Centre For Medieval Studies Middle Eastern and Islamic Influence on Western Art & Liturgy: Cultural Exchanges in Late Antiquity & the Middle Ages Central to the conference, held during March 5-6, 2004, at Trinity College, University of Toronto (Canada), was the desire of its organizer, Andrew Hughes, to find analogies in other disciplines to his speculation that the European plainsong (liturgical chant) of the Middle Ages was performed in Conference, Symposium, and Panel Reports 149 a manner similar to that of Middle Eastern music (“Continuous Music: Natural or Eastern? The Origins of Modern Performance Style”). His spec- ulation stemmed from decades of discussions with his colleague Timothy McGee about the nature of musical sound. Oral transmission, its replace- ment by various difficult-to-interpret notations, and an often polemic rejec- tion of Arabic influence make the investigation difficult and controversial.1 McGee responded (“Some Concerns about Eastern Influence in Medieval Music”) and later, working from practical experiments presented by a group of graduate students attending the conference, offered a very inter- esting new interpretation. Some reservations were expressed by Charles Burnett (Warburg Institute, London), a distinguished Arabist with musico- logical qualifications. He was invited to comment on the initial round table and the conference as a whole. Other papers relevant to music were George Sawa’s review of Arabic theories of medieval music (“The Uses of Arabic Language in Medieval Rhythmic Discourses”). He referred to numerous matters that might have a bearing on European music, especially with respect to ornamentation and rhythm. Art Levine discussed other non-western musical cultures, some of which were also influenced by Islamic music, and raised ques- tions about ornamentation, tuning, and the nature of pitch (e.g., what is a note? “What Can Non-Western Music Offer?”). Moving from the sound of music to words about it, Randall Rosenfeld described numerous pilgrimage and Crusader chronicles. They contain passages reporting that Europeans found little strange in eastern music, suggesting that eastern and western music cannot have been as dissimilar as seems to be the case today (“Frankish Reports of Central Asian and Middle Eastern Musical Practice”). John Haines traced in detail the use of Arabic terms from Adelard of Bath’s twelfth-century translation of Euclid’s geometrical writings to an important mid-thirteenth-century musical treatise, where the terms for quadrilateral shapes resembling square notation are used to refer to musical symbols (“Anonymous IV’s Elmuahim and Elmuarifa”). Luisa Nardini presented details of particular melodic characteristics in Gregorian chants that identify Byzantine and Gallican melodies in Gregorian repertories (“Aliens in Disguise: Byzantine and Gallican Songs as Mass Propers in Italian Sources”). In other disciplines, Philip Slavin revealed the striking similarities of topics and words between Byzantine and Roman (Gregorian) penitential liturgy, seeing possible origins in Jewish prayers and the fourth-century Constitutiones Apostolorum (“Byzantine and Western Penitential Prayers: 150 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21:2 An Exercise in Comparative Liturgy”). Connell Monette also saw a com- mon source responsible for striking similarities between Iranian and Irish epics that recount the stories of heroes who inadvertently kill their sons (“The Filicide Episodes in Iranian Shahnama and Irish Aided Óenfir Aífe”). Despite the apparent unlikelihood of connections between such distant and different areas, the similarities could not be denied. In addition, Monette set out routes by which transmission and influence could have taken place. Armenia, also considerably distant from Europe, was the source of an appendix to a document found in Gaul, according to Anne Elizabeth Redgate (“An Armenian Physician at the Early Tenth-century Court of Louis III of Provence? The Case of the Autun Glossary”). It is a glossary that includes numerous anatomical terms. Redgate suggested that these may have arrived in Gaul with a doctor in the retinue of the Byzantine princess Anna, married to Louis. Frankish paintings in Armenia strengthen the links between the two regions. Four papers took up various aspects of the parallel cultures in southern Europe. Cynthia Robinson investigated liturgical, archival, and literary sources (“Sublimating Agony: A Case for ‘Iberian Peculiarities’ in the Jeronymite Interpretation of the Passion”). Oddities in the devotional aspects of fifteenth-century Hieronymite and other liturgies of northern Spain, especially concerning the Passion, may be the result of some inter- penetration of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish preferences. The other papers here were illustrated by slides. Valerie Gonzales examined poetry (“The Perception of the Moorish in the Medieval Poetry of the Romanceros fron- terizos in Spain during the Reconquista [Twelfth-fifteenth Centuries]”). These Spanish-Christian poems of the Middle Ages described such luxuri- ous accessories as jewels and fabrics that distinguished Muslims from the sober Christian population. The poems’ visual images have parallels in archaeology, manuscript illumination, and metal work. Jill Caskey addressed the question of whether the eleventh-century stucco sculptures in southern Italy are hybrid Norman artifacts influenced by Islamic conventions, or the products of Muslim craftsmen who con- tinued to work after the Norman conquest of Sicily (“Stuccos from the Norman Period in Southern Italy and Sicily: Evidence of Active Muslim Workshops or the Lingering Practice of Islamic Art Forms?”). A similar question of continued presence or influence was explored by Elizabeth Markus, with respect to the princely themes incorporated into secular and religious ivory carvings and paintings in Sicily and Venice. Such works suggest contact between these regions and the Fatimid caliphate of North Conference, Symposium, and Panel Reports 151 Africa (“The Evidence of Fatimid Style and Princely Themes in the Decorative Repertoire of Italian Art: The Case of Venice and Norman Sicily”). In almost all the papers, the continued and close contact between western and eastern cultures was clear and acknowledged. Imitation or influence was common and often obvious. In some of the papers about music (viz., those that concerned treatises, theory, and chronicles), simi- lar correspondences were apparent. That the secular and instrumental music of medieval Europe can readily be performed in what may be medieval Middle Eastern style was demonstrated in the concert “The Enclosed Garden: Middle-Eastern Musical Influence on the Medieval West” (with a dancer) by George Sawa’s group “Alpharabius” at the Friday evening concert. McGee, based on the practical experiments, would argue medieval Europe’s sacred music was not similarly per- formed. One possible conclusion is that in Europe, sacred music tried to distinguish itself from both Middle Eastern and contemporary western secular styles. As Rosenfeld showed, many sources have never been explored, and all need a new critical, yet sympathetic, reading. Note: 1. The crucial publications here are: Timothy J. McGee, “The Sound of Medieval Song: Ornamentation and Vocal Style according to the Treatises,” Oxford Monographs on Music (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998) and Andrew Hughes “Charlemagne’s Chant, or the Great Vocal Shift” Speculum, no. 77 (2002) 1069-1106. Andrew Hughes University of Toronto, Centre for Medieval Studies Toronto, Ontario, Canada 152 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21:2