St Agnes of Montepulciano

On the Dominican Calendar, today is the feast of St Agnes of Montepulciano, who predates Catherine of Siena among the great Saints of the Order of Preachers, although she was formally canonized very much later, in 1726. Prior to becoming a Dominican, St Agnes, who was born in 1268, was made abbess of a religious community at Procena at the age of only 15, by a special dispensation issued by the Pope. Her native city was so eager to have her back that a convent was founded specifically so that she could be the prioress of it, and affiliated to the then very new Dominican Order; she ruled over the house at Montepulciano until her death in 1317. When St Catherine, who was born 30 years later, came to her shrine to venerate her relics, as she stooped down to kiss St Agnes’ foot, the foot raised itself to meet her lips. Her life was written by Raymond of Capua, St Catherine’s spiritual director, who was himself beatified in 1899.

Our dear Roman pilgrim friend Agnese counts the Roman martyr as her principal patron and name Saint, but is also very devoted to this later Agnes. Our thanks to her for sharing with us these photos of the shrine at Montepulciano, where the Saint’s incorrupt body is preserved, along with a great many other relics.

Note the raised foot!

Continue Reading this Article. . .

St Agnes of Montepulciano

On the Dominican Calendar, today is the feast of St Agnes of Montepulciano, who predates Catherine of Siena among the great Saints of the Order of Preachers, although she was formally canonized very much later, in 1726. Prior to becoming a Dominican, St Agnes, who was born in 1268, was made abbess of a religious community at Procena at the age of only 15, by a special dispensation issued by the Pope. Her native city was so eager to have her back that a convent was founded specifically so that she could be the prioress of it, and affiliated to the then very new Dominican Order; she ruled over the house at Montepulciano until her death in 1317. When St Catherine, who was born 30 years later, came to her shrine to venerate her relics, as she stooped down to kiss St Agnes’ foot, the foot raised itself to meet her lips. Her life was written by Raymond of Capua, St Catherine’s spiritual director, who was himself beatified in 1899.

Our dear Roman pilgrim friend Agnese counts the Roman martyr as her principal patron and name Saint, but is also very devoted to this later Agnes. Our thanks to her for sharing with us these photos of the shrine at Montepulciano, where the Saint’s incorrupt body is preserved, along with a great many other relics.

Note the raised foot!

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Recent Discoveries on the Origins of the Stabat Mater

Nuns Singing in the Bologna MS

On this feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, formerly the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary, I thought it would be suitable to present to our readers a transcription of the text and music of a thirteenth-century version of the Stabat Mater, recently discovered by Prof. Cesarino Ruini in a manuscript that once belonged to a convent of Dominican Nuns in Bologna, Italy, and on which I have recently posted. A miniature of the Bologna nuns, from their manuscript, decorates this post.

The discovery of this manuscript, as explained in the article available here (in Italian), shows by the date of the manuscript that the traditional ascription of authorship to Jacopone of Todi can no longer be sustained. The date, however, leaves open the possibility, often mentioned, that it is the work of Pope Innocent III. Perhaps it was composed by the Dominincan nuns of Sant’Agnese in Bologna.

This version is interesting for a number of reasons. First, this is the earliest use of the text as a sequence. Until the discovery of this version, it was only known as a hymn until the late middle ages. This manuscript shows that the earliest known use of the text as a sequence was among Italian Dominican nuns in the 1200s. Next, the text includes not only a number of verbal variants, but also includes two verses absent from the commonly received version. Those who wish to examine these can download my transcription and compare the text to the received version here.

Even more interesting is the music. As pointed out to me by the Dominican nuns of Summit NJ, this ancient sequence borrows, with the exception of one stanza (cf. verses 19 and 20), the melodies of the Sequence of St. Dominic in the Dominican Rite. There are a number of minor musical variants as well. Those interested might want to compare the music to that found in the Dominican Gradual for the Mass of St. Dominic.

Through the kindness of a reader who converted the PDFs of this music into JPGs, here are images of the newly discovered 13th-Century Stabat Mater. I am aware that these images are a bit blurry; if you click on them or download them, you will get a clearer image.

Dominican Cloistered Nuns Make the New York Times!

My friends and sisters, the Dominican Nuns of Summit NJ  have just been featured in the New York Times Style Section.

I am not going to summarize the lovely article since you can read it yourself here. They have been experiencing over the past decade a surge in vocations, also described in the article.

Many readers know them for their famous soaps. Liturgically, they are well-know for their excellent hymnal, The Summit Choirbook.

More on 13th Century Dominican Stabat Mater

(This is a repost as there were problems with links in the original post.)

As the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows is approaching on September 15, I thought it would be suitable to present to our readers a transcription of the text and music of the thirteenth-century version of the Stabat Mater, recently discovered by Cesarini Ruini in a manuscript that once belonged to a convent of Dominican Nuns in Bologna, Italy, and on which I have recently posted. A miniature of the Bologna nuns, from their manuscript, decorates this post.

I have transcribed the manuscript version of this music and made it available:

here

Unfortunately I cannot post it as an image on the blog because I have been unable to create a jpeg from the pdf file. Those interested can download a copy. I have taken the liberty of transposing the music to match the do-clef which would be more common today. The manuscript used a fa-clef in unusual positions to avoid the use of the b-flat, the usual Dominican medieval practice. It seemed better to avoid this oddity, which has not been used in Dominican music books since 1890.

In the current Liturgy of the Hours, the Stabat is prescribed for us, divided into three parts, as the Office hymns of that day. Use as a hymn was the most common medieval use. It is also preserved, in its more common modern liturgical use, as the sequence of the feast.

The discovery of this manuscript, as explained in the article available here. (in Italian), shows, by the date that the traditional ascription of authorship to Jacopone of Todi can no longer be sustained. The date, however, leaves open the possibility, often mentioned, that it is the work of Pope Innocent III.

This new version is interesting for a number of reasons. First, this is the earliest use of the text as a sequence. Until the discovery of this version, it was only known as a hymn until the late middle ages. This manuscript shows that the earliest known use of the text as a sequence was among Italian Dominican nuns in the late 1200s.

Next, the text includes not only a number of verbal variants, but also includes two verses absent from the commonly received version. Those who wish to examine these can download my transcription and compare the text to the received version here.

Even more interesting is the music. As pointed out to me by the nuns of Summit NJ, this ancient sequence borrows, with the exception of one stanza melody (cf. verses 19 and 20), the melodies of the Sequence of St. Dominic in the Dominican Rite. There are a number of minor musical variants as well. Those interested might want to compare the music to that found in the Dominican Gradual of 1950, which can be downloaded here or (with many other Dominican liturgical books) on the left side bar here.

Perhaps some Dominicans (and non-Dominicans) may want to make use of the ancient version on the up-coming celebration of Our Lady of Sorrows.

Discovery of Thirteenth-Century Dominican Chant of Stabat Mater

It has been called to my attention that an important article has been published, announcing the discovery of the famous Stabat Mater used as a sequence in the Gradual produced by a convent of Dominican nuns in Bologna in the later thirteenth century. This is by far the earliest known example of this hymn used as a sequence rather than as a devotional hymn. It has been commonly believed that the hymn only became used as a sequence in the late middle ages. It is also interesting that the melody provided matches neither the received Roman one nor that found in the printed Dominican books. This text is found in Bologna: Museo Civico Medievale MS 518, fo. 200v-204r.

The news was published in Cesarino Ruini, "Un antico versione dello Stabat Mater in un graduale delle Domenicane bolognesi," Deo è lo scrivano ch’el canto à ensegnato: Segni e simboli nella musica al tempo di Iacopone, Atti del Convegno internazionale, Collazzone, 7-8 luglio 2006, ed. Ernesto Sergio Mainoldi and Stefania Vitale, Philomusica On-line, 9, no. 3 (2010). Those who would like the full text of the chant may find it at the end of this article.

For those who do not wish to read the article in Italian, here is the English summary:

The discovery of a Stabat Mater version set to music as a sequence in a late 13th-century Gradual from a Bolognese Dominican nunnery, makes it possible to advance new hypotheses about the origins and history of this renowned text. Untilnow there was no evidence that it was used as a sequence before the mid 15th century. The analysis of the piece highlights previously unidentified peculiarities regarding the historical and the liturgico-musical context in which it was used, whilst the comparison with the wealth of textual variants offered by its complex tradition points to concordances with later sources, mainly originating in Veneto and Emilia. As one of the earliest witnesses of this popular composition (there is only one other contemporary version, also from Bologna, but it is unnotated) there can be no doubt about its importance for textual criticism, and, inter alia, it does not favour the disputable paternity of Iacopone da Todi.

Here is the image of the manuscript with the beginning of the chant.



Careful readers will not that there are textual variants in this version as well. The Dominican Rite used by the friars added the Stabat Mater as a sequence on the feast of our Lady of Sorrows only in the 15th Century, conforming the rite to the Roman, which had already added it. But the melody is not that of the thirteenth-century version. Here it is for comparison:



And here for additional comparison is the first verse with the melody as found in the 1961 Roman Gradual:

I would hope that some attempt will be made to use this chant.

I thank Bro. Innocent Smith, O.P., for calling this article to my attention.

Dominican Nuns of Marbury, Alabama

I promised the Dominican nuns of the Monastery of St. Jude in Marbury, Alabama, that I would mention them to our readers and emphasize their dedication to Dominican Chant. But I also want to pay tribute to the community's commitment to racial justice. At the time of their founding in 1944, they were among the first cloistered nuns to break the color line in the Deep South, something very difficult at that time. To the right you can see a picture of the some of the youngest and oldest members of the community.

I have often been asked whether there are any houses of cloistered Dominican nuns in the United States who are dedicated to preserving the chants of the Dominican Order, and I have always answered that all the monasteries of nuns preserve the chant to a greater or lesser degree. But my friends, the sisters of Marbury, are especially dear to my heart because I have been collaborating with them for almost two years in the revision of their music.

Like most of the Dominican monasteries in the U.S., the sisters at Marbury were then using the "Neo-Gregorian" music produced back in the 1970s in the monastery of Buffalo N.Y. When the Dominican nuns, following the friars, adopted the new Roman Liturgy of the Hours back in 1970, they discovered that many, if not most, of the antiphons and other chants of the Liturgia Horarum were new creations and had no music in the medieval chant tradition. In a heroic project old melodies were adapted to fit the new texts. Monasteries of our nuns adopted this music around the world, when they did not convert to vernacular chants.

About two years ago, the sisters of Marbury contacted me asking if there were any way to replace the Neo-Gregorian music with authentic Dominican chants. I assured them that it was possible and we began the project of compiling a new Antiphonal using the order of authentic antiphons given in the Ordo Cantus Officii published by the Sacred Congregation in 1983. Almost all these antiphons have Dominican variants and the substitutions were made. Parts of this project were already in use by the nuns last spring, and when I visited Marbury to celebrate a Missa Cantata in the Dominican Rite for Ascension Thursday. I was then able to hear the Paschal Time Office, with its traditional Alleluia antiphons, in use with the Liturgia Horarum for the first time in my life. The chants for that Mass were those from the Dominican Gradual, which the nuns also use at their regular Extraordinary Form Masses according the Roman Missal of 1962.

The Marbury sisters have always maintained the chant as part of their life of prayer, and it is central to their daily Horarium. When complete, the Advent-Christmas volume of the new Antiphonal will contain the complete music for all the Hours, not just Vespers as at present. The sisters plan to begin introducing this restored music on the First Sunday of Advent. The only thing that will be lacking are the "prolix responsories" for use at the Office of Readings, but I have included those responsories appointed for use in place of the short responses at First Vespers of Solemnities by the 1983 Proprium Ordinis Praedicatorum. And page references are will be provided for those for use at the Office of Readings when not included. These can all be found in the Dominican Antiphonals of 1863 and 1933, both available for dowload in PDF format on the side bar of Dominican Liturgy. When complete this new Antiphonal will be available there too.

The Marbury sisters are a small community, but they have been blessed recently with an increase in vocations. They have asked me to call their community to the attention of young Catholic women who feel called to the Dominican spiritual tradition of study and prayer in the form of the Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, but especially to those women who have a love of Gregorian Chant. Those interested may find the vocation page here. Even if you are not thinking of a vocation to the sisters, their web page is still worth a visit.