This, then, was a Kyrie that to a ninth-century writer looked normal, consisting as it did of a
traditional Greek acclamation amplified with newer and more specific Latin ones.
Evidence concerning chronology—the age of sources, the testimony of early witnesses—counts as
“external” evidence. There is “internal” evidence, too, on behalf of the primacy of texted Kyries—that is,
evidence based on observation of the musical artifacts themselves (or rather, their appearance in the
manuscripts we have). If the texts in the texted Kyries are indeed prosulas—that is, words added to a
preexisting melismatic chant—then why is the short neuma on eleison left “unprosulated” every time?
Would it not be more plausible to assume that the regular alternation of syllabic and neumatic prosody
was part of the original conception? In the case of Cunctipotens genitor, the texted form must have come
first for the additional reason that the text is in verse, not prose. What is not prose is no prosula. Less
tautologically, there is little likelihood that the notes of a preexisting melisma will by chance
accommodate the strict requirements of poetic scansion.