ABSTRACT
In the first half of the fourteenth century, new sacred songs begin to appear almost simultaneously in several European sources, first in Latin and then in vernacular languages. In order to find a non-disjunctive approach that bridges history and memory, we might turn to the principle of practice: both the traditional uses of song and the studies of it would be part of an overarching practice. Memory tradition may be distinguished from history tradition, or perhaps historically-aware tradition: the one that consciously mediates past and present, by collecting, studying, reviving, ordering, documenting. Of course the study of traditional music is in general less likely to privilege origin over reception, or written history over memory and oral transmission; but even non-Western traditional music can be studied from a museum point of view. In order to find a non-disjunctive approach that bridges history and memory, we might turn to the principle of practice.
