Hucbaldo

Hucbaldo, also known as Hucbald de Saint-Amand, Hucbaldus Sancti Amandi or Hucbaldus Elnonensis, (Kingdom of France, c. 840 or c. 850 – Saint-Amand-les-Eaux, June 20, 930) was a Benedictine monk, music theorist, French composer, poet, hagiographer, theologian and professor.

Life

He was born in northern France around the year 850, however the exact place and date of birth of this character are unknown. Apart from a few incomplete indications found in his own works or in the contemporary Annales elnonenses, most of what is known about his life derives from the Translatio S. Cyrici i> of Guntherus of Saint-Amand († 1108). According to this highly rhetorical document, Hucbald entered as puer oblatus to receive training at the abbey of Elnon, later named Saint-Amand (St. Amand) de Tournay, in honor of its century-old founder VII.

There he trained with his uncle Milo, who was an accomplished poet and the main teacher of studies or scholasticus in the diocese of Doornik. He progressed at great speed in the sciences of the quadrivium, including practical music. According to a laudatory biographical account from the 11th century , at an early age he composed a hymn in honor of Saint Andrew, which was so successful which aroused the jealousy of his own uncle. For this reason it is believed that Hucbald was forced to leave Saint-Amand seeking the protection of the bishop of Nevers, where he became the bishop's confidant.

Between 860 and 872 he resided in the monastery of San Germán de Auxerre, with whose monastic school he had a relationship. He was a fellow student of future masters such as Remigius of Auxerre and Eric of Auxerre, perhaps as a disciple of the court philosopher John Scotus Erigena ("John the Scotsman", actually Irish), the great philosopher of the court of Charles the Bald. Upon Milo's death in 872, Hucbald returned to Saint-Amand as his successor in direction of his uncle's monastery school, with whom he was presumably reconciled. Upon his return he brought the relics of San Quirico and Santa Julita to the abbey.

He held this position until the Norman invasion of 883, when he left for the Abbey of Saint Bertin (formerly Sithiu) in Saint Omer. There he remained until the year 893, when Archbishop Fulcher of Reims commissioned him, together with Remigius, to recover the cathedral and the music schools destroyed by the Normans, among them those of Saint Bertin and Reims. Following the assassination of Fulcher in June 900, Hucbald most likely returned to Saint-Amand, where he worked on much of his production. Two letters dated September 24, 906 confirm his presence at the abbey, where he remained until the day of his death, June 20, 930.

Work

Although he is known as a theorist, ironically for works that have turned out not to be his, he was also a writer (both in verse and prose) and composer, whose reputation has grown considerably with the progressive discovery of works that have been attributed to him. can be attributed with certainty.

Music theory works

In the field of musical theory Hucbaldo is one of the main exponents of musical theory of the Carolingian period. He was a close contemporary of Aureliano de Reome (Musica disciplina, c. 840s?), as well as the anonymous authors of Musica enchiriadis and other related treatises to which he was assigned his name (Commemeratio brevis, Alia musica, De modis), written in the same region at the end of the century IX.

The treatise Musica enchiriadis, which contains a complete system of musical science as well as instructions on notation, was formerly attributed to Hucbaldo but this theory is no longer accepted today. It was also believed that It had been published along with other writings of lesser importance in Martin Gerbert's Scriptores de Musica, but it has been shown to have originated elsewhere at around the same time and to have been the work of unknown writers. belonging to the same intellectual milieu.

Hucbaldo proposed drawing lines to clarify musical writing. Although it was the monk Guido D'Arezzo who carried out the definitive implementation of the horizontal lines that fixed the heights of the sound and resolved the musical notation, approaching the current music theory. In his work two lines are observed that marked a distance of a fifth (an interval that includes five notes of the scale), one was the note F, the other the note C. To make it clearer he assigns them different colors: red and yellow. ^{[ citation needed ]}

De harmonica institutione (Music)

The treatise De harmonica institutione, later called Musica, written around the year 880, is one of the most relevant of the Carolingian era. It is the only theoretical work that can be safely attributed to Hucbaldo. It shows a considerable influence of the writings of Boethius, and by extension of Ptolemy. In fact, this work tries to reconcile De institutione musica of Boethius and the Greek theoretical approaches with the repertoire of Gregorian chant that still exists. It was consolidating.

Yves Chartier dated the work from the history of one of the oldest manuscripts, that of the Cambridge University Library, Gg.V. 35, from the Abbey of Saint Augustine in Canterbury. It was probably introduced across the English Channel by Grimbald, one of the monks of the Abbey of Saint-Bertin who traveled in response to King Alfred the Great's request to Abbot Raoul to send some teachers to England. Grimbald undertook this journey around 886, a date that serves as terminus ante quem for Hucbald's treaty. To be more precise, one could think of the years 880–885 as the extremes of composition.

The treatise is articulated through arguments that follow a logical sequence, not unrelated to the explanatory methods used by Hucbaldo in his experience as a teacher. The reference to a common repertoire of songs and the use of illustrative diagrams facilitate the memorization of the concepts. The manual is intended for a specific use, as indicated at the beginning of the introduction, in which the author comments the following:

«Ad musicae initiamenta quemlibet ingredi cupientem; qui aliquam scilicet interim cantilenarum percipere intellegentiam querit, qualitatem sive positionem quarumcumque vocum diligenter advertere oportebit. »
Whoever wants to start in the rudiments of the music and also wants to acquire some competition in the song, must consciously value the quality and position of each note.

Continue with an explanation of intervals, consonance and polyphony. This last concept is merely presented without delving into it, since at that time polyphony was a practice carried out, but not yet theorized, as it will be later in Musica enchiriadis, from the early 900s. Theorist continues analyzing the number of sounds and their origin. He uses various methods to indicate the notes: at first he uses the letters, inaugurating a system that will have great popularity in the future, then he refers to the neumes, and concludes by arguing the need to take both systems into account. He ends with the analysis of the configuration of the scales used in liturgical singing, a topic to which according to the author his own work is oriented.

Modern editions of De harmonica institutione (Musica):

• Gerbert, Martin (ed.). Ecclesiastical Scriptors of Musica sacra potissimum. (3 vol.) St. Blaise: Typis San-Blasianis, 1784, vol. 1, pp. 103–125.
• Migne, Jacques-Paul (ed.). Pathology cursus completus, Latin series. (221 vol.) Paris: Garnier, 1844–1904, vol. 132, pp. 905–929.

Musical works

A few pieces of sacred music can be attributed with some certainty to Hucbald and are known mainly from Weakland's studies. Some are found in the Troparium at Winchester and in the antiphonary at Sarum. There are literary sources suggesting that he wrote many other musical works but they are now lost. Among his compositions the following stand out:

• Pangat simul, a prose or prose sequence to be sung in praise of the saints Julita and Quirico. The text has been skilfully extracted from the Passio SS. Cyrici et Iulittae of Hucbaldo himself. It belongs to a special group of a dozen sequences "da capo", so called because they repeat the same melodic fragment for different verses in the middle of the piece. Melody is similar to that of the "Frigdola" sequence found in northern France at the end of the centuryIX and has served as a model for the sequence of the feast of the Holy Innocents, Pura Deum laudat innocentiaIn Winchester and Cerne troparies.

• Quem vere pia laus, the oldest trop of Glory that the author has been identified, transmitted by numerous testimonies. Probably for Easter, it is based on the melody of Gloria A possibly of Gallican origin, model of the present Gloria I (LU, 16-18): preserved in at least 16 manuscripts. It consists of 10 hexameters, which conclude with a long melisma on the prosula Regnum, tuum solidum permanebit in aeternum (also similar to Gloria A), which is frequently found in northern France from 850. It has served as vox principalis and vox organalis for one of the organa of the Winchester Tropario (GB-Ccc 473, f.63v-4 and 141v-2) composed by Wulfstan, precenter of Winchester Old Minster, at the end of the centuryX.

• In plateis putbantur infirmi or Health history Petri, a trade or history in verse for the feast of Saint Peter on February 22, party of the cathedral of Antioch, probably composed during the passage of the composer by Reims. Its main feature is the disposition of its 9 antiphons in sequential order of the modes (formers 1-8: modes 1-8; antiphon 9: mode 1), a practice that is also found in the Office of the Trinity composed by Esteban, bishop of Liège and friend of Hucbaldo.

• O quam venerandus es egregie confessor Christi and Exultet Domino Serenamin MindTwo hymns written for the canons of Mont d'Or, near Reims. These were inserted into an office for the patron of the monastery, St. Thierry, on December 11, but it cannot be found that it was composed of Hucbaldo the entire office. It has been preserved in 3 manuscripts, of which only one of them is recorded (F-DOU 295, f.58v-64; centuryXII).

Guntherus also attributed other compositions to this author, specifically antiphons for Saint Andrew and an office for Saint Cilinia, mother of Saint Remigius of Reims, but these works have not yet been identified.

• "Carmina clarisonae calvis cantate Camenae", a song in 146 hexameters in which the beginning of each verse begins with the letter C, initial of Carolus Calvus in honor of Carlos el Calvo.^{[chuckles]required]}

Literary works

Poems

• Calvis chlorine

Hagiography: lives of saints

• Passio SS. Cyrici et Iulittae martyrumthe martyrdom of the saints Quirico and Julita.
• Passio Sancti CassianiMartirio de San Casiano.
• Vita Sanctae Aldegundis Virginis, life of Santa Aldegonde de Maubeuge.
• Vita Sancti Amati longiorSt. Amando's life.
• Vita Sancti Lebuini Presbyteri et Confessoris, life of St.Lebwin or Leboin, Saxon evangelizer, beyond the IJssel.
• Vita Sanctae Rictrudis Batissae Marcianensis, life of Santa Rictrudis de Marchiennes.
• Vita e Inventio Sancti Ionati , life of San Jonah, first abbot of the Abbey of Marchiennes.

Comments and glosses

The comments and interlinear and marginal glosses noted in some of the manuscripts belonging to the Saint-Amand catalog are attributed to Hucbaldo. According to several scholars, they are even autographs, although they are unpublished material. Part of the texts attributed to him, according to the research of Yves Chartier, are the commentary on the Rule of Saint Benedict, the glosses on books I and II of the Periphyseon by Juan Escoto Erígena, as well as works by Virgil and Chalcidio. To these, Corinna Bottiglieri has added the glosses to the naturalistic and calculative works in the Ms. Valenciennes, B.M. 174.