From May 28, 2021: Digital Analysis of Chant Transmission (DACT) and a Case Study of Two Fragments from the Riesencodex (presented by Jennifer Bain and Debra Lacoste). Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8imxUS_gxE

June 3, 2021 -- We participated in "Software Tools in Chant Analysis - Virtual Workshop" online via Zoom from the University of Bristol. Debra Lacoste and Jan Koláček created a video presentation entitled “Analysing Cantus: Tools for Discovery and Research," and participated in the online questions and discussion.

The International Congress on Medieval Studies was online through Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan this year. We presented our Panel Discussion: “Fragments and the Digital Analysis of Chant Transmission" with participants Jennifer Bain (Dalhousie University), Alison Altstatt (University of Northern Iowa), and Debra Lacoste (University of Waterloo), Chair: Michael Norton. Debra described the process of converting the "Gottschalk Antiphoner" from a single inventory into separate fragments in order to better represent the present physical condition of this source. Future display will include individual fragment leaves and a reconstructed manuscript view.

Click here to see a short description and some photos from the "Digital Humanities in Early Music Research I series - Session I" organized in Prague by Hana Vlhová-Wörner with coordinator Jana Franková, sponsored by the Masaryk Institute.

A review of the session has been written by participant Haig Utidjian and published in the newest issue of the journal Hudební věda.

Fully-proofread inventories of 1) a late-15th-century antiphonal copied for a community of women in the Low Countries, Wellington (New Zealand), The Alexander Turnbull Library - Rare Books, MSR-03, indexed by Gillian Lander (U of Auckland) under the supervision of Dr. Fiona McAlpine; and 2) a fragment from a gradual now in the Humanities and Social Sciences Library at McGill University in Montréal, indexed by participants of the "Digital Humanities in Early Music Research" seminar held in Prague, sponsored by the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the CAS, organized by Hana Vlhová-Wörner (just days before physical-distancing restrictions were put in place around the world).

Later this week, Debra Lacoste and Jennifer Bain will be in Prague for the Masaryk Institute's conference and workshop series: "Digital Humanities in Early Music Research I." They will be participating in Session I: Early music databases, encoding, analysing and OMR.

Complete inventories of the Gradual of Bellelay (CH-P 18) and Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, Codex 121 are now fully proofread and available on the Cantus Database website. New genres and feast names have been added to both Cantus Database and Cantus Index, and hundreds of new chant texts have been entered.

We have also recently published inventories of two antiphoners (AUS-Sfl Add. Ms. 413 and US-Cai 1911.142b) and a responsoriale (CDN-Mlr 234). Thank you to our indexers, proofreaders, and partners for their continuing work. Many other projects are in various stages of completion!

We are thrilled to announce new SSHRC funding: a Partnership Development Grant for the Cantus Database along with multiple partners, some already networked through the Cantus Index. With Jennifer Bain as principal investigator, Debra Lacoste as project manager, and 20+ co-investigators, collaborators, and institutional partners, we will engage in a new project, “Digital Analysis of Chant Transmission” (DACT), where the half-million records now amassed online will become the basis for a new, central digital hub, the "Cantus Digital Network." In the next few years, we will build infrastructure to study the transmission of chant in Europe and to former colonies in the Americas, Africa, and Oceania, and to study the transmission of chant through fragmented manuscripts. We look forward to working with our current partners and inviting new ones as we expand our international research community.

A special issue of the Journal of the Alamire Foundation Volume 10, Number 2 (Autumn 2018) includes papers demonstrating a variety of research methods using the Cantus Database. For more information, see: http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503578477-1.

ANNOUNCEMENT: There will be a memorial mass in Ruth Steiner's honor on April 10th at 2:30 pm in the Lower Church of the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. This is a community event for those at Catholic University, but is open to anyone to attend.