The Medieval liturgical chant tradition in Finland

by Ilkka Taitto :: 1998

	Unknown origins
	Focus shifts to the Frankish Empire
	The first pan-European genre of music
	Chant comes to Finland
	Dominicans and northern local colour
	The liturgy of St Henry — Finland’s oldest composition
	The tradition continues despite the Reformation
	Further reading on Medieval music in Finland

	Roman Catholic monophonic liturgical music is considered the oldest genre in Western music. Many of the elements and institutions of today’s musical world were created or evolved under the influence of what is now known as ‘Gregorian chant’. This music came to Finland probably from the Cologne church province. Between the 6th and 13th centuries, liturgical chant was a segment of culture whose importance was comparable to that of art music in ancient Greece.
Unknown origins
	The origins and early stages of Latin chant, up to the end of the 4th century, are largely unknown. Christianity became politically acceptable at the beginning of the 4th century, and it seems apparent that several local liturgical traditions emerged thereafter in central and northern Italy, in southern France and Spain, and on the coasts of North Africa. National preferences, the weak political status of the Pope and geographical isolation expedited the establishment of local liturgical chant repertoire. Furthermore, the eastern congregations and patriarchates generated influences in the 5th to 8th centuries that filtered through at least to Italy and southern France. The historical and geographic bodies of repertoire considered the most significant were the Ambrosian chant of northern Italy; the Beneventan chant of southern and central Italy; the Mozarabic (Visigothic) chant of Spain; the Gallican chant of France; the Old Roman chant; and the Franco-Roman chant. The last of these is what is commonly known as Gregorian chant.
Focus shifts to the Frankish Empire
	The first two stages of development lasted until the early 9th century. From the point of view of later developments, the focus shifted to the Frankish Empire. Almost all the essential chant types had already been created. There is almost no written music from this period, because chants were transmitted orally through an efficient system of choral schools (schola cantorum). Franco-Roman chant gradually ousted the other traditions through the uniformity trend of the late 8th and early 9th centuries, and thus the vast majority of the preserved written music represents this repertoire.
The first pan-European genre of music
	Through missionary work, the church and the monasteries, Franco-Roman chant spread all over Catholic Europe. It became the first pan-European genre of music, a sort of common stock of musical idioms. It influenced folk music, early polyphony from the 10th century and the liturgies and hymns of the reformed churches in the 16th century. The heyday of monophonic liturgical chant lasted until the 12th to 15th centuries, depending on the area, but even after that it continued to exercise an influence on the creation of music. Following the division of the Carolingian Empire, the Franco-Roman repertoire split into three melodic ‘dialects’: Roman, German and ‘mediant’. Their differences remain identifiable in structures, variants and guises even in post-Medieval sources.
Chant comes to Finland
	Liturgical chant in Latin has existed in Finland since the missionary period (from the 11th century to the beginning of the 14th century). It may have been used as a conversion tool together with sermons, even though it was in Latin. Research conducted by Toivo Haapanen (d. 1950) shows that a significant portion of the manuscripts used in Finland during the early missionary period can be traced to the Cologne church province along the Rhine river. This observation is supported by analysis of the earliest Finnish images of saints and to some extent by sources in church history, but the matter requires a lot of further study. The liturgical and musical influences of the period came from the same places as the missionary efforts, trade and scholarly pursuits directed at Scandinavia: northern Germany, northern France, Sweden and Denmark and, indirectly, England.
Dominicans and northern local colour
	Dominican models came to influence the saint calendars, structures of divine service and chants in Turku Diocese in the mid-13th century. The impact of the Dominican friars on religious life remained significant throughout the Middle Ages. For example, the brotherhood founded a convent in Turku as early as 1249. During the tenure of Bishop Benedict (1321–1338), a Roman liturgical standard, ordinarium Fratrum Praedicatorum, was confirmed for use in the diocese. The purpose of this directive was to harmonize the disparate elements resulting from the variety of book sources derived from the missionary period. Thus, late Medieval chant in Finland is described as Dominican in origin, although additions to the repertoire created in Scandinavia, particularly Sweden and Finland, brought a touch of clearly identifiable local colour. These additional chants were largely created for the the cults of national patron saints, although saints revered universally (such as the Virgin Mary) were also provided with chants and texts of their own. The most significant of these are the metric cycles for all divine offices of the day, or rhymed officia (known as historiae in Latin).
The liturgy of St Henry — Finland’s oldest composition
	Only one rhymed officium was written in Finland; it is known by its opening words as Gaude coetus fidelium. It is dedicated to Finland’s patron saint, Bishop Henry. The corpus includes the sequences Coetus noster laetus esto and Ecce magnus presbyter, sung at winter and summer masses dedicated to St Henry. This liturgy must have been collated and composed at the Turku Cathedral choral school or the Dominican convent between 1310 and 1320. Today, it is the oldest Finnish composition preserved in written form. Finnish late Medieval divine service and thus liturgical chant culminates in two printed norm books of Dominican origin, the 1485 breviarium (Nuremberg) and the 1488 Missale Aboense (Lubeck). From the research point of view, however, the manuscript material is far more important. This material, rich in quality and extensive in the Scandinavian context, dates from the 11th to 17th centuries.
The tradition continues despite the Reformation
	The Lutheran Reformation brought the vernacular language into divine service and caused a change of cult. Nevertheless, the tradition of Medieval chant persisted. Although non-biblical festive days were mercilessly abolished from the 1530s or 1540s onwards, the Catholic stock of chant remained in evidence at major church festivals, in offices said by scholars and in other contexts too as late as in the early 17th century. Chants were translated into Finnish and Swedish from the late 1530s onwards, but the body of hymns in the vernacular was quite small in the late 16th century. These hymns were not what we today understand as hymns. The ‘Red Book’ of John III (Liturgia Svecanae ecclesiae) from 1576 indeed even tried to revive the Medieval chants, albeit in a Reformation spirit. The book also promoted the copying of old manuscripts, and thus some of the sources from this period emulate the Medieval originals. It was not until the publication in 1614 of the manual based on the decisions of the Upsala Council of 1593 and the emergence of purity of doctrine around the same time that the days of the old Latin liturgical chant began to be numbered. Henceforth, it was confined to contexts removed from divine service, to singing by scholars and to music teaching.

Further reading on Medieval music in Finland:

Fabian Dahlström:
Piae Cantiones. A remarkable monument
Finnish Music Quarterly 4/1986

Ilkka Taitto:
The neglected musical treasury in Finnish archives
Finnish Music Quarterly 3/1989

Fabian Dahlström:
The Music Heard in Turku Cathedral
Finnish Music Quarterly 1/2000

Ilkka Taitto:
Gregoriana Fennica. Memory of Bishop Henry lives on
Finnish Music Quarterly 1/2000

Piae Cantiones - A Finnish Treasure of Medieval Songs
Virtual Finland 1999

Piae Cantiones Page (Jyväskylä University)
The site is based on a volume of Piae Cantiones owned by the Jyväskylä University library (Cantiones piae et antiquae, 3rd edition, Rostock 1625). Texts in Finnish; pictures and audio files. (Page created May 16, 2000)



Translation © Jaakko Mäntyjärvi