Tyrolean sources for school processions

Various types of sources document the processions in which the pupils of the late-medieval schools took an active part with their singing. Among the oldest documents there certainly are the books called libri ordinarii (Ordinals), which were really manuals for the celebrations of a church or cathedral: they contain precious notes on the numerous processions which were held inside and outside the places of worship, on the various occasions of the liturgical year. For Tyrol, we have a few important sources of this kind, although they originated outside the time-frame considered here. Among them are the liber ordinarius (Ordinal) of Bressanone cathedral, from the beginning of the thirteenth century,[5] the so-called Brixner Dommesnerbuch (book of the Bressanone sacristan) of 1558 (>> A. Kap. Der Dommessner),[6] and the Directorium chori (Choir regulation) of the collegiate church of Innichen/San Candido, of 1617.[7] The Bressanone Ordinal lists the processions which the children carried out on special feasts of the liturgical year, following a tradition going back as far as the Roman-Germanic Pontifical of c. 960.[8] During Mass on the Saturday of the ember days (quatuor tempora) and on Palm Sunday, processions were held in which the boys of the cathedral school had to sing. This practice meant that the boys were in fact the protagonists of the performance of the gospel episodes: their very presence “dramatised” the gospel narration of Palm Sunday, conveying upon them and on their voices a highly symbolic role in the context of the ritual.[9] For the Mass on ember days, the Bressanone Ordinal states: “Nota quod hymnus trium puerorum Benedictus es domine sicut ordo iubet a tribus pueris, ubi fieri potest, debet cantari et interim nemo in ecclesia sedeat, quia pueri in camino ambulantes cantabant.”[10]

(Note that the hymn of the three boys, Benedictus es domine, according to the regulation of the Ordinal, must be sung by three boys, wherever possible, and meanwhile nobody may sit down in the church, as the boys were singing while walking by in procession.)

            At another point in the Ordinal references are made to the pueri: for the feast of the Holy Innocents (28 December) it is stated at the very beginning and separately from all other regulations that they must celebrate the feast “according to custom”.[11] The book does not give any more detail, implying that the custom was well-known. It is clear, in fact, that the reference is to the practice of the so-called Episcopellus or Episcopus puerorum (Boy Bishop), of which the day of the Holy Innocents represented the high point. The festivities connected with the Boy Bishop (or School Bishop) began in Advent when, usually on the day of St Nicholas (6 December), a boy was elected who presided as “bishop” over a special celebration during the feast of the Holy Innocents. This practice was known all over Europe; it included processions in the church as well as outside in the streets.[12] In Bressanone, the feast of the Boy Bishop was abolished by episcopal decree in 1442, because of the irregularities which it caused, according to the church authorities, in the streets of the town from the beginning of Advent onwards.[13] It is therefore reasonable to conclude that until this date the processions lead by the Kinderbischof did take place in Bressanone, like elsewhere, on the day of the Holy Innocents and other feast-days; the participants were the children of the school.

            As Tyrolean sources tell us, another procession of schoolchildren, clad in red gowns, was held at Sterzing/Vipiteno on the day of St John the Baptist (24 June), to celebrate “sonnwend abend” (solstice evening).[14] This procession, just like the one of the Boy Bishop, represents for the modern observer the typical mixture of sacred and secular elements which is so characteristic of medieval rituality.

            Nevertheless, the sources that are most interesting for us as they offer many notices about children’s processions in Tyrol are without any doubt the regulations for the schools and schoolmasters, to which we shall turn below. In addition, the account books, if extant, of the various institutions involved in the liturgical and musical activities of the school often provide precious information which completes and enriches the documentation already cited here (» E. Bozen/Bolzano: Musik im Umkreis der Kirche). We will finally mention the chronicles of travellers which have the advantage of presenting “live” descriptions of some performances in late fifteenth-century Tyrol whose protagonists were schoolchildren.