Dr Marcus Jones

My research focuses on the writing of Medieval music notations and the written transmission of chant. In my PhD studies, I examined music writing and chant transmission in medieval Iberia through the lens of one manuscript – London, British Library Add. MS 30845 (BL45). BL45 is a particularly rich cultural witness to the scribal practices of monks writing at San Millán de la Cogolla in the mid-tenth century. By drawing comparisons of the evidence preserved in BL45 with that of the broader corpus of Old Hispanic manuscripts, I provided new insights into scriptorium practice and the transmission of Old Hispanic liturgy, musical notation and chant melodies in Medieval Iberia.

Outside of my PhD studies, I have co-authored articles on the development and transmission of Common of Saints liturgies in medieval Iberia, and identifying scribes in neumatic notation and their scribal practices. I am also a content creator for the forthcoming museum exhibition ‘Medieval Fragments’ (available at León Cathedral, Salamanca University, Museo de los Concilios y la Cultura Visigoda, and Lamego Cathedral).

I am currently working as a Research Associate in the Department of Music on Giovanni Varelli’s ERC starting grant ‘Scribes of Musical Cultures. Decoding Early Technologies of Music Writing in Latin Europe c. 900–1100’ (SCRIBEMUS) hosted at the University of Pavia. In this role, I will be exploring the diffusion of early music notation scripts and inputting new sources into the Chant Editing and Analysis Programme (Neumes.org.uk).