Acknowledgments
This book is the result of years of work carried out with the input and assistance of countless colleagues and institutions. I am especially indebted to the support of the many libraries and librarians who have helped me access the manuscripts and archival sources at the core of this book. Fellowships and research support from the John Anson Kittredge Fund and the University of Pennsylvania enabled research trips and the acquisition of materials that have made their way into the following pages. The Wolf Humanities Center at the University of Pennsylvania funded a Manuscript Development Workshop in 2020 which, although delayed due to COVID-19, eventually made possible the workshopping of an early draft of the entire book by Ardis Butterfield, whose generous and thoughtful input significantly shaped its final form. Material from Chapter 4 is reproduced here through the generosity of the Journal of the Royal Musical Association, in which it was published as Mary Channen Caldwell, “Cueing Refrains in the Medieval Conductus,” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 143 no. 2 (2018): 273–324.
I began developing this project as a doctoral student at the University of Chicago under the advising of Anne Walters Robertson, Robert Kendrick, and Lawrence Zbikowski, and I have unending appreciation for their continued support and encouragement. Although the roots of this book are to be found in my graduate studies, the seeds of my interest in early music and dance were planted long ago. First, in my younger years, by my piano teacher, and a historian in his own right, Peter McKinnon, and my longtime dance teacher, Beverley Brown-Chislett. During my undergraduate program at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Dr. Olga Malyshko inspired my interest in early music and taught me discipline in research, while Dr. Gordon Smith encouraged my work in dance studies.
I have changed affiliations several times while working on this book, with visiting positions at Williams College in Williamstown, MA and at the University of Texas at Austin, and an assistant professorship at Wichita State University, before taking up my current position as assistant professor of music at the University of Pennsylvania. I am deeply thankful for the support of my colleagues and departments at each of these institutions. In the Music Department at the University of Pennsylvania, the always-vital staff – Maryellen Malek, Margaret Smith Deeney, Alfreda Frazier, Jacquelyn Jordan, and Madeleine Hewitt – have made all things possible in the realm of academics and teaching and have also been my companions during long days of work in the department. My colleagues past and present, Mauro Calcagno, Glenda Goodman, Jeffrey Kallberg, Jairo Moreno, Carol Muller, Guthrie Ramsey, Timothy Rommen, Jim Sykes, Anna Weesner, Eugene Lew, Michael Ketner, Jamuna Samuel, Natacha Diels, Tyshawn Sorey, Naomi Waltham-Smith, and Jay Reise, have variously mentored, encouraged, and assisted me in manifold ways during my time at Penn; I’m grateful to be part of this generous and warm intellectual community. My colleague, pianist and composer James Primosch, passed away during the final stages of this book, and he will be dearly missed by all. Over the years I’ve also been fortunate to lead and participate in seminars with graduate students at Penn across disciplines who have added to and challenged my way of thinking about early music; their insights and contributions are unquestionably reflected in these pages.
I have been privileged at Penn to work alongside and benefit from the knowledge and expertise of our music librarian Liza Vick and the special crew, past and present, of the sixth floor of Van Pelt library – Will Noel, Richard Griscom, Lynn Ransom, John Pollack, Lynn Farrington, Nick Herman, Mitch Fraas, and Elizabeth Bates, among others, all of whom are part of the vibrant Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts and the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies. Within the University more broadly, I am happily part of the ever-expanding Global Medieval and Renaissance Studies group, and I have benefited enormously from the collegiality of many colleagues working on premodern areas, most especially Julia Verkholantsev, Emily Steiner, Rita Copeland, and Kevin Brownlee. Finally, Penn’s Medieval-Renaissance Seminar in the English Department kindly workshopped my book prospectus, and the Workshop in the History of Material Texts generously hosted me for a discussion of work that appears in Chapter 4.
I have also been extremely lucky in my cohort here at Penn. Not only did I begin in the Music Department the same year as Glenda Goodman, now my friend and colleague, but I also began within a year of medievalists Ada Kuskowksi and Sarah Guérin. In addition to organizing a conference together on the “Gothic Arts” (2018), the three of us have shared writing over the years and had many a lively lunch together; as well as being brilliant colleagues and friends, insights from their respective disciplines (history and art) have been invaluable in shaping my work in this book and on other projects. Although only indirectly connected to this book, working with Mauro Calcagno and the staff of the Kislak Center at Penn’s library on the Music in the Pavilion concert series has been a real joy, and a way that our shared love of early music and material culture has found a public-facing outlet through the years.
Numerous colleagues have generously shared their knowledge with me over the years. Special thanks are owed to Martha Sprigge, Michelle Urberg, Glenda Goodman, Emma Dillon, Kate van Orden, Mark Everist, and Anne Walters Robertson for reading drafts of my prospectus; Meghan Quinlan, Sarah Guérin, and Ada Kuskowski for reading chapter drafts; and Cesar Favila for continued support and for enabling a fruitful and stimulating visit to UCLA in winter 2019, where I presented material from Chapter 5. Emma Dillon, Rebecca Maloy, Anne Walters Robertson, and Timothy Rommen have been diligent supporters and readers of my writing over the years, and I appreciate their efforts on my behalf and their input on my work and career. I owe a huge debt and my most sincere thanks to Jennifer Saltzstein and Mark Everist, each of whom read a draft of the manuscript in its entirety and improved it enormously. JoAnn Taricani graciously invited me to participate in a symposium on lyric cultures at the University of Washington (2019), where I shared work that appears in Chapter 5, and Martha Sprigge kindly invited me to present work appearing in Chapter 4 at the University of California, Santa Barbara (2018). At a late-stage Wulf Arlt also offered feedback and generously assisted in tracking down much-needed citations. Conference papers at the Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference (2017), AMS Annual Meeting (2017), Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting (2017), and AMS-Southwest Spring Chapter Meeting (2014) all led to useful discussions around material that appears throughout this book.
The process of publishing a first book is long and full of unknowns, but Dr. Katharina Brett and Hal Churchman at Cambridge University Press supported this book through the review and publication process with consistent feedback, support, and encouragement. Nigel Graves and Raghavi Govindane then guided the book through the production process, and Frances Tye’s copy editing was crucial; I thank them all for making this process both possible and enjoyable. Bonnie Blackburn copy-edited the entire manuscript at an earlier stage and made sure that embarrassing errors were eliminated, and Jennifer Ottman polished many of the translations; whatever errors remain are mine alone.
It takes a village to write a book and raise a family, and I’ve been lucky to have villages to help with both. Here in Philadelphia, our neighborhood community, and especially the Neukrugs, have been touchstones for us as well as an extended family. The childcare providers at the Parent Infant Center have cared for and loved both of my children over the years, a privilege for which I remain eternally thankful, and Jesse Schuschu, Debbie Larson, and Susana Fattorini have been beloved caregivers, enabling me to have time for research and writing. Many people have witnessed, and contributed to, the efforts of the past decade, including James Blasina, Marcelle Pierson, Trent Leipert, Michelle Urberg, Rob Walsh, Dawn Teele, Barrett Bridenhagen and Marc Meredith, Theodore van Loan, Jeffrey Wayno, Yossi Maurey, Catherine Saucier, Andrew Cashner, Thomas Payne, Melanie Shaffer, Anne-Zoé Rillon-Marne, Christopher Chaguinian, Catherine Bradley, Flannery Cunningham, Erika Honisch, Amy Williamson, Gregorio Bevilacqua, Océane Boudeau, and many others who have served as friends, colleagues, and interlocuters over the years in different ways – thank you for the conversation and support. I’m especially grateful for Martha Sprigge and Mariusz Kozak, and their respective spouses Ben Levy and Johanna Kozak: friends in academia as well as real life, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. Closer to family than friends, Samantha Shaw, Meghan Leadbeater, and Sarah Bennett have been constants for so many years; I adore growing up with you.
I would not have pursued music or a graduate degree without the support of my family, and especially my parents, Esther Dawn Caldwell (née Skidmore) (1946–2007) and William Brian Caldwell (1950–2018), who are dearly missed. My brothers, Ian Caldwell and David Caldwell, have been longtime friends and teasing companions, and I am grateful through them to have gained Natasha Caldwell and Julie Williams as sisters as well as my two nieces, Viola and Liesl Caldwell. To my aunt, Dakshina Clark, you continue to be the person that knows me best; thank you for always being there. I feel privileged to have, and have had, special grandparents who offered unconditional love: my paternal grandparents Ellard Stitt and Frances Stitt (née O’Shaughnessy) and my maternal grandparents Ethel Ball (née Gillespie) and Esmond Skidmore, the last encouraging my pursuit of music. Through my husband Daniel Steinberg, I also gained another family: my mother-in-law Carol Warshawsky, who has been like a mother to me; my parents-in-law Michael Steinberg and Katharina Galor, who have provided wisdom and love in career and life; and my siblings-in-law Andrew, James, and Anna, who have been patient, caring, and supportive. My two grandmothers-in-law, Suzanne Steinberg and Sarita Warshawsky, were and are special role models for me as strong, intellectual women and mothers. Both my own extended family and Daniel’s – cousins, aunts, uncles, and beyond – have been an integral part of our support system over the years, enabling us to live our hectic life, pursue careers, and raise our children.
This book is dedicated to my husband, Daniel, and our children, Isabel and Maxwell (and to our ever-patient dog Mal). It is thanks to the support and love of my family that this book came into being, and I am forever grateful to Daniel for creating the time and space to make not just this book, but my career as a whole possible.