Since the 19th century, scholars have been attempting to discover the origins of Gregorian chant and to establish when musical notation began to be widely used in its redaction. For almost 30 years, Kenneth Levy's scholarship on the subject has been hugely influential. He hypothesizes that Gregorian chant was notated in the time of Charlemagne (742-814), or even Pippin (714-768). There are alternative ways of reading the 8th- and 9th-century evidence, however, and largely oral transmission of the Gregorian melodies until the later 9th century cannot be ruled out.

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Aside from Don Randel's study of the responsory verse tones, there have been few comparative analyses of Old Hispanic chant melodies. Such comparison requires new methods because of the paucity of surviving manuscripts, the limited sharing of repertoire between them and the nature of the notation. This article examines variants in specific opening and cadential contexts, across the Old Hispanic corpus. In these contexts, cantors chose from a system of interchangeable melodic shapes, which vary by manuscript. Some manuscripts cluster in their choices of these shapes, in ways that confirm Randel's findings, with four melodic dialects in evidence (‘Leon’, ‘Rioja’, ‘Toledo A’ and ‘Toledo B’). Other manuscripts, however, do not fit securely into any of these four dialects, instead showing a certain degree of permeability between the dialects. Although the types of variants we have identified, including differences in notation and melody, may appear ‘insignificant’ in comparisons of individual chants, they emerge as significant markers of melodic dialects in comparisons of large data sets.

Much is known about processions within the Roman liturgy, but the processions of the Old Hispanic rite practiced in most of Christian Iberia until ca. 1080 have not been studied. Explicit evidence about Old Hispanic processional characteristics and liturgical contexts is preserved in manuscript rubrics. Processions happened around or during Mass (for example, on Palm Sunday), at the end of Vespers or Matutinum (for example, the consecration of a basilica), or outside the usual daily liturgy (for example, votive ordos). We have collated all of the extant Old Hispanic rubrics pertaining to liturgical movement. Some of these unquestionably refer to processions, while others describe ceremonies that might better be described more informally as “liturgy in motion.” We focus primarily on the processional rubrics, while also engaging with other liturgical movement. We identify the chant genres associated with processions and outline the processional practices attested in the rubrics.