BYZANTINE, MUSIC. — This is the general name given to the musical system of the Churches of Byzantine rite, which had as their principal centre Byzantium.
I PERIOD
With the Gospel, the Apostles brought their traditions. Hymns and psalms resounded in the early Christian assemblies as in the synagogue, perhaps in the same Jewish melodies. Gradually, however, as Hellenic masses were converted to the faith, these melodies no longer satisfied them, for the Greek people had too strong a sense of art. It is therefore easy to imagine that, after the Constantinian peace, the new grand temples of Greek Christendom must have resounded with hymns and psalms performed in the ancient Dorian, Lydian, Phrygian, etc. modes. Throughout the period from the 1st to the 8th centuries, however, we are far from having a single system of chant. Clement of Alexandria, in the *Paedagogus* (PG 8, 445), recommends abandoning the chromatic mode, as it stimulates passion. At Alexandria, chant was nothing more than a more or less modulated recitation. At Caesarea in Cappadocia, St Basil—who more than anyone else sought to reconcile classical spirit with the new faith—according to Michael Psellos, formed strong choirs in his church, as among the ancient Greeks; he composed new hymns and new melodies, and in the chant entrusted certain parts even to female voices. This was to combat the Arians, who with their theatrical music attracted many simple folk to their churches. Several Fathers tolerated, for the same reason, even the introduction of instruments (Nicephorus, *Historia*, IX, 16), whose use—or rather abuse—was later forbidden once the cause had ceased. The Council of Laodicea (can. 55) forbade in churches the singing by individuals who had not received the ordination of cantor, and also forbade the performance of non-canonical psalms (can. 49). In time, however, many new hymns and melodies were officially accepted; Sophronius of Jerusalem, Romanos the Melodist, and many others, have left deep traces in hymnody and music, which, from the driving centre, can now be called Byzantine.
Throughout this period, musical notation or semiography was the alphabetic system already used by the classical authors.
Documents are extremely rare, and all that remains is a few highly valuable papyri whose interpretation presents insurmountable difficulties.
In the second half of this period, a new semiography called *ephonetic* (i.e., declamatory) arose. From the documents that have come down to us, it seems that it was used only for the declamation of prophetic, apostolic, and evangelical readings. The signs number 14. The manuscripts known to us today (about twenty) belong to the 7th–13th centuries; afterwards they disappear. Their interpretation is difficult because the keys are missing and the exact value of the individual signs is unknown.
II PERIOD (8th–13th centuries). — This is the golden age of Byzantine hymnody and music. The liturgy is enriched with poetic-musical compositions of the highest artistic-literary value. The composers of the Greek churches of southern Italy are not inferior to the Orientals; among the many Italo-Greeks, mention should be made of Mark of Otranto, Joseph of Syracuse, Nilus of Rossano, founder of the famous monastery of Grottaferrata, and his disciple Bartholomew. Above all, however, two great figures stand out: Cosmas of Maiuma and John of Damascus. To these two, and especially to the latter, tradition attributes the musical reform that began in the 8th century.
The musical system is divided into eight modes: 4 authentic and 4 plagal. These retain the old names: Dorian, Lydian, Phrygian, Mixolydian, but are also simply called first, second, plagal of the first, etc. New diastematic signs are created to indicate the various intervals or groups of notes. It should be noted, however, that these signs do not indicate a single precise interval of 2, 5, etc., but rather a group of successive notes with established rules, though with different movement depending on whether the same sign is found in one “mode” or another, in one position or another. These signs were therefore more than anything mnemonic aids for the cantor, who, to perform his office worthily, had to have a strong musical memory. To make the task easier, other signs called *zeppovolga* (law of the movement of the hands) were created; placed above or below the diastematic signs, they indicated to the cantor more clearly the various movements of the musical phrase contained in that sign. Expert masters, with the movement of their hands (from which the name *zeppovolga* derives), further facilitated the task of the choir. The diastematic signs number 14, of which 11 are still in use today. The chironomic signs also number 14, later increasing in number. At the beginning of each melody, the “mode” to which it belongs and the *zeppolga* or key are indicated. The manuscripts of this period known to us today number slightly more than 50, many of them in the library of Grottaferrata. Taking into account the living tradition and the manuscripts of the following period, although the task is always arduous, it is nevertheless possible to reconstruct these ancient melodies.
III PERIOD (13th–19th centuries). — From the 8th–11th centuries, Byzantine hymnography reached its apogee. Poetic-musical compositions abound in the entire liturgical cycle. The great masters from the 11th century onwards set themselves, as their main task, to teach, through the laws of “chironomy,” how to faithfully interpret the compositions of the great hymnographers. The system invented by these masters was not easy: the stenographic meaning, not only of the chironomic signs but also of many diastematic signs, gave rise to no small divergences. A new reform was envisaged and this took place in the 13th century. It is attributed to John Kukuzelis, master of the imperial chapel and later monk in the Great Lavra of Athos. He was probably, however, only the most prominent exponent of a system that began long before him and did not end until the last reform.
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BYZANTINE, MUSIC — Scales of the Byzantine Octoechos. Nativity Hymn by St Romanos the Melodist. Traditional Byzantine Melody.
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**SCALES OF THE BYZANTINE OCTOECHOS**
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**NATIVITY HYMN**
*by St Romanos the Melodist*
*Traditional Byzantine Melody*
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**BYZANTINE, MUSIC — Scales of the Byzantine Octoechos. Nativity Hymn by St Romanos the Melodist. Traditional Byzantine Melody.**
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(adapted from Enc. Catt.)
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BYZANTINE, MUSIC — Scales of the Byzantine Octoechos. Nativity Hymn by St Romanos the Melodist.
In this system, almost all the disattentic signs are given a precise value (leaps of 2, 3, etc.). The melody, however, is not yet written out in full. To indicate the development of the melody (which, as they expressed it, is contained in the disattentic sign as the ear of grain in the grain of wheat), the chironomic signs are still used, whose rules are more clearly defined, and the number of these signs has greatly increased. It should also be noted that the same sign changed in value according to its position and even if it was written in red or black. The μαρτυρίαι or keys are indicated not only at the beginning of the melody, but also after each musical period, indicating the last note sung. The great benefit of this introduction is obvious to all. The φθορὰι or accidentals, peculiar to each “mode,” are generally marked, whereas previously this too had been entrusted to the singer’s memory. Many grammars were also written, some of which have come down to us (v. L. Tardo, L’antica melugia bizantina, Grottaferrata 1938, pp. 145-260). Even these, however, require the interpretation of the teacher, since they are neither clear nor complete.
In time, the chironomic signs continued to increase, with the aim of committing to writing ever more exactly what tradition had handed down. Famous masters of this period, among many others, were Giovanni Kladás, Manuele il Vecchio (15th century), Manuele il Giovan and Balasios (16th century). The latter especially began to address the problem of writing the melodies more exactly with disattentic signs, without too many omissions. He began his system by interpreting many of the chironomic signs. Other masters followed him, up to Pietro del Peloponneso, lambadharos (head of the left choir) of the Great Church (18th century). He abandoned the old synthetic semiography, which consisted of a few phrases for each “mode,” easy to remember, and written in the old chironomic signs, and analyzed almost everything else. He followed Balasios’s method but carried it much further. He taught his method to a host of disciples. Having done this, he undertook a work that was to immortalize him in the annals of Byzantine music: the transcription of all the melodies handed down by tradition to his time, including those of the andante type, which had never been written down before but only transmitted orally. No one could have done this work better than he, endowed as he was with an incomparable musical memory, so that he could transcribe any melody after hearing it only once. The intelligent lambadharos had thus paved the way for a radical reform. With the advent of printing, stenographic semiography no longer had any reason to exist.
IV PERIOD (19th century). — Following in Pietro’s footsteps at the end of the 18th century, three learned and courageous masters—Crisanto, bishop of Prusa, Gregorio lambadharos and Cur-musico cartophilax—set about delivering the final blows to the old system. In 1815 they presented the fruits of their labor to the Ecumenical Patriarch, who, after much hesitation, finally approved II. The blind attachment to tradition meant that this system was opposed by many, including the very protopsaltes (first cantor) of the Great Church, Costantino; indeed, it is interesting to note (to demonstrate the accuracy of the transcription of the melodies) that while he sang from books using the old system, Gregorio lambadharos, at the same time, sang from books using the new system.
Thus reformed, the Byzantine musical system took on its definitive form and is still today the official system in the Byzantine Church.
The reform consisted in the following: 1) The abolition of every remnant of stenography. 2) All disattentic signs are given a precise value (intervals of 2, 5, etc.). 3) Some signs, which in the old system had a stenographic value (e.g., ὀξείς, τελῳστός, etc.), were simply abolished.
4) Almost all the chironomic signs were also abolished, as they had now become useless. Those that remained were given only an expressive value. 5) The solfège, which the ancient masters taught using monosyllables: Na, Ne, Te, To, Ru, Rem, etc., was now taught using the seven musical notes taken from the alphabet: πΑ (re) — Βου (mi) — Γα (fa) — Δι (sol) — ΣΕ (la) — Ζω (si) — VH (do). In almost everything else, fidelity to tradition was maintained. The modes are still eight and follow the old denominations and scales. So too are the μαρτυρίαι or keys and the φθορὰι or accidentals. Finally, it should be noted that the three reformers transcribed, in the new system, all the ancient melodies of the liturgical year.
CONCLUSION. — After what has been said, a question naturally arises: are the melodies now in use in the Byzantine Church the same as those that came from the pens of the ancient infragraphers? The answer must be that many of them bear the names of composers, especially from the 14th century onward; they are therefore not the melodies of the infragraphers. Others are original melodies, but embellished by later authors, whose names are given in the manuscripts. Then there are all the other traditional melodies, transcribed, as mentioned above, by Pietro lambadharos; these should go back to the original authors. Sound criticism, however, opposes this. After so many centuries, one cannot speak of identity between today’s melodies and those of the past. Nevertheless, considering that the tradition has always been alive, and moreover transmitted by genuine schools directed by excellent masters, under the direct supervision of the high clergy of the Church of Constantinople, it must be concluded that, while admitting a necessary evolution, these melodies retain much that is original, and that the reconstruction of the ancient melodies is possible only on the basis of these.
For many years, many European musicologists have been studying the ancient Byzantine musical system. But some of them do not take tradition into account at all. Given this, they have reached the most disparate conclusions. Some even deny the scales and the value of the disattentic signs. Instead, they invent their own. Others deny the existence of any stenography and interpret the chironomic signs as signs of expression, forgetting that the Greeks call expression ἐκφρασμός and not χειρονομία.
In Italy, a great impetus to the study of Byzantine music has been given by Fr. Lorenzo Tardo of the monastery of Grottaferrata, who has made it possible for everyone to deepen their studies in the field.
BYZANTINE CANON LAW. – Originally, it was the particular law of the Church of Byzantium, or Constantinople, which became the common law of all the Eastern Churches of the Byzantine rite, both Catholic and dissident.
I. SCOPE
All the pagan peoples whose evangelization Constantinople contributed to, such as the Russians and Serbs, or who, for one reason or another, definitively turned towards Constantinople, acknowledging its supremacy, simultaneously received the Byzantine liturgy and ecclesiastical discipline, so much so that, subsequently, Byzantine canon law effectively became the common foundation of the legislation of all the Churches that, at some point, to varying degrees, acknowledged the authority of the patriarchate of Constantinople: in other words, of all the Orthodox Churches in the sense of the Council of Chalcedon, i.e., practically all the Churches of the Byzantine rite.Thus, today the Byzantine discipline is followed as a common foundation of legislation, supplemented by the particular law of individual communities, by the following: the Greeks strictly so called and Hellenes, the Melkites of the three patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, the Romei, the Ukrainians or Ruthenians, the Russians, the Georgians, the Serbs, and then various small groups of Albanians, Hungarians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Finns, Chinese, and Japanese. It should be noted that in almost all the aforementioned groups, there exists a united Catholic community which bases its discipline on Byzantine canon law, just as the dissidents of the respective group do.
II. DURATION
The history of purely Byzantine canon law spans a period of about thirteen centuries, more precisely from the Council in Trullo of 691, in which Byzantine discipline was affirmed with its most characteristic features, until the fall of Constantinople into the hands of the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Indeed, before 691, the Byzantine patriarchate was governed almost exclusively by conciliar and patristic legislation, common to the whole Catholic Church, or at most by the particular law of the entire Eastern Church. On the other hand, after 1453, the patriarchate of Constantinople, increasingly weakened both by the establishment of Catholic communities and by the emancipation of dissident Churches which acquired their own autocephaly, established a new law, not recognized, in principle at least, by the other Churches, and to which, with greater justification, the qualification of Greek or Hellenic is reserved.III. SOURCES
Canon 2 of the Council in Trullo established the sources of Byzantine canon law as follows: 1) the 85 canons known as the Apostolic Canons, extracted from Book VIII of the Apostolic Constitutions; 2) the canons of the Ecumenical Councils of Nicaea I (325), Constantinople I (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451); 3) the canons of seven local councils held in the East: Ancyra in Galatia (c. 314), Neocaesarea in Pontus (between 314 and 325), Gangra in Paphlagonia (mid-4th century), Antioch in Syria (314, or 330-32), Laodicea in Phrygia (between 347 and 381), Sardica in Moesia (343), Constantinople (394), to which is added only one local council of the West, that of Carthage in 419; 4) the canons of twelve Fathers of the Eastern Church: the holy archbishops of Alexandria Dionysius (d. 264), Peter (d. 311), Athanasius (d. 373), Timothy (d. 385), Theophilus (d. 412), and Cyril (d. 444); St. Gregory of Neocaesarea (d. 270), St. Basil of Caesarea in Cappadocia (d. 379), St. Gregory of Nyssa (d. c. 390), St. Amphilochius of Iconium (d. c. 403), St. Gennadius of Constantinople (d. 471); from the writings of the Fathers of the Western Church, only the letter written by Cyprian of Carthage on behalf of the bishops of Africa at the Council of 256 on the Baptism of heretics is accepted; 5) finally, the 102 canons of the same Council in Trullo.To complete the list of sources of Byzantine canon law, one must also add, naturally, the 22 canons of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, the Second Council of Nicaea (787). The dissident Byzantines add to these the 17 canons of a double council (known as the first-second) held in the church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople in 861 under Patriarch Photius, as well as 3 canons from another council held in the church of Hagia Sophia in 879 under the presidency of the same patriarch. Moreover, Byzantine commentators of the Middle Ages included in the Corpus of canon law writings by other patriarchs of Constantinople, namely: a synodal letter of St. Tarasius (784-806) addressed to Pope Adrian, 35 canons of John the Faster (582-595), two canons attributed to St. Nicephorus (806-815), as well as two responses of Nicholas Grammaticus (1084-1111).
IV. COLLECTIONS
In addition to the chronological collections compiled in accordance with Canon 2 of the Council in Trullo and which were progressively supplemented with the canons of new councils or decisions of patriarchs, the Church soon after the publication of the second edition of the Justinian Code knew a *Collection of Sixty Titles* (*Collectio LX titulorum*), now lost, compiled around 535. The first systematic collection of canons to have come down to us is the *Collection of Fifty Titles* (*Collectio L titulorum*), compiled by John Scholasticus in Antioch around 550, and later republished by him in Constantinople after his elevation to the patriarchal see of that city in 565 (G. Voell-H. Justell, *Bibliotheca iuris canonici veteris*, II, Paris 1661, pp. 490-602; cf. V. Beneševič, *Synagoga 50 titulov i drugie iuridiceskie sborniki Ioanna Skolastika*, Petrograd 1914). From the period before the Council in Trullo there is also a valuable and precise *Synopsis of Canons*, revised around 965 by Simeon the Logothete, and known mainly through the commentary of Aristene (Voell-Justell, *op. cit.*, pp. 673-709; G. Rhaules, M. Potles, *Σύνταγμα τῶν δελφῶν καὶ ἱερῶν κανόνων*, IV, Athens 1854, pp. 393-416). Finally, among the systematic collections must be numbered a *Penitential Book* (*Liber poenitentialis*) of uncertain date, erroneously known under the name of the *Nomocanon of John the Faster*, patriarch of Constantinople from 582 to 595 (Rhaules-Potles, *op. cit.*, pp. 432-435; cf. Zaozerski-Khakhanov, *Nomokanon Ioanna Postnika*, Moscow 1902; A. J. Almasov, *Kanonarij monakha Ioanna*, Odessa 1907).Yet the most characteristic feature of the collections of canon law is the extensive reception they accord to the civil legislation on ecclesiastical matters, often considered as a true, if not autonomous, source of canon law. Initially, such texts were collected in separate compilations; thus we have: the *Collection of Twenty-Five Chapters* (*Collectio XXV capitulorum*), extracted from the Justinian Code and already appended to the *Collection of Sixty Titles* (G. Heinbach, *’Ανέκδοτα*, II, Leipzig 1840, pp. 145-207); the *Collection of Eighty-Eight Chapters* (*Collectio LXXXVIII capitulorum*) compiled by John Scholasticus as a supplement to his canonical work (Heinbach, *op. cit.*, pp. 208-34); the *Collection of Twenty-Six Chapters* (*Collectio XXVI capitulorum*) extracted from various Novels of Justinian (Voell-Justell, *op. cit.*, pp. 660-72); the *Tripartite Collection* (*Collectio Tripartita*), extracted from the *Corpus iuris civilis*, more precisely from the first thirteen titles of the Code, with indications of the respective parallel passages (whence the collection is also called *Partita rotalis*), from the Digest, and from the Novels, with a commentary by Anastasius Scholasticus on the latter (Voell-Justell, *op. cit.*, pp. 1217-1361).
However, it was not long before civil laws on ecclesiastical matters (νόμοι) and Church canons (κανόνες) were gathered together into a single collection under the same headings, giving rise to the famous collections known as Nomocanons. Already towards the end of the 6th century, an unknown author arranged under the headings of the *Collectio LX titulorum* the material contained in the *Collectio LXXXVIII capitulorum*, thus artificially forming the first Nomocanon, a Slavic translation of which made in the 9th century is attributed to St. Methodius (H. Schmid, *Die Nomokanōnübersetzung des Methodius*, Leipzig 1922). But the best-known of these collections is the *Nomocanon XIV titulorum* (PG 104, 441-976; I. B. Pitta, *Iuris ecclesiastici Graecorum historia et monumenta*, II, Rome 1868, pp. 433-642; R. Halles-Potles, I, Athens 1852, pp. 1-335; cf. V. Benesevič, *Kanoničeskij sbornik XIV titulov so vtoroj četverti VII veka*, St. Petersburg 1905; K. E. Zachariae von Lingenthal, *Über den Verfasser und die Quellen des Pseudophotianischen Nomokanon in XIV Titeln*, ibid. 1885; V. Narbekov, *Nomokanon Konstantinskago patriarcha Fotija*, Kazan 1899). The first edition of this Nomocanon, which probably used a previous collection of 14 titles made around 580, dates from the time of Heraclius, about 629, and comprises three parts: the first contains the arrangement of canonical texts into 14 titles; the second is a chronological collection of canons; the third contains civil texts, drawn from the *Collectio Tripartita* and from the *Novellae* of Heraclius. The second recension of this Nomocanon, made in 883 and traditionally attributed to Patriarch Photius, introduces into the collection later canonical texts and inserts among the canons references to the respective civil documents, thus forming a Nomocanon in the full sense of the word. There is also a third, little-known recension by Theodore Balsamon in 1080, who contented himself with reproducing civil documents in full and inserting references to the text of the *Basilicalia*, the new and extensive legal collection of the Macedonian dynasty. Translated into Slavonic in the course of the 12th century according to the so-called Photian recension (cf. Benesevič, *Drevne-slavjanskaja Kormčaja XIV titulov bez tolkovanij*, St. Petersburg 1906), and enriched and commented upon in 1198 by the noted canonist Balsamon, the Nomocanon in 14 titles was and remains the most representative and fundamental monument of Byzantine canon law.