The Diachronic Development of the Dǝggʷā: A Study of Texts and Manuscripts of Selected Ethiopic Antiphon Collections

Abstract

The central aim of the present dissertation is to advance the knowledge about the diachronic development of the corpus of Dǝggʷā-type antiphons as transmitted in manuscript and printed form within the Ethiopic written culture. The dissertation opens with an introduction to the topic, drawing on previous research (Chapter 1), and a detailed presentation of a corpus consisting of forty-seven manuscripts and two printed editions, dating from between pre-mid-fourteenth-century times and the twentieth century, and comprising all but one of the known pre-seventeenth-century manuscripts (Chapter 2). Then follow three studies in which different aspects of the development of Dǝggʷā-type antiphon collections are addressed: developments on the textual level (Chapter 3), developments in the mise en texte (Chapter 4), and developments in one of the systems for musical categorisation used indigenously for classifying Dǝggʷā-type antiphons (Chapter 5). The dissertation ends with a brief summary of the results and an outlook on related topics that remain to be studied (Chapter 6).