Salle du Conseil
Org.: Laure Miolo, Richard Kremer, Michael Friedrich
Collaboration with CSMC Hamburg and the HS/HT seminar (SPHERE, Paris)
Argument
Studying Alfonsine astronomers’ scientific practices is one of ALFA’s central aims. These practices are diverse and occur in many different contexts. They are attested in manuscripts of various kinds ranging from pocket-format calendars or almanacs and student notes to elaborate presentation manuscripts or dense table sets used by known astronomers. Beyond astronomy, many of these manuscripts also contain material from mathematics, astrology or other intermediary sciences such as music or optics. In such manuscripts, astronomical practices are documented in a rich variety of writing formats (tables, diagrams, or texts) and distributed in even more writing genres (tables sets, canons, instruments texts, mathematical treatises, observation reports, etc.). Some of the practices attested by these witnesses may be linked closely to the actual production of manuscripts (e.g., when astronomical material is adapted to a specific patron or when a student builds his manuscript in order to learn astronomy); others relate to the use of manuscripts to achieve specific tasks such as computation.
These second kind of practices will be the focus of the workshop. How can we analyse manuscripts in order to grasp and understand practices that rely on them to perform specific tasks that go beyond simply “reading”? How can we understand, in this context, the variety of writing formats and genres or the complexity of the intellectual content of many of these manuscripts? From clues found in the manuscripts, how far can we go in reconstructing the practices in which those manuscripts were involved?
In this workshop, we want to rely on the notion of performance in order to explore these questions. Analysing practices that rely on manuscripts to achieve specific tasks in terms of performance will allow us to make two important points. First, we can make explicit some of the characteristics of astronomical practices including the fact that they usually require special training; can be subject to quality evaluation by peers; are directed to an aim beyond or beside the real-time act of (individual or collective) reading of the manuscripts; and occur in a specific ‘situation’ primarily accessible to us through an analysis of manuscripts. Second, we can connect the astronomical parts of those manuscripts with their neighbouring material in innovative ways since performance analysis can be applied broadly beyond mathematical astronomy.
As a matter of fact, performance studies, starting with insights from the theory of performing arts like music or theatre, address many other domains of social practices (e.g. Schechner 2013; FichterLichte 2004). This approach has been fruitfully used by art historians (e.g. Broomhall, 2017) and could help us, individually and collectively, examine in new ways the complexity of our Alfonsine manuscripts. Among the neighbours of mathematical astronomy in our manuscripts, mathematics, astrology, and music seem to us, initially, the best choices for an analysis in terms of performance. For instance, beyond astronomy, other kinds of mathematical practices (e.g. algebra, practical geometry) might rely on manuscripts to perform computations. In astrology, manuscripts are deployed to prepare objects (talismans, horoscopes) or perform specific ceremonies or predictions. In some of these cases, the manuscripts themselves, as physical objects, can be performative. Performing arts like music also rely on manuscripts in multiple ways.
Manuscripts, as the material and intellectual site from which these various kinds of performance are accessible to historians, must remain at the centre of our inquiries. The question of manuscripts in performance calls for fresh analyses of many dimensions of these artifacts. For instance, the various performances in which a manuscript can take part might imply a great diversity of formats. A manuscript may need to be monumental or, at the other extreme, pocket-sized; a manuscript may need to be especially robust for an itinerant astrologer or highly luxurious for the court library. Groups of manuscript codices may need to be used together, or in specific sequences, by one or several actors. The content, even types of notation, may be adapted to the performances in which the manuscripts are implied; for instance, specific notations were designed particularly for astrology, music or mathematics. This, in turn, raises a new set of issues specific to manuscripts studies: Did medieval actors shape some of their manuscripts specifically for use in given performances? Is it possible to identify clues in the physical, decorative or content features of manuscripts that make them especially suitable for these different kinds of performance?
To explore these issues, ALFA and the CSMC are organizing an international workshop on the use of manuscripts in various kinds of performance related especially to medieval and early modern astronomy, astrology, and music. To help us start thinking about performance, one additional aim of this workshop will be to look at a range of other disciplines and manuscript cultures around the world. Further we believe that analysing these questions from the perspective of manuscript studies will not only benefit the history of astronomy but also prompt new questions within methodologically related disciplines in cultural studies that rely heavily on manuscripts sources. Thus, this workshop will gather not only manuscript specialists but also historians of the different disciplines we seek to explore.
As an outcome of this workshop, we hope to produce a special issue of a peer-reviewed journal in the field of manuscript studies, to be published in 2020.
Program
Monday 20, May
Salle du conseil
Chair: Mathieu Ossendrijver
14h-14h15
Matthieu Husson
Welcome and opening
14h15-15h15
Karen Desmond, Brandeis University
Medieval music rotuli and scribal performance
15h15-16h15
Laura Albiero, IRHT
Liturgical practice in the light of its books
16h15-16h45
Break
16h45-17h45
Andreas Janke, CSMC
Late medieval music manuscripts: secular polyphony and performance
For the guests and only on invitation
18h30-19h45
Salle Cassini
Concert Ars nova, ars subtilior, ars suavior By the ensemble Un chemin de musique.
A short cocktail will follow
20h30
Conference dinner
Tuesday 21, May
Salle du Conseil
Chair: Antonella Brita
9h-10h
Richard Kremer, Dartmouth college, ALFA project
Performing alfonsine computation in 15th-century universities: students, ephemerides and manuscripts
10h-11h
Laure Miolo, SYRTE-Observatoire de Paris, ALFA Project
A bibliophile performing eclipse computations: the case of Lewis Caerleon (d. c. 1495).
11h-11h30
Break
11h30-12h30
Agathe Keller, SPHERE, CNRS & University of Paris
Performing mathematical operations: some testimonies of Sanskrit mathematical commentaries
12h30-14h
Lunch
Salle du conseil
Chair: Agathe Keller
14h-15h
Christine Proust, SPHERE, CNRS & University of Paris
Performing operations in and out of the text. The case of some cuneiform texts from Southern Mesopotamia
15h-16h
Mathieu Ossendrijver, Humboldt University
Manuscripts and performance in Babylonian astral science
16h-16h30
Break
16h30-17h30
Michael Kohs, CSMC
Ritual magic and divinatory practices in Hebrew manuscripts
Wednesday 22, May
Salle du Levant
Chair: Richard Kremer
9h-10h
Li Liang, Institute for the History of Natural Sciences, CAS
Philippe de La Hire’s planetary practices in early modern Chinese texts
10h-11h
Karine Chemla, SPHERE, CNRS & University of Paris
Performing computations and texts of procedures
11h-11h30
Break
11h30-12h30
Heidi Buck-Albulet, CSMC
Analysing Japanese linked poetry manuscripts
12h30-14h
Lunch
Salle du Levant
Chair: Karine Chemla
14h-15h
Jane L Carroll, Dartmouth College
Looking beyond the page
15h-16h
Laura Fernandez Fernandez, Complutense University
The palace as theatre of knowledge. Performing with manuscripts in the alfonsine court
16h-16h30
Break
16h30-17h30
Janina Karolewski, CSMC
Performing without one’s Books? Manuscripts with performance-related texts from the Alevi tradition
Thursday 23, May
Salle du Conseil
Chair: Laura Fernandez Fernandez
9h-10h
Matthieu Husson, SYRTE Observatoire de Paris, ALFA Project
An astrologer’s astronomical manuscript: around Conrad Heingarter BnF lat. 7295A
10h-11h
Antonella Brita, CSMC
Ethiopic manuscripts in ritual performances: historical and contemporary evidences
11h-11h30
Break
11h30-12h30
Sho Hirose, ETH
Who pulled the string? – Tracking southern Indian astronomical manuscripts in their bundles and traces of practitioners therein
12h30-13h
Conclusion
Abstracts
Karen Desmond, Brandeis University
Medieval music rotuli and scribal performance
Most music of the Middle Ages has survived in large manuscript codices of relatively high production quality. This is true, for example, of the plainchant books of the western Christian church, of the collected poems and songs of the troubadours and trouvères, and of the extensive polyphonic repertoire transmitted in the Magnus liber organi of Notre-Dame cathedral. These books present themselves to their readers as comprehensive, and most likely, retrospective, anthologies of ‘important’ repertoires. On the other hand, the music sources considered here – rotuli (scrolls) – survive more haphazardly, are often less appealing to the eye, and, in general, at least in comparison to the aforementioned anthologies, have been little-studied, with a few notable exceptions that focus on isolated rotuli (Kelly 1996, Page 1997, Phillips 2019). This is despite the fact that, according to my tally, at least 30 music rotuli are extant that date from the mid-thirteenth to early sixteenth centuries.
While the function of the large music anthologies is often unclear, for the most part, rotuli do not appear to be especially retrospective in nature. Many were copied closer to the compositional date of the repertoire they transmit, and possibly, as Page 1997 and Phillips 2019 have shown, were used in performance. In copying rotuli, scribes were less circumscribed by convention and standard manuscript formats, thus analysis of their mise-en-page can shed light on their exemplars.
In this paper, following a brief overview of the thirty extant music rotuli, I present the evidence of two case studies. The first looks at the palaeography and musical style of the polyphonic Alleluyas copied in two thirteenth-century rotuli now housed under the composite shelfmark Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson c.400*+ Lat. Liturg. d.20. Based on this evidence, I reassess Luther Dittmer’s hypothesis these Alleluyas were written by a single composer. A second case study considers three fourteenth-century rotuli that transmit canonical works of Philippe de Vitry. Through an analysis of their notation, I propose that the scribes of all three of these rotuli were no passive ‘copiers’ but in fact were actively engaged in the performative act of notational revision. Like the layouts of the musical insertions in miscellaneous manuscript sources analysed in Deeming 2006, the experimental layouts in music rotuli, and the adjustments that their scribes make in the midst of copying, offer new insights into their sophisticated understandings of musical form and style, but also into the nature of the exemplars from which they worked, and thus bring us closer to the acts of composition and performance.
Laura Albiero, IRHT
Liturgical practice in the light of its books
There is a tight correlation between the liturgical practices and the material features of service books. These are in fact a support to celebrate the ceremonies and rites and they might be considered more as ‘documents’ rather than ‘books’, because they serve as a material guide and a memory aid. Liturgical books contain not only the texts to be pronounced and sung during the worship, but also references to people, gestures, movements that were necessary to accomplish the rite. The form and layout of the texts, as well as the strategies for an easy identification of the different textual sections, are adapted to the use and function that the books are supposed to have. This contribution intends to highlight the relationship between forms, dimensions and content of the liturgical books, and their use in the ritual practice.
Andreas Janke, CSMC
Late medieval music manuscripts: secular polyphony and performance
Most late-medieval books of polyphony were closely connected to circles involved in the performance of polyphonic song (e.g. composers, singers, scribes, etc.). However, difficulties often arise when scholars try to understand the role a specific codex might play in an actual performance. While some reject the use of manuscripts in performance completely—operating on the assumption that manuscripts cannot be sung from because they may be too small or contain too many errors—others argue convincingly that such a simplistic view is inadequate to address the complexity of this topic.
In this paper I will focus on a group of manuscripts from around 1350 to 1420 that include primarily Italian polyphonic compositions such as madrigals and ballate. These manuscripts share both repertory and general conventions of layout, which I will discuss briefly. In most cases the visual organisation of the notated polyphony does not allow a linear reading during performance, but such a reading is facilitated through details in the visual organization and a range of paratextual elements. I will focus principally on the latter, as I believe these elements have not yet received adequate attention. A diachronic perspective—taking into account the earliest and most recent manuscripts in this group—will help us understand changes in the paratextual elements and evaluate their relevance for performance.
Richard Kremer, Dartmouth college, ALFA project
Performing alfonsine computation in 15th-century universities: students, ephemerides and manuscripts
Beginning around 1400, the statues of some European universities began requiring faculty (and later students) to prepare annual astrological prognostications. In his recent doctoral dissertation (directed by Jean-Patrice Boudet) Alexandre Tur cataloged more than one hundred annual Latin prognostications for the years 1405 through 1484 that remain preserved in manuscript copies. Tur did not investigate, however, the tools required for these authors to compute the astronomical information (eclipses, planetary positions, entry of the Sun into the four cardinal points of the year, etc) required for the astrological predictions. A prognosticator could, of course, compute the astronomical data directly from the Alfonsine Tables; but it would be much easier if someone first had computed an ephemerides for the coming year, a tabular format of daily planetary positions with a long history extending back to Greek papyri in the early centuries of the common era and to Arabic astronomers. Several ephemerides by early Alfonsine astronomers (John of Lignères and John of Saxony) have been studied by Chabas and Goldstein but the university contexts of these 14th-century ephemerides remain unexplored.
My presentation will examine surviving manuscript copies of 15th-century ephemerides produced in various university towns (Oxford, Vienna, Heidelberg, Cracow). By considering physical features of the codices in which the ephemerides are now bound, I will suggest that these small treatises, usually one quire of 12 folios, filled with numbers rather than words, usually the author’s autograph, can be viewed as more than simple carriers of computational astronomy. They also certified the computational prowess of their authors and the “expertise” of the local university; were collected and bound together as icons of the quantitative foundation of the reigning astrological worldview; and reflected a commodification of astronomical computation that would allow nearly anyone (the non-numerates) to perform astrology by casting horoscopes. That is, astrologers “performed” with ephemerides; and ephemerides “performed” for local universities. Given the wide distribution of manuscript Alfonsine ephemerides, it was not an accident, I shall conclude, that the earliest large astronomical book, printed with moveable type, was Regiomontanus’s ephemerides of Nuremberg 1474, which provided daily planetary positions from 1475-1506 and contains roughly one million numbers.
Laure Miolo, SYRTE-Observatoire de Paris, ALFA Project
A bibliophile performing eclipse computations: the case of Lewis Caerleon (d. c. 1495).
This paper will focus on a unique witness for the history of astronomy : Cambridge, UL Ee.III.61. This manuscript was partly copied and assembled by Lewis Caerleon, a Welsh physician and astronomer, who was trained in Cambridge. He conceived this codex as a compendium mainly dedicated to eclipse phenomena and their calculation, where he gathered a whole set of material ranging from astronomical tables to rules for computing eclipses, with the likely aim of composing his own eclipse computations and tables, which are included in the same manuscript. The latter works echo two notebooks (now kept in Cambridge, St John’s College, and at the British Library) gathering notes and tracts on eclipses written by him. In parallel with his astronomical works on eclipses, he was an active annotator and scribe, practically a philologist. During his career as a physician of Margaret Beaufort and Henry VII, and before his imprisonment in the Tower of London in 1484, he consulted, recalculated and collected works by earlier English calculators (mainly from Oxford) as well as 14th-century Parisian astronomers. He can be considered as an intermediary figure linking two traditions of mathematical studies. MS. Ee.III.61 is representative of his interest as he also gathered works by Jean de Lignères (fl. 1322-1335), John of Genoa (fl. 1330’s), Richard Wallingford (d. 1336), Simon Bredon (d. 1372), John Killingworth (d. 1445). Lewis Caerleon’s actions are symptomatic of the importance of astronomical practices amongst some scholars of that time and highlight the particular role played by the science of the stars in the development of sciences at the University of Cambridge. This paper will aim at better understanding Lewis Caerleon’s work methods and astronomical practices by exploring inter alia his reception of John of Genoa’s computation of the Solar eclipse of 1337 contained in Cambridge, UL, Ee.III.61.
Agathe Keller, SPHERE, CNRS & University of Paris
Performing mathematical operations: some testimonies of Sanskrit mathematical commentaries
Sanskrit mathematical commentaries can be seen as representing many different kind of performances. Most famously, these texts present the treatises they comment upon as having been performed orally. As we will see, this may be partly a fantasy, part of a standard rhetoric or presentation of scholarly knowledge rather than a fact. Furthermore, mathematical commentaries contain lists of solved examples which include representations of a working surface on which computations would have be carried out and diagrams drawn. In this paper questions of how to reconstruct the performance of multiplications with the help of these representations will be discussed, as are set into play manuscripts and editions of these texts, as well as reflexions on the media on which and with which these multiplications may have been performed. The discussion will use Pṛthūdhaka’s (fl. 850) commentary on the Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta (628), the anonymous undated commentary on the Pāṭigaṇita (ca. 950) and the Bālabodhāṅkavṛtti, Sambhudāsa’s (CE 1428/1429) Old-Gujarātī commentary on the anonymous Sanskrit Pancaviṃśatikā.
Christine Proust, SPHERE, CNRS & University of Paris
Performing operations in and out of the text. The case of some cuneiform texts from Southern Mesopotamia
Many cuneiform administrative and mathematical texts pose an enigma: they provide the results of a large number of calculations, often highly technical, but the practical implementation of these calculations has left very few traces, if any. One possible explanation, widely shared by current historians, for this apparent contradiction, would be that most calculations were performed on a material device used in parallel with the writing of the texts. A small group of administrative and mathematical tablets dated to the late 3rd millennium provides new light on the existence and possible use of calculation devices. These tablets exhibit specific numerical notations, not found elsewhere, and written in the margins of the main text. This presentation will show how these marginal notations reflect the back and forth between text and device and allow us to reconstruct the temporality of writing and calculating acts. This presentation is based on researches led in collaboration with Xiaoli Ouyang in the framework of an European project (SAW, Sciences in the Ancient Worlds, 2011-2016) to appear in a forthcoming publication (X. Ouyang and C. Proust. Place value notations in the Ur III period: marginal numbers in administrative texts. In Cultures of computation and quantification, ed. K. Chemla, A. Keller, and C. Proust. Springer).
Mathieu Ossendrijver, Humbolt University
Manuscripts and performance in Babylonian astral science
Babylonian scholars of the astral sciences (700 BCE – 100 AD) performed a range of activities involving celestial phenomena including observation, calculation and interpretation. The material remains of these activities are clay tablets. Apart from their content, the widely different physical and non-textual features of these tablets allow us to trace practical and performative aspects of Babylonian astral science. This contribution focusses on material aspects of astronomical reports and astrological texts including horoscopes in order to shed light on the stages of production of astronomical manuscripts and the roles of manuscripts in astrological practices.
Michael Kohs, CSMC
Ritual magic and divinatory practices in Hebrew manuscripts
The relations of manuscripts to magical and divinatory practices and their integration into performance can be of diverse nature. This talk will look into examples of “performing (with) manuscripts” from two perspectives:
Firstly, the function of manuscripts to give instructions for magical actions will be considered. Manuals of ritual magic contain formulas that must be recited, or astro-magical signs with an inherent power that are to be used on amulets, or diagrams of magic circles that are to be drawn on the ground when performing the magical ritual. Manuscripts of this type therefore structure and orchestrate the magical ritual. The question, whether the manuscripts are part of the performance itself, will be also be addressed.
Secondly, manuscripts can be the actual material locus of divinatory performances: Several Hebrew manuscripts contain traces of so-called geomantic practices, as secondary additions to their main contents. For these oracle procedures, the practitioner sets a random number of dots on the paper. Depending on the number of dots, different geomantic figures are formed, which are then combined in a tableau in order to receive a prediction regarding the question asked by the practitioner. Is the manuscript essential for this procedure (e.g. because of its main content) or is it used only because it was conveniently at hand?
Li Liang, Institute for the History of Natural Sciences, CAS
Philippe de La Hire’s planetary practices in early modern Chinese texts
Philippe de La Hire (1640-1718) was a French mathematician and an observational astronomer, and he was also a key figure in the Académie Royale des sciences. In 1702, La Hire published a set of astronomical tables named Tabulæ astronomicæ in Latin text, which was reprinted in 1727 and translated into French in 1735. Unlike his contemporaneous and former astronomers, he paid more attention to astronomical practices instead of specific theories. Tabulæ astronomicæ describes how to use tables for solving astronomical problems, and this book was introduced to China and India by Jesuits not long after its publication. Most astronomical tables of La Hire in this book were introduced in a Chinese manuscript titled Lifa wenda (Dialogue on mathematical astronomy, finished ca. 1713-1716) by a Burgundy French Jesuit Jean-François Foucquet (1665-1741), who was active in the Jesuit China missions for two decades. This paper discusses how the tables of La hire were used for the calculations of planetary motions in early modern China? Based on La Hire’s works, a kind of writing format, the “template table” (算式, suanshi) that was designed to guide the process of calendrical astronomical calculations was adopted in early modern China. This paper will also discuss the impacts of the new knowledge of La hire and his tables on the Chinese astronomy.
Karine Chemla, SPHERE, CNRS & University of Paris
Performing computations and texts of procedures
Manuscripts like Mathematics (數, completed before 212 BCE) and Writings on Mathematical Procedures (筭數書, completed before 186 BCE), and writings handed down through the written tradition, like The Gnomon of the Zhou (周髀) and The Nine Chapters on Mathematical Procedures (九章算術), both probably completed in the 1st century CE, give pride of place to texts of procedures. These texts contain clues regarding how practitioners were expected to perform computations with a calculating surface and rods, on the basis of the texts. My talk intends to concentrate on these clues to restore features of the performances. In particular, I will attempt to determine whether all texts of procedures were meant to be performed, and also whether changes in modes of description of the same procedure, to which these various writings attest, can be interpreted as changes in the status of the text of the procedure, or changes in the way of performing the computation.
Heidi Buck-Albulet, CSMC
Analysing Japanese linked poetry manuscripts
Renga, a form of collaborative poetry, by which participants of a circle alternately contribute verses, was very popular in Japan for more than half a millennium. Beginning in the 19th century, the practice gradually came to be abandoned throughout the country, with probably one exception. Revival movements are active since the 1980s.
In two ways, the relationship between renga manuscripts and performance is very special. One distinguishing feature is that they emerge during the poetry gathering. However, subsequent copies are created as well, and, in case of religious renga, votive ceremonies will follow. The second distinguishing feature is the impact that the patterns (structure, content, physical features) of the manuscript and those of the performance exercise on each other.
In my presentation, I intend to do a fragmentary analysis of (1) renga manuscripts (renga kaishi) and (2) renga performances, each including brief remarks about methods, special features and terminology as well as a description of differences between premodern and contemporary renga.
It also seems promising to make use of the terms production, use, setting, and patterns, developed as a heuristic tool at the CSMC (see Wimmer et.al., www.manuscript-cultures.uni-hamburg.de/papers/ CSMC_Occasional_Paper_3_Wimmer_et_al.pdf ).
Jane L Carroll, Dartmouth College
Looking beyond the page
The Gothic period experienced an exponential growth in manuscript production. Urban centers provided professional workshops that could copy, embellish, and, for a price, illuminate their volumes. Like monastic scriptoria, these new establishments created many religious texts, although their output also included a wider range of secular subjects. The impetus for this professionalization was supplied, in part, by the demand for personalized luxury. The increasingly complex court structures created a high-end market that demanded extraordinary volumes with unusual decorative schemes or encoded personal references. The rising merchant class, who aspired to a similarly self-reflexive style, commissioned or bought manuscripts for personal use that could mark them as people of taste. These manuscripts could incorporate elements that would signify their owner’s wealth, identity, and aspirations.
We will be examining how standard religious texts were used and then expand our explorations to include how a standard text could be manipulated to reflect a specific owner, region, or event. Sacred texts, while working books, could also become a conveyer of propaganda, a memory of an event, or a reflection of a personality. Their embedded subtexts tie the personal to the sacred, blurring categories.
Laura Fernandez Fernandez, Complutense University
The palace as theatre of knowledge. Performing with manuscripts in the alfonsine court
In a text dated around 1340 a scientist from Paris stated that he had seen a Castilian version of the Book of the Fixed Stars copied from the original manuscript preserved in the library of the King of Castile, Armario regis Alfontii. Unfortunately, the text does not provide more information about the place where that cupboard was located, if it was a part of the king’s books, or about who could access this material and under what conditions. But, besides those questions, it reveals the fact that the scientific books produced in the court were known beyond the walls of the Palace, were used and copied, and at certain point were visible in the Castilian court. Visible, for whom? when? where? with what purpose? Based on this premise I will explore the court as theatre of knowledge, the role played by manuscripts in this conception, and the audience for which the information was intended.
Janina Karolewski, CSMC
Performing without one’s books? Manuscripts with performance-related texts from the Alevi tradition
For long, the research on Alevis, members of a religious tradition in nowadays Turkey and neighbouring regions, almost exclusively depended on secondary literature, oral history, and data collected during participatory observations. During the last decades, more and more manuscripts from Alevi communities have been made accessible, and the expectations of academics were high that they could shed light on Alevi rituals and ritualised gatherings as well as their musical performances. While it is beyond dispute that these sources gave numerous new insights into the tradition, there are several pending questions, among them the question about their deployment in ritual and musical performances, for example. The paper will give a short overview on manuscripts with performance-related texts from the Alevi tradition and delve into some case studies in order to discuss possibilities as well as limitations for the interpretation of their use.
Matthieu Husson, SYRTE Observatoire de Paris, ALFA Project
An astrologer astronomical manuscript: Around Conrad Heingarter BnF lat. 7295A
Late medieval astronomical manuscripts in Europe can be of many different types: luxury products designed in courtly contexts, student manuscripts, astronomers/astrologer working documents, university manual, etc. However, beyond their astronomical content, they often share several characteristics two of which will be of particular interest in this communication. They usually contains multiple texts. They also regularly rely on different style of graphical expressions (texts, tables, diagrams). How can these characteristics be analysed? How can we combine these analyses with those of the material and intellectual dimension of the manuscript? What kind of assemblages do we see in the sources? Can they be interpreted? What can we learn then on the performances that could integrate the manuscript? I’m going to ask these general questions around the specific case of Ms BnF lat. 7295A and thus pursuing my exploration of the astronomical manuscripts of the 15th century astrologer Conrad Heingarter. When enlightening comparison will be made with BnF lat. 7197 and BnF lat. 7432 two other astronomical manuscript of the same astrologer.
Antonella Brita, CSMC
Ethiopic manuscripts in ritual performances: historical and contemporary evidences
Material evidence can tell us a lot about the past life and the way hagiographic manuscripts were conceived, produced, used and perceived in the social, institutional and liturgical contexts related to the veneration of the saints. On the other hand, the observation of contemporary use of manuscripts also reveals some facets which cannot always be detected from their material evidences. The reason is that these facets pertain to a sphere of (intangible) knowledge which follows different channels of transmission – essentially oral transmission – that usually do not leave any material trace in the manuscripts. The results provided by both material and immaterial evidences not only complement each other, as long as the diachronic perspective is observed, but also inform us about evolutions and possible changes across the time. Each evidence mirrors the historical context to which it is referred, thus contemporary practices cannot be projected back into the past – if not supported by material evidences – and ancient practices cannot be considered still alive – if they are not any longer detectable.
The paper aims at providing an overview of some ritual practices related to the veneration of saints in Ethiopia. The timespan covered goes from the fourteenth century till the present time. The presence/absence of textual and visual patterns pointing at the performative use of manuscripts (including the time and the space of the performance) will be taken into account and will represent the leitmotiv of the entire contribution. Far from providing final results, it rather represents a first attempt of an insight into the topic from a mere material perspective. In particular, themes related to the liturgical, protective and healing performance of manuscripts will be analyzed in connection with the customs and believes of the local communities that produced and used the manuscripts.
Sho Hirose, ETH
Who pulled the string? – Tracking southern Indian astronomical manuscripts in their bundles and traces of practitioners therein
While Sanskrit astronomical texts have been copiously published today, little is known about the actual performances surrounding these texts, notably how they were used in actual situations. The main source, which in southern India are palm leaf manuscripts, show little traces of actors when examined alone. The popularity of a text may be analyzed on the basis of its number of copies and its distribution, but this is insufficient to learn how they were used. Focusing on the main actor alone fails to depict the whole act.
Thus in this preliminary study I focus on the co-actors – other texts in the same bundle. If a versified treatise is bundled with its commentary rather than being left isolated, we can expect that there had been more intention to understand and use that treatise. If two texts are frequently found in the same bundle, it is likely that they were studied together. A bundle could even represent a school curriculum. I would like to explore the possibility of viewing such bundles as mobile tools whose ownerships could change, and not still objects that would lie in the same household. On the other hand, we sometimes find astronomical texts piled up with manuscripts of very different genres, such as religion or poetry. What might this tell us?
Palm leaf manuscripts have holes for a string or code to bundle them together. The ultimate goal of this study is to find out who had pulled that string to put different texts together, and who had pulled them again to perform with these manuscripts.
Concert Program note
Un chemin de musique
Ars nova, Ars subtilior, Ars suavior (New, more subtle and suave music of the 14th and 15th centuries)
It was in the first decades of the 14th century that the Ars nova, Ars subtilior, Ars suavior program began, when the evolution of musical notation was perfected under the guidance of various musicians. Among them, there was the famous Bishop of Meaux, Philippe de Vitry, author of the treatise Ars nova. This booklet that codifies a more precise and varied notation system than the previous ones. It opens new rhythmic combinations (BONA CONDIT) allows increasingly complex arithmetic combinatories which were used throughout the papacy in Avignon (KYRIE De Fronsiaco). Medieval musicians, essentially educated in numbers, continued their research and developed in the second half of the 14th century bold techniques using Pythagorean proportions in extremely virtuoso and chiseled ways, called “more subtle” because they were reserved for the best performers capable of deciphering them (ALL BY COMPASS, THE HARP OF MELODY, SMOKE…). These innovations seduced the eclectic Johannes Ciconia who did not hesitate to propose them within the liturgy itself (GLORIA SPIRITUS). At the same time, it was also a gradual sound renewal from English singers that spread to France from the beginning of the 15th century thanks to its Burgundian allies. This considerably influenced the polyphonic style in the West through the sweetness of its imperfect consonances (AGNUS DEI by Leonel Power). It is still the reign of love song, the fine’amor or courteous love, a love desired, lost and impossible although always renewed. Guillaume de Machaut was the first great representative (TRES DOUCE DAME) and later Gilles Binchois (TRISTRE PLAISIR). The tradition of isorhythmic motets, initiated in the previous century, continued through works whose structure presents extraordinary proportional rhythmic symmetries, real cathedrals of sounds in motion (O SANCTE SEBASTIANE). In 1453, Constantinople fell under Turkish assault, marking for many historians the end of the Middle Ages; a year later Guillaume Dufay composed a famous lament on the fall of his Roman church (LAMENTATIO SANCTE MATRIS ECCLESIE) in a disturbing four-part motet that remains in the simplicity of a song. This programme end in the second half of the 15th century with a large 5-part motet by Johannes Ockeghem (INTEMERATA DEI MATER) whose contrapuntal dance and exploration of vocal range characterized the flamboyant ornamentation of the late Gothic era.
The concert is enhanced by contextualizing comments and video-projection of the manuscripts on which the ensemble Un Chemin de musique has established its research and this program. (approx. 1H15-30)