significant acts that may be firmly associated with his name, decreed in a letter that the formula Kyrie
eleison should alternate with Christe eleison (“Christ [that is, Savior], have mercy on us”). By the ninth
century, when the Frankish musicians went to work on the chant, the Kyrie had been established as a
ninefold acclamation: thrice Kyrie eleison, thrice Christe eleison, thrice Kyrie eleison.
As in the case of the other “ordinary” chants, there are simple Kyries that probably reflect early
congregational singing, and more decorative melodies that were probably produced at the Frankish
monasteries, beginning in the tenth century, for performance by the schola. These more artful Kyrie tunes
often reflect the shape of the litany they adorn, matching its ninefold elaboration of a three-part idea with
patterns of repetition like AAA BBB AAA’ or AAA BBB CCC’. (In both cases the last invocation—the
A’ or C’—is usually rendered more emphatic than the rest, most typically by inserting or repeating a
melisma.) Ex. 2-14a is one of these tenth-century tunes; note that while the words Kyrie–Christe–Kyrie
are set to a non-repeating (ABC) pattern, the word eleison has an AA’B pattern. The retention of the same
formula for eleison while Kyrie changes to Christe and back seems to be a vestige of an old
congregational litany refrain.
EX. 2-14A Kyrie IVThe earliest sources for ordinary chants were little books called Kyriale, by analogy with Graduale,
the much bigger book that contained the Mass propers. Most Kyriales date from the tenth and eleventh
centuries. One of their curious features is the way Kyrie melodies are recorded in them. They are entered
twice, first in melismatic form as shown in Ex. 2-14a, and then in syllabically texted form as shown in Ex.
2-14b.
The easy explanation would be that the melismatic Kyrie is the canonical version, and the syllabically
texted one has been enhanced (or corrupted) by a prosula. That, at any rate, was the assumption made by
the sixteenth-century editors of the chant who, in the purifying spirit of the Counter Reformation, purged
all Kyries of their syllabic texts. (Even so, their old incipits are still used to identify the Kyrie melodies
in modern liturgical books: Ex. 2-14a is now called “Kyrie IV, Cunctipotens Genitor Deus.”) There are
several reasons to question that assumption. For one thing there is no evidence that the melismatic Kyries
are any older than the texted ones. They appear side by side in the sources from the beginning. Indeed, the
earliest text we have for a Mass Kyrie, from Amalar of Metz himself, writing around 830, is “texted,” as
follows: Kyrie eleison, Domine pater, miserere; Christe eleison, miserere, qui nos redemisti sanguine
tuo; et iterum Kyrie eleison, Domine Spiritus Sancte, miserere. [Lord have mercy on us; O Lord our
father, have mercy on us; Christ, have mercy on us, O Thou who hast redeemed us with Thy blood; and
again, Lord, have mercy on us; O Lord, Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.]
EX. 2-14B Kyrie, Cunctipotens Genitor Deus