On 22 October 2021, Zsuzsa Czagány participated as a guest speaker at the second conference Landscapes, Ages, Traditions of the ELTE ‘Momentum’ Research Group of Liturgical History led by Miklós István Földváry. In her presentation (The part and the whole. Building a Network of Databases and Backgrounds in the Study of Medieval Liturgical Music), she provided an overview of the databases developed in and along the research of medieval Hungarian liturgical monophony, from the fumbling attempts of the 1980s to the modern electronic and digital systems of today. Particular attention was paid to the project Corpus Antiphonalium Officii Ecclesiarum Centralis Europae (CAO-ECE), which, as a premature birth of the early computerized data management era, failed to gain acceptance in international academic circles, unlike its somewhat younger “rival”, the CANTUS database. The reasons behind this can be put in a specific parallel with the nature of the medieval chant traditions and their different approach to the history of science that is the subject of the program. Whereas in the past, the construction of databases according to current research trends and interests was more or less isolated, and the link between systems meant the complete absorption of one side, today, with the increasingly full exploitation of virtual space, there are many ways of establishing links without the constraints of self-abandonment and uniformity. The second part of the presentation highlighted these possibilities by presenting the two databases (Fragmenta Manuscriptorum Musicalium Hungariae Mediaevalis, Melodiarium Hungariae Medii Aevi Digitale) created by the ‘Momentum’ Digital Music Fragmentology Research Group and by presenting the latest initiatives that not only allow the two databases to be linked but also contribute to the publication of both on the international sites of CANTUS and CANTUSINDEX.

The full program of the Forum is available here >>>