Monography profile

The publication presents an overview of the history of medieval liturgical music in present-day Slovakia. Its primary objective is to provide the access to current knowledge and research findings concerning medieval Roman Catholic liturgical music cultivated in both monastic and diocesan institutions in Slovakia during the Middle Ages. The surviving manuscripts constitute direct evidence of the performance of Western Latin liturgical chant, namely Gregorian chant (lat. cantus planus), and preserve a significant component of the region’s cultural heritage dating from the late eleventh to the early sixteenth century. During the Middle Ages, the European continent witnessed the emergence of several dozen major and several hundred regional liturgical traditions, each characterized by distinctive musical repertories and notational systems. This publication focuses on selected sources used in ecclesiastical institutions in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary within the territory of present-day Slovakia. The majority of the surviving manuscripts attest to the Esztergom liturgy. In addition to musical manuscripts originating from medieval Hungary, the volume also considers other European sources that contributed to the formation of the liturgy in our region, particularly during its earliest period. Today, the medieval liturgical manuscripts with musical notation that were once in use in the territory of present-day Slovakia are dispersed among archives, libraries, and museum collections in Slovakia, as well as in Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Austria.