printed, since the printing press was not invented until around 1450. Rather, they
were manuscripts, written by hand in scribal workshops (scriptoria; sing.
scriptorium). Consider the monastery of Saint-Amand (today in northern France),
which made books both for its own use and for the needs of many other institutions:
its scriptorium produced Gospels, works of the Church Fathers, grammars, and
above all liturgical books for the Mass and other church services.
Plate 3.5 shows a page from a Sacramentary (a liturgical book) that was
produced at Saint-Amand for the Parisian monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. For
the most part, it provided only the texts of mass chants. But in one instance the
scribe added some “dots and dashes” above a word. They illustrate one early form of
musical notation. These “notes” did not indicate pitches to the monks who sang the
melodies. Nor did they suggest rhythms. But they did remind the monks of the
melody associated with one chant beginning with the word Exaudi.
