dismissal versicle (Ite, missa est—from which the term Missa, for Mass, was adopted) and its response,
Deo gratias (“Thanks be to God”).
FIG. 2-4 Ivory book cover, probably of a sacramentary or a graduale, from the court of Charles the Bald, Charlemagne’s
grandson, who ruled the kingdom of the West Franks from 843 to 877. It shows the Eucharist service—the second part of the
solemn Mass, in which the wine and host are miraculously transformed.
The Gloria, also known as the “Gloria in excelsis” or Greater Doxology (to distinguish it from the
“Gloria patri” formula or Lesser Doxology, inserted at the end of psalms and canticles), was the first to
be cultivated. Its text begins with two verses or stichs from the Gospel of St. Luke, quoting the angels’
greeting to the shepherds on the night of the Nativity. For this reason, before it was assigned to its fixed
position in the Mass, the Gloria in excelsis was often used as a Christmas processional hymn, forming the
culmination of the celebrants’ entrance. (It was also used this way at Easter; and after it joined the Mass,
it was not sung during the penitential weeks preceding those two feasts so that its reappearance would
express seasonal gladness.) Following the angelic hymn are a series of laudes that may actually have
originated in the context of ruler worship. Next come a series of litanies, or petitions, and finally a
concluding praise-song. While its earliest use seems to have been congregational, implying a simple,
formulaic style, the Glorias preserved in Frankish manuscripts are neumatic chants with occasional
melismas, and (once past the celebrant’s intonation) are clearly intended for the clerical or monastic
schola. Ex. 2-10 is a ninth-century Gloria melody, one of the earliest of the forty or so surviving Frankish
settings. (Its number, IV, is the one assigned to it in modern chant books.)
The Sanctus is a biblical acclamation (from the book of Isaiah). Under its Hebrew name, Kedusha, it
has been part of the Jewish worship service since ancient times, whence it was taken over by the earliest
Christians as the congregation’s part of the “eucharistic” (thanksgiving) prayer. Even in its Latin form, the
text retains a pair of Hebrew words: Sabaoth (“hosts”) and Hosanna (“save us”). The earliest Frankish
settings, like Ex. 2-11, date from the tenth century. By then, like the Gloria, it was sung not by the entire
congregation but by the trained schola.
The Agnus Dei has a much shorter history in the liturgy than the Sanctus, having been introduced to the
Mass only in the seventh century, to accompany the breaking of bread before communion. At first it was
cast as litanies, with an unspecified number of repetitions of the acclamation to the Lamb of God,
answered by the congregational prayer, “have mercy on us.” Later the chant was standardized and
abbreviated, limited to three acclamations, and with the third response changed to “grant us peace.” This
happened right around the time the Franks were busy composing their “ordinary” chants, and so the early
melodies were in this case coeval with the text. Of the two following examples, the first (Ex. 2-12a)
probably represents a survival from the older litany practice, while the second (Ex. 2-12b), a Frankish
arrangement and abridgment of the earliest (Greek) surviving melody for the Agnus Dei, is cast in a