Hymns and poems at mass in eleventh-century Southern Italy (other than sequences)

Certain hymn-like texts, cast in strophes with more or less regular syllable count and rhythmical or metrical structure, are associated with the Roman mass rite and with relics o f old Beneventan propers in southern Italy. M ost o f these texts must have existed independently as hymns or poems before being assigned diverse liturgical functions in the eleventh and early twelfthcentury manuscripts where they are found. Some may have persisted from a time when non-scriptural songs were being introduced at mass, as Walafrid suggested. I propose to examine four cases in detail and to list four others. I shall omit discussion o f ambrosiani at the office; processional hymns as such; Latin texts based upon or translated from Greek2; prosulas; sequences; and most o f the hymns thought to be immured within the sequence repertory3.