Dr Joseph Mason

I am an Assistant Professor in Early Music and a Fellow of Clare Hall. My research centres on the music of medieval Europe, with a particular focus on song in France in the long thirteenth century, and combines historical musicology with music analysis, manuscript studies, critical theory and digital humanities. I am particularly interested in exploring what songs meant to medieval people—how composing, singing, listening to and writing down songs enabled medieval people to understand their place in the world. My current monograph project traces intersections between song and violence in thirteenth-century France, arguing that metaphors of violence provided poet-composers with a way to talk about musical acts and meaning. I have published on Old French song and fourteenth-century motets and in 2024 received the Roland Jackson award at the AMS for an article of exceptional merit in the field of music analysis.

Following a DPhil at the University of Oxford, I held teaching positions at New College, Oxford and the University of Bristol and postdoctoral fellowships at University College Dublin and New College, Oxford. I am active as an early music singer and organist and regularly lead workshops on singing early music from facsimile.