In his dissertation, James R. Tomlinson examines surviving sources of polyphonic music from late medieval England which shed new light on the ownership and transmission of music manuscripts and musical repertoires. Tomlinson uses two fourteenth-century manuscripts of English origin—Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 512/543 and Durham, Cathedral Library, MS C.I.20—as primary objects of study, employing various techniques from different disciplines including palaeography, codicology, prosopography, and music analysis. He argues that these two sources and their relationships both with other music sources and music-theoretical texts reflects the importance of a network of musically proficient individuals with associations to the Oxford and/or Cambridge universities in the first half of the fourteenth century, one hundred years earlier than previously thought. His work provides a new critical perspective that challenges the received view that greater monasteries dominated the production of polyphony before 1400, and demonstrates that English universities were important sites for the circulation of both domestic and imported musical repertoires.
James Ralph Tomlinson successfully defended his dissertation on 14 March 2025
Trial lecture
Designated topic: "Music and Style in the Larger Collections of Insular Polyphony c. 1275-c. 1350"
Evaluation committee
- Professor Dr Karen Desmond, Maynooth University (first opponent)
- Professor Dr Jared C. Hartt, Oberlin College and Conservatory (second opponent)
- Associate Professor Dr Judith I. Haug, University of Oslo (committee administrator)
Chair of the defence
- Associate Professor Dr Hans T. Zeiner-Henriksen
Supervisors
- Associate Professor Dr Catherine A. Bradley, University of Cambridge
- Professor Dr Magnus Williamson, Newcastle University