Liturgical Chant in a North German Nunnery of the Late Middle Ages: Studies on Wienhausen, Klosterarchiv, Hs. 34.b

Abstract

Among modern musicological studies on medieval liturgical chant there are very few discussions of liturgical chant in nunneries. This may be simply because of neglect or lack of interest, not to mention prejudice; on the other hand, as far as nunnery culture is concerned, the historical record, both for the early Middle Ages but also for later periods right up to the Reformation, remains thinner than for male monasteries. However, the reasons for this paucity of information are manifold. Manuscript studies of Wienhausen, Klosterarchiv, Hs. 34.b may provide some aspects by which we would make sense of the medieval chant tradition in nunneries. In this thesis all questions cannot be answered entirely. The main purpose here is to investigate W34b’s contents: what is the chant tradition in W34b?