The transmission history of the Proper chant for St Gregory: the eighth-mode tract Beatus uir

The tract for the feast of St Gregory, Beatus uir, appears in very different versions in the Old Roman and Gregorian traditions, and in more than one version in the Gregorian tradition. Close study of the melodies of these different versions and of the second-mode tract Ecce uir, attached to the feast in Corbie, Bec and Bec-influenced institutions, permits tentative conclusions to be drawn about the adoption of Roman chant in early eighth-century England and mid-eighth-century Francia. Before the concerted Carolingian effort to learn the entire Roman Mass Proper, Beatus uir appears to have been adopted north of the Alps at least twice: in early eighth-century England, and at St Denis in the 750s.