Ad imaginem suam: regional chant variants and the origins of the Jeu d'Adam

Comparative Drama, Fall-Wntr, 2002 by Charles T. Downey

The earliest surviving dramatic work in the French vernacular is a semiliturgical play now known as the Jeu d'Adam. This singular work is preserved in only one manuscript copy, Tours, Bibliotheque municipale, 927--a book copied in southern France between 1225 and 1250. (1) Scholars have hypothesized that the play was originally created in the second half of the twelfth century, in an Anglo-Norman dialect, (2) and that it is either the conglomeration of multiple fragments or the work of a single author. (3) Most specialists agree that the play originated either in northern France, under the domination of England, (4) or in England itself, (5) despite the southern French origin of the only surviving manuscript copy.

The first section of the play is semiliturgical because it indicates by textual incipit seven prolix responsories--Gregorian chants usually sung as part of Matins, the most substantial service in the cycle of prayers known as the Divine Office--to be performed by a chorus at certain points in the action. (6) Some editors of the play have attempted to supply complete texts--and, in certain cases, music--for these responsories. The earliest was Jacques Chailley, who collaborated with Gustave Cohen on an edition of the play for a performance at Chartres Cathedral. Their edition is the only one to provide notated music along with the responsory texts. (7) In his excellent edition of the play, Willem Noomen included what he believed were the full texts of the responsories, which he took from an edition of Gregorian chant texts known as the Liber responsalis. (8) Most recently, Lynette Muir has provided texts for the responsories as found in English manuscript breviaries from Hyde Abbey and York. Understanding that the choice of a manuscript source for the responsories was important, Muir selected English manuscripts because she believed that the play was English in origin. (9) Although Chailley chose a northern French source, the textual readings of Muir and Chailley are identical, for the most part, while Noomen's texts appear to reflect a rather different version of the liturgy found principally in German-speaking countries. Only the earliest of these authors, Chailley, acknowledged regret at not being able to establish, as he put it, "a comparative version based on all the manuscripts." (10) This study was undertaken in response to this problem--what might a comparative examination of a broad range of Gregorian chant manuscripts reveal about the Jeu d'Adam?

The singing of Gregorian chant, especially in the Divine Office, varied significantly from region to region in the Middle Ages: which feasts were celebrated and to what degree of solemnity, which texts were set to music, the form of the melodies sung to those texts, and the selection and ordering of even the most familiar pieces. (11) The responsory, in particular, offers a range of details that may differ regionally--most importantly, the selection of its verse. (12) In manuscripts across Europe, many common responsories are found matched to two or more different verses, altering slightly or significantly the textual and musical content. (13) On the feasts of Septuagesima and Sexagesima, when the responsories included in the Jeu d'Adam were usually performed, the ordering of the responsories and the verses assigned to the responsories differ from manuscript to manuscript.

Most important of all, some manuscripts do not record all seven responsories used in the play. What the manuscript evidence makes clear is that the Gregorian chants used in the Jeu d'Adam would not necessarily have been known to all European churchmen in the twelfth century. If the responsories are truly integral to the play's action, (14) these differences, as revealed by the manuscript survey conducted for this study, indicate the geographical and liturgical background of one of the play's creators to be different from what has been supposed previously.

Two important research tools now available to scholars interested in Gregorian chant have provided easy access to a broad range of manuscript sources for comparison of the Adam responsories. The first is Rene-Jean Hesbert's Corpus antiphonalium officii (hereafter referred to as CAO), a parallel transcription and index of the textual contents of twelve liturgical manuscripts of the Divine Office; although several of them do not include musical notation, the CAO sources are considered to be among the oldest and most complete witnesses to the liturgical traditions of a range of European monasteries and churches. (15) The second is a database of computerized indices of Divine Office manuscripts--sixty-nine manuscripts at the time of this writing--known as CANTUS, now directed by Terence Bailey at the University of Western Ontario. (16) This foundation of eighty-one manuscript sources has been supplemented by relevant sections of other liturgical manuscripts from southern and eastern France and England which were searched individually. (17)