IN IUBILO CUM CANTICO

Om troper och trop forskning

Abstract

Tropes are generally defined as additions to the chants of the medieval mass. Beside the sequences, the tropes flourished during a period from the tenth through the twelfth century as new poetic and musical genres. In the article, which is based on a presentation given to the General Assembly of the European Science Foundation in Strasbourg in November 1984, the author presents the tropes as phenomenon in the cultural history of the middle ages. Three tropes are used as examples namely Agnus Christe patris and Quem Iohannes / Cui Abel, added to the Agnus Dei chant of the Ordinary, and Ego autem / Dermivi pater, a trope added to the introit antiphon Resurrexi which introduces the Easter mass. The tropes were part of the liturgy. The tropes were sung. To analyze them textual and musical aspects must be considered together, to understand them the liturgical context must be regarded. The theological aspects of the texts must be considered. Some tropes formed as dialogues are important clues in the study of early European drama. The study of tropes is bound to be interdisciplinary. An important interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars representing different fields of medieval research is organized by the project Corpus Troporum in an international research programme under the umbrella of the European Science Foundation. This programme is presented in the last part of the article.