GALLICANO CHANT. - In a broad sense the term Gallican chant extends to all forms of monodic liturgical music of the Western Church that are not of the Roman Church, that is, chant in use in Gaul, in Spain, in Ireland, in Milan, in contrast especially with Gregorian chant. In a strict sense, by the word Gallican chant is meant the chant of the Churches beyond the Alps and especially between the Rhine and the Pyrenees. In a third, little-used acceptation, Gallican chant could be that established in the 17th and 18th centuries in France following upon political and religious Gallicanism, which brought with it liturgical innovations.
The conditions concerning Gallican chant in the second acceptation are rather vague, whereas the ancient Gallican liturgy is better known. In fact, there exist no complete manuscripts of Gallican chant such as are found instead by the hundreds for Gregorian chant. The melodies called Gallican in their present form exist only in Gregorian or Ambrosian codices into which they have been introduced together with the rites and prayer formulas of Gallican origin. They are recognized by their often prolix structure, and by deductions and comparisons between the purely Roman sources and the authentic Gallican liturgical books, that is, the Antiphonaries of Fleury, of Marseilles, of Tours, of Lyons, the Missale Francorum and perhaps also the Lectionary of Luxeuil and the Homiliary of Alcuin. The least doubtful pieces of Gallican chant would be the "Pange lingua gloriosi proelium certaminis," a hymn composed by Venantius Fortunatus at the end of the 6th century at Poitiers, perhaps also the "Vexilla Regis," some melodies of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, such as the antiphon "O Crux" of the Gallican service of the Caneri, of the feast of St. Martin; of St. Barnabas, of the Transfiguration, of Palm Sunday ("Gloria Laus" and perhaps the antiphon "Cum audisset"). In Holy Week the "Agios o Theos" and the "Improperia" probably came into the Roman liturgy from the Gallican liturgy; but here arises the problem of the origin of these chants called Gallican, a problem that receives almost a solution from the evident traces of Oriental influence, recognizable also in Ambrosian chant. It would not suffice, then, to trace Gallican chant, like the other dialects of ancient Latin liturgical chant, back to a primitive Roman stock that would then have differentiated itself according to the particular genius of the countries where it carried out its evolution; this common stock is attested by the common liturgical texts and also by the substantially identical melodies; but beyond this, account must be taken of the contributions from the Eastern Churches, especially through the Church of Lyons, which had some bishops who were properly Oriental: for example, St. Irenaeus. Then the creative genius of the Gallic peoples manifested itself not only in the scenic illustration of the mysteries of the faith (the rite of the Mandatum) but also in the lyrical translation of the Christian drama centered on the person of Christ (the chant of the Eucharistic text "Venite populi ad sacrum mysterium," still in use in the churches of Milan and Lyons) and on the person of the martyrs (the chant of the Offertory "Elegerunt Stephanum" for the feast of St. Stephen).
A fatal blow was dealt to Gallican chant at the time when King Pepin and his son Charlemagne willed the return of Gaul to the Roman liturgy, which was the liturgy reformed by Gregory the Great; with the liturgy gone, the chant that accompanied it also disappeared. The only Church that perhaps can boast some memory of such chant is that of Lyons; but in the De correctione antiphonarii one cannot recognize exactly what has remained from the ancient use and what perhaps was introduced independently also from the Roman practice taught by masters of the great Carolingian schools such as, for example, Alcuin and Amalarius. The Church of Aix-en-Provence, in which the liturgy and Gallican chant were held in honor even after Charlemagne, has no longer preserved any claims to a liturgy of its own. The other centers in which the art of music was cultivated together with the other disciplines and from which some contribution to the obscure question of Gallican chant may be expected were Autun, Vienne, Arles, Narbonne, Toulouse and, further north, Tours, Poitiers, Orléans. The spread of the monks of Cluny and, with them, of the pure Roman liturgy, was the death blow to what may have remained of the fertile source of Gallican liturgical music.