Saints were the heroes of medieval culture, the centre of lively cults which presented them as active intercessors and examples for their fellow Christians. We will explore how devotion to medieval saints was constructed through the combination of liturgical, musical and material elements, in an area that has received little scholarly attention despite its rich culture: early medieval Iberia. Our study of the development and transmission of Iberian saints' cults from the Visigothic period to the 14th century will integrate hagiography, liturgical texts, chant, and material culture for the first time. This will offer a new perspective on how saints were constructed by and experienced by the communities that venerated them. We will publish a series of peer-reviewed journal articles and a team-authored monograph, as well as inviting an international general public to gain a new appreciation of this unique heritage via an interactive, multilingual and multimedia exhibition. We know that saints were proudly defended elsewhere in Western Europe as local patrons and community figureheads, and that veneration of saints was gendered: women were commemorated for virginity; and men were celebrated for leadership. Iberian saints, however, have not been analysed for their socio-cultural significance and integrated into wider European paradigms. This is the result of inaccessible manuscript sources, and lack of scholarly familiarity with the distinctive Old Hispanic rite. 'Iberian saints' brings together an interdisciplinary team to address these gaps in the research agenda, and to produce the first holistic study of saints' cults in early medieval Iberia, straddling multiple disciplinary specialisms, and engaging with how the veneration of Iberian saints shifted over the centuries, in particular during and after the 11th-century imposition of the Roman liturgy across much of Iberia. Our work will open up new research avenues for scholars in multiple disciplines, modelling an interdisciplinary approach that can shed new light on historical moments about which only fragmentary evidence survives. By adding a significant body of Old Hispanic material to www.musicahispanica.eu and www.cantusindex.org, we will facilitate integration of Old Hispanic liturgical evidence into the wider European context. Further, this data sharing will make the Old Hispanic materials widely accessible, with the (intricate and unfamiliar) liturgical structure ready parsed. We will undertake innovative transcription work in our web-based Chant Editing and Analysis Program (neumes.org.uk). Old Hispanic notation is unpitched, which poses significant challenges to scholars engaging with the melodies. In Iberian Saints, we will continue to develop analytical tools and methods that break new ground in our understanding of medieval monophonic melodic languages, available to all through our software and exemplified in our publications. Beyond academic discourse, our interactive digital exhibition will significantly increase the cultural value of our research findings. The exhibition will reconnect locals who visit archives and museums in Lamego, Coimbra, Salamanca and Toledo with this almost-forgotten aspect of their cultural heritage, as well as reaching out to tourists, and being available online. It will raise consciousness of Old Hispanic liturgy and its manuscripts, while communicating our new findings to the general public. The exhibition will engage audiences in ways that go far beyond superficial appreciation of the beauty and antiquity of the materials: they will be taught to navigate the texts, melodies and liturgical context, performing basic forms of analysis through interactive games, and navigating the GIS maps of each saint's cult. For some, there will be devotional and spiritual benefits as well; they will re-examine their own religious practices in the light of the thousand-year old culture to which we are drawing their attention.

Context Old Hispanic chant manuscripts do not specify precise intervals or pitches. This has constrained scholarly understanding of the melodies. In grant AH/H008306/1, we began to understand Old Hispanic chant's musical language systematically, especially the cadences. We identified characteristic cadence gestures, and how they are adapted to different numbers of syllables and (sometimes) accent patterns. We also explored how melodic pacing interacts with text: there are often many notes on theologically important words, directing participants' meditations towards those words and ideas. Aims We will significantly increase the cultural impact of these research findings, through: digital exhibitions; public workshops in Madrid and Coimbra; incorporation of Old Hispanic chant data in www.cantusdatabase.org (the flagship digital archive of ecclesiastical manuscript contents); explanatory Youtube videos; and promotion of our online transcription and analysis software. We will reconnect locals who visit archives and museums in Lamego, Coimbra, Madrid, León and Valencia with this almost-forgotten aspect of their cultural heritage, as well as reaching out to tourists. An interactive digital exhibition will combine with display - in their home institutions - of some fragmentary manuscripts. The exhibition, co-produced with the five institutions, will raise consciousness of Old Hispanic liturgy, the broad outlines of its history generally, and the history of these fragments in particular. We will also introduce the general public to some of our melodic findings, through a beginners' guide to reading the notations, and a primer to help people recognise cadence shapes and appreciate how the melody paces and parses the text. Some exhibition materials will be presented in short videos, also posted on Youtube (further broadening the potential reach). All exhibition materials will be presented in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Old Hispanic material will be included in www.cantusdabatase.org for the first time. As well as academics, this is the first port of call for choirmasters and amateur chant/liturgy enthusiasts, who may be struck by the liturgical and theological distinctiveness of the Old Hispanic chants and want to explore further: we will add links to our web-based Chant Editing and Analysis Program, where they will find the digital exhibition and our transcription and analysis tools. We will use social networking and communicate with special interest groups to spread knowledge of our activities. Potential applications and benefits We will engage audiences in ways that go far beyond superficial appreciation of the beauty and antiquity of the materials. The benefits are cultural: certainly aesthetic and historical, likely giving people the joy of spotting meaningful patterns across initially incomprehensible signs, and (for some) devotional and spiritual as well. Although it is little known nowadays, the Old Hispanic liturgy is theologically and musically complex; the sophistication of the liturgies put together for individual feasts and for whole seasons bears comparison with other treasures of the medieval age. The proposed activities allow a large number of people to engage with this cultural treasure. We will develop a network of new Iberian partners, with whose institutions we will explore the possibility of similar knowledge transfer in future, on the innovative model proposed here. Our longterm aim is a three-way collaboration between our analytical software, www.cantusdatabase.org and SIMSSA (McGill University, in the opening phase of developing optical neume recognition software). The proposed project brings together the two parts of this research that are ready for public use, while continuing to develop three-way dialogue with SIMSSA.