When one realises that thousands of liturgical chants were transmitted over more than three
centuries in which there were no accurate means of melodic notation the core repertoire of
Gregorian plainchant has been transmitted with an astonishing degree of uniformity.On the other
hand these chants are reflections of a living liturgy and thus reflections of their
particular surroundings: any monastic or collegial environment could develop its own
conventions in relation to what only seems to be a uniform repertoire at first sight.Although
relationships between specific manuscripts and their associated variants of Gregorian
plainchant certainly exist how the different variants of chants developed continues to be a
highly debated topic. Moreover how these different developments were valued has varied
widely.This study sets out to map the melodic variation occurring in northern Low Countries
chant manuscripts from the oldest known notations to those of the sixteenth century and to
explore their relationships and attributions through this variation.
