From Tolerated Addition to Keepers of Tradition: The Authority of the 'Past' in Latin Song in Central Europe in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
Abstract
The essay explores the written tradition of three Latin songs belonging to the Central European repertoire of 14th and 15th centuries: Ave non Eve meritum, Maria triuni gerula and O quantum sollicitor. First two examples - Ave non Eve meritum and Maria triuni gerula - show how Latin songs were modified for the use as tropes in the liturgy, how the notion about what is a trope and how it should look like gradually changed, and what effect had the use of the songs on their actual preservation.
It as well demonstrates the nature of innovation in a highly conservative environment. The common denominator of all described modifications is the aim to present songs as legitimate components of the liturgy by giving them the shape of chant and by creating textual references to host chants.
The third example, O quantum sollicitor represents a song that was never used in the liturgy. Therefore, its tradition is free from deliberate modifications and makes such modifications identifiable in other compositions.
The essay focuses on a small chapter in a complex story of how Latin songs enter the liturgy as its embellishment.