Proto-Mensural Notation in Pre-Pius V Spanish Liturgical Sources

Abstract

I argue here that aspects of the notation of the Lamentations of Jeremiah in late Spanish sources from Burgo de Osma (1562) and Salamanca (1582), may shed some light on characteristics that are only implied in some Toledan sources of the Lamentations from 1516-1576. Mensural or implied mensural aspects of chant notation in some Iberian liturgical and musical sources have attracted the attention of scholars from Higini Angles (1966) to Marius Bernad6 (1995) and Kathleen Nelson (1996).' The matter has not yet been satisfactorily resolved, nor will it be here, and the following comments form an early stage of work in progress on a larger study of notational issues raised in Spanish sources of the Lamentations of Jeremiah. The first source to be considered, the Toledo Passionarium of 1516 (one of the well-known and prestigious publications from Brocar at Alcala de Henares), offers an example whose notation is reproduced exactly in later sources of Lamentations from Toledo, namely those from 1556 and 1567.2