ABSTRACT
The pattern of Carolingian kingship was in stark contrast to the ruling powers previously seen in Western Europe since the collapse of the Roman Empire. The Admonitio Generalis warns that the clergy should ‘learn and practise the Roman chant correctly, in conformity with Pippin’s attempt to abolish the Gallican chant for the sake of unanimity with the Roman church’. The Roman origin of Gregorian chant is made clear by the texts, which derive not from a version of the psalter common in Francia, but instead from the Roman palter the Old Roman and Gregorian traditions, the same Feasts are assigned eighth-mode tracts, and they use the same texts. Existing analyses of the eighth-mode tracts range from generalised accounts to exhaustive studies of the genre, but these have always been restricted to either the Gregorian or the Old Roman tradition. The parallel nature of the eighth-mode tracts in the Gregorian and Old Roman traditions has not hitherto been investigated in detail.
