ABSTRACT
In the medieval liturgy the sequence was the melodic composition sung at mass on important feasts, such as Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and prominent saints’ days between the termination of the Alleluia, which succeeded the gradual with its verse following the New Testament epistle, or old Testament or Apocryphal lesson, and the proclamation of the gospel.1 Supposed at one time to have been a prolongation of the series of notes sung on the final syllable of the Alleluia,2 an assumption subject to much debate among musicologists in recent times, the sequence, like the trope, which declined in use during the thirteenth century, was a deliberate elaboration of the ancient form of the liturgy.3 Its original purpose, however, seems to have been practical, for the length of time it took to finish the Alleluia with its protracted melody would have allowed the deacon to proceed without undignified haste from the altar to the ambo, or pulpit, in order to sing or chant the gospel.
