GREGORY
780
GREGORY
centuries respectively, and a considerable number
belonging to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
An incomplete manuscript belongs to the twelfth
century. It is at present in the British Museum
and has been published in the fifth volume of the
"Palfegraphie musicale". All these manuscripts
contain the chants both for the Office and for the
Mass. The Office chants are antiphons and re-
sponses, as in the Roman books. The Mass chants
are Ingressa (corresponding to the Introit, but with-
out psalm), PsalmeUus (Gradual), Cantiis (Tract),
Offertory, Transilorium (Communion), and, in addi-
tion, two antiphons having no counterpart in the Gre-
gorian Mass, one post Evangdium, the other the Con-
jrnrlorium. There are, further, a few Alleluia verses
and antiphons aiite EvangeUum. Musically it can
easily be observed that the syllabic pieces are often
simpler, the ornate pieces more extended in their
mclismala than in the Gregorian chant. The Gre-
gorian melodies, however, have more individuality
and characteristic expression. Though it is very
doubtful whether these Ambrosian melodies date back
to the time of St. Ambrose, it is not improbable that
they represent fairly the character of the chant sung in
Italy and Gaul at the time when the cantilena romana
superseded the earlier forms. The frequent occurrence
of cadences founded on the cursus at all events points
to a time before the latter went out of use in literary
composition, that is before the middle of the seventh
century. (See Gatard in " Diet, d'arch. ehret.", s. v.
"Ambrosien (chant)" and Mocquereau, "Notes sur
1 'Influence de 1 'Accent et du Cursus toniques Latins
dans le Chant Ambrosien" in " Ambrosiana ", Milan,
1897.)
The name Gregorian chant points to Gregory the Great (590-604), to whom a pretty constant tradition ascribes a certain final arrangement of the Roman chant. It is first met in the writings of William of Hirschau, though Leo IV (847-855) already speaks of the cantus Sti. Gregorii. The tradition mentioned was questioned first by Pierre Gussanville, in 1675, and again, in 1729, by George, Baron d'Eckhart, neither of whom attracted much attention. In modern times Gevaert, president of the Brussels music school, has tried to show, with a great amount of learn- ing, that the compilation of the Mass music belongs to the end of the seventh or the beginning of the eighth century. His argmnents led to a close investiga- tion of the question, and at present practically all authorities, including, besides the Benedictines, such men as Wagner, Gastou^, and Frere, hold that the large majority of plain-chant melodies were com- posed before the year 600.
The principal proofs for the Gregorian tradition may be summarized thus: (a) The testimony of John the Deacon, Gregory's biographer (c. 872), is quite trustworthy. Amongst other considerations the very modest claim he makes for the saint, " antiphonarium centonem compilavit" (he compiled a patch- work antiphonary), shows that he was not carried away by a desire to eulogize his hero. There are several other testimonies in the ninth century. In the eighth century we have Egbert and Bede (see Gastou6, "Les Origines", etc., 87 sqq .) . The latter, in particular, speaks of one Putta, who died as bishop in 688, "ma- xime modulandi in ecclesia more Romanorum peritus, quem a discipulis beati papa; Gregorii didicerat". In the seventh century we have the epitaph of Hono- rius, who died in 638 (Gastou(5, op. cit., 93): — .... divine in carmine pollens Ad vitam pastor ducere novit ovis
Namque Gregorii tanti vestigia iusti
Dum sequeris cupiens meritumque geris
—that is: "Gifted with divine harmony the shepherd
leads his sheep to life . . . for while following the
footsteps of holy Gregory you have won your reward."
According to this it was thought in Rome, less than
forty years after the death of St. Gregory, that the
greatest praise for a music-loving pope was to com-
pare him to his predecessor Gregory, (b) The feasts
known to have been introduced after St. Gregory use
in the main melodies borrowed from older feasts. See
the detailed proof for this in Frere's "Introduction",
(c) The texts of the chants are taken from the " Itala"
version, while as early as the first half of the seventh
century St. Jerome's correction had been generally
adopted, (d) The frequent occurrence in the plain-
chant melodies of cadences moulded on the literary
cursus shows that they were composed before the
middle of the seventh century, when the cursus went
out of use.
Gevaert, Les Origines du Chant Liturgique de VEglise Latine (Ghent, 1890); Idem, La Mctopee Antique dans le Chant de i'Eglise Latine (Ghent. 1895); Morin, Les Veritahles Origines du Chant Gregorien (Maredsous, 1890); Cagin, Un Mot sur VAntiphonale Missarum (Solesmes, 1890); Brambach, Gregori- anisch (Leipzig, 1895, 2nd ed., 1901); Frere, Introduction to the Graduate Sarisburiense (London, 1894); Paleographie musi- cale, IV; Wagner, Introduction to the Gregorian Melodies^ pt. I (1901, Englished, by the Plainsong and Medieval Music Society, London, chapter xi); Gastou^, Les origines du Chant Romain (Paris, 1907), pt. II, i; Wtatt, St. Gregory and the Gregorian Music (London, 1904).
H. Bewerunge.
Gregory I (the Great), Saint, Pope, Doctor of the Church; b. at Rome about 540; d. 12 March, 604. Gregory " is certainly one of the most notable figures in Ecclesiastical History. He has exercised in many respects a momentous influence on the doctrine, the organization, and the discipline of the Catholic Church. To hira we must look for an explanation of the re- ligious situation of the Middle Ages: indeed, if no account were taken of his work, the evolution of the form of medieval Christianity would be almost inex- plicable. And further, in so far as the modern Catho- lic system is a legitimate development of medieval Catholicism, of this too Gregory may not unreason- ably be termed the Father. Almost all the leading principles of the later Catholicism are found, at any rate in germ, in Gregory the Great" (F. H. Dudden, "Gregory the Great", I, p. v). This eulogy by a learned non-Catholic writer will justify the length and elaboration of the following article.
I. From birth to 574. — Gregory's father was Gor- dianus, a wealthy patrician, probably of the famous gens Anicia, who owned large estates in Sicily and a mansion on the Coelian Hill in Rome, the ruins of which, apparently in a wonderful state of preservation, still await excavation beneath the Church of St. Andrew and St. CJregorj'. His mother Silvia appears also to have been of good family, but very little is known of her life. She is honoured as a saint, her feast being kept on 3 November (see Silvia, Saint). Por- traits of Gordianus and Silvia were painted, by Greg- ory's order, in the atrium of St. Andrew's monastery, and a pleasing description of these may be found in John the Deacon (Vita, IV, Ixxxiii). Besides his mother, two of Gregory's aunts have been canonized, Gordian- us's two sisters, Tarsilla and J^Imiliana, so that John the Deacon speaks of his education as being that of a saint among saints. Of his early years we know noth- ing beyond what the history of the period tells us. Between the years 546 and 552 Rome was first cap- tured by the Goths under Totila, and then abandoned by them; next it was garrisoned by Belisarius, and besieged in vain by the Goths, who took it again, how- ever, after the recall of Belisarius, only to lose it once more to Narses. Gregory's mind and memory were both exceptionally receptive, and it is to the effect produced on him by these disasters that we must attribute the tinge of sadness which pervades his writings and especially his clear expectation of a speedy end to the world. Of his education we have no details. Gregory of Tours tells us that in grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic he was so skilful as to be thought
