Liturgical chant and devotional practices in late medieval Dominican nunneries

Abstract

This chapter describes the liturgical life of Dominican nunneries and their characteristic slow, clearly articulated chant. It situates this practice within the order’s thirteenth-century standardization and notes regulations specific to women’s communities. Marian devotion structures much of the repertoire, with Alma redemptoris mater, Ave regina caelorum, Regina caeli, and especially Salve regina marking the day and the year. The Salve regina is traced in Dominican sources without tropes, but with local notational and modal variants. The article links local cults to repertoire, including St Ursula (with Cistercian transmission into Iberia), Catherine of Siena in Aveiro, and St Gertrude in Cologne. Sister-books from Engelthal and St Katharinental provide evidence for vernacular versions, use at deathbeds, and the responsibilities of cantrices. Processional practices—such as kneeling at “Salve” and rising at “Regina”—show how movement accompanied chant. Practical guidance for tempo, pitch, and phrasing appears in convent registers and theoretical texts like Jerome of Moravia’s Tractatus de musica. The chapter argues that Latin liturgy and private devotion interacted closely, with repertoire continually adapted to local contexts. Overall, chant served as a central medium of piety and community identity in late medieval Dominican nunneries.