Conclusions

Abstract

Abstract THE HISPANIC RITE stands out from the non-Roman Western medieval liturgies for its long history of observance and for having the largest corpus of extant manuscripts. Despite its importance, it has not received the scholarly attention that it deserves. One of the main reasons for this lacuna is that the vast plainchant repertoire of this rite was recorded using a notational system that lacks clear specification of pitch and thus eludes most musicologists (let alone modern historians and liturgists). We have seen in this book that the lack of precisely prescribed pitch, rather than impeding the advancement of studies on plainchant, can trigger the exploration of many other variables which are often neglected but which need to be studied to further our knowledge in this field. These variables include not only musical aspects other than pitch-specification (such as the grammar that underpins chant melodies, melodic repetitions, and musical pacing of the text), but also sets of textual and liturgical variables which, together with the music, form the essence of the entity known as plainchant.