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Psalteries of the Royal Door Gate (1144) of the Cathedral of our Lady of Chartres
Giuseppe Severini*
Casa della Musica in Randazzo, Italy Sicilian Archeoastronomy Institute, Italy
Submission: April 24, 2019; Published: May 02, 2019
*Corresponding author: Giuseppe Severini, Casa della Musica in Randazzo, Italy Sicilian Archeoastronomy Institute, via S. Caterinella 1995036 Randazzo-Ct, Italy
How to cite this article: Giuseppe Severini. Psalteries of the Royal Door Gate (1144) of the Cathedral of our Lady of Chartres. Glob J Arch & Anthropol. 2019; 9(1): 555754. DOI: 10.19080/GJAA.2019.09.555754
Opinion
In the south door gate of Chartres Cathedral, called Royal, there are four depictions of Psalteries. The first instrument, very damaged, has 5 strings passing over two almost parallel bridges (Figure 1). The second psaltery has ten strings, the angles between the bridges and the strings being of 72° (Figure 2) The two main psalteries, that of the first Elder of the Apocalypse (Figure 3) and that of the Music (Figure 4), share the same structure: nine pairs of strings form with the bridges a regular trapezium, the angles at the base of 72° [1]. The first psaltery has a tenth pair of strings, well hidden under the mantle of the Elder, invisible from below (Figure 5). The other psaltery has nine pairs of strings, although there would be room for a tenth (Figure 6).
In contemporary texts the name Psalterium decachordum, from the Old Testament, Psalm 32 is frequently used. Saint Jerome (Epistula ad Dardanum) states that the adjective decachordum refers to the moral law: the Decalogue. One wonders why to represent with nine strings instruments which as usual had ten, in addition to put them in great evidence in the hands of the first Elder of the Apocalypse and in the allegory of the Music represented among the Liberals Arts. To answer this question, one must consider the different points of view of the medieval public. Illiterate visitors see instruments and do think about Celestial Music. The illiterate musicians recognize the instruments and perhaps count the strings: they think of an error or a novelty in the music. Visitors trained into the Liberal Arts know that the Nine can have different meanings. The Orthodox Catholic vision as the successor of Isidore de Séville, considered the Nine to be imperfect compared to the Ten (Liber numerorum qui in sanctis scripturis occurrunt 10.52.PL 83: 190). In this case, the nine strings could be related to the imperfection of our musical knowledge, mentioned by Musica enchiriadis (XIX, 10-12) and Micrologus (XIV, 16-19). Pythagoras, who was sitting close, had stated the perfection of Ten in Tetraktys. Nevertheless, in musical tradition the Nine, in the fundamental ratio 9/8, is considered “omnium musicorum sonorum mensura communis” (Boethius, Arithmetica 2,54, CCL 94 A: 224). 9/8 is the fundamental cosmological ratio in Plato’s Timaeus, whose ideas were transmitted by Cicero, Macrobius and Calcidius. Marcianus Capella affirms that number Nine “harmoniae ultima pars est” (Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii 7.741). In the twelfth century Magister Johannes of Seville in his Liber Alchorismi de pratica aritmetice, translation of the lost book of Muhammad ibn Musa al-Kwarizmi, introduces the Indian numeration. He explains that “ergo constat unumquemque limitem 9 numeros continere”, he recalls that nine are the celestial spheres and nine the angelic choruses [2]. William of Conches in his work Philosophia gives no importance to the Ten, while nine are the invisible circles of heaven (Liber II, V, 13) and nine months of human gestation (Liber IV, XIV, 22-23). Finally, the most awesome visitor could have observed that the ratio between the first and the last pair of strings (hidden or virtual) is 3/2, the right Fifth, the fundamental harmonic ratio in pythagorean musical theory. Thus, the learned man could interpret the nine strings of the psalteries as a symbol of the foundation of harmonic science and at the same time of the imperfection of our musical knowledge.
