The Diffusion of Gregorian Chant in Southern Italy and the Masses for St. Michael

Abstract

This chapter examines the ways in which liturgical chants used for the rites of the Catholic church often bear a multiplicity of cultural influences by drawing on local religious and mythic symbols and placing them in a set of shared biblical, theological, and liturgical elements. It focuses on Gregorian chant in the Beneventan region of southern Italy, tracing the ways that chant repertoires adapted thematic elements from the cultural heritage of the different populations who came into the area, including Lombards, Byzantines, and Normans, along with local pre-Christian cultic elements associated with the Monte Gargano. The chapter concludes that this chants show local processes of remodeling and adaptation of liturgical chants—processes of localization that characterize the repertory of Gregorian chant in other times and places as well.