**5. Conclusions**

The Order of Preacher's attitude to chant was already articulated in the early 13th-century *Constitutiones antiquae*. The fundamental characteristics of this attitude are recognition of an integral link between chant and the body, an emphasis on communal celebration of the liturgy that allows for the absence of individuals, a practice of performing chants briefly and succinctly, and a sophisticated sensitivity to gradations of solemnity. These attitudes led to the development of a distinct chant repertoire in the mid-13th century as an expression of these fundamental approaches. The Order is the cause, and the chant repertoire is the effect. However, once the repertoire is formed, it in turn helps form a Dominican identity for individuals who enter the Order.

A related phenomenon may be observed in the case of individual Dominicans who are venerated as saints. Their mode of life and their specific path to holiness was partially formed by their liturgical life. Each of the Dominican saints sang the petition that Christ might "deign to place us among your saints and your elect" (*nos collocare digneris inter sanctos et electos tuos*) in the Lenten antiphon *O Rex gloriose,* and now they themselves are among the saints that their successors in the Order are referring to when they sing this chant. Similarly, after the canonization of St. Dominic, the Order began to sing the request that Dominic would "join us to the blessed" (nos junge beatis) in the O Lumen. The text and melody of the chants have remained the same, but the referent of "saints" or "blessed" is continually growing as the Order progresses through history, giving those who sing it at a later date a sense of confidence that the life they are living may in fact help them to become saints. Further, just as individual Dominican saints and blesseds have received special charisms or gifts from the Holy Spirit for the sake of undertaking unusual tasks or for offering an extraordinary witness of sanctity, these distinctive elements of their lives are in turn put forward as exemplars for their successors in the Order in the antiphons and other chants of the saint's feast that describe the lives of the saints. Thus, the liturgy helps to form a Dominican saint, and the liturgy composed in honor of that saint helps to form other Dominicans.

In this essay, we have explored the distinctive attitudes to chant expressed by the early Dominicans and considered the development of the chant repertoire as a practical expression of these principles. Throughout the last eight centuries, the chant of the Order of Preachers has played an important

<sup>17</sup> See in particular the section "Cantus gregorianus et aliae formae cantus" in the "Adnotationes complementares" of [8], §§24–27, pp. 15–16.

<sup>18</sup> Cf. Choeur Des Frères Dominicains De La Province De France, dir. André Gouzes, *Chant Grégorien—Liturgie Dominicaine* (1994). Friars of the Holy Trinity Convent in Cracow, *Veni Lumen Cordium* (1990); *Alma redemptoris* (1991); *Requiem* (1991); *In Epiphania Domini* (1997); *In Nativitate Domini* (2000).

role in the inculcation and preservation of Dominican identity within the Order and in the lives of individual friars and sisters. Further research remains to be undertaken to establish a better sense of the distinctiveness and commonality of the Dominican chant repertoire with respect to other dialects or repertoires of Latin chant, such as those used by the Franciscans, the Cistercians, and the various local churches and cathedrals of the Christian world in the middle ages. Nevertheless, the Dominican chant repertoire is a subject of great importance on account of the influence it has wielded throughout history in the formation of Dominican saints and theologians.
