TROPE. – An ornament of liturgical chant through interpolation or addition, which thus tends to embellish by lengthening. This is especially true of the musical trope. The literary trope, following popular taste, fragments a prior, primitive, or even added melody into syllabic chant.
It seems that originally the word trope was synonymous with melody (e.g., in the works of Fortunatus), whence the expression *trempi carminum*, used to designate the chant that accompanied added verses (ms. St. Gall 484). Although it is certain that in Gregorian chant the trope is found toward the end of the 9th century, its origin is not easily determined. St. Gall and St. Martial of Limoges were the first two important centers of a practice that spread rapidly to all countries, and tropes soon appeared in all liturgical chants, in the parts of the Office, and in even greater numbers in those of the Mass, except for the gradual, which is rarely drawn from one. A distinction is usually made between large tropes (those of the Kyriale) and small tropes (those of the Proper of the Mass). It is further noted that even the readings (Epistles) are tropes, and that tropes were even introduced into tropes (e.g., *Regnum tuum solidum*). The tropes of the *Gloria in excelsis* have received the name *Laudes*. Whatever one may say, there must be some connection between these *Laudes*, these tropes, and the *Laudes festivae* or acclamations that accompanied the *Gloria*. As the *Laudes festivae* are not tropes, neither is the *Versus* properly a trope: it is a poem whose syllabic chant accompanies a procession; it thus comes to be joined to the Introit, of which it serves as an introduction. Yet it played a major role in the history of the trope, since its composition guided the evolution of the trope toward a poetic form, first in assonance (tropes of the first period, up to 1070–80), then in rhyme and increasingly independent of the liturgical text (tropes of the second period). One can thus understand what a "trope Office" might have been in the 13th century; manuscripts give an idea of this in that a festive Mass alone occupies 5 or 6 times more pages than the simple Gregorian text. As a result of this development, the sense and beauty of pure Gregorian melody remained misunderstood: tropes are witnesses to an evolution in taste and also in piety, as well as to the complacency of clergy and faithful in lengthy ceremonies. On the other hand, this trope movement later gave rise to more recent art forms: from the trope indeed came the sequence, then the song in the vernacular, popular song, or the poetry of the troubadours (v.); from the trope also derive liturgical drama and, through medieval theater, modern opera. The trope also provided material for the earliest polyphonic compositions.