The Digital Ecosystem of the Jistebnice Kancionál

The Jistebnice Kancionál (CZ-Pn II C 7) from 1420s/1430s is a distinguished and to some extent exclusive document of the fifteenth-century Hussite revolution. It contains the first vernacular translations of the Mass and the Office for an (unknown) parish church and a large collection of vernacular spiritual songs. The specific character of the Jistebnice Kancionál, interesting to more disciplines than historical musicology, has in the past posed a challenge to the ‘classical’ format of critical music editions that is prepared since 1990s (2 volumes published 2005 and 2019). Our ‘digital ecosystem’ is a novel design of an interconnected digital edition, which puts the original source in the centre. We present this design, and its pilot implementation on materials from the first Christmas Vespers. Our contribution is primarily methodological: defining needs and preparing corresponding tools that can then be scaled to create a complete digital edition. The ecosystem is centred around a digital facsimile created by adapting the OMMR4All software. An information layer for both scholarly and general audiences is provided via a website that serves as the entry point to the Jistebnice Kancionál digital ecosystem. Individual information ‘threads’ connect to further resources in bibliographic or literary databases To place the Kancionál in the context of other chant sources, we connect it to the Cantus Index network of digital chant scholarship by indexing its repertory with vernacular- specific Cantus IDs. Transcription of music concordances provide material for analytical tools using methods from bioinformatics are built that can operate on this data.