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Musical and Poetic Creativity for A Unique Moment in the Western Christian Liturgy, c.1000-1500

Benedicamus melodies from the 11th century, manuscript source.

Eleventh-Century Benedicamus Melodies. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 887, fol. 156r, detail (Reproduced from BnF Gallica).

How did a single moment in the Western Christian liturgy shape music history? The ritual exclamation Benedicamus Domino was a moment of special musical freedom and experimentation in the period c.1000-1500.

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“Musical and Poetic Creativity for A Unique Moment in the Western Christian Liturgy, c.1000-1500” - is funded by the European Research Council under agreement no. 864174 (ERC Consolidator Grant 2020).

Selected publications

Nicholas David Yardley Ball, Digital edition of Benedicamus Domino melodies catalogued by Barbara Barclay (1977), Cantus Index

Catherine A. Bradley ed. 'Benedicamus Domino as Female Devotion', Special Issue, Early Music 50/4 (2022).

Catherine A. Bradley, 'Editorial’, Early Music 50/4 (2022): 417-18

Hana Vlhová-Wörner, 'Benedicamus Domino tropes in the monastery of Benedictine nuns at St George’s, Prague', Early Music 50/4 (2022): 419-34

Agnieszka Budzinska-Bennett, 'Poor Clares, rich in music: unique polyphonic Benedicamus Domino settings from southern Polish convents in the late 13th and early 14th centuries', Early Music 50/4 (2022): 435-50

David Catalunya, 'Benedicamus Domino: delight in singing praise to God at Las Huelgas of Burgos', Early Music 50/4 (2022): 451-64

Karin Lagergren, 'Benedicamus Domino tropes in the Birgittine Order: embellishing everyday liturgy', Early Music 50/4 (2022): 465-76

Manon Louviot, 'Benedicamus Domino as an expression of joy in Christmas songs of the Devotio moderna', Early Music 50/4 (2022): 477-92

Catherine A. Bradley, 'Polyphony from and for Refrains in Dance-Song Motets', in Jared C. Hartt, Tamsyn Mahoney-Steele, and Benjamin Albritton (eds.), Manuscripts, Music, Machaut: Essays in Honor of Lawrence Earp (Turnhout: Brepols, 2022): 413-39

Catherine A. Bradley, Authorship and Identity in Late Thirteenth-Century MotetsRoyal Musical Association Monographs 39 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2022).

Published June 17, 2020 1:19 PM - Last modified Jan. 10, 2024 8:54 PM

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