Following the tone of the pagan oracles and Hebraic literature about the prophecy of the end of the world, St John in the Apocalypse describes the cosmic drama which would supposedly take place after the opening of the seventh seal. After a great silence, seven angels prepare themselves to sound the trumpet one after the other, and after each sounding a cataclysm is set off. After the seventh angel has sounded the trumpet, the fight between Christ and the Beast (Satan) takes place. The Beast is beaten and chained in a bottomless pit for 1000 years. Once the 1000 years are over, Satan is freed but he is beaten again: then the second resurrection of living and dead takes place preceding the Last Judgement. If the thousand-year period referred to is interpreted literally, it follows that in the year 1000, or in 1033, coinciding with the birth and death of Christ, the liberation of Satan has to take place and thus marks the beginning of the road towards the end of time.

For the defenders of ‘millennium fever’ the troubles that plagued the world around the year 1000 were nothing but a result of the liberation of Satan. As they persisted once this year had passed, consequently, they thought the second resurrection would occur shortly afterwards, on the 1000th anniversary of Christ’s resurrection. Obviously, time didn’t prove them to be right, and this was how St Augustine’s opinion began to hold sway. According to him, the 1000 years referred to in the Apocalypse were equivalent to an indefinite period of time in which the temporal reign of the Church would be imposed.

The disappearance of the psychological fear of imminent danger—if this did in fact exist—didn’t lessen the idea of the Last Judgement among the Western Christian community, which had gradually gained an increased following since the beginning of the 6th century. Absent from the beginnings of Christianity, the first images representing the Last Judgement were the result of the appearance of a belief that was optimistic for some (salvation) and threatening for others (eternal condemnation), the enormous pedagogical potential of which was quite well managed by the Church. Although from the 11th century onwards the frescos and altar pieces decorating ecclesiastic buildings began to reflect images of the Day of Judgement, in time eventually outnumbering Apocalyptic scenes, two centuries later the appearance of the first liturgical drama on an eschatological topic—the Sponsus—took place.

The Song of the Sibyl

In contrast to the rapid iconographic development of the Last Judgement, this topic was not brought to the stage earlier than the 13th century, taking into account the remarkable technical complexity it entails. And thus a much less important piece had the opportunity to develop, making its appearance in the liturgical framework just when the fear of the millennium began to affect the mood of the people. I am referring to the Song of the Sibyl, whose first testimony (text and music) is kept in a manuscript coming from the monastery of St Martial de Limoges (Paris, Bibl. Nationale, lat. 1154) and dating from the end of the 9th century or the beginning of the 10th. This manuscript is a miscellany which in addition to the Sibyl song, contains some Versus de die iudicii (Verses from the Day of Judgement) set to music and constituting, together with the said song, the exponent of a certain repertory devoted to the subject whose destinies were not to share the same fortune.

Apart from the verses of the Sibyl, only one eschatological piece seems to have survived after the first half of the 11th century. It is a prosa with refrain that adapts the text of the Apocalypse, each of its twenty-four verses beginning with a different letter of the alphabet. It starts with a lugubrious call to attention, “Audi tellus, audi magni maris limbus” (Listen Earth! Strip of the immense sea, listen!), and was copied for the first time at the end of a 10th-century Epistolary proceeding from the abbey of Aniane, in the Languedoc (Montpellier, Bibl. Municipale, lat. 6). The melody, which is very sober, changes slightly from one verse to another, adapting itself to the different length of each verse. The Audi tellus was known in Germany as well as in Spain, where it is found in the famous Las Huelgas Codex with different music. None of the manuscripts that transmit it give it a concrete liturgical position, although it possibly survived due to being appropriate to the service for the dead, in which man’s fear could and can still be evoked before the Last Judgement, without the theme ever losing relevance for the believer. In fact, the prosa Audi tellus must have given rise to a sequence—their first two verses coincide—still performed during the 15th century “in officio mortuorum”. Its history was interrupted after the Council of Trent, which omitted all sequences but four from the liturgy. Among those to remain was the Dies iræ from the Mass for the Dead, attributed to Thomas da Celano.

Both the text and the music from the Dies iræ are thought to proceed from a fragment of the responsory Libera me, Domine, although in turn, the text is linked to some verses by the prophet Sophonies, describing the Day of Judgement (So I. 15-16). Those verses are related to one of the stanzas of the Versus de die iudicii, whose author must have taken them from the biblical prophet. The Dies iræ contains the only mention of the figure of the Sibyl in all post-Trent Christian liturgy, a brief allusion to the eschatological verses of the Sibyl Eritrea, whose prophetic testimony Celano coupled with Psalm 18th by King David. The mention is found in the first verse, in which echoes of the melody Libera me Domine can be heard: “Dies iræ, dies illa, solvet sæclum in favilla: Teste David cum Sibylla” (Day of wrath! That day! Time fades into ash, according to the testimony of David and the Sibyl).

The history of the Sibyl

The history of how the pagan figure of the Sibyl Eritrea managed to make space for itself in the Christian universe is very curtous. In ancient Greece the name “sibyl” was applied to a series of feminine characters whose main role was to foretell the future using natural phenomena. Although it seems the first was from Eritrea, they grew rapidly in number, their reputation spreading until the period of the Roman Empire. Legend states that on a certain occasion the Cumaen Sibyl offered Tarquinus Superbus, the last king of Rome (534-510 AD), some books containing the prophecies of the Eritrean Sibyl. Although the monarch initially rejected them, in the end he took the books to Rome and deposited them in the Capitol. They remained there until they were destroyed by a fire in 81 AD. Years later they were partially recovered, but ultimately the emperor Honorius (395-423) ordered their destruction.

In Rome, the books of the Sibylline Oracles were only consulted on special occasions. In such a case the priests of the Capitol extracted one line from the Sibylline books at random, and immediately made it into an acrostic with verses giving the solution to the question put to the Oracle. The solution was believed to be inspired by the Sibyl, whose prestige, consequently, only grew. During the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, a series of writings by prestigious Greek authors which had been manipulated to serve to propagate the Jewish faith began to circulate. Given the Hebrews’ respect for their own prophets, and the prophetic character and prestige enjoyed by the Sibyls among the Greeks, someone thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to add some predictions referring to Judaism put into the mouth of a Sibyl. This gave rise to several books known as the Oracula Sibyllina, which were written between the second half of the 2nd century BC and the first half of the 3rd century AC. The twelve books keeped are manuscript copies dating from the 14th and 15th centuries.

Among other materials, the eighth book of the Sibylline Oracles, mostly of Christian origin, contains some curious verses concerning the second coming of Christ at the Last Judgement attributed to the Eritrean Sibyl. In Greek, they form the acrostic JESUS CHRISTUS DEI FILIUS SERVATOR CRUX, which leads to the conclusion that they were put together in imitation of the manner in which the Sibylline oracles were made in the Roman Capitol. In his Oratio Constantini ad Sanctorum Cœtum, the historian Eusebius of Caesarea included the verses of the Eritrean Sibyl, and thus took the first step toward incorporating the Sibyl into the Christian world. St Augustine used them a century later in De civitate Dei, translating them into Latin from the Greek for the first time: the 34 hexametres of the original are reduced to 27 in his translation, a number which was observed as a symbol of the Trinity (33). In Latin, the Sibylline verses begin with the well known words “Iudicii signum: tellus sudore madescet” (The sign of Judgement: the Earth shall be bathed in sweat), which years later would form the refrain of a piece known as the Song of the Sibyl.

Sermo de symbolo

For a long time a sermon Contra Iudæos, Paganos et Arianos (Against Jews, Pagans and Arians) was attributed to St. Augustine, though in fact it was written by a bishop of Carthage called Quodvultus in an attempt to fight Arian heresy. The sermon, subtitled “de symbolo”, is divided into 22 chapters, of which the first six are an exhortation to the Christians. In the following chapters heretics and Jews are attacked and there are attempts to convince them of their supposed error. For this the author of the sermon theatrically calls upon the prophetic testimonies about the coming of the Messiah, beginning with that of the prophet Isaiah, who is invoked with the words “Dic, Isaia, testimonium Christo” (Speak, Isaiah, the testimony of Christ). Then comes a passage from the Old Testament which includes Isaiah’s prophecy about the coming of the Messiah (Isaiah VII, 14). After Isaiah, five other prophets are evoked: Jeremiah, Daniel, Moses, David and Habakkuk, followed by four figures from the New Testament: Simeon, Zachariah, Elisabeth and John the Baptist, who expound their messianic prophecies one after the other. The list concludes with the testimony of three gentiles: the poet Virgil, Nebuchadnezzar and the Eritrean Sibyl, who literally repeats the Augustinian verses of the Iudicii signum.

Although an apocryphal sermon by Saint Bede the Venerable, an influential intellectual of the Carolingian Renaissance, contributed to the dissemination of the Iudicii signum, the bulk of this fell to the sermon attributed to St. Augustine and initially to The City of God, the text quoted in some French manuscripts of the 9th century, containing the verses of the Sibyl without music. Apart from its notation, the main difference between these manuscripts and the above-mentioned St Martial manuscript lies in the fact that in the latter the verses of the Sibyl have been transformed into a composition with a refrain consisting of thirteen couplets that are formed by grouping the verses in pairs, except the first, which functions as a refrain. Exactly where and when the Iudicii signum was set to music is a mystery, given that the St Martial monastery purchased the manuscript which includes the verses of the Sibyl set to music from another monastery dedicated to St Martin. In any case the fact that someone decided to set them to music indicates a specific interest in them around the year 900, long before the Sermo de symbolo was incorporated into the liturgy. If the dating of the St Martial manuscript is related to the argument developed by the Sibylline verses, it is easy to conclude that the millennium fears, or else the crisis in European society around the year 1000, had something to do with its sudden popularity.

The radiance of the sun shall vanish and the harmony of the spheres shall cease; the heaven shall shake and the moon shall set

The Iudicii signum exhaustively lists the disasters which would occur in the Last Judgement, some of a cosmic nature (“The radiance of the sun shall vanish and the harmony of the spheres shall cease; / the heaven shall shake and the moon shall set”, verses 16 & 17), and others closer to a humankind terrorised by the imminence of a definitive divine sentence (“Then there shall be affliction and gnashing of teeth”, verse 15, or “All down to the last of the kings shall then appear before the Lord”, verse 26). Such close description is not found in any of the biblical writings which tackle this subject and even less in a poetic manner, making it difficult to find such a convincing text which expresses in a verbal form what visual artists had been striving to represent since the 9th century. Surprisingly the number of images representing the Last Judgement increased after the year 1000, and something similar happened with its musical-poetic equivalent, which is none other than the Song of the Sibyl. There is evidence that the Sermo de symbolo, with sung Sibylline verses, formed part of the lessons of the Christmas matins from the middle of the 12th century. It is not known at what time the sermon became part of the Christmas liturgy, nor if upon reaching the passage where the Sibyl says her lines, these were originally sung. Although this is a purely speculative terrain, it is possible that the verses were set to music just when the sermon attributed to Augustine became part of the liturgy. The fact that its early versions with music happened to appear in miscellaneous sources could therefore be due to the novelty of this composition around the period in which they were copied, bringing us around the beginning of the 9th century, at the height of the Carolingian Empire.

If the representation of the Last Judgement in images served to provoke fear among the faithful, and consequently to spark an emotional state of repentance, upon hearing the Sibyl’s prophecy, albeit only once a year, the effect it must have produced would be more or less the same. If this is so, verses and images played a pedagogical role, perhaps necessary to channel a better social coexistence. From the 11th century onwards many lectionaries and breviaries in Latin countries included the Sermo de symbolo as a whole or in part, in which case the verses of the Sibyl were never left out. Music was copied on some occasions, although books about ecclesiastical customs nearly always suggest they were sung.

The melody accompanying the verses of the Iudicii signum is the same in all the manuscripts in which it is present, with slight variations especially in the melismas (in certain cases they are the result of copy mistakes). The melody is of a syllabic nature, in which each syllable corresponds to a neume made up of one or more notes (six or seven at most). It consists of three musical phrases: the first corresponds to the refrain and the other two to each of the verses that make up its couplets. The same music is used in all of them although with slight alterations to allow for the variable length of the verses.

Two clerics and a choir were usually required for its musical performance. Following the words from the sermon which announce the Sibyl’s prophecy—-they begin with the phrase “Quid Sibylla vaticinando etiam de Christo clamaverit in medium proferamus” (Let us proclaim what the Sibyl prophesised about Christ)—the reader said “Audite quid dixerit” (Listen to what she said), which was sometimes sung, especially in Spain, or followed the recitation tone of the sermon. Subsequently the choir sang the verses of the Iudicii signum and immediately after one or more soloists sang the first verse of the first couplet and another soloist or soloists the second. The choir then repeated the refrain, and so on and so forth to complete the work’s thirteen couplets.

The Procession of the Prophets

At this point it is worth recalling that the Sermo de symbolo includes the messianic prophecy of another 12 characters before that of the Sibyl. Her words are in prose and perhaps that’s why it took longer to set them to music, which ended up taking place around the 12th century, probably in the monastery of St Martial de Limoges. This monastery provides the source of the first known version of the so-called Ordo prophetarum. Fortunately, the music has been preserved (Paris, Bibl. Nationale, lat. 1139). The Ordo or Procession of the prophets of Limoges begins with the intervention of a singer, who summons the Jews to listen to what the prophets foretold about the coming of the Messiah in three brief strophes repeating the same music. There follows the versified testimony of Israel (instead of Zachariah), Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Habakkuk, David, Simeon, Elisabeth, John the Baptist, Virgil, Nebuchadnezzar and lastly that of the Sibyl. In each case there is firstly a sung intervention that announces the prophetic words, followed by another sung passage to be said by the prophet itself. The music is nearly always the same (two more or less identical phrases derived from the initial phrase of the piece, followed by a different phrase) although with variants, except in the case of the Sibyl, whose verses are sung with their characteristic music.

Although the Ordo prophetarum of Limoges was displayed in dialogue form, there is nothing that allows us to suppose that the reader and the prophets were personified. By contrast, evidence of the next work of this kind, dating from the 13th century and emanating from the cathedral of Laon (Bibl. de la Ville, Ms 263), is introduced by a remark describing the characterisation of all the characters to participate, including the Sibyl. Whoever performed it had to be dishevelled, dressed as a woman, with a crown of ivy, and had to gesticulate like a madman. Although the music has been lost, the tune of the Sibyl almost certainly wouldn’t have been changed.

While the history of the Ordo prophetarum continued its course, reaching its peak with the incorporation of elements belonging to the Feast of Fools on Circumcision Day, that of the Sermo de symbolo, pure and simple, also continued to evolve. In fact, there are very few known versions of the Procession of the prophets, and even fewer with music, while there are around fifty remaining Latin versions of the Sibylline song, corresponding to as many partial or complete copies of the Sermo de symbolo. The fact that the verses of the Sibyl were set to music could have led to the other characters who appear in the sermon to also be sung, but its partial dramatisation later reverted in its performance with only the verses of the Sibyl being sung. A choirboy dressed up as a pythoness began to perform the Sibylline verses instead of the usual clergymen no later than the beginning of the 15th century.

The Iberian Sibyl

The first documented source of the Sibyl in the Iberian Peninsula comes from an ordinarium of the cathedral of Vic (Barcelona) dating from the year 1446, according to which the verses of the Iudicii could be sung by four clergymen, grouped in pairs, or by “the Sibyl”. The information is very scant, but enough to suggest a reversion from Latin to the vernacular from the very moment the dramatisation of the character took shape. Ordinaria such as that of the cathedral of Gerona from the 15th century state, for example, referring to the Office of Christmas matins, “The sermon Inter pressuras should be read as the ninth lesson [the text with which the Sermo de symbolo begins] and the Prophets can be performed at will; otherwise the Sibyl gives the testimony of the Iudicii signum, ie Al jorn del judici, at the pulpit or another suitable place”. The words Al jorn del judici are none other than those with which the Song of the Sibyl begins in the Catalan language. The first Catalan version set to music dates from the middle of the 15th century and is found in the second part of a lectionary of the cathedral of Barcelona (Ms 184b), which is preceded by the typical version of the Iudicii signum set to music a few pages before.

Another two versions without music come before the above-mentioned Catalan version. One, in Catalan, is found in a set of Constitutions from the cathedral of Barcelona dating from the year 1415. The other, in Occitan, was added around the same period in the margins of a folio from a 12th-century lectionary from the abbey of Aniane, which also includes the verses of the Iudicii signum set to music (Montpellier, Arch. de l’Hérault, Ms 58H6). Both these versions, the Catalan and Occitan, are similar, leading to the conclusion that they come from another version, dating around the year 1400, in Occitan, or perhaps in Catalan, which has yet to be discovered.

It is not too conjectural to propose that the verses of the Sibyl were translated into the vernacular for mainly pedagogical reasons—to facilitate the comprehension of its meaning to the faithful. Curiously enough, despite its important dissemination in France, Italy and Spain, as well as in Yugoslavia, Austria and Portugal, the only known translations are to Occitan (it was the poetic language of Catalonia during the Low Middle Ages), Catalan and, in the second half of the 15th century or even later, to Spanish. That is to say, the dissemination of the verses of the Sibyl in Romance languages seems to have only occurred in Spain, and this from the middle of the 13th century, taking into account that one of the famous Cantigas de Santa María by Alfonso X the Wise is in fact a contra-factum or adaptation of the Iudicii signum. This is the cantiga which closes the first of Alfonso’s three collections, the so-called Toledo Codex (Madrid, Bibl. Nacional, Ms 10069), whose title reads De cómo Santa María rogue por nos o seu Fillo eno día do Juyzio.

The Song of the Sibyl, text and music, is a piece which fits perfectly into the Middle Ages, and especially into monastic cultural life which was at its peak during the 10th and 11th centuries

Despite such a remarkable precedent, clearly the Spanish versions of the Song of the Sibyl were modelled on others in Catalan rather than in the Marian cantiga in Galician-Portuguese. In addition to the version of the lectionary from the cathedral of Barcelona, another version of Al jorn del judici set to music during the 15th century is keeped in a choir book originally belonging to the nuns convent of the Conception in Pollença (Palma de Majorca). This confirms the dissemination of the Sibylline verses in Catalan in the Old kingdom of Aragón. In turn, the first of the only two known versions of this piece in Spanish was found in a song book dating from around 1500 which comes from a nuns’ convent in the city of Cuenca. Its whereabouts is unknown today. The other version is found in the ordinarium of the cathedral of Toledo from the year 1585 (New York, Hispanic Society, Ms HC:380/897).

Form and adaptation

Although the meaning of the verses of the Sibyl in Occitan, Catalan and Spanish is basically the same as in Latin, it must be reminded that these are adaptations, not literal translations. To begin with, the above-mentioned Catalan versions, as well as others printed during the 16th century, consist of 12 strophes each containing four verses and a refrain. The version from Cuenca consists of 18 strophes and that from Toledo five, both containing four verses followed by a refrain. The strophes repeat the same music, but the fact that the manuscript versions contain verses of variable length implies a constant adaptation of the melody, as with the Latin versions. This is not the case with the printed versions, nor with that from Toledo, whose verses are octosyllabic and are thus limited to the mechanical repetition of the music strophe by strophe. In contrast to what occurs in the text, the music of the versions in Romance languages are very similar to those in Latin, with one musical phrase for the refrain and another two for the verses. Therefore we have to speak of a greater stability in the transmission of the melody of the Song of the Sibyl than of the text, without this implying that all their keeped versions, whether in Latin or in a Romance language, are identical.

Far from this being the case these versions differ, although certain intervals, especially those at the beginning and end of a phrase, do not change. They do however vary in small details, such as the melismas performed on certain syllables or words to reinforce their meaning; they enrich the piece, which never lost its restrained tone during the Middle Ages. From its origins until well into the 16th century, the Song of the Sibyl was always syllabic, and this implies that the music in no case impeded or distracted from the understanding of the text, which constitutes the hard core of the composition, whether in Latin or in Romance.

The refrain of Catalan versions of the Sibyl is as follows: “Al jorn del judici / parrà qui haurà fet servici” (On the Day of Judgement / it will be seen who has done his duty). The refrain of the Spanish versions is different: “Juizio fuerte será dado / y muy cruel de muerte” (Strong judgement shall be passed / and a very cruel death). This is followed by the array of phenomena reflecting the approach of the Last Judgement, which sound just as terrible and threatening in Catalan (“Un corn adesús sonarà / qui tot lo món despertarà; / la luna e lo sol s’escurirà, / nulla stela no luyrà”, strophe IV), as in Spanish (“Perderá el sol su resplandor / y las estrellas su claror; / la luna será en error / y tornará en negror”, strophe X), or Latin. There is no doubt as to the fact that the verses of the Sibyl were effective, but as the Medieval world lost ground to the Renaissance, the effect lessened in favour of a certain folklorism.

The Song of the Sibyl, text and music, is a piece which fits perfectly into the Middle Ages, and especially into monastic cultural life which was at its peak during the 10th and 11th centuries. The effect in the open space of a cathedral is different, and it is there that the Sibyl called upon theatricality if she wanted to make herself heard. The transfer of Sibylline song from the monastery to the cathedral holds no secrets, since the Sermo de symbolo maintained its presence in the liturgy of Christmas matins until the Council of Trent. What isn’t so clear is the place and precise moment in which the Sibyl began to take shape, separated from the rest of the characters who constitute the Procession of the prophets, and to sing in a language that could be understood by everyone instead of being in Latin. It could have happened in the cathedral of Toulouse, that of Gerona or in any other cathedral in the southern half of France or Catalonia, perhaps in a period of ecclesiastic relaxation such as during the years of the Schism of Avignon (1378-1417).