---
title: "Hagiopolitan Octoechos"
chunk: 5/11
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:39:20.479308+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

The earliest chant theory connected with the Carolingian octoechos was related to the book tonary. It played a key role in memorising chant and the earliest tonaries referred to the Greek names as elements of a tetrachord: πρῶτος, δεύτερος, τρίτος, and τέταρτος. They were translated into Latin as "protus", "deuterus", "tritus", and "tetrardus", but only the tetrachord D—E—F—G was supposed to contain the finales ("final notes") for the eight tones used in the Latin octoechos. Since the 10th century the eight tones were applied to eight simplified models of psalmody, which soon adopted in their terminations the melodic beginnings of the antiphons, which were sung as refrains during psalm recitation. This practice made the transitions smoother, and in the list of the antiphons which can be found since the earliest tonaries, it was enough to refer to the melodic beginnings or incipits of the text. In the earliest tonaries no models of psalmody had been given and incipits from all chant genres were listed, probably just for a modal classification (see the section for the Autentus protus of the Saint Riquier tonary).
According to Michel Huglo, there was a prototype tonary which initiated the Carolingian reform. But in a later study he mentioned an even earlier tonary which was brought as a present by a Byzantine legacy which celebrated procession antiphons for Epiphany in a Latin translation.
Already during the 10th century tonaries became so widespread in different regions, that they do not only allow to study the difference between local schools according to its modal classification, its redaction of modal patterns, and its own way of using Carolingian psalmody. They also showed a fundamental difference between the written transmission of Latin and Greek chant traditions, as it had developed between the 10th and 12th centuries. The main concern of Latin cantors and their tonaries was a precise and unambiguous classification of whatever melody type according to the local perception of the octoechos system.
Greek psaltes were not interested at all in this question. They knew the models of each modes by certain simple chant genres as the troparion and the heirmoi (the melodic models used to create poetry in the meter of the heirmologic odes), but other genres like sticheron and kontakion could change the echos within their melos, so their main interest was the relationship between the echoi to compose elegant and discrete changes between them.
In contrary, the very particular form and function of the tonary within chant transmission made it evident, that the modal classification of Latin cantors according to the eight tones of the Octoechos had to be done a posteriori, deduced by the modal analysis of the chant and its melodic patterns, while the transmission of the traditional chant itself did not provide any model except of the psalm tones used for the recitation of the psalms and the canticles.
The tonary was the very heart of the mainly oral chant transmission used during the Carolingian reform and as its medium it must have had a strong impact on the melodic memory of the cantors who used it in order to memorize the Roman chant, after a synode confirmed Charlemagne's admonitio generalis. The written transmission by fully notated chant manuscripts, the object of chant studies today, cannot be dated back to an earlier time than nearly 200 years after the admonitio—the last third of the 10th century. And it seems that Roman cantors whose tradition had to be learnt, followed at least 100 years later by the transcription of their chant repertory and no document has survived which can testify the use of tonaries among Roman cantors. Pope Adrian I's confirmation of the Eastern octoechos reform had probably no consequences on the tradition of Roman chant, which might be an explanation for the distinct written transmission, as it can be studied between Roman Frankish and Old Roman chant manuscripts.
The eight sections of the Latin tonary are usually ordered Tonus primus Autentus Protus, Tonus secundus Plagi Proti, Tonus tertius Autentus deuterus etc. Each section is opened by an intonation formula using the names like Noannoeane for the authentic and Noeagis for the plagal tones. In his theoretical tonary Musica disciplina Aurelian of Réôme asked a Greek about the meaning of the syllables, and reported that they had no meaning, they were rather an expression of joy as used by peasants to communicate with their working animals like horses. There was usually no exact resemblance of the Latin syllables to the names of the Greek intonations or enechemata which were identified with the diatonic kyrioi and plagioi echoi, but Aurelian's question made it obvious that the practice was taken from Greek singers. Unlike the Hagiopolitan octoechos, which used two additional phthorai with the syllables Nana and Nenano for changes into the enharmonic and chromatic genus, the enharmonic and chromatic genus was excluded from the Latin octoechos, at least according to Carolingian theorists.
Since the 10th century tonaries also include the mnemic verses of certain model antiphons which memorise each tone by one verse. The most common among all tonaries was also used by Guido of Arezzo in his treatise Micrologus: Primum querite regnum dei, Secundum autem simile est huic etc. Another characteristic was that melodic melisms called neumae followed the intonation formulas or mnemic verses. Usually they differed more among different tonaries than the preceding intonations or verses, but they all demonstrated the generative and creative aspect within chant transmission.
In comparison with Byzantine psaltes who always used notation in a more or less stenographic way, the exact patterns used during the so-called "thesis of the melos" (τὸ θέσις τοῦ μελοῦ) belonged to the oral tradition of a local school, its own modal system and its genre. But already the question of chant genre was connected with local traditions in medieval times and the point of reference for the psaltes who performed a certain genre: the Hagiopolitan octoechos and its genres (the odes according to the models of the heirmologion, the troparia of the book oktoechos (ἡ [βίβλος] ὀκτώηχος) or tropologion), or the Constantinopolitan cathedral rite (akolouthia asmatike) and its books asmatikon, psaltikon, and kontakarion might serve here as examples.