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June 2023. For the first time we are able to display images of the MS pages, including miniatures, of the Escorial MSS E and T, thanks to the new policy of openness of the Patrimonio Nacional. Links to images of all pages will be inserted into the MSS/Layout table, and links to the images will be added to the image summaries in the Poems table. As all images have to be individually configured, the process will take some time to complete.
November 2022. The daily Twitter commentaries on selected poems are now accessible via the Archive.
23 November 2021. The 800th anniversary of the birth of Alfonso X will be celebrated with a host of conferences and publications. Our Twitter account @CantigasOxford will offer a year of posts on the Cantigas, with new texts and translations on this site.
17 November 2021. It is with deep sadness that we report the death of Belinda Sykes, a longstanding friend of the Centre and founder of Joglaresa, an extraordinary musician whose performances of the Cantigas were unforgettable for their passion and humour.
October 2021. The Escorial Cantigas manuscripts are now viewable online: The Códice Rico and the Códice dos músicos on the RBME website. Arrangements for downloading pages are variable. The Florence codex is available on a site sponsored by the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale of Florence. Pages can be downloaded but an additional program is required to convert them to standard format.
June 2018. BBC Radio 3 has just broadcast Music from a Warmer Climate, a personal anthology of music from medieval al-Andalus by Belinda Sykes of Joglaresa. It includes various Cantigas de Santa Maria, and will be available on BBC i-player until early July. For something completely different, cantiga 322 meets Monty Python in Joglaresa & the Killer Rabbit!
January 2018. The Notation of the Cantigas de Santa Maria: Diplomatic Edition, a complete transcription of the music from all three musical manuscripts, has been published by Manuel Pedro Ferreira. E-books of the transcriptions can be downloaded from the CESEM website, with English or Portuguese explanatory material. The transcriptions can be accessed individually from our Archive site.
August 2017. For technical reasons we have been unable to add new records to the Bibliography Table. We hope updating can resume promptly.
May 2017. A new use of the database! The CSM Database with translations provided by Stephen Parkinson was used by Cristina McLelland to choreograph a short ballet based on cantiga 391. Click here to view the full performance.
8 March 2016, 2.15 p.m., Theberge Room, St Peter's College, Oxford
Seminar by Prof Maria Ana Ramos (Zurich)
Poesia medieval galego-portuguesa.
Entre cópias e público
August 2015. Stephen Parkinson will retire from his teaching post on 30 September 2015, and will continue work on the Critical Edition of the CSM as a Leverhulme Trust Emeritus Fellow, following the award of a 2-year Fellowship. David Barnett will return as Research Assistant from 1 November.
July 2015. Stephen Parkinson and Manuel Pedro Ferreira participated in a Summer School Cantando e con dança: trobar e imaginar en la corte del rey Sabio led by Laura Fernández and Carmen Julia of the Universidad Complutense. Other distinguished participants included Rocio Sanchez Amejeiras, Maria Victoria Chico Picaza, David Nirenberg, Francisco Prado Vilar, Joseph Snow, and Juan Carlos Asensio. The proceedings ended with an informal concert of cantigas led by Judith Cohen, including the world premiere of cantiga 409 'Cantando e con dança' (set to a traditional melody, as the music for it has not survived), and performances of cantigas 7 and 147 (with Stephen Parkinson as Bishop and Carmen Julia as Sheep).
April 2015. Alfonso X, the Learned, Cantigas de Santa Maria. An Anthology will be published in the MHRA Critical Texts series on 7 April. The volume contains the prologue and 45 cantigas, with parallel English translations and a substantial Introduction.
March 2015. Selected Word profiles are now visible on the site.
January 2015. We are beginning to insert parallel text in Galician in selected pages of the database. Our thanks go to Débora González for her translation and adaptation of these texts.
May 2014. Digital images of the Toledo MS (BNM 10069) are now freely available for viewing or download on the BNM website
December 2011 Updates. Texts from the Critical Edition are now available as PDFs linked to the main database. The archive of sample texts remains open.
The display of the content of text and miniatures has been enhanced, and live links to BITAGAP have been inserted.
May 2013. Dr Déborah González has begun a two-year postdoctoral fellowship for work on lexical aspects of the Cantigas de Santa Maria.
18 November 2011. Lecture by Prof Manuel Pedro Ferreira on Don Dinis and Alfonso X. St Peter's College, 5 p.m.
September 2011. The first sample texts from the Critical Edition are now available online.
The Centre has moved back with Portuguese Studies Centre into the main Modern Languages premises at 47 Wellington Square.
July 2011. Presentation of initial results of the Edition at the 10th Congress of the Associação Internacional de Lusitanistas, Faro
May 2011. A new facsimile edition of the codice rico is published in Madrid, with a companion volume including articles by Stephen Parkinson on the sources of the CSM and Manuel Pedro Ferreira on Music. A copy of the facsimile and companion volume was presented to the Pope during his visit to Madrid.
April 2011. The Database suffered a severe hacking attack which required a major overhaul of its structure, and caused an interruption to the regular updating of content and the addition of new information pages.
October 2010. Dr David Barnett has been appointed to the British Academy Research Assistantship. The Centre has moved to 11 Bevington Road, Oxford, where it once more shares space with the Instituto Camões Portuguese Centre.
July 2010 The British Academy has awarded the Centre a grant of £104,542 for two years' work on critical editing of the CSM.
October 2009 Inauguration of the Medieval Hispanic Text and Manuscript Seminar, with presentations on the CSM manuscripts by Stephen Parkinson and Deirdre Jackson.
July 2009 Opening of the Wulstan Library in St Peter's College, Oxford. The Library contains a precious collection of facsimiles of early Hispanic manuscripts, including most of the works from the scriptorium of Alfonso X.
February 2008 The site is now linked directly to Todd McComb and Pierre Roberge's online discography. For more information, see the Useful Links page.
August 2007 Launch of a new book on the CSM by Professor Angela Vaz Leão (UFMG):
Cantigas de Santa Maria de Afonso X, o Sábio: aspectos culturais e literários (São Paulo, Linear B; Belo Horizonte, Veredas e Cenários: 2007)
July 2007 The distinguished CSM scholar Professor Jesús Montoya Martínez passed away in Granada on 8 July. He will be remembered for his work on the rhetoric, language and punctuation of the texts, and on the Puerto de Santa Maria cycle of cantigas.
July 2007 The Centre sponsored a session on the CSM at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds. This was part of a day of sessions dedicated to Professor David Wulstan.
June 2007 The Centre has been awarded a Small Grant (£5600) by the British Academy for further work on the CSM Database.
February 2007 The Centre has moved to Modern Languages Faculty Annexe at 41 Wellington Square.
January 2007 Professor David Wulstan has donated a large collection of musical and literary books and reference materials to St Peter's College Oxford, including a collection of Cantigas de Santa Maria facsimiles, for use by the Centre. Prof Wulstan, whose 70th birthday was celebrated with a concert in St Peter's College on 13 January, has been made an Honorary Fellow of the College.
March 2006 Cantigas de Santa Maria on BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3's CD Masters series devoted part of five programmes, from 20 March to 24 March, to classic recordings of over thirty Cantigas de Santa Maria in vocal and instrumental perfomances. For daily playlists see the CD Masters archive.
September 2005 The CSM database was featured on the News and events page of the Oxford University website.
August 2005 The CSM Database is now linked to the BITAGAP (Bibliografia de Textos Antigos Galegos e Portugueses) Database of early texts and manuscripts.
July 2005 The Taylorian Library has acquired a copy of the EDILAN facsimile of the Escorial códice rico