Within the reform and the history of Norman monasticism, the reform of William of Volpiano was neither the beginning nor its climax, as a reformer he had to find a balance between local needs and problems and certain interests of the Cluniac Abbot, of the Pope, and of the Norman patrons, whose founding activities cultivated a new form of policy. William appeared as a Cluniac reformer, but studies of his liturgical reform especially of the Office chant for Fécamp did not confirm, that he just removed local in favour of Cluniac customs. There are some testimonies like the Libellus de revelatione, edificatione et auctoritate Fiscannensis monasterii, a chronicle of Fécamp, which reports certain resentments against Norman culture and its local liturgical customs. Benignus William reformed several monasteries of Burgundy, Lorraine and the Île-de-France. It was typical for a career at Cluny Abbey to get one of the most prestigious positions as a cantor and to continue as a reforming abbot in another Abbey, which was subjected to this powerful and ambitious Abbey. William's reforms were not only concerned with liturgy and the new design of local chant books, but also with the construction of new churches and buildings for abandoned abbeys, with canon law, with the organization of grammar schools and even rural communities of Normandy. His plan failed after the catastrophic defeat of his son Otto II near Crotone, but the role of Cluny as a centre for liturgical reforms had increased in Ottonic times. Concerning liturgical reforms, Emperor Otto I already emphasized the need for a reform of monasticism in Southern Italy and to abandon local liturgies in favour of the Roman rite, a kind of second Carolingian reform, and he already wished to "liberate" Arab Sicily and to organize church provinces of the island which was mainly populated by Muslims and by a Greek Christians. The legend said that Emperor Otto had conquered this island, while William was born, so the Emperor became his patron and he was educated as a monk and made his clerical career at Cluny Abbey during the reform of Abbot Majolus who continued the reform of his predecessor Odo and supported reforms connected with papal politics under influence of the Ottonic Emperors. William was born as son of the Alemannic Duke Robert of Volpiano at the citadel of his family on the island S. The few things known about him can be read in a hagiographic source, the Vita domni Willelmi in fourteen chapters written by his disciple, the Burgundian monk Raoul Glaber in 1031, and revised probably by demand of the later Abbot John of Fécamp during the late 11th century. It is not known, whether it was really written by William of Volpiano in person. Only this manuscript was written during the time of William by the same hand as several other manuscripts of the Library of the Medical Faculty of Montpellier (today "Bibliothèque interuniversitaire de Médecin") which all belong to St. In 1001 he followed a request by Duke Richard II and became first abbot at the Abbey of Fécamp which was a reforming centre of monasticism in Normandy. It can be regarded as a characteristic document of a certain school founded by William of Volpiano, who was reforming abbot at St. This particular type of a fully notated tonary only appeared in Burgundy and Normandy. This disposition followed the order of a tonary, but William of Volpiano wrote not only the incipits of the classified chant, he wrote the complete chant text with the music in central French neumes which were still written in campo aperto, and added a second alphabetic notation of his own invention for the melodic structure of the codified chant. The chant manuscript records mainly Western plainchant of the Roman-Frankish proper Mass and part of the chant sung during the matins (" Gregorian chant"), but unlike the common form of the Gradual and of the Antiphonary, William organized his manuscript according to the chant genre ( antiphons with psalmody, alleluia verses, graduals, offertories, and proses for the missal part), and these sections were subdivided into eight parts according to the octoechos. Benignus of Dijon reformed the liturgy of several monasteries in Burgundy. Benigne (also called Antiphonarium Codex Montpellier or Tonary of Saint-Bénigne of Dijon) was written in the last years of the 10th century, when the Abbot William of Volpiano at St. For information on the codex of polyphonic motets, see Montpellier Codex. "Antiphonarium Codex Montpellier" redirects here.
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