Sacred Song

The chapter surveys the primary forms that Christian sacred song took in Byzantium, in relation to the relevant manuscript evidence, liturgical practice, and music. It first draws attention to major challenges in relevant research (e.g., the immensity of the evidence, the living tradition of Byzantine liturgy, the disparate nature of the available evidence). Then, the main hymnic forms are presented: the monostrophic troparion, the polystrophic kontakion (for whose later history the chapter proposes an innovative reinterpretation of its supposed “decline” during the middle Byzantine period), the polystrophic kanôn, and the polystrophic stichêra. The chapter concludes with a presentation of various fields of desiderata in the study of Byzantine hymnography.