Sequence - (1)

What is a 'Sequence'?  I can do no better than quote a passage from Raby on
'The Origens of the Sequence' in 'Christian-Latin Poetry' (p.210):

"In the Mass, according to the Roman rite, there are interposed between the
Epistle and the Gospel, two chants, the Gradual, and the Alleluia coupled
with the verse of a psalm.  In the singing of the Alleluia, it was customary
to prolong the final a, in what was known as a Jubilus, a lengthy melody,
the signing of which required musical skill.  This Jubilus or prolongation
of the last syllable followed the melody of the Alleluia, and is properly
called a Sequentia or a Sequence.

"Sequentia was therefore originally a musical term and could be used
indifferently with melodia, neuma, or jubilus to describe the melody on the
final a of the Alleluia.  This melody was itself divided into parts
(clausulae) each of which could be termed a Sequentia.  The practice grew
up, apparently in the eighth century, of adapting a text or Prose to some of
these divisions, but the Prose or Sequence proper began when a text was, for
the first time, set to the whole of the melody.

"The correct description of such a production would be Sequentia cum Prosa
(i.e. a melody with a text).  In France the term Prose was employed, while
in Germany the less correct and later designation of Sequence was used to
describe the whole composition."

Is everybody clear?  This then would be a typical Alleluia chant [don't
search for it in your Missal - it's just one I made up earlier.  The verse
is from Psalm 16(17).]

Alleluia, alleluia.
Exaudi, Domine, iustitiam meam:
Intende deprecationem meam.
Alleluia-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a.

The Sequence would fit the melody of the final -a.  The term Prose is useful
in that it reminds us that the Sequence does not correspond to any
recognised poetic metre - it isn't really verse at all - but rather, it is
so composed that the syllables correspond to an existing melody.

[I simplify a little for the sake of clarity - if you want the full monty,
read Raby].

I thought we might have a look at a sequence by a twelfth-century master of
the form, Adam of St Victor, considered to be one of the two top poets of
the century (the other being Abelard).  Like Abelard he was a Breton, and
about 1130 entered the Augustinian house of St Victor in Paris, which
William of Champeaux had founded in 1108 to get away from Abelard.  This is
his sequence for Easter.  It consists of some 20 strophes, celebrating the
many Old Testament typological figures of the Resurrection.

1.  	Zyma vetus expurgetur,
	ut sincere celebretur
		nova resurrectio.

'Let the old leaven be cast out, that the new resurrection may be sincerely
celebrated.'
This refers to the Passover, when no leavened bread is to be eaten.  Cf.
Exodus 12:15,

Septem diebus azyma comeditis . . .

'Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread;  on the first day you shall put
away leaven out of your houses, for if any one eats what is leavened, from
the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.'

I understand that to this day, a Jewish mother will carefully hunt through
her cupboards before the Passover and throw out all the leavened bread.

The typological connexion is made by St Paul, I Corinthians 5:7-8,

Expurgate vetus fermentum, ut sitis nova conspersio, sicut estis azymi.
Etenim Pascha nostrum immolatus est Christus.  Itaque epulemur:  non in
fermento veteri, neque in fermento malitiae et nequitiae:  sed in azymis
sinceritatis et veritatis.

'Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are
unleavened.  For Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed.  Let us,
therefore, celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of
malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.'

As will easily be seen, Adam's strophe is a paraphrase of this passage.

2.	haec est dies nostrae spei,
	huius mira vis diei
		legis testimonio.

'This is the day of our hope, the marvellous power of this day [is] in the
testimony of the law'.

i.e. the Old Testament bears witness to the marvellous power of this day.
What follows is a catalogue of the Old Testament wonders which prefigure the
resurrection.

Such catalogues are in any case a prominent feature of the Easter liturgies.
At the Easter Vigil is sung a chant called the Exultet, listing the wonders
which prefigure the feast.  To give just a little of it:

. . . For Christ has ransomed us with his blood, and paid for us the price
of Adam's sin to our eternal Father.
       This is our passover feast, when Christ, the true Lamb, is slain,
whose blood consecrates the homes of all believers.
      This is the night when first you saved our fathers:  you freed the
people of Israel from their slavery and led them dry-shod through the sea.

Some of you may have seen an Exultet roll.  The Exultet was written on an
illuminated scroll, with the pictures upside down, so that as the Deacon
unrolled it to read the text, the vellum hung over the ambo with the
pictures the right way up for the people to see.  See the article 'Exultet'
in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, which gives a
bibliography, including facsimiles of these rolls.

The blessing of the baptismal water at the Easter Vigil is also a list of
Old Testament types of Baptism:

. . . At the very dawn of creation your Spirit breathed on the waters,
making them the wellspring of all holiness.
	The waters of the great flood you made a sign of the waters of baptism,
that make an end of sin and a new beginning of goodness.
	Through the waters of the Red Sea you led Israel out of slavery, to be an
image of God's holy people, set free from sin by baptism. [etc.]

And seven readings are provided from the Old Testament at this Vigil,
besides the Epistle and Gospel of the Mass.  So Adam's sequence  is  very
much in keeping with the rest of the Easter liturgy.

Actually, by the later Middle Ages the Easter Vigil was not a popular
service.  Cf Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, p.23:

"But much of the ceremonial prescribed in the Sarum rite had by the
fifteenth century long since lost its imaginative power for lay people.  The
Easter Vigil, for example, with its elaborate ceremony of light, even now
one of the most striking and moving parts of Catholic liturgy, was not held
in darkness but on the morning of Holy Saturday, in broad daylight, and
appears to have attracted no lay interest whatever."

Adam brings much of the typological material of the Easter Vigil into the
Mass for Easter Day, which was attended by Everybody.  'haec est dies'
echoes the 'haec est nox' of the Exultet;  it is also a phrase from a psalm,
which we shall see quoted a little later in the sequence.

Sufficient, I think, unto the day.

Oriens.




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