Celtic chant is the liturgical

plainchant Plainsong or plainchant (calque from the French ; ) is a body of chants used in the liturgies of the Western Church. When referring to the term plainsong, it is those sacred pieces that are composed in Latin text. Plainsong was the exclusive for ...

repertory of the

Celtic rite The term "Celtic Rite" is applied to the various liturgical rites used in Celtic Christianity in Britain, Ireland and Brittany and the monasteries founded by St. Columbanus and Saint Catald in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy during the ...

of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

performed in

Celtic Britain The British Iron Age is a conventional name used in the archaeology of Great Britain, referring to the prehistoric and protohistoric phases of the Iron Age culture of the main island and the smaller islands, typically excluding prehistoric Ire ...

Gaelic Ireland Gaelic Ireland () was the Gaelic political and social order, and associated culture, that existed in Ireland from the late Prehistory of Ireland, prehistoric era until the 17th century. It comprised the whole island before Anglo-Norman invasi ...

, and

Brittany Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...

. It is related to, but distinct from the

Gregorian chant Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainsong, plainchant, a form of monophony, monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song in Latin (and occasionally Greek language, Greek) of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed main ...

of the

Sarum use The Use of Sarum (or Use of Salisbury, also known as the Sarum Rite) is the liturgical use of the Latin rites developed at Salisbury Cathedral and used from the late eleventh century until the English Reformation. It is largely identical to t ...

of the

Roman rite The Roman Rite () is the most common ritual family for performing the ecclesiastical services of the Latin Church, the largest of the ''sui iuris'' particular churches that comprise the Catholic Church. The Roman Rite governs Rite (Christianity) ...

which officially supplanted it by the 12th century. Although no Celtic chant was notated, some traces of its musical style are believed to remain.

History

The

Celtic Church Celtic Christianity is a form of Christianity that was common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages. The term Celtic Church is deprecated by many historians as it implies a unified and identifiab ...

goes back to the Irish

monastic Monasticism (; ), also called monachism or monkhood, is a religious way of life in which one renounces worldly pursuits to devote oneself fully to spiritual activities. Monastic life plays an important role in many Christian churches, especially ...

traditions. The churches in Ireland and Britain had no central authority except, in theory, Rome, which in practice exerted very little influence. Notable in this transition from local Irish customs to more standardized Roman traditions was the conflict over the dating of

Easter Easter, also called Pascha ( Aramaic: פַּסְחָא , ''paskha''; Greek: πάσχα, ''páskha'') or Resurrection Sunday, is a Christian festival and cultural holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in t ...

, where the Roman tradition of solar dating finally supplanted the Irish lunar dating at the Synod of Tara in 692. Over the next several centuries, versions of the Roman rite such as the Use of Salisbury were gradually enforced in Brittany in the 9th century, Scotland in the 11th century.

Musical characteristics

The Irish monks famously established monasteries throughout much of Europe. As a result, Celtic chant was influenced by Spanish, Gallic, Roman, and Eastern traits. However, it shows the greatest liturgical similarity with

Gallican chant Gallican chant refers to the liturgical plainchant repertory of the Gallican rite of the Roman Catholic Church in Gaul, prior to the introduction and development of elements of the Roman rite from which Gregorian chant evolved. Although the music ...

. No musical specimen prior to Roman influence survives. One chant typical of those that may reflect this style is ''Ibunt sancti'', whose use was attested in Ireland.D. O Croinin, ed., ''Prehistoric and Early Ireland: Prehistoric and Early Ireland'', vol I (Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 794. The original text shows elements such as alliteration and a couplet structure. The surviving melody, from a French manuscript, has an ABA structure, in which the opening phrase is repeated at the end of the melody, and the whole melody is repeated for the second half of the couplet. Neither the ABA structure nor the repeated melody for the couplet are typical of the Roman chant traditions, except in

Sequence In mathematics, a sequence is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetitions are allowed and order matters. Like a set, it contains members (also called ''elements'', or ''terms''). The number of elements (possibly infinite) is cal ...

s, which themselves trace back to

Notker of St Gall Notker the Stammerer ( – 6 April 912), Notker Balbulus, or simply Notker, was a Benedictine monk at the Abbey of Saint Gall active as a composer, poet and scholar. Described as "a significant figure in the Western Church", Notker made substan ...

's and

Tuotilo Tuotilo or Tutilo Benedictines, OSB (died 915) was a Frankish monk at the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Gall. He was a composer, and according to Ekkehard IV a century later, also a poet, musician, painter and sculptor. Various Trope (music), trope ...

tropes Trope or tropes may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Trope (cinema), a cinematic convention for conveying a concept * Trope (literature), a figure of speech or common literary device * Trope (music), any of a variety of different things in m ...

at the Irish-founded

Abbey of St. Gall The Abbey of Saint Gall () is a dissolved abbey (747–1805) in a Catholic religious complex in the city of St. Gallen in Switzerland. The Carolingian-era monastery existed from 719, founded by Saint Othmar on the spot where Saint Gall had er ...

Notes

References

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External links

* Buckley, Ann: Celtic Chant, ''Grove Music Online'' ed. L. Macy (Accessed 16 May 2006)
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{{Chant Celtic Christianity Catholic music Christian chants Song forms Western plainchant Ancient music genres Medieval music genres