Maloy 2014

Old Hispanic Chant and the Early History
of Plainsong
REBECCA MALOY
F
aced with the fragmentary evidence on the emergence of Western
plainchant, scholars have not reached a consensus about how early
liturgical song was transformed into the mature repertories we find in
Medieval manuscripts. How and why did the creators of chant repertories
select and alter particular biblical texts, assign them to festivals, and set them
to certain kinds of music? Proposed answers to these questions have focused
on the Franco-Roman liturgy and its two chant dialects, Gregorian and Old
Roman. The Old Hispanic (or Mozarabic) chant has assumed a peripheral
role, if any, in most narratives about the origins of Western chant. It thus
remains a rarely mined body of evidence for the nature of chant before the
Carolingian reforms.1
The Old Hispanic sacrificia, or offertory chants, can yield new answers to
longstanding questions about how early chant repertories came to be. Read-
ing their texts in conjunction with the works of Isidore of Seville reveals that
specific allegorical interpretations of the Old Testament were central to the
meaning and formation of these chants, guiding their compilers’ selection
and alteration of biblical sources. The sacrificia also shed new light on the
relationship between words and music in pre-Carolingian chant, showing
that the cantors shaped the melodies according to textual syntax and mean-
ing. Finally, the Old Hispanic chant calls for a reassessment of the theories
that have been proposed about the origins of Roman chant, in particular
James McKinnon’s Advent-project theory. The processes that produced the
Old Hispanic repertory were both less linear and more varied than those
envisaged for Roman chant.
For their help and suggestions, I am grateful to Steven Bruns, Daniel J. DiCenso, Elissa Gu-
ralnick, Emma Hornby, Edward Nowacki, Faye Peel, and Patti Peterson, as well as the anony-
mous reviewers for this Journal. Aspects of this material were presented in colloquia at
Cambridge University and Catholic University of America, the 2009 Annual Meeting of the
American Musicological Society, and the 2013 International Congress on Medieval Studies.
1. As Don M. Randel suggested in “Old Hispanic Rite.” See also idem, “El antiguo rito his-
pánico.”
Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 67, Number 1, pp. 1–76 ISSN 0003-0139, electronic ISSN
1547-3848. © 2014 by the American Musicological Society. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission
to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website,
www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/jams.2014.67.1.1.
2 Journal of the American Musicological Society
The State of the Question
The early history of plainchant is often framed as a transition between

two practices, sometimes called “lector chant” and “schola chant.”2 In early
Christian times, lector chant prevailed. A reader sang a single psalm at
Mass, either straight through without repeats or with congregational
refrains. Lacking fixed liturgical assignments, these psalms were selected on
an ad hoc basis at each Mass. Mature repertories like Franco-Roman chant
contrast with this early practice in myriad ways, all connected with the emer-
gence of skilled choral singing. Instead of complete psalms, the chants con-
sist of selected psalm verses or nonpsalmic texts, abbreviated and rearranged
for a musical setting. In contrast to the ad hoc psalm selection of earlier
times, thematically appropriate chants are consistently assigned to particular
days in the liturgical year, a systematization that requires an organized body
of singers to initiate and maintain. Further indices of such codification might
include the arrangements of chants in biblical order or textual connections
among multiple chants sung on the same occasion.
While this broad characterization of early and later practice forms a com-
mon thread in chant scholarship, little agreement has emerged about how
and when the transition from lector chant to schola chant took place. In the
past two decades, major studies have probed the Roman Mass Proper for
clues to its genesis. Philippe Bernard places the creation of schola chant in
the sixth and seventh centuries, basing his chronology for particular genres
largely on their musical traits.3 McKinnon, by contrast, proposed that the
Mass repertory emerged through a brief burst of activity in the late seventh
century, pointing to its unified thematic strands. In his theory, the chrono-
logical layers of the repertory correlate with the seasons of the liturgical year,
beginning with Advent and progressing through each subsequent season.4
Finally, Andreas Pfisterer has argued that the Roman Mass Proper emerged
gradually between the fifth and early seventh centuries, starting with the
most important festivals and proceeding to the lesser ones.5
These conflicting theories are attributable in part to the types of evidence
examined. Pfisterer, for example, relies heavily on the biblical versions that
serve as the source of the chants, ranging from the Vulgate to the pre-Vulgate
2. The terms were coined by Claire, “L’évolution modale,” 231–35, and then developed in
a different direction by McKinnon, “Lector Chant versus Schola Chant”; and idem, Advent
Project, 62–65, 376–77. McKinnon’s use of the terms was divorced from Claire’s theories about
the evolution of the modes, which have not been widely accepted in English and German schol-
arship. For a critique of Claire’s theories, see Dobszay, “Some Remarks.”
3. Bernard, Du chant romain.
4. McKinnon, Advent Project. For critiques of The Advent Project, see esp. Dyer, “Advent and
the Antiphonale missarum,” and reviews of The Advent Project by Dyer, Jeffery, and Rankin.
5. Pfisterer, Cantilena.
Old Hispanic Chant and the Early History of Plainsong 3
translations from the Greek, collectively known as Vetus latina.6 McKinnon

did not consider this distinction. More fundamentally, however, scholars dis-
agree on how to use the meager pieces of evidence in constructing hypothe-
ses. McKinnon, for example, placed chants with the same thematic traits in
the same chronological layers, whereas Pfisterer and Bernard did not.7 Schol-
ars have also employed melodic evidence in very different ways. Bernard and
others have posited an evolutionary progression from direct, solo psalmody to
the complex schola chant genres, believing vestiges of these stages to be pre-
served in the existing melodies.8 McKinnon, by contrast, assigned specific
chants with similar stylistic traits to the same strata, examining the melodies
in conjunction with textual and liturgical evidence.
The Old Hispanic chant offers a wealth of material for revisiting these
methodologies and assessing the premises on which they rest. The tradition
shows many parallels to the Roman repertory. In musical style and form, its
chants are far removed from the repetitive, direct psalmody typically asso-
ciated with lector chant. Although the Iberian notation does not indicate
specific pitches or intervals, it attests to a musically elaborate style that would
have required specialized singers to execute. We also find an abundance of
three traits McKinnon associated with Roman schola chant: properization,
compositional planning, and extensive modification of biblical sources.
Coined by McKinnon, properization refers to the process by which chants be-
come consistently associated with specific festivals.9 Compositional planning
(hereafter “liturgical planning”) incorporates both properization and other
structural aspects of the repertory, such as unity of thematic focus and
arrangements of chants in biblical order.10 The Old Hispanic tradition exhib-
its these traits in even greater measure than do many Roman chants. The sac-
rificia, for example, rival the Roman offertories in their melismatic exuberance
but exceed them in the complexity and thematic specificity of their texts.
Despite these broad similarities to Roman chant, certain differences make
the Old Hispanic tradition a particularly rich window into the nature and
formation of mature repertories. In comparison to the early Franco-Roman
Mass sources, which show a basic concordance in their chant repertory and
liturgical assignments, Iberian practice is far more diverse.11 Scholars have
long recognized two distinct liturgical traditions. Tradition A, that of the
earliest sources, was practiced throughout northern Iberia and in some
6. Pfisterer, “James McKinnon”; idem, Cantilena, 11–76.

7. The importance of thematic traits emerges clearly in the introduction to McKinnon’s
Advent Project; see pp. 6 and 7, for example.
8. See Bernard, Du chant romain. Relying in part on earlier work by Cullin, “Le répertoire,”
and idem, “De la psalmodie,” and on the theories of Jean Claire, Bernard places direct, solo psalm-
ody (as found in the tract) as the earliest layer, followed by responsorial psalmody (i.e., the gradual).
9. McKinnon, “Properization.”
10. Idem, Advent Project, 2–9.
11. The case for Franco-Roman liturgical uniformity, however, was traditionally overstated.
See note 97 below.
Toledan parishes, whereas tradition B is witnessed in only two manuscripts

from Toledan parishes, dating from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and
in a handful of fragments.12 The two traditions differ in their readings, pray-
ers, chant repertories, and liturgical assignments.13 Within each tradition,
moreover, liturgical assignments are not uniform. This variety can yield
much insight into the formation of the repertory. Despite its large number
of uniquely assigned, thematically proper chants, moreover, the Old Hispanic
repertory is less “fleshed out” than the Roman Mass Proper. The Roman
repertory, for example, has a full set of chant assignments for the Lenten
weekdays, and many of these are unique assignments. The Old Hispanic
Lenten weekdays, by contrast, evince the kind of ad hoc chant selection that
McKinnon envisaged in Rome before the emergence of schola chant there.
We can posit plausible hypotheses about the creation of this repertory by
considering its relationships to the biblical sources and exegetical writings,
the patterns of uniquely assigned and shared chants, the repertorial differen-
ces between the manuscripts, and the variety of biblical versions used as text
sources.14 The resulting picture does not fully concord with any existing the-
ory about the origins of Roman chant. The evidence, in fact, fundamentally
challenges premises on which some of these theories rest. In the Old Hispanic
repertory, we find a far more multifaceted picture of liturgical planning.
The Old Hispanic Sacrificia: Origins and Textual

Characteristics
Although organized liturgical practices undoubtedly existed in Iberia before

the late sixth century, the core of the Old Hispanic rite is thought to have
developed between the Third Council of Toledo in 589, shortly after the
Visigothic king Reccared had converted from Arianism to Catholicism, and
12. Toledo 35.5, containing Masses and Sunday offices for Lent and the beginning of
Easter, and Madrid 10.110, containing Lenten ferial offices. On Toledo 35.5, see Janini, ed.,
Liber Misticus de Cuaresma y Pascua; Janini and Gonzálvez, Catálogo, 101–2; and Millares
Carlo, Corpus de códices 1, item 323. On Madrid 10.110, see Mundó, “Estudio paleográfico”;
Janini and Serrano, Manuscritos, 133–42. On the dates of both, see Mundó, “La datación de los
codices,” which substantially revised earlier datings of the Toledan sources to the ninth century.
On the position of the tradition B sources in the historiography of Old Hispanic chant, see
Hornby and Maloy, Music and Meaning, 12–15.
13. Scholars have not reached a consensus about the reasons for the differences. There are
two main theories. Pinell, “El problema,” argued that tradition B is the earlier of the two tradi-
tions, reflecting some evolution and corruption from the northern tradition, and that it is the
liturgy of Andalucia; he attributed its presence in Toledo to the influx of Mozarabic immigrants
from southern Iberia in the twelfth century. Janini has proposed that tradition B is a simplifica-
tion of the rite made to adapt it for parish use; Liber Misticus de Cuaresma, xxix–xxx. Each the-
ory explains some aspects of the evidence, but not all, as argued in Hornby and Maloy, Music
and Meaning, 303–14.
14. An essential resource for this endeavor is Randel, Index.
the Arab conquest of the Peninsula, beginning in 711.15 A nearly complete

repertory of text incipits for the Old Hispanic office is preserved in the
orational Verona, Cathedral, Biblioteca Capit. Cod. LXXXIX. Its contents
have been dated to the late seventh century, one-hundred years before the
earliest sources of Gregorian chant.16 The writings of Isidore of Seville
(d. 636) attest to the existence of many types of chant in early-seventh-century
Iberia. In his De ecclesiasticis officiis, written between 598 and 615, Isidore
mentions antiphons, responsories, hymns, the alleluia, and offertories.17 In
Etymologiarum sive originum libri xx (hereafter Etymologiae), thought to be
his final work, he refers to hymns, canticles, and the psalmus, the equivalent
of the Roman gradual.18 Elsewhere Isidore attributes the creation of chant to
his brother Leander, the previous bishop of Seville (d. 600 or 601).19 Whether
we view this ascription as fact or hagiography, it suggests that Iberian liturgical
chant existed in some form by the late sixth century, consistent with the sixth-
century activity of church councils.20 Ongoing seventh-century activity is
witnessed particularly in the Fourth Council of Toledo (633), with its call for
a common “ordo psallendi,”21 and in the attribution of chant composition
15. See, inter alia, Séjourné, Le dernier père, 137–44; Prado, Valoración, 81; Díaz y Díaz,
“Literary Aspects”; Férotin, Le Liber mozarabicus, 9–10; Janini, “Roma y Toledo”; Pinell,
Liturgia, 101–35; Nadeau “ ‘Pro sonorum,” 16–18; Page, Christian West, 236–42.
16. Vives, ed., “Oracional visigótico.” The manuscript itself is thought to date from the be-
ginning of the seventh century, before or contemporaneous with the 711 conquest. On its date
and place of origin, see Díaz y Díaz, “La fecha de implantación”; idem, “Consideraciones”; and
Vivancos, “El oracional.” The earliest substantial sources for Roman chant date from ca. 800,
though there are slightly earlier fragments. See Hesbert, ed., Antiphonale; and Rankin, “Making
of Carolingian Mass Chant Books.”
17. Isidore, De ecclesiasticis officiis, 6–8; 15–16. For analyses of the liturgical content in
Isidore’s writings, see Séjourné, “Saint Isidore”; Brou, “Problèmes liturgiques”; Prado, Historia
del rito, 13–17; and Pinell, Liturgia hispánica, 108–11.
18. Isidore, Etymologiarum sive originum libri xx, bk. 6, chap. 19. On the chronology of
Isidore’s works, see Aldama, “Indicaciones.”
19. “Siquidem et in ecclesiasticis officiis idem non parvo elaborabit studio: in toto enim psal-
terio duplici editione orationes conscripsit: in sacrificio quoque, laudibus atque psalmi, multa dulci
sono composuit.” Isidore, De viris illustribus,150. Here Isidore uses three words that became
known as names of chant genres: sacrificia, psalmi, laudes. It is unclear, however, whether “psalmi”
and “laudes” refer specifically to chant genres or more generally to psalms and praises. Further, “in
sacrificio” may refer to the Mass rather than the chant genre. “Multa dulci sono composuit” (he
composed many things with a sweet sound), however, does suggest musical composition.
20. Liturgical activity is particularly attested in the councils of Gerona (517) and First Braga
(561). See Vives, ed., Concilios visigóticos, 39 and 71–72. For thorough summaries of the
church councils’ statements regarding liturgy, see Prado, Historia del rito, 27–46; and Pinell,
Liturgia Hispánica, 101–35.
21. The Braga and Gerona Councils in the sixth century had called for unity within their
respective provinces (see note 20), whereas Toledo IV mandated unity throughout Iberia and
southern Gaul. It would be a mistake, however, to equate the common “ordo psallendi” with
a homogenous chant repertory, since Toledo IV was concerned with unity in more basic mat-
ters, such as the form of the baptismal rite. As Stocking has argued, the central concern was to
promote unity of belief. See Stocking, Bishops, Councils, and Consensus, 156–60.
or correction to figures such as John of Saragossa (d. 631) and Eugenius of

Toledo (d. 657).22
We find the first unequivocal witness to an Iberian offertory chant in
Isidore’s De ecclesiasticis officiis, couched in the allegorical language that
pervades this work:
The Book of Ecclesiasticus is proof that the ancients customarily sang offerto-
ries, which are sung in honor of sacrifices, as the sacrificial victims were being
offered. For so it says: “The priest stretched out his hand in libation and he
poured the blood of the grape in offering, and at the foot of the altar he
poured out a divine odor to the highest prince. Then the sons of Aaron
exclaimed in trumpets of wrought metal, and they made a great sound to be
heard in remembrance before God.” [Ecclesiasticus 50:16–18]. No differently
even now, we rouse up songs in the sound of the trumpet, that is, in a procla-
mation of the voice, and likewise we manifestly jubilate in that true sacrifice by
whose blood the world has been saved, declaiming praises to the Lord with
heart and body.23
Isidore’s remarks raise a fundamental question for chant historians. Was the
offertory he knew similar to the nonpsalmic, proper sacrificia we find in the
Old Hispanic manuscripts, from the tenth century on? Or does it reflect a
practice closer to lector chant? At first glance, one might assume that
Isidore’s comments are pure allegory, with little to tell us about the chant
tradition he knew. De ecclesiasticis officiis stands within a long tradition of
allegorical commentary on the Mass, in which the Old Testament prefigures
Christ and the Christian rites.24 Isidore’s description of the offertory is no
exception. He finds its origins in Ecclesiasticus 50, the biblical point where
singers first join the Mosaic trumpets in the sacrificial music: “And the sing-
ers lifted up their voices, and in the great house the sound of sweet melody
22. These accounts, of course, may be hagiographical rather than factual, but they do attest
to liturgical activity in the seventh century. John of Saragossa “in ecclesiasticis officiis quaedam
eleganter et sono et oratione composuit” and Eugenius of Toledo “Cantus passiuis usibus uitia-
tos melodiae cognitione correxit.” (Ildefonsus, De viris illustribus, 607; 615). These documents
are collected in Férotin, Liber Mozarabicus, xv–xvii (103–5), and they are summarized and
discussed, inter alia, in De Bruyne, “De l’origine”; Prado, Historia del rito, 20–25; Fernández
Rodríguez, “Testimonio de la comunión,” 171–80; Fernández de la Cuesta, “El canto,” 453;
and Brou, “Problèmes liturgiques.”
23. “Offertoria quae in sacrificiorum honore canuntur Ecclesiasticus liber indicio est ueteres
cantare solitos quando uictimae immolabantur. Sic enim dicit: Porrexit, inquid, sacerdos manum
suam in libationem et libauit de sanguine uuae et fudit in fundamento altaris odorem diuinum
excelso principi. Tunc exclamauerunt filii Aaron in tubis productilibus et sonauerunt et auditam
fecerunt magnam uocem in memoriam coram deo. Non aliter et nunc in sonitu tubae, id est in
uocis praedicatione, cantus accendimus, simulque corde et corpore laudes domino declamantes
iubilamus in illo scilicet uero sacrificio, cuius sanguine saluatus est mundus.” Isidore, De ecclesi-
asticis officiis, 16.
24. For a recent overview of allegorical liturgical commentaries, see Barthe, “The ‘Mystical’
Meaning.” For introductions to allegorical exegesis, see Spicq, Esquisse d’une histoire; Smalley,
Study of the Bible; Lubac, Exégèse médiévale; and van Liere, “Biblical Exegesis.”
was increased” (Ecclesiasticus 50:20).25 In concluding, he connects the

ancient sacrificial offerings to the sacrifice of Christ, a typology he develops
extensively in a later work.26
Despite its rich allegory, however, Isidore’s description also shows com-
pelling links to the existing sacrificium texts. He begins, for example, with an
account of an Old Testament offering, Ecclesiasticus 50:16–18. Most sacri-
ficia also open with a sacrificial narrative, drawing from the ample fund of
such stories found throughout the Old Testament.27 In quoting Ecclesiasti-
cus 50:16, Isidore invokes the priestly sons of Aaron who offer the sacrifice.
Aaron and his sons also figure prominently in many extant sacrificia.28 For
Isidore and other patristic exegetes, they prefigure the Christian episcopacy
and priesthood.29 Further on in the cited passage, the priest “pour(s) out a
divine odor to the highest prince” and the sons of Aaron sound trumpets “in
remembrance before God.” Even these images, the sounding trumpet and
the divine odor, find their way into many sacrificia.30 Finally, Isidore associ-
ates the trumpets with the voices of praise that sing the offertory in his own
time. His concise remarks on the offertory, in fact, encapsulate the central
allegories that underlie much of the extant repertory.
These parallels to the existing sacrificia raise the possibility that Isidore is
not merely speaking allegorically, but also describing a familiar repertory. We
cannot establish whether any extant sacrificia were known to Isidore, but his
remarks suggest that the offertories he knew were at least topically similar to
the existing repertory. If so, this turn-of-the-seventh-century repertory
would be based on biblical offering narratives, thus already far removed from
a psalmic lector chant.
A further correspondence between Isidore’s description and the extant
repertory, though perhaps more tentative, lies in his of the word jubilate
(iubilare) to describe the singing of the offertory: “we manifestly jubilate in
that true sacrifice by whose blood the world has been saved.” Based on the
exclamatory “io,” iubilare in its classical usage meant to shout or “to let out
25. “Et amplificaverunt psallentes in vocibus suis et in magna domo actus est sonus suavi-
tate plenus.” This and all subsequent references to the Vulgate are from Gasquet et al., eds.,
Biblia Sacra (translations mine).
26. Isidore, Mysticorum expositiones sacramentorum. For further discussion, see below,
pp. 25–26; 29–43.
27. Discussion below, p. 26.
28. For example, Aedificavit Moyses tabernaculum, Locutus est dominus ad Moysen dicens,
Elevavit Aaron munera, and Stans sacerdos.
29. Isidore, De ecclesiasticis officiis, 56–57.
30. The sound of the sacrificial trumpet appears in Amplificare oblationem (Table 1), Acce-
pit librum, Congregavit David, and Aedificabit Moyses altare. The odor often appears as a
“sweet odor” (odorem suavitatis), as in Stans sacerdos, Aedificavit noe, Sanctificavit, Elevavit
Aaron, Deprecatus est, Paratum panem, Alleluia oblati iusti, and Sollemnem habeatus. See also
In pascha domini and Elegit dominus (“incensum aromatum”) and Sicut cedrus exaltata sum (in
a different context).
whoops,” with rural connotations.31 In early Christian exegesis, however,

iubilare, iubilum, and iubilatio came to designate the expression of joy
through untexted music, inspired by the use of iubilare in the psalter.32 The
tradition begins with Augustine: “When they who sing . . . have begun to
exult with joy in the words of songs, as if filled with such joy that they are
not able to express it with words, they turn from the syllables of words and
proceed into the sound of jubilation. The jubilus is a sound that signifies that
the heart brings forth what it cannot speak. And to whom is this jubilation
fitting, except the ineffable God? For he whom it not possible to speak is
ineffable.”33 What the patristic usage shares with the classical shout is the
absence of semantically meaningful words. Augustine’s recasting of iubilare
is invoked in many subsequent works, including Gregory the Great’s
Moralia in Iob, a prominent source for Isidore’s early writings.34
In Isidore’s corpus, the words iubilare and iubilatio are rare. Aside from
psalm citations, they appear only twice: in his description of the offertory and
in one earlier work, De differentiis verborum, which is devoted to explaining
differences in meaning between similar things. In distinguishing between
exultatio and iubilatio, Isidore writes: “For when words of gladness suffice,
and language is suitable for expressing joy of the heart, it is exultation (exul-
tatio). But when one cannot proclaim a joy that has taken root with words,
but erupts with that same gladness of effusive spirit into a certain voice of ex-
ultation, it is jubilation (iubilatio).”35 Given Isidore’s adoption of the patris-
tic meaning of iubilatio in this earlier work, it seems doubtful that his use of
iubilare to describe the singing of the offertory in De ecclesiasticis officiis re-
fers to the whoop of classical Latin, a phenomenon one would not expect to
encounter in liturgical chant. More plausibly, Isidore is referring to untexted
music. Other phrases he uses to describe the offertory, such as “predicatione
vocis” and “declamates,” imply a heightened delivery of text. The alteration
31. See especially the discussion in Adams, Regional Diversification, 155–57. According to
Varro, “Ut Quiritare urbanorum, sic Iubilare rusticorum; itaque hos imitans Aprissius ait: Io
bucco! Quis me iubilat? Vicinus tuus antiquus.” (As the urbanites shout, so the country-folk
jubilate. Thus, imitating these people, Aprissius says “Yo, blockhead!”—“who is jubilating me?”
“Your old neighbor.”); Varro, De lingua latina, 97.
32. See Wiora, “Jubilare sine verbis”; McKinnon, “Patristic Jubilus”; and idem, “Preface.”
33. “Etenim illi qui cantant . . . cum coeperint in verbis canticorum exultare laetitia, veluti
impleti tanta laetitia, ut eam verbis explicare non possint, avertunt se a syllabi verborum et eunt
in sonum iubilationis, Iubilum sonus quidam est significans cor parturire quod dicere non po-
test. Et quem decet ista iubilatio, nisi ineffabilem Deum? Ineffabilis enim est, quem fari non
potest.”Augustine, Enarrationes, CCSL 38, 254. Similar characterisations of iubilus/iubilare
are often found in Augustine’s sermons: CCSL 38, 161 and 533; CCSL 39, 1374; and CCSL
39, 1394.
34. Gregory, Moralia, CCSL 143b, 1195. See also Cassiodorus, Expositio psalmorum,
CCSL 98, 749 and 878.
35. “Ubi enim verba sufficiunt laetitiae, et lingua idonea est mentis gaudium explicare, ex-
sultatio est. Ubi vero non potest quisque conceptum gaudium verbis annuntiare, sed ipsam
animi effusi laetitiam in vocem quamdam exsultationis erumpit, jubilatio est.” Isidore, De diffe-
rentiis verborum, 134.
between neumatic text delivery and long melismas is, in fact, a central fea-
ture of the extant repertory.
In summary, Isidore’s writings hint at the existence of melismatic offertory
chants with a sacrificial theme in his time, though they cannot conclusively
prove it. As argued below, the sacrificia have diverse origins. Given the ample
evidence for liturgical activity in late sixth- and seventh-century Iberia, how-
ever, it is likely that the genre existed by 615, the terminus ante quem for
De ecclesiasticis officiis. If so, it arose almost a full century prior to McKinnon’s
proposed date for the emergence of schola chant in Rome.
Textual Centonization and Properization: Amplificare

oblationem
If Isidore’s description of the offertory refers to a chant repertory that existed

in his time, we might expect to find an Old Hispanic sacrificium based on
the biblical passage he cites, Ecclesiasticus 50:16–18. In fact, we find two
such chants, Stans sacerdos and Amplificare oblationem. Amplificare oblatio-
nem, sung on the feast of Justus and Pastor (August 6), incorporates both
Ecclesiasticus 50:16–18 and Ecclesiasticus 50:20, the passage that underlies
Isidore’s definition of the chant’s origins (as noted above: “And the singers
lifted up their voices, and in the great house the sound of sweet melody was
increased”). Amplificare oblationem provides a suitable entry point into the
genre, exemplifying textual and melodic traits that mark the sacrificia as
schola chant. Its text, shown in Table 1, is not taken directly from scripture;
rather, dispersed scriptural passages have been put together to form a
new text, with additions, omissions, rewordings, and paraphrases. (Italics
indicate additions to the text, and boldface indicates rewordings. When the
rewordings change the meaning, they are also in boldface in the English
translation.)36 McKinnon termed this process “textual adjustment” and as-
sociated it with seventh-century Rome,37 whereas Kenneth Levy associated
these “libretto”-type texts with pre-Carolingian Gaul.38
In the Old Hispanic repertory, such textual modification is the norm.
Throughout Amplificare oblationem, the text compiler has rearranged and
altered the biblical source in ways that change its meaning. The opening of
the chant, for example, is based on Ecclesiasticus 50:15, where Simon the
high priest makes an offering to honor the high king. In the chant text, how-
ever, the gathered congregation is urged to magnify the oblation, one of
many such rewordings. Other adapted passages of scripture, two of them
referring to music, have been seamlessly woven into the chant’s principal
36. Unless noted, the departures from the Vulgate in Table 1 are not found among the bib-
lical versions and patristic citations found in Gasquet et al., eds., Biblia sacra; or Vetus latina
Database (the latter source is discussed below, pp. 44–45).
37. McKinnon, Advent Project, 13–14, 103–4.
38. Levy, “Toledo, Rome.”
Table 1 Amplificare oblationem, for the feast of Justus and Pastor1
10
Chant text (León 8) Translation Source Translation

2
Eccles. 50:15
Amplificare oblationem Magnify the offering oblatio autem Domini For the oblatio of the Lord
excelsi regis of the most high king in manibus ipsorum was in their hands,
popule meus my people coram omni synagoga before all the congregation
quoniam filii dei since the sons of God Israhel of Israel.
oblati sunt have been offered
domino to the Lord
et consummationem and consummation et consummationem And performing a
fecerunt coram they made before fungens consummation
omni sinagoga ever congregation in ara on the altar,
amplificare oblationem to magnify the offering
Excelsi Regis of the most high king.
Daniel 3:953
Sub ara Under the altar
dei of God
Journal of the American Musicological Society
offerentes offering et tradiderunt And they gave over

corpora sua their bodies corpora sua their bodies
ne servient idolis lest they serve idols ne servirent, lest they serve
et ne adorarent and lest they adore et ne adorarent and lest they adore
deos alienos foreign gods omnem deum any god
sed other than excepto other than
creatorem caeli et the creator of heaven Deo suo their God.
terrae, alleluia, and earth, alleluia
alleluia alleluia
II [v. 1] Omnes gentes All nations
properate et date make haste and give
gloriam domino deo glory to the Lord God
quoniam since Eccels. 50: 18, 19
glorificabit he has glorified tunc exclamaverunt filii Then the sons of Aaron
populos suos his people Aaron shouted,
in tubis productilibus with trumpets of in tubis productilibus with trumpets of wrought
wrought metal metal,
sonaverunt they sounded
et auditam and he made heard et auditam and they made heard
fecit fecerunt
magnam vocem4 a great noise
omnibus memoriam their memory before in memoriam coram in remembrance before
eorum all, Deo God.
ut so that tunc omnis populus simul Then all the people together
exaltent eum they would exalt him properaverunt et made haste, and
ceciderunt in faciem fell down upon their faces
super terram on the earth super terram adorare on the earth, to adore
in vocibus magnis with great voices Dominum suum their Lord,
et dare preces and to give prayers
Deo omnipotenti excelso to the Almighty God most
High.
1 Chronicles 13:8?5
et extollant And let them extol porro David et universus And David and all Israel
nomen eius his name Israhel ludebant coram played before God with all
in hymnis in hymns and Deo omni virtute in their might with hymns, and
et canticis per canticles through a canticis et in citharis et citharis, and with
organum cordis pleasing instrument psalteriis et tympanis et psalteries, and timbrels, and
cymbalis et tubis cymbals, and trumpets
(Continued )
Old Hispanic Chant and the Early History of Plainsong
11
Table 1 continued
12
[repetendum:] quod [sic]

consummati Eccles. 50:5
Qui praevaluit who prevailed
amplificare civitatem to enlarge the city,
Qui adeptus est gloriam and obtained glory
in conversatione in conversation
gentis with the people
II [v. 2] In ingressum As they enter et ingressum and the entrance
domus atrii the court of the house, domus et atrii of the house and the court
exaltantur parvuli, the boys are exalted, amplificatus est he enlarged
et inter and between the
vestibulum et altare vestibule and altar
ab omnibus by all
condecorantur they are adorned Eccles. 50:20 (?)
in medio in the midst et amplificaverunt And the singers
crepidinis of the foundation psallentes in lifted up

vocibus with voices vocibus suis et in magna their voices, and in the great
adtollantur they are lifted up domo auctus est sonus house the full sound
Et in edibus and in the temples suavitate plenus was increased with sweetness
regis of the king
commorantur they are
commemorated Eccles. 50:6–8
Quasi stella matutina in as the morning star in the
medio nebulae et quasi midst of a cloud, and as the
luna plena full moon
in diebus suis in its days,
fulgent in They shine lucet he [Simon] shone.
et quasi sol refulgens sic And as the sun shining so he
ille effulsit shone
templo dei in the temple of God in templo Dei. in the temple of God.
quasi arcus splendens in like a rainbow shining Quasi arcus effulgens in As a rainbow shining in
nebula gloriae, et quasi in clouds of glory, and nebulam gloriae et quasi clouds of glory, and as
flos rosaurm in as a rose blossom in flos rosarum in a rose blossom
diebus verni, the days of spring, dies veris.6 in the days of spring,
quasi lilium fragrans in as a fragrant lily in the Quasi lilia quae sunt as lilies which are
transitu aquarum, et crossing of waters, and in transitu aquae et in the crossing of waters, and
quasi tus redolens as frankincense quasi tus redolens as frankincense
emitting its odor emitting its odor
in diebus estatis on summer days in diebus aestatis on summer days
quoniam in omnem since in all Eccles. 50:20?
congregationem istam this congregation et amplificaverunt And the singers lifted up
sonus parvulorum the voice of the boys psallentes in vocibus suis their voices,
resonat, et in universum resounds, and in every et in magna domo auctus in the great house the full sound
coetum timor meeting fear of the est sonus suavitate plenus was increased with sweetness
dei clamitat. Lord cries out. Eccles. 50:22
Tunc descendens extulit Then coming down, he lifted
manus suas in omnem his hands over every
congregationem filiorum congregation of the children
Israhel of Israel,
Date gloriam domino Give glory to the dare gloriam Deo to give glory to God
deo vestro, et Lord your God, and a labiis suis with his lips
(Continued )
13
Table 1 continued
14
in ipsius nomine in his name et in nomine ipsius and in his name

gloritate glorify gloriari to give glory
Eccles. 47:11–12
stare facite cantores make singers stand Et stare fecit cantores And he made singers stand
ante altare suum before his altar, contra altarium before the altar,
ut in sonos eorum so that in their voices et in sono7 eorum and in their voice
dulces audiant modos they may hear sweet dulces fecit modos he made sweet measures
measures
et in verba and in [their] words
suavissimos melos the sweetest melody.
petite ab eo ut Entreat from them that et dedit in And he gave to the
det vobis iucunditatem it gives pleasure to celebrationibus decus et celebrations beauty and
you ornavit tempora usque ad adorned the times to the
per dies through the days consummationem vitae end of his life
sempiternos everlasting
47:24
Deus autem non And God does not
derelinquit leave behind
et misericordiam suam and let him not take misericordiam suam. . . his mercy
non auferat a vos his mercy from you.
50:30–31
Beatus homo Blessed is the man Beatus8 Blessed is he
[who] qui who
amat sapienta loves the wisdom
dei of God,
et qui in and who in in istis versatur dwells in these
bonis commoratur good things abides bonis good things
quotidie each day; qui ponit illa in corde suo who places them in his heart;
usque in eternum to eternity sapiens erit semper he will always be wise.
benedictus est he is blessed
Quisquis fecerit velut Whoever will do as the si enim haec fecerit For if he should do these
parvuli, boys things
ad omnia in all things ad omnia in all things
valebit will prevail valebit he will prevail
quia because quia because
lux dei est the light of God lux Dei the light of God
vestigia is the footsteps vestigium eius est is his footstep
parvulorum of the boys.
[repetendum:] quod [sic]
consummati;
1
Boldface indicates changes of wording from the biblical text. When this wording changes the meaning of the text, it is also boldface in the English translation. Italics indicte
additions to the biblical text.
2
The Vulgate edition in Gasquet, ed., Biblia sacra 6, 352, 363–68.
3
Gasquet, ed., Biblio sacra 6, 16, 75.
4
The tenth-century Spanish manuscript Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, Cod. Vitrina 13-1 (Siglum ΣT) has “vocem magnam,” a word order agreeing with of the text’s “in
vocibus magnus” a few lines down. See Gasquet, ed., Biblia sacra 6, 366.
5
Gasquet, ed., Biblia sacra 7, 106.
6 T
Σ has “vernis,” a reading closer to the chant text. Gasquet, ed., Biblia sacra 6, 364.
7
“Sonos,” matching the chant text, is found in Paris BnF lat. ’5467 (Siglum ΩS) dating from 1270. Ibid., 352.
8
Paris BnF lat. 16721 siglum ΩJ has “beatus vir,” closer to the chant text. Ibid., 358.
15
source, Ecclesiasticus 50. In the first verse, “Let them lift up his name in
hymns and canticles” may have been inspired by 1 Chronicles 13:8. If so, the
kitharas and psalteries of the original text have been replaced with hymns
and canticles, making the text more applicable to its use in the liturgy. In the
second verse, listeners are exhorted to “make singers stand before his altar,
so that in their voices they hear sweet rhythms and in their words, the sweet-
est melodies,” a reworking and expansion of Ecclesiasticus 47:11. Through
these references to the sound of song, Amplificare oblationem both evokes
and exemplifies Isidore’s description of the offertory.
Amplificare oblationem is proper to its feast in a way that reaches beyond
the properization McKinnon observed in Roman chant, where a biblical text
was selected for use on a particular festival. Extensive modifications to the
biblical source have made this chant more pertinent to Justus and Pastor.
These Iberian saints were putatively martyred at the ages of nine and thir-
teen for their bold confessions of the Christian faith during the persecutions
of Diocletian (ca. 304).39 Near the beginning of the chant, the text compiler
has added the phrase “since the sons of God are offered to the Lord,” then
inserted a paraphrase of Daniel 3:95 that further recalls the martyrdom of
the boys: “offering their bodies lest they serve idols and venerate foreign
gods. . . .” At the opening of verse 2, the boys are exalted as they enter the
court of the house, perhaps inspired by the legend that Justus and Pastor
voluntarily came to the court where Christians were being interrogated.40
With this complete reworking of Ecclesiasticus 50:5, the subsequent biblical
similes are recast to refer not to Simon, as in the original text, but to the mar-
tyred youths, who shine like a rainbow in clouds of glory and whose voices
resound in every church. The boys (“parvuli/parvulorum”), in fact, are
added to the text three times in this verse. Among the many textual adjust-
ments McKinnon noted in the Roman Mass Proper, few chants, if any, dis-
play this degree of transformation to make the text more proper to the
occasion. In its Old Hispanic context, however, Amplificare oblationem is
not exceptional in the least.
Musical “Jubilation”
Since our first witnesses to the Old Hispanic melodic tradition date from the
tenth century, we cannot make secure claims about the specific outlines of
the seventh-century melodies. The existing sacrificia, however, certainly
39. Fábrega Grau, ed., Pasionario Hispánico 2:328–31. The feast of Justus and Pastor was
part of the Old Hispanic liturgy by the end of the seventh century, since it is present in the Ve-
rona orational.
40. Ibid.
exhibit the “jubilation,” or wordless music implied in Isidore’s description.

The second verse of Amplificare oblationem, shown in Figure 1, is typical
in incorporating lengthy melismas, some of over 180 notes. Throughout
the repertory, these melismas serve two roles: dividing syntactical units and
underlining important words.41 Toward the end of this verse, melismas mark
the ends of verbal clauses at “sempiternos,” “vos,” quotidie,” “[benedictus]
est,” and “valebit,” creating pauses in the delivery of the text at syntactically
appropriate points. Some of these melismas occur wholly or partly in other
sacrificia, where they function similarly. The last ten or eleven notes of the me-
lisma on “vos,” for example, often serve as a closing melodic gesture for long-
er melismas, marking complete or incomplete syntactical breaks, as shown in
Table 2a. Each melisma shown here ends with the same 10-note neume pat-
tern (shown in boxes) as the “vos” melisma, and some melismas have further
material in common (indicated with circles). These melodic parallels suggest
that the singers employed standard melismas and melisma segments to clarify
the verbal syntax. Another example is Amplificare’s closing melisma, on
“valebit.” A varied version of the same melisma occurs at a syntactical break
near the end of the sacrificium Locutus est dominus ad principem (Table 2b;
the different passage in Locutus est dominus is shown in a box).42
Elsewhere in Amplificare oblationem, melismas underline the text’s musi-
cal self-references. At the beginning of the verse, most text is carried with
1 to 5 notes per syllable. The lengthy melismas on “organum,” “modos”
and “melos” stand out in stark contrast. (The “organum” melisma is written
in the left margin.) “Modos” and “melos” share a 47-note neume pattern,
indicated with the larger boxes, that is positioned at a different place in each
melisma. Within this 47-note pattern is a large-scale repetition, shown with the
smaller boxes. Both melismas, moreover, are divided into segments by the
symbol (d, for “dupliciter”), indicating further repetition. Counting
the “dupliciters,” the melisma on “modos” comprises 174 notes and that
on “melos” 188. The shared material stresses the semantic and grammatical
relationship between these two direct objects.
41. The meanings of the Old Hispanic neumes have been deciphered though the handful of
Old Hispanic chants that survive in Aquitanian notation, as well manuscripts that preserve Gre-
gorian chant in the Visigothic notation. Rojo and Prado’s work in El Canto Mozárabe, 44–58,
was foundational. For a recent study and bibliography, see Zapke, “Notational Systems in the
Iberian Peninsula: From Spanish Notations to the Aquitanian Notation (9th–12th Centuries).”
See also Huglo, “La notation wisigothique”; and González Barrionuevo’s many important
articles on the subject, which include “Algunos rasgos” and “Relación entre.”
42. In Amplicare, the first segment of this melisma is followed by a “dupliciter” sign indi-
cating that the segment is repeated (see discussion of this sign just below). In Locutus est dom-
inus ad principem, the first segment is followed by the boxed material, which, despite the
different neuming, is directionally compatible with the first segment, beginning with the scan-
dicus. While it is possible that the boxed material is a differently notated repetition of the same
notes, repetitions within melismas are normally indicated with the dupliciter sign or a written
out repetition of the same neume sequence, as in “modos” and “melos” (Figure 1.)
While the “jubilation” embodied in long passages of textless music is a

central feature of the sacrificium, so are the neumatic passages found at the
opening of Ampificare oblationem’s second verse (Fig. 1), where the priority
was conveying the words clearly. The contrast between these two types of
music defines the musical style of the genre. Also typical is Amplificare obla-
tionem’s highlighting of selected textual images through such changes in
Figure 1 Verses of Amplificare oblationem in León 8, fols. 229–230

Figure 1 continued
pacing. Throughout the repertory, the neumatic delivery of text gives way to
jubilation at points of particular textual emphasis. In the final verse of the
Pentecost sacrificium Dum complerentur (Fig. 2), for example, the image of
the Holy Spirit (“spiritu sancto”) is marked by melismas, contrasting with
the neumatic text delivery in the rest of the verse. Although we cannot as-
sume that the offertories familiar to Isidore underlined textual images in
these ways, the aesthetic of jubilation he appears to describe persisted into
the tenth century and beyond.
The Allegorical Basis of the Genre
The degree of textual tailoring and musical sophistication in Amplificare

oblationem, typical of the sacrificia as a whole, raises questions about how
and why this repertory was created. Addressing the “why” question first,
we turn to contemporaneous biblical exegesis. Peter Jeffery has illuminated
the conceptual origins of the Roman repertory in monastic reading, and the
sacrificia are similarly rooted in the intellectual culture of Iberian exegesis.43
Isidore’s works, in particular, emerged in the same milieu that produced the
Old Hispanic liturgy and were widely circulated and read in seventh-century
Iberia.44 Examining the sacrificia in this light brings the reasons for the
selection and modification of the biblical sources into clear focus.
43. Jeffery, “Monastic Reading.”

44. On Isidore’s centrality to intellectual culture in seventh-century Iberia, see, inter alia,
Fontaine, Isidore de Séville et la culture; Stocking, Bishops, Councils, 13–15; Hen, Roman Bar-
barians, 141–52; Cazier, Isidore de Séville et la naissance; and Wood, Politics of Identity, esp.
1–22 and 55–58. Roger Collins, however, in his review of Wood’s book, has recently ques-
tioned the degree of weight traditionally given to Isidore’s influence.
20
Table 2a Recurrence of a closing melisma segment at verbal syntax breaks in the sacrificium repertory
Text (placement of melisma
Sacrificum Melisma indicated by /)
1. Amplificare et misericordiam suam non

oblationem (Justus auferat a vos
and Pastor); León (And let not his mercy be taken
8, fol. 230 from you.) (complete sentence)
2. Vocavit dominus et offeramus primitias terrae

Moyses (sonus); nostrae/ quam dedisti nobis
León 8, fol. 222 (And let us offer the first fruits of

our earth/ which he has given us)
3. Omnes de saba Text: Gloria et honor patri et filio et
(Epiphany); León spiritui sancto/
8, fol. 88v et nunc and semper et in saecula
saeculorum
(Glory and honor to the father
and to the son and to the holy
spirit/
both now and always and to the
ages of ages)
(Continued )
21
Table 2a continued
22
Text (placement of melisma

Sacrificum Melisma indicated by /)
4. Accepit librum Text:

(Wednesday of Dominus descendit ad vos/ut sit
Holy Week); León timor eius in vobis
8, fol. 160v (The Lord descended to you/so
that his fear may be in you)
5. Alleluia temporibus Text:
illis (Monday of quia sic opportebat Christum pati
Easter Week); León et resurgere a mortuis die tertia et
8, fol. 177 sedere in gloriam suam.
(For so it was necessary that
Christ suffer and rise from the
dead on the third day and sit in
his glory.)
6. Locutus est . . . ecce Text:
vocavi (Ordination Et fecit eos astare in conspectu
of a bishop/ sacerdotis ut obserarent/ in
Quotidiano Sunday tabernaculo testimoni
IX; León 8, fol. . (And he made them stand before
271 the priest so that they were
enclosed/in the tabernacle of the
covenant)
23
24
Table 2b Recurrence of Amplificare’s “valebit” melisma in sacrificium Locutus est dominus ad principem
Sacrificium Melisma Text (placement of melisma indicated by /)
1. Amplificare; León 8, fol. 230 Quisquis fecerit velut parvuli ad omnia valebit
/quia lux dei est vestigia parvulorum
(Whoever will do as the boys will prevail in
all things/for the light of God is the
footsteps of the boys)
2. Locutus est dominus ad Et non deficiet ex te vir qui compleat

principem, León 8, fol. 273 voluntatem meam /
(And let not the man who fulfills my will
perish from you. [complete sentence])
Figure 2 Dum complerentur, final verse, in León 8
The principle that underlies the sacrificium texts is the allegorical relation-
ship between the Old and New Testaments, a prominent theme both in Isi-
dore’s exegesis of the Old Testament and in the earlier layers of patristic
exegesis on which it is based.45 Following patristic tradition, Isidore argued
that the rituals of the Old Testament were best understood through their ty-
pological relationship to the New Testament. As noted, the figurative asso-
ciation between the Old Testament sacrifices and the sacrifice of Christ lies
at the root of both the genre and Isidore’s description of it. This parallel is
established in Isidore’s earliest work, the Liber differentiarum, in the con-
text of contrasting the law (i.e., Old Testament) and the gospel as “the let-
ter” and “grace.” In the law, Isidore writes, the flesh and blood of cattle are
offered in sacrifice; in the gospel, the body and blood of Christ is offered,
which was prefigured in these animals.46 In his anti-Jewish work De fide
catholica, Isidore cites (out of context) passages from the prophets that con-
demn animal sacrifices made in sin, as evidence that only the offerings of
gentiles are acceptable to God.47 Although these Christianized readings of
the Jewish sacrifices have their roots in the patristic tradition that preceded
Isidore,48 they are further and more specifically expounded in Isidore’s later
45. Isidore’s approach to spiritual exegesis is introduced in Cazier, Isidore, 121–23 and
explored in depth in Drews, Unknown Neighbour. At the beginning of his Mysticorum exposi-
tiones, the work most relevant for this study, Isidore acknowledges the influence of Origen,
Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory the Great. Mysticorum expositiones, column 209. Au-
gustine was particularly influential on the Iberian peninsula. See Díaz y Díaz, “Agustín” and
Ramis, “Fuentes.” On Isidore’s patristic sources, see, inter alia, Chatillon, “Isidore et Origène”:
Domínguez del Val, “La utilización”; Madoz, “El Florilegio”; Ogara, “Tipología”; and Drews,
Unknown Neighbour, 65–70.
46. “Illic, pecoribus immolatis, carnis et sanguinis hostiae offerebantur, hic sacrificium car-
nis et sanguinis Christi offertur, quod per illa animalia figurabatur.” Liber differentiarum, 80.
47. “Quo testimonio patet sacrificia Judaeorum immunda esse, et reprobata, et solam obla-
tionem gentium Domino esse acceptam.” De fide, column 527, line 24.
48. An interpretation of some Leviticus offerings as prefiguring Christ, for example, is found
in Origen’s sermons, though it is not their primary focus. See Origen, Homilien zum Hextateuch,
exegetical work, Mysticorum expositiones sacramentorum seu quaestiones in

vetus testamentum. Here he develops allegorical readings of many Old Tes-
tament sacrifice narratives, associating each type of offering with a counter-
part in Christian practice. In Isidore’s commentary on the opening chapters
of Leviticus, for example, each animal offered and each ritual represents a
different aspect of Christ’s Passion: Christ was offered in the Levitical calf for
the virtue of the cross, in the lamb for innocence, the ram for his dominion.
In the joining of the turtledove and pigeon, Isidore sees Christ as the medi-
ator between God and man.49
Reading the sacrificium texts in conjunction with Isidore’s commentary
yields insight into the reasons their compilers selected specific biblical pas-
sages and the meanings these texts held for their creators and hearers. These
connections are perhaps most fruitfully explored in the sacrificia for the Sun-
days following Epiphany and Pentecost, known as the quotidiano Sundays
(Table 3). This cycle presents one of the repertory’s clearest examples of li-
turgical planning. With a few exceptions, these sacrificia are arranged in bib-
lical order, taking their thematic focus from the liturgical role of the chant
and the Old Testament sacrificial typology.50 Certain verbal phrases and
structural traits are present throughout the cycle, pointing to established
customs for creating the texts. These chants typically begin, for example,
with a description of the erection or sanctification of an altar or tabernacle,
such as “Aedificavit noe altare domino” (Noah built an altar to the Lord),
“Aedificavit Abraham altare in locum quem ostenderat ei deus” (Abraham
built an altar in the place that God had shown him), “Sanctificavit Moyses
altare domino” (Moses sanctified an altar to the Lord), and “Aedificavit Mo-
yses tabernaculum foederis” (Moses built the tabernacle of the covenant).
Although these verbal parallels sometimes arise through the choice of similar
scriptural passages, at other times they reflect alterations to the biblical text.
The openings of Aedificavit Moyses tabernaculum and Aedificavit Abraham
altare, for example, are rewordings of the biblical source that bring them
into conformity with other chants of the genre.51
293 (“Vide ergo ne forte Iesus . . . idem ipse sit vitulus”); and ibid., 300 and 330. See also Augus-
tine, De civitate 1:292 (“qui solus diligens . . .”); and Daly, “Sacrifice.” Isidore’s exegesis on the
Old Testament sacrifices, however, is more specific and developed than it is in the work of these
predecessors.
49. “Ipse enim in vitulo propter virtutem crucis offerebatur; ipse in agno propter innocen-
tiam, in ariete propter principatum, in hirco propter similitudinem carnis peccati, ut de peccato
damnaret peccatum; idem in turture et columba propter Deum et hominem, quia mediator
Dei et hominum in duarum substantiarum conjunctione ostendebatur.” Isidore, Mysticorum ex-
positiones, column 321, line 18.
50. The biblical ordering of the texts has been examined by Pinell, “Repertorio del ‘sacrifi-
cium.’ ” With a few exceptions, the quotidiano psalmi and laudes are also arranged in numerical
order.
51. “Aedificavit Moyses tabernaculum” does not occur in the Vulgate or Old Latin versions
of Exodus 30 and is mostly likely an addition. “Aedificavit Abraham altare” is an abbreviation of
“veneruntque ad locum quem ostenderat ei Deus in quo aedificavit altare” (Genesis 22:9).
Table 3 The Old Hispanic quotidiano sacrificia
Toledo 35.4 Léon 8 Silos 6 Themes Biblical version Other assignments
Formavit dominus Genesis 2 Formavit dominus Formavit dominus Creation Vulgate

Aedificavit noe Aedificavit noe Aedificavit noe Sacrifice, Noah’s ark, Vetus latina
Genesis 8 and 9 flood
Melchisedec rex Genesis 13, 15, Melchisedec rex Melchisedec rex Sacrifice, promised land, mixed
and 18 Abraham’s offering
Aedificavit Abraham altare Aedificavit Abraham Aedificavit Abraham Abraham’s near-sacrifice Vulgate
Genesis 22 of Isaac
In temporibus In temporibus Issac and Rebecca. mixed
Genesis 24 sacrifice
Sanctificavit Exodus 24, 34, and 33 Sanctificavit Sanctificavit Moses on Mt. Sinai, Vetus latina
sacrifice
Sacerdotes domini Priesthood ?
Leviticus 7 and 16 or
Numbers 15 and 10
Aedificavit moyses tabernaculum Aedificavit moyses Aedificavit moyses Building of tabernacle, Vetus latina
Exodus 30, 24, and 25 tabernaculum tabernaculum sacrifice
Congregavit David II Ark of the covenant, Vulgate1
Kings 6, I offering
Chronicles 16
Elevavit Aaron Leviticus Aaron making a sacrifice Vulgate
8 and 9
Altare aureum Exodus 40 and 32 Altare aureum Tabernacle Vetus latina?
Elegit dominus virum unum [lacuna] Building of tabernacle, Vulgate St. Cyprian (BM 45)
Exodus 31, 24, 40, 25, and 28 priesthood of Aaron St. John the Apostle
(L8, A 30, T7)
Locutus est dominus ad Moysen . . . Building of tabernacle, Vulgate2 Ordination of a bishop
ecce Exodus 31, 35, and 28 priesthood of Aaron (L8)

27
(Continued )
Table 3 continued
28
Toledo 35.4 Léon 8 Silos 6 Themes Biblical version Other assignments
Si in preceptis Leviticus 26 Keeping commandments Vulgate Sunday before Lent

(L8, A 30) Let.
apos. BM 45
Vos qui transituri Deuteronomy 27 Offering Vulgate
Audi Israhel Deliverance from Vetus latina ? Restoration of basilica
Baruch 3, 4 Babylonian captivity (L8)
Tobit 13
Locutus est dominus ad Gideon Deliverance from Vulgate
Judges 6 Midianites, sacrifice
Ingressus est saecerdos? Sacrifice
Aedificavit David altare Sacrifice, deliverance Vulgate
2 Kings 24 from plague
Ingressus est vir dei 2 Kings 19 Ingressus est vir dei Liberation Deliverance ?3
[Lacuna]
Deprecatus 4 Kings 13 or Numbers Sacrifice, prayer for ?
29, Isaiah 37 deliverance

Offerte sacerdotes Baruch 1, Offering Vetus latina Initio anni (T7, L8, A
Daniel 3, Jeremiah 31 30)
Elevavit sacerdos 2 Maccabees 1 (?) Offering, priesthood ? De missa omnimoda
(Silos 3 and 4)
Paratum panem Wisdom 16 Bread from heaven ?
1
No VL version of II King 6 was available for comparison, but the chant text follows the Vulgate closely.
2
The respsond is clearly taken from the Vulgate. The source of the verses is not clear.
3
For Ingressus est vir, Deprecatus, and Paratum, no VL exists as a basis for comparison.
This opening narrative is typically followed by a brief description of the

offering, such as “and [Noah] took from every clean sheep and every clean
bird and sacrificed,” or “and [Moses] placed burnt offerings and all the
vessels of the temple on the altar of incense and sanctified them.”52 The re-
spond then proceeds to a closing statement, such as “and the Lord received
the sacrifice from his hands in an odor of sweetness” (Elevavit Aaron) or
“this is an everlasting ordinance in perpetuity” (Sacerdotes domini offere-
runt).53 These ending passages often contain verbal formulas that recur
throughout the repertory. “Odorem suavitatis,” for example, is found in six
other sacrificia,54 and the everlasting ordinance is also present elsewhere
in the repertory.55 These textual parallels indicate that the creators of the
texts followed existing models in their selection and modification of biblical
sources. The verses of the quotidiano sacrificia are nearly always narratives,
relating events in salvation history such as Noah and the Flood, Abraham’s
near-sacrifice of Isaac, Isaac and Rebecca, and Moses receiving the law on
Mt. Sinai. For Isidore, these stories prefigure aspects of Christ, the church,
or Christian salvation.56
Viewed in the allegorical light of Isidore’s writings, the third quotidiano
sacrificium, Melchisedec rex (Tables 4a–4e), emerges as a cohesive text that
conveys several interrelated Christian doctrines. Each biblical passage incor-
porated into the chant is central to Isidore’s commentary on Genesis (shown
in columns 5 and 6 of each table). In Mysticorum expositiones sacramento-
rum, Isidore interprets selected episodes from Genesis, usually in biblical
order, by beginning with a summary of the story and then proceeding to an
allegorical reading of it, drawing amply on the New Testament and patristic
sources. (The tables show Isidore’s allegorical readings of the passages, but
not his summaries.) By considering Isidore’s remarks on the passages used
in chant texts, we can better understand the compiler’s choice, alteration,
and arrangement of biblical passages.57
Melchisedec rex opens with Melchizedech’s blessing of Abraham and his
offering of bread and wine (Table 4a). Isidore and his patristic predecessors
based their exegesis of this story on the letter to the Hebrews; the relevant
verses are shown in columns 7 and 8, arranged roughly in the order that
52. “Et sumpsit ex omni pecude mundo et ex omne ave munda et immolavit et cremavit”
(Formavit); and “ inposuit holocaustomata et omnia vasa templi super aram incensi et sanctifi-
cabit ea” (Aedificavit Moyses tabernaculum).
53. “Et suscepit dominus de manibus eius sacrificium in odorem suavitatis” and “legitimum
sempiternum est in generationibus.”
54. See note 30.
55. For example, Locutus est . . . ecce vocavi virum, Sacerdotes offerent, and Erit hic vobis.
56. As discussed below, pp. 42–43.
57. Melchisedec rex derives from both Vulgate and Vetus latina sources. Column 3 of
Table 4 provides the text that is closest to the chant in each section.
Table 4a Melchisedec rex pacis (respond), compared with its biblical source and Isidore’s commentary
30
Sacrificium Genesis (Vetus Isidore, Mysticorum

(León 8) Translation Latina)1 Translation expositiones 2 Translation Hebrews3 Translation
Hunc The apostle Paul,

Melchisedech recalling that this
apostolus Paulus Melchisedech was 7:3
sine patre without father sine patre without father,
et sine and without a sine without
14:17 matre mother, matre mother,
Et And commemorans, sine without
Melchisedec Melchizedek, Melchisedech Melchizedek, figuraliter refert figuratively referred genealogia genealogy,
rex pacis King of peace, rex Salem the king of ad Christum. to Christ. having
sacerdos domini priest of the Salem, Ipse est enim solus For he alone neque neither
summi Lord most high was born initium beginning of
obtulit offered protulit brought forth de patre from the father, dierum neque days nor
panes bread panem et bread sine matre without a mother finem vitae end of life,
et vinum and wine vinum and wine, genitus habens
fuit autem and was the per through [his] adsimilatus but likened to
sacerdos Dei priest of God divinitatem, ipse divinity; likewise autem Filio Dei the Son of God
summi most high de matre from a mother manet sacerdos remains a priest
et benedixit and blessed benedixit he blessed sine patre without a father in perpetuum forever
abrahae Abraham, Abraham Abraham per through [his]
dicens saying: dicens saying: humanitatem. humanity
benedictus Blessed be benedictus Blessed be Ipse quoque He is also 7:17
abraham deo Abraham by Abram deo Abram by God sacerdos aeternus, forever a priest, contestatur enim For it is
excelso qui God most high summo qui most high, who ad quem dicitur: to whom it is said: quoniam testified that
creavit caelos who created the creavit caelum created heaven Tu es sacerdos in you are a priest tu es sacerdos you are a priest
et terram heavens and et terram and earth. aeternum forever in aeternum forever
alleluia earth, secundum according to secundum according to the
alleluia alleluia alleluia ordinem the order ordinem order
alleluia alleluia Melchisedech of Melchizedek Melchisedech of Melchizedek
Utique Especially in relation 7:11 si ergo If then
propter to the consummatio perfection was
mysterium the mystery per through
sacramenti, of the sacrament, sacerdotium the Levitical
quod which he commands leviticum priesthood–
Christianis Christians to erat
celebrare celebrate, populus enim for the people
praecepit, so that we offer sub ipso legem under it
not animals accepit received
ut non secundum as victims the law–
Aaron pecudum according quid adhuc what more
victimas, to Aaron, necessarium need was there
sed oblationem but the oblation secundum [that] another
panis et vini, of bread and wine, ordinem priest should rise
id est, corporis et that is, the Melchisedech according
sanguinis ejus sacrament of the alium surgere to the order of
sacramentum, body and blood, sacerdotem Melchisedech:
in sacrificium in sacrifice. et non and not
offeramus. secundum be called
ordinem Aaron according to the
dici order of Aaron?
1
Fischer, ed., Genesis, 167–68.
2
Columns 239–40.
3
Wordsworth and White, eds., Novum testamentum 2, 719-27.
31
Table 4b Isidore’s commentary on Abraham’s tithe and Melchizedek’s blessing
Isidore, Mysticorum expositiones1 Translation Hebrews2 Translation
32
Quod vero patriarcha magnus Because indeed the great 7:2 cui decimas omnium divisit To whom also Abraham
decimas omnis substantiae suae patriarch gave a tithe of all his Abraham primum . . . divided the tithes of all . . .
Melchisedech sacerdoti post wealth 7:5
benedictionem dedit, sciens to Melchisedech the priest after et quidem And indeed
spiritualiter melius the blessing, knowing de filiis Levi those from the sons of Levi,
sacerdotium futurum in populo through the spirit that a better sacerdotium accipientes receiving the priesthood,
gentium quam Leviticum, quod priesthood than the Levites mandatum habent decimas have a commandment to take
de ipso in Israel erat would exist among the gentiles, sumere tithes from the people according
nasciturum, because it was to be born from a populo secundum to
futurumque, ut this very people in Israel, legem id est a fratribus suis the law, that is, from their
sacerdotium Ecclesiae and to exist so quamquam et ipsi exierunt brothers though they also came
habens praeputium that de lumbis Abrahae out from loins of Abraham.
benediceret in Abraham the priesthood of the church, 7:6
circumciso sacerdotium remaining uncircumcised, cuius autem generatio non But he, whose generation is not
Synagogae. would bless the priesthood of adnumeratur in eis numbered among them,
the Synagogue, involved in the decimas sumpsit Abraham et received the tithes of Abraham
circumcision of Abraham. hunc qui habebat and blessed him who had
repromissiones benedixit promises.

7:7
sine ulla autem contradictione But without any
Qui enim benedicit, major est For he who blesses is greater quod minus est a meliore contradiction,what is lesser is
quam qui than he who is blessed. benedicitur blessed by the better.
benedicitur . . . But the name Melchisedech is 7:2
Nomen autem ipsum interpreted as king of peace or . . . primum quidem qui . . . But who indeed is first
Melchisedech rex pacis, vel rex king of justice interpretatur rex iustitiae interpreted as king of justice:
justitiae interpretatur, because it is well ascribed to deinde autem et rex Salem and then also king of Salem,
quod bene refertur ad Christum Christ. quod est rex pacis that is, king of peace.
1
Column 240.
2
Wordsworth and White, eds., Novum testamentum 2, 719–20.
Table 4c Melchisedec rex pacis (verse 1), compared with its biblical source and Isidore’s commentary
Isidore, Mysticorum
Chant text Translation Genesis (Vetus latina)1 Translation expositiones 2 Translation
13:14–15
Dixit dominus The Lord said dixit autem deus And God said Ejiciens ergo Thus casting
ad abraham: to Abraham: ad Abram postquam to Abram, after Lot Abraham Deus foras, Abraham outside, God
recessit ab illo Loth: was separated from ostendit illi stellas showed him the stars of
prospice oculis Look with your eyes respice oculis tuis him: Look with your eyes, coeli, dicens: Sic heaven, saying: so I
et vide and see et vide and see faciam semen tuum, shall make your seed,
a loco in quo from the place where id est, christianam that is, the Christian
nunc tu es you are now, gentem, cujus tu pater people, whose father in
ab oriente from the east and ad aquilonem to the north and Africa and in fide subsistis, faith you remain,
et africo aquilone Africa and the north et africum et orientem to the east and sic faciam lumine thus I will make them
et mare and the sea. et mare the sea. resurrectionis tremble with the light of
quoniam For coruscare. the resurrection.
omnem terram All the land omnem terram all the land Deinde monstravit illi Then he showed him the
quam vides that you see, quam tu vides that you see, arenam maris, et dixit: sand of the sea, and said:
tibi dabo eam I will give it to you tibi dabo eam I will give it to you Sic erit in multitudine so will be your seed in
et semini tuo and to your seed et semini tuo and to your seed semen tuum, hoc est, great number, meaning, the
in aeternum. forever in aeternum forever erit quidem copiosa Jewish people will indeed
gens Judaeorum, sed be ample, but
13:18 sterilis et infecunda will remain sterile and
Migrans Abraham Moving, Abraham manebit, sicut arena. unfruitful, as the sand.
venit came veniens Coming
et habitavit ad and dwelt at inhabitavit ad he dwelt near
ilicem mambre the oak of Mambre silicem Mambre the rock of Mambre
quae erat in which was in quae est in which is in
Hebron, et Hebron, and Hebron et Hebron and
aedificavit he built aedificavit he built there
ibi altare there an altar ibi altare an altar
domino to the Lord Domino to the Lord

[repetendum: deo
33
excelso]
1
Fischer, ed. Vetus Latina vol. 2, 162–64.
2
Column 240–41
Table 4d Melchisedec rex pacis v. 2
34
Isidore, Mysticorum
Chant text Translation Genesis (Vulgate)1 Translation expositiones 2 Translation
18:1-8 Notandum quippe quod Indeed, it should be noted

Apparuit dominus The Lord appeared to apparuit autem ei and the Lord appeared Abraham triplicem habeat that Abraham embodies in
abrahae Abraham Dominus to him figuram in semetipso. himself a threefold
in convalle mambre in the vale of Mambre in convalle Mambre in the vale of Mambre signification.
sedenti in ostio as he was sitting at the Primam Salvatoris, First that of the Savior,
tabernaculi sui door of his tent, in the quando, relicta because having left behind
in ipso fervore diei very heat of the day. cognatione sua, venit his birthplace he came
et dum levasset and when he had lifted cumque elevasset And when he had in hunc mundum; alteram into this world. The second
oculos apparuerunt his eyes, three men oculos apparuerunt lifted his eyes, three Patris, was that of the father,
ei tres viri appeared to him ei tres viri men appeared to him quando immolavit when he sacrificed
stantes propter eum standing near him: unicum filium; his only son.
et dum vidisset and when he had seen quos cum vidisset when he had seen tertiam vero, quae But the third, which
eos them them in hoc loco est, is in this place,
occurrit in he ran to meet cucurrit in he ran to meet figuram gestavit bears the image
occursum eorum them occursum eorum them sanctorum qui adventum of the saints who received
de ostio from the door de ostio from the door Christi cum gaudio the coming of Christ
tabernaculi of his tent tabernaculi of his tent, susceperunt. with joy.

et adoravit and he adored et adoravit and adored Tabernaculum autem illud That tent of Abraham however
in terra, to the ground in terra to the ground. Abrahae typum bore type
et dixit domine and said: Lord, et dixit Domine And he said: Lord, terrenae Jerusalem habuit, of the earthly Jerusalem,
si inveni gratiam if I have found favor si inveni gratiam if I have found favor ubi primo tempore where in the first age the
in oculis tuis in your sight, in oculis tuis in your sight, prophetae et apostoli prophets and apostles
ne transeas do not pass by habitaverunt; ubi et dwelled. And where
servum tuum your servant. primum Dominus the Lord,
afferam I will bring sed adferam But I will bring adveniens a credentibus as he was arriving, was first
aquam water pauxillum aquae a little water, exceptus, ab incredulis taken from believers and
et laventur pedes and your feet will be et lavate pedes and you wash your est in ligno suspensus hung on the cross by non-
vestri washed vestros feet, believers.
et requiescite sub and rest under In tribus autem viris qui In the three men who
arbore the tree. venerunt ad illum, came to him, the coming of
ponam and I will put out ponam buccellam I will put out a bit of Domini Jesu Christi the Lord Jesus Christ was
panes bread panis bread, praenuntiabatur adventus, being prefigured,
et confortetur cor and let your heart et confortate cor and strengthen your cum quo duo angeli whom two angels
vestrum be strengthened. vestrum heart comitabantur, were accompanying,
postea afterwards quos plerique and whom many take to be
transibitis you will pass on Moysen et Eliam Moses and Elijah,
idcirco accipiunt,
enim declinastis ad for you come aside unum priscae legis one the proposer of the
servum vestrum to your servant. latorem, qui per former law, who through
Qui dixerunt fac and they said, do as qui dixerunt fac ut They said: do as eamdem legem adventum the same law made known
quod locutus est it was spoken locutus es you have spoken. Domini indicavit; the coming of the Lord;
alium, qui in fine mundi the other, who is to come at
venturus est, the end of the world,
denuntiaturus secundum to proclaim the second
Christi adventum, atque coming of Christ and fortell
festinans abraham Hastening, Abraham festinavit Abraham Abraham hurried into ejus Evangelium Judaeis his gospel to the Jews;
in tabernaculum ad the tent to Sara, praedicaturus;
Sarram dixitque ei and said to her: Make unde et in monte Dominus and whence, when the Lord
adcelera haste, mix together cum fuisset transfiguratus, had been transfigured on the
tres mensuras sprinkled tria sata similae three measures of mountain,
similaginis three measures of commisce wheat, hi duo, Moyses et Elias, these two, Moses and Elijah,
consparsit wheat et fac subcinericios and make bread under cum eo ab apostolis visi were seen with him by the
et fecit and he made panes ashes sunt apostles
panes bread ipse vero ad He himself ran to the Quod vero Abraham But that Abraham
armentum cucurrit herd, tres videns, unum seeing the three, adored
et tulit inde vitulum and took from it a calf, adoravit, Dominum one, showing, namely, the
tenerrimum et very tender and very scilicet Salvatorem Lord and Savior,
optimum deditque good, and gave it ostendens,
(Continued )
35
Table 4d continued
36
Isidore, Mysticorum
Chant text Translation Genesis (Vulgate)1 Translation expositiones 2 Translation
puero qui to a boy, who cujus etiam adventum est whose coming was even then
festinavit et coxit hurried and boiled it. praestolatus, juxta quod being awaited, just as even
illum tulit quoque And he took butter and etiam Dominus in now the Lord says in the
butyrum et lac et milk and a calf which Evangelio ait: Abraham gospel: Abraham
vitulum quem he had boiled and quaesivit diem meum sought to see my day,
coxerat videre, vidit, et gavisus he saw it and rejoiced.
et posuit coram and placed [it] before et posuit coram placed before them. est.
domino [deo excelso] the Lord eis Tunc enim futuri aspexit For then he gazed on the
ipse vero stabat But he himself stood mysterium mystery of the future
iuxta eos sub arbore near them under a tree sacramenti. sacrament.
Tria autem sata, unde Sara The three measures, from

panes subcinericios fecit, which Sarah made bread
trium filiorum Noe under the ashes, indicated
imaginem indicaverunt, the image of the three sons
of Noah,
ex quibus omne genus out of which the whole human

humanum natum est, race was born,
qui, so that,
divinae Trinitati believing in the Divine
credentes, Trinity,
they would be sprinkled
ex aqua baptismatis per from the water of baptism
Ecclesiam, through the Church,
cujus imago Sara erat, whose image Sarah was,
conspergendi essent, and drawn together into the one
et in uno pane Christi bread of the body of
corporis redigendi. Christ.
1
Edition: Gasquet et al., Biblia sacra, vol. 1, 208–9.
2
Column 243.
Table 4e Melchisedec rex pacis v. 3
Genesis (Vetus Isidore, Mysticorum Augustine, De
Chant text Translation Latina1) Translation expositiones 2 Translation civitate dei 3 Translation
15:9-12
Dixit autem ei But God said siue ergo If therefore
Accepit Abraham deus to him: Per vaccam enim For through the cow per iuuencam through the calf
Abraham took accipe mihi take for me significata est was signified the significata sit is signified the
vitulum et a calf, vaccam a cow of three plebs posita people placed plebs posita people placed
trimam years sub jugo legis. under the yoke of sub iugo legis, under the yoke of
the law. the law.
et capram and a goat of Per capram Through the female capram [through] the female
trimam three years goat, that goat
eadem plebs the same people eadem plebs that the same people
peccatrix futura were to become peccatrix futura, was to become
sinners sinners,
arietem a ram, et arietem and a ram of Per arietem through the ram, that per arietem through the ram that
trimum three years a eadem plebs the same people eadem plebs the same people
etiam likewise
regnatura . . . were to reign . . . regnatura . . . were to reign . . .
turturem a turtle dove turturem turtle dove, Per turturem Through the turtle siue aliquid aliud whether they
et columbam and a pigeon et columbam and a pigeon. et columbam dove and pigeon conuenientius signified something
accepit autem He took all spirituales spiritual things ista significent: else more suitable,
ei omnia haec these, in eo populo in that people nullo modo in no way
figurati sunt, were figured, tamen nevertheless
individui filii indivisible sons dubitauerim do I doubt
promissionis, of the convenant, spiritales that spiritual things
et haeredes regni and heirs of the in ea in them
(Continued )
37
Table 4e continued
38

futuri . . . future reign . . . praefiguratos were prefigured

Sed quid est quod But what is it that additamento in addition to
animalia illa tria the three animals turturis et the turtle-dove and
et divisit and divided et divisit and divided dividuntur are alternately columbae. pigeon.
ea them illa them divided et ideo dictum And it is said, “but
per medium through the media in half adversus se against one another est: aues autem the birds he did not
middle invicem partibus when they were non diuisit, divide,”
et posuit and placed constitutis, arranged in parts,
ea contra them one nisi quod except that the quoniam carnales
aliis against the carnales et in carnal people, both because carnal
alium other. populo veteri, et among the ancients people
nunc inter se and in the present, are divided
dividuntur? divided amongst inter se amongst
themselves? diuiduntur themselves,
aves the birds et aves And the birds, Porro aves Further on, the birds
autem however, autem however, idcirco non are not
non divisit he did not non he did not dividuntur, quia divided, because
divide. divisit divide. spirituales spiritual people are spiritales autem but spiritual people
individui sunt. indivisible. nullo modo, not at all,
Schisma non They do not
cogitant, non recognize schisms,
seducuntur ab are not seduced by
haereticis, heretics
sed pax est but peace is
semper in ipsis. always in them.
Sive a Whether they siue a negotiosis whether they remove
turbis se remove themselves conuersationibus themselves from the
removeant, from the crowds, hominum se active conversations
remoueant, of men,
ut turtur, as a turtle dove, as a turtle-dove,
sive inter illas or whether they sicut turtur, siue or whether they pass
conversentur, converse among inter illas degant, time among
themselves sicut columba; themselves,
sicut columba: as a pigeon, utraque tamen like a pigeon.
utraque tamen both birds are auis est simplex both birds are
avis est simplex nonetheless simple et innoxia . . . nonetheless simple
15:17–18 et innoxia . . . and harmless . . . and harmless . . .
Cum sol esset When the sun et cum sol And when the Cum occubuisset When the sun had
ad occidentem was in the occidisset sun had set, sol, facta est set a there was a
west, caligo tenebrosa, dark cloud
flamma facta flames flamma facta flames et apparuit and a flaming
est appeared est appeared clibanus fumans, furnace appeared
et ecce and behold et ecce and behold the et lampas ignis and burning lamps
clibanus the flaming clibanus flaming transiens inter went through the
fumigans et furnace and fumigans et furnace and media illa, quae middle of those that
lampades the burning faculae the burning divisa erant, were divided,
ignis ardentis lamps of fire ardentes igni torches of fire significat post it signifies the future
transierunt per went through transierunt per went through finem saeculi day of judgement
medium the middle of medium the middle futurum diem after the end of the
eorum quae those that eorum quae of those that judicii, age
divisa erat were divided. divisa erant were divided. quo per ignem on which the saints
In illa enim For on that in illa On that day segregabuntur and sinners will be
(Continued )
39
Table 4e continued
40

die day die The Lord God sanctorum populi divided

dispositum a covenant disposuit set down for et iniquorum. by fire.
est was set down dominus deus Abraham a
abrahe for Abraham ad Abraham covenant
testamentum testamentum
a domino by the Lord.
1
Fischer, ed. Vetus latina 2, 174–76; 178–79.
2
Column 241; and, beginning with “cum occubuisset,” column 242.
3
CCSL 48, 527.
Isidore invokes them. Citing Psalm 109:4 (“You are a priest forever
according to the order of Melchizedek”), the author of Hebrews estab-
lishes a typological relationship between Melchizedek and Christ, allowing
Christ to be a high priest despite his lack of Levitical descent and insti-
tuting the new Christian priesthood. The chant’s opening, “Melchisedec
rex pacis” (king of peace) is a departure from Genesis, deriving from
Hebrews 7:2.
Through the allegorical threads that Isidore weaves, each passage of the
chant may be connected to the Christian priesthood, the sacraments, and
the new covenant. The chant, for example, opens with Melchizedek’s offer-
ing of bread and wine. For Isidore (Table 4a, columns 5 and 6), this offer-
ing, distinct from the animal sacrifices of Aaron’s descendants, prefigures
the Christian Eucharist. Next the chant recalls Melchizedek’s blessing
of Abraham. Expanding on a reading already implicit in Hebrews, Isidore
(Table 4b) interprets this blessing as a sign that a priesthood greater than the
Levites, derived from Melchizedek, would emerge among the gentiles, be-
cause “he who blesses is greater than he who is blessed.” Reading the first
verse (Table 4c) in the light of Isidore’s commentary, we can see it as an ex-
pansion upon these same Christian and anti-Jewish themes: the descendants
of Abraham to whom God gives the land are the Christian people.
At the opening of the second verse (Table 4d), God visits Abraham in the
form of three strangers, an episode Isidore associates with the Transfigura-
tion. The chant compiler has transformed the biblical source to reflect a par-
ticular exegetical stance that we find in Isidore. Isidore reminds readers that
Abraham has a threefold form (table 4d, columns 5 and 6), based on this
and other chapters of Genesis. Abraham is a figure of Christ because he left
his birthplace behind (Genesis 12:1), of God the father because he was will-
ing to sacrifice his son (Genesis 22), and of the saints because he welcomes
God in the form of the three strangers. In the chant’s shortened version of
Genesis 18:7–8, Abraham sprinkles the wheat and makes bread for the
strangers rather than commanding Sarah to do it, reflecting his status as a
type of Christ. Abraham’s placing of bread before the Lord, then, is a Eucha-
ristic image, recalling Melchizedek’s offering of bread and wine in the re-
spond. For Isidore, the three measures of wheat bring together central
elements of the church’s doctrine and sacraments: they represent the sons of
Noah, from which the human race was born, who were to be sprinkled with
the waters of baptism through the church and rendered into one bread as
the body of Christ.
The third verse of the chant (Table 4e), relating Abraham’s offering, illus-
trates the extent to which the text compiler focused on exegetically relevant
elements of the story. This abbreviated version includes two details of the
story that are central for Isidore: naming four of the five different animals of-
fered by Abraham and specifying which animals were divided and left intact.
Isidore’s exegesis of this story derives from Augustine’s De civitate dei,
shown in Table 4e, columns 7 and 8.58 Paraphrasing Augustine, Isidore

interprets the calf as the people placed under the yoke of the law and the ram
as their future rule. These animals, which are divided “one against the other”
in Abraham’s offering, signify people ruled by the flesh (“carnales”), who are
divided amongst themselves, whereas the undivided birds represent people
ruled by the spirit, who are indivisible. The chant then recounts the flames
that burn through the middle of the divided offerings, which for Isidore pre-
figure the fire that will consume the “carnales” on judgment day. In the light
of this exegetical tradition, the final verse of the chant revisits a theme artic-
ulated in the first verse: that righteous Christians, undivided in doctrine, are
the spiritual descendants of Abraham. Further, Melchisedec rex emerges not
as a mere narrative of different events, but as an intricate, unified text about
the Christian covenant, priesthood, and sacraments.
Viewed from this allegorical perspective, the texts of the quotidiano
sacrificia are rife with references to the Eucharist, the church, and the priest-
hood—imagery intertwined with the liturgical role and sacrificial meaning of
the genre. The events recounted include Moses receiving the law, the build-
ing of altars, the building of the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant, as
well as the priestly acts of Aaron and his sons. For Isidore, these are allegories
(respectively) for the new (Christian) covenant, the body of Christ, the build-
ing of the church, and the Christian priesthood and episcopacy. Following pa-
tristic tradition, Isidore draws a typological parallel between Noah’s ark (the
subject of Aedificavit Noe) and the Church, its wood and the Passion of
Christ, the flood waters and baptism.59 The elder servant of Abraham who
seeks a wife for Isaac, as related in In temporibus, represents the law, through
which the church—Rebecca—is wedded to Christ.60 Even the physical attri-
butes of the tabernacle and the ark, often referenced in the quotidiano sacri-
ficia, signify various aspects of the church.61 In the second verse of Aedificavit
Moyses tabernaculum, for example, God promises to address Moses between
the two cherubim that adorn the propitiatory (mercy seat) of the ark (Exodus
25:22). Isidore interprets the cherubim as the Old and New Testaments. The
cherubim face one another because the Old and New Testaments concord
better when read in the light of one another.62 Indeed, the allegorical rela-
tionship between the Testaments lies at the heart of the genre’s meaning. The
58. Augustine, De civitate dei, 2:527.

59. Isidore, Mysticorum expositiones, columns 228–29. For a similar typology, see Origen’s
second sermon on Genesis, in Origen (ed. Lubac and Doutreleau), Homélies, 77–113; and Au-
gustine, De civitate, 2:493–94.
60. Isidore, Mysticorum expositiones, columns 252–53; “Senior autem iste servus imaginem
habuit legis, per quam sponsa Christi Ecclesia despondebatur. . . .”
61. Ibid., columns 313–18. See also Augustine, Quaestionum, 130 (“quod autem praefi-
guratum est . . . quam ecclesiae sacramenta significat”).
62. Isidore, Mysticorum expositiones, column 312. (“Alii eadem duo cherubim duo intelli-
gunt Testamenta. . . . Hi versis vultibus se respiciunt, dum in spiritualem sensum vertuntur; tunc
enim alterutrum sibi melius concordant, et in omnibus rectius consonant.”)
preparation of the Eucharistic bread and wine during the singing of the sacri-
ficia was a visual exegesis of the chant text, which was then enacted in the
Eucharistic sacrifice. Together, the sung narrative and the liturgical action
formed a visual and aural counterpoint that represented the supplanting of
the ancient sacrifices—the literal sense of the chant text—with the Eucharist,
its allegorical sense.
The parallels between the sacrificium texts and Isidore’s focus on the same
passages raise questions about chronological priority and directions of influ-
ence. In older scholarship on the Old Hispanic rite, liturgical texts were often
ascribed to specific church figures, including Isidore, a tradition that began in
the Middle Ages.63 Any attribution of the sacrificia to Isidore himself, how-
ever, would be dubious at best. As argued below, it is very unlikely that they
emerged in a single time and place. Isidore’s works, however, did inspire the
creation of other liturgical texts.64 Did Isidore, then, serve as principal source
material for the sacrificia, or did the chants already exist in his time? Either
scenario is possible, and the question is perhaps best settled on a hypothetical
middle ground. As noted, Isidore’s remarks on the offertory in De ecclesiasti-
cis officiis indicate that the genre existed in the early seventh century. Since
the allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament offerings was established
long before Isidore, the genre’s existence need not depend on him.65
Although the parallels between his description of the offertory and the exist-
ing sacrificia, noted above, are not hard proof that these early offertories were
like the existing ones, I do see this as the most plausible explanation. At the
same time, Isidore’s works would have been a filter through which educated
listeners heard the chants.66 In turn, they may well have stimulated the mak-
ing of new sacrificia, as expansions to an existing core. This hypothesis is con-
sistent with the testimonies to ongoing liturgical activity in the seventh
century, as well as the evidence, introduced below, that the repertory was cre-
ated over a long period of time. It is likely then, that sacrificia existed in Isi-
dore’s time but continued to be created in the course of the seventh century.
The Quotidiano Sacrificia: Questions of Chronology
The quotidiano sacrificia shown in Table 3 (pp. 27–28) can tell us much
about how the repertory was assembled. These sacrificia certainly appear to be
a unified repertory, sharing a thematic focus, aspects of verbal structure, and
63. See notes 19 and 22 above.

64. See Elfassi, “Los centones”; and idem, “Trois aspects.” On the parallels between the
Lenten chants called threni and Isidore’s Synonyma, see Hornby and Maloy, Music and Mean-
ing, 86–88.
65. See note 48 and discussion above.
66. On Isidore’s program for the theological education of clergy and laity, see Domínguez
del Val, “Características de la patrística”; Fontaine, “Isidore de Seville pédagogue”; and Drews,
Unknown Neighbour, 111–21.
even an arrangement in biblical order. Observing similar characteristics in

the Roman repertory, McKinnon concluded that the Roman Mass Proper
was created within a short time span. A closer look, however, casts doubt on
this conclusion in the case of the sacrificia and calls into question the use of
such thematic and textual evidence as a basis for chronological hypotheses.
It is more plausible that similar types of texts were created at different times
and places and that biblical ordering arose though the compilation and ar-
rangement of an existing repertory.
One clue to the repertory’s stratification is its use of various biblical ver-
sions. Some sacrificia are taken from the Vulgate, the standard Medieval
translation from the Hebrew associated with Jerome.67 Others, however, are
based on pre-Vulgate translations from the Greek Septuagint, known as
Vetus latina (VL). In contrast to the Vulgate, the term Vetus latina does not
refer to a single text; rather, it is an all-encompassing designation for the
many translations from Greek to Latin that were in use throughout the
West, from early Christian times to the high Middle Ages. No VL text sur-
vives in complete form, and many are witnessed only in patristic citations,
liturgical texts, or biblical fragments. The following analysis of sacrificium
texts employs two VL resources, both produced at the Vetus Latina Institute
in Beuron, Germany: The critical edition of the VL, currently in progress,68
and the Vetus latina Database, collection of texts for each biblical verse,
made in preparation for the critical edition and drawn from citations, liturgi-
cal sources, and editions of particular bibles.69 Because the editors of the
critical edition have analyzed the different texts and categorized them into
different branches, the edition is a far a more valuable tool for determining
which VL tradition is the basis of a chant text. Although the Vetus latina
Database lacks this kind of analysis, it is useful in the absence of a critical edi-
tion for the biblical passages in question.
The quotidiano sacrificia are textually varied, as shown in Table 3. In
cases where the text source of a sacrificium can be ascertained, it is given in
the last column of the table. In some cases, the biblical source is altered to a
degree that precludes determining which version is the source. Further, the
text compilers may have paraphrased and cited from memory at times. In
cases where the Vulgate and VL greatly differ, however, it is often possible
to establish a textual basis for the chant. Si in preceptis (Table 5), for exam-
ple, is very close to the Vulgate in vocabulary and wording, despite some
omissions and the addition of “dicit dominus.” (Differences from the Vul-
gate are in boldface; additions in italics.) The critical edition of VL Leviticus
has not been published, and the Vetus latina Database incorporates only one
VL biblical manuscript that preserves these verses: the sixth-century Lyon
67. Gasquet et al., eds., Biblia sacra.

68. Sabatier et al., eds., Vetus latina.
69. Vetus latina Database.
Table 5 Si in praeceptis
Vulgate Lev. 26: 3-4,
Chant text 6, 91 Lyon Heptateuch2 Patristic citations
Si in praeceptis meis si in praeceptis meis Si in praeceptis meis

ambulaveritis ambulaveritis ieritis
et custodieritis et mandata mea et mandata mea
mandata mea et custodieritis et feceritis custodieritis et Rufinus:4
feceritis ea, dicit ea feceritis ea, dabo, ergo inquit,
dominus dabo vobis pluvias3 dabo pluviam vobis pluviam in tempore
dabo vobis pluviam temporibus suis in tempore suo et suo et dabit
temporibis suis et terra gignet germen terra dabit fructus terra nativitates
et terra gignet suum et pomis arbores suos [lacuna] suas
germen replebuntur.
suum et pomis
arbores
replebuntur alleluia
alleluia.
II Dabo pacem in Dabo pacem in finibus Et dabo pacem
finibus vestris vestris dormietis et non [lacuna] et dormietis
et gladius non erit qui exterreat et non erit qui vos in
transibit auferam malas bestias timore mittat; et
terminos vestros perdam bestias malas
respiciam vos et et gladius non transibit ex terra vestra
crescere faciam terminos vestros et gladius non transiet
in terra vestra.
Rufinus:5
et firmabo pactum respiciam vos et 1. et respiciam

Et respiciam super
meum vobiscum crescere faciam super vos et
vos et augeam vos et
augebo6 vos
multiplicabimini multiplicabo vos
et firmabo pactum 2. et statuam
[lacuna]
meum vobiscum testamentum
meum
vobiscum
1
Gasquet et al., Biblia sacra 2, 471.
2
Robert, Pentateuchi versio latina.
3
“Pluviam,” matching the chant text, is found in ΣT (Madrid, Vitrina 13-1), a Spanish source of the Vulgate.
Gasquet et al., Biblia sacra 2, 471.
4
Vetus Latina Database, Lev. 26:4, Bildnummer 20.
5
1 and 2 are different Rufinus citations in Vetus Latina Database, Lev. 26:9, Bildnummer 13.
6
The card in Vetus Latina Database gives “augeam” as a variant here.
Heptateuch, containing a text known in Spain and southern Gaul, which has
several lacunas.70 This source (column 3) nonetheless clearly differs from
both the Vulgate and the chant text. A few patristic citations preserve other
VL texts, a small sampling of which is given in column 4; they also diverge
70. Edition: Robert, Pentateuchi. The diverse textual character of this manuscript (siglum
100) was noted by Billen, Old Latin Text; cited in Vetus latina: Genesis, 16. On the Spanish
characteristics of this text, see ibid., 17–18.
Table 6 Sanctificavit, verse 1, excerpt

Lyon Heptateuch, Exodus 34: Vulgate, Exodus 34: 2–5,
Chant text 2–5, 8–91 8–92
Locutus est dominus ad esto paratus mane

moysen dicens ascende in monte sina ut ascendas statim in
ascende ad me in et stabis mihi ibi in cacumine montem Sinai
montem sina montis stabisque mecum super
stabis super cacumen eius Et mane verticem montis
Audiens Moyses ascendit vigilans Moyses ascendit in consurgens ascendit in
in montem montem Sina, montem Sinai
ubi constituit ei deus sicut constituit ei dominus sicut ei praeceperat
et descendit ad eum et descendit dominus cumque descendisset
dominus in nube et in nube, et Dominus per nubem
adstitit ante faciem eius astitit ei ibi, stetit Moses cum eo
et vocavit nomine domini invocans nomen Domini
Videns Moyses procidens et festinans moyses in festinusque Moses curvatus
adoravit terram procidens, est pronus in terram
adoravit deum et adorans
1
Robert, Pentateuchi versio latina 2, 253–55.
2
Gasquet et al., Biblia sacra.
from the chant text and Vulgate. Sanctificavit (Table 6), by contrast, departs
markedly from the Vulgate. Despite some variants from the Lyon Hepta-
teuch (indicated in boldface) and some additions (indicated in italics), its
wording and vocabulary are close to that of the Lyon Heptateuch.
Only five quotidiano sacrificia are unquestionably based on the VL. Two
additional sacrificia either derive from a mixed version of the text, or its com-
piler used more than one version. Unfortunately, however, we cannot posit a
precise chronology for the sacrificia on this basis. Writing in the early seventh
century, Isidore suggests that the Vulgate was the primary liturgical text,
“generally used by all churches in every situation,” and he considered it the
more faithful reading.71 The transition between the two texts, however, was
not a linear process. The Vulgate met with resistance and was mixed with
elements of the VL, which continued to be consulted and studied.72 Despite
Isidore’s advocacy for the Vulgate, he believed that unclear passages could
be elucidated through collating different versions.73 He cites an Old Latin
71. See Isidore, De ecclesiasticis officiis, 13: “De hebreo autem in latinum eloquium tantum-
modo Hieronimus presbiter sacras scripturas conuertit; cuius editionem generaliter omnes ec-
clesiae usquequaque utuntur, pro eo quod ueracior sit in sententiis et clarior in uerbis.” See
also idem, Etymologiae 1, bk. 6, chap. 4.
72. In Iberia, for example, parts of the VL may be found as marginal notes and interpola-
tions in copies of the Vulgate. See Ayuso Marazuela, Vetus Latina Hispana, vol. 1; and Ortiz
de Urbina, “Origen, familias.”
73. Drews, Unknown Neighbour, 50–59.
Pentateuch, in fact, in De ecclesiasticis officiis, while adhering to the Vulgate

for the other biblical books.74 In the Mysticorum expositiones, written twenty
to twenty-five years later, he usually cites the Vulgate Pentateuch. In some
works, he selects the version best suited to his argument.75 The chant com-
pilers, then, may also have chosen whichever text they preferred. The sacri-
ficia, nonetheless, are all not cut from the same textual cloth. The diversity of
textual sources, evident even among sacrificia from the same biblical book,
suggests that they are not the product of a single effort, despite their textual
and thematic cohesion and their arrangement in biblical order. This evi-
dence, then, calls into question the value of thematic evidence in positing
chronological layers within a chant repertory, a central methodology under-
lying McKinnon’s Advent-project hypothesis.
If the quotidiano sacrificia were not all the product of the same effort,
how was the repertory created? The differences between manuscripts sug-
gest that an existing core repertory was expanded in various ways, perhaps
at the regional or local level. As shown in Table 3 (pp. 27–28), the quoti-
diano series is preserved wholly or partially in three manuscripts, all belong-
ing to tradition A. The earliest, León 8, copied in the tenth century, possibly
at a monastery near León, provides a list of quotidiano chants, arranged by
genre, at the end of the manuscript (Table 3, column 2).76 The extant part
of the manuscript breaks off partway through the tenth sacrificium, thus pro-
viding an incomplete repertory. In Silos 6, an eleventh-century liber misticus
from the Rioja in northern Spain, the sacrificia are assigned to specific quo-
tidiano formularies, with other chants and prayers.77 Silos 6 has nine such
formularies and part of a tenth, followed by a lacuna (Table 3, column 3).
Toledo 35.4 (=T4), a thirteenth-century source probably copied for parish
use, provides the most complete quotidiano Sunday repertory, with twenty
formularies (Table 3, column 1).78 Typical of the late Toledan sources, how-
ever, it presents shorter versions of many chants, with only one verse or no
verses. As Emma Hornby and I have argued elsewhere, the omission of
verses in these late sources almost certainly arose from a later abbreviation,
74. See, for example, De ecclesiasticis officiis, 45 (Letivicus citation); 49 (Genesis citation);
and 57 (Exodus citation).
75. In this, he follows the method Gregory the Great acknowledges in his Moralia in Iob, a
text that was very influential for Isidore. See Gregory, Moralia, 7; Drews, Unknown Neighbour,
58–59.
76. Facsimile: Fernández de la Cuesta, Liber antiphonarium de toto anni. On its origins, see
Díaz y Díaz, “Some Incidental Notes”; Huglo, “Les prologues,” and the collection El canto
mozárabe, ed. Fernández de la Cuesta and Llorens. For further bibliography, see Zapke, Hispania
Vetus, 252; and Millares Carlo, Corpus de codices 1, 69–71.
77. In his catalogue entry on this manuscript in Hispania Vetus, Vivancos suggests that it
might be from Santa María la Real of Nájera; Zapke, ed., Hispania Vetus, 290.
78. On this manuscript, see Janini and Gonzálvez, Catálogo, 99–100. Mundó, “La data-
ción,” 10, dates the manuscript to the period 1192–1208. For a different view, see Millares
Carlo, Corpus de codices 1, item 322, which places T4 in the eleventh or twelfth century.
in which the rite was simplified for parish use.79 The three quotidiano cycles
open with the same four sacrificia and share two additional sacrificia, Sancti-
ficavit and Aedificavit Moyses. Silos 6 and León 8, however, have unicum
sacrificia: Sacerdotes domini offerte (Silos 6), Congregavit David (León 8)
and Elevavit aaron munera (León 8). Each of these chants marks a depar-
ture from the biblical ordering within its respective list. Silos 6, moreover,
omits nine of the sacrificia in T4’s list, so that its ninth sacrificium, Ingressus
est vir, is sung on the sixteenth Sunday in T4. With the exception of the uni-
cum Sacerdotes domini offerte, Silos 6 follows the principle of biblical order-
ing, which implies that that the intervening chants in T4’s cycle were not
sung on quotidiano Sundays in that tradition.
Examining the latter part of T4’s cycle more closely, we can hypothesize
that it is the result of a late compilation. This cycle, in particular, attests to a
kind of liturgical planning in which the creation and properization of the
repertory occurred in separate stages. Several of these sacrificia were also
sung on other occasions (see Table 3, column 6, pp. 26–27). In earlier sour-
ces, Elegit dominus and Locutus est dominus . . . ecce are longer chants with
sanctorale assignments. Elegit is assigned to St. John the Apostle in three
sources (León 8, Madrid A 30, and Toledo 35.7) and to St. Cyprian in a
fourth (London, BL 30845). Locutus est was sung at the ordination of
bishops in the León 8 tradition. The exegetical tradition strongly connects
both chants to the sanctorale. Each opens with a different paraphrase of
Exodus 31:2–3, in which God commissions Beseleel as the chief architect
of the tabernacle. “Behold, I have called by the name Beseleel the son of
Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Juda, and I have filled him with the spirit
of God, with wisdom and understanding, and knowledge in all manner
of work.” In both chants, the name and pedigree of Beseleel are omitted and
replaced simply with “unum virum” (“one man”) or “virum” (“a man”).80
In the sanctorale context, this change recasts the Exodus text as a reference
to John, to Cyprian, or to the bishop being ordained. Isidore associates the
precious stones used to build the tabernacle, in the first verse of Elegit domi-
nus, with apostles and learned men of the church, affirming the suitability of
this text for sanctorale use.81 In the sanctorale context, this text would have
79. Hornby and Maloy, Music and Meaning, 312. The omission of verses also applies to
psalmi, threni, and ad accendentes. Randel also argued for abbreviation in the later sources in
“Responsorial Psalmody,” 98–99.
80. The Vulgate: “ecce vocavi ex nomine Beselehel filium Uri filii Hur de tribu Iuda et
implevi eum spiritu Dei sapientia intellegentia et scientia in omni opere.” The chant texts:
“Elegit dominus virum unum de tribu Iuda et implevit eum spiritu sapientiae et intellegentiae
et scientiae,” and “Locutus est dominus ad Moysen dicens ecce vocavi virum et implevi eum spi-
ritu sapientiae in omni opere.”
81. The first verse of Elegit: “Locutus est dominus ad Moysen dicens loquere filiis Israhel ut
faciant mihi sanctuarium et ponant in eo lapides onychinos et gemma (Ex. 25:1–2). Isidore:
Mysticorum expositiones, column 313 (“Interim et tabulas deauratas erigi praecipit. . . .”); col-
umn 317 (“Lapides quoque pretiosi, confessores. . . .”)
been understood as referring to the role of John or Cyprian in building the

church. In both chants, moreover, the second verse (absent in T4) relates
God’s anointing of Aaron as a priest,82 the point where Isidore places
the beginnings of the Christian episcopacy.83 The exegetical tradition and
textual modifications suggest these chants were created for use in the sanc-
torale and that their position in T4’s quotidiano cycle is secondary. Without
a doubt, however, the two chants fit seamlessly into the thematic trajectory
of T4’s quotidiano cycle, particularly in the shorter versions preserved there.
Appearing shortly after Aedificavit Moyses tabernaculum in the series, they
continue its central theme, the building of the tabernacle.84 In summary,
some chants in T4’s quotidiano cycle, the most complete preserved, were
likely borrowed from other portions of the liturgical year and arranged to
form a coherent thematic trajectory. If so, the liturgical planning in this part
of the cycle involved not the simultaneous creation of thematically cohesive
chants, but the careful selection and arrangement of preexisting chants.
Finally, two quotidiano sacrificia, Sanctificavit and Vos qui transituri raise
further doubts about the simultaneous creation of the quotidiano cycle:
both texts also circulated outside Iberia, suggesting that the sacrificia may
have geographically diverse origins. Sanctificavit serves as an offertory in
the Franco-Roman and Milanese traditions, and Kenneth Levy proposed a
Gallican origin for it.85 The text Vos qui transituri is found in the Franco-
Roman office as a responsory for the Fourth Sunday of Lent and in the
Milanese mass as an ingressa (introit) for the Dedication festival. Since Vos
qui transituri reflects an extensive modification to its biblical source (the
Vulgate version of Deut. 27:4–7), it is beyond doubt that the Old Hispanic,
Milanese, and Franco-Roman texts have a common origin. These two
chants, then, may have originated outside Iberia. If so, they reaffirm the im-
pression that the sacrificia could not have been the product of a single effort.
To summarize, the variety of textual traditions in the quotidiano sacrifi-
cia, coupled with the multiple liturgical assignments and international circu-
lation of some items, suggest that this repertory has diverse origins, despite
its unified thematic focus. The arrangement of the chants in biblical order is
clearly a later imposition of structure on a preexisting repertory. An even
more varied repertory emerges when we incorporate the Missale mixtum
into the picture.86 This printed source, compiled around 1500 in a “resto-
ration” of the Mozarabic rite under Archbishop Francisco Jiménez de
Cisneros and Alfonso Ortiz, must be approached with caution. Most chant
82. Elegit: Exodus 28:1–3. Locutus est: Exodus 28:1 and Leviticus 8:2.
83. Isidore, De ecclesiasticis officiis, 56.
84. Elegit makes reference to the tabernacle at the end of the respond, and Locutus est to the
Holy of Holies at the end of its first verse.
85. Levy, “Toledo, Rome.” See also Baroffio, Die mailändische Überlieferung; and Maloy,
Inside the Offertory, 170–77.
86. Edition: Liturgia Mozarabica.
melodies associated with Cisneros’s project are thought to be early modern

creations, differing substantially from those implied by the Old Hispanic
neumes.87 The Missale mixtum clearly has early modern liturgical elements
as well. Ortiz, for example, adapted the Old Hispanic material to current
use, including festivals that were lacking in the Old Hispanic calendar,88 and
he may also have created some of the prayer texts, modeling them on exist-
ing Old Hispanic prayers.89 Despite these interventions, however, the chant
texts, liturgical assignments, and prayer formularies in the Missale mixtum
do correspond closely to those of Toledo 35.5 (hereafter T5), a thirteenth-
century source representing tradition B.90 T5 contains only Masses from the
First Sunday of Lent to Tuesday of Easter Week, preceded and followed by
lacunae. Without manuscript witnesses to tradition B outside of Lent and the
beginning of Easter, we cannot determine whether the other material in the
Missale mixtum resembles an authentic Old Hispanic rite. The chant texts for
the Lenten and early Easter portions of the Missale mixtum, however, were
clearly taken from tradition B or a closely related tradition. The other parts
of the Missale mixtum, then, may also derive from tradition B sources or from
another, lost branch of the rite.91
The quotidiano sacrificium texts in the Missale mixtum (Table 7) yield a
strong impression of Old Hispanic origin. Although the Missale mixtum
shares a common core of repertory with the tradition A sources, it also has
unica. Items shown in regular type are also found in the tradition A manu-
scripts (compare Table 3), whereas those shown in boldface are otherwise
unknown. These seven unica sacrificia texts are thematically and structurally
very similar to those found in the manuscripts. The sacrificial theme is pres-
ent in all seven chants, the priesthood in six, and the Ark of the Covenant in
one (Sacerdotes domini et levite). All seven chants, moreover, exhibit exten-
sive modifications to scripture, typical of the extant repertory. These chants
even share certain verbal formulas with the Medieval repertory. The respond
Aedificavit Gideon, for example, closes with “in odorem suavitatis,” a
87. Facsimile: Fernández Collado, Los cantorales. On the newly composed melodies, see
Imbasciani, “Cisneros.” Carmen Julia Gutiérrez, however, demonstrates a strong connection
between the preces melodies of the cantorales and those of the existing manuscripts in “Melo-
días del canto hispánico” and “Avatares de un repertorio marginal,” suggesting that a new, case-
by-case examination of the question may be needed.
88. For example, Ash Wednesday. The quotidiano Sundays are renamed “Sundays after
Epiphany and Pentecost.”
89. Janini, “Misas mozárabes”; and idem, “Las piezas litúrgicas.” See also Boynton, Silent
Music, 8–10.
90. The chant assignments on Sundays and feasts are identical in Toledo 35.5 and the Mis-
sale mixtum, with these exceptions: the fraction chants for Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday, and
one additional praelegendum for Palm Sunday in the Missale mixtum. On the Lenten weekdays,
the Missale mixtum has the same series of threni as T5.
91. As suggested by Imbasciani, “Cisneros,” 138; and Martín Patino, “El Breviarium
mozárabe.”
Table 7 Quotidiano sacrificia in the Missale mixtum

Formavit dominus
Aedificavit noe
Aedificavit Abraham altare
Aedificavit Moyses [same as Sanctificavit moyses]
Deprecatus est populus
Aedificavit Gedeon altare domino (Judges 6)
Accepit librum Moyses coram altare (Wednesday of Holy Week in León 8)
Sacerdotes domini et levite (3 Kings 8)
Celebraverunt filii Israel (Macc 8, 15)
Offerent sacerdotes super altare holocausta (Ezekiel 43, 44)
In universis solennitatibus domus (Ez. 45)
Sacerdotes domini offerunt [same as Sacerdotes domini offerte]
Accendentes sacerdotes filii (Deut 21, 27)
Offerte sacerdotes
Oblatio domini (Ex. 29)
passage absent in the biblical source for this chant but found in many extant
sacrificia.92 Judges 6, the source for Aedificavit Gideon, is also the source for
T4’s quotidiano sacrificium Locutus est . . . ad Gideon (see Table 3). The
story on which both chants are based is of particular interest for Isidore, who
links Gideon’s offering to the sacrifice of Christ.93 In short, these seven sac-
rificia from the Missale mixtum are thoroughly typical of the genre and Old
Hispanic in character. If they were early modern creations, we would have to
see them as a clever imitation, reflecting extensive study of and modeling on
the existing repertory. The simpler and more probable alternative is that they
are actual Old Hispanic texts. The repertory of the two substantial tradition
B sources, T5 and Madrid 10.110, supports this hypothesis. Both contain
chants that are not found in the tradition A sources, indicating that the two
traditions had partly different repertories.94 The Missale mixtum further sug-
gests that the quotidiano sacrificia with common textual traits were created
at different times and probably in different places. It is unclear whether the
Missale mixtum’s unica were composed later than the core sacrificia shared
with the tradition A manuscripts, or whether these items simply had more
limited circulation. Unlike the first part of the Missale mixtum’s cycle, these
unica are not presented in biblical order, and the Vulgate is their primary
source.95
92. See note 30.

93. Isidore, Mysticorum expositiones, columns 381–82.
94. Madrid 10.110, for example, has 54 responsories for the weekdays of Lent that are not
found in tradition A.
95. Accendentes and Oblatio are from the Vulgate. In universis, Offerent, Sacerdotes Domini
et levite, and Aedificavit Gideon are more similar to the Vulgate than to the surviving VL
sources, but do not fully conform to the Vulgate.
Considering the quotidiano sacrificia in relation to existing theories about

the origins of the Roman repertory, we find that the evidence confirms some
aspects of these theories but casts doubt on others. The late compilation of
the quotidiano cycle and its partial borrowing from other festivals, particu-
larly in T4, finds a parallel in the Roman Post-Pentecost cycle, widely be-
lieved to be among the final additions to that repertory.96 In relation to
Pfisterer’s work, the repertory is consistent with his theory of a lengthy gen-
esis rather than a short, concentrated period of composition.
The evidence of the sacrificia, however, does fundamentally challenge
many premises that underlie McKinnon’s work. In his view, the emergence
of nonpsalmic texts and texts that depart from the biblical source, which
he saw as fundamental markers of schola chant, was contemporaneous with
the liturgical planning and properization of the repertory. He assumed that
chants were created for use on particular days and that creation and proper-
ization were thus simultaneous processes. In the sacrificia, by contrast, they
were sometimes separate efforts: the chants existed before their liturgical
assignments were fixed. Further, McKinnon assigned chants with the
same themes to the same chronological layer. In the quotidiano sacrificia,
however, we find thematically cohesive chants with diverse origins, arising in
part through the selection and arrangement of preexisting repertory. The
chronology of a chant repertory, then, does not lie in its thematic traits.
Newer chants could textually be modeled on existing ones, guided by estab-
lished traditions of exegesis and customs for making texts.
Properization in the Temporale Sacrificia
The sacrificia of the temporale can shed further light on the ways that chants
were assigned to specific festivals. Their value lies in the varying degrees of
properization we find in the repertory. For many festal days, the temporale
sacrificia are thematically proper to the same degree as Amplificare oblationem
(Table 1, pp. 10–15): their texts have been selected, arranged, and modified
to fit specific liturgical occasions. These festal sacrificia are unlikely to have
been sung at other times. Yet in certain parts of the Old Hispanic year, such
as the weekdays of Lent and Easter Week, chants were subject to ad hoc selec-
tion, with assignments made at the local or regional level. The degree of prop-
erization, moreover, differs between manuscripts. León 8 preserves the fullest
repertory of uniquely assigned, thematically proper sacrificia, whereas the
other Old Hispanic manuscripts have fewer of these types of chants for the
festivals they contain. In these respects, the Old Hispanic liturgy differs
from Franco-Roman practice. Despite the recent demonstrations that the
96. McKinnon provides detailed illustrations of the borrowing from other festivals. See
Advent Project, 319.
Franco-Roman liturgy was far more diverse than musicologists once

believed, 97 the Franco-Roman graduals generally have a full set of consis-
tently assigned chants for the festivals they contain.98 In the Old Hispanic
repertory, we find both more variety in chant assignments and less consistent
properization throughout the year.
The temporale sacrificia bolster the conclusions reached in the preceding
section: the repertory was likely created at different times and in different
places. Its cohesive thematic strands mask an underlying diversity. Beyond
this, the temporale sacrificia give us a wealth of material to evaluate the pro-
cesses of properization that McKinnon and Pfisterer have proposed for
Roman chant. As mentioned, McKinnon’s theory holds that properization
of chants proceeded season-by-season, in the order of the liturgical year. If
the Old Hispanic temporale were created in a similar way, we would expect
to see fewer uniquely assigned, thematically proper chants in the later part of
the year. McKinnon adopted Frere’s principle that “fixity means antiquity,”
and, in this case, consistency of liturgical assignment throughout the Old
Hispanic manuscripts would point to an early fixation of assignment.99 In
Pfisterer’s scenario, properization began with the most important festivals. If
this were so, we would expect to see a consistent assignment of thematically
proper chants on the major festivals, less so on weekdays and perhaps ordi-
nary Sundays. The evidence does not fully concord with either theory.
Since León 8 is the only Old Hispanic source to preserve most of the
temporale, it provides the best entry point into the repertory. As shown in
Table 8, it contains a full repertory of sacrificia for the Sundays of Advent,
Lent, and Easter, and for the weekdays of Easter Week. All but three of these
chants are uniquely assigned within tradition A (as indicated by an asterisk);
two of the Lenten Sundays form notable exceptions. Most of these chants
exhibit a high degree of thematic specificity. The sacrificia for Palm Sunday,
two of the Holy Thursday sacrificia, and those for Easter Sunday, Ascension,
and Pentecost, for example, are taken from the New Testament passages rel-
evant to each festival. The Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany sacrificia, more-
over, are based on prophetic texts seen to foreshadow the coming of Christ,
often complementing the day’s Old Testament readings.100
97. On the Roman side, see, inter alia, Jounel, Le culte des saints. On the general Carolin-
gian picture, see Hen, Royal Patronage, esp. 78–89; Claussen, Reform, 163–65; McKitterick,
“Unity and Diversity.” The early Franco-Roman chant sources show differences in book type,
sanctorale festivals, and textual variants. The differences between book types are a central
focus of Rankin, “Making of Carolingian Mass Chant Books”; and DiCenso, “Sacramentary-
Antiphoners”; and the textual variants are illustrated in Rankin, “Making.”
98. There are, however, well-known exceptions, such as the “quale volueris” rubric indicated
on the Ember Days outside of Advent in certain early Franco-Roman sources. See McKinnon,
Advent Project, 146.
99. Ibid., 154–57.
100. The Old Hispanic Advent has several complementary themes: prophecy, repentence,
baptism, Mary. In the sacrificia, the focus is on prophecy and repentance.
Table 8 Temporale sacrificia in Léon 8
54
Ast. Sacrificium (León 8) Festival or theme Christian typology Biblical version
Advent 1 *Regnabit dominus (Is 22:21–22; 23) prophecy Vetus Latina

(O text)
Advent 2 *Ecce ostendit (Zach 3:1;1: 16–17); Zach 8: 3, prophecy Vetus Latina [African]
7–8, 12–13)
Advent 3 *Ego Daniel (Daniel 9: 2–9; 7:13–14; 7:9–10) prophecy Vulgate1
Advent 4 *Veniet ad te (Is. 60: 11.14; 54:8) prophecy ?2
Advent 5 *Ingressus est daniel (Dan. 3:90, 10:17–18; prophecy ?
12:1, 4, 9)
Christmas *Parvulus natus est nobis prophecy Mixed3
Isaiah 9
Epiphany *Omnes de Saba (Is. 60: 5; 45:14; 60: 19–20) prophecy VL (African text C)
Sunday before Si in praeceptis Keeping the commandments Vulgate
Lent Leviticus 26 of the Lord
In carnes *Multiplicavit Vulgate4
tollendas a. Deut 10:22, 11:1–2 a. Moses, 40 days fasting a. Jesus temptations, 40-day Lent
b. Deut 9:15–19 b. Passover b. Easter
c. Deut 16:1–4, 10 c. Festival of Weeks c. 49 days until Pentecost

Lent I *Hii dies exorationis Day of Atonement Necessity of fasting (Tertullian) Vetus latina
Leviticus 23:27, 29 September Ember Day (Leo, (African)
Isidore)
Lent II Sacrificium deo “a sacrifice to God is an “The former sacrifices prefigure n/a
Psalm 50:19 afflicted spirit. . .” the living sacrifice”
(Augustine)
Lent III Averte domine faciem mercy n/a
Psalm 50:11, 3–4
Lent IV *Isti sunt dies quos Vetus latina?
a. Lev 23:4–6 a. Passover a. Easter Vigil/Sunday
b. Lev 23:34, 39–40 b. Festival of Tabernacles b. Palm Sunday (Syrian
lectionary)
Palm Sunday *In tempore illo John 11:55, 12:1–3, 12:12, Entrance into Jerusalem Vulgate
16, etc.
Wed. Holy Week *Accepit librum Exodus 24: 7–8; 35: 1–10, Law/blood of the covenant New covenant Vetus latina (African)
20:18–20
Holy Thurs Mass I: *Dominus. . .in qua nocte 1 Cor 11: Institution narrative New covenant Vetus latina
23–25 Institution narrative Vulgate?
*(alia): Dominus. . .misit Moses, law Vetus latina
Mass II: *Aedificavit Moses
Luke 22, Matthew 26:26–29
Easter vigil *Alleluia angelus domini Resurrection story Vetus latina
Matthew 28: 2, 3, 5
Easter Sunday *Alleluia temporibus Resurrection story Vulgate
Matthew 28: 8, 9
Mn. In pascha domini Passover Easter Vulgate
Numbers 28:16–18; 22–23
Tu. *Ecce agnus dei Lamb of God ?
John 1:29, Ps 106
Wd. *Sollemnem habeatis Passover Easter Vetus
Numbers 28: 16–19, 24, 28 latina?
Th. [repeat of Monday]
Fri. *Erit hic vobis Passover, crossing Red Sea Easter, baptism Vetus latina
Exodus 12:14 14:14, 13:3
Sat. *Haec dicit dom. Apoc 1, 2 Resurrection Easter Vulgate?
*(alia) Alleluia quasi carmen Ezekiel 33:32, Return of the alleluia, Vulgate
47:12 firstfruits Vulgate
*(alia) Isti sunt dies festi Lev 23:2, 20: 24; Passover
Deut 27
Octave *Omnis populus adoraverunt Hanukkah story, dedication, Deliverance, dedication n/a
1 Macc. 4, 13 8-day celebration Easter Week
(Continued )
55
Table 8 continued
56
Ast. Sacrificium (León 8) Festival or theme Christian typology Biblical version
Dom I *Alleluia prima sabbatorum Resurrection story Vulgate

Mark 16: 1–7
Dom II *Audi Israhel Preceptum Passover, Omer ritual, Easter/49 days to Pentecost Vulgate
Deut 9, 16 Festival of Weeks
Dom III *Aspexi et vidi animas Final resurrection ?
Apoc. 20, 5, 1,
Dom IV *Stetit angelus Offering theme, vision Vetus latina
Apoc. 8:3–5, 5: 1–9
Ascension *Locutus est Dominus Ihesus discipulis Ascension Vulgate

John 14:12, 28–29
Dom post asc. Vidi in caelo (Apoc 7, 4)
Fri. litanies *Si in praeceptis Keeping precepts Vulgate
Sat. litanies Haec dicit . . . effundam
Joel 2
Pentecost *Dum complerentur Pentecost Vetus latina

Acts 2:1–2
*
Indicates unique assignment within León 8
1
With certain untraceable variants in the final verse.
2
Veniet ad te and Ingressus est Daniel have too many modifications to the biblical text to determine its textual basis.
3
The respond is based on the African version of the VL, whereas the verses appear to be based Vulgate, with some VL vocabulary.
4
With certain untraceable variants.
Sacrificia from the Pentateuch comprise a third thematic strand. Sung

periodically between the Sunday before Lent and Pentecost, they invoke al-
legorical parallels between Jewish and Christian festivals. In these cases, alle-
gorical exegesis is integral to the liturgical planning, often serving as the
thread connecting the text and festival. The allegorical principles that under-
lie their text selection have parallels both in Isidore’s work and in the
broader patristic tradition. Isidore follows patristic tradition, for example, in
finding the origins of the Christian liturgical year in the Old Testament.
Beyond making the usual association between Easter and Passover,101 he
finds the beginning of Lent in Moses’s forty days of fasting in the desert,
thought to prefigure Jesus’s forty days of temptation,102 and Pentecost in
the Biblical Pentecost or Festival of Weeks, the celebration of the giving of
the law to Moses fifty days after Passover.103 In the Old Hispanic tradition,
Lent began on a Monday.104 On the preceding Sunday, styled In carnes
tollendas, the sacrificium Multiplicavit successively draws upon each of
these parallels to anticipate the coming festal period. Centonized from
Deuteronomy (10:22 and 11:2), the respond consists of an exhortation to
keep the festivals of the Lord. The first verse recounts Moses’s casting down
and breaking the tablets of the covenant in response to the people’s unfaith-
fulness, as well as his forty days of fasting (Deut. 9:15–18). Turning to the
Easter typologies, the second verse begins with the commandment to ob-
serve the “month of the new fruits,” (Deut. 16:1), a phrase Isidore cites in
relation to Easter,105 then recounts the Exodus from Egypt and Passover.
The verse concludes with the biblical Pentecost, or Festival of Weeks (Deut.
16:10), but the word “ebdomarum” (of weeks) is omitted, exemplifying the
extent to which the text was modified to fit its new context.106 Multiplicavit
is thus well positioned on the Sunday in Carnes tollendas, the day before the
beginning of the festal period (allegorically) described in the chant. To lis-
teners versed in biblical typology, the recurrence of festal themes periodically
between In carnes tollendas and Pentecost would help to give the period a
coherent shape.
101. 1 Corinthians 5:7. Isidore’s commentary on Passover is representative of the broader

patristic tradition. He links the Passover lamb to the Eucharistic sacrament in several works
(Liber differentiarum, 80; De ecclesiasticis officiis, 32 ). Invoking a traditional interpretation of
the unleavened bread, he also admonishes readers avoid the “leaven of malice and wickedness”
(Mysticorum expositiones, column 295).
102. De ecclesiasticis officiis, 43.
103. Ibid., 39.
104. See Callewaert, “Le carême primitif.” León 8 also has a formulary for the Sunday
before In carnes tollendas, called the Sunday before Lent.
105. De ecclesiasticis officiis, 37–38.
106. The chant text reads “et celebrabitis dies festos,” whereas the Vulgate of Deuteronomy
16:10 reads “et celebrabis diem festum ebdomadarum.”
Two sacrificia for this period, Isti sunt dies and In pascha domini, are
particularly striking examples of festal allegory and textual tailoring.107
Although the two chants are based on similar passages from the Pentateuch,
consisting of instructions to celebrate Passover, each is adapted in a very spe-
cific way to the day on which it was sung. Isti sunt dies is assigned to the
fourth Sunday of Lent (Table 9). The day’s Gospel reading, the raising of
Lazarus (John 11:1–52), served as the inspiration for many of the day’s pray-
ers and chants, including the sacrificium. This chant illustrates the extent to
which an Old Testament source could be modified to reflect very specific
liturgical appropriations, extending the principles of allegorical exegesis even
beyond Isidore. In the exegetical tradition, the Lazarus story was interpreted
as anticipating the eternal life promised to Christians; several aspects of this
Mass are thus devoted to the Easter theme.108 The sacrificium takes its text
from the day’s first reading, Leviticus 23, which refers to the celebration of
Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month and the festival of Unleav-
ened Bread on the fifteenth day. The chant text, however, omits details that
do not pertain to Christian observances, such as “first month” and “unleav-
ened bread.” (Here and in Table 10, changes of wording are in boldface and
additions to the biblical source are in italics.) At the end of the respond, the
chant compiler has added “you shall eat unleavened bread,” an alternative to
the biblical “you shall honor the Lord most high.” These changes recast the
passage as a reference to the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday, fourteen and
fifteen days from the day the chant was sung. From the next biblical passage,
describing the Festival of Tabernacles, the text compiler has incorporated
only the part about the eighth day and the gathering of palm braches,
omitted the reference to the Sabbath, and added the word “venturo”
(“to come”). With this reworking, the passage alludes to Palm Sunday, one
week later.109
In pascha domini (Table 10), for Monday of Easter Week, further dem-
onstrates the extent of textual modification made in the service of a particu-
lar day. Invoking the Easter/Passover typology, its compiler bases the chant
on the instructions to celebrate Passover (Numbers 28). In contrast to
Isti sunt dies, however, the biblical references to the Passover and Festival of
107. In Tables 9 and 10, the Vulgate is given as a basis for comparison to the chant text be-
cause there are no surviving VL manuscripts that contain the full text source for either chant.
None of the departures from the Vulgate in Isti sunt dies or In pascha domini is matched in the
VL sources collected in Vetus latina Database.
108. The first reading, Leviticus 23:5–8, 23–28, 39–41 (De ecclesiasticiis officiis, 36), con-
sists of instructions to celebrate Passover, providing the text for the sacrificium and one of the
praelegenda. See also Liber Mozarabicus sacramentorum, columns 208–12 (284–86); and del
Cueto, “La Resurrección.”
109. Although a connection between Tabernacles and Palm Sunday is rare in exegetical
writings, it does have a precedent in one Eastern liturgy and is invoked elsewhere in the Old
Hispanic rite. See Voobus, Syriac Lectionary, xxi and xxv (Leviticus 23:33–41); and Vives, Or-
acionale visigótico, 247 (item 769).
Table 9 Isti sunt dies quos debetis (Lent V), respond and first verse
Chant text Translation Leviticus 23 (Vulgate)1 Translation
23:4–6
Isti sunt dies quos These are the days that haec sunt ergo feriae These thus are the holy days
Domini sanctae quas of the Lord, which
debetis custodire you must observe in their celebrare debetis temporibus you must celebrate in their
temporibus suis seasons suis seasons
mense primo In the first month,

quartadecima die on the fourteenth day quartadecima die mensis the fourteenth day of the
ad vesperum at evening ad vesperum month at evening,
pascha domini est is the Passover of the Lord, phase2 Domini est is the Passover of the Lord
et in quintadecima and on the fifteenth [day] et quintadecima die And on the fifteenth day
mensis huius of this month
sollemnitatis of the solemnity sollemnitas3 is the solemnity of the
azymorum Domini est unleavened bread of the
septem diebus azyma Lord. For seven days you
comedetis shall eat unleavened bread.
celebrabitis altissimo deo you shall honor your Lord
vestro Most High.
Verse 1 23:34
Locutus est Moyses Moses spoke to the children Loquere filiis Israhel Say to the children of Israel:
filiis Israhel dicens of Israel saying: a quintodecimo die From the fifteenth day of
mensis huius septimi erunt this same seventh month,
feriae tabernaculorum will be
septem diebus Domino the feast of tabernacles,
23:39–40 seven days to the Lord.
quintodecimo ergo die So on the fifteenth day

59
(Continued )
60
Table 9 continued
Chant text Translation Leviticus 23 (Vulgate)1 Translation
mensis septimi of the seventh month,

quando when you shall have
congregaveritis gathered
omnes fructus terrae vestrae all the fruits of your land,
celebrabitis ferias you shall celebrate the feast
Domini septem diebus of the Lord seven days.
die primo et On the first day and
in die octavo venturo on the eighth day to come die octavo erit sabbatum the eighth shall be Sabbath
id est requies that is a day of rest.
summite vobis take up for yourselves sumetisque vobis And you shall take for
yourself
die primo fructus on the first day the fruits
arboris pulcherrimae of the most beautiful tree,
ramos palmarum palm branches spatulasque palmarum and palm branches,
et ramos ligni and branches of wood

densarum frondium of thick leaves,
et salices de torrente and willows of the brook
et exultate in conspectu and exult in the sight et laetabimini coram And rejoice before
domini of the Lord Domino Deo vestro the Lord your God.
et secundum legem quam and according to the law
vobis precepit which he has commanded you.
1
Gasquet et al., Biblia sacra 2, 450, 455–56.
2
“Pascha,” the reading of the chant text, is found in the ninth-century Spanish Vulgate MS known as the Codex Cavensis (Cava de’ Tirreni, Biblioteca della Badia, Ms. memb.
I 303). See Gasquet et al., Biblia sacra 2, 450.
3
“sollemnitatis,” the reading of the chant text, is found in several Vulgate manuscripts of diverse origin. See Gasquet et al., Biblia sacra 2, 450.
Table 10 In Pascha Domini, respond

Numbers 28:16–18
Chant text Translation (Vulgate)1 Translations
mense autem primo And in the first

quartadecima die month,
In pascha On the Passover mensis phase on the fourteenth day
domini erit of the Lord will be domini erit of the month, shall be
et quintadecima die the Passover
vobis septem diebus for you a sollemnity sollemnitas of the Lord
vescentur azymis. of seven days septem diebus And on the fifteenth
vescentur azymis. day
quarum dies prima of which the first will quarum dies prima the solemnity
venerabilis erit be revered, alleluia venerabilis et sancta seven days shall they
alleluia alleluia alleluia. erit eat unleavened bread
omne opus servile non And the first day of
facietis in ea them shall be
venerable and holy
you shall not do any
servile work on those
[days]
1
Gasquet et al., Biblia sacra, 3:239
Unleavened Bread on the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month are
omitted, presumably because they are not relevant to the current occasion.
Also excluded from the chant text are the commandments to eat unleavened
bread and refrain from work for seven days. The new version reads, “on the
Passover of the Lord will be for you a solemnity of seven days, of which
the first will be revered,” so that the “first day” relates to the current day
(Monday of Easter Week) and the seven-day period to the continuous cele-
bration of Easter throughout the week.110
Other types of allegory, with Isidoran parallels, are invoked during Holy
Week. Wednesday’s Accepit librum, for example, contains a key passage that
relates specifically to Holy Week. Moses’s words, “This is the blood of the
covenant, which the Lord has made with you concerning these words”
(Exodus 24:8), parallel Jesus’s words instituting the Eucharist at the Last
Supper, “this chalice is the new covenant in my blood.”111 Accepit thus
anticipates the commemoration of the Last Supper on the following day,
Holy Thursday. The singing of Moses’s words on the day before Holy
Thursday enacts the allegorical reading of this passage developed by Isidore:
the law of Moses prefigures the new covenant, and the new covenant is
110. A rubric in León 8 makes this connection clear, allowing this sacrificium to be sung on
any day during Easter Week: “in sacrificium per unoquoque die per octabas pasche dicendi ad
missa.”
111. I Corinthians 11:25; Luke 22:20 (“hic est calix novum testamentum in sanguine meo
quod pro vobis funditur”).
the ultimate fulfillment of the old.112 One of the sacrificia sung on Holy
Thursday, Aedificavit Moses altare, recounts God’s promise to appear to
Moses in a pillar of cloud (Exodus 19:9). For Isidore, the pillar of cloud is
Christ, and the sacrament of Christ is made manifest on the day that God
appears to Moses.113 In the light of this reading, the text directly relates to
the institution of the Eucharist. Further, the chant incorporates two biblical
passages about the coming of God on the third day,114 which, in the liturgi-
cal context, may have been heard as a reference to the three-day period from
Holy Thursday to Easter.115
This sampling of texts from León 8’s temporale demonstrates the high
degree of properization among its sacrificia for Sundays and festal days, as
well as its allegorical basis. These examples, in fact, far exceed the Roman
offertories in their degree of thematic specificity and in the deliberative
changes made to the biblical text. On other occasions, however, León 8 is
far less properized. In contrast to the Roman liturgy, for example, it lacks
a full set of proper chants for the Lenten weekdays. In fact, León 8 specifies
proper sacrificia only on the first five Lenten weekdays and on one additional
weekday, implying that the others were accommodated either with a cyclic
repetition of the same series or through ad hoc selection from the same
group of chants.116 The Lenten weekday communion chants (called ad
accedentes) and laudes were treated in a similar way. Only the threni and
psalmi, sung between the Old Testament and Gospel readings, have unique
assignments on Lenten weekdays. This apparent lack of properization is con-
firmed by the only other Old Hispanic source that preserves the Lenten
weekdays, the tradition B manuscript T5. Here a single sacrificium (Offerte
domino mundum) is sung on each Lenten weekday, and the other Mass
proper chants are subject to similar repetition.117 This principle of ad hoc
selection from a list of chants corresponds to McKinnon’s hypothesis about
the Roman practices that prevailed before the Advent Project. The Old
112. Mysticorum expositiones, column 318, line 36. (“Sanguis autem ille, quo Moyses
populum aspergit ac purificat, et tabernaculum Testamenti, et omnia quae in eo erant, dicens:
Sanguis hic, sanguis Testamenti, mirifice sanguinem Domini Jesu praedicare monstratur, quo
omnium credentium corda purgantur, quo fides Ecclesiae signatur, quo omnis populus Eccle-
siae, id est, corpus omne tabernaculi sanctificatur, dicente Domino discipulis: Hic est sanguis
meus Novi Testamenti, qui pro multis effundetur, ad implendum in veritate id quod per
Moysem fuerat ostensum in imagine.”)
113. Ibid., column 296.
114. Exodus 19:11 (“et sint parati in diem tertium, tertia enim die descendet dominus in
montem Syna coram omni populo”) and 19:16 (Die autem tertia mane . . .).
115. Isidore discusses this “triduana” period in De ecclesiasticis officiis, 36.
116. In the first half of Lent, León 8 has Masses on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and
Saturdays. The sacrificia are Offerte domino mundum (Monday, Week 1; specified again on
Monday, Week 4), Ab absconsis (specified on Wednesday, Week 1), Memor sacrificia (Saturday,
Week 1), In simplicitate cordis (Monday,Week 2), and Serviamus (Wednesday, Week 2).
117. During Lent T5 has weeekday masses only on Wednesdays and Fridays.
Hispanic manuscripts, in fact, provide a more direct witness to this practice

than the Roman sources do.
Considering the large repertory of thematically specific chants on Sundays
and festivals in León 8, coupled with the evidence for ad libitum selection
on the Lenten weekdays, one might conclude that properization in the Old
Hispanic liturgy began with the most important festivals, as Pfisterer pro-
posed for the Roman repertory. The other Old Hispanic sources, however,
caution us against fully embracing this model. During Advent, on Christmas
Day, and on Epiphany Sunday, the other tradition A manuscripts (where
extant) preserve the same repertory and assignments as León 8 does, both
for the sacrificia and for the other Mass chants. These consistent assignments
indicate that tradition A was highly properized in these parts of the year.118
Elsewhere in the calendar, however, the other tradition A sources are less
fully properized than León 8 is, seemingly attesting to a less fleshed-out state
of the Old Hispanic repertory. In a scenario of properization that began with
the most important or oldest festivals, we would expect Holy Thursday to
have been properized early and thus to have consistent assignments, at least
among tradition A sources. León 8 has three thematically proper and
uniquely assigned sacrificia on Holy Thursday: Aedificavit Moses altare, dis-
cussed above, and two others derived from the gospel narratives of the Last
Supper [see Table 3, pp. 27–28]. The two gospel chants, however, are
unica, and Aedificavit Moses altare is otherwise found only in T5.119 The
two other tradition A sources that preserve Holy Thursday material have
psalmic, thematically general sacrificia that were sung on a variety of other
occasions.120 León 8’s two gospel sacrificia, then, may be late and local
additions to its repertory.121
We find a similar trend in Easter Week. León 8 has a series of uniquely
assigned sacrificia, derived from relevant gospel passages or from the
Easter-Passover typology, whereas the other tradition A sources do not. The
Silos manuscript London, BL 30846 simply provides one set of proper
chants that is sung throughout the week, and the Toledan source 35.6 has
sacramentary prayers and readings for Easter Week but does not indicate
proper chants, as it does for other occasions. Either the chant formularies for
118. The whole series is preserved in Madrid A 30. London, BL 30844 preserves a partial
set of chants for Christmas Day (mostly without notation) and a full set for Epiphany; T7 has
Christmas Day chants.
119. See Table 11.
120. In simplicate cordis in Silos 4 and Sacrificium deo spiritus in A 56, both from San Millán
de la Cogolla. In León 8, In simplicitate was sung on a Lenten weekday and for votive Masses. In
Silos 3 and 4, it is assigned to Lenten weekdays and Masses for a priest. Sacrificium deo spiritus was
sung at a variety of votive Masses in BL 30846, Silos 3, and Silos 4. For a discussion of the dates and
provenance of these sources, see Hornby and Maloy, Music and Meaning, 7–9.
121. One of these, Domine Iesus . . . in qua nocte, is clearly a later addition to the manu-
script, written in the margins in a different ink color from most of the chant (fol. 162v).
Table 11 Temporale sacrificia assignments in the Missale mixtum

Festival Sacrificium Assignment in tradition A1
Advent 1 Regnabit dominus Same

Advent 2 Veniet ad te Advent 4
Advent 3 Ingressus est Daniel Advent 5
Advent 4 Ecce ostendit Advent 2
Advent 5 Apparebit tibi St. Eulalia, St. Columba
Advent 6 Sacrificium deo spiritus Lent 2 (León 8) Holy Thurs
(A 56)
Votive Masses (Silos)
Christmas Parvulis natus est nobis Same
Epiphany Omnes de saba Same
Sunday before Lent Accepit librum Wednesday of Holy Week,
Lent I (in carnes Multiplicavit2 Same
tollendas in L8)
Lent II (Lent I in L8) Hi dies exorationis (also T5) Same
Lent III (Lent II in L8) Serviamus (also T5) Lenten weekdays
Lent IV (Lent III in L8) Sacrificium deo spiritus (also T5) Lent 2 (León 8) Holy Thurs
(A 56)
Votive Masses (Silos)
Lent V (Lent IV in L8) Isti sunt dies (also T5) Same
Palm Sunday In tempore illo (also T5) Same
Holy Thurs Aedificavit Moyses altare (also T5) Same
Easter vigil Alleluia Angelus domini (also T5) Same
Easter Sunday Ecce agnus qui tollit (also T5) Tuesday of Easter Week
Mn. In pascha domini (also T5) Monday Easter Week
Tu. Sollemnem habeatis (also T5) Same
Wd. Erit hic vobis Friday of Easter Week
Th. Alleluia quasi carmen Saturday of Easter Week
Fri. Isti sunt dies festi Saturday of Easter Week
Sat. Sacerdotes qui appropinquant n/a
Octave Celebravit David Pascha n/a
Dom I Alleluia temporibus illis Easter Sunday
Dom II Haec dixit dominus qui erat Saturday of Easter Week
Dom III Stetit angelus Dom IV
Dom IV Aspexi et vidi Dom III
Ascension Vidi in caelo Sunday after Ascension
Sunday after Ascension Tollite hostias Saturday before Pentecost
(T4, BL 30846)
Pentecost Completur hodie Pentecostes n/a
1
In León 8 unless otherwise noted.
2
T5 has a lacuna here.
Sunday were sung throughout the week, or the chants were chosen ad libi-
tum. León 8, in fact, has many more sacrificia than would likely be performed
during Holy Week and Easter Week, including three on Easter Saturday
and three on Holy Thursday. For certain portions of the year, then, León
8’s ample repertory seems to be a compilation from which singers could
choose. The fuller properization reflected in its repertory seems to have
taken place partly at the local or regional level rather than throughout the
Old Hispanic rite.
Incorporating the tradition B manuscript T5 and the Missale mixtum into
the picture, we find further evidence for local or regional activity (Table 11).
Following the principle that “fixity means antiquity,” we would certainly
expect to find consistent assignments on Easter Sunday. T5 and León 8,
however, not only have different sacrificia on Easter Sunday, but the other
Mass Proper chants are different as well. On the weekdays of Easter Week,
T5 preserves formularies for Easter Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, followed
by a lacuna. The sacrificia assigned to Sunday and Monday were also sung
during Easter Week in León 8, but on different days, reinforcing the impres-
sion of a late, local properization for Easter Week. The Missale mixtum, as
noted, has identical assignments to T5 in the portions of the liturgical year
T5 preserves. For the remaining days of Easter Week and the Octave, the
Missale mixtum has five sacrificia. Three of these are also assigned to Easter
Week in León 8, but to different days, and the other two are not found in
any manuscript. Like the Missale mixtum’s quotidiano unica, however, these
two chants are certainly Old Hispanic in character. Sacerdotes qui appropin-
quant adopts the themes of the priesthood, sacrifice, and the tabernacle, and
Celebravit David Pascha the themes of sacrifice and Passover. The differen-
ces in repertory and assignment between the León 8 and the Missale mixtum
(along with T5) are consistent with a scenario in which the Easter Week
sacrificia were once selected from a list of thematically appropriate items.
The permanent liturgical assignments, even for Easter Sunday, came only
later and were made locally or regionally. The question “which is the original
assignment?” so often asked by scholars of Roman chant, probably does not
apply here.
The degree of variation between the Missale mixtum and the tradition
A sources is similar in other parts of the liturgical year. In the Advent and
Christmas seasons, for example, the Missale mixtum has nearly the same rep-
ertory as the tradition A sources do, but with different liturgical assignments
on all occasions except Advent I, Christmas Day, and Epiphany. If the Missale
mixtum represents a genuine Old Hispanic liturgy, these variant assignments
may signal an early state of the repertory in which only these assignments
were fixed. The sacrificia for the other Advent Sundays, we might hypothe-
size, were created with an Advent liturgical use in mind, but their consistent
assignment to specific Advent Sundays came later.
Like the quotidiano sacrificia, then, the temporale repertory suggest a
scenario that departs significantly from McKinnon’s Advent-project theory
for Roman chant, in which most chants were composed with specific liturgi-
cal assignments in mind. This model of separate creation and properization
may apply even to some of the most thematically suitable assignments in the
repertory. As argued above, Accepit librum (Wednesday of Holy Week in
León 8) is connected to the institution of the Eucharist through Isidore and
other patristic writings. In this context, it would undoubtedly have been

heard as anticipating the commemoration of this event on Holy Thursday.
In the Missale mixtum, however, Accepit librum is not sung during Holy
Week. Instead, it has a much more general use, as a quotidiano sacrificium
and on the Sunday before Lent. Its use in León 8’s Holy Week, then, may
have arisen through the thematically appropriate placement of an existing
chant rather than the creation of a new chant.
Like the quotidiano sacrificia, the temporale sacrificia are based on a vari-
ety of biblical versions, a picture that is generally congruous with the evi-
dence for diverse origins and local initiative. The textual tradition of each
sacrificium in León 8’s temporale, where determinable, is given in the
last column of Table 8 (pp. 54–56). In the Roman repertory, Pfisterer found
a greater proportion of VL-based texts among important festivals and con-
cluded that these chants formed an earlier layer. In the Old Hispanic reper-
tory, however, we do not consistently find such a correlation. On only two
occasions, Epiphany and Christmas, does the use of a VL text correlate both
with an important festival and with evidence of early properization. The
Epiphany sacrificium Omnes de Saba (Table 12) is assigned to this festival
both in the tradition A sources and in the Missale mixtum. Its source is a text
that the Vetus latina editors have defined as one of the earliest Latin versions
of Isaiah (designated C), associated with North African writers of the fourth
and fifth centuries.122 The chant is close to text C in vocabulary and word
order and has “et lapides pretiosos” (and precious stones), a phrase that is
lacking in the Vulgate and the Hebrew but included in some manuscripts of
the Greek Septuagint. Some citations from patristic writings (column 4)
match the chant text more closely. The Christmas sacrificium Parvulus natus
Table 12 Epiphany sacrificum Omnes de Saba (excerpt)

Vetus Latina text “C”
Isaiah 60:6 (Forth- and fifth-
Chant text (Vulgate)1 century African)2 Patristic citations
Omnes de saba venient Omnes a Saba venient Omnes a Saba venient portantes:
portantes aurum thus aurum et thus ferentes aurum thus Jerome
et lapides pretiosos et lapidem pretiosum lapides
deferentes pretiosos:
salutare domini et laudem domino salutare domini Rufinus3
evangelizabunt alleluia adnuntiantes bene nuntiabunt
1
Gasquet et al., Biblia sacra, 13:215.
2
Vetus latina, 12:2, 1485–86.
3
These and the following texts are cited in ibid, 1485.
122. Fischer, ed., Esaias, 17. Text C is a revised form of the African text O (associated with
Cyprian of Carthage) and is particularly used “chez les donatistes.” In Table 12, C and the
patristic citations are taken from ibid., 1485–87.
is similarly thematically specific and consistently assigned; it reflects, in part,

an influence of the African VL. Pfisterer’s methodology would establish
these chants as an early layer of the repertory because of their use of the VL
and the importance of the festivals.
Even if we were to accept the use of the VL and Vulgate as a reliable chro-
nological index, however, the temporale repertory as a whole belies such a
linear history. A mixture of textual traditions is evident across the liturgical
year, on important and less important festivals, and among thematically
cohesive chants. Four of the Easter Week sacrificia in León 8, for example,
are based on typological parallels between Passover and Easter, drawing
from similar passages in the Pentateuch (see Table 8, pp. 54–56). The dif-
ferent textual traditions, however, suggest diverse origins. One of these
chants, Erit hic vobis, was also sung during Easter Week in the Franco-
Roman and Milanese liturgies. A Gallican origin has been proposed for it,
and it may well have originated outside Iberia.123 As with the quotidiano
sacrificia, then, the thematic congruity masks an underlying diversity.
Conclusions and Implications
In the Old Hispanic sacrificia, we find a strikingly refined repertory of proper

chants. In their erudite tailoring of biblical passages, the creators of these
chants far surpassed their Roman counterparts, invoking exegetical tradi-
tions that were central to the intellectual culture of seventh-century Iberia
and to the writings of its principal figure, Isidore. In setting these texts to
melodies, the singers enacted the patristic meaning of jubilation to underline
particular textual images. The evidence that a tradition of such sophistication
was established by the early seventh century compels us to look beyond
Rome to better understand the early history of chant.
Our ways of constructing narratives about this history will change as we
come to know the Old Hispanic repertory. In the sacrificia, textually homo-
geneous strands of the repertory were created at different times and places,
inspired by the same exegesis and using older chants as models. While the
call for a common “ordo psallendi” at the Fourth Council of Toledo
(633) may imply efforts toward properization, such a project would have
begun with a body of existing schola chant that was selected, at least in part,
on an ad hoc basis. The mid-to-late seventh-century efforts, we may suppose,
would involve compiling existing repertory, fixing assignments for some
feasts, and creating new chants. The repertory, however, was never consis-
tently properized throughout the year. We thus have a more diverse process
of formation than the ones scholars have proposed for Roman chant.
123. Levy, “Toledo, Rome.”

While these findings invite us to rethink the ways we look at the Roman
repertory, their broadest implications may lie in how we investigate and
frame the history of schola chant outside of Rome, where such diversity was
likely the norm rather than the exception. Despite its status as the most com-
plete surviving repertory outside the Roman and Carolingian spheres, the
Old Hispanic tradition has been a largely silent witness to this history, pri-
marily because its melodies do not indicate pitch. Through its texts, neumes,
and liturgical structure, however, it can speak to such issues as a powerful
voice in the continuing dialogue.
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Abstract
Given the fragmentary evidence about the emergence of Western plainsong,

scholars have not reached a consensus about how early liturgical chant was
transformed into fully formed Medieval repertories. Proposed explanations
have centered on the Roman liturgy and its two chant dialects, Gregorian
and Old Roman. The Old Hispanic (or Mozarabic) chant can yield new
insights into how and why the creators of early repertories selected and
altered biblical texts, set them to specific kinds of music, and assigned
them to festivals. I explore these questions from the perspective of the Old
Hispanic sacrificia, or offertory chants. Specific traditions of Iberian biblical
exegesis were central to the meaning and formation of these chants,
guiding their compilers’ choice and alteration of biblical sources. Their
textual characteristics and liturgical structure call for a reassessment of the

theories that have been proposed about the origins of Roman chant.
Although the sacrificia exhibit ample signs of liturgical planning, such as
thematically proper chants with unique liturgical assignments, the
processes that produced this repertory were both less linear and more
varied than those envisaged for Roman chant. Finally, the sacrificia shed
new light on the relationship between words and music in pre-Carolingian
chant, showing that the cantors shaped the melodies according to textual
syntax and meaning.
Keywords: Old Hispanic chant, Mozarabic chant, Isidore of Seville,

liturgical planning, biblical exegesis

Maloy 2014

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Old Hispanic Chant and the Early History

The State of the Question

The early history of plainchant is often framed as a transition between

translations from the Greek, collectively known as Vetus latina.6 McKinnon

6. Pfisterer, “James McKinnon”; idem, Cantilena, 11–76.

Toledan parishes, whereas tradition B is witnessed in only two manuscripts

The Old Hispanic Sacrificia: Origins and Textual

Although organized liturgical practices undoubtedly existed in Iberia before

the Arab conquest of the Peninsula, beginning in 711.15 A nearly complete

or correction to figures such as John of Saragossa (d. 631) and Eugenius of

was increased” (Ecclesiasticus 50:20).25 In concluding, he connects the

whoops,” with rural connotations.31 In early Christian exegesis, however,

Textual Centonization and Properization: Amplificare

If Isidore’s description of the offertory refers to a chant repertory that existed

Chant text (León 8) Translation Source Translation

offerentes offering et tradiderunt And they gave over

Chant text (León 8) Translation Source Translation

[repetendum:] quod [sic]

crepidinis of the foundation psallentes in lifted up

Chant text (León 8) Translation Source Translation

in ipsius nomine in his name et in nomine ipsius and in his name

exhibit the “jubilation,” or wordless music implied in Isidore’s description.

While the “jubilation” embodied in long passages of textless music is a

Figure 1 Verses of Amplificare oblationem in León 8, fols. 229–230

The Allegorical Basis of the Genre

The degree of textual tailoring and musical sophistication in Amplificare

43. Jeffery, “Monastic Reading.”

1. Amplificare et misericordiam suam non

2. Vocavit dominus et offeramus primitias terrae

León 8, fol. 222 (And let us offer the first fruits of

Text (placement of melisma

4. Accepit librum Text:

2. Locutus est dominus ad Et non deficiet ex te vir qui compleat

Figure 2 Dum complerentur, final verse, in León 8

exegetical work, Mysticorum expositiones sacramentorum seu quaestiones in

Formavit dominus Genesis 2 Formavit dominus Formavit dominus Creation Vulgate

ecce Exodus 31, 35, and 28 priesthood of Aaron (L8)

Toledo 35.4 Léon 8 Silos 6 Themes Biblical version Other assignments

Si in preceptis Leviticus 26 Keeping commandments Vulgate Sunday before Lent

29, Isaiah 37 deliverance

This opening narrative is typically followed by a brief description of the

Sacrificium Genesis (Vetus Isidore, Mysticorum

Hunc The apostle Paul,

repromissiones benedixit promises.

domino to the Lord Domino to the Lord

18:1-8 Notandum quippe quod Indeed, it should be noted

tabernaculi of his tent tabernaculi of his tent, susceperunt. with joy.

Tria autem sata, unde Sara The three measures, from

ex quibus omne genus out of which the whole human

Genesis (Vetus Isidore, Mysticorum Augustine, De

futuri . . . future reign . . . praefiguratos were prefigured

Genesis (Vetus Isidore, Mysticorum Augustine, De

die day die The Lord God sanctorum populi divided

shown in Table 4e, columns 7 and 8.58 Paraphrasing Augustine, Isidore

58. Augustine, De civitate dei, 2:527.

The Quotidiano Sacrificia: Questions of Chronology

63. See notes 19 and 22 above.

even an arrangement in biblical order. Observing similar characteristics in

67. Gasquet et al., eds., Biblia sacra.

Si in praeceptis meis si in praeceptis meis Si in praeceptis meis

et firmabo pactum respiciam vos et 1. et respiciam

Table 6 Sanctificavit, verse 1, excerpt

Locutus est dominus ad esto paratus mane