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National Library of Spain

National Library of Spain

2 Projects, page 1 of 1
  • Funder: UK Research and Innovation Project Code: AH/P002757/1
    Funder Contribution: 80,715 GBP

    Context Old Hispanic chant manuscripts do not specify precise intervals or pitches. This has constrained scholarly understanding of the melodies. In grant AH/H008306/1, we began to understand Old Hispanic chant's musical language systematically, especially the cadences. We identified characteristic cadence gestures, and how they are adapted to different numbers of syllables and (sometimes) accent patterns. We also explored how melodic pacing interacts with text: there are often many notes on theologically important words, directing participants' meditations towards those words and ideas. Aims We will significantly increase the cultural impact of these research findings, through: digital exhibitions; public workshops in Madrid and Coimbra; incorporation of Old Hispanic chant data in www.cantusdatabase.org (the flagship digital archive of ecclesiastical manuscript contents); explanatory Youtube videos; and promotion of our online transcription and analysis software. We will reconnect locals who visit archives and museums in Lamego, Coimbra, Madrid, León and Valencia with this almost-forgotten aspect of their cultural heritage, as well as reaching out to tourists. An interactive digital exhibition will combine with display - in their home institutions - of some fragmentary manuscripts. The exhibition, co-produced with the five institutions, will raise consciousness of Old Hispanic liturgy, the broad outlines of its history generally, and the history of these fragments in particular. We will also introduce the general public to some of our melodic findings, through a beginners' guide to reading the notations, and a primer to help people recognise cadence shapes and appreciate how the melody paces and parses the text. Some exhibition materials will be presented in short videos, also posted on Youtube (further broadening the potential reach). All exhibition materials will be presented in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Old Hispanic material will be included in www.cantusdabatase.org for the first time. As well as academics, this is the first port of call for choirmasters and amateur chant/liturgy enthusiasts, who may be struck by the liturgical and theological distinctiveness of the Old Hispanic chants and want to explore further: we will add links to our web-based Chant Editing and Analysis Program, where they will find the digital exhibition and our transcription and analysis tools. We will use social networking and communicate with special interest groups to spread knowledge of our activities. Potential applications and benefits We will engage audiences in ways that go far beyond superficial appreciation of the beauty and antiquity of the materials. The benefits are cultural: certainly aesthetic and historical, likely giving people the joy of spotting meaningful patterns across initially incomprehensible signs, and (for some) devotional and spiritual as well. Although it is little known nowadays, the Old Hispanic liturgy is theologically and musically complex; the sophistication of the liturgies put together for individual feasts and for whole seasons bears comparison with other treasures of the medieval age. The proposed activities allow a large number of people to engage with this cultural treasure. We will develop a network of new Iberian partners, with whose institutions we will explore the possibility of similar knowledge transfer in future, on the innovative model proposed here. Our longterm aim is a three-way collaboration between our analytical software, www.cantusdatabase.org and SIMSSA (McGill University, in the opening phase of developing optical neume recognition software). The proposed project brings together the two parts of this research that are ready for public use, while continuing to develop three-way dialogue with SIMSSA.

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  • Funder: UK Research and Innovation Project Code: AH/N006658/1
    Funder Contribution: 79,380 GBP

    Historical manuscripts provide a wealth of information about the past and also about the ways in which people conceived of their own history. Recent technological advances permit the opening of archives beyond those specialists who previously had sole access to manuscripts, initially by the provision of high quality digital images which allow any interested viewer to see such manuscripts and subsequently through the addition of further digital tools which aim to facilitate engagement with the medieval past in ways not previously possible. The current research project constructs a digital edition of one such set of manuscripts, the Estoria de Espanna - a thirteenth-century chronicle of Spain. Building on the research of the edition, we now aim to add a range of tools and activities in order to engage a wider public in the world of medieval texts and history. The tools in question will be adapted to serve and engage two different, and complementary, groups: (i) the public who visit libraries and exhibitions in Spain and the US and (ii) secondary school students in Spain. The tools will cover 4 key areas: (1) Contextual historical information on the Estoria de Espanna, its composition and contents. (2) Contextual information on Alfonso el Sabio, author of the chronicle. (3) Mapping and visualisation tools which will allow non-specialists to access the text of the Estoria from non-traditional perspectives. (4) Digital activities on five sections of the Estoria. Manuscript images of five sections of the Estoria will be available to all users of the digital tools and these sections of the respective manuscripts will also be on display at the simultaneous physical exhibitions at the Biblioteca Nacional de España, the Universidad de Salamanca, the Biblioteca Menéndez Pelayo in Santander and the University of Minnesota. The public will be engaged by means of a digital exhibition which will accompany the physical display of the manuscripts of the Estoria de Espanna in our partner institutions: the National Library of Spain in Madrid, the University of Salamanca and the Biblioteca Menéndez Pelayo in Santander in Spain and the University of Minnesota Library in Minneapolis in December 2016, to coincide with the launch of the digital edition. In concert with the University of Sheffield's Humanities Research Institute, we will provide interactive material to (i) inform the public about the context of thirteenth-century Castile and León; (ii) connect members of the public in Spain with their shared past; (iii) challenge mis-conceptions about medieval Iberia and manuscript culture and (iv) engage the public with text and space by means of visualisation tools; (v) engage non-academic partners in the research-led activities of the Estoria Digital project. The secondary school students will have the benefit of the same material, but this will be adapted to their specific needs. In concert with our partners in four schools in Spain we will develop specific learning exercises on five key sections of the chronicle (which will be available both in digital images and as the folios on display in the exhibitions). These will (i) challenge the students' pre-conceptions about the history of medieval Iberia and the sophistication of historical writing in the thirteenth century; (ii) expose the students to the depth and breadth of manuscript culture in Spain and (iii) engage the students in questions of literary and linguistic analysis emerging from the sections in question.

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