The Latin holding of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France include under group 17716 a manuscript coming from the Cluniac Priory of St-Martin-des-Champs (Paris). Basing themselves on the developed state of the Venerabilium Abbatum Cluniacensium appearing as folios 95-100, the authors of the catalogue of dated manuscripts proposed that the manuscript was prepared towards the end of the XII century, after 1189. But the contents, the ornamental lettering and the pictorial illustrations (both full-page and smaller) make it possible to suggest an even slightly later date. The manuscript forms a coherent whole as much from the codicological as from the paleographic and stylistic point of view; the whole being written in the same hand and illustrated by the same artist, with the exception of the notes on the succession of abbots at Cluny from Hugues IV, 1199, to the election of Jean, Cardinal of Lorraine, in 1528, copied by XV and XVI C. hands.
Four blocks of texts can be distinguished. After two prefaces of the mass, the manuscript opens (folio 2r) with Marian prosae and sequences – some composed by Pierre le Vénérable himself, also author of a prosa in honour of Hugues de Semur. These items include folios 8r-22v, the office of the Transfiguration, also by Pierre le Vénérable.The second block, by far the most important (folio 25v ff) is constituted by a re-worked version of De Miraculis of Pierre I le venerable, trimmed of some episodes and garnished with added texts.
The beginning of the third block (folio 70v ff) equally concerns Hugues de Semur. Two of his acts are transcribed: one in favour of his own foundation, the retreat of Marcigny-sur-Loire for women, already the object of a eulogy introduced in the preceeding “Miracula”; and the other the statue by which the abbot established on the Octave of Pentecost a general memorial service for all the dead buried in Cluny cemetery.
The last book assembles the essential proceedings in the history of the Clunias franchise (folio 80r ff).The manuscript ends with the bull issued by Urban II to Saint-Martin-des-Champs in 1096 on the occasion of the entry of the Priory in the Ecclesia Cluniacensis and on the Venerabilium Abbatum Cluniacensium Chronologia. Guillaume II, Abbot of Cluny from 1207 to his abdiction in 1215, who came from England, had been prior of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, and his mother had been a nun at Marcigny-sur-Loire. It may be thought that the abbot had ordered this collection to be made simply as a memorial of texts regarded as essential for Cluniac history. The operative choices are very instructive. Around 1100, Cluny thus again took up the liturgical work of Pierre le Vénérable with an important collection of miracles which are a monument to the memory of Hugues de Semur and the Vénérable and also a formulation of the principal ideas of the Ecclesia Cluniacensis (particularly the efficacy of its funerary ministry). Finally, there are the founding texts of the Clunias independence: the recitals of the principal relics constituting ist sacred space, and the acts (foundation charter, papal bulls) which limit this “sacred proclamation”.
Four blocks of texts can be distinguished. After two prefaces of the mass, the manuscript opens (folio 2r) with Marian prosae and sequences – some composed by Pierre le Vénérable himself, also author of a prosa in honour of Hugues de Semur. These items include folios 8r-22v, the office of the Transfiguration, also by Pierre le Vénérable.The second block, by far the most important (folio 25v ff) is constituted by a re-worked version of De Miraculis of Pierre I le venerable, trimmed of some episodes and garnished with added texts.
The beginning of the third block (folio 70v ff) equally concerns Hugues de Semur. Two of his acts are transcribed: one in favour of his own foundation, the retreat of Marcigny-sur-Loire for women, already the object of a eulogy introduced in the preceeding “Miracula”; and the other the statue by which the abbot established on the Octave of Pentecost a general memorial service for all the dead buried in Cluny cemetery.
The last book assembles the essential proceedings in the history of the Clunias franchise (folio 80r ff).The manuscript ends with the bull issued by Urban II to Saint-Martin-des-Champs in 1096 on the occasion of the entry of the Priory in the Ecclesia Cluniacensis and on the Venerabilium Abbatum Cluniacensium Chronologia. Guillaume II, Abbot of Cluny from 1207 to his abdiction in 1215, who came from England, had been prior of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, and his mother had been a nun at Marcigny-sur-Loire. It may be thought that the abbot had ordered this collection to be made simply as a memorial of texts regarded as essential for Cluniac history. The operative choices are very instructive. Around 1100, Cluny thus again took up the liturgical work of Pierre le Vénérable with an important collection of miracles which are a monument to the memory of Hugues de Semur and the Vénérable and also a formulation of the principal ideas of the Ecclesia Cluniacensis (particularly the efficacy of its funerary ministry). Finally, there are the founding texts of the Clunias independence: the recitals of the principal relics constituting ist sacred space, and the acts (foundation charter, papal bulls) which limit this “sacred proclamation”.
after Dominique Logna-Prat
The music presented in this manuscript contributes to an idea of what the culture of the XIIème century could have been: in essence that the voiced word.
It avoids the rectilinear but supports accent as pillars support vaults. It respects and honours preceding centuries by using basically formal elements and its invention is distinguished by a non-rectilenear art phrased melodiously and as well as the increasing use of “effects” not encountered again for a long time.
If this manuscript hardly recognizes polyphony, notwithstanding the influence of the proses of the school of Saint-Martial-de-Limoges, this is because the author seems to have gone to the limit possible in non-accentual plainsong. That is to say it is without regular beats which “break up” time into measures, but without flattening the music evenly into what will come to termed “plainsong”. This music still expresses linear time, a mystic time.Moreover Pierre le Vénérable here again demonstrates his knowledge of other cultures (notably Greek) as is evidenced by his “Kyrie Eleison”. […]
The songs to the Virgin in the manuscript BNF LAT. 17716 differ from those of the Transfiguration by the use of less extreme texture. It is a more interiorized music, better to accompany a choice of texts which exalts the “Mother of Sorrows”above all. The “lyrism” of these songs seems more considered. The melismata sustain the Virgin’s metaphors; “garden of flowering plants”, “resplended rose”, “scented rose”, “Lady of Sorrows”, “how sweet are the breasts whose drops put out the terrible flames of hell”. Number 12 alone shines with brilliance, “a child whose light is greater than the sun”.
Anne-Marie Deschamps
