Western plainchant: a handbook (review)

164 Reviews power in 1373-74. In doing so it explores deftly both the internal political history of the island, particularly relationships between the crown and the nobility, and also its external relationships, expecially with the Kingdom of Jerusalem (to 1291), the Ayyubid and then Mamliik sultanate of Egypt, the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia, and the Papacy. Edbury makes particularly good use of the Papal registers to clarify the roles and functions of Cypms in the various Crusades and Holy Leagues of the fourteenth century. Generally the book is well produced. The maps and tables are clear and accurate. However, there are rather too many typographical errors for a Cambridge University Press publication; for example, 'However, if the occupation of Satelia [read, Satalia] can be seen as a development of earlier policies, it is [read, is it] not possible that the attempted occupation of Alexandria or its destruction can also be explained in such terms?'(p. 171). The proof-reading of this book is not of C.U.P.'s normal high quality. John H. Pryor Department of History University of Sydney Hiley, David, Western plainchant: a handbook, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993; pp. xcvii, 661; frontispiece, 18 plates, 6 maps, 1 figure, 38 •tables, 204 musical examples; R.R.P. A U S $ 190.00. If the title of this handsome and hefty tome is modest and precise, the corpus of music and associated literature that it surveys is vast and the intellectual achievement it represents is, quite simply, enormous. David Hiley has produced a superb reference work, a necessaryfirst-stop'for those coming new to plainchant and for those needing guidance in the specialist literature'. The book is a pleasure to use. Its clear organization and elegant presentation are well designed to achieve the author's twin aims. Liturgical, historical, palaeographical, theoretical, and analytical aspects of Latin chant are dealt with in eleven broad chapters which are themselves divided into multiple sections and subsections all clearly cross-referenced by means of the 'double numerator' system. Preceding these chapters that make up the bulk of the book is an exhaustive bibliography of around 1,500 entries, sixty-five pages covering everything from monumenta facsimile editions to gestetnered Polish manuscript studies, unpublished theses, and articles in east European and Scandinavian languages. Reviews 165 Hiley has the enviable ability to digest and summarize crisply huge amounts of information. Atop each chapter section he first cites the major studies and lists editions and facsimiles where applicable. H e then proceeds to an overview of the topic, outlining the main arguments and judiciously appraising differing opinions. Take, for example, his coverage of the notoriously complicated topic of early pitch systems and modal theory from Boethius to Guido of Arezzo [V.3-4]. Hiley's expose renders these intricacies readily comprehensible and does so in a most engaging manner. Western plainchant is by no means just a digest of others'research,it is full of unobtrusive, original insights. This can be seen most readily in the aptness of Hiley's choice of musical examples, over two hundred of them, all transcribed directly from original sources. His conversance with such a wide range of sources is indicative of the breadth of his scholarship. The bulk of the book is devoted to plainsong of the Roman rite, that is, Gregorian chant. However, it includes a substantial chapter on 'Other repertories': Milanese, Old Roman, Beneventan, and Mozarabic chant (VIII.3-7). It also has several sections on the distinctive reformed Gregorian liturgies of various religious orders: the Cistercians, Dominicans, Carthusians, and Nobertines (X. 2-4). Not surprisingly, the largest chapters are those devoted to 'Chant genres' (II. 1-27) and 'Notation' (IV. 1-9). In addition to covering all the mass and office chants, recitation formulas and psalm tones, Chapter II also embraces the medieval accretions to the liturgy, those musically diverse genres which were largely scrapped by the Tridentine Reforms: sequences, tropes, historia (rhymed offices), liturgical dramas, and paraliturgical songs (versus). The chapter on notation examines a variety of systems tracing general lines of development and noting regional characteristics. Appended to the chapter are eighteen chronologically arranged monochrome plates which serve to illustrate some of the main...