**Innocent Smith**

**Abstract:** The Order of Preachers possesses a venerable chant tradition that dates back to the thirteenth century. This essay describes Dominican chant, showing how it developed as a consequence of the attitudes to the liturgy expressed in the Ancient Constitutions of the Order of Preachers. These constitutions stressed that the liturgy was to be performed with careful attention to bodily posture, with a succinctness and brevity that would allow time for study and preaching, and with gradations of solemnity that would express the inner hierarchy of parts of the liturgy and of the liturgical year. After the initial development of the repertoire, Dominican chant has gone through periods of decline and revival, which are briefly traced in this article together with a consideration of the place of the chant in the contemporary practice of the Order. Throughout the last eight centuries, the chant of the Order of Preachers has played an important role in the inculcation and preservation of Dominican identity within the Order and in the lives of individual friars and sisters.

Reprinted from *Religions*. Cite as: Smith, I. Dominican Chant and Dominican Identity. *Religions* **2014**, *5*, 961–971.

#### **1. Introduction**

Dominican chant is a dialect of the Latin liturgical chant repertoire popularly known as Gregorian chant<sup>1</sup> . When St. Dominic (1170–1221), a canon regular from Osma in Spain, founded the Order of Preachers in 1216, he established a mode of life that balanced liturgical prayer, monastic observance, and academic study as a preparation for and mode of sustaining the apostolic ministry of preaching. Unlike many earlier forms of monastic life that emphasized stability of place, St. Dominic envisaged a form of life in which friars could easily travel from priory to priory and from church to church in order to carry out their preaching activity more effectively. In addition, St. Dominic instituted a mode of governance (perhaps modeled in certain respects on the Order of Cîteaux founded in the previous century) in which friars from local communities would participate in a representative form of centralized governance by means of Provincial and General Chapters and by means of visitations in which superiors of the Order could inspect the mode of life of local communities in order to ensure a flourishing of communal and apostolic life. Over the course of the 13th century, the mobility of the friars led to the recognition of a need for a standardized form of the liturgy that could be used by friars in different communities in the midst of the tremendous liturgical diversity then present in the Catholic world. In the early 13th century, the followers of St. Dominic gradually began to compile a repertoire of liturgical chants that was subsequently standardized in the mid-13th century and which has continued to develop and expand over the eight centuries of the Order's existence. These Dominican chants often share their texts with the broader Roman rite but often feature melodic

<sup>1</sup> For a broad overview of Latin liturgical chant, see [1], especially the consideration of various repertoires and reforms of Latin chant in pp. 524–621.

variations from the broader repertoire. Today, these variant melodies may still be sung in celebrations of the Mass and Liturgy of the Hours in the contemporary Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite. In this essay, brief and succinct consideration will be given to the distinctive aspects and history of the Dominican chant repertoire.

#### **2. Dominican Chant and the Body**

For the early Dominicans, chant was an integral aspect of divine worship. According to Humbert of Romans, a thirteenth century Dominican who exercised a profound influence on the development of the Dominican liturgical tradition, divine worship requires a profound unity of heart, mouth, and body ([2], p. 160)2 . Thus, a complete consideration of Dominican chant must consider not only the words or the melodies that are sung by the mouth, but also the preparation of the heart and the posture of the body.

Despite the association of Gregorian chant with monks floating in the air singing ethereal melodies conjured up for many today due to the success of the 1994 *Chant* album of the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos, chant for Dominicans has always been understood as being fundamentally *embodied*. It is striking that the first chapter of the Dominican *Constitutiones antiquae*, adapted from the Constitutions of Premontré and compiled over the period from 1217–1235, already specifies certain bodily postures for the singing of various types of chant: for instance, a profound bow is made while singing the *Gloria Patri* and when listening to the priest sing the collect at the Mass and Office, as well as during the final verses of the hymns of the office, the *Suscipe deprecationem nostram* of the *Gloria*, the *Homo factus est* of the Creed, and so forth; the brothers genuflect while singing the opening sections of the *Salve sancta parens* (Officium/Introit antiphon) and *Veni sancte Spiritus* (sequence); further, one side of the choir stands during the first psalm while the other sits, and then sits while the second side stands, in alternation ([5], pp. 313–14). These regulations indicate that from the earliest days of the Order there was a well-established liturgical custom in which chant was integrated into a system of postures that were carefully collated with the liturgical action at hand<sup>3</sup> . In his *Commentary on the Constitutions*, Humbert of Romans offers extensive explanations of the significance of the posture of the body during the different chants ([2], pp. 160–71). Throughout its history, the Order has retained this fundamental link of chant and bodily posture<sup>4</sup> .

<sup>2</sup> Humbert of Romans (c. 1200–1277) administered a standardization of the Dominican liturgy while serving as the fifth *Magister ordinis* [Master of the Order] from 1254–1263. After his resignation as Master, Humbert continued to have a profound influence on the development of various aspects of the Dominican life through his commentaries on the Constitutions of the Order of Preachers and the Rule of St. Augustine and his writings on the duties of various friars in the Order. On Humbert's life and significance, see [3]. A more recent, though as yet unpublished, critical edition of Humbert's *Expositio* may be found in [4].

<sup>3</sup> In the late 13th century, a text known as the "Nine Ways of Prayer of St. Dominic" associated various liturgical postures with the private prayer of St. Dominic, offering an example for Dominicans who wished to imitate these prayer postures of their founder; see [6]. For further considerations on the body and gesture in the Middle Ages, see [7].

<sup>4</sup> For a contemporary application of these principles, see the guidelines concerning posture at Mass and Office indicated in [8], pp. lxxix–lxxxiv.

For the medieval Dominicans, chant was understood to play an important role in the cultivation of personal devotion on the part of those participating in communal worship. According to the Dominican friar St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224–1274), the use of the body and the voice in divine worship helps arouse devotion in the heart [*mens* or *affectus*] of the worshipper<sup>5</sup> , and allows one to serve God "with everything that he has from God, that is, not only with the mind [*mente*], but also with the body [*corpore*]"<sup>6</sup> . For Thomas, "it was fittingly instituted that chant should be used in the divine praises, that the souls of the weak might be more incited to devotion"<sup>7</sup> , although he makes an important distinction for Dominicans by nothing that "it is a more noble mode to lead men to devotion by teaching and preaching than through chant."<sup>8</sup>

Another aspect of the relationship of chant and the body is the Dominican emphasis on strong or virile singing ([2], p. 105). St. Dominic was known for his strong and clear voice; in choir, he would walk from one side to the other, exhorting the brothers to sing with a strong voice, and while on journeys would frequently sing liturgical hymns such as the *Ave Maris Stella* and *Veni Creator Spiritus* ([12], p. 140). Paradoxically, St. Dominic's strong singing would also lead him to tears: he was also known to prefer to celebrate the Sung High Mass when he could find a suitable church, and when he would celebrate Mass, tears would often run down his face ([12], pp. 124, 162). We may also recall that St. Thomas Aquinas was given the gift of tears while praying the liturgy, particularly during the chanting of the *Media vita* (*Nunc dimitis* antiphon) [13].

#### **3. The** *Constitutiones Antiquae* **and Dominican Chant**

The fourth chapter of the first distinction of the *Constitutiones antiquae* contains succinct articulations of four other aspects of the Dominican attitude to chant:

"Our brothers ought to hear Matins and Mass and all the canonical hours together, and they ought to eat together, unless otherwise the prelate wishes to dispense anyone. All the hours in the church should be said briefly and succinctly, lest the brothers should lose devotion or be at all impeded in their study. We say that this is to be done such that in the middle of the verse a *metrum*  with a pause should be preserved, not by extending the voice at the pause or at the end of the verse,

<sup>5</sup> Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II, q. 81, a. 7, response: "Et ideo in divino cultu necesse est aliquibus corporalibus uti, ut eis, quasi signis quibusdam, mens hominis excitetur ad spirituales actus, quibus Deo coniungitur"; *cf.* ST II-II, q. 91, a. 1, response: "Proficit etiam laus oris ad hoc quod aliorum affectus provocetur in Deum."

<sup>6</sup> Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II, q. 83, a. 12, response: "[S]ecundum totum illud quod ex Deo habet, idest non solum mente, sed etiam corpore."

<sup>7</sup> Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II, q. 91, a. 2, response: "[S]alubriter fuit institutum ut in divinas laudes cantus assumerentur, ut animi infirmorum magis provocarentur ad devotionem."

<sup>8</sup> Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II, q. 91, a. 2, ad 3: "[N]obilior modus est provocandi homines ad devotionem per doctrinam et praedicationem quam per cantum." For further reflections on the relationship between liturgical solemnity and devotion in Thomas Aquinas, see [9]. For a detailed treatment on Aquinas's appreciation of various aspects of the medieval liturgy and his place within the medieval liturgical commentatorial tradition, see [10,11].

but, as was said, they should be ended briefly and succinctly. However, this should be observed to a greater or lesser extent according to the season." ([5], p. 316)9 .
