Signs of Song in Medieval Iberia

The music of early medieval Iberia presents many mysteries. It is preserved in a notation which indicates melodic shape but not exact

pitch, meaning it cannot be transcribed or sung today. "Signs of Song in Medieval Iberia" (SING) is the first full-length study of two key

aspects of this notation. First, I investigate what performative nuances may be indicated by different musical signs (neumes) that

represent similar melodic contours. Two ascending pitches, for example, can be expressed using nine distinct neumes. By examining

neumed poetic texts, I will determine how and if specific neume shapes correspond with aspects of poetic structure, offering greater

access to the sounding world of early medieval Iberia-its performance of rhythm and timing-than has previously been considered

possible. I begin with close examination of neumed metrical poems in Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional MS 10029 (Azagra codex), a poetry

collection from al-Andalus rarely utilized by musicologists. I then consider poetic chant genres of the Old Hispanic liturgy (~80

chants). Secondly, I study neumes in Azagra that are used, not to denote melody, but as symbols tying words in the main text to

corresponding marginal commentary (like a footnote). Expanding musicological study to include these neumes offers new ways to

understand musical and textual culture: who knew how to write music notation and what they used it for. I will compile a catalog of

other Iberian manuscripts with non-musical neumes, thereby creating a map of Iberian musical literacy. I consider how musical

knowledge was part of literacy, reading, and religious formation, spanning both the northern Christian kingdoms and al-Andalus, the

portion of the Iberian peninsula under Islamic control from c.711 CE. SING thereby advances not only musicology, but paleography,

literary studies, and intellectual and cultural history, including intercultural exchange between Iberia's northern Christian kingdoms and the Islamicate world.