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Armin Karim Dissertation 2014-04-04.pdf (2.88 MB)

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"My People, What Have I Done to You?": The Good Friday Popule meus Verses in Chant and Exegesis, c. 380–880

Karim, Armin
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1396645278

Abstract Details

2014, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Musicology.
The Roman Catholic Good Friday liturgy includes a series of chants known today as the Improperia (“Reproaches”) beginning with the following text: Popule meus, quid feci tibi? aut in quo contristavi te? responde mihi. Quia eduxi te de terra Egypti, parasti crucem Salvatori tuo (“My people, what have I done to you, or in what have I grieved you? Answer me. Because I led you out of the land of Egypt, you prepared a cross for your Savior”). The earliest witness to the chants is a Carolingian liturgical book from around 880, but it is agreed among scholars that their history extends back farther than this. Employing comparative analysis of Biblical exegesis, chant texts, and chant melodies, this study suggests that the initial chant verse, Micah 6:3–4a plus a Christianizing addendum (“My people... you prepared...”), originated in northwestern Italy between the end of the 4th century and the end of the 7th century and carried associations of the Last Judgment, the Passion, and Christian works, penitence, and forgiveness. Although previous scholarship has sometimes pointed to the Reproaches as a key text of Christian anti-Jewish history, it is clear that the initial three verses, the Popule meus verses, originally held allegorical rather than literal meanings. The fact that there are several preserved Popule meus chants across various liturgical repertoires and, moreover, several sets of Popule meus verses in a smaller subset of these repertoires—in northern Italy, southern France, and the Spanish March—bespeaks the pre-Carolingian origins of the Popule meus verses and raises the question of why the verses appear in the Carolingian liturgy when they do. This study proposes that the Popule meus verses were incorporated into the Carolingian liturgy at the Abbey of Saint-Denis under the abbacy of Charles the Bald (867–77). In the Adoration of the Cross ceremony adopted from Rome, paired with the Greek Trisagion, and carrying Gallican melody and meaning, the Carolingian Popule meus verses would have been an ecumenical declaration, as they spread, of the expediency of the crucified Christ and a penitent people, even in the face of impending political disintegration.
David Rothenberg (Advisor)
318 p.
Ancient History; Art History; Bible; Biblical Studies; European History; History; Judaic Studies; Medieval History; Medieval Literature; Middle Ages; Middle Eastern History; Music; Near Eastern Studies; Religion; Religious History; Theology
Popule meus; Improperia; Reproaches; Trisagion; Good Friday; chant; liturgy; exegesis; Gregorian chant; Carolingian; Gallican; Ambrosian; Beneventan; Old Hispanic; Ambrose; Caesarius; Isidore of Seville; Charles the Bald; Eriugena; Hincmar of Rheims

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Citations

  • Karim, A. (2014). "My People, What Have I Done to You?": The Good Friday Popule meus Verses in Chant and Exegesis, c. 380–880 [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1396645278

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Karim, Armin. "My People, What Have I Done to You?": The Good Friday Popule meus Verses in Chant and Exegesis, c. 380–880. 2014. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1396645278.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Karim, Armin. ""My People, What Have I Done to You?": The Good Friday Popule meus Verses in Chant and Exegesis, c. 380–880." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1396645278

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case1396645278
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© 2014, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.