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.
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.
[2] 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.
[3] One of the most important topics covered in the Musica disciplina, to contemporary scholars, is the eight Tones (octoechos), today known as the church modes which Aurelian called "toni".
[6] In the 8th chapter he also included the fascinating bit that Charlemagne himself had commanded that four more Tones should be added to the existing eight, making a total of twelve.