TRACTUS (Tract). - It is the chant that follows the Gradual (v.) and serves in place of the Alleluia during penitential times from Septuagesima to Easter, in Masses for the dead, and on certain other days (vigils, etc.). It consists of two, three, four, or even more verses that in early Christian antiquity were sung by a single cantor, later by two at the ambo in succession (tractum), i.e., without antiphonal or responsorial interruptions by the choir.
Originally the tract followed the second scriptural reading that preceded the Gospel, while the Gradual followed the first; but when the first or second reading was suppressed, the tract was joined immediately to the Gradual. After the introduction of the Alleluia chant (Gregory M.) and its extension to all feasts and Sundays of the year, the tract remained only for the Sundays of penitential times, during which the Alleluia is omitted. The tract Domine non secundum dei on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays of Lent is a Gallican importation of the 8th century, deriving from the liturgy for penitents (Jungmann), since weekdays with only one prophetic reading customarily had only one chant, namely the Gradual. The melodies of the tract are considered by Wagner among the most ancient and venerable monuments of Latin ecclesiastical chant.
Wagner explains the Latin term tractus as the equivalent of the Greek ἐπόμος = *hirmos*, i.e., a typical melody for intoning the various parts of a hymn; the tract would be nothing other than the primitive Gradual, namely a responsorial psalm from the 4th or 5th century, in which the response before the abbreviation of the texts was omitted for the enrichment of the melodies. Hence the tract is not to be regarded as a chant of mourning or penance; but since the season of Lent has preserved the ancient elements of the liturgy, it has also preserved the ancient Gradual, called tract, with its most ancient melodies.