The Black Madonna Pilgrimages, miracles and relics constituted important formal elements in medieval religion. They reflected the need for direct contact...
The Black Madonna
Pilgrimages, miracles and relics constituted important formal elements
in medieval religion. They reflected the need for direct contact with the holy.
Where miracles were attested or relics found, places of worship were
established. In Spain and France, above all, many significant centres of
pilgrimage are found and among the most important, after Santiago de
Compostela, must be reckoned the monastery of Montserrat, some fifty kilometres
to the East of Barcelona. With the miraculous Black Madonna, celebrated in
various ways in the songs of the Llibre Vermell and in the Cantigas
de Santa Maria and with its unique geographical position, the monastery
from the earliest times drew many pilgrims. It is found at a height of 700
metres above sea-level above a gorge, surrounded by jagged rocky peaks. Clearly
the place itself offered a strong fascination for people, since it was also the
site of an earlier temple to Venus. It was about the year 1025 that the Abbot
Oliba established there a Benedictine community, from the monastery of Santa
Maria de Ripoll. In 1409 the monastery became an independent abbey.
The Llibre Vermell de Montserrat preserved there is a codex in
five parts. In addition to religious writings, lists of indulgences and
privileges as well as of the rules of the order, there is also a Cancionero
musical with ten pieces of music, spiritual dances and songs. These were
added to the 1382 codex between 1396 and 1399. The manuscript is a unique
collection, in that it includes instructions on how dances were to be performed
to the music. Its name, Red Book, was acquired in the nineteenth century, when
it was bound in red velvet. Originally the Llibre Vermeil contained 172
double pages (folio size), of which 35 have been lost. The purpose of the music
is explained in instructions before the first song: "Since the pilgrims who
come to Montserrat often want to sing and dance, and that during their night
vigil in the church as by day in the church square, where only orderly and
pious songs are allowed, a number of suitable songs have been written, to meet
that need. These should be used with due consideration, without disturbing
those who wish to continue their prayers and religious meditation." Then
pilgrims are again admonished to refrain also on their way home from frivolous
songs and evil dances.
The monks of Montserrat were known for their outstanding spiritual and
musical culture, of which the Ars Nova notation of the codex is an indication.
In the songs there is a mixture of simple Spanish folk-melodies and complex
courtly compositional technique from Italy and France. This simplicity and
musical achievement is found in the three-voice virelai Mariam matrem [6],
and sometimes also earthy naivety in close relationship with folk-song, as in Lo,
set gotxs [12]. This last-named is a balada in Catalan with a Latin
refrain, which is a paraphrase of the poem Los VII goutz de Nostra Dona of
Pope Clement IV. With Los set gotxs and Cuncti simus [9],
single-part virelais with repeated choral refrains, it can easily be
understood how, through the numerous repetitions of the round dance (ball
redon), a religious ecstasy might be induced. The chorale O Virgo
splendens [7] is a contrafactum of O virgo visa from
the Memoriale of the same codex. At the beginning is a note that it can
be performed in one part or in canon with up to three voices. Through the
hypnotic effect of the canon, as with the mantra, a trance may be induced that
can lead to the attainment of the highest spirituality. The many repetitions
constitute less a structural principle than the attempts of the monks to
inspire the people to livelier participation.
Dancing in the church was above all a feature of early Christianity,
adopted from the Jewish rite, an important element in worship. From the time of
Athanasius of Miletus is recorded the tradition of dancing as an accompaniment
to hymns Seasonal folk dances in the form of round dances (a ball redon) met
relatively little opposition from the clergy but were not often resorted to in
church. Some of the reasons for this practice that continued into the
eighteenth century resulted from the lack of suitable places at night or in bad
weather To this end comes a report from Bernard of Angers from 1010, on a
practice in the church at Conques: "According to ancient custom the pilgrims
hold their vigils in the Fides Church with candles and lamps. Since they do not
understand the Latin chants of the office, they help to pass the long nights
away with uneducated songs and other nonsense."
These lively dances in the church led naturally to a ban and at the
Council of Avignon in 1209 came the following declaration: "We decree that,
during vigils for the saints in the churches, musicians must not perform either
leaping dances with obscene gestures nor round dances; nor shall love-songs and
similar songs be sung." Basically distinction must be drawn between two
kinds of dances, one of which was performed in a religious setting and in
accordance with contemporary customs, and the other sort of dance that stemmed
from the secular field. At Montserrat it was the second that came about, when,
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Latin spiritual songs written
specially by the monks were sung and played at night in the church and by day
in front of it as an accompaniment to dancing. The attempt of the monks,
however, to set popularly known dance-songs to decent Latin texts and thereby
to steer this lively activity into more orderly paths, as suggested in the
introduction to the Llibre Vermell, failed. Hardly surprisingly there
was little room for the accommodation of pilgrims, with the result that the
liturgy was at the centre of daily life. For dancing in the liturgy a tradition
has been recorded for us from Auxerre that there was dancing at Easter with organ
accompaniment to the melody of the sequence Victimae paschales, in which
a ball was thrown from side to side. It is also interesting to notice that at
Limoges on the feast of the patron saint St Martial there was dancing in the
church to the psalms. Ecstatic dancing through many writings and pictures
offers an example of medieval music therapy. Priestly dancing as an element of
the divine service has now completely disappeared from the Christian rite.
The Middle Ages knew nothing of the protection of spiritual
individualism. In many places we meet examples of well-tried cultural
manifestations. Use was made of well-known melodies sanctified by the addition
of religious texts. In no field of medieval artistic activity is copying, the
so-called contrafactum, so frequently met as in the art of song. Some medieval
contrafacta acknowledge the flowering of imitative composition in Northern
France, based on sources derived from the trouvères or composers from
Picardy. Thus Quant vol la flor [2] is based on the composition Retrowange
nouvelle by Jacques de Cambrai from the year 1280. Of the same kind is Amours,
ou trop tart me sui pris [5], a virelai from the second half of the
thirteenth century. This is a contrafactum of Amours, a cui je me rent pris.
Slight alterations from the model, like the use of changing sharps and
flats bring about an ambivalence of tonality. The conjectural composer is Roïne
Blance, probably a pseudonym of Blanche de Navarre, the mother of Thibaut IV of
Champagne. He provides the richest source of trouvère work. In addition
to many Chants d'amour, Jeux-parties, Pastourelles and Crusaders' songs,
there survive only four Marian songs and only one religious lai, namely
Commencerai a fere un lai [9]. The Count of Champagne and of Brie was
born in 1201 at Troyes. His grandmother was a daughter of Louis VII and Eleanor
of Aquitaine. In 1234, after the death of his uncle Sancho the Strong, he was
crowned King of Navarre. Four years later he led an attack by the Crusaders on
Jerusalem. He died in 1253 at Pamplona. His contemporary fame is attested by
the fact that he won praise from Dante in his De vulgari eloquentia and
from Johannes de Grocheo in his Ars musice.
The fact that many Black Madonnas were found by chance and were called Notre-Dame
la Trouvee is not without deeper significance. The Occitanian word for
'find' is trobar, from which the word troubadour is derived. Yet
the possibilities of the term are in no way exhausted by this, which has for
one who knows the langue des oisaux so rich a store of meanings.
Basically the word trobar means to express oneself in tropes, that is,
to find words for a melody, and to use these in a sense that is different from
the usage of normal speech. For this reason the language of the troubadours is
so rich in linguistic word-play, double meanings, classical and biblical
allusions, paradoxes and allegories. The problem of translation makes
understanding still more difficult. In the language of gay saber, as
playful as it is deceptive, not every word must be taken literally. When a
troubadour sang of his beloved, he could have a real person in mind. Equally he
could have also in mind the Church of Rome or the Cathar movement, to which,
perhaps, he belonged, or might thus honour the Black Madonna.
If art is to become a cultural factor in the life of a people, then it
needs conscious support. In this way the Church in the Middle Ages became the
sole purveyor of education and learning and sought for a somewhat centralised,
controlled spiritual culture. That she should also take on the care of music,
the value of which for the liturgy had been recognised in early times, was
natural.
The closest attention to music in the ecclesiastical sphere was set in
order for a worthy and solemn arrangement of the divine service. In the ever
greater dimensions that churches assumed, the lessons of the Epistle and the
Gospel were brought forward to the crossing between the nave and the choir, the
choir-screen. Since the priest now had to move a longer way back again and a
longer time was needed, the introductory chants for the lessons were developed
into substantial compositions, to which the name conductus was given. In
time these lost their original association and developed their own form, making
use of the same text for a polyphonic composition. The continuation of this
form, that led to the motet, made further use of a second syllabic text (qv. O
Maria maris stella/O Maria virgo davitica [11]).
Another development took the versus alleluiaticus, in the
balanced melismata of which cantor and choir joined. This chant allowed
an expressive medium in which a syllabic Latin text to suit the occasion was
added to the melisma. This was the origin of the sequence, from Northern
France, which had a strong influence on subsequent secular song. The vernacular
counterparts of the sequence came to be called Descort, Leich or Lai (cf.
[9]).
Mary as the maternal advocate was to the people of the tenth and
eleventh centuries as familiar as Christ. This adoration even took partly on
the character of the rapturous homage of love. Pictures celebrated the Mother
of God. Legends never tired of reporting her miracles, how, for example, the
Madonna herself saved the worst sinners from perdition, if they were repentant
or sought pardon by way of donations. The Cantigas de Santa Maria tell
us of such stories and legends, one of the most important collections of the
art of sacred song in Galego, a Galician-Portuguese hybrid language,
commissioned by Alfonso X el Sabio (1221-1284). The collection includes
more than four hundred songs on the miracles of Mary, some by the King himself,
but for the most part by his troubadours, in fine manuscripts. Two of the four
surviving codices are preserved in the Escorial monastery in Madrid, notable in
particular for the beauty of their miniatures. With the King, surrounded by his
men of learning, musicians of various nationalities and cultures are portrayed.
In one of them there is a group of young men performing a round dance in a
candle-lit church before the statue of Mary. The further representation of over
forty instruments provides a particular conspectus of the medieval
instrumentarium, including fidel, rebec, lute, harp, transverse flute and
recorder, with various percussion instruments and others. In Cantiga No. 49 are
the words: Cantando e con dança, seja por nos loada a Virgen coronada que e
noss' esperança (Singing and in dance may the crowned Virgin be honoured by
us, she who is our hope).
Both the miracles of the Black Madonna of Montserrat, as well as those
of other places, are described in the Cantigas de Santa Maria. In the
one performed here is told the legend of how the Madonna came to the aid of an
old shepherdess, who had been cheated out of her money and her sheep by a young
shepherd [3], or how she brought a spring from the property of a greedy knight
to thirsty monks in their monastery garden [8].
Michael Posch/Agnes Boll
English version by Keith Anderson