For the feast of St. Thomas Becket: In Rama sonat gemitus ("The sound of weeping is heard in Rama")

Here's something quite interesting for this feast day. It's a 12th century anonymous composition found in a French manuscript; its subject is Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury who was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral on this day in 1170.




The story related in this piece is not Becket's murder, though, but his exile at the hands of King Henry II of England.  From the YouTube page:

'In Rama sonat gemitus' (The sound of weeping is heard in Rama) is an anonymous work (conductus) found in the French manuscript source Wolfenbüttel 677. Using biblical allusion, it comments directly on the exile of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, from England to France in 1164. Although eventually returned to England in [1170], he was murdered just a few months later. This dates In Rama sonat gemitus to the years of his exile: 1165-1170.

Here are the words, in Latin with an English translation, from CPDL:

In Rama sonat gemitus
plorante Rachel Anglie:
Herodis namque genitus
dat ipsam ignominie.
En eius primogenitus
et Joseph Cantuarie
Exulat (? - or 'si sit') fisto venditus
Egiptum colit Gallie.

A lamentation is heard in Rama:
England's Rachel weeps.
For one begotten by Herod
treats her with ignominy.
Her firstborn -
Joseph of Canterbury -
is exiled as if sold,
and lives in the Egypt of France.

- Translation by Mick Swithinbank

My friend Robert pointed out to me this CD of music "in honor of St. Thomas of Canterbury."  The liner notes for this piece on that CD say this:

This plaint for solo voice is the earliest surviving piece of music about Becket. Since it mentions his exile in France, it must date from the period 1164-1170, though it was not copied into its only extant manuscript source until much later. In the poem, Rama refers to Canterbury, Rachel to the Mother Church, Herod to Henry II, while the Joseph sold by his jealous brethren is Becket.

Pretty interesting!  I was curious about the Scriptural reference; I know it best from this verse from Matthew, where it refers to the slaughter of the innocents (which was yesterday's feast day, in fact):

A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.

I thought it was sort of odd, though, for such a verse to be used for this purpose; the exile of an Archbishop isn't really anything like the slaughter of innocents.  So I searched some more on this theme, and found - although I hadn't remembered it - that Jeremiah had Rachel weeping, too:

Thus says the LORD: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.”

And here, Rachel IS weeping for an exile:  for the exile of Israel in Babylon.  So this is the basis for In Rama sonat gemitus, referring to Thomas Becket.

(I could have realized what Matthew was doing a bit sooner by simply reading the verse prior to Matthew 2:18 above!  Here's Matthew 2:17:  "Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:  ".)

That leaves us with the original Rachel; did she actually weep over her children?

There seem to be at least two takes on this.  One thought is that Genesis 30:1 is one reason for Rachel to weep:

When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I shall die!”

Another interpretation of the reference to Rachel is that she:

....died with "sorrow" in giving birth to Benjamin (Ge 35:18, 19, Margin; 1Sa 10:2), and was buried at Ramah, near Bethlehem, is represented as raising her head from the tomb, and as breaking forth into "weeping" at seeing the whole land depopulated of her sons, the Ephraimites.

The commentators often group several of these things together, as well.  It is also true that, again according to Jeremiah (40:1), the captives were taken to Ramah as they began their journey into exile in Babylon:

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord after Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had let him go from Ramah, when he took him bound in chains along with all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah who were being exiled to Babylon.  The captain of the guard took Jeremiah and said to him, “The Lord your God pronounced this disaster against this place.  The Lord has brought it about, and has done as he said. Because you sinned against the Lord and did not obey his voice, this thing has come upon you.  Now, behold, I release you today from the chains on your hands. If it seems good to you to come with me to Babylon, come, and I will look after you well, but if it seems wrong to you to come with me to Babylon, do not come. See, the whole land is before you; go wherever you think it good and right to go.

(Some commentators have also pointed out that the meaning of the word "Ramah" is "high place."  It may be that Er-ram, north of Jerusalem, is the modern-day city that was once Ramah.)

In any case, the choice of text is to symbolize Becket's exile, not his murder - which means that the Scriptural reference is to Jeremiah and not Matthew.

The Introit for St. Stephen: Etenim sederunt ("Princes met and talked against me")

Etenim sederunt is the Introit for the Feast of St. Stephen, December 26. Here's a video of it from the GradualeProject.





The text comes from various parts of Psalm [118/]119; here is the Latin and English from Divinum Officium:

Introitus
Ps 118:23; 118:86; 118:23
Sedérunt príncipes, et advérsum me loquebántur: et iníqui persecúti sunt me: ádjuva me, Dómine, Deus meus, quia servus tuus exercebátur in tuis justificatiónibus.
Ps 118:1
Beati immaculáti in via, qui ámbulant in lege Dómini
V. Glória Patri, et Fílio, et Spirítui Sancto.
R. Sicut erat in princípio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculórum. Amen
Sedérunt príncipes, et advérsum me loquebántur: et iníqui persecúti sunt me: ádjuva me, Dómine, Deus meus, quia servus tuus exercebátur in tuis justificatiónibus.

Introit
Ps 118:23, 86, 23.
Princes met and talked against me, and the wicked persecuted me wrongfully; help me, O Lord my God, for Your servant meditates on Your statutes.
Ps 118:1
Happy are they whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord.
V. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
R. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Princes met and talked against me, and the wicked persecuted me wrongfully; help me, O Lord my God, for Your servant meditates on Your statutes.

Here's the chant score:

 In writing this post, I've come across some interesting stuff.  Apparently this Introit has at quite a number of tropes associated with it. 

Tropes are embellishments of the liturgical chants; they were sung prior to or interspersed with the Proper chants of feast days.   They are a development of the Middle Ages, and were abolished eventually at the council of Trent in 1570.  Here's a description from the Encyclopedia Britannica:

Trope, in medieval church music, melody, explicatory text, or both added to a plainchant melody. Tropes are of two general types: those adding a new text to a melisma (section of music having one syllable extended over many notes); and those inserting new music, usually with words, between existing sections of melody and text.

Troping was rooted in similar practices in the ancient Byzantine liturgy and arose in the West, probably in France, by the 8th century. The custom reached the musically important Swiss monastery of Saint Gall by the 9th century and soon became widespread throughout Europe. It was abolished in the 16th century by the Council of Trent.

Two important medieval musical-literary forms developed from the trope: the liturgical drama and the sequence (qq.v.). A troped chant is sometimes called a farced (i.e., interpolated) chant.

Here is an example of one of the tropes on this Introit, found in the book Early Trope Repertory of Saint Martial de Limoges, by Paul Evans.  The book describes it as an example of "line-by-line interpolations, in which a trope introduces each phrase of the official chant":

Trope:  Hodie Stephanus martye celos ascendit, quem propheta dudmum intuens eius voce dicebat:
Introit:  Etenim sederunt principes et adversum me loquebantur.
Trope:  Insurrexerunt contra me Iudeorum populi inique,
Introit:  Et iniqui persecuti sunt me.
Trope:  Invidiose lapidibus appresserunt me;
Introit:  Adiuva me Dominus Deus meus.
Trope:  Suscipe meum in pace spiritum,
Introit:  Quia servus tuus exercebatur in tuis iustificationibus.

Tropes were new compositions, and the melody and texts were conceived simultaneously, according to Evans.  Unfortunately, I was not able to find any audio or video of any of the tropes for this feast - but I will keep looking.  Perhaps there will be some video online for tropes of major feasts; there are many associated with Christmas, so I may return there.

 

[EDIT 11/14/23:  Thanks to an anonymous commenter on this post, I now have an example of a trope on this Introit - but unfortunately I haven't yet been able to make out what the words are.  Here's the video anyway; you can hear that the trope introduces the Introit, and it is then interspersed between each line of the text.  Hopefully at some point I'll succeed in finding the text of the trope, and will return here to post it if I do:

 

Thanks, Anonymous!]

This page in the book The Winchester Troper, from Mss. of the Xth and XIth Centuries - edited by Walter Frere - contains a complete list of tropes associated with this feast from those sources.  Here's screen-cap of that page, listing all the tropes, with some footnotes; as you can see, there are several tropes each associated with the Introit, the Offertory, and the Communio:

I am now reading a bit more about the tropes on this Introit, but want to get this post published today, so that will be another post.

Here's an interesting painting of St. Stephen by Mariotto di Nardo; the full title is apparently "Predella Panel Representing the Legend of St. Stephen: Devils Agitating the Sea as Giuliana Transports the Body of St. Stephen from Jerusalem to Constantinople / The Re-interment of St. Stephen beside St. Lawrence in Rome."

No idea what that's about, but I'll check it out!