Corpus Antiphonalium Officii - Ecclesiarum Centralis Europae [antikvár]

I. 1. ABOUT THE PROJECT CAO-ECE Research into the history of medieval liturgy and music is immensely facilitated and supported by the transcription of codices (such as the CAO by Dom R-J. Hesbert) and the catalogues of the rich material available (like the CANTUS program founded by R. Steiner and directed by T. Bailey). The Corpus Antiphonalium Officii Ecclesiarum Centralis Europae (CAOECE) is intended to present the order of chants in the stable tradition of the medieval church institutions as reflected in the group of their main sources. Consequently, the CAO-ECE is not an index to individual sources but rather a typical form that is valid more or less identically over a longer period in a given community. At the same time, the individual sources can be reconstructed by comparing the tables with the notes. The results will be summed up in tables accompanied by notes. They can be used (i)for studying the tradition and sources of a given church, (ii)for comparing the medieval rites of different centres (and thereby for investigating the flow of transmissions and influences), and also (iii)fordefining or checking the provenance of codices and fragments. The basic principles behind this work are explained in László Dobszay - Gábor Prószéky, Corpus Antiphonalium Officii Ecclesiarum Centralis Europae, A Preliminary Report (Budapest, 1988); László Dobszay, The Program CAOECE, in: Studia Musicologica 30 (1988), pp. 355-360, and in the introduction to László Dobszay, Corpus Antiphonalium Officii Ecclesiarum Centralis Europae I/A Salzburg (Temporale) (Budapest, 1990). Since this research was supposed to study a great deal of data gathered from many sources in order to reach its goals, the application of computer technology, with all the associated advantages and difficulties, appeared to be a possible, indeed imperative requirement. For this reason a special program system was written by Gábor Prószéky and developed further by Gábor Kiss aimed at meeting the requirements of the theoretical principles of the project. In the General Introduction below a summary of the principles - explained in detail in the works cited - is given, as well as information on the use of the tables.