Castles of faith. The transmission of the Kyrie trope set Deus solus et immensus as an example of liturgical exegesis in the orthodoxy

Abstract

Taking the relationship between cultural transferences and musicology as a starting point, the Kyrie trope, Deus solus et immensus, is an extraordinary case-study in the historical context of local exchanges produced in the repertoire of the liturgical song. Beyond the philological-musical research, the main stylistic patterns of transmission (readings, variant, elements, etc.) are clearly identifiable to be of the utmost importance for some liturgical dynamics as well as the most varied features of identity related to the theological thought in the Christian conception of faith. Thus, it is necessary to take into account both the liturgical and theological effect of a sacred work in order to understand properly the tradition of plainsong such as Deus solus et immensus. Regarding to this point, the moral doctrine “ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi” (Prosper of Aquitaine, PL 50, 535B) recovers the most authentic application of its meaning in the liturgy and therefore a comprehensive analysis will be proposed in this paper with the aim of understanding the singularity of a manuscript tradition extended as a whole from St. Gall in the middle of the 10th century to Gerona at the end of the 15th century.