Embellishing the Liturgy

After the imposition of Gregorian chant upon most of Europe by the authority of the Carolingian kings and emperors in the eighth and ninth centuries, a large number of repertories arose in connection with the new chant and its liturgy. Of these repertories, the tropes, together with the sequences, represent the main creative activity of European musicians in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries. Because they were not an absolutely official part of the liturgy, as was Gregorian chant, they re