The Roman Missa sponsalicia

Extract

Proper chants unique to the Roman wedding Mass - the introit Deus Israel, the gradual Vxor tua and the communion Ecce sic benedicetur - are not found in the unnotated northern Mass antiphoners of Hesbert's Sextuplex. Heavily edited and fitted with Gregorian melodies (or else unnotated), these texts appear sporadically in northern graduals beginning in the mid-tenth century. Their compilation can therefore be dated to the second half of the ninth century. Because the melodies for these Propers were assembled from formulas in common use at a time when new chants were no longer being composed at Rome and because they are certainly free of Gregorian influence, the nuptial chants disclose how certain formulas were being sung shortly before Roman culture and papal institutions began to decline.