MIME · Musical Imitation in Medieval Europe (1110-1300)

Musical Imitation in Medieval Europe (1110-1300)

In the late Middle Ages, especially in the territories that we now call France, lyric poetry was made to be sung, and poets were most often music composers and singers. Initially restricted to religious environments, musical scores started to appear from the 13th century in secular sources, and medieval songbooks have transmitted thousands of melodies accompanying lyrics in European languages. The rise and development of vernacular musical repertories, mostly linked to courtly cultural environments, have been profoundly shaped by processes of melodic imitation and reuse. On the one hand, the absence of copyright and a less pronounced sense for musical authorship set no limits to the legitimate reuse, recomposition, and performance of existing music, and on the other, musical imitation became a means for poets-performers to establish cultural and literary connections within a European lyric tradition. Studying these connections from a musicological and literary perspective provides us with a better understanding of cultural relationships and processes of exchange that would otherwise be completely lost to us. The connections between secular, courtly, vernacular song and Latin sacred music composed for liturgical purposes must have been prolific, as suggested by scholars such as Jacques Challey and Hans Spanke. However, these connections are extremely difficult to identify because of the large amount of extant vernacular music and the almost countless examples of liturgical sources. What is more, melodies transmitted orally, transcribed and copied by hand, underwent significant modifications, making melodic comparisons even more complex. The first step in understanding the system of cultural connections created through music in the late Middle Ages is to equip ourselves with the right tools. In this respect, adopting a digital approach appears the most compelling way forward, as it enables large-scale comparisons and analysis. The main objectives of the project are: 1) Enlarge the dataset of encoded melodies of the vernacular corpus of medieval French lyrics. 2) Integrate other existing musical datasets, especially those of liturgical music, converting them to a common encoding standard. 3) Create a set of analytic tools to compare a large number of melodies efficiently and flexibly. 4) Define and describe techniques of music imitation and reuse. 5) Analyse the first results and discuss the cultural connections both within and between secular and religious corpora. The project serves as a proof of concept for a larger collaborative initiative. It demonstrates that computational strategies can advance our knowledge of cultural exchanges through music, while also providing the technical tools and a sustainable workflow (including encoding and analysis) to support future research. It demonstrates the necessity of an integrated approach, bringing together musicology, literature, philology, and digital humanities, to investigate artworks that develop across multiple media.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union