Evidence suggests that the trope evolved independently of the prosa and other additions to the liturgy. For example, the existence of poetic trope texts suggests that they were new compositions, both in text and music, while the prosa is created by adding words to an existing melody, and is inevitably in prose. This challenges the "St. Gall theory" of the origin of troping, which argues that the trope, like the prosa, arose through the process of supplying texts to melismatic additions that had previously been made to the official chant. This theory fails on three counts: (1) it is based only on three St. Gall tropers, and does not consider all of the earliest tropers; (2) it suggests four stages of development, but traces of the "intermediate steps" are lacking in all but the St. Gall tropers; and (3) it assumes that trope lines must be extensions of lines of chant, whereas the evidence, such as the use of connective expressions or striking melodic figures, suggests that they developed as introductions. The precise date and place of the origin of troping are uncertain, but since the earliest tropers give evidence of a primitive trope repertory, it must have received considerable development in the ninth century.

Index Classifications: Monophony to 1300

Contributed by: Brian Phillips