The Exsultet Chant in the Sixteenth-Century Missale Paulinorum

Abstract

In light of the information gleaned from musical analysis concerning the version of the Exsultet chant in the Missale Paulinorum, it should be stated that this is not a faithful copy of either the Norman melody widespread in Europe or of the Gniezno melody. Its melody is full of modifications of various types in relation to the selected comparative sources, for the most part reflecting favourably on the originality of the Pauline source. One can observe in it, for example, certain features shared with the Roman version or different to it, differing from the Gniezno version but close to the Roman, or else displaying a surprising similarity with the Gniezno version but differing from the Roman, a salient example being the initial leap of a fourth. It cannot be excluded that the Pauline and Gniezno versions made use of a common melodic model (from Cracow, for example), whilst the authors of each imparted to their notation an individual colouring. This kind of variability to the melody attests on one hand the considerable migration of this chant and on the other the growing differences between melodic versions towards the end of the Middle Ages. This may be regarded also as a kind of aspiration to breaking up the universality of this chant, or even a desire to throw off the dictates of the old conventions or to lend it a local colouring. The Pauline variant of the Easter Proclamation analysed here, displaying considerable artistry, is a case in point.