THE GREGORIAN CHANT

Music feuds are nothing new. They’ve cropped up in every era, and it’s not just musicians who get involved—sometimes the Church and the State jump in too. But few disputes had an arbitrator as sharp as the one that flared up when Charlemagne visited Rome to celebrate Holy Week, around 803 A.D.

The Emperor brought his own choir, and it didn’t take long for the French singers to start comparing themselves to the Roman church choristers—claiming they sang better, and more beautifully, than the Italians.

The Romans weren’t impressed. They insisted their style came directly down the line from St. Gregory, and accused the Gauls of mangling and watering down the true ecclesiastical tradition.

The argument got heated enough that Charlemagne decided to shut it down personally. He summoned his singers and asked a simple question:

Would the water of a fountain be purest at its source, or after it had flowed a long way and mixed with other streams?

Naturally, they answered: the closer to the source, the purer the water.

“Then climb back up to the pure fountain of St. Gregory,” the King replied, “whose chant you have clearly corrupted.”

When Charlemagne returned to France, he asked Pope Adrian to send two singers trained in the authentic Roman manner. The Pope appointed them, and Charlemagne stationed one at Metz and the other at Soissons. Adrian also sent choral books attributed to Gregory, so these Roman teachers—who had themselves learned from that tradition—could correct the French versions. Charlemagne then ordered all singing masters in his kingdom to study under these monks and bring their teaching and books into line with the Gregorian antiphonal.