Italian and French Elements in the Plainchant of the Basilica of St. Nicolas in Bari

In 1296 the Angevin King Charles II declared officially the Basilica of San Nicola in Bari capella regis and imposed the usage parisien for the liturgy. Charles was the nephew of Saint Louis, who built the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris in 1248, to keep there the relics brought from the Holy Land. Charles II was the first member of the royal family which started the use of creating a local Sainte-Chapelle following the model of the Parisian one. Afterwards, eleven new Saintes-Chapelles were established through all France from 1314 to 1505. Those new institutions share some common features: the Mass and the Office were celebrated following l’usage parisien, they were founded by a member of the royal family and received, at the act of foundation, a relic of the Holy Cross and/or a relic of the Holy Crown. In the Basilica of Bari the Parisian rite lasted almost unchanged since 1296 until the XVII century. The peculiar feasts of Notre-Dame and of the Sainte-Chapelle were celebrated in Bari for more than 300 years and, along with the celebration of the local patrons, Nicola and Sabino, became the salient characteristic of the liturgical identity of the Basilica. I propose to show the features of the plainchant sung in San Nicola, as revealed by the manuscript record, and to describe how a foreign rite was adopted and adapted in the Basilica, which already had its own liturgy, when the Parisian rite was superimposed by the King.