contrary motion at cadences now begins to spread to other parts of the setting, so that the older concept of
symphonia—parallel doubling—survives only sporadically. The contents of the Winchester organum
manuscript mix the monastic repertory of St. Swithin (Responsories, processional antiphons) with the
public repertory of the cathedral Mass (Kyries, Gloria tropes, tracts, sequences, and no fewer than fifty-
three Alleluias).
The earliest fully legible practical source of composed polyphonic music is a late eleventh-century
fragment from Chartres containing Alleluia verses and processional antiphons set in two-part, note-
against-note (homorhythmic) counterpoint. There is virtually no parallel doubling; nor is there much note-
repetition in the vox organalis, even when the original chant has a repeated note. Instead, there is
pervasive contrary motion and ceaseless intervallic variety; this, or what we would call an “independent”
voice line, was what the composer of the vox organalis was clearly striving for. (The word
“independent,” of course, should be understood in relative terms: no line constructed in a style that is
subject to so many harmonic constraints can ever be truly independent of the given melody—but this is
just as true of later contrapuntal styles, including those still academically taught).
Most often cited from the Chartres fragment is the verse “Dicant nunc judei” from the Easter
processional Christus resurgens (“Christ rising again”), an especially bold setting in which every
interval from the unison to the octave except the seventh is employed, including both major and minor
sixths (unrecognized as concords by theorists), and in which voice-crossing gives the vox organalis
almost equal prominence with the vox princpalis (Ex. 5-5a). In another verse, “Angelus Domini” from the
Easter Alleluia Pascha nostrum immolatus est Christus (“Christ our paschal lamb is sacrificed”),
different counterpoints are added to a repeated phrase in the vox principalis, and the occursus is made not
to the unison but to the octave (Ex. 5-5b).
EX. 5-5A From the Chartres fragment. “Dicant nunc judei”EX. 5-5B “Angelus Domini”The style of counterpoint exemplified in the Chartres fragment strikingly resembles the one described
(or prescribed) by John of Afflighem, a Flemish theorist of the early twelfth century whose treatise De
musica was the only one to rival Guido’s Micrologus in distribution and authority. In the later twelfth
century this style would become known as discantus or “descant.” The Latin word means literally
“singing apart,” whence “singing in parts.” Music historians generally prefer “discant” to “descant” as an
English equivalent; not being standard English, it can be more easily restricted in meaning to refer