2. The Schola Cantorum looked upon Gregory I. as its founder and endower.
3. The Schola was still believed to possess his “authenticum Antiphonarium” and certain other objects connected in the popular mind with the memory of what Gregory had done for the cause of the ecclesiastical chant.
It is certainly an important point that the Schola itself attributed its foundation to Gregory I. Such a tradition would be carefully preserved in an important corporation like this.
A further witness to the existence of St. Gregory’s couch is to be found in Notitia Ecclesiarum Urbis Romæ, an itinerary assigned by de Rossi to the seventh century, (de Rossi, Rom. Sot., vol. i., pp. 138-143.)
II.—Pope Leo IV. (847-855) to the Abbot Honoratus, Ex registro Leonis IIII. “There is something quite incredible, the sound of which has reached our ears: a thing which, if true, tends rather to diminish our consideration than to give it honour, to obscure it rather than to give it lustre. It appears in short that you feel nothing but aversion for the beautiful chant of St. Gregory, and for the manner of singing and reading laid down and taught by him in the Church, so that you are in disagreement on this point not only with the Holy See, which is near to you, but also with almost the whole Western Church, with all who use Latin to offer their praises to the Eternal King and pay Him the tribute of harmonious sounds.
“All these Churches have received with so much eagerness and ardent affection this tradition of Gregory, and after having received it unreservedly they find so much pleasure in it, that even now they apply to us for more of it, thinking that perhaps something more which they do not know of, may have been preserved among us. This Holy Pope Gregory, a servant of God and a famous preacher and a wise pastor, who did so much for the welfare of mankind, he it was who also composed this chant, which we sing in the Church and everywhere, with great pains and with a complete knowledge of the musical art. He wished by this means to act more powerfully upon men’s hearts in order to arouse and touch them; and in fact the sound of his sweet melodies has gathered in the Churches not merely spiritual men, but also those who are less cultivated and sensitive.
“I pray you not to allow yourself to remain in disagreement either with this Church, which is the chief head of religion, and from which no one wishes to stray, or with all those Churches of which we have spoken, if you love to live in complete peace and concord with the Universal Church. For if—which we do not believe—your aversion for our instruction and for the tradition of our holy Pontiff is such that you are not willing to conform in every point to our rite, both in chants and lessons, know that we will repel you from our communion; for it is fitting and healthful for you to follow the usages for which the Roman Church, mother of all and mistress of you, shows such great love and invincible attachment. For this reason we order you, under pain of excommunication, to conform in the Churches both in singing and reading exclusively to the order instituted by the Holy Pope Gregory and followed by us, and without fail to practise and sing it in future with the utmost zeal. For if—which we cannot believe—anyone shall attempt by any means whatever to turn you from the right path by leading you to a tradition other than that which we have just prescribed to you for the present and the future, we not only order that he be deprived of partaking of the Holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, but in virtue of our proper authority and that of all our predecessors, we decree that in punishment of his audacity and presumption he remain under a perpetual anathema.”—(Cod. Brit. Mus., add. 8873, fol. 168.)
Pope Leo, the author of this letter, had himself been a pupil at this same monastery of St. Martin. From thence also the priest John, the Precentor of St. Peter’s, had set out 200 years before to teach the English the system of chanting and reading followed at St. Peter’s.
The above extract throws an important light on the progress of the Gregorian reform of the ecclesiastical chant. In the latter half of the ninth century a powerful monastery close to Rome had not yet adopted it. Compare with this fact the presence of the Ambrosian chant in the province of Capua in the middle of the eleventh century (Kienle, in Studien und Mittheilungen des Benedictiner und Cistercienser-Orden, 1884, p. 346), and the Ambrosian rubrics of various books copied a little later for churches at Rome itself (Tomasi, Opp. vol. vii., pp. 9 & 10), and it will be seen how gradually the Gregorian books attained their universal supremacy.
III.—Hildemar (between 833 and 850), author of a commentary on the Rule of St. Bennet, speaks of St. Gregory as the composer of the “Roman Office”: “Beatus Gregorius qui dicitur Romanum Officium fecisse.” (Expositio Regula ab Hildemaro tradita, p. 311, Ratisbon, 1880.)