In this most recent contribution to the Historiae series Catherine Saucier offers an edition and study of the chants and key liturgical texts for the Office of the feast of St John the Evangelist, on 27 December. As an old and near-universal component of the Christian calendar, situated in one of the most congested weeks of the church year, the medieval feast of St John was celebrated with a great diversity of proper texts. Saucier's edition cuts through those tangles by focusing upon practices in the Diocese of Liège between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, more specifically the versions of the office cultivated in and around the cathedral of Liège (chants edited with the suffix ‘a’) and in the cathedral-controlled collegiate church of Sint-Jan in ’s-Hertogenbosch (chants with the suffix ‘b’). In the terms of René-Jean Hesbert's Corpus Antiphonalium Officii, the edited texts can be identified most closely with manuscript CAO G.

The geographical parameters of Saucier's edition are consistent with her publications to date, in particular her 2014 monograph A Paradise of Priests: Singing the Civic and Episocpal Hagiography of Medieval Liège. But the choice is also justified by an extensive and highly erudite introduction, of wider interest both to chant scholars and to those interested in the medieval veneration of St John, in which the editor offers a monumental survey of the office's transmission patterns across Europe. Saucier is thereby able to show that her chosen Liège tradition is a representative of the most widely known medieval form, christened ‘group D’, which found particular favour to the west of the Rhine, and in the practices of the Dominican and Praemonstratensian orders, among others. Thus we learn that her edition is also proportionately distanced from the versions known in German-speaking lands, in Rome (including the Lateran), and in some of the earliest layers of Frankish transmission. Besides the availability of stable, transcribable sources, the particular benefit of Sint-Jan in ’s-Hertogenbosch, and to some extent Liège, is the presence of a dedication to the saint at hand. Sint-Jan manuscripts are especially unusual in preserving full proper texts for First Vespers of his feast, where most institutions prioritised Second Vespers of St Stephen. But Saucier's choice of geography also advertises the significant virtues of placing a pin in the map, so to speak, in order to understand the history of the late medieval office. Unlike other Historiae editions that have set out to divine compositional archetypes, this one reminds us of a more rugged situation on the ground: the texts come from all over, the musical style is highly variegated, the narrative advances in fits and starts, and modal order is only partially operational. The Diocese of Liège was relatively consistent in preserving this form, as were other regions and orders with theirs. We discount this reality at our peril.

Saucier describes her volume as a ‘comparative critical edition’ (p. vi). Presenting more than one version in parallel can be onerous for the reader, but the edition largely succeeds in that aim, aided both by the neat system of ‘a’ and ‘b’ suffixes and by a series of generously provided tables. Less loudly trumpeted, however, is the fact that the Liège version takes precedence throughout: the majority of transcriptions derive from a single source, a fourteenth-century antiphoner from collegiate church of Saint-Croix in Liège (B-Lsc 1), with variant readings noted in a list at the end of the edition. The primacy of this manuscript is made transparent at the beginning of each chant, but with heavily abbreviated manuscript sigla in the critical apparatus, and with no overt distinction between Liège and ’s-Hertogenbosch sources outside of the introduction, the edition does not easily permit the reconstruction of other readings. Presumably B-Lsc 1 was favoured because of its early date, though I could find no explanation for this or for the general preference for Liège witnesses.

The books from ’s-Hertogenbosch thus only see the limelight for their collective unica: a charmingly expressive set of First Vespers antiphons, an alternate Venite tone, alternate responsories for the third nocturn of Matins (including ‘Verbum caro’, normally for Christmas, in place of the famous ‘In medio’), and a handful of alternative hymns and versicles. The introduction reveals that there were also unique chants for the Octave feast, as well as a shared tradition of Octave lessons (p. xxxvii), though with one exception these are absent from the edition. No explanation is offered, and I can only fathom that the extra chants were omitted because no music survives. (This would be a regrettable economy if true, as the author reports that no other edition is known.) The absence of the Octave readings seems inconsistent with the rest of the edition, which is otherwise generous in furnishing the (unnotated) texts of lections, collects and versicles, all primarily drawn from Liège sources. This provision, together with fully written-out melodies for the Venite and Te Deum, is fully in line with other publications of the Historiae series, and greatly to the benefit of musicians or clergy who might seek to perform an office in honour of St John the Evangelist. However, they will still need to look elsewhere to fill in the remaining recitation tones.

The music edition itself consists of stemless note heads on a five-line staff, with slurs for each syllabic grouping of notes. Half bar lines and intuitive line breaks make the edition easy to sing from, as does the relegation of editorial details to the end. The visual impression is somewhat cluttered by a mixture of different font faces, sizes, and line heights, and there is some redundancy in the repetition of psalm incipits across the music and text typesetting. The punctuation for the readings and prayers is at odds with that for the music edition, and the use of square brackets seems over-fussy in context. In all other respects, however, this is a solid and eminently valuable addition to the edited corpus of saints’ offices. Those with interests in religious culture in the vicinity of Liège have now an extremely rich resource at their fingertips. Chant scholars should also take note, whether or not Liège or ’s-Hertogenbosch are on their radar, so rich and so detailed is the introduction. For anyone seeking to make sense of office chants for St John the Evangelist, whether to map out their transmission or to investigate their textual patrimony, there is now no resource more authoritative.