Hagiopolitan Octoechos

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Oktōēchos (here transcribed "Octoechos"; Greek: ὁ Ὀκτώηχος pronounced in koine: Greek pronunciation: [okˈtóixos];^[1] from ὀκτώ "eight" and ἦχος "sound, mode" called echos; Slavonic: Осмогласие, Osmoglasie from о́смь "eight" and гласъ "voice, sound") is the name of the eight mode system used for the composition of religious chant in most Christian churches during the Middle Ages. In a modified form the octoechos is still regarded as the foundation of the tradition of monodic Orthodox chant today (Neobyzantine Octoechos).

The octoechos as a liturgical concept which established an organization of the calendar into eight-week cycles, was the invention of monastic hymnographers at Mar Saba in Palestine, at the Patriarchates of Antiochia and of Constantinople. It was officially announced as the modal system of hymnography at the Quinisext Council in 692.

A similar eight-mode system was established in Western Europe during the Carolingian reform, and particularly at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 AD which decanonised the former iconoclastic council in 754 and confirmed earlier ones. Quite possibly this was an attempt to follow the example of the Eastern Church by an octoechos reform, even if it was rather a transfer of knowledge with an introduction of a new book called "tonary" which introduced into a Western octoechos of its own design.

It had a list of incipits of chants ordered according to the intonation formula of each tone in its psalmody. Later on, fully notated and theoretical tonaries were also written. The Byzantine book octoechos (9th century) was one of the first hymn books with musical notation and its earliest surviving copies date from the 10th century.