Against the Dangers of the Night: The Compline Versicle Custodi nos domine and its Tropes in Medieval France

Abstract

While few proper chants, let alone tropes or polyphony, survive for compline from medieval Europe, monastic and secular clergy across France between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries bestowed compositional and poetic attention upon one of its simplest chants, the psalmic versicle Custodi nos domine. Contrasting with its customary formulaic recitation, the brief versicle appears in song-form tropes as early as the twelfth century, initially linked to the troping of office liturgies for Christmas octave feasts (Epiphany and Circumcision) and then associated with the newly established feast of Corpus Christi. This article explores the previously unexamined practice of monophonic and polyphonic troping of the compline versicle, tracing iterations of the troped versicle in French service books and among liturgies for the feasts of the Circumcision, Epiphany, and Corpus Christi, as well as in non-liturgical music collections. I illustrate how such tropes contribute to the festal and musical flexibility of the Custodi nos domine versicle, which serves chiefly as a prayer for protection against sin, evil, and the dangers of the night, and thus foregrounds the central themes of compline and the versicle rather than of any single feast day.