Aurelian of Réôme

Aurelian of Réôme (Aurelianus Reomensis) (fl. c. 840 – 850) was a Frankish writer and music theorist. He is the author of the Musica disciplina, the earliest extant treatise on music from medieval Europe.

Next to nothing is known about his life but what can be inferred by the treatise itself. For a time he was a member of the monastery at Saint Jean de Réôme, in the Côte-d'Or near the present-day town of Moutiers-Saint-Jean. Aurelian said in his treatise that he was a former monk of Réôme, but had been dismissed from the community for an unspecified offense; he wrote the treatise as a form of penance, both at the request of his colleagues who needed his specialized knowledge, and as an attempt to supplicate Abbot Bernard of St Jean de Réôme; whether or not he was admitted back into the monastery as a result of his writing is not known. There is a record of an abbot named Bernard at St Jean de Réôme beginning in 846, who shortly afterward became bishop of Autun; this has helped establish the date for the treatise.

There has been an attempt to associate Aurelian of Réôme with Aurelian, archbishop of Lyon from 876 to 895, but the evidence for this is circumstantial at best.

The Musica disciplina is like the other more famous contemporary treatises (Musica and Scolica enchiriadis, Hucbald of Saint-Amand, Regino of Prüm etc.) one of the earliest Carolingian chant treatises which combine the reception of Ancient Greek music theory (ἁρμονικαὶ) with questions relevant to the contemporary performance of liturgical chant. Isidore of Seville wrote with a similar impact on contemporary Visigothic chant about music, while his subject was the music of antiquity as well.

Aurelian's work is one of the earliest authors concerned about Carolingian plainchant, still within the period during which Gregorian chant became standardized by its oral transmission in northern and western Europe. One copy became the earliest extant sample of musical notation, although it was added later. Hence, the particular notational scheme which was used so far by a later scribe resisted definitive interpretation, and it only appears randomly in the earliest manuscript.

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