ABSTRACT
Naturally there are great differences between the living conditions of folk music and liturgical chant. Though excellent scholars like James McKinnon have achieved much in the field of early chant history and chronology, Gregorian chant is frequently considered as something born with and in notation, while the period before notation is, at least from a heuristic point of view, like a prehistoric era. Gregorian chant as notated in the early manuscripts shows the same image as a profile of archeological excavations that illustrates the vestiges of different ages. The Carolingian, post-Carolingian, Ottonian and post-millennial styles of Gregorian chant are completely missing from the Old Roman and Ambrosian repertories. If Gregorian chant had emerged in notation, or shortly before being notated, one could expect early manuscripts to contain much more homogeneous musical material. In oral cultures music material inherited from the past forms not only part of everyday practice but inspires adaptations as well.
