''Jubilus'' (plural ''jubili'') is the term for the long

melisma Melisma ( grc-gre, μέλισμα, , ; from grc, , melos, song, melody, label=none, plural: ''melismata'') is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is ref ...

placed on the final syllable of the

Alleluia Alleluia (derived from the Hebrew ''Hallelujah'', meaning "Praise Yahweh") is a Latin phrase in Christianity used to give praise to God. In Christian worship, Alleluia is used as a liturgical chant in which that word is combined with verses of s ...

as it is sung in the

Gregorian chant Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song in Latin (and occasionally Greek) of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed mainly in western and central Europe dur ...

. The structure of the Alleluia is such that the cantor first sings the word "alleluia," without the jubilus, and then the choir repeats the word with the melisma added. It is traditionally repeated at the end of the chant as well, although it was frequently omitted in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

and is still omitted when the Alleluia is followed by a

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 called ...

.Hoppin, Richard. ''Medieval Music''. New York: Norton, 1978. The traditional story for the origin of the medieval

is that it came from text added to the jubilus syllabically. Notker of St. Gall is said to have invented this process, and in his collection '' Liber Hymnorum'' there are sequences that seem to relate this way to known jubili. However, in his preface to the book, Notker implies that he learned the process from another monk, under tutelage from his teacher . This, and the fact that many early sequences do not seem to relate to jubili at all, implies that the origin of the Sequence is more complex, but it is possible that it derived from the jubilus originally.

References

{{reflist Medieval music theory