ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the methods for analysing that most intractable of repertories, and indeed one of the most contentious issues within that repertory: the problem of plainchant and its variants. It seems astonishing that musicologists have not adopted a consistent method for recording this kind of analysis with respect to plainsong. Textual analysis or textual criticism, the comparison and analysis of variants, often with the intention of reaching an archetype, has a long tradition and well established methods. The techniques include the analysis of the words in addition to the paleographical features of the letters. Authorized revisions, to make books conform to a specific exemplar, as with the Dominican liturgy in the second half of the thirteenth century, or to Roman Use in particular, as at the end of that century, or to specific musical 'rules', as with Cistercian chant in the twelfth century, may have resulted in the destruction of non-conforming books.
