Beyond Text and Performance: Archaeoacoustics, Material Engagement, and 4E Cognition in Medieval Liturgical Music

Research Question/Problem Contemporary musicological discourse often maintains a dichotomy between historical-textual analysis and performance studies, separating the musical “work” from its sounding realization. This paper challenges that division by arguing that medieval liturgical music must be understood as a materially situated and experientially grounded practice, shaped by the interaction of sound, body, and architectural space. The transition from early Christian domestic worship settings (domus ecclesiae) to monumental basilicas introduced a condition of acoustic mismatch, a measurable divergence between the acoustic affordances of pre-existing chant practices and the reverberant properties of new architectural environments (Suárez et al., 2013). This raises a central question: to what extent did acoustic conditions actively shape the structural and perceptual evolution of Gregorian chant and early polyphony? Objectives This study aims (1) to demonstrate the interdependence of musical structure, embodied performance, and architectural space through the frameworks of 4E Cognition (Gallagher, 2023) and Material Engagement Theory (Malafouris, 2013); (2) to analyze how the spatial expansion of liturgical architecture influenced the emergence of melismatic chant, tropes, sequences, and early organum; and (3) to conceptualize the built environment as an acoustic scaffolding system actively participating in musical sense-making and collective experience — building on prior work in historical architectural acoustics (Cirillo & Martellotta, 2005; Suárez et al., 2013) and enactive approaches to musical cognition (Schiavio & De Jaegher, 2017). Method The study adopts a comparative theoretical-analytical approach grounded in existing archaeoacoustic research, offering a reinterpretation of established datasets. Acoustic parameters —specifically Reverberation Time (T30, in seconds) and Speech Transmission Index (STI, a dimensionless index from 0 to 1)— are drawn from documented measurements and calibrated simulations of early Christian and medieval worship spaces (Martellotta et al., 2009; Suárez et al., 2013). These quantitative data are integrated with musicological scholarship on Gregorian chant and Notre-Dame polyphony (Hiley, 1993; Wright, 1989), enabling a systematic correlation between acoustic conditions and compositional and performative strategies. Results and/or Main Contributions The analysis indicates that the architectural transition to large basilicas produced a marked decrease in speech intelligibility (STI typically below 0.45, indicating “poor” intelligibility) combined with prolonged reverberation (T30 values commonly exceeding 4–6 seconds). Within this acoustic regime, syllabic chant becomes perceptually unstable due to consonant masking and phoneme blurring, while melismatic expansion enhances tonal continuity and resonance. Early polyphonic practices (in particular sustained-tone organum) can likewise be understood as engaging with, rather than resisting, reverberant blending. These findings suggest that central structural features of medieval liturgical music emerged as materially grounded adaptations to specific acoustic environments. Architecture thus functions not merely as a passive container, but as an active co-agent shaping perception, temporality, and collective performance dynamics. Conclusions and/or Implications By integrating musicology, archaeoacoustics, and 4E cognition theory, this paper argues that the apparent divide between text and performance dissolves when acoustic space is recognized as constitutive of musical meaning. This perspective aligns with current interdisciplinary approaches in embodied music research while also opening a dialogue with artistic research, emphasizing listening as an embodied and spatial practice.