Worship space acoustics have been established as an important part of a nation’s cultural heritage and area of acoustic research, but more research is needed regarding the region of northern Europe. This paper describes the historical acoustics of an important abbey church in Sweden in the 1470s. A digital historical reconstruction is developed. Liturgical material specific to this location is recorded and auralized within the digital reconstruction, and a room acoustic analysis is performed. The analysis is guided by liturgical practices in the church and the monastic order connected to it. It is found that the historical sound field in the church is characterized by the existence of two distinct acoustical subspaces within it, each corresponding to a location dedicated to the daily services of the monastical congregations. The subspaces show significantly better acoustic conditions for liturgical activities compared to the nave, which is very reverberant under the conditions of daily services. Acoustic transmission from the two subspaces is limited, indicating that the monastic congregations were visually and acoustically separated from the visitors in the nave and each other.

2016 initierades ett samarbete mellan benediktinklostret Mariavall och Bygdéus/Strinnholm Lagergren. De 15 nunnorna önskade förbättra sitt sångsätt och repertoaren önskades få nytt syre, förbättras och arbetas med. I denna presentation demonstreras och presenteras några av de viktigaste resultaten från detta pågående arbete utifrån frågor om förändringsprocess, praktik och repertoar där åhörarna delvis själva får delta. Uppdraget att arbeta med kommuniteten har kommit att paras med ett syfte där Bygdéus/Strinnholm Lagergren studerar hur en sjungande grupp som lever i en avskild miljö förändrar sin sångliga praxis och förändringsprocesser i den. Metoden har bestått i aktivt repetitionsarbete med kommuniteten med efterföljande reflektion, fotodokumentation och portföljskrivning. Projektet är inne på sitt tredje år med besök en gång i halvåret under tre dagar vardera. Portföljskrivning har inneburit att systrarna besvarat samma frågor i slutet av två övningstillfällen per dag under tre dagar. Portföljsvaren är individuella. Systrarnas reflektioner finns insamlat kring de många olika moment, teman och systrarnas individuella uppfattning om det gemensamma arbetet vilka sedan tematiserats. I materialbearbetningen av portföljskrivning blir särskilt följande kategorier tydliga: akustiken och rummet, upplevelsen av gemensam sång, olika attityd till sång innanför och utanför liturgin, förflyttningar, varierande uppställningar och kroppspositioner, lyssnande under sång, samtidighet i sången, rädslor. Repertoarmässigt finns en önskan sedan projektets start att sjunga mer på latin, mer gregorianik, särskilt i mässans inledande sång introitus. Allt eftersom har arbetet även kommit att omfatta andra delar av den liturgiska musiken samt sånger som inte alls används i liturgin men har sociala och sångtekniska aspekter för det individuella såväl som kollektiva arbetet med rösten och sång i grupp. Generellt framträder ett mönster där systrarna vill hitta ett personligt förhållningssätt till en tradition med lång historia utan att förlora sin egen identitet.

A remarkable feature of the Birgittine monastic Order is its daily use of tropes for the embellishment of an exclusively monophonic liturgy. Ferial tropes were sung in both Mass and Office and their purpose was to highlight the Marian devotion that was central to the Order’s spirituality. In the Birgittine sisters’ ferial Office liturgy, the so-called Cantus sororum, the Benedicamus Domino was a notable location for the provision of tropes, which were performed daily at Lauds and Vespers. These Benedicamus tropes are a complex mix of unica, as well as musical and textual patchworks of pre-existing and new and/or remodelled musical and textual material. This article explains the place and importance of Benedicamus Domino tropes in Birgittine liturgy and spirituality, illustrated by new transcriptions of the Benedicamus tropes that were consistently assigned to embellish each particular day of the week.

One of the peculiar features with the Birgittines is its double abbey construction with one convent for the sisters and one for the brothers. This organisation had not only practical consequences but also called for interesting liturgical solutions. Together the Birgittine sisters’ and brother’s liturgies formed a greater liturgy with a special Birgittine chantscape (a development of the soundscape concept) where texts and chant melodies collaborated in an intricate intertextual web. This paper explores how this liturgical unity was constructed and how it expressed fundamental ideas about their identity and spirituality.

The content and structure of liturgies of double monasteries is a little researched topic. By studying the Order of the Birgittines, founded by St. Birgitta of Sweden (c. 1303-1373), we gain insight into one example of how these liturgies could be organised. While the Birgittine brothers observed the diocesan liturgy, the Birgittine sisters observed a Marian-centered devotion. The diocesan liturgy observed the liturgical year while the sisters’ liturgy was more static and only observed Marian fest days. The two liturgies were said in succession, where the brother’s Office was treated as an added office and the sisters’ Office was regarded as the main Office. In particular earlier research has examined the sisters’ Divine Office the Cantus sororum but systematic studies of the Birgittine double liturgy have until now been lacking. The Cantus sororum is a mix of standard chants from the Gregorian repertoire and unique compositions. This is the only Office repertoire to have been compiled to be performed by only women. The main conclusion is that the liturgies of the both groups together formed one devotional unity here called a greater liturgy, where the liturgical year was observed with a distinct Marian focus giving the Birgittine liturgy a unique character. In order to grasp the complete Birgittine liturgy including sisters, brothers, Mass, and Office repertoires, the topic is treated as a chantscape: a landscape of chant, which is s development of the concept soundscape coined by musicologist and composer Richard Murray Schafer. Through this lens, relations in the Birgittine liturgy between its different items can more easily be studied and made visible in order to observe how systematically structured this liturgy was and how the parts corresponded into one unit.

The abbey Maria Refugie offers a rare opportunity to examine their chant and liturgyduring a period of six hundred years. This abbey belongs to the Order of the Birgittines,founded by St. Birgitta of Sweden (ca. 1303–1373) in the fourteenth century. The Birgittines’primarily liturgical feature is the sisters’ unique divine office Cantus sororumwhich is the only liturgical repertoire compiled to be performed only by women. Abouta hundred liturgical notated books from the late fifteenth century up to the present dayare preserved in Maria Refugie’s abbey library. This allows a unique chance to studychant transmission over time in one single liturgical milieu. The sources show that the chant tradition was exceptionally persistent to change but that the community undertookrevisions of the repertoire when liturgical conditions or new musical trends calledfor it. This shows how the members in Maria Refugie negotiated with the liturgical heritage,never throwing it overboard, but were in constant dialogue with how to interpretit according to changing musical taste and liturgical conditions. In this paper a representativepart of the material will highlight both how the Birgittine Order’s identity wasmaintained musically and textually, and how revisions allowed for updating the Birgittineliturgy and its chant. Special emphasis will be given to how intertextual relationscreated a Birgittine chantscape, which is a developed concept, building on composer andmusicologist R. Murray Schafer’s soundscape concept. This newly created concept is away of looking at how music creates meaning to its practitioners beyond its text.

St. Botvid of Botkyrka in Sweden was a regional martyr saint who died in ca. 1120 and quickly became subject for a cult observed in all Swedish medieval dioceses. In the 13th century, an Office was compiled which until now has remained unedited. The Office is preserved as fragments in the National Archives in Stockholm, Sweden. Chants for first and second Vespers, Matins and Lauds are preserved but the little hours seem not to have been included in the Office. This presentation contextualises Botvid and his legend within other martyr saints of medieval Scandinavia and discusses the chants in the Office of which most seem to be unique pieces.

In Sweden, the place of early music in curricula and research program has been dependant on individuals rather than infrastructures promoting historical musicology in general and early music in particular. Like in many other countries, historical musicology at Swedish universities has declined in favour of courses in popular music, music sociology etc. No professorships only devoted to early music exist, also no research centres or musicological milieus exists that is solely occupied by studying early music though Uppsala university upholds a strong tradition in historical musicology and has ongoing doctoral and postdoctoral research projects. On a general level students in musicology meet early music to a very limited extent, sometimes only as introduction courses in (Western) music history. The possibility to introduce and attract students to the study of early music is in other words limited and leads to a serious challenge for the future of early music studies in Sweden. However, a paradigm change is perhaps in sight thanks to the material turn, the new opportunities that are offered by digital humanities, and global musicology that has been taken place over the recent years. An example is the advanced level course ‘Western Music from the 800s to the 1600s: History, Historiography, Revival’ that will be given for the first time in during 2023 at the Linneaus University. This proposal is a survey of the current situation for studying and researching early music in Sweden aiming at extending the map of early musicology in Europe and to spur discussions on the future for early musicology. 

Föreliggande presentation utgör resultatet av tre forskningsprojekt där ett helhetsgrepp tas kring sången i den heliga Birgittas klosterorden, i synnerhet systrarnas tidegärdssång Cantus sororum. Helhetsbegreppet innebär att samtliga sånggenrer behandlats (antifoner, hymner, matutinresponsorier, korta responsorier), att fyra birgittaklosters källor undersökts och jämförts och samt ett longue-durée perspektiv från ordens uppkomst på 1300-talet fram till nutid. För att stärka helhetsperspektivet har jag valt att betrakta den birgittinska liturgin som ett chantscape, vilket är ett begrepp utvecklat från Richard Murrays Schaefers begrepp soundscape. Här används chantscape som ett verktyg för att förstå hela den klingande situationen i det birgittinska kyrkorummet. Ytterligare ett tolkningsbegrepp som används är karismabegreppet så som det uttolkats av Max Weber, i syfte att förstå hur den birgittinska liturgin kunnat förbli så oförändrad genom seklerna. Här ses Birgittas charisma som den yttersta garanten för att den birgittinska liturgin bevarat så många av de drag som kan spåras till de äldsta källorna från mitten av 1400-talet.

Presentationen kommer att koncentrera sig på några särdrag som kommit att framstå som särskilt intressanta under arbetets gång:

1) Det birgittinska narrativet: den gudomliga inspirationen till Cantus sororum skrivs in redan i Birgittas uppenbarelser och tillskrivs Birgittas biktfader Magister Petrus, en syn som sedan förts vidare inom orden och inom forskningen. Källorna, historiografin och dess implikationer granskas.

2) Den homogena meloditransmissionen mellan kloster och över tid: spridningsmönster studeras med hjälp av melodijämförelser.

3) Hur Birgittas karisma inkorporeras i ordensliturgin: sånggenren suffragieantifoner vilka explicit nämner Birgitta vid namn.

4) Några exempel ges på hur melodi och texter bygger samman den birgittinska systraliturgin till en musikalisk och teologisk helhet. 

According to medieval sources, Birgitta’s confessor and collaborator magister Petrus Olavi of Skänninge († 1378) is pointed out as the originator of the sisters’ Divine Office Cantus sororum. Petrus’ authorship has been debated and contested but also accepted by scholars to various degrees. That he did not compose the complete corpus as we know it today is clear, but to what extent he is responsible for texts and musical compositions is difficult to establish, in particular in a world where borrowings and adaptations were the norm and copyright not a problem. Another problem lies in that we not have one single source with musical notation earlier than ca 1450, meaning about 70 years after magister Petrus’ death. In fact nothing is known about what the liturgy and music looked like at the official opening of Vadstena abbey in 1384. 

This paper aims at looking at the origin of Cantus sororum where instead the presumed collective efforts in Rome and Vadstena during the first decades of the abbey’s existence are considered. Questions the paper seeks to address are: What other people and groups could have been involved in the creation of Cantus sororum? What is the content in the earliest notated sources? When became Cantus sororum a fixed repertoire, ready for dissemination to other Birgittine abbeys?  Why are there no earlier sources than from about 70 years after the foundation of the order? How and by whom did the dissemination of the repertoire take place?

The Birgittine Order, founded by St Birgitta of Sweden in the 14^th century, was organized in double abbeys ideally consisting of 60 sisters and 13 brothers. This had far-reaching consequences for the organisation of their liturgy, which was defined by Birgitta’s authority as expressed in her revelations and her rule. The reasons for the double-abbey solution were both practical and spiritual, to supply the sisters with confessors and priests but also to complement the sisters’ Marian observance with the brother’s diocesan liturgy. Thus the liturgical unity of Birgittine spirituality could be maintained while observing the liturgical year. This paper explores the use at the mother abbey Vadstena in Sweden in the 15^th century, focusing on the Friday Sext.

Hur kommer det sig att man i litteraturen behandlar den gregorianska sången som något som i princip upphörde i och med reformationen, när man än idag sjunger gregoriansk sång i katolska kloster? I en nyutkommen avhandling undersöks vilken repertoar ur den stora gregorianska musikskatten som framförs och hur man idag ser på denna musik i klostren.

Musiken spelade en avgörande roll för hur Birgittaklostren kom att organiseras och fortleva. Inte minst var sången viktig för att genom århundradena bevara arvet av Birgitta själv.

The intention of this dissertation is to study the musical praxis and associated conceptions in Catholic monasteries during the early 21st century. The dissertation will analyse the musical life in approximately 20 Catholic monasteries with an emphasis on Gregorian chant. The background for the dissertation is Gregorian chant’s diminished importance after the Second Vatican council (1962-65). The Second Vatican council was a Catholic council that aimed to reform the Catholic Church which also affected the liturgy. The study has been conducted as an ethnomusicological study in which the material is interpreted via the framework of the sociology of knowledge and Cultural Analysis. The theory of the symbolical universe as the place where Gregorian chant exists and is legitimized is central. The empirical data consist of interviews, sheet music and CD recordings gathered during fieldwork visits. The study encompassed monasteries in Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Great Britain and Italy, France. The orders that have been studied are Dominicans, Benedictines, Carmelites, Bridgettines and Cistercians. The musical material has been divided into three categories that are analysed using the terms Recreated, Reshaped and Renewed. The Recreated category refers to liturgies that maintained Gregorian chant in Latin, the Reshaped refers to Gregorian chant that have been adapted to be sung in the vernacular language and the Renewed category refers to brand new compositions composed in individual monasteries for their personal liturgies. All three categories can coexist in the same monastery. The music in the Renewed category is modelled after Gregorian chant but the music's theoretical ties are in most cases more ideological in nature than musically traceable. Regardless as to how great an extent the monasteries sing the three different categories, Gregorian chant has a very important role and is the foundation of both liturgical and musical identity of the Catholic monasteries today. Gregorian chant’s role in the symbolical universe is fortified through different legitimization processes, of which the teaching exercise is an important example. The practical and ideological factors behind the unique monastic musical ideal are discussed as are the reasons why so many monasteries chose to record their repertoires on CD. Finally the dissertation discusses a present tendency in the monastic world which sees an increasing use of Gregorian chant in the liturgy, a so called Re-gregorianisation. The most important factors behind this process are the Western world’s great interest in the past alongside a desire for a less divided Catholic liturgy.

This article discusses the Marian antiphon Hec est preclarum vas and its place in the liturgy of the Order of St. Birgitta of Sweden using sources from the abbey of Mariënwater/Maria Refugie (a single abbey known under two names in Noord-Brabant, the Netherlands). Hec est preclarum vas originated in the Low Countries in the late Middle Ages and was widely used in different ecclesiastical contexts. It was sung to protect against plague (and other contagious diseases) and unexpected death. Among the Birgittines in Mariënwater/Maria Refugie it gained a short but intense popularity for about seventy years starting in the second half of the seventeenth century, when it was sung as a suffrage after the daily Lady mass Salve sancta parens. A possible reason for introducing this antiphon at Mariënwater/Maria Refugie may have been a plague epidemic or a similar disease that affected the community or benefactors of the abbey. Several plague epidemics are reported in Noord- Brabant during the seventeenth century, and the community itself suffered from plague in the 1630s, but there are no sources that clearly indicate a link between the antiphon and these plague epidemics. The antiphon’s melody and text as found in the sources from Mariënwater/Maria Refugie show that it connects to known variants of the chant in the Low Countries. The article shows how external factors could motivate the introduction of local customs into the Birgittine liturgy of this community.

The Mass Liturgy of the Birgittine Sisters and Brethren is a sparely investigated subject and its development after the Middle Ages is an unknown topic. This article presents the Birgittine Mass Liturgy by investigating sources at the Abbey Mariënwater/Maria Refugie, in the Nether- lands which date from the late fifteenth century until the late nineteenth century. Since sources for the Brethren’s liturgy are lacking, this study primarily concerns the liturgy of the Sisters. The most important results are first that the Sisters’ liturgy was not limited to the daily „Salve sancta parens“ Mass, as stated in the Constitutions, but also included a number of Marian feasts. Sec- ondly, it shows that when the double abbey was dissolved in 1652, the Sisters took over a num- ber of feasts previously included in the Brethren’s diocesan liturgy in order to complete the litur- gical year. This article also presents material that has hitherto been only little known, namely the liturgical manuscripts in the Abbey Library of Mariënwater/Maria Refugie, which could be con- sidered for a number of studies on Birgittine liturgy and chant. 

This is the first study to examine the seven invitatory antiphons of the Birgittine weekly Office, the Cantus sororum, offering complete transcriptions of the melodies and texts. An important general finding is that these invitatories share many melodic similarities with great responsories, but on a more detailed level this article investigates precisely how these chants relate to known models, both complete melodies as well as individual melodic motives. Four patterns of composition among the Cantus sororum invitatories emerge: (1) unique texts may be combined with melodies that resemble other known chants outside the Cantus sororum; (2) texts and melodies that resemble other variants outside the Cantus sororummay be combined in new ways; (3) both text and melody are unknown outside the Cantus sororum. Overall, these invitatory antiphons, like the rest of the Cantus sororum, represent creative work with existing melodies and texts, including reworkings, borrowings and consistent use of melodic motifs, comprising a significant part of a repertoire at once distinctly Birgittine in character and yet conforming to the common stock of Gregorian Chant. Melodic correspondences within the Cantus sororum as well as in the Birgittine Mass repertoire thus afford an interesting perspective on a soundscape in which the Birgittines functioned and where, through music, their identity was created and maintained.

This paper presents an investigation of the seven invitatory antiphons in the Birgittine sisters’ weekly office, the Cantus sororum (CS). This is not only the first study if these chants, but also an attempt at suggesting a method for studying melodies and texts separately in order to uncover how they were composed. These antiphons have been analyzed using sources from ca. 1500 from the Birgittine abbey Mariënwater in the Netherlands. Just like other already studied repertoires in CS, the invitatories are a mix of borrowings, adaptations, and unica, but this study offers in-depth analyses of how this was done. By this new patterns in the compilation of CS have been discerned. The following strategies were uncovered:

• Unique texts combined with melodies resembling known melodies outside CS.
• Texts and melodies resembling variants outside CS but combined in a new way.
• Both text and melody unknown outside CS.
• From other sources known texts and melodies combined in a new way.

This analysis has allowed for a better picture of how borrowings and adaptations have been combined into new combinations where also the Treitlerian idea of pitch groups has been considered. The paper demonstrates how these four strategies were used and how new invitatories were created for the Birgittine sisters, whereas earlier research has emphasized the Birgittine’s dependence on previously existing materials.