Silent Music: Medieval Ritual and the Construction of History in Eighteenth-Century Spain

This study centers on the study of medieval liturgical and musical manuscripts in Toledo Cathedral during the mid-eighteenth century by the Jesuit Andres Marcos Burriel (1719-1762), including the reproductions created by his collaborator, the calligrapher Francisco Xavier Santiago y Palomares. It situates the products of their collaboration within the history of cultural nationalism, and more specifically within the writing of history through the study of medieval ritual. The work of these two scholars illustrates their understanding of medieval Iberian music and liturgy as fundamental to the definition of Spanish identity, and forms an important chapter in the development of the historical sciences during the early years of the Spanish Enlightenment.