GREGORIAN CHANT (Latin, cantus gre gorianus, cantus planus, cantus firmus; Italian canto fermo; French, chant gregorien, plain chant; German, gregorianischer Choral) is as old as the Church itself. As an integral part of the liturgy, music has its origin in the cele bration of the Last Supper. According to the evangelists, Matthew and Mark, after the con secration and breaking of bread, our Lord and the apostles sang a hymn, which is commonly accepted to have been the Haller of the Jewish passover celebration, that is, the Psalms, cxii—cxvii (Douai version), inclusive. The first Christian communities of Jerusalem in Pales tine and Antioch in Syria were founded by newly converted Jews. Consequently it is more than probable that, although the converts from paganism were soon in the majority, melodies in use in the temple and in the synagogues con tinued to be sung at their religious meetings. This hypothesis is all the more reasonable be cause the recruits from paganism could offer nothing either in the way of poetry or musk which would have been acceptable to the new cult. As to how the chant came to Rome and concerning its early development, archxology has so far been unable to ascertain any definite information. Conjecture and probability are the most we have to go by. Without doubt Greek music, which was known to the Romans, as was every other form of Hellenic culture, had its influence on the formation of the Christian worship music. It is certain also that there was a constant development and that singing played an ever greater role in the early liturgy. There were hardly any religious functions of which the singing of psalms, responsories and hymns did not form a part. From the fruitful soil of the early Church sprang with great exuberance a new hymnology, which in turn, as its logical complement, was translated into melodies. Many of the latter were spontaneous improvisa tions, the children of ardent hearts and imagina tions illumined by the new light. At first the whole religious community participated in the singing, but as the liturgy became more elab orate and the assemblies more numerous, this participation on the part of all the faithful had to be restricted to certain portions of the serv ice. Other more particular parts were per formed by the Pri Precentor or Mon itor, who also had charge of the sing ing and whose office it was to see that the faith ful were well prepared for their allotted task. After emerging from the catacombs at the be ginning of the 4th century the Church dis played its ever-growing vitality ip the unfolding of her liturgy and the increasing splendor of her cult. At this period the chants used must have
been numerous and varied. Popes and bishops fostered the liturgical music in every manner. Pope Sylvester (314) and Hilarius (461) founded schools for its cultivation. Saint Am brose, Archbishop of Milan (397), took a step which was of greater importance than anything which had been done up to that time. He gave system and r to the and chants in use in his archeincese by giving them a theoretic basis. This he accomplished by adopting four modes or scales, each one of which had as its initial one of the four notes of the Tetrachord (sequence of four notes), D, E, F, G. The four modes adopted by Saint Ambrose were consequently : (a) (Dorian) D, E,F, G, a, b,c, d; (b) (Phrygian) E,F, G, a, b,c, d, e; (c) (Lydian) F, G, a, b,c, d, e,f, (d) Mixo Lydian), G, a, b,c, d, e,f, g. All the melodies and chants used had some one of these modes for their foundation. Saint Ambrose originated the custom of singing hymns and psalms antiph onally.
When 200 years later, Gregory the Great, the man who gave the music of the Church its permanent character and from whom it is named, ascended the papal throne, the number of feasts and consequently of liturgical chants had increased to such an extent that the four modes fixed by Ambrose were no longer suffi cient. Many of the new melodies did not belong to any one of the scales enumerated above. They had grown beyond the original frame. As Gregory partly reformed and, at least in out line, gave shape to the ecclesiastical year as we now know it, he was compelled also to re arrange existing chants, reject inferior ones, adapt old ones to new texts and add new ones of his own creation. In order to carry out this vast plan be found it necessary to enlarge the tonal system then in use. He retained the four Ambrosian modes, which were henceforth desig nated as the authentic modes, and added thereto four more which he called plagal. Gregory formed the new modes by transposing the last four notes of the existing— authentic — scales an octave lower, so that each plagel mode be gan a fourth below the authentic from which it sprang. Thus the tonal system as completed by Saint Gregory was as follows : chants for the numerous offices was called It was deposited near the altar of Saint Peter so as to convey that the pontiff wished it to be considered as the norm for the whole Christian world.