"Of 'Stages' and 'Types' in Visitatione Sepulchri," in Comparative Drama 21 (1987), 34–61 and...

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Of "Stages" and "Types" in "Visitatione Sepulchri" (Part I) Author(s): Michael L. Norton Source: Comparative Drama, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Spring 1987), pp. 34-61Published by: Comparative DramaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41153260Accessed: 05-03-2016 20:31 UTC

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Of "Stages" and "Types" in

Visitatione Sepulchri (Part I)

Michael L. Norton

In 1887, Carl Lange proposed the means for ordering the repertory of the medieval Visitatio Sepulchri that remains the foundation for nearly all discussions of the subject. 1 Based in part upon Gustav Milchsack's four-part division of the repertory^ Lange's categorization of the Visitatio Sepulchri was as striking in its simplicity as it was to be pervasive in its influence. Using dramatic complexity as his guide, Lange separated the surviving texts of this Easter rite into three groups or "stages" {Stufen). The texts of the first stage depicted the encounter between the Marys and the angel (s) at the empty tomb of Christ, the texts of the second stage added the race to the tomb by the apostles Peter and John, while the texts of the third stage (the most complex within the hierarchy) included the appearance to Mary Magdalene of the risen Christ as well. The structure of the classification fit the available evidence admir-

ably, and in the course of time the framework provided by Lange's classification became so firmly entrenched in the scholarly understanding that later attempts to destroy the edifice could only manage to gut portions of its interior.3

After fully a century, this tripartite division of the repertory of the Visitatio Sepulchri shows few signs of decay. Indeed, to attempt even a cursory examination of the repertory without the framework provided by Lange's classification would be, if not an act of heresy, certainly an exercise in futility. The most recent edition of Visitatio texts barely deviates in its organization from that of Lange's edition,4 and one is hard pressed to find, even in the works of the most astute inquirers, a discussion of this form in terms other than those of Lange's three stages.

MICHAEL L. NORTON is a musicologist living in northern Virginia who is employed full-time as a computer systems analyst and part-time as a church music director.

34



Michael L. Norton 35

Its durability notwithstanding, this tripartite division of the repertory of the Visitatio Sepulchri is flawed. Far from illumi- nating the genre, in fact, Lange's classification has obscured both the structures and the structural distinctions evident among the more than 700 extant sources of this medieval form. Unrelated

settings of the Visitatio are juxtaposed within Lange's third stage, while related settings remain disjunct within the first two. A comparison of two settings representing Lange's third stage illustrates the problem.

One of the more frequently cited examples of this form is preserved in a thirteenth-century Graduale (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS. lat. 904) from the cathedral of Rouen (Example 1).5 An alternate arrangement is preserved in a thirteenth- century Antiphonary (Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August-Bibliothek, MS. Novi 309) from the convent of Marienberg bei Helmstedt (Example 2) fi

While the events depicted in the two settings follow roughly the same pattern, the two settings remain distinct in their textual and melodic formulations. The dialogue that opens the Rouen Visitatio (bracket "A") is of the standard first stage form, while that of Marienberg follows the pattern found within second stage texts.? The Rouen Magdalene "scene" (bracket "B") is related to similar arrangements stemming from Normandy and England, while that from Marienberg finds its parallels within German- speaking territories.8 Each setting, in fact, reflects a discrete textual/ musical tradition, and each tradition, as we shall see, cuts across the grain of the Langian division. Indeed, textual and musical connections are far stronger among sources geographically proximate to our examples (i.e., among Norman Stage I and Stage III settings, and among German Stage II and Stage III settings) than they are between the two examples themselves.9 We are left with a dilemma. The very mass of the repertory precludes an examination of the Visitatio Sepulchri within an organizational vacuum, and yet to compress the repertory within the three-tiered classification of Lange requires that we embrace a conceptual framework that we know to be faulty: an edifice, so to speak, with no foundation. Clearly, the time has come to abandon this classificatory relic, but in favor of what?

The present essay will offer an alternative to Lange's three stages. We shall see that the manifold settings of the Visitatio Sepulchri, if divorced from the abstract pilings upon which



36 Comparative Drama

earlier classifications rested and if arranged solely according to the textual and musical settings that define them, settle more readily into two groups than the three groups of the Langian division. We shall see further that this two-part division clarifies not only the regional and historical connections existing among the sources, but the structural principles governing them as well.

To be sure, prior efforts to impose order on the sources of the Visitatio Sepulchri were never intended to demonstrate the structural, or morphological, relationships existing among the individual settings. Earlier classifications of the Visitatio Sep- ulchri, in fact, regarded the arrangement of sources within the repertory as but a means by which the origin and development of medieval drama could be explained. Avoiding a purely morphological - or organic - division, most classifiers opted for an historical division of the repertory, arranging the sources to correspond to one or another theories of historical development. Only in the earliest categorization of the repertory would a simple taxonomy be attempted, and even this, as we shall see, would fall prey within the same work to an historical plan.

To engage an arrangement of texts as an analytical or descriptive tool in the study of medieval drama was a product of nineteenth-century German scholarship. Even at its birth in the last century, German research on medieval drama had already set its sights on the paths taken by the liturgical Osterfeiern as they progressed toward the Schauspiele of the later Middle Ages, and for many scholars, the manner by which these texts were arranged provided one means by which these paths could be traced. As early as 1846, for example, Franz Josef Mone compiled his landmark edition of medieval dramatic texts solely "to make possible a cohesive history of German theater in the Middle Ages."lO Mone's edition was the first to examine the repertory of the Visitatio Sepulchri itself - a repertory which Mone had helped to define - and Mone's approach to the liturgical drama set the tone for subsequent research on the subject within German-speaking Europe. Although Mone rejected any grouping based on content in favor of a chronological arrangement of texts, his very use of an arrangement of texts as a means to clarify the development of the medieval drama established the guidelines that would govern the more elaborate classificatory schemes of his successors.

It was in 1880 that Gustav Milchsack, in the first of his two




proposed volumes subtitled "Studies on the Origin and the Development of the Latin Easter Ceremonies (Osterfeiern) ," suggested the first classifications of the Visitatio Sepulchri based on textual content. To have attempted any such classifications in 1880, of course, was a courageous - if not a foolhardy - act, for the entire known repertory of the Visitatio Sepulchri then consisted of but twenty-eight texts. However, Milchsack not only set the pattern for future classifications by offering an historical arrangement of the sources, but also offered the first - and until now the last - morphological arrangement of the repertory as well. Each system of classification functioned as a tool in Milchsack's quest to discover the origin and development of the Visitatio Sepulchri.

With respect to the origin of the form, Milchsack sought to determine which of the three theories then current was correct:

( 1 ) that the Visitatio Sepulchri originated within the medieval liturgy, H (2) that the Visitatio Sepulchri originated as a dramatization of the biblical accounts of the resurrection,l2 or (3) that the Visitatio Sepulchri originated as an expansion of the Easter sequence Victimae paschali laudes. M To test these theories, Milchsack set up a taxonomy of the extant texts. Using as his point of departure the dialogue between the Marys and the angel (s) common to all sources, Milchsack compared the twenty-eight texts line by line. For each line of the dialogue he found two distinct forms, the constellation of sources for each form remaining consistent in large part among the several lines. The correspondence was so strong, in fact, that Milchsack confidently asserted that throughout the known repertory "the division of the dramas into two classes remains essentially the same" (p. 29). Milchsack's two dialogues (p. 27) follow:

la. Quis revolvet nobis lapidem ab ostio monumenti?

Ila. Quern quaeritis in sepulchro, o christicolae?

Ilia. Iesum Nazarenum crucifixum, o edicole.

IVa. Non est hic, surrexit sicut praedixerat.

Ib. Quis revolvet nobis ab ostio lapidem quern tegere sanctum [sacrum] cernimus sepulchrum?

lib. Quem quaeritis in sepulchro, o tremule mulieres, in hoc tumulo gementes?

Illb. Jhesum Nazarenum crucifixum querimus.

IVb. Non est hic quem queritis.




Va. Ite, miniiate quia surrexit. Vb. Sed cito euntes dicite [nuntiate] discipulis eius et Petro quia surrexit Jhesus.

After careful scrutiny, moreover, Milchsack found each setting of the dialogue to be not only textually distinct but geographically cohesive as well. Dialogue "a" was found primarily (although not exclusively) in French sources, while dialogue "b" was limited largely to sources of German provenance.

Brushing aside any evidence to the contrary, Milchsack concluded that the Visitatio was neither a child of the liturgy nor an expansion of the Easter sequence, but rather a freely composed dramatic dialogue based on the gospel accounts of St. Mark and St. Matthew. Of the two dialogues, dialogue "a," the more uncertain and inconstant of the two in its formulation, was certainly the original. Although created for the same pur- poses and based on the same gospel accounts, each form, in Milchsack's view (p. 31), was structurally and historically distinct, and any similarities between them were to be regarded as strictly fortuitous.

Considering the strength of the arguments for - and the logic behind - this two-part taxonomy of the Visitatio Sepulchri, it is puzzling that Milchsack should abandon the classification for the historical arrangement that followed. Milchsack himself offers no explanation, but for whatever reasons, the exposition of texts forming the last part of his study divided the twenty- eight known texts of the Visitatio Sepulchri among four groups arranged according to their presumed order of appearance.

Milchsack's presentation of Visitatio texts, like those of his successors, was organized according to the varying degrees of complexity exhibited by the individual settings. For Milchsack, such complexity was measured by the number and types of new texts (disregarding their content) appended to the original dialogue (s). In some respects, this arrangement appears to have flowed from his earlier taxonomy. Those texts of his Erste Gruppe, for example, the simplest (and shortest) of the repertory, were built around his dialogue "a," with any additional texts among these settings being drawn from the liturgy of the day. 14 The rationale for the grouping as well as its place in the historical arrangement was best summed up by Milchsack himself when he cited as the sole unifying characteristic of these works the presence of the original dialogue. The additional




liturgical items, in Milchsack's view, reflected only early attempts toward the expansion of the drama.

The first significant expansion of the drama is seen in the texts of Milchsack's Zweite Gruppe. Likewise corresponding to the earlier taxonomy, most of these texts were built around Milchsack's dialogue "b." Unlike the first group, however, it was not the dialogue alone that defined the group. The second group was defined also by a series of non-liturgical texts apparently composed for the Visitatio itself. 15 Although the subject matter of these additional texts was inconsequential in terms of classification, their depiction of the apostles' race to the sepulchre was seen by Milchsack as a concession by the church to the Schaulust of the people, a sign of the more liberal outlook of the twelfth-century church.

The apparent correspondence between the two dialogues of the earlier taxonomy and the first two groups of the historical arrangement, however, was deceptive, and with the presentation of Milchsack's third and fourth groups the teleological nature of the division became clear. The Dritte Gruppe itself was something of an anomaly. Consisting only of two texts, this group employed the earlier dialogue (form "a") and the Easter sequence Victimae paschali laudes. Unrelated to the second group, the third group represented for Milchsack an independent development, which, together with the second group, served as precursor to the fourth. 16

The Vierte Gruppe included the most complex (and longest) of the texts of the repertory. 17 Breaking with his earlier practice, Milchsack appeared now to regard subject matter as the defining quality for this group. The depiction of the visit to the sepulchre, after all, had been made complete with the added texts of the second group, and further development was neither necessary nor possible without the addition of new "scenes" involving new "characters" (p. 64). Preserving those features common to the earlier groups, therefore, the texts of the fourth group, drawing now from the Gospel of St. John, appended a new "scene" of both prose and poetic texts depicting the encounter between Mary Magdalene and the risen Christ. This Erscheinungsszene, though, was no mere grafting onto the older second or third group framework. It was, in Milchsack's view (p. 118) an integral component of an entirely new form: well coordinated, internally cohesive, and self-contained, a form that would serve




as a basis for the vernacular Osterspielen of the later Middle Ages.

Although the criteria for Milchsack's categories appear to shift as we progress through the categories - from dialogue form (Group I) to newly composed texts (Groups II and HI) to added scenes (Group IV) - undergirding the structure as a whole is a division based on textual accretion. The accretion, moreover, is progressive, multiplying in complexity as we move from category to category. Perhaps more clearly here than in later attempts to arrange the repertory, we see the tension between taxonomy and teleology that would plague all classifications of the Visitatio Sepulchri. Throughout the historical classification, Milchsack ignored the distinction that marked his earlier taxonomy. The two dialogues that he earlier described (p. 31) as "two strongly different versions" were now mixed freely. Group IV included four texts built around dialogue "a," two texts built around dialogue "b," and one text combining the two forms. Even Group II included one text built around dialogue "a."l8

Not surprisingly, Milchsack's study did not fare well with its critics. It was not Milchsack's classifications of the Visitatio

Sepulchriy however, that drew critical fire. Milchsack's detrac- tors focused their attentions instead on his thesis regarding the biblical origin of the form. 19 Despite its deficiencies, Milchsack's historical classification thus prevailed, and in various guises it served as the core of most later attempts to impose order on the ever-expanding repertory of the Visitatio Sepulchri.

The first major realignment of the repertory appeared seven years later within a collection of Visitatio texts prepared by Carl Lange. Lange's edition represents the culmination of nineteenth- century German scholarship on the Visitatio Sepulchri. Over the course of six years, Lange had traversed the European continent, verifying both the existence and contents of most of the Visitatio texts previously cited and combing the archives for further examples of the form. His efforts were so fruitful that he could proudly boast within his Introduction of having produced 190 previously unknown texts.

Lange's study was cast in the guise of an edition with commentary. The increased volume of sources, of course, required a framework for presentation, and to this end Lange adopted (or adapted) Milchsack's teleological frame. While Lange accepted Milchsack's dialogue "a" as the core of the




Visitatio, albeit with modifications (Lange deleted the introductory line Quis revolver and added the concluding antiphon Surrexit Dominus), he rejected Milchsack's theory of the biblical origin of the form. For Lange, in fact, the liturgical origin of the Visitatio Sepulchri was so clear that it required no proof, and it was with this assumption that he began. The Visitatio Sepulchri, in Lange's view (pp. 18-19), was a liturgical form that would become drama, and at the core of the drama was the dialogue between the Marys and the angel(s) at the sepulchre.

Lange's implementation of the ideological frame, of course, differed from that of his predecessor. Rather than use textual accretion as his guide, Lange based his classification on the number of "scenes" represented. Although Lange's classification overlapped considerably with that of Milchsack, the rationale behind the two remained distinct. For Lange, the texts actually present within the individual settings of the Visitatio were only of secondary importance. The two dialogues that had loomed so large in Milchsack's schemes became for Lange but variant forms of a single "scene."

The teleological nature of Lange's classification was made clear from the outset. Keeping his distance from Milchsack's ostensibly neutral "groups" (Gruppen), Lange employed the designation "stage" (Stufe, or sometimes even Entwicklungs- stufe) for his gatherings of Visitatio texts. Lange saw but three stages in the development of the Visitatio Sepulchri. The first stage included those settings depicting the encounter between the Marys and the angel, the second stage added the apostles' race to the sepulchre, while the third stage appended the appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene. Since the groupings were based on dramatic - rather than textual - criteria, a greater degree of textual expansion was possible within each of Lange's stages than had been possible within Milchsack's groups. Indeed, within a given stage any expansion was possible so long as it did not require the use of additional characters. Thus Lange's first stage included not only those settings corresponding to Milchsack's first group, but also those corresponding to Milchsack's third group (i.e., with Victimae paschali laudes) and several settings corresponding to Milchsack's second group as well.

It was the inclusion of these latter texts within the first stage that most clearly set Lange's classification apart from that of




Milchsack.20 It did not concern Lange that these texts used a different setting of the dialogue than was usual among first stage texts or that several included lines otherwise found only in the so-called apostles' scene of the second stage. For Lange, the sole requirement for assignment to the first stage was that the action not expand beyond the encounter between the Marys and the angel (s) at the tomb. No matter how closely it might be related to texts of the second stage, therefore, any setting of the Visitatio Sepulchri making reference neither to the apostles nor to Christ was automatically assigned to the first stage. The difficulties inherent within this procedure become clear when we compare Lange's editions of first-stage texts from Bamberg (actually Reichenau) and Cividale with a second-stage text from Augsburg.2l The texts are presented here without rubrics.

BAMBERG I

(First Stage)

Et dicebant ad invicem quis reuolvet nobis lapidem ab hostio monumenti? Aeuia, aeuia.

Quern queritis in sepulchro, christicole?

Jhesum nazarenum crucifìxum, o caelicolae.

Non est hic, surrexit sicut pre- dixerat, ite, nunciate quia surrexit de sepulchro.

Surrexit enim.

CIVIDALE I

(First Stage)

Quis revolvet nobis ab hostio lapidem, quern tegere sanctum cernimus sepulchrum?

Quem quaeritis, o tremulae mulieres, in hoc tumulo plorantes?

Jhesum Nazarenum crucifixum

quaerimus. Non est hic, quem quaeritis, sed

cito euntes nuntiate discipulis eius et Petro quia surrexit Jhesus.

Venite et videte locum ubi posi- tus erat dominus. Alleluia! Alleluia!

Ad monumentum venimus gementes, angelum domini sedentem vidimus et dicentem quia surrexit Jhesus.

Cernitis, o sodi, ecce linteamina et sudarium, et corpus non est in sepulchro inventum.

Surrexit dominus de sepulchro, qui pro nobis.

AUGSBURG II

(Second Stage)

Quis revoluet nobis ab hostio lapidem, quem tegere sanctum cernimus sepulchrum?

Quem queritis, o tremule mulieres, in hoc tumulo plorantes?




Jhesum crucifixum nazarenum querimus. Non est hic, quern queritis, sed cito euntes nunciate discipulis

eius et petro quia surrexit iesus. Ad monumentum uenimus gementes, angelum domini seden-

tem uidimus et dicentem quia surrexit iesus. Currebant duo simul et ille alius discipulus precucurrit citius

petro et uenit prior ad monumentum, alleluia. Cernitis, o socii, ecce lintheamina et sudarium, et corpus non

est in sepulchro inuentum. Surrexit dominus de sepulchro, qui pro nobis pependit in ligno.

Even though the Cividale text shares seven of the eight lines found in the second-stage text from Augsburg, Lange classified it with the first-stage text from Bamberg (Rheichenau), with which it shares none. The Cividale text was excluded from the second stage solely because the apostles themselves did not appear.

If the first stage was defined by the absence of the apostles, the second stage was defined solely by their presence. Although most of the texts of Lange's second stage included Milchsack's dialogue "b" in tandem with the three lines comprising the apostles' "scene" (Ad monumentum, Currebant duo, and Cer- nitis o socii), Lange discounted both the dialogue and its apparent union with the apostles' "scene" as criteria for inclusion within the second stage. Indeed, for Lange the form was defined by a single line. Only if it contained the line Currebant duo was a setting of the Visitatio assigned to the second stage. The union of Milchsack's dialogue "b" with the apostles' "scene" was for Lange (pp. 46, 79, 84) but one among many combin- ations of texts available to medieval clerics.

Lange's third stage, although greater in scope, was identical in its complexion to Milchsack's fourth group. Defined by those texts in which Christ appeared to Mary Magdalene, the third stage represented for Lange (as the fourth group had for Milchsack) the apex of the dramatic development of the Visi- tatio Sepulchri. Of all of Lange's stages, this would prove the most secure. Despite later attempts to shuffle the texts among the categories (or even to destroy the categories), the cohesiveness of the third stage grouping and the unique quality of its sources would not be questioned. The diverse settings of the third stage indeed have remained a focal point for scholarly inquiries into the development of medieval drama.

Within the stages, moreover, Lange traced the development




of the Visitatio Sepulchri to an even finer degree. At this level, however, he discarded the dramatic criteria governing his classificatory outline in favor of the textual criteria of Milchsack's division. Lange's first stage, for example, was divided into three sub-groups. The first consisted of texts limited to the dialogue between the Marys and the angel at the sepulchre, the second consisted of settings with added liturgical texts, while the third included settings preserving the use of Victimae paschali laudes. Thus Lange's classification became a two-ply classification, with two distinct modes of classification operating on two distinct levels, each built across the grain of the other.

While one might argue that Lange's shift in focus from "texts" to "scenes" (and back again) was insignificant - a shift from the micro- to the macro-structure, so to speak - the effects of this shift were far-reaching, for when altering the focus from the item "text" to the aggregate "scene," Lange forced us also to alternate between two levels of abstraction. Only on the textual, or secondary, level of the classification could we or- ganize the texts according to the visible evidence preserved within them (i.e., the texts themselves). The modalities employed in gauging the plies were in conflict. Even to have suggested dramatic complexity as a basis for classification was questionable, for no gauge of dramatic complexity could be attempted without first having examined the individual texts making up the form. Dramatic complexity, after all, is but an abstraction describing an attribute of these texts. As such, it is derived from the texts and is not resident within them. We

examine the texts, we see evidence of drama, and we conclude from the evidence that it is drama. Lange presented his cate- gorical levels in the reverse order of their logical derivation, and in so doing he catapulted us to a level of abstraction beyond the sources themselves, redirecting our attention away from the textual and musical structures composing the settings and toward his own abstract model of the repertory. So clearly correct did the classification seem, though, that over the course of the next century few would dare to consider the Visitatio Sepulchri without reference to Lange's classification and the biases embedded within it.

With the publication of E. K. Chambers' The Mediaeval Stage in 1903, Lange's tripartite grouping of Visitatio Sepulchri texts was introduced to the English-speaking world.22 Cham- bers' opus was a grand synthesis of nineteenth-century scholar-




ship on medieval drama, reconciling many of the disparate strains of thought current at the fin de siècle. Although he offered little that was new himself, Chambers provided an invaluable service to later scholars by tying together German thought on the development and sub-genres of the Visitatio Sepulchri with French thought on the form's liturgical origin, context, and function.

Throughout the nineteenth century, German and French scholars had plowed independent paths in their investigations into the nature, origin, and development of medieval liturgical drama. While German scholars emphasized the accumulation and arrangement of primary sources, French scholars concentrated on the historical and cultural milieu surrounding medieval drama as a whole. In the eighty-seven page introduction to his Les origines latines du théâtre moderne (Paris, 1849), for example, Edelstand du Méril offered a sweeping panorama of classical and medieval topics related to the liturgical drama of the Middle Ages. The contextual approach of du Méril, following the lead of Magnin and of Monmerqué and Michel,23 established the basis for most later French studies on the drama.

Even L. Petit de Julleville, in 1880, would begin his discussion of the drames liturgiques only after first treating the other dramatic rites of the liturgy (i.e., the procession of Palm Sunday and the recitation of the Passion), the tenth-century dramas of Hrosvitha of Gandersheim, and the tropes through which the drames liturgiques entered the medieval liturgy.24

While Chambers' study combined the contextual approach of French scholarship on medieval drama with a Germanic concern for particulars, it was the French influence that dom- inated. Of the general studies cited by Chambers in the biblio- graphic notes to his discussion of liturgical plays, twelve of seventeen were by French authors. Milchsack and Lange were cited only for their collections of texts, while Mone's work was not cited at all. Of the published editions, du Méril's was singled out as the "best general collection" of texts, and its introduction was hailed as the best of the older works on the

subject. Books I and III of Chambers' work, in fact, followed closely the outline of du Méril's study. Book I treated the "Fall of the Theatres" and minstrelsy (du Méril, pp. 1-34), while Book in treated liturgical plays and secular religious drama (du Méril, pp. 36-87).

The purpose of Chambers' study was clear: "to state and




explain the pre-existing conditions which, by the latter half of the sixteenth century, made the great Shakespearian stage possible." Beginning with the decline of classical drama, the two volumes of The Mediaeval Stage traced the progress of the medieval dramatic impulse from its classical vestiges to the Interludes of the Renaissance. With respect to the liturgical drama in particular, however, Chambers sought to "study . . . the process by which the Church itself, through the introduction of dramatic elements into its liturgy, came to make its own appeal to [the deep-rooted mimetic instinct of the folk]; and . . . that by which, from such beginnings, grew up the great popular religious drama of the miracle-plays, with its offshoots in the moralities and the dramatic pageants" (I, vi).

Chambers' discussion of liturgical drama was encased around his quest for a definition of drama. He began, following the pattern of French scholars, with the dramatic rites of the medieval Latin liturgy that could have given rise to the form. He cited the canon of the Mass, the rite for the dedication of a church, and the washing of feet on Holy Thursday in addition to the oft-cited procession of Palm Sunday and Passion of Good Friday. But these ceremonies, while they had "the potentiality of dramatic development," were not drama, for although symbolic and mimetic, they lacked dialogue speech (Chambers, II, 6).

From the rites inherited by the Middle Ages, Chambers proceeded to tropes. To this subject, though, he came by a rather circuitous route. "[Dialogued speech," he noted, "is latent in the practice of antiphonal singing." The antiphon, introduced into Italy by St. Ambrose, "lent itself naturally to dialogue," and therefore "it is from the antiphon that the actual evolution of the liturgical drama starts" (II, 7). 25 While Chambers implies a connection between dialogue, antiphonal singing, and antiphon, he does not press the issue, for the point is made as a literary rather than a logical transition. It was not the antiphon, after all, that truly commanded Chambers' attention. Antiphons, as the bodies around which tropes were entwined, served only as the agents for Chambers' transition to the trope of the Easter Introit, Quern quaeritis.

It was "[i]n the Easter Quern quaeritis [that] the liturgical drama was born," Chambers declared. But even this dialogued trope was not drama, for it was sung antiphonally and lacked mimetic action. Only when Quern quaeritis was dislodged from the Mass to the end of Matins, and the lines of




the dialogue assigned to individual characters, could it, in Chambers' eyes, become drama. Regarding the Quern quaeritis performed at Matins in the tenth-century Regularis Concordia, Chambers observed: "Dialogued chant and mimetic action have come together and the first liturgical drama is, in all its essen- tials, complete (II, 15). For Chambers, then, the Quern quaeritis as trope was a form distinct from the Visitatio Sepulchri of Easter Matins, a precursor to the true liturgical drama.

Following a lengthy digression on the so-called sepulchre ceremonies, the Depositio Crucis and the Elevatio Crucis, Cham- bers returned to the Quern quaeritis in what he called the "second stage of its evolution, when it had ceased to be an Introit trope and had become attached to the ceremony of the sepulchre." Determining the place and time that the sepulchre was devised was problematic for Chambers, as were "those at which the Quern quaeritis, attached to it, stood forth as a drama." Even more elusive, though, were the avenues along which the various forms of the new drama had travelled to the centers

cultivating them. "[N]or is it possible," Chambers observed, "to isolate the centres and lines of diffusion of that gradual process of accretion and development through which the Quern quaeritis gave fuller and fuller expression to the dramatic instincts by which it was prompted." (II, 25, 27). The problem, of course, lay in the sparsity of the primary sources. If all manuscripts ever produced were available, Chambers reasoned, the difficulties would certainly disappear. To understand the development of the Visitatio Sepulchri, therefore, one had to arrange its sources, and to this end Chambers, without acknowledgement, invoked Lange's recension of Milchsack's teleological frame.

Disregarding ... in the main the dates of the manuscripts, it is easy so to classify the available versions as to mark the course of a development which was probably complete by the middle of the twelfth and certainly by the thirteenth century. . . . The formal classification ... of the versions of the Quern quaeritis gives three types. In the first, the scenes between the Maries and the angel, and between the Maries and the choir, are alone present; in the second the apostle [sic] scene is added to these; the third ... is distinguished by the presence of the Christ scene. (II, 28, 32)

Although his substitution of the label "types" for Lange's "stages" suggests, as Hardison has argued (p. 13), dissatisfaction with the teleological nature of the classification, Chambers' presentation of the three types left no question regarding his under-




standing of their precedence: "The kernel of the whole thing," he noted with regard to the first type, "is ... the old St. Gall trope" (II, 28). Later he would remark: "The addition of the apostle [sic] scene completed the evolution of the Easter play for the majority of churches. There were, however, a few in which the very important step was taken of introducing the person of the risen Christ himself; and this naturally entailed yet another new scene" (Chambers, II, 31). For Chambers, the historical progression was clear.

While Chambers retained the outline of Lange's classification of the Visitatio Sepulchri, he extended it by moving the pre-Mass (i.e., trope) settings of the Quern quaeritis to a posi- tion outside of (and prior to) the tripartite framework. The weaknesses built into Lange's classification were not only preserved, therefore, but intensified, and the Visitatio Sepulchri9 now viewed against a broad dramatic and evolutionary context, was rendered even further distant from the liturgical texts and melodies composing it. Seen within the context of dramatic development, in fact, it had become drama. Even the distinction between Quern quaeritis trope and Visitatio Sepulchri would be made purely on dramatic grounds.

(to be continued)

NOTES

l Carl Lange, Die lateinischen Osterf eiern (Munich, 1887).

2 Gustav Milchsack, Die lateinischen Osterf eiern (Wolfenbüttel, 1880).

3 The two principal challenges to Lange's system have come from O. B. Hardi- son, Jr., Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1965), pp. 1-34, and Helmut De Boor, Die Textgeschichte der lateinischen Osterf eiern (Tübingen, 1967), passim.

4 Walther Lipphardt, ed., Lateinischen Osterf eiern und Osterspiele (Berlin, 1975-81); this work will hereafter be referred to as LOO.

5 LOO 775. Transcription after Diane Dolan, Le drame liturgique de Paques en Normandie et en Angleterre au moyen-age (Paris, 1975), pp. 85-87.

6 LOO 791. The folios containing the Visitatio are incorrectly identified in LOO as 63r-64v.

7 On the typical northern French setting of the Stage I dialogue, see De Boor, p. 69. On the "standard" setting of the Stage II (or Type II) Visitatio, see Michael L. Norton, "The Type II Visitatio Sepulchri: A Répertoriai Study, unpubl. Ph.D. diss. (The Ohio State Univ., 1983), pp. 22-23, 49-69.




8 Settings of the Magdalene scene related to that of Rouen stem from Barking (LOO 770), Coutances (LOO 771), Dublin (LOO 112-112*), Mont St Michel (LOO 773-74); and ?Fleury (LOO 779). Other Rouen settings are included in LOO as Nos. 776-78. See also Dolan, pp. 101-72; Susan K. Rankin, "The Mary Magdalene Scene in the 'Visitatio Sepulchri' Ceremonies," Early Music History, 1 (1981), 227- 55, provides comparative musical transcriptions of many of the surviving Magdalene scenes. For settings of the Magdalene scene related to that of Marienberg, see Norton, pp. 96-109.

9 For examples of the Norman Stage I settings, see the transcriptions of Rouen, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS. A.538, fols. 54r-55r (Fecamp- LOO 404) and MS. A.486, fols. 101v-102v (Saint-Ouen- LOO 414) provided by Dolan, pp. 55-57, 60-63 (with facsimiles). On the relationship between the Anglo-Norman Stage III settings to their Stage I counterparts, see Dolan, pp. 75-143. For examples of the German Stage II sources, see the facsimiles of Salzburg, Universitätsbibliothek, MS. II.6, foL 67r (Salzburg- LOO 694), and Salzburg/Nonnberg, Stiftsbibliothek, Antiphonar der Abtei, fols. 162v-163r (Salzburg, Nonnberg- LOO 718) in Walther Lipphardt, "Stu- dien zur Musikpflege in der mittelalterlichen Augustiner-Chorherrenstiften des deutschen Sprachgebietes," Jahrbuch des Stiftes Klosterneuburg, n.s. 7 (1971), Abb. 1 and 2. On the relationship between the German Stage III settings and their Stage I and II counterparts, see De Boor, pp. 262-94, and Norton, pp. 191-206. With regard to the geographic cohesiveness of portions of the "Stage I" repertory, see David A. Bjork, "On the Dissemination of Quern quaeritis and the Visitatia Sepulchri and the Chronology of Their Early Sources," Comparative Drama, 14 (Spring 1980), 46-69.

io Franz Josef Mone, Schauspiele des Mittelalters (Karlsruhe, 1846), I, vii Mone was also among the first to recognize the importance of the musical settings. His plea for "Kenner der alten Musik die Melodien solcher Schauspiele [zu] untersuchen "(p. 6), though, would go largely unheeded for over a century.

11 Ibid., I, 1-27.

12 Ernst Wilken, Geschichte der geistlichen Spiele in Deutschland (Göttingen, 1872), pp. 65-72.

13 Anton Schönbach, review of Ernst Wilken, Geschichte der geistlichen Spiele in Deutschland, in Zeitschrift für deutschen Philologie, 4 (1877), 364-70.

14 Milchsack, p. 36. Included within Milchsack's Erste Gruppe are settings from Einsiedeln (LOO 563 - this MS. contains two alternate settings of the dialogue [see note 15]), St Martial (LOO 52 [attributed by Milchsack to Paris] and LOO 57), St. Blasien im Schwarzwald (LOO 318), and England (LOO 394, 395 [Regularis Concordia - listed by Milchsack without citation of manuscript sources or provenance]).

15 Milchsack, p. 45. His Zweite Gruppe includes settings from Rheinau (LOO 315a- listed by him as Rheinau, Stiftsbibliothek, MS. 49; this text includes incipits for the dialogue only), Einsiedeln (LOO 563), Cividale (LOO 546), Zurich? (LOO 767), St Blasien in Braunschweig (LOO 534), Seckau (LOO 741- Milchsack assigns this manuscript to St Lamb recht), St. Ulrich und Afra in Augsburg (LOO 186 - attributed by Milchsack to Vienna with shelf number MS. 3332; this is the only source in this group not including Milchsack's dialogue "b," but it does however, include the same additional texts characterizing the sources of this group), and Klosterneuburg (LOO 595).

16 Milchsack's Dritte Gruppe includes texts from Narbonne (LOO 116) and Sens (LOO 164).

17 Milchsack's Vierte Gruppe includes sources from Engelberg (LOO 784); Einsiedeln (LOO 783); Cividale (LOO 781); Rouen (LOO 775, 777- attributed by Milchsack to Bigot after Edmond de Coussemaker, Le Drame liturgiques [Rennes, 1860], pp. 250-55); Mont St. Michel (LOO 774); ?Fleury (LOO 779); Durandus of Mende, Rationale divinorum officiorum [Strassbourg, 1486], lib. VT, fol. lOlv); and the fragments from Lichtenthal (LOO 832) and Rheichenau (Karlsruhe, Landesbib- liothek, MS. 209, fol. 11 [not in LOO]).




18 See Milchsack, pp. 64-81. The texts from Rouen, Mont St Michel, and ?Fleury contain dialogue "a." The Cividale text includes dialogue "b." The Engelberg text includes elements of both, while the Einsiedeln text contains a unique dialogue. The text from St Ulrich und Afra in Augsburg includes dialogue "a." See note 15.

19 See, for example, the reviews by Anton Schönbach in Anzeiger für deutsche Althertum, 6 (1880), 301-13, esp. 312, and Reinhold Bechstein in Literaturblatt für germanische und romanische Philologie, 2 (1881), 199-202.

20 First stage texts employing Milchsack's dialogue "b" include those stemming from Gotha (designated by Lange as Gotha [LOO 577]), Würzburg (Würzburg II [LOO 372] and Würzburg III [LOO 374]), Einsiedeln (Einsiedeln II [LOO 563]), Fritzlar (Fritzlar III [LOO 209]), Berlin (Berlin I [LOO 532]), Cividale (Cividale I [LOO 546]), Prague (Prag I [LOO 674] and Prag II [LOO 806]), and Eichstätt (Eichstätt II [LOO 559]).

21 Lange, p. 29 (Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, MS. Ut 5 [olirti Ed.V.9], fol. 45r-v), designated by Lange as Bamberg I [LOO 314]. Ibid., pp. 58-59 (Cividale, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, MS. XLI [olim T7], fol. 13 8v), designated by Lange as Cividale I [LOO 546]. Ibid., pp. 85-86 (Diurnale Augustanum [Augsburg, 1508], fol. lllr-v), designated by Lange as Augsburg II [LOO 519].

22 E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1903), 2 vols.

23 C. Magnin, Les Origines du Théâtre moderne, ou Histoire du Genie dramatique dupuis 1er jusqu'au XVU Siècle (Paris, 1838); L. J. N. Monmerqué and F. Michel, Théâtre français au Moyen Âge (Paris, 1839).

24 L. Petit de Julleville, L'Histoire du Théâtre en France [Les Mystères] (Paris, 1880). In his discussion of the dramas themselves, moreover, he discounted the distinctions existing among plays for different feasts altogether. The dramas of Easter, Christmas, and the feasts of saints were considered as one, all examples of drame liturgique^ and all a part of a singular process of development For a recent example of the contextual approach to the study of medieval liturgical drama, see Blandin- Dominique Berger, Le drame liturgique de Pacques du X« au XHfr siècle (Paris, 1976), esp. pp. 37-94.

25 Chambers' discussion of tropes was drawn mostly from the two studies of L. Gautier- "Origines du Théâtre moderne," Le Monde (17 Aug. 1872), 1-2; (28 Aug. 1872), 1; (30 Aug. 1872), 1-2; (4 Sept 1872), 1-2; and Histoire de la Poesie liturgique au Moyen Âge: Les Tropes (Paris, 1886) - and W. H. Frère, ed., The Winchester Troper (London, 1894).




EXAMPLE 1

Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale. MS lat. 90k, 101v-102v (Rouen Graduale, 13th Century- LOO 775)

N.B. • = liquescent neume m = quilisma

[A] ** = repercussive neume Deinceps omnia festiue fiant in sancta nocte Pasche ante Te Deum laudamus. Tres Mulieres ad introitimi chori hanc Antiphonam cantantes usque ad Sepulchrum:

¿ _ r^* wiê* m m *" w *~^:w m vh** _ -

» Quis re - uol - vet no - bis

8 ab hos- ti - o mo - nu - men - - ti?

Hoc finito, quidam Puer loco Angeli, alba indutus, tenens palmam in manu, ante Sepulchrum dicat:

n a . | b

fa 0~' f^' ^^ 0m ****** *# ■ m * # "Ç Quemque -T ri - tis in se -pul- chro, o Christ i -co-le! Tune Mulieres respondeant:

Q »

If^ ■#» m * * #*#■ 0**0 m m é- « Ihe - sum Nazarenum cru-ci-fix -um, o

Iterum Angelus, aperiens Sepulchrum, dicat hoc Mulieribus:

V? »p~ * ~ * # *^0 ^^ m 0 W ' # # *^Non est hie, sur-rex- it e - nim

Ue - ni - te et ui - de - te lo - - cum u - bi

po - si -tus fu-e - rat, et e - un - tes_ di-ci - te

fe m * 0 m f^ì ,k f'm m ¿'h # m'¿ ~~ '" di-sci-pu-lis e - ius et_ Pe - tro, qui - a sur-rex- it.




M Tune, Angelo citissime discendente, Mulieres intrent Sepul- chrum. Dum non inuenerint, dicant Duo residentes:

.' TO • *~» * *~' *~m ^ •Si Mu -li - er, quid_ pio - ras?

Tune Una ex Ulis, loco Maria Magdalene, respondeat:

V Qui-a tu - le -runt Do - mi-num me - uim] et

V ne - sci - o ub - i po-su-e - runt

Duo Angeli, intus Sepulchrum sedentes, ita cantent:

TO 9 # # * M*# m * * * i m ¿~~^w m • Quem queritis uiu-entem cum mortuis? Non

TO # ' * # ^# ¿^# # # * ' " * *m m m i > * » sed sur - rex -it. Re-cor-da- mi - ni qual-i - ter

« lo-cu -tus est uo-bis9dum ad - hue in Gali-le - a

¿jf tit ' %y y j^ m 9 • • w * m ¿* s es - set, uo-bis

to » # y » y g I

Ç ho-mi - nis pa - ti et cru - ci - fi- gi, et "~

ft ' * > * ^ 7 ^ ■ ■ ^^ 8 dî ^ e ter-ti - a re - sur - ce - re.




Hoc dicto, Marie exeant de Sepulchro. Post appareat Dominus in sinistro cornu alteris, dulci uoce Ulis dicens:

y • * « r» • < i. i »■• * îj, * * * • Mu -li - er,quid_ pio- ras? Quem

Tune Conuerse ad eum dicant:

i^l » á m • w 0 i~' m. m w * w • IEEE » Do - mi - ne, si

y ® • * ' # • l * * * m^è ^* «^^ ® di - ci- to mi - chi, et

Hic ostendat crucem et dicat:

A [ h ' ft ^ # *^# # 8 Ma - ri - a.

C?uef ut audierint, cito se offerant, pedibus eius clamando:

^^ £ w m ~

* Ra - bo - ni.

Ipse uero retro trahens dicat Ulis hoc:

ft 9 • » m* ê * • j m m •' • a ¿a * • m ÎT No- li me tan- ge - re, non- dum e - nim as - cen - di

.%* ad

8 os et_ die

qTTT^

8 Pa- trem




Herum Dominus altar is appeareat dicens:

TO i/V * ^v ^' * m m * * * "* m m m - ^ * ^V » * m

A - ue - te, no -li - te ti - me - re.

8 I - te nun-ci-a-te fra-tri- bus rxie-is, ut e - ant in

^__¿_

s Ga - li - le-am. I - bi

Tune, Domino discedente, Tres Marie ad chorum inclinent, dicentes hoc alta uoce:

^ Al-le-lu-ia. Resurrex-it Do- mi-nus.

* xit

Psalmus:

fe . ^ ^j»g w w

s Te De - um laudamus.




EXAMPLE 2

Wolfenbüttel. Herzog- August-Bibliothek. MS 309 Novi. 6Ur-65r (Marienberg bei Helmstedt Antiphonary.

13th Century- LOO 791)

Ordo ad Sepulchrem in nocte Pasche

Ma-ri - a_ Mag-da- le - na et a-li - a Ma -ri - a

° fe - re-bant di-lu-cu - lo a - - ro-ma ta,

V # *♦ " ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ * ^ w " 0 Do -mi- num que - ren-tes in

[A]

Tune Omnes Tres ibunt versus Sepulchrem cantantes. Mulieres:

$ ****** - ^ i, m*m*mM | . . i-* iV. - V? ¿-^ ****** m*m*mM - - " Quis_ re - vol - vet no - bis ab hos-ti - o

» la-pi -dem quem tege-re sanctum cer - ne - re se - pulcrum?

Tune Angeli in Sepulchro sedentes cantabunt. Angelus:

ft . ^ ¿r. . • • •'- • • ^^ ^Quem que - ri - tis o trem-u-le mu-li - e -res,

, ff? j ^ì, !P *' m r « in hoc_ tu-mu- lo pio - ran-tes?

Tune Omnes Tres cantabunt:

• Ihe - sum Na-za-re - num cru-ci- fi - xum que - ri-mus




Angeli respondebunt. Angelus:

àt * ~ " m j 0 0 J.è+è+ë+9Z * Non est_ hic_quem que- ri - tis, set_ ci - to

fe m m w *~^ m * m >¿~*m # ¿%~m * ^# * ^ 8 nun-ci- a- te

vy ^ p p p # » y ■■ ' # i p # # I ® et Pe-tro qui- a sur - re - xit Ihe - sus*

» ##^#»#p###» » - V Ve - ni -te et vi-de-tef lo - cum u- bi po - si - tus

_ _ ^ *%_ _ _ É_ ZZI - p g _ P _ # * ■ j- S ^ _ ^ _ m '

^ e- rat Do-mi-nus. Al -le - lu - ia,^ al - le - lu - ia. "Apostles' "scene" (beginning)^ Mulieres in reditu. Post Due Marie recédant:

_ _ £ m w m m # m ~ m # Jt-" 8 Ad mo - nu - men -turn

^P m i m ~ # ^ » p p p ^^ ^,# #^ • an-ge - lum Do-mi - ni se-den-tem

j ° et di-cen - tem qui - a

Post hec una vadat ad Monumentum Choro cantante:

° Ma -ri - a stabat ad monu-men-tum fo-ris

¿ ^ # g f " ■ • 3 m"' fm m m m "^ ^= V dum_ er-go fle-retf incli-na - vit^ se et pro-spe - xit




JL* 0 - i - - - ^^^ ^ w ^ ^^

9 in mo-nu - mentum et vi - dit du-os an - ge - los

8 in

Q te ■ft ^ # * «**"l «T * ■ ■ ■ • * #

• u - num

fu - e-rat cor - pus

Et Illa f ledendo genua ter cantet:

ti m ' ' • • *••+*•*•'"% He-u re-dem-ti - o Is- ra-el, quid mo-ri vo- lu-is-ti'

Chorus

V Ex-qui - re - bat Ma - - - ri - a , quem noi

V m ' ^,^ y' f m m m +^' m m

V in - ve - ne - rat, fie -bat in-qui - ren - do et

o r, rr>. - . ^ £»>. ~ ~ ~

a - mo - ris su-i

o e-i - us quem a-bla - tum cre-di - dit, ar-de - bat

e de-si - de -ri - o, un-de_ e - - ri - git ut Ihesun




v ■ 8 so-la

P ^- -_ _ _ _

»re - man -sit ut

Et Illa adorato Sepulchro convertat se ad Populum et dicat:

fe - « * ■ • - '-^- - r""l ' ¿* * » Tu-le-runt Do-mi - num me - um et

• u - bi po-su - e -runt

Sacerdos:

¿ - J m _ ¿' •'^^••^m . £ m m V Mu-li -er quid pio-ras,

Et Illa:

• Do - mi - nef_ si tu_ sus-tu - lis - ti

■ di "*"- - ci-to__ mi - chi u- bi po-lu - i - sti

® e-um et e - go e - - um

Tune apparebit sibi Quidam in Specie Christi cantans:

^ ,fTW ì m " m ' ,'. i ^r,, m Et Ilia quasi eum tangere volens dicat:

« Ra - bo . - ni.




Sacerdos:

W J°ìm ' * * " r " ' ' ' " » No-li me_ tan - ge - re Ma - ri - a, non - dum_

ñ _

* e-nim_ a - seen -di ad Pa - trem meum. Va - de

ft ■ .' - , • * * m » - i"* * # " * ■ ' » <^» -» - »- au - tem ad fra - tres me-os et

V A - scen-do ad Pa - trem meum et Pa - trem vestrum

V De - um me-um et De - um ve -strum. Chorus:

V Ve - nit Mulier:

• Quia vi - di Do - mi - num et hec di - xit mi-chi. Sequence (Victimae paschali laudes ) Chorus:

Die no-bis Ma-ri - a, quid vi - di-sti in vi - a? Mulier:

Se-pul-crum Christi vi-ven -tis et gloriam vidi resurgentis, Chorus:

í. ..[■■..'■.■>.] ¥ Die no-bis [Ma-ri - a, quid vi -di - sti in vi - a?]



60 Comparative Drama Mulier:

An - ge -li - cos te-stes, su-da-ri - um et ve-stes. Illa :

ft m * * ' m » fmm**M*m*^m*fìim » Surrexit Christus spes me- a, precedet su-os in_ Galyle-am.

Chorus:

» Cre - den-dum est ma - gis so - li Ma - ri - e

* ve - ra - ci quam lu-de - o - rum tur - be f ai-la - ci. Mulier:

jf ^ # m

* Sci - o Christum sur-rex - is - se ex mor tu -is ve - re.

Chorus:

y «. • » * Tu no -bis vie - tor, rex, mi - se - re - re.

^Apostles1 scene (continued/] Chorus:

* Cur-re-bant

P # ■ #m' g # g ' ■ m + w+m + m¿ £m jPS j^V- s di - sci - pu - lus^jpre-cucurrit ci-ci-us_ Pe-tro_ et

ZI ... ..I 8 ve - nit pri - or ad mo-nu-men - tum, al- le - lu - ia.

Petrus et Iohannes: Cernitis9 o sodi, ecce linteamina et sudarium, et corpus non est in sepulchro inventum.




Chorus:

fe m w^ * * * " m m m • * M m I » Sur-re - xit Do-mi-nus de se - pul - ero qui pro

™¡ m m m * * * * ' ia 8 no - bis

Chorus: Te Deum làùdamus



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Of "Stages" and "Types" in "Visitatione Sepulchri" (Part II) Author(s): Michael L. Norton Source: Comparative Drama, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Summer 1987), pp. 127-144Published by: Comparative DramaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41153274Accessed: 05-03-2016 20:32 UTC

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Of "Stages" and "Types" in

Visitatione Sepulchri (Part II) Michael L. Norton

The classification for distinguishing variants of the Visitatio Sepulchri proposed by Carl Lange and enhanced by E. K. Cham- bers was systematized by Karl Young in his 1933 collection, The Drama of the Medieval ChurchA Young's work was an expansion of the third book of Chambers' The Mediaeval Stage. Its subject, as the title makes clear, was the drama of the Church, and its scope encompassed the medieval liturgy, the dramatic manifestations of the liturgy, and the various forms of the liturgical drama.

Although Young provided a ^sizable addition to the docu- mentary facts made available by Chambers," his primary con- tribution to Chambers' conceptual framework, as Hardison noted, was "in the direction of definition."2 Building on Cham- bers' approach to the liturgical drama, Young saw the crux of the issue in the definition of drama itself. 3

It is obvious that no satisfying study of these phenomena can be made without the guidance of a candid and practical definition of the term drama. By some criterion we must be able to discriminate between what is merely dramatic or theatrical, because of its simi- larity to things familiar upon the stage, and what is authentically a play. ... A play ... is, above all else, a story presented in action, in which the speakers or actors impersonate the characters con- cerned. (Young, I, 79-80)

Like Lange's edition forty-six years earlier, the two volumes of The Drama of the Medieval Church combined a textual edition with commentary. The first volume treated the origin of the liturgical drama and the plays of the Easter season, while the second focused on the plays of Christmas, saints' plays,

MICHAEL L. NORTON is a musicologist who lives in Virginia. Part One of this study appeared in the Spring (1987) issue of this journal.

127




plays of the Old Testament, plays on the Virgin Mary, and plays from Eschatology. Ostensibly organized along logical lines, Young's study traced the progression of the liturgical drama from its ritual roots to its religious but non-liturgical descen- dants, and it was Young's definition of drama that gave form to the exposition.

Following a brief introduction on the decline of classical drama and on the various dramatic spectacles of the Middle Ages, Young laid the foundation for his edition with an inquiry into the structure and nature of the medieval liturgy. Young's discussion of the liturgy, filling some one hundred and eighty-six pages, was divided into two sections. The first outlined the structure of Roman Mass and Office, while the second investi- gated the dramatic and literary aspects of the medieval liturgy. Young's emphasis lay not with the dramatic character of the Mass and Office, however, but with those dramatic embellish- ments that had invaded the liturgy during the Middle Ages, in particular the burial of cross and host, the harrowing of Hell, and, of course, tropes.

Of the ceremonies described by Young in these preliminary chapters, though, none could be considered drama. Although all were dramatic, none involved impersonation. Concerning the dramatic elements within the so-called authorized liturgy of the Church, for example, Young remarked:

It is clear . . . that [these] dramatic phenomena . . . cannot be regarded as effectual origins of the genuine drama of the Church. The Mass is excluded from the possibility of dramatization because of its fundamental meaning. It is not a representation of an action, but an actual re-creation of it. The horae of the Canonical Office never gave promise of development into drama, since they were designed as devotional exercises, and exhibit no intention of representing actual events. (I, 110)

Certain ceremonial aspects of the Holy Week liturgy were also dramatic in nature, and some of these would even be reflected in the later liturgical dramas, but "of the drama of the Church as a whole [these] liturgical observances . . . [were] not the essential beginnings" (I, 111). The burial and removal of the cross and host were more dramatic yet, but still they were not drama, for although "uncommonly tender or vivid or splendid . . . they lack the essential of true drama [i.e., impersonation]" (I, 148). Even tropes, with their occasional use of dialogue, were excluded from the dramatic fold. While by means "of




impersonation any one of them might have become a diminu- tive play," the "use of impersonation . . . seems to have been reserved especially for one particular trope" (I, 197). This trope, of course, was Quern quaeritis, the dialogued trope to the Introit of the Mass of Easter Sunday, and the core of the earliest dramas of the church.

Having brought us from liturgy to the edge of drama in the first part of his study, Young concentrated in the second on the earliest dramas themselves. Young's presentation of Visitatio Sepulchri texts combined the classification and terminology of Lange's edition with the classificatory enhancements offered by Chambers.4 Not only did Young retain the three "stages" of Lange's edition, but he cast these three stages within the same two-ply classification that had distinguished the work of his predecessor. Like Lange, Young arranged the texts within the stages "in accordance with the increasing elaboration of their content." For Young, though, the content of the texts included not just the individual lines sung by the characters, but the rubrics as well: "The speeches ... are in large measure forma- lized, and lack variety, whereas the stage-directions frequently disclose fresh details as to the manner in which the words are

spoken, as to the physical setting, and, most important of all, as to the impersonating of the characters" (I, 239-40).

Young's classification, of course, served the same teleological end as had the earlier studies of Milchsack, Lange, and Cham- bers. For Young, in fact, the three stages of the classification represented not just the "logical order of development" for the Visitatio Sepulchri, but presumably the "historical order as well." This correlation between logical and historical order, though, while an important attribute of Young's presentation, was not a precondition to the classification. As Young himself observed, he adopted a method which was "primarily descriptive, rather than historical. . . ." Such a method "has the ad- vantage of being less liable to invalidation through the inevitable discovery of fresh material." Hence, while "a newly-found text may often discredit a genealogical construction, it can usually take its appropriate place in a descriptive plan without general disturbance" (I, viii-ix). Within the stages, Young hedged even further:

The sequence of versions within a particular group, moreover, although it commonly proceeds from the simplest to the most elaborate, does not pretend to demonstrate a strict historical




evolution, or to elucidate the complexities of geographical relationships. The general arrangement probably represents fairly enough the broad development of the several types ... but it makes no claim to final precision in these respects. ... I undertake, then, not so much an exact description of historical sequence as an orderly description of experiments and achievements. (I, 240)

For Young, then, Lange's three-stage classification served as the core of a logical system that was at once a descriptive framework for presenting the repertory of the Visitatio Sepulchri and an explanatory mechanism for the form's origin and development.5 Young took Lange's classification one step further, moreover, by weaving around it a second classificatory layer composed of both a preliminary form that was liturgical but not yet drama (the Quern quaeritis trope) and a derivative form that was drama but (probably) no longer liturgical (the Ludus Paschalis). Chambers' enhancement of Lange's three- stage classification was thus closed and brought into balance, and the dramatic classification of the repertory of the Visitatio Sepulchri was transformed into a cohesive system.

While internally consistent, though, Young's system could not mask the distortions that had accumulated within. Indeed, the tension between taxonomy and teleology, between the textual division of Milchsack's first classification and the dra-

matic division of Lange's classification, became even more apparent within the confines of Young's apparently air-tight structure. As with Lange's classification, it was within the second stage that many of the difficulties converged. Although all but one of Young's second stage texts joined the revised setting of the Quern quaeritis dialogue (Milchsack's dialogue "b") with the standard texts of the apostles' "scene" {Ad monumentum, Currebant duo, and Cernitis o socii), Young included neither the dialogue nor the texts of the apostles' "scene" among his criteria for defining the stage. Within Young's classification, in fact, neither version of the dialogue could be used to define a distinct Visitatio stage, and neither version of the dialogue could be defined according to the terms of the classification. Although most texts preserving the revised dialogue were of the standard second stage form (i.e., with the apostles' "scene"), enough settings preserving the revised dialogue without the apostles' "scene" (i.e., first stage) and/or with the Magdalene "scene" (i.e., third stage) had survived to render meaningless a second stase designation for any such grouping.^



Michael L.Norton 131

Moreover, since the designation "second stage" was made not on the basis of the revised dialogue, which Young observed to be "confined almost exclusively to Germany, or to places known to be rather specifically under German influence," but on the basis of the presence of an apostles' "scene," such dramatic criteria resulted in the curious inclusion among the second stage texts of a unique Visitatio from Dublin, in which none of the lines characteristic of the typical second stage form were present.7 This anomaly was noted by Young, who described it as "a simplified problem that cries out for a solution" (I, xiii). That the apostles' "scene" was normally connected to the revised dialogue, thus, again went unnoticed.

The half century following the publication of Young's study saw only two challenges to Lange's three stages. In 1965, O. B. Hardison, Jr., took on the evolutionary façade that had en- crusted the nearly eighty-year-old structure. In the opening essay of Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages, he charged that: 8

the standard historians of medieval drama . . . have attributed

present concepts and attitudes to a culture of the past. They have assumed that medieval man thought like nineteenth-century man, or ought to have done so. The result has been serious distortion. History has become teleological, interpreted both intentionally and unconsciously in terms of what texts anticipate rather than what they are. (p. 33)

In chipping at the evolutionary assumptions, Hardison largely reframed the questions that later critics would pose regarding the medieval Visitatio Sepulchri as a whole.9 With regard to the classification itself, though, his critique left barely a mark. Hardison soundly thrashed Young, for instance, for having fashioned his recension of the classification after the mutation

theory of evolution, while finding no fault with Carl Lange's original statement of the classification. In the end, Hardison saw but four major flaws in the presentations of the earlier scholars: (1) the use of evolutionary or developmental hypo- theses, (2) the application of dramatic, or performance, criteria to liturgical works, (3) the absence of critical or aesthetic judgements, and (4) an overriding emphasis on the accumulation of fact. His criticism was directed toward neither the fact nor the manner of classification, but solely toward the evolutionary assumptions with which the classification was (apparently) linked.




Two years later, Helmut De Boor attempted a new facing for Lange's "stages." In his Die Textgeschichte der lateinischen Osterfeiern, De Boor rejected both the evolutionary approach and the dramatic basis for Lange's classification. Beginning from a liturgical base (he excluded from his study those texts whose placement within the liturgy was not secure), De Boor laid his foundation upon the texts of the Visitatio Sepulchri themselves, down to the individual words and word forms. 10 This change in foundation, of course, prompted also a change in the structure of the classification that could be built on top. Abandoning the dramatic classification of his predecessors, De Boor divided the texts of the Visitatio Sepulchri among Àree poetic "types," with each "type" defined by its use of "new liturgical poetry."

To some extent, De Boor's classification is reminiscent of Milchsack's first classification. De Boor distinguished between his first two types, for example, solely on the basis of which setting of the dialogue between the Marys and the angel(s) was employed (pp. 166-72). De Boor's Type I Visitatio was built around the original setting of the dialogue (corresponding to Milchsack's dialogue "a"), while his Type II Visitatio was built around the revised setting of the dialogue (corresponding to Milchsack's dialogue "b"). Although those texts with the revised dialogue included by Young within the first stage were considered by De Boor as abbreviations of the normal Type II form (the normal Type II form comprising both the revised dialogue and the apostles' "scene"), the three-part structure of the earlier classification remained intact. The Magdalene "scene," although recognized by De Boor as having been built on either the Type I or the Type II framework, was still seen as defining a distinct "Type HI" form (p. 238). 11

De Boor's classification, then, while certainly more consistent than its forbearers, was marred by the same structural flaws that had condemned the earlier systems. However distant their foundations may have appeared, in fact, all classifications of the Visitatio Sepulchri had secured themselves along the same fault. All arranged their sources according to the increasing elaboration of their content, all defined "content" textually (none considered the melodies), and all operated at one level removed from the sources themselves. Indeed, these classifications suffered not so much because they were teleological, as Hardison argued, but rather because the objective foundations




upon which they were built (i.e., accretion to a textual core, the number of events represented, or shifts in poetic structure) were too far removed from the particular items being considered (i.e., the textual/musical settings) to be viable as meaningful frames of reference. These classifications were filial rather than

generative classifications. They took as their base abstractions derived from the textual and musical elements making up the form before having reckoned with the elements themselves. The approach was backwards. It is as if, in attempting to classify all manner of flying creatures, we were to choose modes of flight as our primary matrix before having established that such creatures could be divided among the several species of birds, mammals, and insects. The emphasis here is on a particular function of the "what" rather than on the "what" itself, and because the "what' is not yet known, the classification obscures rather than clarifies the delineations actually present within that group.

Clearly, if we wish to understand the connections that unite - or separate - the sources of a repertory, any repertory, we must begin with the discrete elements that compose those sources. In the case of the Visitatio Sepulchri we must begin not with whatever levels of textual or dramatic complexity or variations in poetic structure may be evident, but with the individual textual/ musical settings themselves. These are the discrete elements. Although classifications built along other matrices are possible, even desirable, such classifications must always be derivative in nature, in that their base is either abstracted from the discrete textual/musical elements (as, for example, in the case of Lange and De Boor) or related to the contexts in which these settings are found (classifications, for example, based on liturgical placement or geographical distribution).

To sort through the sources of the Visitatio Sepulchri, then, we must search among their texts and melodies for the common denominator that binds them. Since all settings of the Visitatio Sepulchri hold in common a series of sung texts depicting the dialogue between the Marys and the angel (s) at the empty sepulchre of Christ, it is this dialogue that can best serve as the basis for our arrangement. Such an approach, of course, brings us full circle, for this was precisely the mode for classi- fying the Visitatio Sepulchri originally proposed - and subse- quently abandoned - by Gustav Milchsack over a century ago. Even after a century's accumulation, moreover, most settings




of the Visitatio Sepulchri have retained this dialogue in one of the two forms identified in Milchsack's taxonomy. Each of Milchsack's two dialogues, in fact, defines a distinct tradition for the Visitatio Sepulchri. Each tradition is structurally distinct, each tradition is historically and geographically cohesive, and each tradition embraces aU of the levels of complexity that defined the schemes of Milchsack's successors.

If identifying our two traditions proved a vexing task, labeling them is equally so. Simply put, how can we devise labels that are distinct from those of earlier classifications and yet descriptive of the forms (and the resulting traditions) that we wish to discuss. While it is certainly not impossible to come up with new terms (e.g., group, collection, set, batch), the very pervasiveness of the labels of Lange (stage) and De Boor (type) would surely render impotent any attempts to make them stick. Since De Boor's label (if not his classification) has become the de facto standard among scholars of medieval drama, and since De Boor's first two types are closely allied with our two traditions, it is probably the safest course, certainly the least confusing, to adopt the label "type" for our two forms as well.

The earlier - and presumably original - form of the dialogue, our Type I, was composed in the ninth or tenth century and, in its earliest versions at least, was sung within a variety of liturgical positions (before the Mass, at the end of Matins, and even before Matins). 12 The sources stem primarily from that part of Europe west of the Rhine, with a few sources surviving from Germany, Scandinavia, and eastern Europe. Despite a wide variety of structures representing a multitude of regional and local practices, the greater part of the repertory is composed of the simplest settings, i.e., comprising the dialogue and one or more short liturgical items (normally antiphons or trope elements). An example of the "short" form, cast as a trope to the Easter Introit in an eleventh-century manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS. lat. 1121) from the monastery of St. Martial in Limoges, is given as Example 3. Pre- sented with little elaboration, the three-line dialogue, as David Bjork noted, 13 is a free-standing textual and musical structure consisting of two syntactically and melodically balanced phrases (phrases A and B) followed by a contrasting third phrase (phrase C). A series of trope elements then leads us to the beginning of the Introit antiphon.




Elaborations of this form are generally distinguished more by their length than by their complexity. Sources from Châlons- sur-Marne, Laon, Le Mans, Paris, and Troyes, for example, typically append the sequence Victimae paschali laudes to the dialogue. Sources from Bourges, Narbonne, Sens, and Dublin include also an introductory lament. 14 Only a few settings go beyond this in length, and these are generally preserved in sources originating from within the Norman sphere of influence. In the setting from Rouen presented earlier (Example 1), a modified Type I dialogue (bracket A) serves as preface to a series of texts and melodies relating the appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene (bracket B). That this Magdalene "scene" serves here as an independent amplification of the Type I Visitatio rather than as an "integral componant of an entirely new form" (as Milchsack put it) is supported by the modal and melodic independence of its two sections (the sequence of melodic motives characterizing the sections are labeled in the example). The motivically unified Magdalene amplification, in fact, is little more than an overlay to the older, albeit modified, setting of the Type I Visitatio SepulchriA5

Originating in the eleventh century and preserved in sources from the Holy Roman empire and from areas under imperial influence, the Type II Visitatio, more than a mere revision of the dialogue between the Marys and the angel, was an amplified recasting of the earlier Type I form. Although the dialogue lines retain the text incipits of the earlier form, both the words and the melodies are new. In most settings in which the revised dialogue is preserved, moreover, the three-line dialogue is accompanied by four additional lines, one prefatory line sung by the Marys on their approach to the sepulchre (Quis revolvet) and three concluding lines detailing the announcement by the Marys of their encounter with the angel and the ensuing visit to the sepulchre by the apostles Peter and John (Ad monumen- timi, Currebant duo9 and Cernitis, o socii). These seven lines constitute the core of the Type II Visitatio Sepulchri. An example from a fourteenth-century manuscript (Halberstadt, Domschatz, MS. 17) from the cathedral of Halberstadt is given as Example 4. Melodically, these seven lines display a two-part interlocking structure, with the first four lines set in 'e' mode and transposed 'e' mode, and the final three lines set in *d' mode. The first four lines (Quis revolvet-Non est hic), although melodically dissimilar, replicate the pattern of melodic repetition




found in the Type I core (motives aba in lines A-C followed by a contrasting line D). The contrasting phrase that concludes the opening section ( Non est hic), moreover, presents two new motives (c and d) that tie it to the final line of the second section.

In general, the Type II Visitatio is subject to the same sorts of variations that characterized its Type I counterpart. 16 Litur- gical antiphons and responsories are frequently employed prior to, after, and even within the seven lines of the Type II core. Two of the more common items are the short responsory Maria Magdalena (CAO 7128) that introduces the example above and the antiphon Surr exit Dominus de sepulchro (CAO 5079) that closes it. 17 The sequence Victimae paschali laudes is a frequent interpolation. In areas where the Type I Visitatio Sepulchri had reigned, moreover, we often see abbreviated versions of the Type II text. Several settings from Fritzlar, for example, include the Type II dialogue within what is otherwise a Type I framework. 18

Sources of the Type II Visitatio containing the Magdalene amplification show few connections with those associated with the Type I Visitatio. As Susan Rankin has demonstrated (pp. 254-55), not only are they more widely dispersed than their Type I counterparts, ranging from throughout the area of the Type II dissemination, they are also both textually and melodically distinct. 19 Within the thirteenth-century Type II Visitatio Sepulchri from Marienberg bei Helmstedt,20 for instance, the melodically independent Magdalene amplification, interpolated within the second part of the Type II core (inserted after the line Ad monumentum and separated from the final two lines by the sequence Victimae paschali laudes), restates the search- discovery theme that preceded it, thus serving as both an overlay to - and a reinforcement of - the Type II Visitatio Sepulchri as a whole.

As we might expect, our two-part classification of the Visitatio Sepulchri is not without its exceptions. A twelfth- century setting of the Visitatio from the monastery of St. Ulrich und Afra in Augsburg and a thirteenth-century setting from the diocese of Würzburg, for example, include the text and melody of the Type I dialogue within the Type II framework.21 A twelfth-century setting doubtfully attributed to Augsburg and a late-eleventh or early-twelfth century setting from Einsiedeln alternate the two dialogues, the Type I followed by the Type 11.22 Another variation is seen in settings from Engelberg,




Gotha, and Stockholm, where Type II texts are set with melodies drawn from the Type I dialogue.23

A few sources, moreover, use new versions of the dialogue altogether. A thirteenth-century manuscript from Einsiedeln, for instance, uses the complete Type II core with the exception of the dialogue itself, for which an alternate series is substituted.24 Three fifteenth or sixteenth century manuscripts from the monastery of St. Florian, similarly, replace the first half of what is otherwise a Type II ceremony with a series of processional antiphons.25 Other unique dialogues are found in sources from Poitiers, Troyes, and Gran.26

Viewing the repertory of the Visitatio Sepulchri as a whole, then, we see two largely independent, although clearly contigu- ous, traditions of performance: the older, and highly inconstant, tradition of the West (our Type I) and the largely ignored, albeit certainly prodigious tradition of the East (our Type II). A number of sources, moreover, display the traits of both traditions (remnants, no doubt, of long-past liturgical collisions), while a few display the traits of neither. Although this scaffold for the Visitatio Sepulchri may not suit the needs of all observers, it does offer at least two advantages over earlier frameworks for the repertory. First, by condensing the three groups of the older classifications into the two outlined here, it provides an enlarged repertory for each version of the ceremony from which historical and liturgical inquiries may proceed, and, second, with settings of the Visitatio grouped according to which dialogue is held in common, it allows the structural patterns governing each version of the ceremony to be more clearly seen.

To be sure, our scaffold for the repertory of the Visitatio Sepulchri does not provide a clear view for aU. Our division of the repertory into two parts, for example, ignores the very real significance of the Magdalene amplification, which was culti- vated within both traditions and which, in its depiction of the risen Christ, brought a wholly new dimension to the celebration of the visit to the sepulchre. In insisting upon a conceptual framework that negates the structural significance of the Mag- dalene amplification, however, we do not necessarily deny the significance of these texts within other contexts. The Magdalene amplification, in fact, has itself several forms, most of which are bound to one of the two types described here. Indeed, as Susan Rankin has shown (pp. 227-55), we can better understand the Magdalene amplification by examining it as a discrete




entity in its own right, an entity with its own rules, its own structure, and its own history.

Perhaps the greatest challenge to our two-part arrangement, though, lies not so much within the arrangement itself as in the expectations that we bring to the arrangement. No classification can fully represent the objects of its embrace. As logical rather than natural constructs, classifications allow us merely to arrange in rational sequence that which was but randomly conceived. Classifications are thus two-dimensional structures, and their yield rarely extends beyond a cross-section of that which they frame. No classification, therefore, including this one, can exist without distortion, for no two-dimensional view, no matter how immaculately conceived or meticulously executed, can capture all of the nuances of its subject. If we are to understand the myriad relationships existing among the extant sources of the Visitatio Sepulchri, therefore, what we need are not grander views of the repertory of the Visitatio Sepulchri, but more views. To be sure, much remains to be done. Despite a century and a half of scholarship, the analyses of the sources themselves has hardly begun. If the time has come to abandon the three-part arrangement of the repertory of the Visitatio Sepulchri, certainly the most enduring legacy of the pioneering scholars of medieval drama, we can only hope that this two-part arrangement, conceived and abandoned by Gustav Milchsack over a century ago, can provide - if not the same aesthetic pleasure - at least a fraction of the utility that has been the hallmark of the three stages of Carl Lange.

NOTES

i Karl Young, The Drama of the Medieval Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), 2 vols. For Chambers, see The Mediaeval Stage (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1903), 2 vols., while for the earlier studies of Lange and Milchsack, see Carl Lange, Die lateinischen Osterfeiern (Munich, 1887), and Gustav Milchsack, Die lateinische Osterfeiern (Wolfenbüttel, 1880).

2 O. B. Hardison, Jr., Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1965), pp. 18-19.

3 Young's definition follows that of John M. Manly, "Literary Forms and the New Theory of the Origin of the Species," Modern Philology, 4 (1906-07), 584-85.

4 Young (I, 239) gives Lange full credit for tûe classincation.

5 Cf. Hardison, who argues that Young's classification scheme "is only in part a logical device based on the wish to be descriptive. It is also (perhaps primarily) a




schematic elaboration of the mutation theory** (p. 24). For a sympathetic reassess- ment of Young's study, see C. Clifford Flanigan, "Karl Young and the Drama of the Medieval Church: An Anniversary Appraisal," Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama, 27 (1984), 157-66.

6 Young, I, 253, 257-58, 267-68, 283-84 (Stage I texts with revised dialogue), 385-89, 389-92, 398-401, 402-08 (Stage in texts with revised dialogue).

7 See ibid, I, 254, 347-50.

8 Hardison begins his critique of scholarship on the Visitatio Sepulchri only with Chambers' The Mediaeval Stage. Lange's edition is mentioned only in a footnote, while Milchsack's edition is not cited at all.

9 The impact of Hardison's study is treated by C. Clifford Flanigan, "The liturgical Drama and Its Tradition: A Review of Scholarship 1965-1975," Research Oppor- tunities in Renaissance Drama, 18 (1975), 86-96.

10 Helmut De Boor, Die Textgeschichte der lateinischen Oster feiern (Tübingen, 1967), pp. 4-7, 20.

il The most recent edition of texts of the Visitatio Sepulchri, Walther Lipphardt's Lateinische Osterf eiern und Osterspiele (Berlin, 1975-81) [hereafter abbreviated as LOO], while employing Lange's label, "stage" {Stufe), generally follows De Boor's system. Exceptions to De Boor's plan (and there are many) generally show a geographical bias. The Fritzlar settings {LOO 209-10), for example, are assigned to the first stage due to their correspondence to the first stage settings from Mainz (see below, note 18), while the Dublin settings {LOO 112-12*) are assigned to the third stage due to their Norman connection.

12 For the most part, the liturgical placements follow geographical Unes. The pre- Mass settings stem from Italy, southern France, Catalonia, and Switzerland, while the Matins settings stem primarily from northern France, England, the German- speaking lands, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe. See David A. Bjork, "On the Dis- semination of Quern quaeritis and the Visitatio Sepulchri and the Chronology of Their Early Sources," Comparative Drama, 14 (1980), 59-62.

13 Ibid., p. 56.

14 LOO 96-98 (Châlons-sur-Marae), 111-12 (Laon), 113-14 (Le Mans), 123-49 (Paris), and 171-72 (Troves); Bourges {LOO 96-98), Narbonne {LOO 116), Sens {LOO 162-64), and Dublin {LOO 772-72a). The Dublin manuscripts further specify that the clerics representing the apostles should participate in chanting the sequence Victimae paschaH laudes. It was this feature that prompted Young to include the one Dublin text known to him within the second stage.

15 Other Norman settings related to that of Rouen are listed in note 9 in Part I of this paper. With regard to the layered structure of the Visitatio Sepulchri, see Susan K. Rankin, "The Mary Magdalene Scenes in the 'Visitatio Sepulchri' Cere- monies," Early Music History, 1 (1981), 228-32.

16 For a list of the textual and musical variations found within the repertory of the Type II Visitatio, see Michael L. Norton, "The Type II Visitatio Sepulchri: A Répertoriai Study," unpubl. Ph.D. diss. (The Ohio State Univ., 1983), pp. 111-21.

17 The catalogue numbers are those provided by René-Jean Hesbert, Corpus antiphonalium officii (Rome, 1963-75), 5 vols.

18 The Fritzlar settings follow the form of the Type I Visitatio from the cathedral of Mainz. See Walther Lipphardt, "Die Mainzer Visitatio Sepulchri,*1 Medievalia litteraria: Festschrift für Helmut De Boor (Munich, 1971), pp. 177-91 (with facsimile of Kassel, Landsbiblo, 2° MS. theol. 129, fol. 11 Ir, mistakenly identified as MS. 99). For other examples of the abbreviated Type II Visitatio Sepulchri, see Norton, pp. 111-21. De Boor argues convincingly (pp. 170-71) that these abbreviated settings reflect the prior use, or knowledge, of the Type I Visitatio at the institutions for which they were written.



1 40 Comparative Drama

19 While examples of the Type I Visitatio Sepulchri with Magdalene amplification may appear equally well dispersed, all but two (Vich, Museo Biblioteca Episcopal MS. 105, fols. 58v-62v [LOO 823, from Vich], and Zurich, Zentralbibliothek MS. Rheinau 18, fols. 282-83 [LOO 797 , from Rheinau]) stem from areas under Norman influence and follow the Norman usage. On the Magdalene ampliations of the Type II Visitatio Sepulchri, see Norton, pp. 96-109.

20 See Example 2, published with Part I of this article.

21 LOO 186 (Augsburg) and 371 (diocese of Würzburg).

22 LOO 185 (Augsburg?) and 563 (Einsiedeln). The Einsiedeln manuscript gives directions for optional performance. Other settings with elements of both dialogues include those from the monasteries of Weingarten (LOO 760) and Fulda (LOO 760a), which insert the first two lines of the Type I dialogue within the Type II dialogue frame, and that from Asbeck bei Legden (LOO 184), which inserts the third line of the Type I dialogue within the Type II frame.

23 LOO 784 (Engelberg), 577 (Gotha), and 451 (Stockholm). In the Engelberg setting, the first line of the dialogue (Quern queritis) uses the Type II text with a Type I melody, the second Une (Jesum Nazarenum) includes the Type I text and melody, while the third line (Non est hic) includes the Type II test and melody. Both the Gotha and Stockholm settings use the complete Type II text with Type I melodies. See Norton, pp. 92-95.

24 LOO 783. The texts are as follows: Quern vos, Quern flentes/ Nos Ihesum Christum/ Non est hic vere.

25 LOO 724, 723, and 725. The sequence is as follows: Sedit angelus (CAO 4859), Virtute magna, Maria Magdalena et altera Maria ibant, Quis revolvet, and Nolite expavescere (CAO 3892).

26 LOO 151-53 (Poitiers), 170 (Troves), and 470a (Gran).

Errata: In Part I of this article published previously in Comparative Drama (Spring 1987), the following emendations should be made: (1) in Example 1, p. 52, line 4, the underlay for notes 5-7 should be ui-uen-tem; and (2) in Example 2, p. 57, line 5, under notes 3-6, the word should be redemptio.




EXAMPLE 3

Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 1121 , llv (St. Martial Troper, llth Century- WO 5h)

Resurr ex ì or Resurrexìt



EXAMPLE h

Halberstadt, Domschatz, MS 17, 89r-89v (Halberstadt Antiphonary, 15th Century- LOO 579)




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