On Tuesday 20 January, the research group Text Object Research Network and the Arts Faculty welcome Dr. Jan Hajič (Applied Linguistics, Charles University, Prague), who will deliver a lecture on a recent publication, in which he applied phylogenetic methods, used to study biological evolution, to understand the transmission of Gregorian chant in medieval manuscripts.
As a quintessentially interdisciplinary study, this lecture provides an excellent opportunity to cross faculty boundaries and make new connections. We therefore warmly invite all colleagues and students interested in evolutionary theory, phylogenetics, statistical modeling, cultural transmission, medieval history, and the transfer of quantitative methods to the humanities.
Before the lecture, there will be an opportunity to view some medieval manuscripts held in the Radboud Special Collections and get a short introduction on medieval liturgy and Gregorian chant. This will be a unique opportunity to get acquainted with some of the treasures in the university library.
Programme
14:00–15:00 Pre-lecture introduction to medieval liturgical manuscripts
Location: Studiezaal Erfgoedcollecties, Radboud University Library (1st floor, behind the coffee corner)
15:30–17:00 Lecture
Location: EOS 1.180, Elinor Ostromgebouw
Afterwards Drinks at the Yard
Abstract
Dr. Jan Hajič jr. will present research recently published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, demonstrating how phylogenetic methods, originally developed to study biological evolution, can be used to model and analyze the evolution of human culture, using the historical transmission of Gregorian chant as a case study. Beyond musicology, however, this work raises important epistemological questions relevant to interdisciplinary studies. It asks what happens when formal models from biology and mathematics are applied to cultural data.
Gregorian chant was a central musical tradition in Medieval Latin Europe and one of the expressions of its cultural unity: any Latin Christian liturgy, such as the weekly Sunday mass, would have involved prescribed chants as a major part of the ritual. The Gregorian legend of chant's divine origin required the practitioners to conserve its melodies. Nevertheless, a chant rarely has the exact same melody in any two surviving manuscripts. Some systematic patterns within this melodic diversity have previously been observed in chant scholarship, especially during efforts to build a critical edition, but the scale of chant makes this study difficult without automation.
We notice remarkable analogies between biological evolution and processes of Gregorian chant transmission, which lead us to suggest recovering these 'melodic dialects' using phylogenetic methods. We show that phylogenetic models recover historically plausible patterns of chant melody evolution. Some, but not all, institutional networks play a more important role than geographic proximity. Additionally, extreme phenomena in the inferred phylogenies draw attention to exceptional historical circumstance. Beyond Gregorian chant itself, this framing of melodic diversity as a result of transmission processes becomes a pathway towards mapping the underlying ecclesiastical cultural networks; yet more broadly, this is a case study in how model-based thinking of the natural sciences, or 'speculative reading', may be useful in a historical discipline.
