THE OLD AND NEW HISTORICAL VIEWS OF GREGORIAN CHANT: PAPAL AND FRANCISCAN PLAINCHANT IN THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ROME

Abstract

Research on the origins and history of Gregorian and Old Roman chant has not produced a unanimous view about thirteenth-century plainchant practice in Rome. While there is consensus that Gregorian chant supplanted the Old Roman chant in Rome during the thirteenth century, there are dissenting voices about the origins of Gregorian chant and its status in Rome before and during the thirteenth century.1 On the one hand, there is the traditional historical view of western plainchant, as revised by Bruno St?blein and Stephen van Dijk. They argue that the Gregorian repertory was the result of a late seventh-century musical revision of the Old Roman repertory, and that the two plainchant traditions existed side-by-side in Rome until the late thirteenth century, when the cumulative activities of court liturgists, the Franciscans and Pope Nicholas III brought about the introduction of the Gregorian melo dies in Roman churches which still used Old Roman chant.2