. Poetic texts and chants were written in the thousands during the later Middle Ages, both for newly instituted feasts of the Lord and for saints’ feasts. The development of this genre of liturgical poetry and music reflects the increasing use of rhymed, accentual texts, until after the 12th century, when this style predominated. This vast repertory of poetic texts and music, although often reflective of the most intense spiritual or political drives of individual regions, religious orders, monasteries, and churches, is not comprehensively catalogued, edited, or even much studied.
The versified texts are primarily antiphons and great responsories as sung in First and Second Vespers, Matins, and Lauds; the little Hours commonly repeat the antiphons of Lauds, and new material is not usually fashioned for Compline. The long series of antiphons and responsories sung at Matins was often compiled so that the chants, which were commonly adapted for the new texts from earlier sources, were arranged in modal order.
Margot Fassler
[See also: DIVINE OFFICE]
Crocker, Richard. “Matins Antiphons at St. Denis.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 39(1986):441-90.
Dolbeau, Frangois. “Hagiographie latine et prose rimee: deux exemples de vies episcopates redigees au XII siede.” Sacris erudiri 32(1991):223-68.
Epstein, Marcy J. “‘Ludovicus decus regnantium’: Perspectives on the Rhymed Office.” Speculum 53(1978):283-333.
Hughes, Andrew. “Late Mediaeval Rhymed Offices.” Journal ofthe Plainsong and Mediaeval Music Society 8(1985): 33-49.
--.“Modal Order and Disorder in the Rhymed Office.” Musica disciplina 37(1983):29-52.
--. “Word Painting in a Twelfth-Century Office.” In Beyond the Moon: Festschrift Luthier
Dittmer, ed. Bryan Gillingham and Paul Merkley. Ottawa: Institute of Mediaeval Music, 1990, pp. 16-27.
Jonsson, Ritva. Historia: etudes sur la genese des offices versifies. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1968.
World History
