In the thirteenth century, among the chants of the Mass most likely to show non-biblical texts were a few Alleluia verses and most notably the sequence, which directly followed the Alleluia on important occasions. In this book Yossi Maurey carefully examines the nearly two dozen sequences celebrating the Crown of Thorns, part of the True Cross and other relics brought from the Holy Land to Paris, relics for which the Sainte-Chapelle was built in the 1240s. Within the courtyard of the royal palace on the Île de la Cité, King Louis IX (Saint Louis) erected a giant reliquary chapel whose focus was upon the elaborate Grand Chasse containing the Crown of Thorns and the other relics. As a whole, this collection of relics centring on Christ’s Passion was considered the most precious in Christendom.

The liturgy of the Sainte-Chapelle was in large part adopted from that of Notre-Dame Cathedral, but major new feasts were added at the Sainte-Chapelle for the Crown of Thorns (11 August) and for the Reception of the Relics (30 September), each with a full octave.Footnote ¹ The customary procedure for a new liturgical day was not to compose everything new, but to contrafact existing liturgies where possible. Hence the Crown of Thorns was an adaptation of the liturgy for St Dominic, and the Relics feast was taken from the liturgy for St Francis. (The Dominicans and Franciscans were both prominent at the Sainte-Chapelle and the royal court.) In most cases, only a few words in chants and prayers had to be changed to reflect a new feast, saving a vast amount of time and effort.

Yet it is remarkable that there are nearly two dozen sequences for these two major feasts copied in a mid-thirteenth-century Parisian manuscript now in Bari, Italy: Bari, Archivio della Basilica di San Nicola, MS 5 (85), a source containing a Paris gradual and a slightly later proser for the Sainte-Chapelle.Footnote ² No other single occasion in any known liturgical calendar was provided with such a rich bounty of sequences. Only those for the combined feasts of the Virgin Mary surpass the Crown and Relics sequences in total number.

Maurey begins his book with a taut introductory chapter that provides essential information about the importance of relics in medieval society (including their ‘activation’), their spiritual and political ideology, and what these particular relics meant for the kingdom of France and its king. He states his purpose as being

As it turns out, perhaps the most telling feature of his musical analysis is the discussion of the fact that nearly all of these sequences are contrafacts, bringing a web of associations and meanings into play when their melodies are set with new words (see below).

The author deftly sketches the differences between the Mass and the Divine Office, Temporale and Sanctorale and ordinary versus proper chants, and the distinctiveness of the sequence with its non-biblical rhyming poetry declaimed in paired musical versicles. It could comment on the liturgical occasion with an immediacy not available to other chants in the liturgy. Maurey concludes his introduction by briefly tracing the history of the Sainte-Chapelle relics from the Byzantine imperial palace in Constantinople to France and its royal palace. Soon Paris came to be regarded as the new Jerusalem and the French became God’s chosen people, as the arrival of the Crown in France was perceived as an important moment in salvation history.

In two large sections of the book, Maurey treats first the sequences for the Crown of Thorns and secondly the sequences for the Reception of the Relics. The Crown sequences are introduced after he sets the stage with a discussion of Gautier de Cornut’s Historia susceptionis coronae spinae, the personal account of the Archbishop of Sens describing the reception of the Crown of Thorns in Sens before it settled in Paris in 1239. Appendix 7 of the book contains an edition of the Latin text of the Historia with a parallel English translation, divided into the nine lessons for Matins of the feast. Maurey gives an overview of the Office liturgy for the Crown,Footnote ³ Adest nova solempnitas, and then turns to the five Mass proper chants beginning Gaudeamus omnes in domino (given with text and translation).

Each of the ten sequences for the Crown of Thorns is then presented in turn with Latin text and an excellent English translation, a musical transcription and the author’s commentary. That can include discussion of manuscript sources and variants, thematic, musical and poetic analysis and whether the work is a contrafact or an apparently original composition (see Appendix 5). Five of these Crown pieces are unica, but two, Si vis vere and Regis et pontificis, were widely copied and used in locations that observed the 11 August feast day but not a full octave. Three of the ten Crown sequences have original melodies, while the other seven are contrafacts, including three based on Marian melodies for the Assumption of the Virgin. The remaining four Crown sequences contrafact ones for St Quentin, St Martin, St Francis and St Dominic. Two of the Crown sequences, Quasi stella matutina and Florem spina coronavit, contrafact the same Marian sequence, Hodierne lux diei, whose well-known eleventh-century melody was repurposed for many other liturgical occasions. Together, this group of Sainte-Chapelle sequences made clear the role of the Crown of Thorns in Christ’s triumph over death, how it turned from a mocking object into a major symbol of deliverance and how fortunate were the French to have it preserved in the royal house of France.

In Part II of the book, Maurey prefaces the Relics sequences with a discussion of their transfer to France in the account of Gérard de Saint-Quentin, with the Latin text and English translation included. He then gives an overview of the rhymed Office Vexilla regis for the Relics feast, which is based on the rhymed Office for St Francis by Julian of Speyer. The Mass for the Relics adapts the same introit (Gaudeamus in domino) as the Crown of Thorns Mass, but the other proper chants (including a tract) differ, and the Alleluia and tract actually mention some of the relics. The author notes that they seem to be new compositions.

Maurey treats ten sequences for the Reception of the Relics at the Sainte-Chapelle in a manner similar to those for the Crown of Thorns, providing text and translation, a musical transcription and commentary. Only one, Cursor levis arcte, appears to have an original melody (see Appendix 6). In this group, two sequences borrow the same Marian melody for the Assumption, the widely circulated Letabundus exsultet fidelis; they are the first and last in this group of Relics pieces, Nos ad laudes and Letabundus decantet fidelis. Nos ad laudes is found in numerous manuscripts as the sequence for the feast day itself, but the Letabundus is only in Bari 5. Eight of the ten Relics works are unica in Bari 5, including two pieces that contrafact sequences for Easter week and the octave of Pentecost. Nos oportet gloriari, based on the Pentecost work Lux jucunda, is the longest of all the sequences discussed in this book, going beyond its model by having twelve paired versicles and a thirteenth single versicle; most others have six to eight paired versicles. Several are fond of mentioning as many relics as they can (nineteen in all), reading almost like an inventory – see Gaude Syon … vexilla Footnote ⁴ and Vergente mundi vespere.

For a glimpse of the contrafacting process, we may look briefly at the opening versicles of the sequence Gaude Syon, originally for St Martin but adapted for both the Crown and the Relics feasts at the Sainte-Chapelle:

The syllable count for lines is 10+10+10+4, rather unusual compared to the more common 8+8+7. All three pieces use the same melody and essentially the same first line of text. In versicle 1a, the ten-syllable lines have the same two-syllable end rhyme (-olis), but line 4 in the Relics sequence has a different two-syllable rhyme (-antur) from that in the Martin and Crown versions of versicles 1a and 1b. Both contrafact works have different rhymes for lines 1–3 of versicle 1b when compared with the Martin piece.

There can be little doubt that the contrafacting choices in the sequence repertory served a theological and spiritual purpose and were perceived by at least some of their performers and audience. This was especially true when the contrafacting sequence clearly began with some of the same words and music as the original, prompting an immediate association between different works and liturgical occasions and significant new layers of meaning.

In his conclusions Maurey notes that by adopting the liturgy of Notre-Dame, the Sainte-Chapelle in effect inherited its emphasis on the role of the Virgin in salvation. To this was added the Sainte-Chapelle’s own emphasis on the redemptive power of Christ’s victory over death and the significance of the relics for the royal house and kingdom of France in the long sweep of salvation history. The eight days of the Crown of Thorns feast beginning 11 August in fact overlap with the eight days of the Assumption of the Virgin beginning 15 August. Ideas about the meaning of both feasts no doubt had a place in the minds of those present during this time.

Thus it is not surprising that both the Crown feast and the Relics feast include sequences that are contrafacts of Marian works for the Assumption of the Virgin. For instance, at Notre-Dame the sequence Letabundus exsultet fidelis chorus was used on three feasts of major significance for the Virgin: the third Mass of Christmas, the Assumption of the Virgin and the Reception of the Relics (4 December). The Virgin figured prominently in all three as the Mother of God, but the Assumption was the most important saint’s feast in the liturgical year at the cathedral. The two Relics contrafacts of Letabundus (as noted above) were intended for use within the octave of 30 September, while the two Crown contrafacts of Hodierni lux diei from the Assumption week could well have been sung in close proximity to their original during the week of 11 August. Besides the Passion relics, the Sainte-Chapelle collection included two relics of the Virgin.

It is a curious fact that much of the recent scholarship on the Sainte-Chapelle – architectural, historical, artistic and political – has been done by scholars who are not French, as Maurey’s bibliography shows. He most frequently cites the work of the historian Cecilia Gaposchkin, whose book Vexilla Regis Glorie: Liturgy and Relics at the Sainte-Chapelle in the Thirteenth Century (Paris, 2021) appeared a few months earlier than his. Though a slim volume of 247 pages, Maurey’s book adds capably and significantly to our understanding of the Sainte-Chapelle as a stunning French Gesamtkunstwerk of the High Middle Ages.