John Howell asserted, in part:
chant notation--without rhythmic significance (although modern scholars do not agree on this)--continued in use for free chant.
but I would note that my investigations do not support the position that chant notation did not have rhythmic significance. I have a special interest in the chant melodies, and in my investigation of original sources, prepared both by hand, and through printing with movable type, I have noted that there are commonly two symbols used in chant notation, in the sources I have been investigating, which date from the 16th through the 18th centuries. One symbol is a square, oriented so that on pair of the sides are parallel to the staff lines; the other is about the same size and shape, but oriented so that the diagonal is parallel to the staff lines [herinafter, I refer to the former shape as a square, the latter as a rhombus]. The square is consistently used for accented syllables. The rhombus is consistently used for unaccented syllables. I have not found any instances where the square is used for an unaccented syllable, nor where the rhombus is used for an accented one.
Now, there are some items in which the same text is set in one place in polyphony, and in another place as plainsong by the same composer. One example of this can be demonstrated in a set of sixteeen settings of alternate verses of the Magnificat, two in each tone, by the 16th century Spanish composer Victoria. [cf: <http://www.upv.es/coro/victoria/partituras.html#magnificats>]. The compositional style, in which the plainsong tune is quoted in places, and in some places in its entirety, permits one to see that in the polphonic setting, syllables which in the plainsong are notated with a square (although not necessarily in these online sources; I am extrapolating from other sources dating from the same period and sphere of influence with which I am familiar), are, when the plainsong is quoted exactly, fall on a half note or a melisma taking longer than a half note, while syllables which are unaccented [rhombus] fall on a quarter note, or shorter. Further, it is of note that the Magnificat is more of a Psalm-tone arrangement, in which not every stanza has the same accent pattern, and one finds that in the polyphonic versets, that what was an accented syllable in one verse, and therefore a half note in the polyphony, in another verse is an unaccented syllable, and a quarter note.,
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