Three of the articles in this issue of Plainsong & Medieval Music
were presented at a session devoted to medieval saints' offices
sponsored by the Plainsong and Mediaeval Music Society at the 1999
International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds. Two of the
papers (Caldwell, Hiley) are devoted to English saints, while a third
(Hankeln) surveys offices, monastic and secular, of the sainted royal
patrons of the diocese of Bamberg, Henry and Kunigunde. Elizabeth
Leach's article on the four-voice balades of Guillaume de Machaut brings
together considerations of transmission, fourteenth-century contrapuntal
theory, and performance practice.
Beginning with this issue of Plainsong & Medieval Music every article
will be preceded by a short abstract. Brief identifications of the
authors, who will most likely be already known to readers in the
relatively small field of medieval music research, will include
their e-mail addresses.