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The development and evolution of gregorian chant
Need help? ☎ 0115 966 7955 For centuries, Gregorian chant was considered the of f icial music of the Catholic Church. Naturally, this degree of importance placed on the genre gives it considerable signif icance, both religious and cultural. Its exact beginnings, however, are not absolutely known. Also, chant has changed over time due to it being based on practices of the Church, which have also changed over time due to decrees by various popes, agendas of monastic orders, and the inf luences of and intermingling of cultures, such as the Franks, Romans, and Byzantines. Although the name of Gregorian chant is derived f rom Pope Gregory I “T he Great”, it has its roots much earlier in history, predating Christianity. In f act, Christian chant is believed to have been originally derived f rom Judaism, as there was a considerable amount of common ground between Jewish and early Christian liturgies (Werner 20). T his is seen through writings of the early church which show that the early Christian church was heavily inf luenced by Hebrew worship (Barton). However, there is little inf ormation available f rom chants of early centuries compared to Gregorian chant and other chants of later centuries (Hiley 478). One reason f or this is that musical notation f or chants of this time did not exist, f or at this time chants were an entirely oral rather than written tradition. Also contributing to this lack of inf ormation is that early Christians were persecuted, f orcing private worship until the Edict of Milan of 313, which gave Christians the right of f reedom of worship in Rome (484). Due to this f reedom, Christianity could af f ord to become more f ormalized and organized, its music included. T here is f urther ambiguity surrounding the specif ic origins of Gregorian chant in considering Pope Gregory himself . What...