The Development of Chazanut in the Medieval Period
Dr. Tamar Ron Marvin unmasks a millenium of cantorial transformation
I’m delighted to introduce this week my first guest author,
.Tamar is a scholar, writer, and digitally-savvy educator in Jewish history and Torah learning. In addition to her in-person work in Los Angeles, she has a growing online footprint through her multifaceted website (which has great Torah study guides as well as numerous academic articles), her editing on Wikipedia, and her Substack newsletter—
.I discovered Tamar on Substack and was fascinated by her deep-dive articles into rabbinic personalities and Jewish history topics. So I asked her to write today's guest article to address one of the basic confusions of cantorial history — the term cantor (hazzan) itself.
Why is this so confusing? As Judah Cohen writes, the history of the cantorate is a heterotopia—that is, that this one term “can represent multiple distinct layers of meaning that evoke numerous time periods, cultural values, skills, and aesthetic qualities.”
“The term ‘cantor’ invokes in form or spirit several different titles (temporary, amateur, and professional), numerous leadership responsibilities and activities (religious or otherwise), many forms of knowledge and talent (notably, not always vocally), a wide variety of moral norms, and innumerable musical aesthetics and repertoires. These are often combined to create a metanarrative that typically gives the figure historical depth and the appearance of an intimate knowledge of Jewish tradition (in Cohen, The Making of a Reform Cantor, p12).
This heterotopic history lends its well to cantors who want to adapt to modern times with ample precedent. Yet this narrative utility often leaves the actual two-thousand year history of cantors obscured, as well as the forces that created its multifaceted metanarrative.
Tamar’s article unravels the early threads of this narrative, revealing the many historical strands throughput which the word hazzan took on new meaning, yielding a multiverse of cantorial possibility for generations to come.
The Development of Chazanut in the Medieval Period
by Dr. Tamar Ron Marvin
The office of chazan as we know it—a shaliach tzibbur (prayer leader) who embellishes Jewish prayers with artful melodies beyond the regular chant—developed during the period of the Geonim, in the early Middle Ages. The role of the chazan was established by the later medieval centuries but came into its own only in modernity. Here we’ll focus on its development during the Middle Ages.
The term chazan ha-knesset (chazana de-kenishta in Aramaic) is already known in the Mishnah and Tosefta, as well as in Midrash and the Talmuds, although there it signifies a leadership role that is unconnected to musical performance. For instance, “The synagogue attendant (chazan ha-knesset) takes a Torah scroll and gives it to the head of the synagogue; and the head of the synagogue gives it to the deputy [High Priest], and the Deputy gives it to the High Priest, and the High Priest stands and receives [the scroll from his hands]” (Mishnah Yoma 7:1, paralleled in Sotah 7:7-8). In this text, the chazan is clearly a leading functionary for important elements of the prayer service but not necessarily in a musical capacity. The chazan ha-knesset in the time of Chazal also waved a scarf to indicate the end of the prayer as a prompt for the congregation to reply, “Amen” (Tosefta Sukkah 4:4), blew trumpets indicating the start of Shabbat and Yom Tov (Tosefta Sukkah 4:6), and administered punishments (Mishnah Makkot 3:12). The function of leading the congregation through ritual observances is evident, but again, not in relation to musical performance. It is notable that there are already indications that congregations needed prompting, likely due to the dominance of Aramaic over Hebrew.
The Advent of Piyut as Sung Prayer
A number of factors combined in the Geonic centuries (c. 600-c. 1000) to expand the role of chazan ha-knesset inherited from Talmudic times. A central factor was the continued decline of Hebrew knowledge among laypeople, begun, as noted, already in the time of Chazal. Earlier, the Shabbat experience at synagogues was defined by the delivery of formal sermons, some of which are preserved, many in altered form, in the classical homiletical Midrash collections. Now, congregants began to evidently prefer piyut (liturgical poetry) in place of the sermon—not because it was more understandable but because it was pleasantly sung. In fact, the language of classical piyut dating from the Byzantine period is replete with neologisms (new coinages of words) and dense, complex allusions, making it among the most challenging dialects of Hebrew to understand. While its popularity in the early medieval period has been adduced to the popular knowledge of its scriptural and Midrashic references, it is more plausible that the popularity of piyut in the prayer services performed at synagogues was due to its musical aspect. (The sermon, in new forms, would return as a mainstay of Shabbat services in the later medieval period.)
In concert with these developments, there was the push of late Roman policy, which under the Christian emperors Theodosius and Justinian limited or outright persecuted pagans, Jews, and other religious minorities. In particular, Justinian’s Novella 146, issued in 553, dictated that Jews were to use Greek as the language of the synagogue, an attempt to undercut the interpretive translation of Hebrew, which congregations could largely not understand any longer, as well as the Oral Tradition upon which the interpretations relied. The limitations put in place by Novella 146 may have spurred the development of piyut with its unique ability to convey Midrashic interpretations in sung form that contravened Justinian’s legislation. Around the turn of the twelfth century, R. Yehuda ben Barzillai ha-Nasi of Barcelona wrote in his Sefer ha-Ittim, citing an old tradition:
“[Piyyut] was only introduced at a time of persecution because they were not able to speak words of the Torah, for the enemy decreed that Israel might not study the Torah. Therefore the sages among them introduced as part of the prayer service the practice of reciting and teaching to the ignorant the laws of each festival in its time and the laws of the holy days and the Sabbaths and the details of the commandments in the form of songs of praise and thanksgiving and rhymes and piyyut.” —Trans. Raymond P. Scheindlin in Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History, p. 222.
The term chazanut, and its Arabic equivalent hizana, appears in the Islamic period (beginning in the early seventh century), designating non-statutory (non-obligatory) poetic additions to the prayer service. It was used in parallel to the term piyut—a word of Greek origin, dating from the Byzantine period—and heads lists of such liturgical poems, some with commentary, in the manuscripts. In particular, the compositions of the classical paytan (liturgical poet) Yannai are known as hizana.
Geonic Endorsements of Chazanut
Although it was R. Saadia Gaon, a towering and highly influential figure, who popularized the Geonic composition and use of piyut in the early tenth century, the Geonim, leaders of the largest centers of Jewish life in the early Middle Ages, make a number of remarks highlighting the importance of chazanut. A vaunted tradition attributed to R. Yehudai Gaon (eighth century) has the chazan chanting the central prayers on Shabbat and holiday nights (in Lewin, ed., Otzar ha-Geonim I, no. 184, p. 72). An unsigned Geonic responsum notes:
“I found in an important halacha (law) that Rav Tzemach Gaon, of blessed memory, said: It is the custom of our chazanin to pray Avot and Gevurot…and it is said they received this abbreviated formulation from the first chazanim, who received it from R. Yehudai Gaon, of blessed memory, who received it from his teacher, who received it from his teacher, down to R. Yehuda [a Tanna], as it is taught in the Mishnah [Berachot 4:4], ‘Rabbi Yehuda says […] an incomplete prayer’” (in Lewin, ed., Otzar ha-Geonim I, Berachot, no. 184, p. 72).
The twelfth-century Provençal halachic compendium Sefer ha-Eshkol echoes this tradition.
R. Amram Gaon (ninth century), in his siddur—the first formulated Jewish prayerbook—describes with approval the complementary roles of the chazan and the shaliach tzibbur. It is the latter who has the main role in pronouncing the prayers, including the choice to add piyutim, but the the chazan who embellishes the service with “blessings and song (zemirot).” R. Amram also recommends that congregations hire a professional prayer leader rather than rely on a layman; the term he uses is explicitly shaliach tzibbur, but the conflation of the two roles would persist in medieval rabbinic discussions. By the time of R. Hai Gaon, one of the latest Geonim, his complaints were not about the presence of the chazan and his relationship to the sometimes controversial non-statutory additions to the prayer service, but about the practice of singing in the vernacular of the time, Arabic (see the collection of Geonic responsa Shaarei Teshuva, no. 152).
The Development of Chazanut in the Later Medieval Period
Throughout the medieval period, the office of chazan remained conflated in halachic discussions with that of a competent, professional (i.e., hired), and perhaps artful shaliach tzibbur. A chazan was not necessarily spoken of in terms of musical ability but of chanting and leading prayers more generally. Aspects of his character were emphasized as important, including personal piety, excellent command of classical Jewish texts as well as the various prayer services, and age. The shortage of qualified prayer leaders is evident in rabbinic permissions to give the job to a confident youth, even though unbearded, of thirteen years and one day (majority age). Later medieval sources, on the other hand, reveal fierce, even deadly, competition for the role of chazan with concomitant attempts to regulate the hiring of people to the office. Tax exemptions for chazanim and special collections at Purim on their behalf appear in the sources. It appears that most people so employed were poorly paid and in need of communal resources and even charity, though by the later medieval period the office of chazan was at times—though far from universally—a better endowed and generally a respected position. It very frequently included the chanting of the Torah alongside leading prayer.
Among the early evidence of musical chazanut in medieval Ashkenaz is the presence of “Mi-Sinai” melodies for the Yamim ha-Noraim (the High Holidays). These haunting melodies, still widely known today and closely associated with the holiday season, are common to both Western and Eastern Ashkenazi rites, indicating a common and early origin. These melodies are so called because they are considered to be so fundamental that it is as though they were received, along with the Torah, at Sinai.
In Rashi’s time, evidently, the chazan was still a basic functionary: Rashi comments on Makkot 22b (on the passage about the chazan’s role in adminstering lashes, mentioned above) on the term chazan ha-knesset in the Talmud, “He is a functionary (shamash) of the congregation. And I have not heard that he has any significance.” However, the office seems to have developed in Ashkenaz, and particularly in the Rhineland Valley communities of Germany, after Rashi’s time. This is seen most clearly in the lengthy treatment given to matters of chazanut in the important halachic compendium Or Zarua. Sefer Chasidim, a book of teachings of the Rhineland pietist (Chasidei Ashkenaz) movement, also devotes notable space to the prayer leader, expressing in a number of places concerns about the uprightness and piety of such a leader—and indicating his growing importance.
Among the most famous of Rishonim (medieval rabbis) to serve as chazan is the great Ashkenazi figure Maharil (R. Yaakov ben Moshe Moellin, c. 1360-1427). Fortunately, we possess a book detailing the personal practices of Maharil prepared by his student, R. Zalman of St. Goar. These include explicit prescriptions for chazanut formulated by Maharil. Maharil, for instance, specifies about the prayers of special occasions, such as Yom Kippur and the mournful fast day of Tisha be-Av, when the chazan was to sing softly, in a regular voice, or loudly at specific parts of the service.
Even considering Maharil’s exacting standards, at the end of the medieval period, the chazan was far from the established and circumscribed office and musical virtuoso he would become in the nineteenth century. However, the roots of the office reach backward through the medieval and Geonic periods to antiquity.
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