The influence of Rome on medieval plainsong and liturgy explored in depth. Containing substantial new studies in music, liturgy, history, art history, and palaeography from established and emerging scholars, this volume takes a cross-disciplinary approach to one of the most celebrated and vexing questions about plainsong and liturgy in the Middle Ages: how to understand the influence of Rome? Some essays address this question directly, examining Roman sources, Roman liturgy, or Roman practice, whilst others consider the sway ofRome more indirectly, by looking later sources, received practices, or emerging traditions that owe a foundational debt to Rome. Daniel J. DiCenso is Assistant Professor of Music at the College of the Holy Cross; Rebecca Maloy is Professor of Musicology at the University of Colorado Boulder. Contributors: Charles M. Atkinson, Rebecca A. Baltzer, James Borders, Susan Boynton, Catherine Carver, Daniel J. DiCenso, David Ganz, Barbara Haggh-Huglo, David Hiley, Emma Hornby, Thomas Forrest Kelly, William Mahrt, Charles B. McClendon, Luisa Nardini, Edward Nowacki , Christopher Page, Susan Rankin, John F. Romano, Mary E. Wolinski

The tradition of Old Hispanic liturgical chant is here examined through a new methodology, enabling striking new insights into its use. Medieval Iberian liturgical practice was independent of the Roman liturgy. As such, its sources preserve an unfamiliar and fascinating devotional journey through the liturgical year. However, although Old Hispanic liturgical chanthas long been considered one of the most important medieval chant traditions, what musical notation to survive shows only where the melodies rise and fall, not precise intervals or pitches. This lack of pitch-readable notation has prevented scholars from fully engaging with the surviving sources - a gap which this book aims to fill, via a new methodology for analysing the melodies and the relationship between melody and text. Focussing on three genres of chant sung during the Old Hispanic Lent (the threni, psalmi, and Easter Vigil canticles), the book takes a holistic view of the texts and melodies, setting them in the context of their liturgical and intellectual surroundings, and, for the Easter Vigil, exploring the relationship between different Old Hispanic traditions and other western liturgies. It concludes that the theologically purposeful text selections combine with carefully shaped melodies to guide the devotional practice of their hearers. Emma Hornby is a Reader in Music , University of Bristol; Rebecca Maloy is Associate Professor of Music, University of Colorado at Boulder.

Based on highly original archival and palaeographical research, this is the first methodological and factual primer in English on the distinctive liturgical tradition of early medieval Spain. It provides clear and approachable blueprints for future work on the description and analysis (musical, theological and cultural) of this and other liturgies. For non-specialists, the authors introduce the main features of Old Hispanic liturgy, its manuscripts, its services and its liturgical genres. For specialists, they model a variety of ways to work with the Old Hispanic materials in depth, incorporating notational, musical, theological and historical perspectives. For those interested in musical notation, the book lays out a method for working with unpitched neumes, with illustrative results, that will inspire and challenge others working on monophonic chant. For historians and liturgists, the texts and melodies are analysed in combination with the theological context that informed their creation.