The Contribution of Historical Performance to the Study of Narrative

Where a scholar asks, ‘Were the Middle English romances performed by minstrels?’ a performer asks, ‘How could they have been performed?’ The questions are different, but both scholar and performer work toward answers by drawing on available documents from the past. Both try to put aside modern perspectives as they construct understanding from evidence that is incomplete, complex, and ambiguous. Historical performance cannot uncover information that is not available in the documents scrutinized by scholars; it can, however, point out connections a scholar might miss. A performer is forced to summon together wide ranging information about instruments, vocal delivery, texts, melodies, and rhythms. In the process, bits and pieces of information that have been overlooked emerge, and contexts that have been ignored are re-established.

The normal processes of scholarship could demonstrate that the ornamentation in the melody for the German narrative Titurel falls on unstressed syllables; could recognize that Titurel, like many of the Middle English romances, represents a translation of a French romance into a stress-based language; could determine that the first line of the melody fits the English alliterative long line, a poetic tradition with Germanic roots; and could infer the possibility of melodic ornamentation of unstressed syllables in Middle English alliterative romances. The processes of scholarship could accomplish this, but are not likely to do so. A scholar interested in Middle English alliterative verse would not turn to a melody for a German poem, and a musicologist would find nothing attractive in Middle English alliterative poetry.