Dissemination of the Romano-Frankish Plainchant inside the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages: Assimilation of an International Tradition or Creation of Portuguese Musical Specificities?

This project has as its basis the study of chant in liturgical and musical manuscripts kept in Portuguese libraries and copied before the second half of the 16th century. Its methodology surpasses traditional approaches in that (1) it aim compares Portuguese and French books in order to clarify the process of penetration of the Romano-Frankish chant into Portugal (also studying large circulation networks and possible centers of composition), and (2) this is seen as a dynamic process occurring over several centuries.

This project starts with the cataloguing of the liturgical manuscripts with musical notation coming from the south of France and nowadays at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Due to the coincidence of the conservation, this library owns the biggest collection of these books. I will then create an inventory of the liturgical manuscripts with musical notation kept in the Portuguese libraries. Depending on their scientific interest, some of them will be catalogued. In parallel to these main tasks, I will study the musical notation imported from the south of France and will pursue the indexation of manuscripts in Portuguese Early Music Database.