The Medieval (Music) Book: A Multimodal Cognitive Artefact

Abstract

The conception and layout of the medieval book has been shown to be a reflection of the human memory and mind, and that the art of making a 'text' (whether in language, image, or sound) is itself a reflection of the medieval cognitive process. However, the medieval manuscript does not just reflect the minds that produced it, for it is also the word made of/on flesh: the parchment itself is made from skin, and the messages it contains are consumed by the reader. This consumption, the eating of the book, is representative of the porous boundaries between self and subject, as well as between author and reader: 'But you shall not change me into your own substance ... Instead you shall be changed into me.' (Augustine, Confessions 7.10:147.) This contribution aims to study these interactions through the methodology of multimodality. Medieval manuscripts are as multimodal as they are cognitive: the riotous performance of the page is also a performance of the mind, one which is played anew at every reading (seeing, hearing). Notions current in the domain of multimodality – particularly embodiment, modal interactions, and the advent of the digital – are also of relevance to the medieval manuscript, particularly the music manuscript. For it was in the Middle Ages that the transmission of music became possible through sight alone, removing the need for sound: this violence, to use Derrida's term, subsumed the sounding artefact into written notation, just as speech had been subsumed into 'arche-écriture'. The music book, therefore, became the sung word on flesh, the corporeal embodiment of a sounding performance, ready to receive the breath of resurrection whilst itself changing the body and mind giving it new life.