excised to fit the new liturgical setting (Figure 3). Most of the chant is very similar to the original De corona spinea melody, with the original inter-linear Gallican cadence (CD-D) now becoming the final cadence at the end of the respond.

The O immarcescibilis rosa Office for St Adalbert, thanks to its predominant and economical corpus of chants from the Common of Martyrs, was immediately identifiable as a feast for a martyr saint. The use of these ‘common sounds’, including the addition of Paschal alleluias, affirmed his sanctity, drawing connections in the minds of worshippers to the pan-European sphere of martyrs including St Lambert and the compassionate martyr Mary Magdalene.

4. St Demetrius: A Borrowed Sound

As seen within Exora dilecta Dei for St Adalbert, contrafacta provided a layer of intertextual nuance understood by those familiar with the music.32 The melodies, already associated with the celebration of sanctity within a sacred environment, imbued the new text with this rich history from its very inception. The Office for St Demetrius, Perennis patrie regis, found in the fifteenth-century Antiphonale Scepusiense (SK-Sk 2) was captured in a later stage of properisation, with a full nine-lesson Office: three full nocturns in Matins, although still only one antiphon, a hymn, and an antiphon for the Magnificat given in First Vespers. The chants within this Office not only directly place the feast within the corpus of martyr commemorations but also make overt links to the feast of St Laurence, commonly found in Hungarian and other Central European manuscripts.

Demetrius of Thessalonica [270–305/6] was a Christian martyr born in Sirmium (now Sremska Mitrovica; in Hungarian, Szávaszentdemeter) and was honoured as a patron saint of Hungary in the Middle Ages.33 His image is even present in an enamel plaque on the rim of the Crown of Saint Stephen presented to the King of Hungary, Géza I, in 1075 by the Emperor of Byzantium, Mikhaḗl Doúkās VII (Moravcsik 1947).34

Zsuzsa Czagány and Peter Tóth have dated an early version of this Office with chants from the Common of Martyrs to the eleventh century, with a reworking of the repertoire starting in the twelfth.35 The Office is present in twelve sources (mostly un-notated breviaries) from medieval Hungary,36 but the only notated source with the full Office is the fifteenth-century Antiphonale Scepusiense (SK-Sk 2, ff. 190v–195v) from the northern Szepes (Spiš) Chapter.37 Comparison between this source and un-notated breviaries reveals the instability of the repertoire of Matins responsories as late as the fifteenth century, evidencing the slow process of properisation.

The Office transmitted in the Antiphonale Scepusiense is mostly formed of Proper items, but includes four Common chants, one Semi-Common, and four Proper chants with contrafacted melodies (

Table 3. Chants with borrowed texts or melodies in the Office for St Demetrius in SK-Sk 2 (ff. 190v–195v). * indicates the chant is provided as incipit only.

Position	Chant Incipit	Type	Melody Source
VH	Deus tuorum militum	Common
VAM	A progenie in progenies	Common
MI	Pretiosi martyris Demetrii	Contrafact	Prestolantes redemptorem
MA2.1	Ultimi doloris dominice	Contrafact	Nature genitor conserva
MR2.1	Nestor iam renatus v/Per nomen sancti Demetrii	Contrafact	Audi Israel precepta v/Observa igitur et audi
MR2.3	Beatus vir Demetrius * v/Qui potuit transgredi *	Semi-Common
MA3.1	Omnium quos celum	Contrafact	In circuitu tuo Domine
MR3.3	Christi martyr gloriose v/Ut celestis regni	Common
LH	Martir Dei qui	Common

). The Common chants are all used in various feasts, but Deus tuorum militum, Christi martyr gloriose, and Martyr Dei qui are found predominantly in Offices for martyr saints or in the Commune unius Martyris and Commune plurimorum Martyrum.

The responsory Beatus vir Demetrius is given as only an incipit on f. 193r with the rubric ‘Require de sancto Laurencio’, referring back to the full chant Beatus vir Laurentius on ff. 124v–125r in the office for St Laurence, a fellow martyr. A Beatus vir* incipit is also found as the first Matins responsory on f. 46r within the Office for John before the Latin Gate, which commemorates the martyrdom of the apostle John in a cauldron of boiling oil at the hands of the Emperor Domitian.38 The text of the Laurentine chant is adapted from Ecclesiasticus 31:8–10,39 and is also found within the Commune unius Martyris in the fourteenth-century antiphoner PL-WRu Ms. R 503 (Wrocław, ff. 224v–225r) where an elongated sign is given after vir to allow for the insertion of a specific name.40 The Ecclesiasticus passage is quoted in chants for other feasts, often for martyrs, although with slightly different quotations. For example, Beatus vir qui inventus from the Commune unius Martyris Pontificis in A-Gu 29 (olim 38/8 f.), f. 334r. This antiphon quotes the entirety of verses 8–10 without the specific excisions found in the responsory mentioned above. The act of physically turning to an earlier folio to find the chant within the Office of St Laurence would cement the link between the two feasts in the minds of the users of the volume. Alternatively, perhaps this rubric indicates that for the users of the Antiphonale Scepusiense Beatus vir Laurentius was known by heart and could be easily transposed into the feasts of St Demetrius and John before the Latin Gate. This overt interaction between St Demetrius and other well-known martyrs enhances the Perennis patrie regis Office’s association with martyrial sanctity.

The four contrafact chants within the Office are fairly standard, with melodies coming not from other saints’ Offices, but rather from the fourth Monday in Advent, the Sunday ferial Office, the fourth Sunday of Lent, and the Commune plurimorum Martyrum (Prestolantes redemptorem, Nature genitor conserva, Audi Israel precepta, and In circuitu tuo Domine, respectively). None of the contrafacts within this Office are exact. Most of the new texts are slightly longer than their source chants, thus necessitating the addition of extra melodic material. The more similar the melody is to its source material, the easier the mental link between the new chant and the old context; the contrafacta within Perennis patrie regis mostly adhere closely to their melodic source.

In the antiphon Ultimi doloris dominice (Figure 4), for example, simple syllabic extensions are added for the (bolded) syllables dominice, latere, and in pace. The Ultimi doloris dominice text refers directly to martyr saints, ‘those redeemed by death’, which resonates with the new Nature genitor conserva text which calls attention to the final moments of St Demetrius. Through the shared thanatic language the martyrial sanctity conveyed by the melody is extended into the new office for St Demetrius.

A similar intertextuality is seen within the Matins antiphon Omnium quos celum (Figure 5), which is a contrafact of In circuitu tuo Domine from the Commune plurimorum Martyrum.41 The text of both chants refers to the place of saints in heaven: In circuitu tuo Domine mentions that God has prepared the ‘brightest dwellings where the souls of the saints rest’ while in Omnium quos celum St Demetrius ascends to heaven after his passing.

In circuitu tuo Domine was a very common antiphon within both the Common of Martyrs and individual martyr feasts: in the twelfth to fourteenth century manuscript A-LIb 290 from Kremsmünster, for example, In circuitu tuo Domine is found in the feasts for St Boniface (f. 319v), St Basilides and companions (f. 319v), Sts Mark and Marcellian (f.321r), Sts Abdon and Sennen (f. 335r), St Hippolytus (f.339v), Sts Cosmas and Damian (f.353v), Sts Germanus and Vedastus (f. 357r), and St Quintinus (f. 363r). Apart from the confessors Germanus and Vedastus, each of these are martyr saints.42 As Catherine Bradley notes, a melody carries the association of its most widely used text (Bradley 2013, p. 66), thus the text of Omnium quos celum is underpinned by a connection to martyrial sanctity through its borrowed melody.

The music of the Demetrian antiphon follows the martyrial source closely until the last phrase (indicated by a bracket in Figure 5) where In circuitu tuo Domine falls to its lowest note C before rising to the finalis G. Instead, Omnium quos celum quickly rises to c before descending to the same finalis. This Demetrian ending appears unique to this chant and may represent a regional or manuscript variation. Unfortunately, no other notated versions of Omnium quos celum have been discovered to date (only four un-notated Strigonium breviaries HR-Zmk MR 67, H-Ba Ráth F 1042, RO-AJ R. I. 110, and F-Pnm ms. Lat. 8879), and Hungarian examples of In circuitu tuo Domine are only evident, without notation, in two fifteenth-century Esztergom breviaries (F-Pnm ms. Lat. 8879 and RO-AJ R. I. 110). It is thus impossible to offer any definitive origins for this variant, but it raises questions regarding the level of intentionality by the composer of this contrafact—was this a change made due to a lack of notation in the source manuscript, or was it an aesthetic change?

While in many contrafact chants changes to the melody were small, in some instances larger adaptations were made due to text differences, liturgical contexts, and even due to apparent aesthetic preferences of the composer. The text of the original Commune melody rises to its highest pitch—d—on lumen and lucidissimas (light and most radiant) and gently falls to its lowest note—C—on animae, with the low ending framing the solemn and contemplative requiescunt animae sanctorum. In the Demetrian chant, however, the arc rising to and falling from the d frames the text gradibus virtutum.43 The new musical phrase then introduces a second rise to and descent from c on iocundissimus, perhaps melodically reinforcing the joyful nature of Demetrius’ spiritual journey described in the text.

The Perennis patrie regis Office for St Demetrius reveals the way in which ‘borrowed sounds’ were used to convey an understanding of sanctity through established melodies and shared contexts. Each contrafact melody is itself the bearer of a rich meaning, crafted and curated through its history with other texts and in other situations.44 These meanings are brought through into the new context, in this case the feast for the martyred St Demetrius, enveloping the new texts with a pre-established acceptance of sanctity.

5. Conclusions

Within the Church, the sanctity of a feast is crafted by a combination of many factors: including the building and environment, the solemnity or festivity of the day, the specific rites and rituals used within the service, and the words and melodies used and heard by the worshippers. For many, the use of Latin limited their understanding of specific textual nuances, leaving the music to act as a universal language. Thus, the melodies themselves became a vehicle for the understanding of sanctity. The borrowing of familiar and pre-sanctified chants, texts, and melodies was central to the creation of new liturgies in the late Middle Ages. The letter from the canons of Olomouc shows that such borrowing was recognised by the community, and that a chant’s contextual association persisted into the new festal context. The feasts of Jan Hus, Adalbert, and Demetrius reveal that borrowed chants could both create sanctity and affirm an established sanctity.

In the earliest stages of properisation, Common chants lent new feasts both legitimacy and authority. Common and Semi-Common chants where only a name or adjective needed to be personalised were an economical and easy choice which added complexity and nuance to the new feast. These chants were often sung multiple times throughout the church year, within related celebrations of the same type—here martyrs—thus creating a shared context amongst multiple feasts. In some cases, elements of the chant were changed to fit the new context—for example, the addition or removal of alleluias—but close borrowing throughout the rest of the chant ensured that the links remained obvious.

In the later stages of properisation, contrafacta extended this practice, allowing composers to resonate their Proper texts with the melodic connotations of their models; as Helen Deeming argues, “contrafacta may form a kind of ‘virtual polyphony’ (or ‘virtual sounding together’) of two texts” (Deeming 2015, p. 127) within the minds of worshippers. Textual similarities—where both the original and new texts shared a common theme—reinforced this link, and thus the sense of contextual cohesion and continuity. Contrafacta therefore allowed composers to play with the character of the chant through the inherited melodies, sonically infusing the text with its source’s complementary identity. Thus, the ‘saintly sound’ from existing celebrations is made more saintly by its new context, associating the sound with an ever-broadening sphere of sanctity. Ultimately, the use of ‘shared sounds’ within Offices for regional martyr saints instantly created a recognisable sanctity for the new feast, understood by singers, celebrants, participants, and opposition alike.