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On the manufacture and dating of the Pistoia choirbooks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2010

Abstract

Pistoia, Archivio capitolare, manuscripts C.119, C.120 and C.121 – two twelfth-century graduals and a troper from the cathedral of San Zeno – are relatively small, undecorated choirbooks copied during a time when the cathedral chapter gained unprecedented wealth, power and autonomy. This study closely connects the choirbooks to their cultural milieu and specifically to two high-ranking Pistoiese clerics who were likely involved in their manufacture. By examining the political and social environment in which they were created, this article places the manuscripts in a specific historical context and uses paleographical and historical evidence to date them between 1108 and as early as 1116.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 Hereafter I will use the Corpus Troporum sigla (Pst 119, Pst 120 and Pst 121) in reference to these manuscripts.

2 Catholic Church, Le graduel romain; edition critique par les moines de Solesmes, Vol. 2, Les sources (Solesmes, 1947), 115; Heinrich Husmann, Tropen-und Sequenzenhandschriften, Répertoire International des Sources Musicales, Series B, vol. 5:1 (Munich, 1964), 180; Ritva Jonsson, ed., Corpus Troporum [Studia Latina Stockhomiensia] (Stockholm, 1975–).

3 Bruno Stäblein, Schriftbild der einstimmigen Musik, Musikgeschichte in Bildern, Band III/4 (Leipzig, 1975), 136. See also David Hiley, Western Plainchant: A Handbook (Oxford, 1993), 216, 252, 254, 354, 586; Kenneth Levy, ‘Latin Chant Outside the Roman Tradition,’ in The New Oxford History of Music: The Early Middle Ages to 1300, ed. Richard Crocker and David Hiley (Oxford and New York, 1990), 79n, 101. Karlheinz Schlager's Thematischer Katalog der ältesten Alleluia-Melodien aus Handschriften des 10. und 11 Jahrhunderts, ausgenommen das ambrosianische, alt-römische und alt-spanische Repertoire (Munich, 1965) includes the Pistoia choirbooks among its sources and uses them for several musical examples.

4 Lance Brunner, ‘Two Missing Fascicles of Pistoia C.121 Recovered’, in Cantus Planus [Papers Read at the Third Meeting, Tihany] (Budapest, 1990), 1–19.

5 Giovanna Murano, Ciancarlo Savino, Stefano Zamponi, eds., I manoscritti medievali della provincia di Pistoia (Florence, 1998), 48.

6 Brunner, ‘Two Missing Fascicles’, 4.

7 Brian Tierney, The Crisis of Church and State 1050-1300 (Toronto, 1988).

8 Uta-Renate Blumenthal, The Investiture Controversy: Church and Monarchy from the Ninth to the Twelfth Century (Philadelphia, 1988), 140.

9 Blumenthal, The Investiture Controversy, 138.

10 Ibid., 139.

11 Ibid., 142.

12 William Chester Jordan, Europe in the High Middle Ages (New York, 2001), 99.

13 Ibid.

14 Chris Wickham, Early Medieval Italy: Central Power and Local Society, 400–1000 (Ann Arbor, 1989), 189.

15 Giovanni Tabacco, The Struggle for Power in Medieval Italy: Structures of Political Rule (Cambridge, 1989), 190. These rights included control over markets, weights and measures, and sites of tolls.

16 Jeanne Krochalis, ‘Pistoia’, in Christopher Kleinhenz, ed., Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia (New York and London, 2003), 916–17.

17 George W. Dameron, Episcopal Power and Florentine Society, 1000–1320 (Cambridge, MA, 1991), 66.

18 Luigi Chiappelli, ‘Disegno della più antico storia di Pistoia’, Bullettino Storico Pistoiese, 19 (1917), 129–60, at 145. Chiappelli also identified a decrease in Germanic names and an increase in vernacular language in notarial and other documents as further evidence of weakening imperial influence.

19 Chiappelli, ‘Disegno’, 148.

20 Dameron's work also makes it clear that this intermediate stage on the path to the free commune, during which the bishop controlled the city, seems to been fairly common in Tuscany, having been experienced by Massa Marittima, Arezzo and Volterra, in addition to Pistoia.

21 Natale Rauty, ed., Regesta Chartarum Pistoriensium: Canonica di S. Zenone, secolo XII (Pistoia, 1995), XXIII.

22 Yoram Milo, ‘From Imperial Hegemony to the Commune: Reform in Pistoia's Cathedral Chapter and its Political Impact’, in Istituzioni Ecclesiastiche della Toscana Medioevale, ed. Chris Wickham et al. (Galatina, 1980), 87–107, at 97.

23 Ibid., 91.

24 Ibid., 95.

25 Ibid., 95n.

26 Ibid., 103.

27 Rauty, RCP: Canonica di S. Zenone, secolo XII, 78.

28 Ibid.

29 Krochalis, ‘Pistoia’, 917. An 1114 document reveals that Count Guido and Countess Emilia ordered the construction of a water channel for the building works, indicating that work on the cathedral was still not finished.

30 Natale Rauty and Giancarlo Savino, eds., Lo Statuto dei Consoli del Comune di Pistoia: Frammento del Secolo XII (Pistoia, 1977), 42; Milo, ‘From Imperial Hegemony’, 103n.

31 Catholic Church, Le graduel romain, 115.

32 Natale Rauty, Il culto dei santi a Pistoia nel medioevo (Florence, 2000), preliminary plate II.

33 Brunner, ‘Two Missing Fascicles’, 6. Brunner comments on the trimming of the parchment, not on the consistency of the writing area.

34 Frank A. D'Accone, The Civic Muse: Music and Musicians in Siena during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Chicago, 1997), 29–30.

35 Hugh Alexander Douglas, ‘Notes on the History of the Pontifical Singers’, Sammelbände der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft, 11 (1910), 447.

36 Natale Rauty, Storia di Pistoia, I (Florence, 1988), 318.; Giancarlo Savino, ‘La libreria della cattedrale di San Zenone: nel suo più antico inventario’, Bullettino storico pistoiese, 79 (1987), 25.

37 Rauty, Storia di Pistoia, I: 349: ‘tipo di littera antiqua nel solco della carolina’.

38 Ibid., 353.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

42 Rauty, RCP: Canonica di S. Zenone, secolo XII, xxvii.

43 Ibid., xxxi–ii.

44 Rauty, Storia di Pistoia, I: 353. After 1160, the designation magister appears in chapter documents, further confirming the existence of a school.

45 Rauty, Storia di Pistoia, I: 353.

46 Rauty, RCP: Canonica di S. Zenone, secolo XII, vi.

47 Ibid., vii.

48 Ibid., xxxvii.

49 Ibid., vi.

50 ASF, Diplomatico, Pistoia, San Zeno (cattedrale, capitolo), i.d. 00001560.

51 ASF, Diplomatico, Pistoia, San Zeno (cattedrale, capitolo), i.d. 00002944.

52 ASF, Diplomatico, Pistoia, San Zeno (cattedrale, capitolo), i.d. 00001560.

53 ASF, Diplomatico, Pistoia, San Zeno (cattedrale, capitolo), i.d. 00002095.

54 Natale Rauty, ed. Regesta Chartarum Pistoriensium: Canonica di S. Zenone, secolo XI (Pistoia, 1985), 188.

55 Viatcheslav Kartsovnik, ‘Zur Tropen-und Sequenzenüberlieferung im mittalalterlichen Pistoia: Ein Neumenfragment aus Sankt Petersburg’, Musica e Storia, 5 (1997), 6. Hereafter I will refer to the fragment by Kartsovnik's siglum, SpA 27, which is consistent with the formatting of the Corpus Troporum series.

56 Kartsovnik, ‘Zur Tropen-und Sequenzenüberlieferung’, 8.

57 Krochalis, ‘Pistoia’, 918.

58 Pistoia, Archivio capitolare, C.119, f. 98r, and Pistoia, Archivio capitolare, C.120, f. 116v.

59 Rauty, RCP: Canonica di S. Zenone, secolo XII, 51.