3 MELODIC LECTION MARKS IN LATIN MANUSCRIPTS FOR MASS (1 )
Eleanor Giraud
At first glance, it is easy to overlook the neume-like signs above the text in the Dominican Epistle Lectionary of Pl. 1 : one is found above « Ad hebreos » in the first line, and three are found on the fifth line up, over the two final syllables of « testamenti » and the third of « mediator » , for example. It is generally acknowledged that these were a type of melodic sign that would have guided a reader in the intonation of the text ; passages of the Bible such as this, known as lections or pericopes, have been intoned in Mass since the beginnings of the Christian liturgy
(2 ). To assist in this practice, a system of punctuation signs known as positurae
was developed for punctuating lections and other texts to be read aloud, indicating whether the sentence was complete, incomplete or a question (3 ). Each type
of phrase closed with a different melodic pattern, and the punctuation helped the reader determine which pattern was appropriate. To guide the reader in the placement of the melodic pattern, medieval and early modern lectionaries were sometimes supplied with small melodic marks above certain words, as seen in Pl. 1 (4 ).
I shall call these « melodic lection marks » . The provision of such marks supplements
(1) I would like to thank all the scholars who gave me advice and feedback on earlier versions
of this paper, especially Michael Gullick, Claire Maître, Nigel Palmer, Susan Rankin and Teresa Webber.
(2) Michel Huglo, «Evangelium » , Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart : allgemeine Enzyklopädie der Musik, Sachteil, ed. Ludwig Finscher, 2nd edn, 9 vols., Kassel, 1994-2007, vol. 3, cols. 212-216, at col 212.
(3) The emergence and development of positurae is traced in Malcolm B. Parkes, Pause and Effect : an Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West, Aldershot, 1992, p. 35-40.
(4) Melodic lection marks of this kind were used solely in the simpler, daily Mass lections ; certain
special lections, such as the reading of the Liber Generationis at Christmas and Epiphany, are intoned in a different, more elaborate manner, and thus are often provided with full neumatic
Scriptorium, 71, 2017, p. 3-37, Pl. 1-8.
