LITTLE did I suspect, when first embarking upon this project, that my greatest challenge would turn out to be finding an authentic Gregorian chant for the Apostles’ Creed. After more than a year of searching, I have not yet found one.

Enter the word “Credo” in the search engine for the I-Tunes Store. As of this writing (October 9, 2008), the search yields 150 results, only seven of which are Latin Gregorian chants. All seven of these Gregorian chants are versions of the Nicene Creed, not the Apostles’ Creed. The remaining 143 songs are a hodge-podge of pop tunes, Mexican rancheras and classical renditions of the Nicene Creed by Mozart, Bach, Haydn, Beethoven and others of that era. Even among these classical composers, every “Credo” proved to be a version of the Nicene Creed, not the Apostles’ Creed.

The popularity of the Nicene Creed is understandable. It has been an integral part of the Mass for at least a thousand years. By contrast, the Apostles’ Creed rarely turns up in any liturgy. Even so, I find it hard to understand the neglect which the Apostles’ Creed has suffered, for so many centuries, from the masters of Gregorian chant.



A rare 14th-century chant of the Apostles’ Creed appears on the album Codex Sanblasianus, performed by the Hungarian choir Schola Cantorum Budapestiensis.


The Codex Sanblasianus

A bare month before the scheduled launch date for ChanttheRosary.com — on September 8, 2008, that is — I thought I had found my Holy Grail. It appeared that I had stumbled upon an authentic, medieval version of the Credo in Deum, set to Gregorian chant.

The chant appeared on the CD album Codex Sanblasianus: Medieval Mass for the Feast of Annuntiation, performed by the Hungarian choir Schola Cantorum Budapestiensis.

Conductor János Mezei evidently found this gem in an obscure 14th-century South German manuscript housed in the British Museum. (1)

Polyphonous Albion

Alas, no sooner had I acquired Codex Sanblasianus, than I realized the Credo in Deum it featured might not fit the bill. It was beautiful, but was it Gregorian? Unlike the other chants on the album, the Credo was polyphonous, sung in what sounded like two-part harmony. Here it is:

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Beautiful as it was, the song confounded my untrained ear. Where exactly did the melody end and the other parts begin? How could I sing such a complex composition solo? And if I could not sing it solo, of what use would it be in chanting the Holy Rosary?

Despite these doubts, I had no choice but to record a solo version of the song. Without the Credo in Deum from the Codex Sanblasianus, I would have no Credo in Deum at all. And a chanted Rosary must have a Credo in Deum! So, for better or worse, here is what I concocted:

Friends of mine with expertise in liturgical chant fortunately dissuaded me from including the above video in my tutorial. One of these, my good friend David Yeagley, observed that, since the stated goal of my tutorial was to teach people to sing the Rosary in authentic Gregorian chant, it made little sense to teach a polyphonous chant, since polyphony, by definition, is not Gregorian.

A “Farsed” Apostles’ Creed

This verdict could have left me with a gaping hole in my tutorial. However, I had, in the meantime, stumbled upon yet another version of the Apostles’ Creed, this one authentically Gregorian beyond any doubt.

The Credo in Deum I ended up using in this tutorial is “farsed“, which is to say that it was set to music originally written for a different prayer. Mind you, I am not the one who performed this switcheroo. It was done long ago, sometime in the late 12th Century, probably because some church needed a Credo in Deum to celebrate some special feast day, but could not find any music written especially for that prayer. So the church did the next best thing; it stripped out the words from some other song, composed for some other prayer, and stripped in the words of the Credo.

All of this may sound a bit dodgy, but the point is that the farsing was done during the Middle Ages, by actual medieval people, and that makes it authentic. Not only was this farsed version of the Credo in Deum actually sung at some 12th-Century medieval mass, but the musical score of the farsed Credo somehow managed to survive the centuries, ending up on pages 235-36 of David Hiley’s Western Plainchant: A Handbook. Professor Hiley explains on page 168:

“Three different Credo texts were known in the Middle Ages. The Apostles’ Creed (‘Credo in Deum patrem omnipotentem creatorem caeli et terrae’) was often said as part of preparatory prayers before the services of the office. The only known musical settings are farsed ones from special festal liturgies (see Ex. II.23.19 below). Curiously, however, among the Greek ordinary-of-mass chants which are notated in a number of earlier sources (see VIII.2.v) is a Greek creed, and this is the Apostles’ Creed. No source with diastematic notation is known. [...].”

What all of this means in plain English is that the Credo in Deum which now appears on this tutorial is probably the best version available which is clearly, unambiguously and undeniably Gregorian, and was actually performed during the Middle Ages. I hope you enjoy it!

1. Die Handschrift London, British Museum, Add. 27630 (LoD). Hrsg. von Wolfgang
Dömling. 1972. 2v. (Bärenreiter- Verlag)