The liturgical procession conjures up two images. One is the Procession in Piazza San Marco painted by Gentile Bellini in 1496 to commemorate a healing miracle that occurred in 1444. Bellini captured the pageantry of the occasion as we seldom see it today. The Greater Litanies were observed everywhere on the feast of St Mark (25 April), but in Venice, where St Mark was the patron saint, that day's procession featured a relic of the True Cross. Two cantors, vested in surplice, antiphoner in hand, are clearly seen leading the procession. One can almost hear them singing ‘Quem deprecemur qui te mitiget’.

The other image is of a unique event: the procession for deliverance from the plague that the newly elected Pope Gregory the Great directed to be conducted through the streets of Rome in March 590. As told in the Legenda Aurea and depicted around 1413 by the Limburg brothers in the Très Riches Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry (fols. 71v–72), the procession came together from seven churches of Rome to S. Maria Maggiore. On the way, Pope Gregory saw a vision of the archangel St Michael atop Hadrian's tomb, sheathing his sword as a sign that the plague was ending. Hadrian's tomb has been known ever since as Castel Sant'Angelo. Behind the pope and several cardinals is someone holding a book, perhaps an antiphoner.

Joseph Dyer's ‘City Streets as Sacred Space’ is a splendid account of the subject.Footnote ¹ He describes the procession of 590 in detail (p. 21). Other chapters in this volume on Milan, Benevento, Padua, Trier, Tours and Soissons enlarge the discussion immeasurably.

Any discussion of processional antiphons must reference the antiphon Deprecamur te Domine, generally considered the oldest documented Gregorian chant because of the eighth-century citation of its full text by the Venerable Bede (Ecclesiastical History of the English People) and in the Vita S. Augustini as sung while St Augustine approached Canterbury in 597. Brockett transcribes the Aquitanian sources of the antiphons, but he also cites Kenneth Levy's 1982 discussion where four melodies are transcribed, and the first two equated:Footnote ² Carolingian (using SG 339, Pistoia C. 119 and Graz 807), Beneventan (Ben 34, Troia and Sora), Old Roman (Vat. lat. 5319) and Milanese (Oxford, Bod. lat. lit. a. 4, 87).

In the Middle Ages the liturgical year was filled with processions, often leading into church for the Mass, as on Candlemas (2 February), Ash Wednesday, the Lenten weekdays and Palm Sunday. On Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, the procession was accompanied by a hymn, not antiphons. The feast of Corpus Christi was especially splendid as the Blessed Sacrament was carried in a monstrance in procession after Mass accompanied by hymns. The Greater Litanies were complemented by the Lesser Litanies, or Rogations, on the three days before Ascension, supplicatory in nature, originally a Gallican observance.

Processional antiphons for other occasions, such as an agricultural society praying for rain or for fair weather (nimia pluvia!), fell into disuse, but the two books reviewed here have recovered hundreds of them, some still found in modern editions, the rest only in manuscript sources. Clyde Brockett spent twenty years preparing his edition of 440 antiphons with text and melody, and text alone for another 216 untranscribable antiphons. The latter include ninety texts of antiphons found only in León 8, the grand Hispanic antiphoner that dates to 900–5. Another nineteen are taken from the Old Roman source, Vat. lat. 5319, and three more from Bodmer 74. Untranscribed antiphons that have no neumes in the source are marked with an asterisk.

Laura Albiero's more modest book offers the texts of 682 antiphons, of which 120 are not found in Brockett's collection. Brockett, however, has forty-seven antiphons with melodies and 128 text-only antiphons that are not found in Albiero's book. She gives brief source citations, nothing comparable to the extensive notes and commentary that Brockett provides for each melody. Both volumes are arranged in alphabetical order, but Albiero numbers her list. This lack of agreement on what constitutes a processional antiphon gives scholars some grist for their mill. Avertatur furor tuus on Albiero's page 33 is simply a verse of Plebem istam on page 198 (from Vercelli sources); Brockett used the sources but did not cite this antiphon. Discumbens Dominus on page 56 is found only in the ninth-century BNF lat. 17436 from Compiègne.

The Gregorian Festival at Watou (Belgium) in 2000 focused attention on the processional antiphon, several participating scholas performing forty-six of them, some from modern editions, many transcribed from the same sources found here. Eighteen of the chants were included in a set of CDs (‘Cantus Gregorianus’, DigiClassics DC 0101055), eight found in modern editions, ten transcribed for the festival performances.

Brockett's interest in processional antiphons began in 1963 when he came across the Aquitanian antiphons for the Mandatum (Maundy Thursday) in Madrid. Next he studied the microfilm of BNF lat. 903 at Yale University, for the antiphons were not included in the facsimile in Paléographie Musicale XIII. He then collated BNF lat. 776, and these two Aquitanian sources provide a major part of his edition. Of his 440 antiphons with melody, 253 are transcribed from lat. 903, lat. 776 or (usually) both, not counting several other Aquitanian sources. He finally commenced this ‘concrete project’ (his words) in 1996 with a paper on the earliest rogation antiphons for the Roman rite in Germany, Pontificale Romano-Germanicum, and with the cooperation of numerous colleagues brought the whole to completion with a preface dated in 2014. He passed away the following year, but James Grier, the general editor of De musicae cultu (the projected series of which this is the first number), assisted by the author's widow, prepared the work for publication. It is expansively laid out in a large folio format with each transcribed antiphon nearly always started on a new page. The publication is a model of elegant book production.

Brockett identifies seventy-eight antiphon melodies that can be found in Solesmes editions, though he edits his own transcriptions of them from the sources. These include thirty-five in the Processionale Monasticum, twenty-two in the Liber Usualis as printed after 1955 (plus six also found in PM), nine in Variae Preces (plus four duplicated in PM) and eight in the Antiphonale Monasticum. In addition, he cites the Liber Responsorialis for Haec est generatio; the Graduale Triplex for Ecce lignum crucis, which is also in the LU; and the Graduale Romanum (1912) for Collegerunt pontifices, which was in LU before 1955. (What disdain of tradition can explain why such a significant antiphon as Collegerunt pontifices was dropped from the Palm Sunday liturgy in 1955?) He could also have cited PM for O beata infantia. He clarifies several incipits that could be confused with chants in modern editions that are not the same chants.

Some of Brockett's transcriptions may be compared with Albiero's different use of sources. On page 511 Brockett has ‘foliis palmae Redemptori’ (recte Redemptoris in BNF lat. 776), while Albiero on page 102 has ‘floribus et palmis Redemptori’, as found in LU 584 and PM 58. On page 659 Brockett's ‘Ne timetis’ is a misreading of lat. 776, for Albiero correctly reads ‘ne timeas’ in the same source, agreeing with AM 189 and the Cistercian antiphonal, page 3. On page 537 (from GB-Ob Douce 222), his reconstructed ‘et antiq[ua tempora]’ seems less likely than Albiero's reading on page 107 of ‘et antequam pereamus’ from the same source. On page 388 Brockett's ‘qui odore replet caelos’ must yield to Albiero's ‘odorem’ on page 85 (both use lat. 776), but on page 395 Brockett's ‘Longo contrito’ is correct, not Albiero's ‘Longo contritus’ on page 86 (again, both use lat. 776). On page 403 Brockett (using only BNF lat. 903) has ‘Maneant in nobis’, while Albiero (using lat. 776 as well as lat. 903) correctly has ‘vobis’ as in LU 674. On page 349 Brockett's ‘gloriosus es Deus noster’ must yield to Albiero's ‘est’ on page 79 (both use lat. 776 and 903). For Recordare Domine quid acciderit nobis, Brockett edits the Beneventan text (Ben 34) as ‘exaruae sunt’ on page 580 and the Old Roman text (Vat. lat. 5319) as ‘exaruit’ on page 582, while Albiero, editing one text from two Beneventan sources (Ben 34 and Vat. Reg. 334), has ‘exaruerunt’ on page 115.

Some apparent duplications vary because they are transcribed from different sources. On page 347 Brockett's ‘de Sion exibit lex’ from a Lille MS may be compared with Albiero's ‘in Sion facta est lex’ from three Vercelli sources on page 78. On page 66 Brockett's Benedicat nos Deus Pater custodiat (from BNF lat. 17296) is almost identical to Albiero's Benedicat te Deus Pater custodiat (from Vercelli 186) on page 36, and his Benedicat nos Deus Pater sanet with invocations of St Denis and companions (from Graz 807) on page 68 is otherwise identical to Albiero's Benedicat vos Deus Pater sanet (also from Vercelli 186) on page 36.

Carmen Rodríguez Suso discussed six chants for the Dedication of a Church first delivered at a colloquium in Metz in 1996.Footnote ³ (The chants have been recorded by Juan Carlos Asensio in Terribilis est, Pneuma PN-670.) Brockett has transcribed five of the chants from BNF lat. 780, the Narbonne MS that Rodriguez Suso used, but he fails to include Intulerunt sacerdotes, transcribing the text alone from León 8. But it is this antiphon that uniquely received special attention in Rodriguez Suso's article. Oddly, Albiero also omits it.

Brockett has only a few typos. One that recurs is ‘feria iv in Parasceve’ (recte vi), found on pages 242, 539 and 671. ‘Crucem tum’ should read ‘tuam’ on page 114 and ‘Pro Pluviam postlandum’ should read ‘postulandam’ on page 209. ‘Exultatio crucis’ should read ‘Exaltatio’ on page 117. The rubric ‘In die palmarum ad passionem’ should read ‘ad processionem’ on page 301. The rubric ‘in ramus palmarum’ should read ‘in ramis’ on page 438. The citation on page xxx (fn. 45) for JAMS vol. 51 should be 1998. The only melody printed without hyphens linking the syllables of each word is ‘Recordare Domine … exaruit’ on page 582. Entries in his bibliography (p. liii–lvi) are abbreviated inconsistently in the course of the book, some works cited by the author (e.g. Gros), others by the publication (MD), or by an abbreviated title (PRG), or by a keyword in the title (Cross) or in one case by the year of publication. E-L 8 is not found in the bibliography. The lack of uniformity unfortunately is counterintuitive.

But what was the purpose of a procession? It was a form of pageantry that lifted the spirit of the participant to contemplate the mystery of divinity. Long after processions and their antiphons faded from use, Maundy Thursday still witnessed a procession to the repository at the end of Mass. The Blessed Sacrament was carried through every aisle of the church, the girls garbed in their white First Communion dresses and veils and the boys in cassock and surplice, singing the hymn Pange lingua with the congregation, packed with their parents and grandparents who had once learned to sing it as children, the sanctuary banked with flowers and candles, incense casting a sweet odour along the way. All stayed at the end to adore the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ now placed in the repository, then went home with strengthened faith and deepened devotion. Even that ended in 1956 for a misguided sense of simplicity with an unceremonious transfer of the Host to the repository. A mere five chants survived in the Palm Sunday procession. These two editions of processional antiphons will remind us of an earlier time even as they provide scholars with a better grasp of the chants that once enhanced the faith of worshippers.