Neumes
The earliest evidence of music writing in southern Italy dates from the late tenth or early eleventh century. The earliest examples consisted of pen stokes (neumes) written above sacred texts. The neumes outlined the direction of the melody and helped singers remember melodies they already knew. The notation of pitch became more precise in the eleventh and twelfth centuries as scribes perfected their use of vertical space to represent intervals. By the later twelfth century, F and C lines (a precursor the modern 5-line staff) allowed melodies to be recreated by singers who had never heard them.
Recall Notation
The earliest south Italian notation functioned as a tool for recording and remembering. The neumes indicated how many notes were to be sung to each syllable and outlined the contour of the melody. The scribes used vertical space on the page to represent higher and lower notes, but the neumes did not capture exact intervals or pitches. This notation operated in a predominantly oral context and must have provided communities of singers with everything they needed to recreate the melodies in performance.
Well-Heightened Notation
By the mid-eleventh century, the relative highness/lowness of pitches is represented more-or-less accurately on an evenly spaced vertical axis. We can follow a melodic line stepwise, but because there are no staves or clefs, we do not know exactly which intervals are being represented. These neumes also rely on and interact with singers’ memories, and cannot be read at sight. Most of the melodies of the old Beneventan repertory are preserved in this sort of well-heightened notation
Staves and Clefs
By the late twelfth century, neumes were oriented on an evenly measured vertical axis with a horizontal line representing F or C (the red line represents F). This notation can be read at sight, and enables a singer who does not already know the melody to recreate the song. About thirty old Beneventan melodies – mostly office antiphons such as those for the offices of the 12 Brothers and St. Barbatus - are notated with this sort of pitch-readable notation.