Ad imaginem suam : Regional Chant Variants and the Origins of the Jeu d'Adam

Abstract

Ad imaginent suant: Regional Chant Variants and the Origins of the Jeu d'Adam Charles T. Downey The earliest surviving dramatic work in the French vernacular is a semiliturgical playnowknown as theJeu d'Adam.This singularwork ispreserved in onlyone manuscriptcopy,Tours, Bibliothèque municipale, 927—a book copied in soutiiern France between 1225 and 1250.1 Scholars have hypothesized that the play was originally created in the second half of the twelfth century, in an Anglo-Norman dialect,2 and that it is either the conglomeration ofmultiple fragments or the work ofa single author.3 Most specialists agree that the play originated either in northern France, under the domination ofEngland,4 orin England itself,5 despite the southern French origin ofthe only surviving manuscript copy. The first section ofthe play is semiliturgical because it indicates by textual incipitseven prolix responsories—Gregorian chants usually sung as part of Matins, the most substantial service in the cycle of prayers known as the Divine Office—to be performed by a chorus at certain points in the action.6 Some editors ofthe playhave attempted to supply complete texts—and,in certain cases, music—forthese responsories.The earliest was Jacques Chailley, who collaborated witii Gustave Cohen on an edition of the play for a performance at Chartres Cathedral. Their edition is die only one to provide notated music along with the responsorytexts .7 In his excellentedition ofdie play,WillemNoomen included what he believed were the full texts of the responsories, which he took froman edition ofGregorian chanttextsknown as theLiberresponsalis.6 Most recendy, Lynette Muir has provided texts for the responsories as found in English manuscript breviaries from HydeAbbeyandYork. Understandingthat the choice ofa manuscript source for the responsories 359 360ComparativeDrama was important, Muir selected English manuscripts because she believed thatthe playwas English in origin.9Although Chailleychose a northern French source, the textual readings of Muir and Chailley are identical, for the most part,while Noomen's texts appear to reflect a rather different version ofthe liturgy found principally in German-speaking countries . Onlythe earliest ofthese authors, Chailley, acknowledged regret at not being able to establish, as he put it,"a comparative version based on all die manuscripts."10 This study was undertaken in response to this problem—what might a comparative examination of a broad range of Gregorian chant manuscripts reveal about theJeu d'Adam7. The singingofGregorian chant, especially in the Divine Office,varied significantly from region to region in the Middle Ages: which feasts were celebrated and to what degree ofsolemnity, which texts were set to music, the form of the melodies sung to tiiose texts, and die selection and ordering ofeven the mostfamiliar pieces.11 The responsory, in particular , offers a range ofdetails that maydiffer regionally—most importantly , the selection of its verse.12 In manuscripts across Europe, many common responsories are found matched to two ormore differentverses, altering slightly or significantiy the textual and musical content.13 On the feasts of Septuagésima and Sexagésima, when the responsories included in the Jeu d'Adam were usually performed, die ordering of the responsories and the verses assigned to the responsories differ from manuscript to manuscript. Most important ofall, some manuscripts do not record all seven responsories used in the play. What the manuscript evidence makes clear is that the Gregorian chants used in theJeu d'Adam would not necessarily have been known to all European churchmen in the twelfth century. Ifthe responsories are truly integral to the play's action,14 these differences , as revealed by die manuscript survey conducted for this study, indicate die geographical and liturgical background ofone ofthe play's creators to be different from what has been supposed previously. Two important research tools now available to scholars interested in Gregorian chant have provided easy access to a broad range of manuscript sources forcomparisonoftheAdam responsories.The firstis RenéJean Hesbert's Corpusantiphonalium officii (hereafterreferredto as CAO), a parallel transcription and index ofthe textual contents oftwelve litur- Charles T. Downey361 gical manuscripts ofthe Divine Office; although several ofthem do not include musical notation, the CAO sources are considered to be among die oldest and most complete witnesses to die liturgical traditions of a range ofEuropeanmonasteries andchurches.15The second is adatabase ofcomputerized...

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