Adam de St. Victor

Adam de St. Victor, celebrated French churchman and poet who flourished in the first half of the 12^th century. By 1107 he was precentor at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, where he served as a high officiai for more than two decades. In 1133 he donated his prebend to the Abbey of St. Victor in Paris, where he subsequently lived and later served as a canon until his death (c. 1148). He played a major role in the development of the late sequence. It is possible that he was also a composer. For eds. of texts attributed to Adam de St. Victor, see L. Gautier, OEuvres poétiques d’Adam de St-Victor, précédées d’un essai sur sa vie et ses ouvrages (Paris, 1858-59; 3^rd ed., 1894), M. Legrain, ed., Proses d’Adam de Saint-Victor (Rome, 1899), E. Misset and P. Aubry, eds., Les Proses d’Adam de Saint-Victor: Texte et musique (Paris, 1901), H. Prevost, ed., Recueil complet des célèbres séquences du maître Adam le breton, chanoine régulier de l’abbaye royale de Saint-Victor de Paris (XII^e siècle) d’après les manuscrits de la même abbaye (Ligugé, 1901), C. Blume, G. Dreves, and H. Bannister, eds., Analecta hymnica medü aevi, LIV-LV (Leipzig, 1915, 1922), D. Wrangham, ed., The Liturgical Poetry of Adam of St. Victor from the Text of Gautier, with Translations into English in the Original Metres and Short Explanatory Notes (London, 1939), G. Vecchi, ed., Adam de S. Victor: Liriche sacre (Bologna, 1953), and F. Wellner, ed. and tr., Adam de Saint-Viktor: S¨amtliche Sequenzen, lateinisch und deutsch (Munich, 1955).

Bibliography

E. Hegener, Studien zur “zweiten Sprache” in der religiösen Lyrik des zwölften Jahrhunderts: A. v. S. V., Walter von Châtillon (Ratingen, 1971); M. Fassler, Musical Exegesis in the Sequences of A. and the Canons of St. Victor (diss., Cornell Univ., 1983).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire