Karen Desmond

and musical style.

We accept proposals for individual papers of 20 minutes. Please submit a 250-word abstract to <brokensong@mu.ie>

musical practice and/or the creative process
- The production process for music books (and the roles of individuals, institutions and patrons in the making of music books)
- Documentary/archival evidence for musical communities
- Notational technologies
- Correlations between musical notation

This two-day conference seeks to stimulate discussion centring on the materialities of music-making between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. While BROKENSONG focuses on Insular polyphonic sources, we welcome comparative perspectives that look beyond Britain

- Notational technologies
- Correlations between musical notation and musical style
We accept proposals for individual papers of 20 minutes. Please submit a 250-word abstract to <brokensong@mu.ie>

, musical practice and/or the creative process
- The production process for music books (and the roles of individuals, institutions and patrons in the making of music books)
- Documentary/archival evidence for musical communities

and Ireland and/or draw upon non-polyphonic traditions. We invite proposals that engage with any of the following themes in the period c.1150–c.1350:
- Music fragments, their afterlives, and their reconstruction
- The intervention of literate musical culture in communal ritual activities

CFP update! The CFP deadline for the upcoming ERC-BROKENSONG (Maynooth University, Ireland, 15-16 May, 2026),has been extended to Oct 24, 2025. We will cover 2-3 nights' accommodation, and a contribution towards travel. Pls be in touch with questions ahi.maynoothuniversity.ie/brokensong/i...

"We're going to create superintelligence" How about making outlook search work first. How about that

‘En plein air’ of course - excuse the unnoticed autocorrect above!! here’s the conference webpage and the full title ‘En Plein Air: Soundscapes of Ritual and Festivity in Europe
and beyond from the Middle Ages to the Present’: www.luigiboccherini.org/2024/09/20/e...

Presented yesterday on soundscapes of the alleluya at Worcester Cathedral in the Middle Ages at the En plain air conference in beautiful Siena (second pic is view from open windows in conference rm at U. dI Siena) #brokensong

The elephant in the room....🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘

Bodleian Library Arch. G b.6; Historia naturale di Caio Plinio Secondo, tradocta di lingua latina in fiorentina per Christophoro Landino; 1476 CE; Italy (Venice); f.93v @bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Outside my office window right now

I'm very pleased to share my new article on the python library undate, which is an ambitious in-progress effort to make it easier to work with incomplete dates and multiple calendars, building on work from Shakespeare and Company Project, Princeton Geniza Project, etc.
doi.org/10.1017/chr....

2025–26 Awarded Visiting Fellowships Awarded Visiting Fellowships for the Bodleian Libraries, 2025-26

Congrats to @maynoothuniversity.ie postdoc Johanna (team member @brokensong2023.bsky.social), awarded a Bodleian Library fellowship! www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/csb/fellowsh...

Medieval slate scored for music

Medieval slate reused for accounts in Middle English

Fantastic find. Medieval slate initially scored for music and reused for accounts in Middle English (cost of ink, 2d; repair of King William’s painting, 1/ 2d). (Abbey gatehouse exhibition.)

A close-up of a decorated initial P, with human and zoomorphic figures, in the early medieval Insular style, from the St Gall Priscian. Some of Priscian's Latin text is visible as are interlinear and marginal glosses in Old Irish.

A close-up of a letter P in a highly decorated and colourful style characteristic of early medieval Insular Gospel books, with dots, geometric designs and zoomorphic figures.

A highly decorative early medieval Irish Gospel book, open at the beginning of the Gospel of John: "In principio erat uerbum ...", with interlace and zoomorphic designs.

Four manuscript fragments, dated to the seventh century, which formed part of the earliest known copy of Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae.

If you're in Dublin between now and late October, don't miss the Words on the Wave exhibition at the National Museum on Kildare St. Some of our most important medieval Irish manuscripts are on loan from the Abbey of St Gallen & are back in Ireland for the first time in c. 1200 years. #MedievalSky

Brief article in Daily Telegraph - "Chaucer's elvish mystery was 900-year-old typo

Headline: "elvish trickery"

Nice to see the Song of Wade featured in the newspapers!

I'm happy to be an "academic sleuth" – but I'm not a "scientist". *Humanities scholars can make discoveries too!*

CFP!! Come to beautiful
@maynoothuniversity.ie
for the #BROKENSONG conference! 14-16 May 2026: 'Fragmented Musical Cultures c.1150–c.1350'. CFP deadline 30 Sept 2025. More info and the full CFP: ahi.maynoothuniversity.ie/brokensong/i...
@erc.europa.eu

I love Hugh Aston - sorry to have missed it!

Signed a publication agreement for an article I've co-authored with @karendesmond.bsky.social & Jared Hartt, for Plainsong & Medieval Music this autumn, based on work we shared two MedRens ago (in Munich 2023). Conferences are vital to making good collaborations and sharing our work!

Totally agree! I learned so much working with you both!

In early June, Karen traveled to London where #BROKENSONG convened a very productive pre-MEC workshop to move forward on encoding pre-mensural notation in MEI - thanks to all involved! She also presented a paper at the 2025 MEC conference #music-encoding ‪@music-encoding.bsky.social‬

Can we maybe leave the watermarks off this time guys

Medieval tale of Merlin and King Arthur found hiding as a book cover | CNN Researchers have found pages of a rare medieval manuscript masquerading as a cover and stitched into the binding of another book, according to experts at the Cambridge University Library in England. T...

edition.cnn.com/2025/05/09/s...

Trump Fired Librarian of Congress Over D.E.I.

NYT: “Ms. Leavitt did not offer any evidence of “D.E.I.” pursuits Dr. Hayden engaged in. She accused Dr. Hayden of allowing “inappropriate books in the library for children.”

The Library of Congress does not lend books to adults or children”

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/09/u...

"Designing sustainable Digital Editions", Dr Pádraic Moran, University of Galway. 17.00-18.00, Tuesday 27 May 2025. Iontas seminar room 1.33, Maynooth University. All welcome - no booking required.

image of a manuscript fragment with prayers in ye-olde-Irish-pubbe writing and some squiggly musical indications between the lines

lots of layers to this chant fragment:
-Lenten collects in writing that suggests it was made in Ireland, possibly in the 8th century
-Musical notation added several centuries later, possibly in Germany somewhere? but it doesn't match the words?

fragmentarium.ms/view/page/F-...

Inside the quest to digitally unroll ancient scrolls burnt by Vesuvius Mission to decipher Herculaneum scrolls using high-resolution scanning and artificial intelligence scales up rapidly.

Scans of 18 ancient papyri that were buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius look ‘very promising’, and there are plans to digitally unroll many more.
#ClassicsBluesky 🏺

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Yes it is insulting, to say the least (said as a NEH reviewer and awardee): ‘NEH has also taken programmatic steps to ensure that all future awards will, among other things, be merit-based…’