set of tropes to the Introit, introducing not only the first stich but each of the other two as well. An even
more elaborate set has a fourth line to set off the concluding “alleluia.” Like the one in Ex. 2-8b, it
amplifies the psalm verses with a patchwork of texts freely mined and adapted from the Bible and meant
in this context, like the Introit verses themselves, to represent the words of Christ. Yet another set of
Introit tropes from St. Martial embeds the Introit text within a narrative that imitates the style of the
Gospels, and attaches neumae or interpolated melismas to each stich in the antiphon as a further
embellishment.
EX. 2-8A Prefatory trope to the Easter Introit, ResurrexiEX. 2-8B The Easter Introit, larded with two sets of tropes from the monastery of St. MartialBy all odds the most famous of the Resurrexi tropes, probably the most famous of all tropes, are the
ones that recount the visitatio sepulchri—the visit of the three Marys to Christ’s tomb on the morning
after his burial—in the form of a dialogue between them and the angel who announces the Resurrection,
thus furnishing a very neat transition into the Introit text. In Ex. 2-9, which gives an early version of this
trope from a St. Gallen manuscript dating around 950, the text carries special directions (known in
liturgical books as rubrics, since they were often entered in red ink made from rubrica, Latin for “red
earth”) somewhat needlessly specifying what is a “question” (interrogatio) and what an “answer”
(responsorium). These rubrics seem to be an indication that two (or several) singers were to act out the
dialogue in parts. Tropes like this one were the earliest and simplest of what became a large repertory of
Latin church plays (sometimes called “liturgical dramas”) with music. More elaborate ones will be
described in the next chapter.
Like many favorite chants, the Easter dialogue trope gave rise to parodies. An eleventh-century
manuscript at St. Martial contains a dialogue trope for Christmas that mimics the Easter prototype in