Gallican Chant - General Characteristics

General Characteristics

No chantbooks of Gallican chant have survived, although the first documented reference to a book of Western plainchant is of a Gallican text with psalms and chants. What we know of Gallican chant comes from contemporary descriptions of the chant, and Gallican elements that survived in later Gregorian sources.

Gallican chant was said to be recognizably different from Roman chant in both its texts and its music. Walahfrid Strabo, writing in the 9th century, judged Roman chant as "more perfect" and Gallican as incorrect and "inelegant." The Gallican rite and texts were often florid and dramatic compared with their Roman counterparts, which may be reflected in the importance of melismatic music in Gallican chant compared with Roman. The use of two reciting tones in Gregorian psalmody may derive from Gallican chant. Another element of Gregorian chant not found in Roman chant, which may reflect Gallican conventions, is the "Gallican cadence," in which the final neume, found only in Gaulish sources, is an upward step whose second pitch is repeated, such as C-D-D. Some types of Gallican chant show direct influence from Byzantine chant, including the use of Greek texts.

Compositional techniques included certain common incipits, cadences, and the use of centonization.

The chief candidates for chants in the Gregorian repertory that may be Gallican fossils are those chants not occurring in the Roman tradition, but having counterparts in the Mozarabic chant and Ambrosian chant traditions, and local and votive chants specific to French saints and locations.