refrain structure. This group of chants associated with the readings were exceptional in
that they accompanied no liturgical action; they were simply listened to by the attendant
clergy and congregation.
A celebration of Mass in late 15th-
century Paris. B.L. Add. 18192, fol.
110. Courtesy of the British Library.
The Offertory was sung as the gifts of bread and wine were presented to the celebrant; it
consisted of an elaborate refrain and two or three verses of similar musical complexity;
within a few centuries the verses would be dropped with only the refrain retained. The
Communion, finally, sung during the distribution of communion as in the early church,
closely resembled the Introit with its melodious antiphon sung as a refrain to a chanted
psalm (both Introit and Communion would eventually lose most of their psalm verses).
The chants of the Ordinary also were mostly in place at the beginning of the 8th
century in Rome; only the Credo, which would follow some three centuries later, was
absent. The Kyrie eleison, sung immediately after the Introit, is a radically shortened
form of litany that was earlier recited as part of the prayers that concluded the Fore-Mass.
Next came the Gloria in excelsis, an ancient hymn that takes its first words from the
angelic salutation to the shepherds at Christmas. A comparatively late entry into the
Mass, its use was subject for a number of centuries to restrictions; it was limited, for
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1134