The Middle Ages in the West saw the gradual dominance of the Roman rite over the local rites that had developed before the ninth and tenth centuries. Musically this entailed the spread of Gregorian chant. Later centuries saw the development of polyphony. In the late Middle Ages, the preaching service of Prone became the model for Reformed worship.
The Standardizing of Worship
In the early years following Christianity’s recognition, each metropolitan center developed its own liturgy and practices within the sphere of its cultural influence and under the leadership of the bishops of Antioch, Alexandria, Byzantium, Jerusalem, Milan, and Rome. Later developments of the Mozarabic liturgy in Spain, the Gallican liturgy of northern Europe, and the Celtic liturgies in Britain resulted from the missionary expansion of the Western church centers. Each liturgy was sung with its own traditions of cantillation, so that we have historical records of the development of Antiochian chant, Coptic chant (Egypt), Mozarabic chant (Spain), Ambrosian chant (Milan), and so forth. All the early churches used the Greek language in worship, even the church at Rome. Latin began to be used in the fourth century and eventually displaced the Greek in the Western churches.
After the year A.D. 400, the Roman Empire was permanently divided into Eastern and Western empires. The imperial court at Byzantium exerted strong influence toward conformity in doctrine and worship practice in the Eastern churches in order to strengthen the bonds of the empire. By the seventh century, two Byzantine liturgies became standard throughout the domain: the Liturgy of St. Basil (used during Lent, on Christmas and Epiphany, and on St. Basil’s Day), and the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom (a shortened form, most commonly used). Orthodox liturgies have not changed essentially since that time, except that there was no hesitation to translate them from the Greek into the vernacular. Orthodox liturgy is always sung, partly in chant and partly in more contemporary music forms (e.g., Russian Orthodox music).
The Roman Mass
In the West, Rome was the center of the church and the Roman (Gregorian) rite eventually became the universal liturgy. Early important revisions were made by Pope Gelasius I (492–496), St. Gregory the Great (590–604) (who also founded the Schola Cantorum which standardized Western chant), the emperor Charlemagne (742–814), and his associate Alcuin (c. 735–804). Even so, there were many differing practices throughout the Middle Ages until the Council of Trent (1562) and the resultant Missale Romanum (Roman Missal) of 1570 brought liturgical uniformity.
Historically, before Vatican II (1962) there were three modes of mass celebration: (1) The Low Mass (Missa Lecta), which was spoken only and which became most popular in the Middle Ages when it was traditional for every priest to celebrate the Mass once a day and when many individuals celebrated in the same church (at different altars) at the same time; (2) The Sung Mass (Missa Cantata), which was the principal Sunday or holy day celebration in a parish church; and (3) High Mass (Missa Solemnis), which was sometimes called a Festival Mass and included assisting celebrants, and frequently a choir.
The musical masses were commonly sung in Roman (Gregorian) Chant, which included psalm tones (basically the use of a single reciting tone, followed by prescribed cadences). In addition, the high masses could feature composed settings of the five great prayer-songs of the mass (Kyrie, Gloria in excelsis Deo, Credo, Sanctus et Benedictus, Agnus Dei). The oldest extant settings of these mass forms are from the twelfth century composers Leonin and Perotin in Paris. Through the centuries, mass settings (the five songs only) have been written by such great composers as Machaut, Josquin des Prez, Palestrina, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner, Vaughan Williams, and Stravinsky, each in his own distinctive musical style.
The Schola Cantorum was established by Gregory the Great (c. 540–604) to standardize and to teach the official chant of the church. As Christianity spread throughout the Western world, and as the various cultures developed during the Middle Ages, the cathedrals, monasteries, abbeys, and collegiate churches developed choir schools where boys received their general education and were trained in music for the church’s worship.
The early church fathers forbade the use of instrumental music in worship because of their association with mystery cults, the Greek theater, and pagan rituals. Nevertheless, rudimentary organs began to appear in churches by the sixth century, and their use in the Mass was widespread by the twelfth century. In the fifteenth century, some German churches boasted organs with all the essential tonal resources of modern instruments. Evidently, the use of the organ was limited, however. Basically, it was a means of setting the pitch (“intonation”) for the unaccompanied chant or choral setting. It was also featured in what is known as an alternatim practice, in which portions of liturgical music were shared by choir and organ, with the instrument performing sections (or stanzas) in alternation with the choir.
Non-Eucharistic Worship Through the Medieval Period
During this long period of Christian history, certainly for the millennium 500-1500, eucharistic liturgy was considered to be the highest form of worship. But it was not the only mode.
The Offices. The “Services of the Hours” constituted another form of worship designed to sanctify the time in which Christians live. It probably stemmed from the Jewish custom of regular prayer at stated hours of the day. Early Christians commonly prayed privately at the third, sixth, and ninth hours (Acts 3:1) and eventually this became a public practice, following the Roman division of the day into “hours” (prima, tertia, sexts, and nona) and the night into four “watches.” Office worship, so-called because participation was the duty (“office”) of the celebrants, was developed and perpetuated in the monasteries but also observed in cathedrals and collegiate churches.
The full cycle of eight “offices” consisted of Matins (between midnight and dawn), immediately followed by Lauds (“cockcrow”), Prime (6:00 a.m.), Terce (9:00 a.m.), Sext (noon), None (3:00 p.m.), Vespers (6:00 p.m.), and Compline (before retiring). The principal component of office worship consisted of the reading and chanting of Scripture; thus in the total “Hours” the Psalms were completed (sung responsively) once each week, the New Testament was read through twice in a year, and the Old Testament once. In addition, a special place was given to the biblical Canticles, especially the Song of Zacharias, father of John the Baptist (Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel), The Song of Mary (Magnificat), The Song of Simeon (Nunc Dimittis), The Song of the Three Hebrew Children (Benedicite, from the Apocrypha), and the fourth-century extrabiblical hymn attributed to Niceta of Remesiana, Te Deum laudamus. Finally, this form of worship also included hymns, versicles and responses, prayers, and sometimes a homily. The offices of Matins and Lauds in the morning, and Vespers and Compline in the evening, were the major services in which the most music was featured. In the Roman tradition, the psalms, canticles, and hymns were sung in Gregorian chant exclusively, except in the office of Vespers when contemporary, “composed” settings might be used. It is in this latter tradition that Monteverdi composed his “Vespers of 1610.”
One office characteristic has been carried over as a conspicuous part of evangelical worship to the present day. Beginning in the second century it was the custom to follow each psalm (and later each canticle) with the Gloria Patri. This ascription of praise to the eternal trinity served to bring the Old Testament psalm into a New Testament context: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Preaching Services. Also in the medieval period, a sermon was occasionally featured in the Office of Lauds. Furthermore, “preaching missions” were common throughout Christian history, for which congregations met in the naves of the cathedrals and large churches. This explains the location of a pulpit in the middle of a sanctuary far from the altar, as modern tourists will observe in historic European churches. From this tradition, a basically vernacular worship form developed known as the Prone, first inserted as a part of the mass and later featured as a separate service. It is significant because of its resemblance to the worship form adopted by John Calvin in the sixteenth century, a form which has carried over into common evangelical worship. The following is an advanced form of the Prone that was used in Basel (Eberhard Weismann, “Der Predigtgottesdienst und die verwandten Formen,” in Leiturgia, vol. 3, 23–24; cited by Eugene L. Brand, “The Liturgical Life of the Church,” in A Handbook of Church Music, ed. Carl Halter and Carl Schalk [St. Louis: Concordia, 1978]):
- Call to worship (“In nomine Patri, … ”)
- Sermon Scripture in Latin (for the intellectuals)
- German Votum with congregational “amen”
- Sermon text in German
- Invocation of the Holy Spirit
- Sermon
- Parish announcements
- Prayer of the Church
- Lord’s Prayer and Ave Maria
- Apostles’ Creed
- The Ten Commandments
- Public Confession
- Closing Votum