Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 14647
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Jeffreys , Catherine.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Listen, Daughters of Light: The Epithalamium and Musical Innovation in Twelfth-Century Germany
  • Source: Listen, Daughter: The "Speculum virginum" and the Formation of Religious Women in the Middle Ages.  Edited by Constant J. Mews.  The New Middle Ages Series. Palgrave, 2001.  Pages 137 - 157.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Essay
  • Subject (See Also): Bride of Christ, Image of Handbooks Liturgy Music Songs Epithalamium, Bridal Song Speculum Virginum, Latin Handbook for Nuns
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: Germany
  • Century: 12
  • Primary Evidence:
  • Illustrations: Five transcriptions of music. Example One "O sancta mundi domina" (Cologne, Historisches Archiv, D 182 Einzelblatt recto). Example Two "O qualis es" (Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale, 252, fols. 131v-132r). Example Three "O quam miranda" (Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale, 252, fol. 132r). Example Four "Qualis est dilectus" (Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale, 252, fol. 132r). Example Five "Audite, o lucis filie" (London, British Library, Arundel 44, fol. 1r).
  • Table:
  • Abstract: This chapter examines the "Epithalamium" or Bridal Song that concludes the "Speculum virginum" in the earliest manuscripts of the teatise. Its text and music, integrally related to the "Speculum" as a whole, provide the vehicle through which "the daughters of light" can obtain a foretaste of ultimate union with Christ. The structure of the "Epithalamium" parallels that of the Proper for the Office of Lauds in its alternation of antiphon and response. The "Epithalamium"provides a sung response to the text of the "Speculum virginum." The musical settings adhere to contemporary theoretical norms, such as promoted in the treatises of Berno of Reichenau and William of Hirsau, as well as in the preface to the Cistercian antiphonary (ca 1147). The songs illustrate a tendency, defended by Anselm of Havelberg in the mid-twelfth century, for religious communities to develop "new ways of psalmody" so as to better express their own liturgical identity. [Reproduced by permission of Palgrave].
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  • Author's Affiliation:
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 2001.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 0312240082