Linda Page Cummins (University of Alabama): Divina auxiliante gratia: A Case Study in the Transmission of a Medieval Text
Barbara Walters (Kingsborough Community College, CUNY): Sociology Meets Medieval Musicology: Complementary Partners or Strange Bedfellows?
In contemporary academic environments in which the highest meed is placed on autonomous authorship within strictly guarded discipline borders, the challenge posed by distinguished musicologist, Peter Jeffrey, regarding ethnomusicological chant studies reflects, perhaps unconsciously, the standpoint of a highly esteemed medieval chant "insider." Only a musicologist, and preferably one of Jeffrey's stature, might credibly acknowledge both the value and narrowness of traditional chant studies and, quoting Kleeman, suggest the need to "interrelate the seminal contributions of various disciplines to the study of [chant] transmission." French theologian Etienne Gilson, who studied under sociologist Emile Durkheim, was perhaps the first medievalist to debunk Peguy's mythical model of intellectual terrorism, which is to this day often attributed to the sociological approach. This paper acknowledges the anti-Cartesian threat as well as the more potent one posed by covering law models and generalizations, but nonetheless widens the parameters relevant to the study of chant to include the sociology of religion and comparative historical sociological methods. A handout will provide a selected bibliography with particular emphasis on works applicable to medieval musicological studies. A specific example will be employed to demonstrate a complementary relationship between social science based inquiry and traditional manuscript studies.