Medieval Cantors and their Craft: Music, Liturgy and the Shaping of History, 800–1500, ed. Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis, A.B. Kraebel and Margot E. Fassler

Abstract

The edited volume under review here provides the first book-length publication dedicated to monastic cantors and their various activities (i.e., their ‘craft’) during the Middle Ages. Following a brief introduction by the editors, Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis, A.B. Kraebel and Margot E. Fassler, the book contains nineteen chapters neatly arranged into four sections (‘The Carolingian Period’, pp. 7–88; ‘The Eleventh Century’, pp. 89–170; ‘England in the Twelfth Century’, pp. 171–276; ‘On the Continent: Five Case Studies’, pp. 277–356) and rounded off by an Index of Manuscripts (pp. 357–59) and General Index (pp. 361–370). From a conceptual point of view, the three editors have done an exemplary job by bringing together an international group of scholars from a wide variety of disciplinary backgrounds and at different stages of their respective careers, ranging from medieval historians, literary scholars and palaeographers to theologians and musicologists, and from doctoral candidates to emeritus professors. They have also taken great care in ensuring that the book’s individual chapters do not stand in isolation, but relate to one another regularly (and often explicitly), thereby feeding into important overarching discussions and debates.