March 2021 Archives

A recent social media post showed a set of four knives with the lyrics and notation for a four-part grace-after-meals. Titled "Gratiarum actio," "the giving of thanks," the lyrics are, "Pro tuis beneficiis, Deus, gratias agimus tibi." "For your benefits, God, we give you thanks." On the reverse side, "Benedictio mensae," "the benediction of the table," a blessing for before meals: "Quae sumpturi sumus benedicat trinus et unus." "May the Three and One bless that which we are about to consume."

Each knife is nearly a foot long (29.1 cm), and an inch-and-a-half across (3.6 cm), with an ivory, ebony, and brass handle, and weighs about a half-pound.

Each knife had a set of notes for one of the four parts, labeled "Superius," "Contratenor," "Tenor," and "Bassus." There is a French Wikipedia article about these knives (couteau de notation), but nothing in English Wikipedia that I can find. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has the Tenor knife, Philadelphia Museum of Art has three, and one (Superius) and a set of seven (with a well-preserved example of a Bass knife) at the National Museum of the Renaissance in France. They are listed in an 1883 catalog of the Louvre, and there is an illustration of one of the knives at the Louvre (the Bassus part of the Benedictio) in Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages, Vol. 2 (1843).

Josh Davis of Davis Reproductions has created a replica of the Tenor notation knife.

Dr. Flora Dennis, an art historian and musicologist, transcribed the Benedictio mensae and the Gratiarum actio into modern musical notation, and then an a cappella quartet from the Royal College of Music recorded the result. The video at that link will give you a sense of the size and heft of the knife, and there are recordings of the two prayers.

Here is another recording of the Benedictio mensae and Gratiarum actio, by the Gentlemen of St. John's (College, Cambridge) from 2017. Singing the countertenor part is Joseph Wicks, an organist, choral director, and composer who leads the Beaufort Singers and is a member of the Gesualdo Six. (We had the thrill of hearing the Beaufort Singers and meeting Joseph and his colleagues at the inaugural Boxgrove Choral Festival in August 2018. You can watch the evensong service from the 2019 Boxgrove Choral Festival.)

MORE about Latin table graces:

Queens' College, Cambridge, uses Latin graces at special meals during the term. The article on the table graces begins with this very sad phrase: "Because few current students have any knowledge of Latin....:

In 2009, the students at Newnham College, Cambridge, rewrote their college's Latin table grace to eliminate any reference to God or Christ. Classics professor Mary Beard, a fellow of the college, wrote that "the undergraduates' rewrite was a classic case of disguising a load of well meaning platitudes in some posh dead language, which was actually an insult to that dead language."

h2g2 offers some tips for saying grace in Latin without knowing any Latin, e.g., by stringing together Latinate medical terms: "Spondylolysis medulla angioplasty barotrauma." Amen.

MORE CHORAL MUSIC from the BatesLine archives:

The definitive story of the Mastersingers, the Weather Forecast, and the Highway Code: A group of English school teachers perform mundane texts to Anglican chant and get a record produced by George Martin.