Planctus de obitu Karoli

The ''Planctus (de obitu) Karoli'' ("Lament n the Deathof Charlemagne"), also known by its incipit ''A solis ortu'' (''usque ad occidua'') ("From the rising of the sun o the setting), is an anonymous medieval Latin ''planctus'' eulogising Charlemagne, written in accented verse by a monk of Bobbio shortly after his subject's death in 814. It is generally considered the earliest surviving ''planctus'', though its melody is written in tenth-century neumes, one of the earliest surviving examples of this sort of musical notation. The poem has been translated into English by Peter Godman.

The authorship of the ''Planctus'' has been a matter of some dispute. Its author has been identified with Columbanus of Saint Trond, who, it is claimed, also wrote the '' Ad Fidolium'', a set of quantitative adonics. The ''Planctus'' appeared in a seventeenth-century manuscript compilation of the poems of Hrabanus Maurus under the subscription "Hymnus Columbani ad Andream episcopum de obitu Caroli", which inspired L. A. Muratori to make the identification, but this late ascription to a Columbanus is probably deduced from the poem's own seventeenth stanza. As argued by Heinz Löwe, that stanza in fact makes it very difficult to argue that the poet, who consistently uses the first person, was the Columbanus he refers to.

The poem is composed of twenty three-line romance strophes each with a distich of two dodecasyllables and the parenthetical heptasyllabic refrain ''Heu mihi misero!'', which does not mark a division in thought but is inserted regularly in an otherwise continuous syntax. Each dodecasyllable ends in a paroxytone (''mot métrique''). The existence of quilisma in the musical notation indicates the influence of plainchant.

The first line (''A solis ortu...'') is drawn from a fifth-century hymn of Caelius Sedulius. As the Sedulian hymn was sung at Christmastime, the sorrowful ''Planctus'' presents a contrast with the joy typically associated with its opening. The poet expands upon his personal grief at the death of his emperor—and benefactor of Bobbio—by asking all the regions of Earth to mourn with him, and using the tears of Saint Columbanus, founder of Bobbio, as a symbol of the monastery's grief. The rhythm of the verse, presence of musical notation, and orientation towards contemporary events suggest popular recitation or performance. The poem, though associated with the Carolingian Renaissance in Latin letters, is not a commentary on the "disintegration" (or ''décomposition'') of the Carolingian Empire after the death of Charlemagne.The idea of the ''décomposition'' of the Carolingian Empire with the death of Charlemagne comes from F.-L. Ganshof, cf. Godman, 32. Note that Sam Barrett (1997), "Music and Writing: On the Compilation of Paris Bibliotheque Nationale lat. 1154," ''Early Music History'', 16, 62, classifies the ''Planctus'' among that manuscript's political works.

Select stanzas

The following text is taken from Peter Godman (1985), ''Latin Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance'' (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press), 206–211.

The latest critical and only textual and musical edition can be found in ''Corpus Rhythmorum Musicum (saec. IV–IX)'', I, "Songs in non-liturgical sources anti di tradizione non liturgica, 1 "Lyrics anzoni (Florence: SISMEL, 2007), edited by Francesco Stella (text) and Sam Barrett (music), with reproduction of the manuscript sources and recording of the audio executions of the modern musical transcriptions, now partially consultabl
here

References

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Medieval Latin poetry
Carolingian Latin literature
Charlemagne
9th-century poems
Medieval compositions