Building A Church with Music: The Plainchant Capitals at Cluny, c. 1100

International audienceOne cannot see the eight capitals of the former abbey church at Cluny without being struck by the theme of music, witch appears on the two capitals whose inscriptions enumerate the tones or modes of Gregorian chants. This pair of capitals, which has its own historiographs, takes pride of place in the literature on the hemicyclecapitals as a group, and for good reason.The capital depict secular musicians playing instruments, which are out of place in a sacred setting. While we do not expect art to reflect practice, the eight modes nevertheless are inextricably linked with a particular practice: that of the liturgy and, in the monastic setting, of the necessity of singing it. How can we excplain the representation of instrumentalists in a musical context which allowed for song? In the first of this essay, the author will analyze the inscription in order to understand why the verb "to sing" is absent, even though these texts describe the immanent or transcendent realities that govern the singers of chant. In the second part, he shall see how the forms, gestures and positions of the musicians, previously interpreted as an allegory of the modal system, illustrate aspects of liturgical chant as practice and experience. He will draw on comparisons with manuscripts illumination to show that the representation of the musicians on the Cluny capitals expresses the interior praparation of the human spirit and mind for the act of performance. Only with such preparation can music become a catalyst for redemption, which the third musician demonstrates vividly with his stance and the distinctive features of the intrument he holds