ABSTRACT
Different versions of the chants are found in manuscripts from different regions, different periods and different monastic traditions. The manuscript sample consists of many of the readily available manuscripts in facsimile, on microfilm, and in English libraries. The manuscript evidence supports the contention that as the tradition became more widely known in writing, and as notated versions of chants played a more active role in their transmission, local variations filtered in. Although date, origin, and the evidence of regional notational styles are used where possible as a starting point for defining relationships between manuscripts, the main evidence used to evaluate transmission patterns is that of melodic variants. The Old Roman manuscripts do not include chants in the local idiom for the canticles and processional tract of the Easter Vigil, instead using Gregorian forms of Attende, Cantemus, Vinea and Sicut.
