Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: When did Gregorian chant first develop?
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed mainly in western and central Europe during the 9th and 10th centuries, with later additions and redactions. Although popular legend credits Pope Gregory I with inventing Gregorian chant, scholars believe that it arose from a later Carolingian synthesis of Roman chant and Gallican chant.
Chant II is a 1995 album of Gregorian chant, performed by the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos in Burgos, Spain. It is a follow-up to the 1994 release "Chant", the best-selling album of Gregorian chant. Like the first album, it included material which had been recorded by the monks some years previously.
Chanting (e.g., mantra, sacred text, the name of God/Spirit, etc.) is a commonly used spiritual practice. Like prayer, chant may be a component of either personal or group practice. Diverse spiritual traditions consider chant a route to spiritual development.
Some examples include chant in African, Hawaiian, and Native American, Assyrian and Australian Aboriginal cultures, Gregorian chant, Vedic chant, Qur'an reading, Islamic Dhikr, Baha'i chants, various Buddhist chants, various mantras, Jewish cantillation, and the chanting of psalms and prayers especially in Roman Catholic (see Gregorian chant or Taizé Community), Eastern Orthodox (see Byzantine chant or Znamenny chant, for examples), Lutheran, and Anglican churches (see Anglican Chant).
Between the 8th and 13th centuries, however, the Carolingian chant commissioned by Charlemagne developed into what we now know as Gregorian chant, which began to influence and eventually replace most of the other Western plainchant traditions. By the 12th century, the Mozarabic, Gallican, Celtic, Old Roman, and Beneventan chant traditions had all been effectively superseded by Gregorian chant. Ambrosian chant alone survived, despite the efforts of several Popes over a period of several centuries to establish Gregorian hegemony. A chronicle by the Milanese historian Landolphus from around the year 1000 recounts a legend that two Sacramentaries, one Gregorian and one Ambrosian, were placed on an altar to see which chant had divine acceptance; miraculously, both books opened simultaneously, showing both were equally acceptable.
The other plainchant repertories of the Christian West faced severe competition from the new Gregorian chant. Charlemagne continued his father's policy of favoring the Roman Rite over the local Gallican traditions. By the 9th century the Gallican rite and chant had effectively been eliminated, although not without local resistance.[22] The Gregorian chant of the Sarum Rite displaced Celtic chant. Gregorian coexisted with Beneventan chant for over a century before Beneventan chant was abolished by papal decree (1058). Mozarabic chant survived the influx of the Visigoths and Moors, but not the Roman-backed prelates newly installed in Spain during the Reconquista. Restricted to a handful of dedicated chapels, modern Mozarabic chant is highly Gregorianized and bears no musical resemblance to its original form. Ambrosian chant alone survived to the present day, preserved in Milan due to the musical reputation and ecclesiastical authority of St. Ambrose.
Gallican chant refers to the liturgical plainchant repertory of the Gallican rite of the Roman Catholic Church in Gaul, prior to the introduction and development of elements of the Roman rite from which Gregorian chant evolved. Although the music was largely lost, traces are believed to remain in the Gregorian corpus.
Gregorian melodies provided musical material and served as models for tropes and liturgical dramas. Vernacular hymns such as "Christ ist erstanden" and "Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist" adapted original Gregorian melodies to translated texts. Secular tunes such as the popular Renaissance "In Nomine" were based on Gregorian melodies. Beginning with the improvised harmonizations of Gregorian chant known as organum, Gregorian chants became a driving force in medieval and Renaissance polyphony. Often, a Gregorian chant (sometimes in modified form) would be used as a cantus firmus, so that the consecutive notes of the chant determined the harmonic progression. The Marian antiphons, especially Alma Redemptoris Mater, were frequently arranged by Renaissance composers. The use of chant as a cantus firmus was the predominant practice until the Baroque period, when the stronger harmonic progressions made possible by an independent bass line became standard.
Gregorian chant appeared in a remarkably uniform state across Europe within a short time. Charlemagne, once elevated to Holy Roman Emperor, aggressively spread Gregorian chant throughout his empire to consolidate religious and secular power, requiring the clergy to use the new repertory on pain of death.[20] From English and German sources, Gregorian chant spread north to Scandinavia, Iceland and Finland.[21] In 885, Pope Stephen V banned the Slavonic liturgy, leading to the ascendancy of Gregorian chant in Eastern Catholic lands including Poland, Moravia and Slovakia.
Gregorian chant was traditionally sung by choirs of men and boys in churches, or by men and women of religious orders in their chapels. It is the music of the Roman Rite, performed in the Mass and the monastic Office. Although Gregorian chant supplanted or marginalized the other indigenous plainchant traditions of the Christian West to become the official music of the Christian liturgy, Ambrosian chant still continues in use in Milan, and there are musicologists exploring both that and the Mozarabic chant of Christian Spain. Although Gregorian chant is no longer obligatory, the Roman Catholic Church still officially considers it the music most suitable for worship.[2] During the 20th century, Gregorian chant underwent a musicological and popular resurgence.
Ambrosian chant did not wholly escape Gregorian influence. The earliest 8th-century fragments, and the more complete chantbooks from the 11th and 12th centuries that preserve the first recorded musical notation, show marked differences between the Gregorian and Ambrosian repertories. Later additions to the Ambrosian repertory, whose style differs from the earlier chants, may reflect Gregorian influence. Although St. Charles Borromeo fought to keep the Ambrosian rite intact during Spanish occupation, a contemporary edition of Ambrosian chant, published by Perego in 1622, attempts to categorize the Ambrosian chants into the eight Gregorian modes, which is not generally accepted as an accurate reflection of the actual musical practice of the time.
Italy was the site of several key musical developments in the development of the Christian liturgies in the West. Around 230, well before Christianity was legalized, the "Apostolic Tradition" of Hippolytus attested the singing of Psalms with refrains of Alleluia in Rome. In 386, in imitation of Eastern models, St. Ambrose wrote hymns, some of whose texts still survive, and introduced antiphonal psalmody to the West. Around 425, Pope Celestine I contributed to the development of the Roman Rite by introducing the responsorial singing of a Gradual, and Cassian, Bishop of Brescia, contributed to the development of the monastic Office by adapting Egyptian monastic psalmody to Western usage. Later, around 530, St. Benedict would arrange the weekly order of monastic psalmody in his "Rule". Later, in the 6th century, Venantius Fortunatus created some of Christianity's most enduring hymns, including "Vexilla regis prodeunt" which would later become the most popular hymn of the Crusades.
The earliest extant music in the West is "plainsong", a kind of monophonic, unaccompanied, early Christian singing performed by Roman Catholic monks, which was largely developed roughly between the 7th and 12th centuries. Although Gregorian chant has its roots in Roman chant and is popularly associated with Rome, it is not indigenous to Italy, nor was it the earliest nor the only Western plainchant tradition. Ireland, Spain, and France each developed a local plainchant tradition, but only in Italy did several chant traditions thrive simultaneously: Ambrosian chant in Milan, Old Roman chant in Rome, and Beneventan chant in Benevento and Montecassino. Gregorian chant, which supplanted the indigenous Old Roman and Beneventan traditions, derived from a synthesis of Roman and Gallican chant in Carolingian France. Gregorian chant later came to be strongly identified with Rome, especially as musical elements from the north were added to the Roman Rite, such as the Credo in 1014. This was part of a general trend wherein the manuscript tradition in Italy weakened and Rome began to follow northern plainchant traditions. Gregorian chant supplanted all the other Western plainchant traditions, Italian and non-Italian, except for Ambrosian chant, which survives to this day. The native Italian plainchant traditions are notable for a systematic use of ornate, stepwise melodic motion within a generally narrower range, giving the Italian chant traditions a smoother, more undulating feel than the Gregorian. Crucial in the transmission of chant were the innovations of Guido d'Arezzo, whose "Micrologus", written around 1020, described the musical staff, solmization, and the Guidonian hand. This early form of do-re-mi created a technical revolution in the speed at which chants could be learned, memorized, and recorded. Much of the European classical musical tradition, including opera and symphonic and chamber music can be traced back to these Italian medieval developments in musical notation, formal music education and construction techniques for musical instruments.
Characteristic of this rite was the Beneventan chant, a Lombard-influenced chant that bore similarities to the Ambrosian chant of Milan. The Beneventan chant is largely defined by its role in the liturgy of the Beneventan rite; many Beneventan chants were assigned multiple roles when inserted into Gregorian chantbooks, appearing variously as antiphons, offertories, and communions, for example. It was eventually supplanted by the Gregorian chant in the 11th century.
Semiology (from Greek σημεῖον "sēmeion", "a sign, a mark") is a branch of Gregorian Chant research. Semiology refers specifically to the study of the neumes as found in the earliest fully notated manuscripts of Gregorian Chant, the oldest of which have been dated to the 9th century. The first application of the term 'semiology' (which first appeared in the 1960s) for the study of Latin chant was made by Dom Eugène Cardine (1905–1988), a monk of the Abbey of Solesmes. In this context, 'semiology' is understood as 'the study of musical signs'. Text and neumatic notation, together with significative letters adjoined to the neumes, presents an effective and integrated mnemonic for the rhythmical interpretation and the melody. While Gregorian palaeography offers a description of the various neumes and their rhythmical and melodic values, Gregorian semiology explains their meaning for practical interpretation. 
During the Lombard occupation of the 7th and 8th centuries, a distinctive liturgical rite and plainchant tradition developed in Benevento. It included feasts of special local importance such as the Holy Twelve Brothers of Benevento. At the time it was called "cantus ambrosianus" ("Ambrosian chant"), although it is a separate plainchant tradition from the chant of Milan which we call Ambrosian chant. The common use of the name "cantus ambrosianus", the common influence of the Lombards in both Benevento and Milan, and musical similarities between the two liturgies and chant traditions suggest a Lombard influence in the origins of Beneventan chant.
Gregorian chant had already begun to take hold in the Beneventan orbit as early as the 8th century. The two traditions appear to have coexisted for about a century before the Gregorian chant began to replace the native Beneventan. Many Beneventan chants exist only as interpolations and addenda in Gregorian chantbooks, sometimes next to their corresponding chants in the Gregorian repertory. External ecclesiastical influences, such as two German abbots at Montecassino during the 11th century, led to an increasing insistence on the Roman rite and Gregorian chant instead of the local Beneventan traditions. One of these abbots later became Pope Stephen IX, who in 1058 officially outlawed the Beneventan rite and chant. A few Beneventan chants continued to be recorded and performed for a time, especially for the feasts of local importance such as the Holy Twelve Brothers, which had no Gregorian counterpart. However, the Beneventan repertory as a whole fell into disuse. This was commemorated in a legend of a singing contest between a Gregorian and a Beneventan cantor, which ended in victory for the Gregorian repertory when the Beneventan cantor fainted from exhaustion.
Gregorian chant is a variety of plainsong named after Pope Gregory I (6th century A.D.), although Gregory himself did not invent the chant. The tradition linking Gregory I to the development of the chant seems to rest on a possibly mistaken identification of a certain "Gregorius", probably Pope Gregory II, with his more famous predecessor.
The growing number of choirs or scholae that perform Gregorian Chant according to these developments are thus said to follow the 'semiological approach'. The International Society for the Study of Gregorian Chant (Associazione Internazionale Studi di Canto Gregoriano) carries on the legacy of Eugène Cardine, putting special emphasis on bridging the gap between Gregorian research and praxis. The Society has some 500 members in 30 countries worldwide.
The monks of Solesmes, discussed above for their revival of Gregorian chant, issued a number of recordings. However, when Gregorian chant as plainchant experienced a popular resurgence during the new-age and world-music movements of the 1980s and '90s, the iconic album was somewhat unexpectedly Chant, recorded by the Benedictine monks of Santo Domingo de Silos, Spain. This was marketed as music to inspire timeless calm and serenity. In 2008, the Cistercian Monks of Austrian Heiligenkreuz Abbey released the CD Chant – Music for Paradise, which became the best-selling album of the Austrian pop charts and peaked #7 of the UK charts. In the US, the album was released under the title Chant – Music for the Soul and peaked at #4 on the Billboard classical charts.[69][70]
Gregorian chant eventually replaced the local chant tradition of Rome itself, which is now known as Old Roman chant. In the 10th century, virtually no musical manuscripts were being notated in Italy. Instead, Roman Popes imported Gregorian chant from (German) Holy Roman Emperors during the 10th and 11th centuries. For example, the Credo was added to the Roman Rite at the behest of the Emperor Henry II in 1014.[23] Reinforced by the legend of Pope Gregory, Gregorian chant was taken to be the authentic, original chant of Rome, a misconception that continues to this day. By the 12th and 13th centuries, Gregorian chant had supplanted or marginalized all the other Western plainchant traditions.
The first extant sources with musical notation were written around 930 (Graduale Laon). Before this, plainchant had been transmitted orally. Most scholars of Gregorian chant agree that the development of music notation assisted the dissemination of chant across Europe. The earlier notated manuscripts are primarily from Regensburg in Germany, St. Gall in Switzerland, Laon and St. Martial in France.
The changes made in the new system of chants were so significant that they have led some scholars to speculate that it was named in honor of the contemporary Pope Gregory II.[17] Nevertheless, the lore surrounding Pope Gregory I was sufficient to culminate in his portrayal as the actual author of Gregorian Chant. He was often depicted as receiving the dictation of plainchant from a dove representing the Holy Spirit, thus giving Gregorian chant the stamp of being divinely inspired. Scholars agree that the melodic content of much Gregorian Chant did not exist in that form in Gregory I's day. In addition, it is known definitively that the familiar neumatic system for notating plainchant had not been established in his time.[18] Nevertheless, Gregory's authorship is popularly accepted by some as fact to this day.[19]
Not every Gregorian chant fits neatly into Guido's hexachords or into the system of eight modes. For example, there are chants — especially from German sources – whose neumes suggest a warbling of pitches between the notes E and F, outside the hexachord system, or in other words, employing a form of chromatism.[38] Early Gregorian chant, like Ambrosian and Old Roman chant, whose melodies are most closely related to Gregorian, did not use the modal system.[39] The great need for a system of organizing chants lies in the need to link antiphons with standard tones, as in for example, the psalmody at the Office. Using Psalm Tone i with an antiphon in Mode 1 makes for a smooth transition between the end of the antiphon and the intonation of the tone, and the ending of the tone can then be chosen to provide a smooth transition back to the antiphon. As the modal system gained acceptance, Gregorian chants were edited to conform to the modes, especially during 12th-century Cistercian reforms. Finals were altered, melodic ranges reduced, melismata trimmed, B-flats eliminated, and repeated words removed.[40] Despite these attempts to impose modal consistency, some chants — notably Communions — defy simple modal assignment. For example, in four medieval manuscripts, the Communion Circuibo was transcribed using a different mode in each.[41]
It became conventional wisdom that listening to Gregorian chant increased the production of alpha waves in the brain, reinforcing the popular reputation of Gregorian chant as tranquilizing music.[71] Gregorian chant has often been parodied for its supposed monotony, both before and after the release of Chant. Famous references include the flagellant monks in Monty Python and the Holy Grail intoning "Pie Jesu Domine dona eis requiem" (Good Lord Jesus, grant them rest). "The Gregorian Chant" was the title of a British television play in the 60's starring Billie Whitelaw as a prostitute with unexpectedly refined tastes. Gregorian chant has been also used in Vision of Escaflowne and Death Note anime series, Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the theme of the Temple of Time in the Legend of Zelda series and the Halo series of videogames, although it had been used in such a number of productions and movies that this is only a very selective list of examples.
Bluegrass band Cornbread Red did a cover of the song on a tribute album to Green Day "Pickin' on Green Day", while the German choir Gregorian did a cover, on their "Masters of Chant Chapter V" album, in the style of a Gregorian Chant.
Willi Apel and Robert Snow assert a scholarly consensus that Gregorian chant developed around 750 from a synthesis of Roman and Gallican chants, and was commissioned by the Carolingian rulers in France. Andreas Pfisterer and Peter Jeffery have shown that older melodic essentials from Roman chant are clear in the synthesized chant repertory. There were other developments as well. Chants were modified, influenced by local styles and Gallican chant, and fitted into the theory of the ancient Greek octoechos system of modes in a manner that created what later came to be known as the western system of the eight church modes. The Metz project also invented an innovative musical notation, using freeform neumes to show the shape of a remembered melody.[16] This notation was further developed over time, culminating in the introduction of staff lines (attributed to Guido d'Arezzo) in the early 11th century, what we know today as plainchant notation. The whole body of Frankish-Roman Carolingian chant, augmented with new chants to complete the liturgical year, coalesced into a single body of chant that was called "Gregorian."
Old Roman chant is the liturgical plainchant repertory of the Roman rite of the Early Christian Church. It was formerly performed in Rome, and, although it is closely related to the Gregorian chant, the two are distinct. The Gregorian Chant gradually supplanted the Old Roman Chant between the 11th century and the 13th century AD. Unlike other chant traditions (such as Ambrosian chant, Mozarabic chant, and Gallican chant), Old Roman chant and Gregorian chant share essentially the same liturgy and the same texts. Many of their melodies are also closely related. Although primarily associated with the churches of Rome, the Old Roman chant was also performed in parts of central Italy, and it was possibly performed much more widely.