fy e 4

oices § Instruments —
n

of the Middle Ages

lnsthmmientel eaence and songs

| in France 1100-1300 ae

aristopher Page
In the history of early music one of the most
pressing yet contentious questions concerns
instrumental practice in the performance of
medieval song, especially the lyrics of the
troubadours and trouveres.
Christopher Page has done more than
anyone in carrying out research in this field.
He has explored the vast amount ofliterary
and other evidence and is able to place our
understanding of these instruments and their
music on a new footing. After examining the
place of instruments in the genre-system of
medieval song, he discusses stringing and
tuning. He describes the instruments and
considers pitch, playing-techniques and
repertoire.
Dr Page’s book throws important new
light on his subject and will appeal to
listeners and performers, as well as to those
interested in the literature and history of the
Middle Ages.
 Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2022 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/voicesinstrumentO000page
 VOICES AND
INSTRUMENTS
Cir 102i
MIDDLE AGES
Frontispiece A fiddler, probably a minstrel, accompanying himself as he
sings. A twelfth-century sculpture from Cluny. Musée Ochier, Cluny.
 VOICES AND
INSTRUMENTS
Or Tren
MIDDLE AGES
Instrumental practice
and songs in France 1100—1300

Christopher Page

University of California Press

Berkeley Los Angeles

CONCORDIA COLLEGE LIBRARY

University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

Copyright © 1986 Christopher Page

Library of Congress catalog card number: 86—16072

Printed in Great Britain

 CONTENTS

Preface
Introduction

Part 1 Songs and instruments

Epic and Romance
The twelfth century in the South
The thirteenth century in the North
Late traditions in the South
Paris
The carole _
The monophonic conductus
Ne
OO
oP The Roman de Horn and the lai
COND

Part 2 Performance practice

9 Open-string instruments: tunings and techniques
10 Jerome of Moravia and stopped-string instruments
11 Conclusions: voices and instruments

Appendix | Terminology of musical instruments

Appendix 2 Selective typology of musical references in
French narrative fiction to 1300
Appendix 3___ Literary references relating to the involvement
of stringed instruments in French and Occitan
monody
Appendix 4 String-materials in the Middle Ages

Notes
Bibliography
Index
For my parents and for Régine

Bele amie, si est de nus,

neé VUS SANS Mel, Ne Mel SANS VUS.
 Preface

We must all find our own doorway into the past. For some it is the study of
what can be seen in paintings or read in poems. For me the best entry has
always been through what is heard in music. The performance of old music
is perhaps our strangest way of confronting the past, for in order to do it we
must collaborate with the dead; when we hear a performance of a medieval
song we are hearing an echo of voices which, as if by some miracle, have not
been silenced despite the passage of seven or eight hundred years.
This book is an attempt to move a little closer to the source of that echo.
Of all medieval music, the monophonic songs of the troubadours and
trouvéres seem to have a special fascination for modern listeners—the
twelfth-century troubadour lyrics, for example, constitute the earliest
repertory of Western vernacular song in existence and lie at the centre of the
Occidental tradition of love-lyric. Yet for all their musical and poetic
interest, these songs sound very faintly now under the wind of seven or eight
centuries and little can be said with certainty about how they were
performed. Despite an enormous amount of scholarly effort, the question of
their rhythm will remain a matter of controversy until the great day when
musicologists will have the opportunity to consult the troubadours in
person.’ Nothing will ever be known for sure about the way in which
medieval singers paced and phrased them, about the vocal timbres which
they cultivated or their use of dynamic shading.
The past is nothing without its mystery, and these enigmas will probably
ensure that troubadour and trouvere songs will retain their fascination for
ever. Yet there is one area of performance practice where I believe the mist
needs to be cleared a little: the question of instrumental participation in the
delivery of these songs. In recent years performers and instrument-makers
have done a great deal to lift medieval instruments from the frozen silence of
church sculptures and from manuscript borders; many reproductions have
been made and some skilled performers have emerged. Now that the initial
burst of activity in this area has passed, along with the 1960s and 1970s
when it reached a peak, the time has come for a dispassionate assessment of
where musical instruments belong in the surviving repertories of music.
This book is an attempt to take a step in that direction. In writing it I
have been helped by many friends and colleagues, amongst whom it is a
pleasure to mention David Fallows and Stephen Haynes (both of whom
read parts of the book in draft and made many valuable suggestions), Ann

vii
 Preface

Lewis (who spotted many errors and helped me to clarify numerous

arguments), Mark Everist, Lewis Jones, Edward Wilson (the best critic any
author could wish), Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, John Caldwell, Jeremy
Montagu, Eph and Djilda Segerman, and Ronald Woodley.
It is impossible to express what my wife, Régine, has contributed to this
book. May it help towards a better understanding of the medieval music of
her country.

Vill
 Introduction
More often resting at some gentle place
Within the groves of Chivalry, I pipe
Among the Shepherds, with reposing Knights
Sit by a Fountain-side, and hear their tales.

Wordsworth The Prelude (Text of 1805)

Wordsworth’s image of the Middle Ages, when shepherds played their pipes
amidst ‘the groves of Chivalry’, evokes a world of pastoral innocence and
simple dignity where there is always music of instruments in the air. With
the rise of interest in the troubadours during the second half of the
eighteenth century, those were often the terms in which men of letters
imagined the medieval past. The poems and biographies of those Provengal
songwriters—virtually forgotten, at least in France, since the sixteenth
century—were a revelation to the literary public of Europe when Lacurne
de Sainte-Palaye published his Histoire Littéraire des Troubadours in 1774;' at a
time when any traveller in southern France could still hear the language of
the troubadours spoken even in high society,” this pioneering book showed
that Occitan had once been a great literary language cultivated by
flamboyant poets whose lyrics stood at the fountainhead of European love-
song.
This interest in the troubadours was accompanied by a developing
appreciation of the role which minstrels and professional entertainers had
played in medieval life. Between 1759 and 1798 a hoard of references to
histriones and joculatores was made available to readers in Mansi’s volumes of
ecclesiastical Concilia, and these documents left no doubt that the medieval
monk in his cloister, like the chivalrous lord in his keep, had drawn upon a
host of itinerant singers and instrumentalists for his entertainment.° At the
same time the revival of interest in medieval literature—especially in
England, where Chaucer had been continuously read since the fourteenth
century—prompted antiquarians such as Thomas Percy, Joseph Ritson and
Walter Scott to study the part played by minstrels in composing or
performing the romances and ballads which survived in manuscripts and
in oral tradition.* Their disagreements were sometimes public and acri-
ix
Introduction

monious, but they were agreed that ‘the groves of Chivalry’ had been
thronged with minstrels, especially singers and instrumentalists.
It was perhaps inevitable that these interests in troubadour lyric and
minstrelsy should coalesce, bringing eighteenth-century antiquaries to the
view that troubadour songs had been originally performed by minstrels as
combined vocal and instrumental music. Fresh discoveries only seemed to
confirm it. By 1774 substantial extracts from the Vidas (‘Lives’) of the
troubadours were available in paraphrase in Lacurne de Sainte-Palaye’s
volumes mentioned above, and one of these relates how Guiraut de Bornelh
went from court to court leading two singers (cantadors) with him, while
another records that the troubadour Perdigo ‘knew very well how to play
the fiddle’.° Such evidence seemed definitive, and by the time of Charles
Burney’s A General History of Music (1776-89) it was in order for the songs of
the troubadours to be presented as the first concerted art-music for voices
and instruments in Western history:°
It was about this time [cl119] that Provengal Poetry arrived at its
greatest point of perfection; and that it began to be sung to the sound
of instruments: for at this period Violars, or performers on the Vielle
and Viol; Juglars, or Flute-players; Musars, or players on other
instruments; and Comics, or Comedians, abounded all over Europe.

By the nineteenth century the troubadour has become the story-book

figure of a romantic wanderer, an instrument slung over his back as he
makes his way from castle to castle.
It is easy to smile at this romantic image of the Provengal poet. Yet it is
by no means an obsolete picture like some Victorian print of the Last
Supper relegated to the dust of the vestry. It is with us still, for it is generally
assumed that the songs of the troubadours and trouvéres were first heard
above the clamour of inventive instrumental playing:’

The following transcription of Bernart de Ventadorn’s Ab joi mou lo

vers e.l comens ... may serve as an illustration of the kind of approach
to the performance of monophonic songs that I have tried to
outline... A suitable instrumentation would be harp for the drone
and fiddle for the heterophonic line but portative organ, hurdy
gurdy, rebec and recorder would make suitable alternatives.

This view has recently been questioned by Hendrik van der Werf in his book
on the songs of the troubadours and trouvéres. In a few paragraphs he
clarifies the accompaniment question in a most useful way. The central
issue, he argues,® .

...1s not whether medieval singers ever sang to instrumental

accompaniment. In some of the narrative literature of the Middle
Ages we find clear indications that this was done, but that does not
prove that the chansons of the troubadours and trouvéres were
 Introduction

accompanied too... we have to reckon with the possibility that

medieval Western Europe... knew many kinds of songs, popular as
well as esoteric ones; some of these may habitually have been
accompanied, but not necessarily all of them.

I take my point of departure from these lines. The task is not to establish
‘whether medieval singers ever sang to instrumental accompaniment’, for
there is a good deal of literary evidence that they sometimes did (see
Appendix 3, passim). My purpose is to distinguish the kinds of songs which
were considered more appropriate for instrumental accompaniment from
those considered less suitable for performance in that way.
When the issue is expressed in these terms, much of the literary evidence
for accompaniment is disqualified for being too vague; it does not reveal
what kind of song it is that lies behind such terms as chanson, son, lai, vers, and
so on.” I have therefore based the argument of this book upon the few
sources which refer to different kinds of songs in contexts where it is clear
what kinds of songs are meant, and where instrumental accompaniment is
mentioned in explicit terms. The pattern that emerges from these sources is
probably only a fragment of the whole truth, and nothing more can be based
upon it than the most tentative conclusions. In a situation such as this the
danger of exhausting the reader with qualifications and multiple hypotheses
is clearly very great; | have attempted to be brisk and plain as an invitation
to the reader to consider the issues afresh.
The book is in two parts. The first is an attempt to determine which kinds
of songs may have been associated with accompaniment, and which not.
The second gathers evidence relating to the kinds of accompanimént which
stringed instruments may have supplied in performances of monophonic
songs. This restriction of the field of view to stringed instruments seems
justified by the lack of any definite indications that wind instruments
participated in the performance of courtly monody during the Middle Ages.
In the Appendices I have gathered source material relating to various
matters which, though important, do not belong within the substance of my
argument. The first deals with the terminology of medieval instruments,
since no attempt to use literary evidence as I wish to use it can bejustified
without some clarification of the nomenclature employed by medieval
writers. The second offers a selective typology of musical references in Old
French literature such as is necessary, I believe, to interpret what comes
next in Appendix 3, a collection of literary references to musical
performance. Finally, Appendix 4 confronts an issue which bears directly
upon the sound of courtly monody: the string-materials used on medieval
instruments. Here I have attempted to establish a tentative chronology for
gut, metal, silk and horsehair strings as a guide to instrument-makers and
performers who wish to do in a much more effective way what this book
attempts to do: to capture sounds after a lapse of many centuries.

xl
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SONGS AND INSTRUMENTS
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 a
Epic and Romance
Rollant est proz e Oliver est sage.

Song of Roland

I
During the period 1050-1200 the arts of lyric poetry and string-playing
were transformed. The troubadours emerged with their range of lyric genres
in the vernacular and their highly self-conscious approach to the art of song-
writing. At the same time, bowed instruments proliferated in many shapes
and sizes throughout Europe and the fiddle became the chosen instrument
of the Provencal courtier. These are just some of the most obvious
manifestations of a transformation in the art of being a poet or an
instrumentalist. Yet the most vivid testimony to these changes is to be found
outside the rcalm of songs and instruments. It can be sought in the narrative
poetry of the period where the change from Epic to Romance embodies so
much of what is significant in the making of the Middle Ages.'
The early French epics, of which the Song of Roland is probably the earliest
and certainly the best-known, are often approached as if they were windows
onto the eleventh century. They reveal a generally harsh and ‘uncourtly’
feudal aristocracy, constantly engaged in tragic conflicts over rights and
inheritances. In this respect these Epics have often been contrasted with the
new genre of French vernacular romance (new, that is, around 1150), for the
tales of Arthur, Tristan and other heroes, so much admired in the later
twelfth century, mirror a new and ‘courteous’ life-style. We hear less of
draughty, torch-lit castles, and more of window-seats and private chimney-
corners in well-appointed chambers.
This is a simplified view, of course, for in many ways the genre of Epic
becomes increasingly hard to disentangle from Romance as the twelfth
century progresses. It may also be an unguarded view, for we have become
reluctant to look in the ‘mirror’ of literature for a reflection of life as it was
lived in the past. Yet as far as the history of music is concerned this
interpretation of the contrast between ‘feudal’ Epic and ‘courtly’ Romance
has much to offer. Anyone who brings an interest in music to the Song of
Roland (c1080) and then, let us say, to Thomas’s Roman de Horn (c1170), is

3
Songs and instruments

bound to notice a significant difference. The Song of Roland has no music—

none, that is, apart from the alarums of trumpets and the cry of Roland’s
horn. Roland inhabits a world where there is neither time nor place for
anything else; he passes (and ends) his life as a great soldier in Char-
lemagne’s warrior-band, pursuing the communal and aggressively Christ-
ian purpose of a crusade against the Saracens in Spain. The scenes of his
story take place in public or crowded places where only men are present: the
great war-councils before Charlemagne; the column of chevaliers riding to
combat; the press of the battlefield.
Almost a century later, the hero of the Roman de Horn belongs to a different
realm.” He is a great fighter—good enough to have fought with Roland—
but he is not a soldier. In his world there is a measure of freedom from
urgent military obligation and the range of human experience deemed to be
consequential has widened as a result. It is not just Horn’s warriorhood that
matters—although that was all that mattered for Roland; Horn can
converse with ladies and deport himself in a way that inspires emulation in
his peers and delight in his superiors.
Above all, he can both sing and play the harp. The passage where
Thomas celebrates Horn’s musical skills is possibly the finest account of
accompanied vocal performance anywhere in medieval literature. Here we
leave the stern keeps of Epic behind and walk along the galleries of
Romance; private chambers, their floors ‘strewn with flowers, yellow, indigo
and vermillion’, lead off on every side, and the air is full of music:?

Lors prent la harpe asei, qu’il la veut atemprer.

Deus! kiduncl’esgardast cum la sout manier,
Cum ces cordes tuchout, cum les feseit trembler,
Asquantes feiz chanter asquantes organer,
De l’armonie del ciel li potist remembrer!
Sur tuz homes k’isunt fet cist a merveiller.
Quant ses notes ot fait sila prent a munter
E tut par autres tuns _ les cordes fait soner:
Mut se merveillent tuit qu’il la sout si bailler.
E quant il out (is)si fait, si cummence a noter
Le lai dunt or ains dis, de Baltof, haut e cler,
Sicum sunt cilbretun ditiel fait costumier.
Apres enl’estrument _ fet les cordes suner,
Tut issicum en voiz_l’aveit dit tut premier:
Tut le lai lur ad fait, n’i vout rien retailler.

Then he took the harp to tune it. God! whoever

saw how well he handled it, touching the strings
and making them vibrate, sometimes causing them to
sing and at other times join in harmonies,
he would have been reminded of the heavenly harmony.
This man, of all those that are there, causes most
 Epic and Romance

wonder. When he has played his notes he makes the

harp go up so that the strings give out completely
different notes. All those present marvel that
he could play thus. And when he has done all this
he begins to play the aforesaid Jai of Baltof, in
a loud and clear voice, just as the Bretons are versed
in such performances. Afterwards he makes the strings
of the instrument play exactly the same melody as he
had just sung; he performed the whole /ai for he
wished to omit nothing.

We need not concern ourselves yet with the meaning of the word lai; it
suffices here to note that the /ai is clearly a song which Horn both sings and
plays. Other passages reveal that the lai was composed by Baltof, a young
aristocrat and son of the king of Brittany, to celebrate his beautiful sister
Rigmel who is Horn’s beloved. The episode implies an audience closely
interested in songs and instrumental playing.*
There is nothing new about the figure of the amateur string-player in
royal society; we find him in Beowulf, for example, and much earlier still if
we cast our net wide enough.” What is new, however, is the tacit but
unmistakable admission in the Roman de Horn that refined love is the passion
which music most readily stimulates and feeds. There are no love-songs in
Beowulf, only lays of the ancient epic heroes of the North; yet in the Roman de
Horn there is a keen sense that Horn’s musicality is part ofa disposition to be
elegant and amorous which is the heart of courtliness as interpreted by
secular individuals.° -
This is not simply a change in the ethos of songs and instruments; it is
something new in the ethos of masculinity and in the awareness of male
beauty.’ The Epic knights of the Song of Roland may have magnificent
physiques, but they are generally shown to us as seen through the eyes of
their admiring male peers in the banqueting hall, in the council chamber or
on the battlefield. Women barely figure in these places and therefore the
Epic hero’s magnificence is generally without any sexual nuances. Here is
Ganelon before the war-council of Charlemagne in the Song of Roland:®

De sun col getet ses grandes pels de martre

E est remés en sun blialt de palie;
Vairs out [les oilz] e mult fier lu visage.
Gent out le cors e les costez out larges.
Tant par fut bels tuit si per l’en esguardent.

He has thrown down his great marten-fur from his neck

and is left standing in his under-tunic ofsilk;
his eyes are flashing and his face is haughty.
His body is fair and his chest is broad.
He was so fine that all his peers watch him.
Songs and instruments

‘He was so fine that all his peers watch him’: this is a man seen by men.
What a difference, then, if we move forward a century and encounter
Thomas’s description of Horn. Here is a man whose beauty is seen through
the eyes of a woman who desires him to distraction:

[Rigmel] pense de Horn, ki ele tient trop fier,

‘Cheveus ad lungs e blois, que nul n’en est sun per;

Oilz veirs, gros, duz, rianz, pur dames esgarder;
Nies e buche bien faite pur duz beisiers prester. ..’

Lady Rigmel thinks of Horn, whom she thinks too proud,

‘He has long blonde hair so that none can equal him,
he has blue eyes, large, sweet and laughing to look upon
ladies; he has a fine nose and mouth to give kisses...’

The image of the courtier-amateur skilled in singing and playing upon

instruments was a potent one in both North and South. Here it is, for
example, in the twelfth-century Provengal tale of Daurel et Beton:'°

Qua[n]t ac .vii. ans Beto sap gen violar

E tocar citola e ricamen arpar
E cansos dire, de se mezis trobar....
Qua[n]t ac Beto .ix. ans foc del rei escudiers,
Foc bels e gens e covinen parliers,
Joga a taulas, et ad excas, a diniers,
E va cassar ab cas et ab lebriers,
Ab los austors et ab los esparviers;
Baissa las astas, abriva.n los destriers.
Ama.| lo rei, la regina a sobriers,
Sa genta filha que lo te motz en chiers;
Ama lo domnas, donzels et cavaliers.
Eta las taulas servia als mangiers,
Denan lo rei estava prezentiers,
Servi li fort do so que.1 fa mestiers;
Peussas los viola e canta volontiers.
Vio Daurel; ac ne grans alegriers.

When Beto was seven years old he knew how to

fiddle well, and to play the citole and harp
in a noble fashion, and how to sing cansos,
and how to compose by himself. . ..
When Beto was nine years old he was a squire of
the king, he was personable and courteous and
 Epic and Romance

an eloquent speaker. He plays drafts and chess

where money is bet, and goes hunting with dogs
and greyhounds, with hawks and with sparrowhawks;
he lowers his spurs and drives warhorses on.
The king loves him, and the queen adores him greatly,
and her courteous daughter who holds him very dear;
ladies love him, young men and knights. He served
at table during meals and stood graciously in the
presence of the king, serving him diligently with
everything pertaining to that craft; then he fiddles
to them and sings willingly. Daurel watches him and
takes great delight in what he sees.

No doubt there is a good deal of elaboration and idealisation in this

passage, yet it is impossible to dismiss it as pure fiction. It is unlikely to be a
coincidence that the Vida of the troubadour Pons de Capdoill records that
Pons was a gifted composer, singer and fiddle-player; nor that it sets his
musical talents like stars within a brilliant constellation of chivalrous values:
‘Pons was a fine knight in arms, a gracious speaker and a gracious wooer of
ladies, large and fine to look upon...’ (Appendix 3:10). In case we are
tempted to dismiss this encomium as yet another literary fabrication we
have the seal of Bertran II, Count of Forcalquier from the year 1168 (Figure
1): on one side the count rides in characteristically chivalrous pose, armed
with lance and shield; on the other he plays a fiddle.

Figure 1 The seal of Bertran II, count of Forcalquier, 1168. Paris, Arch.
nat., collection de sceaux Supplément 4512 et bis. Reproduced by permission.

A document of great interest in this context is Gervase of Tilbury’s Otia

Imperialia (Appendix 3:13). Here Gervase describes how the Catalan
magnate and troubadour, Guiraut de Cabreira, used to play the fiddle in the
palace at Arles. The passage is a remarkable one in which almost every
chivalrous theme which we have touched upon is displayed: the emphasis
on youth, jeunesse; the value placed upon courteous behaviour; the associa-
tion between musical skills and male sexual allure:
Songs and instruments

_.. There was in our own time a knight in Catalonia

of very high birth, dashing in warfare and gracious
in manners, whose name was Giraldus de Cabreriis . . .
This knight was in the flush of youth, charming,
lively, highly skilled on musical instruments, and
madly desired by the ladies. . .. .

Guiraut de Cabreira, like Pons de Capdoill, was both troubadour and

string-player, and his story reminds us that it was not only performing skills
which might be expected of the accomplished courtier but also poetic ones.
Here again we meet a new conception of masculinity and the skills which it
may entail. If we retrace our steps back to the Song of Roland, and specifically
to the line quoted at the head of this chapter, we find that Roland is proz,
headstrong and brave, whilst his companion Oliver is sage, wise and
circumspect. Now it is almost exactly at this time—the decades before
1100—that the adjective prudens (‘wise’) becomes by far the most popular
epithet to join to the word miles (‘soldier’) in Latin narrative texts.'! In other
words the ideal knight of cl1100 was closer in some ways to Oliver the sage
than to Roland the proz.
How did the knight develop and display his sagesse? Above all, perhaps, in
his eloquence, as revealed in the counsel which he gave his feudal lord. We
cannot miss the importance of this kind of warrior sagesse in the Song of
Roland; even the best Saracens have it. Thus the pagan king Marsilie calls
upon his dukes and counts for counsel:!”

Cunseilez mei. ..misavie hume

and the poet dwells upon the sagesse of the pagan warrior Blancandrin: ‘He
was one of the wisest pagans; he was a knight well-endowed with the
qualities of a vassal; he was a man of valour to serve his lord.’!%
In some measure the lyric art of the troubadours and trouveéres probably
arose as a transference of the eloquence which a knight was expected to
display before his male peers into the realm of leisure passed in mixed
company. In some chivalric narratives both kinds of eloquence are
associated. In Folque de Candie, for example, Thibaut is said to be amez de
dames et sages de plaidier: ‘loved by ladies and wise in pleading a case’,'* and
this because of his beles paroles, his attractive eloquence.'” The fictional figure
of Thibaut finds its historical counterpart in Conon de Béthune, the
knightly trouvére who was active in the late twelfth and early thirteenth
centuries. In 1203 we find him conducting delicate negotiations at
Constantinople on behalf of the Crusaders; he was chosen, it seems, because
he was sages et bien emparlez; ‘wise and most eloquent’.'®
 Epic and Romance

I]
We have seen that the arts of string-playing and song-writing were endowed
with a new ethos in the twelfth century. These were clearly important arts in
secular society and it matters that we should have some understanding of
how they were combined.
In some respects the issues before us may seem simple enough and even
half-decided. Surely the existence of troubadour fiddlers like Guiraut de
Cabreira and Pons de Capdoill shows that the marriage of courtly song to
instruments was a natural and easy one. Perhaps it was, but there are signs
that performers were not always faithful to it. Here, for example, is a young
member of a courtly household, a vallet, performing a song by a noted
trouvere, the Vidame de Chartres (Music example 1). A king, a single
knight and a minstrel named Jouglet are listening:'’

[li bons rois] onques n’ot conpegnon ne per

q’un sol chevalier et Juglet,
s’oilrent chanter un vallet
La bone changon le Vidame
de Chartres. ...

Quant la sesons del douz tens s’asseure

(remainder of stanza, and one other stanza,
both without music, follow)

[The good king] never had any friend or companion

with him other than a lone knight and Jouglet; and they
heard a vallet singing this fine song by the
Vidame de Chartres....

This passage from Jean Renart’s romance of Guillaume de Dole (c1220) is

one of the most convincing descriptions of performance practice in Old
French literature. The quietness of the scene, the domestic character of the
performer (a young household servant), the citation of a specific song by a
named trouvere—all of these details suggest that the passage may be rooted
in contemporary practice. As far as we can discern, the vallet is not
accompanied as he sings; indeed the minstrel Jouglet, who elsewhere in Jean
Renart’s romance shows no reluctance to accompany singers on his fiddle,
may not be involved as the vallet performs.
This brief reference is already enough to suggest that there can be no
simple answer to the question of instrumental practice in troubadour and
trouveére lyric. Despite the evidence that string-playing was endowed with a
powerful courtly ethos, here is a performance at court where instrumental
accompaniment is available, but is not used. No doubt the simplest way to
Songs and instruments

resolve this opposition is to assume that a trouvére song might be sometimes

accompanied and sometimes not, and that Jean Renart is describing a
performance in which one is not. Yet however sensible this may seem as a
solution to the conflict which I have (perhaps artificially) created, in the
long term it is an admission of defeat, for it is likely a priori that some
performances involved instruments and some did not. It seems more
interesting to ask whether the use of accompaniment was entirely dependent
upon whim and the chance availability of appropriate resources, or whether
it was subordinated to certain artistic principles and traditions. For
example, is it because Quant la sesons del douz tens s’asseitre is a trouvere song in
the High Style manner that the vallet sings it without accompaniment in
Jean Renart’s romance?
As this example shows, questions of instrumental usage in troubadour
and trouveére song are essentially questions about genre—about the differ-
ences between different kinds of song. This is to carry our subject onto
ground that medieval performers and listeners would have recognised, for it
mattered to them to know the genre of a song. That is why there is humour
in these mischievous lines by Raimbaut d’Aurenga (d.1173):'®

Escotatz, mas no say que s’es,

Senhor, so que vuelh comensar.
Vers, estribot, ni sirventes
Non es, ninom no.| sai trobar....

Listen, lords! although I do not know what it

is, this song that I want to begin. It is not
a vers, estribot nor sirventes, nor can I find
any name for it....

Where did instrumental sounds and techniques fit into the genre system
of Old French and Old Provencal lyric? Practices that were appropriate in a
performance of aHigh Style song like Quant la sesons del douz tens s’asseitre may
not have been suitable for an anonymous (but no less courtly) refrain-song
intended for dancing. We cannot hope to rebuild these, or any other,
medieval traditions of performance practice. Yet I believe that we can
sometimes glimpse, as if in an aerial photograph, faint traces of the lines
which their foundations followed.

10
 Epic and Romance

Example 1

e
_——— =

Quant la se - sons del douz tens s'as- se - U - re,

Pah eX z oe
6 eo Fe so, o= ° a. ao

que biaus es - tez se ra-ferme et es - clai = re,

© = ee eS
oo o fa ° z o © a6 = on Fe

et to -te riens a sa droi -te na - tu - re

-
* = o>: r= i = = SSS

vient et ret - ret, se n'est trop de mal ai - re,

ee chan - ter
o >

m'es
- tuet,
e

car
=

plus
°

ne
ee
m'en puis
5

tai - re,

— 7aaa
Ge = SS Sa a ae so =

por con-for - ter ma _ cru-el a - ven - tu - re

= * =?
oa =
—,
oe oy re
:

qui m'est tor - ne-ea grant mes-a - ven - tu - re.

11
 a
The twelfth century
in the South
€ auziratz, si com yeu fi,
als trobadors dir e comtar
si com vivion per anar
e per sercar terras e locx.

Raimon Vidal, Abril issia

I
Any attempt to place instrumental accompaniment within the genre system
of troubadour and trouvére poetry must take its bearings from the genre
which dominates the surviving corpus of lyrics: the elaborate love-song
which Dragonetti has termed the grand chant courtois. I shall also refer to it as
the High Style song. Throughout the later twelfth and thirteenth centuries
this kind of song, which the trouveres inherited from their predecessors in
Occitania, was the ‘classic’ form of the courtly songwriter’s art. As an
example of the prevailing poetic and musical manner of the High Style, here
is the first stanza of asong by Arnaut de Maroill:!

Las grans beutatz e.ls fis ensenhamens

e.ls verais pretz e las bonas lauzors
e.ls autres ditz e la fresca colors
que vos avetz, bona dona valen,
me donan genh de chantar e sciensa,
mas gran paor m’o tol e gran temensa,
qu ’ieu non aus dir, dona, qu’ieu chant de vos,
e€ re no sai si m’es 0 dans 0 pros.

The great beauty, the fine discrimination, the true

worth, the fine praise, and other things and
the fresh colour that is yours, good and perfect
lady, give me skill and ability to sing — but my
12
 The twelfth century in the South

great fear and fright take them away from me for

I do not dare mention, my lady, that I sing of you
and I do not know whether I will come to harm or good.

Example2

—= = aw. x Za aaa =
=~ eo j= ——

1. Las grans beu - tatz e.ls fis en - se - nha - mens

= eo 2 i rae
6 FE v a= ros oS e

2. e.ls ve - rais pretz e las bo - nas lau - zors

— = = z Saat >
==
= on ones =
3. e.ls au - tres ditz e la fres -ca co - lors

6 = s ° 2 i ..
Res = ze

4. que vos a - vetz, bo - na do - na va -— len,

4 =—— a
a oe
aaa aa
os ° ee x a a
5. me do - nan- genh de chan - tar e sci - en - sa,

6. mas gran pa - or m'o tol e gran men - sa

a —-
$= _ ° —o e eo ten = ae

7. qu'ieu non aus dir, do - na, qu'ieu chant de vos

8. e re no sai si m'es fo) dans fo) pros.

Like many other melodies for High Style songs this one is essentially
rhapsodic in character. Lines | and 2 are set to the ‘same’ music as lines 3
and 4, but this is a conventional patterning in this repertory and in this
instance (as often) it is far from strict; line 2 has a ‘closed’ ending but 4 has
an ‘open’ one. There are other relationships, but the essence of the
rhapsodic musical style of the grand chant courtois is that they are disguised.
Thus there are significant resemblances between the settings oflines 1/3, 2
and 6:
13
 Songs and instruments

Example3

_———— ee
fe oe = oe = ° _ > = ¥ a sy =

2 Zz aes
6 re e a = = =e oe eo .

while the music for lines 2 and 4 is closely related to the melody for line 7:

Example 4

6 zi a oe SS 6 ——
ee % = —
ee

7 —_ ——
> o —o ° ° e os = oe

These relationships do not necessarily strike us when we hear the first

stanza; they gradually materialise as we hear the full song. As the
performance proceeds, our sense of coherence and focus in the rhapsodic
flow of the music becomes more pronounced. This is part of what is grand
about the grand chant courtois: these songs reject the conspicuous and short-
range patterns that give an easy and instant tunefulness to dance-songs such
as the rondet de carole (see Music example 5).”
In contrast to dance-songs such as this, the essence of a High Style song
like Arnaut’s canso is that it makes us aware of the voice which is singing to
us. In a performance of a dance-song like C’est la gieus en mi les préz the voice
of the singer dissolves into the voices of the dancers (who sing the refrains)
and thence into the dance; but the high seriousness of Arnaut’s song forbids
us to sing or to do anything which will remove the song and the singer from
the centre of our attention.
14
 The twelfth century in the South

Example 5

——— aS SS
SSS
———— =

SSS
S52

SSS
Whence the characteristic manner of the High Style song: neither
gregarious in impulse nor indulgent towards its listeners, it usually lacks any
choric refrains which might invite us across the space that separates us from
the singer and draw us into the song. Arnaut de Maroill maintains the
distance between singer and hearer by a great show of decorum achieved by
an accumulation of potent courtly words (verais, valen) and by strewing his
poem with connectives that give it the appearance of discursiveness and
debate (quand...car...perque...). Presented in this way the grand chant
courtois becomes a form of oration and the antithesis of a ‘performerless’
dancing song. Indeed the idea of the song as the composition of a self-
conscious artist is constantly kept in the listener’s mind and is a crucial
element of the grand chant manner:°

The expressive technique of the Provengal love-song .. . the

exploration in the first person of an emotional state which the poet
alleges to be his own, evidently supposes that, by convention if not in
literal fact, the poet is presenting himself. To this extent, then, the
poet is self-conscious. But, in Provencal practice, he is not self-
conscious merely as (according to the convention) a happy or
dejected lover, but as a poet. The canso does not only present an
emotional state: it often presents the poet in the act of presenting

1D
 Songs and instruments

that emotional state or in the act of reflecting upon the artistic

means of presenting it. The troubadour is not only self-consciously a
practitioner of the art of poetic composition, he says, even boasts,
that he is so, sometimes at considerable length.

The contrasts which we have drawn between Arnaut de Maroill’s canso in

Old Provencal and an Old French rondet can be gathered into a rudimentary
typology of twelfth- and thirteenth-century songs:

HIGH STYLE LOWER STYLES

POETRY

Tendency towards Tendency towards stanzas of

stanzas of isometric lines polymetric lines, especially brief
lines multiplying short-range
and conspicuous effects of rhyme
and metre

No refrain or refrain rare Refrains common

Exclusively lyric Lyrico-choreographic

Lyrico-narrative

Beloved not named (except Beloved may be named, or

in enigmatic terms) protagonist(s) named

MUSIC

Rhapsodic Conspicuous short-range

repetitions and effects to
create an instant ‘tunefulness’

No strict metre Strict metre in many forms

(Figure 2) (especially those connected
in some way with dance)
(Figure 2)
16
 The twelfth century in the South

Figure 2 An anonymous dansa beginning Tant es gay es [sic] avinentz

and a High Style canso by the troubadour Blacasset, beginning Ben volgra
que.m vengues mer[c]es (commencing on the third stave on the right hand
side). The dansa, whose form reduces to ABBa[A], is in mensural notation,
whereas Blacasset’s through-composed canso is in unmeasured notation. Both
songs are additions of the early fourteenth century to the Manuscrit du Roi.
Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS fr. 844, f.78v. Photographed under ultra-
violet light. Reproduced by permission. See further Chapter 4.

17
Songs and instruments

I]
Where did instrumental accompaniment belong in this system of contrasts?
The search for an answer begins with an aristocratic musician whom we
encountered in Chapter 1. He is the Catalan nobleman, Guiraut de
Cabreira, ‘dashing in warfare ... gracious in manners ... [and] highly
skilled on musical instruments’.
It may have been as early as 1150 that Guiraut qddpecsed a mocking
sirventes to a certain minstrel named Cabra (?Guiraut himself), playfully
rebuking him for the accomplishments he had not mastered. Guiraut’s own
mastery of the fiddle—remembered long after his death by those who te)
heard him play—sharpens the edge of what is already a pointed sirventes.*
‘Whoever taught you to bow and finger the fiddle made a bad job of it’, he
proclaims to the unfortunate minstrel in the hearing of all; ‘you fiddle badly
and sing worse, from start to finish’:°

Mal saps viular e pietz chantar

del cap tro en la fenizon.

Mal t’ensegnet cel ge.t mostret

los detz a menar ni l’arson.

At one point Guiraut rebukes Cabra for not being familiar with a variety
of lyric genres, including the szrventesc, estribotz, retroencha, contenson and
balaresc—a useful but rather featureless list which does not mention
particular works or name individual troubadours. Yet, in the lines which
follow, Guiraut finds a more specific charge to level against Cabra: he
cannot sing songs by the famous troubadours of the last and the present
generation: Jaufre Rudel, Marcabrun, Ebles II de Ventadorn, a certain
Anfos, and ‘en Egun’ (perhaps a mocking pun on negun, ‘nobody’):°

Javers novel bon d’en Rudel

non cug que.t pas sotz lo guingnon;
De Markabrun _ nid’en Egun
ni d’en Anfos ni d’en Eblon.

This suggests that some minstrels who fiddled and sang for a living
included songs by celebrated troubadours in their repertory. As we might
expect from one who was probably a younger contemporary of both
Marcabrun and Jaufre Rudel, Guiraut de Cabreira refers to their songs in
the correct way; by referring to their vers novel he is following the usage of
both Marcabrun:’

dist Macabruns lou vers del son

and Jaufre Rudel:®

18
 The twelfth century in the South

No sap cantar qui.l so no.m ditz

ni.l vers trobar qui.ls motz no fay
So there is no doubt about Guiraut’s meaning; but what do his words
imply about performance practice? Here I have to confess that I have been
as mischievous in beginning with Guiraut’s sirventes as Guiraut was
mischievous in writing it. For while the poem deserves pride of place in this
chapter on chronological grounds, it also illustrates the principal difficulty
that besets any attempt to answer questions about medieval performance
practice with the aid of literary texts. This is that many literary sources are
suggestive in a way that supports conventional wisdom (which is how that
wisdom arose), yet prove, in the final analysis, to be vague and inexact.
Guiraut de Cabreira’s sirventes is a particularly vexing example. There is no
doubt that Cabra’s talents (if that is the right word to use in his case)
include singing and playing the fiddle (viular e chantar), and it is implied that
vers novel by Marcabrun and Jaufre Rudel are songs which a minstrel of
Cabra’s stamp would normally be expected to know. So it seems that some
Joglars in twelfth-century Occitania played the fiddle and had songs by noted
troubadours in their repertory. What we cannot so readily conclude is that
these minstrels used their instruments to accompany the vers novel which
they performed.
At first sight this may seem a precious or perverse objection. Medieval
courtly monody has been regarded as an art of instrumentally accompanied
song for many years; an effort is needed to recognise that there is no prima
facie case in favour of that view. Much of the literary evidence bearing upon
the question of accompaniment suffers from what might be called the
‘discontinuity problem’: it mentions this (singing, perhaps), then mentions
that (string-playing, let us imagine) but rarely allows us to establish whether
this and that happen at the same time, whether they happen in the same
place, or even whether they are associated with one another.
Then there is the problem of unwritten and lost repertory. Guiraut’s
sirventes offers an excellent illustration. In his determination to embarrass
Cabra, Guiraut spends six lines on troubadour lyric, but he lavishes one
hundred and fifteen lines (almost twenty times as many) on the epic stories
which Cabra does not know. As Guiraut gets into his stride, names (some
famous and some obscure) come tumbling out pell-mell: Charlemagne,
Ganelon, Aiol, Erec, Amic, Berart, Aimar, Merlin, Alexander, and so on
until Cabra must have despaired of ever finding employment again. This
litany of heroes from Antiquity, the Bible and medieval epic tradition leaves
us in no doubt that southern minstrels, like their northern counterparts,
passed a great deal of their professional lives telling stories, and if a wealth
of northern evidence may be believed, these narratives were often sung to
instrumental accompaniment.’ None of these songs has survived with
music, yet this kind of material may lie behind many of the literary
references to vocal and instrumental music which scholars have associated
with the surviving troubadour and trouvére repertories.
19
Songs and instruments

Ill
After Guiraut de Cabreira’s harangue against the unfortunate minstrel
Cabra (whose bad luck must have begun when he took on the professional
name ‘Goat’), it is a relief to turn to the roughly contemporary epic of Daurel
et Beton and two passages which may bring us a little closer to the kind of
information which we seek.!°
The story of this epic tells how Daurel, a minstrel, sacrifices his own son
to save his boy-lord, Beton, from being massacred by a French duke named
Guy. To guarantee Beton’s safety Daurel sets off with the boy in a boat, and
this stage of the narrative brings the first musical reference. When the child
cries during their hazardous and uncertain voyage, Daurel takes his fiddle
(viola) and"!
...fai.i1. lais d’amor.

A second reference to vocal and instrumental music involves Beton, now

matured into an expert instrumentalist and so courteous that nobody at the
court of the Emir of Babylon can believe that he is the son of a minstrel. To
test the point they arrange for Beton to play in the chamber of the princess
while other courtiers hide; the trick being that if Beton refuses to accept the
money offered to him after the performance then he cannot be a minstrel’s
son. Needless to say, Beton does refuse it; but what interests us most is not
the outcome of the story but its incidentals. At first, Beton is requested to
play some Jaices upon his fiddle for the princess, but Beton’s name for what
he has to offer is bels verses, and the poet follows Beton’s usage: ‘he sang his
verses and was courteously attended to’:!”

‘De bels verses sai, dona, vueilh que n’aujatz.’

E dit sos verses e fon ben escoltatz;
Lo rei ’'auzi que s’era amagatz
Entorn la cambra e.il reina delatz,
Et ab lor so .c. cavaliers prezatz.
Que tuh escolto cossi s’es deportatz.
Una gran pessa s’es lains deportatz,
Canta e vihola, es se fort alegratz.

‘I know beautiful verses, lady, I wish you to hear

some of them.’ He sang his verses and was courteously
attended to; the king, who had hidden himself within
the chamber, heard him, and the beautiful queen, and
with them are one hundred excellent knights who all
listened to how [Beton] rejoiced in himself. [Beton]
lingered within [the chamber] a good while.
He sings and fiddles, and enjoys himself
a great deal.
20
 The twelfth century in the South

In the first extract the term /ais is a suggestive one whose meanings in Old
Provengal are many and various, often amounting to little more than ‘a
song’, ‘a tune (whether vocal or instrumental)’.!? The context shows that
Daurel’s /ais is played upon the fiddle, and that it is a love-song, .i. lais
damor, which he is presumably either singing to his own accompaniment or

Example6
— —~ =
= =
a er = A SS ee ee

S'al cor pla - gues be fora huei may sa - zos

S25 —~ =
2 ae eye

de far chan - so per jo - ia man - te - ner,

7 aR
© # ° = ~ = =, Te ——
=—_ ©6 6
mas trop me fay m'a - ven - tu - ra do. .= J ler,

—_ ee 6 ca e ee ee
cant ieu es - gart los bes e.ls mals qu'ieu ay;

D
——— Se
que ricx dis hom que soy e que be.m vay °

mas sel c'o ditz no sap ges ben lo ver,

ra
% re ee
#6» Fie SS
° ed e # eo owe

car be - na - nan - sa non pot hom a - ver

aad ——

a = 2 mi ° ——~? = a2 , ae

de nul - ha re mais d'ai - so que.1 cor play

per que n'a may us pau - pre s'es jo - yos

c'un ric ses joy qu'es tot l'an cor - ro - sos.

21
Songs and instruments
playing as instrumental music to soothe the troubled child. The likelihood
that Daurel’s Jais is a lyric lai—a polymorphous lyric where each sub-
division of the text has its own metrical form and musical setting—seems
remote at this date (possibly as early as cl1150). However, /ais could also be
applied to lyrics in the High Style, including the canso. Folquet de Marseilla
(d.1231) calls his song S’al cor plagues be fora huei may sazos a lais, even though
its subject matter and musico-poetic form mark it as a canso in the High
Style tradition (see Music example 6).'*
The lais d’amor played by Daurel to comfort the young Beton may be a
High Style troubadour canso sung to the fiddle, although it seems to have
been an unusual practice for a troubadour to refer to his words, his music, or
both together as a Jais. ©
In the second extract Beton’s pieces are called vers, the prevailing term for
a troubadour lyric until the later twelfth century when canso began to make
an appearance.'° Unfortunately it is not clear whether Beton is fiddling and
singing at the same time, or whether the verses in his repertory are to be
identified with troubadour songs such as those by Jaufre Rudel, since vers
seems to have been used by the early troubadours for any kind of poem.'°
On balance Daurel et Beton only seems to offer hints in whispers.
A brief passage from jJaufre (cl1170) speaks in bolder tones. In this
romance, the only Arthurian verse narrative in Old Provengal, there is a
description of a court celebration where!’

. .joglars que sun el palais -

Viulon descortz et suns et lais
E dansas e cansonz de gesta.
Jamais nun veira hom tal festa.

.. minstrels who are in the palace play

descortz and suns and lais and dansas and
cansonz de gesta on the viula. No-one will
ever see such a celebration again.

The suns are probably instrumental melodies, for so (<Latin sonus) in the
sense ‘a tune, a melody’ is attested in numerous troubadour lyrics (where
the so, or melody, of a lyric composition may be contrasted with the
words, the vers or motz).'® Perhaps the same meaning may be assigned to lais,
given the frequency with which this word carries the sense hiner whether
vocal or instrumental’ in Old Provengal.
As for descortz and dansas, there is another twelfth-century source which
joins these two terms to the minstrel’s fiddle: a partimen with stanzas by the
troubadours Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, Perdigo, and the nobleman Adémar
II of Poitiers, Count of Valentinois and Diois, 1188—1230. The first tornada
of this poem opens:'®
a2
 The twelfth century in the South

Senher n’Aymar, vos etz vencuts primiers;

e.n Perdigos viule descortz 0 dansa....

Lord Adémar, you are the first to lose; and let

sir Perdigo play a descort or dansa on his fiddle... .

This double confirmation of a link between the fiddle and the genres of
descort and dansa is striking and surely significant. Both of these lyric forms
may be said to occupy a very minor position in the corpus of troubadour
lyrics with music. Only a handful of descort settings have come down to us
with music”’ and only a few dansas, all of which are written in various forms
of Franco-Occitan and preserved as additions of the early fourteenth
century to the Manuscrit du Roi (Figure 2). In terms of survival, therefore,
this association between the fiddle and the genres of descort and dansa carries
instruments to the very periphery of the troubadour corpus.
Patterns of survival can be the result of accident or caprice, but there is
another sense in which both the descort and the dansa lie on the edge of the
troubadour art. Each one, in its own way, subverts the High Style manner
as represented above all by the canso. The descort was a polymorphous lyric in
which each subdivision of the text had its own metrical form and musical
setting. Its form therefore subverted the dignity of the canso in which each
stanza has the same form and the same melodic setting. As Baum has
argued, the descort is not simply unlike the canso; it is the anti-canso:*'

The study ofdifferent writings concerning the

descort and a preliminary examination of the Old
Provencal descorts suggests the following hypothesis:
for the troubadours of the classic period, the descort
was the anti-chanson. Beside the regular canso which
followed the principle of regularity, they conceived
the irregular canso which followed the principle of
irregularity ... the opposition of the categories regular/
irregular is the generating principle of the descort.
This opposition may manifest itselfon one level or
on several levels at once; on that of form, on that
of music, or on that of content.

This interpretation sets us wondering about the relationship which seems

to have existed between the descort and the fiddle; was this relationship also
designed to counter the High Style manner, this time in the realm of
performance? Was instrumental accompaniment therefore inimical to the
High Style manner in music and poetry?
This brings us to the dansa, associated with the fiddle in both the romance
of Jaufre and the partimen between Raimbaut, Perdigo and Adémar. The
23
Songs and instruments

dansas of the twelfth century have passed into eternal silence, for not one
survives—neither words nor-music—but their poetic form is probably
preserved in the dansas which began to be written down in the next century
(none of which are much older than c1250). Here is the outline of that form:

A called the respos ,

b the stanza, using different rhymes and a
different metrical form to the respos
a the closing section of the stanza, using the same
rhymes and the same metrical form as the respos (but not
necessarily reproducing its whole form).

If the respos were repeated at the end, then the result could be identical to
the French virelai:””

A bbaA

A glance at the list of High Style and Lower Style characteristics on p.16
is enough to show that the dansa belongs in the region of the Lower Styles.
The dansa, as its name implies, was a lyrico-choreographic form which must
often have been performed for dancing; on those occasions, at least, it will
have been performed in some kind of strict metre. When the respos was
repeated at the end ofthe stanza the dansa had a refrain (in the strict sense: a
combined musical and textual reprise); at all times the dansa had a
conspicuous musical reprise (A b a). In all these respects it is a Lower Style
form.
But what of the texts? Here we may be able to pursue the link between
instruments and unwritten repertory a little further. For the most part the
surviving dansa poems are courtly in the sense that they are love lyrics which
exploit the conventions ofliterary love whose natural home is the canso. Yet
no twelfth-century dansas seem to have survived, and there are no dansas
surviving among the works of the major thirteenth-century troubadours.”°
One explanation for this state of affairs is that the dansa began life as a
trivial, ephemeral and perhaps even popular form: one which lay too low for
the troubadours to cultivate. This would not stop dansas from being played
and enjoyed at court, but it would prevent them from becoming the vehicle
of a High Style lyric genre.
There are traces here and there of what these unrecorded dansas may have
been like. A song by the Catalan troubadour Guillem de Bergueda (d.1192/
6) claims to take its melody from a song sung ‘by the young men of Pau’,
and the verses end with a (slightly variable) refrain which may well
incorporate material from a dance-song:**

Puis van xantan liridunvau,

balan, notan gent e suau.

24
 The twelfth century in the South

Puys van xantan liridunvar,

balan, notan autet e clar.

Then they go singing (?playing) ‘liridunvau’, dancing, singing

sweetly and pleasingly.

At once they go singing ‘liridunvar’, dancing, singing

loudly and clearly.

The nonsense words ‘liridunvau’ and ‘liridunvar’ carry us some con-

siderable distance from the High Style manner, as do these closing lines
from a disembodied verse:2°

Varalalito
varalalito
deu!
varalatitondeyna.

If this is an accurate picture of the prehistory of the dansa then we can

shed some fresh light on the association between the fiddle and the dansa
which we have met in two sources of the period 1170-1200. We have
already seen that the musical style of the thirteenth-century dansas lies in the
region of the Lower Styles; it now appears that the texts and general ethos of
dansas in the twelfth century may have been foreign to the High Style.
Our most explicit twelfth-century sources therefore suggest that fiddle-
accompaniment was associated with one form which subverts the musico-
poetic decorum of the High Style (the descort), and another which, at the
time we hear of it in relation to the fiddle, may well have been an ephemeral
genre which the troubadours ignored, the dansa. Thus we have a provisional
answer to the question of where instrumental accompaniment belonged in
the system of contrasts presented on p.16. As far as the twelfth century in
the South is concerned, the evidence—admittedly very meagre—suggests
that instrumental accompaniment did not have a High Style ethos.
It may be that these two references to accompanied descorts and dansas are
misleading, but I believe the next chapter will show that we have reason to
trust them. Let us leave the twelfth century with a text of cl210 which offers
a remarkable portrait of a minstrel with High Style troubadour songs in his
repertory: Abril issia by the Catalan poet and poetic theorist of the early
thirteenth century, Raimon Vidal.

IV
In this poem the narrator tells how he walked out one morning when ‘April
was leaving and May entering’. Low in spirits, he enters the town square of
25
Songs and instruments

Besali (in Catalonia) aid is pleased to see a minstrel approaching him,

‘dressed and shod after the fashion of the time in which valour and worth
were both found in the barons’.”° The two characters fall into conversation
and it becomes clear that in some measure the minstrel is an archetypal
figure found throughout medieval literature: the professional entertainer
nostalgic for a vanished age of generous and discriminating patrons when
inferior entertainers, ‘bad men who have come to work their vile and ill
desires’, did not displace men of true talent.?” Raimon Vidal’s poem
therefore gives an idealised and archaising picture of minstrelsy, but this
increases its value as a testament to the high seriousness and sense of
professional pride which the minstrel craft could encompass in the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries.
The minstrel introduces himself by listing his skills:7°

Senher, yeu soy us hom aclis

a joglaria de cantar,
e say romans dir e contar,
e€ novas motas e salutz,
e autres comtes espandutz
vas totas partz azautz e bos,
e d’en Guiraut vers e chansos
e d’en Arnaut de Maruelh mays,
e d’autres vers e d’autres lays...

Sir, lam a man inclined to the profession of minstrelsy of

singing, and I know how to tell and narrate romances and
many tales and love-greetings, and other charming and
good stories known everywhere, and vers and chansos of
sir Guiraut [de Bornelh] and more by sir Arnaut de Maroill,
and other vers and other lays...

Although he specialises in joglaria de cantar, ‘the profession of minstrelsy of

singing’, this minstrel seems to have no wish to advertise any instrumental
skills that he may possess.
As the story unfolds it emerges that this joglar has a high opinion of his
own craft. In his view minstrels have a responsibility to promote the highest
values of courtly society by conversation, songs and tales. The minstrel craft
therefore deserves to be regarded as a kind of learning (saber) which can only
be acquired by men of great personal gifts; they must be both charming
(avinens) and wise (savis).*? Accordingly, the best minstrel travels to courts
where he may seek out ‘select’ people (chauzitz) and ‘increase wisdom and
excellence amongst them’ (a lur pujar sens e valors), for his professional
satisfaction comes from inspiring noble people to magnanimous actions and
virtuous thoughts—to courtesy in the fullest sense of the term.°?
As for troubadour songs, Raimon Vidal presents them as an effective

26
 The twelfth century in the South

means of moral instruction through pleasure, solatz. His taste in troubadour

lyric is an elevated one, for it centres upon Guiraut de Bornelh (honratz per
los valenz homes, according to the Vidas),°' and Arnaut de Maroill (onratz hom
de cort).** Since a minstrel lives entirely by his voice, and since his art, in all
its manifestations, is an art of eloquence—of ‘how one should speak’ (si co
hom ditz)—the narrator takes a lofty view of lyric genres, disdaining
performers whose only concern is to learn love-debates in verse, or jocx
partitz, together with ‘every wisecrack that one says to fools’.** In contrast,
he regards the canso as an art of eloquence in the service of moral instruction.
Thus a poem of Arnaut de Maroill ‘instructs undiscriminating people’,
while Guiraut de Bornelh is pictured as a teacher of‘refined people in order
to strengthen their good behaviour’; viewed in this light the troubadour’s
chief gift is his wisdom, or sen, and his task is to instil it into others, whence,
to ensenhar, or to ‘teach’ those who hear his works.**
To anyone familiar with the idiosyncratic works of the first troubadours,
whose sexual morality is sometimes less than exemplary, this earnest view of
a lyric repertory which is often concerned with erotic love may seem
somewhat ingenuous,” and it is certainly difficult to believe that a theorist
of poetic art like Raimon Vidal, who acknowledges the primacy of didactic
aims in poetry with such candour, can capture more than a fraction of what
was truly enjoyed by those who cared for troubadour poetry. Yet it is
doubtful whether Raimon Vidal’s contemporaries would have considered
his faith in the moral seriousness of troubadour song to be misplaced, nor
need we assume that the troubadours and their listeners would have turned
to some other defence of their art than the moralistic one which Vidal offers.
The articulate mind of the Middle Ages was never dissatisfied with the view
of good poetry as something utilis as well as dulcis.
In accordance with his elevated view of the High Style song the minstrel
in Raimon Vidal’s Abril issia is accustomed to be listened to. When he asks
the narrator to listen to his account of himself ‘as attentively (puramen) as if it
were a message of love’, he may be alluding to High Style love-songs of the
troubadour tradition, and the adverb furamen, whose meaning in this
context may amount to something like ‘[listen] in a pure fashion, unsullied
by any base thought or distraction’, suggests that a minstrel with High Style
songs in his repertory held high expectations of his listeners.°°
Needless to say, these songs could not be sung to any audience at any
time; they needed to be prepared for, and one of the most fascinating
sections in Raimon Vidal’s poem is the passage where the narrator explains
how a minstrel should bring his audience to the point where they are ready
for them.?’ It seems that a skilled minstrel began by working his way into
the flow of conversation; then, petit a petit, he manoeuvred himself into a
dominant position within the party by exploiting his learning, his saber. On
the simplest level this saber consisted of traveller’s gossip, for in any courtly
circle a minstrel enjoyed a conversational advantage by virtue of his travels
that enabled him to report items of news he had learned as he moved from
2,
Songs and instruments

place to place. In the vpinion of Raimon Vidal this was one way that an
entertainer could help to maintain and stimulate aristocratic courtesy, for
courtesy was the common culture of a network of cortz and it was the
privilege of minstrels, who travelled regularly between these courts, to
report which lords of the region were the most courteous, and which ladies
the most virtuous, as an example to all. Conversation such as this was the
minstrel’s first deployment of his saber. Next, if he saw that the company was
with him and eager for more, he turned to novas, or stories in verse which
retained the themes of courtesy and noble deeds but which represented a
move away from conversation as the company (which the minstrel had by
now turned into an audience) fell silent to listen to his material in rhyme.
Once the novas were over, the minstrel reached the most sensitive point in
the management of his audience. His next and final stage was to offer to
sing, but it was only worth proceeding to chantars if the audience had shown
itself adreitz, prims and entendens—to be clever, of fine sensibility and
discriminating. This, it seems, was the kind of audience, moulded and tested
at each stage by a skilful performer, which proud joglars sought for the
performance of songs by troubadours such as Guiraut de Bornelh and
Arnaut de Maroill. Raimon Vidal seems to regard all his skills as facets of
the same gift—the gift of eloquence. Whether it be the improvised
eloquence of conversation, or the prepared eloquence of tales and
troubadour songs, a good minstrel sees himself as one who, in all the
manifestations of his art, shows how one should speak to the pleasure and
moral profit of others. He does not emerge as a manually skilled or
dexterous individual, whether the skills be those of the knife-thrower, the
juggler or the instrumentalist.
The evidence assembled in this chapter might suggest that the High Style
troubadour canso was not generally accompanied in the twelfth century.
However, we have found no positive evidence for that view, for none of the
texts that we have so far encountered mentions the High Style canso in clear
and unmistakable terms (although a passage from Daurel et Beton may do
so; see above). All that can be said is that as early as the second half of the
twelfth century there are signs of an association between instruments and
certain song-forms (the descort and the dansa) which, in their own way, stand
well apart from the High Style canso.

28
 a.
The thirteenth century
in the North
[Telamon] fu mout de grant valor.
Mout ot en lui bon chanteor,
Mout aveit la voiz haute et clere
Et de sonez ert bons trovere.

Benoit de Sainte Maure, Roman de Troie

These lines from the Roman de Troie show that the courtly singer-trouvére
was a recognisable figure in northern France by cl1165. In some ways this is
a remarkably early date; we will not hear of any named trouvere for several
decades yet; there will be no written source of the trouvere art for almost a
hundred years. Yet Benoit de Sainte Maure shows that a male courtier who
was a good chanteor and trovere could expect to be admired in French society
less than a generation after the earliest known troubadours such as
Marcabrun and Jaufre Rudel.
In terms of lyric production, the half century from 1170 to 1220 was a
brilliant one in northern France. Yet in terms of information about the way
in which those lyrics were performed, it is a dark period; not until the very
end of it does the obscurity surrounding instrumental practice in trouvere
song begin to recede. Yet although the way is dark during those years, it is
not impossible to follow, for the main path must lead from south to north,
from the cortz of Occitania to the lands of magnates in France. The central
genre of the northern trouveres, the chanson, was directly based upon the
canso of the southern troubadours,' passing easily from Occitan to French in
the repertory of travelling performers who found a willing audience for these
and many other songs from Occitania which the northern barons lumped
together as ‘songs from the Poitou’, chansons poitevines. We can even see the
process at work in some of the twelfth-century epics; in Garin le Loheren,
amidst an evocation of a fierce warrior society, we suddenly encounter
minstrels who*
Vielent, notent maint bel son poitevin.

29
Songs and instruments

Whether such musicians as these respected the performing traditions

which began to emerge in the previous chapter will never be known for
certain because of the insuperable problem of song-terminology. The son
poitevin which is performed here before a set of warrior barons at their
banqueting table might be anything from the most weighty of troubadour
cansos to the lightest and most trivial of dansas.
Two striking references to accompanied singing will serve to illustrate this
problem of terminology further. Here is a knight named Gerars, riding to a
tournament in the thirteenth-century romance of Gille de Chyn by Gautier de
Tournai (Appendix 3:27):

Gerars Malfillastres li frans,

Li prex, li gentix, li soufrans,
A cel tornoi tout ensement
Ala mout acesmeement.
Vi. compaignons o lui mena
Ou il durement se fia;
Et s’ot o lui .ii. vieleurs,
.1. son d’amors cantent entreurs,
.I. diemence par matin.
Cevaucoient tout lor cemin
Tout droit le premier jor de may,
Qu’erbe est vers et florissent glay,
Que tote riens trait en verdour.
Li vieleur .i. son d’amour
A haute vois mout cler cantoient,
O les vielez s’acordoient. (lines 447-62)

Gerars Malfillastres, noble, valiant, courteous

and forbearing, went in this magnificent way to
the tournament. He took six companions with him
in whom he put the deepest trust; and he had two
fiddlers with him who sang a son d’amors between
themselves, one Sunday morning. They rode straight
along on the first day of May, when the grass is
green, the gladioli are in flower, and everything
takes on a verdant hue. The fiddlers, with loud and
clear voices, sang a son d’amour, according themselves
with their fiddles.

These lines offer an uncommonly detailed reference to accompanied

performance. The outdoor setting is made from layers of rhetoric common
to both lyric and narrative tradition (Que tote riens trait en verdour...), but the
company of characters in the foreground is independently imagined, as
shown by the concentration of incidental and unconventional detail (the six
companions; the two fiddlers). The fiddlers are clearly singing to their own
30
 The thirteenth century in the North

accompaniment as they ride, and the piece which they perform is twice
described as a son d’amour.
Gautier de Tournai’s passage, arresting though it may be, is not the only
description of its kind to survive. Here is another, this time from the
thirteenth-century epic of Hervis de Metz (Appendix 3:29):

Dist Hervis: ‘Frans jongleres, bien soiiés vous trouvés!’

A mengier li a fait maintenant aporter,
Apreés souper commence moult tost a vieler
Et cante sons d’amours, belement et souef,
Et Hervis l’escouta li gentis et li bers. (lines 2469-73)

Hervis says: ‘Noble minstrel, you are welcome!

He had him brought to the banquet, and after the meal he
began to play the fiddle at once and to sing sons d’amours
in a beautiful and sweet way; Hervis, courteous and
noble, listened to him.

The accompanied sons d’amours mentioned in these passages might

conceivably be High Style troubadour songs. In Old French literature the
term son is often associated with melodies from Occitania or the border
between north and south; there are sons poitevins, sons gascoins, sons auvergnaus,
and even a son with Gascon words and a Limousin tune (Appendix 2, 4:9,
last example). In the epic La Prise de Cordres et de Sebille a son d’amors is
particularly associated with minstrels from the Auvergne:°

Tubent ces guaites, chantent ciljugleor,

Lai[s] de Bretaigne chantent cil vielor,
Et d’Ingleterre i out des har[p|]eors,
Li Auvreignas dient .j. son d’amors.

Watchmen play their horns, minstrels sing,

fiddlers sing /ais of Bretaigne and there were
harpers from England; the men from Auvergne sing
a son d’amors.

Jean Renart’s romance of Guillaume de Dole (c1220), where over forty lyric
songs are quoted or cited, also suggests that the term son had meridional
associations for French speakers. Renart reserves it for High Style songs by
the troubadours Bernart de Ventadorn and Jaufre Rudel. His only
departure from this usage takes us back to the Auvergne, for he calls the
following High Style canso, attributed to the troubadour Daude de Pradas in
one of its three sources, a chancgon auvrignace. Here it is with the heavily
Gallicised text that Renart gives (Music example 7).*

31
Songs and instruments

Example 7

> ~¢ -e oo =- = eo a GES

que foelle est verz, blan - che flor,

—_
e =e ® = o = = a

et l'er - be nest en la sa - ne

oe

Zedont a ee
ra - ver - dis - _ sent cil ver - gier.

=
® a—=e=
Ge —e o ==c # Se
=

Et joi m'av - roit tel mes - tier

ons >—~
2 = ee ee
=o4= = ee
que cors me ga -_ rist et sa - ne

It is therefore tempting to see a reflection of contemporary practice in the

extracts from Gille de Chyn and Hervis de Metz quoted above. They suggest a
world in which High Style troubadour songs are performed for northern
audiences, their texts heavily Gallicised but still emitting the heady perfume
of the South with such non-French forms as altane. Perhaps it was
performances like this which helped to spread the troubadour canso into the
north. Instrumental accompaniment may have been a necessary prop to
performances of songs whose words cannot always have been wholly
intelligible to northern listeners. No doubt most French speakers could
recognise many individual words, but not when the Occitan was seriously
garbled. How many northern listeners would have been able to twist a
meaning from this troubadour line as it appears in Jean Renart’s romance:

no coir dont desier non fon.

This has come a long way from Bernart de Ventadorn’s

lo cor de dezirier no.m fon.

ure
 The thirteenth century in the North

Modern performers of medieval music have repeatedly found that

instrumental accompaniment is a great aid in building attractive perform-
ances of troubadour songs whose texts are not fully intelligible (if intelligible
at all) to their audiences; perhaps the minstrels of twelfth- and thirteenth-
century France, keen to exploit the vogue for sons poitevins, made the same
discovery.
This is only supposition, of course; what is certain is that the term son
d’amors is not a precise one and could be used to denote songs very far
removed from the High Style, as here:°

Au tens nouvel que cil oisel

sont hetie et gai,
en un boschel sanz pastourel
pastore trouval,
ou fesoit chapiau de flors
et chantoit un son d’amors
qui mult ertjolis:
‘li pensers trop mi guerroie
de vous, douz amis.’

In the spring season when birds are excited and

joyous, in a small wood I came across a shepherdess
without a shepherd; she was weaving a head-garland
of flowers and she sang a son d’amors which was
very pretty indeed: Li pensers trop mi guerroie/de :
vous, douz amis.

In this pastourelle, by the thirteenth-century trouvere Perrin d’ Agincourt,

talk of son d’amors seems to be pointing us in exactly the opposite direction to
the one we have been taking up to now. In Perrin’s poem a son d’amors is
identified with the world of Lower Style song associated with shepherdesses
in the rich lyric repertory of the pastourelle. Taken in isolation, the lines /7
pensers trop mi guerroie/de vous, douz amis are obviously too short to give an
impression of the song which the shepherdess is singing, but shepherdesses
in Old French pastourelles do not sing High Style lyrics by troubadours; their
songs belong with the huge repertory of floating refrains (many of them
probably from dance-songs) and rondeaux scattered throughout Old
French manuscripts.° On balance it may be safer to rest with the conclusion
that son d’amors was flexible in meaning during the thirteenth century (as we
would expect it to be, since it is not a precise term), and that the lyrics which
are sung and accompanied in Gille de Chyn and Hervis de Metz may be High
Style songs by troubadours, but might equally well be lyrics of a very
different cast: simple refrain forms such as the rondet de carole.
To escape from this tangle of terms and hypotheses we need evidence in
which specific kinds of songs are associated with accompaniment. Fortu-
os)
Songs and instruments

nately, there is one such source compiled by an author who had heard
chansons poitevines and who was a connoisseur of the whole range of
monophonic lyrics known in France, from little dancing songs up to chansons
by trouvéres such as the Chastelain de Couci and the Vidame de Chartres.
His decision to insert lyrics into a romance narrative of cl220 provides an
outstanding source of information about instrumental practice in northern
courtly monody, and one which suggests that performing traditions did
indeed pass northwards along the roads which linked Occitania to Fransa.
This is the romance of Guillaume de Dole compiled by Jean Renart in the first
decades of the thirteenth century. Jean Renart seems to have initiated the
fashion of inserting lyric poems into romance narrative; his poem contains
more than forty lyrics which, taken together, provide a conspectus of the
song-forms known in his day.’ They include sixteen High Style songs, six
chansons de toile (see below), two pastourelles and twenty refrain-songs
comparable to C’est la jus en la praele (see below). Since they are
presented as arising from the story—being sung by characters in the tale—
Jean Renart is committed to some narrative involvement with the way in
which they are performed.
In three cases Jean Renart refers to the presence of instrumental
accompaniment (which, in every case, is provided by a minstrel upon his
fiddle), and if we put the accompanied songs together then we begin to
discern various patterns.
The first accompanied song is a rondet beginning C’est la jus en la praele.
The context of the performance is informal and festive, for the piece is sung
at the hostel near the palaceof Conrad, Emperor of Germany, where
Guillaume de Dole is staying. Guillaume and his party return from a night
of entertainment at the palace taking with them Jouglet, a minstrel. Jouglet
is commanded to carry his viele back to the hostel in response to a request
made earlier that same evening by the daughter of the hostel-keeper who
had playfully upbraided the minstrel: ‘you have sung nothing, Jouglet, since
you came through our door’, offering to pardon the omission if he would
return with his fiddle that night. ‘I shall do so willingly’, replies Jouglet, ‘if
we are to have caroles’ (1566—7; 1799-1801). When the party arrives at the
hostel (which is clearly no country inn but a well-appointed lodging which
the Emperor judges to be appropriate for his guests) they seek out the
owner’s daughter. Once they have ascended to the upper floor where the
valets have laid out fruit and wine, the girl sings the rondet to the
accompaniment ofJouglet’s fiddle:®

... car el a chantee ... for she sang

ovoec Jouglet en la viele to Jouglet’s fiddling
ceste chanconete novele: this new chanconete:

C’est la jus en la praele, It’s down there in the meadow,

or ai bone amor novele! now I have a new true love!
Dras i gaoit Perronele. There Perronele rinsed her clothes.
34
 The thirteenth century in the North

Bien doi joie avoir: I have good reason to rejoice:

Or ai bon’amor novele Now I have a new true love
a mon voloir. to my desire.

A glance is enough to show that this chanconete (whose music does not
survive) is an example of what we have called a Lower Style; indeed it is
exactly the kind of lyric which was used to illustrate Lower Style
characteristics in the previous chapter: a light, informal song whose brisk
and essentially trivial character is caught, in this instance, by the diminutive
suffix in changonete. There are many features which set this poem apart from
the High Style: the refrain; the pastoral setting signalled by a formulaic,
half-narrative C’est la jus en la praele; the mention of the beloved’s name (a
gesture which is foreign to the decorum of the High Style, unless the lady be
referred to by some enigmatic name which the poet has given her); the use of
the conventionalised rustic name Perronele; the implication that the speaker
himself is of Perronele’s social class; and the evocation of an insouciant
rustic life (Perronele rinsing her clothes).
_ The second of the songs performed to instrumental accompaniment in
Jean Renart’s romance is Bele Aiglentine, a chanson de toile sung by a young
Norman squire as he rides into the fields before a great tourney. Once again
the accompaniment is provided by the minstrel Jouglet on his fiddle. He is
commanded to play by the squire (si la fist Jouglet vieler).? Bele Aiglentine
presents many of the characteristic features of the chanson de toile (literally ‘a
song to sing while sewing cloth’). It is narrative, opening as the heroine,
Aiglentine, converses with her mother whilst sewing. She is busied with
other thoughts and proves so inattentive to her work that she pricks her
finger with the needle. Her mother notices this and suspects that Aiglentine
may be troubled in love—indeed that she may be pregnant:’”

‘Bele Aiglentine, deffublez vo sorcot,

Je voil veoir desoz vostre gent cors.’

‘Non ferai, dame, la froidure est la morz.’
Or orrez ja
{conment la bele Aiglentine esploita].

‘Fair Aiglentine, undo your dress for I wish to look

at your fair body underneath.’ ‘I shall not do it,
mother, for the cold can be fatal.’ Now hear how the
fair Aiglentine won through!

Aiglentine admits that she has fallen in love with Count Henri. ‘Will he
not have you?’ asks Aiglentine’s mother; ‘I do not know,’ replies Aiglentine
disarmingly, ‘for I have never asked him’. On her mother’s prompting,
Aiglentine goes to visit Henri in his ostel where she finds him in bed and asks
39
Songs and instruments

him if he will marry her. Henri gladly accepts, and the final verse of the
poem runs:!!

Oit le Henris, mout joianz en devint.

Il fet monter chevalier trusq’a -xx.,
si enporta la bele en son pais
et espousa, riche contesse en fist.
Grant joie ena
li quens Henris quant bele Aiglentine a.

Henri hears her and became very joyful. He commands

twenty knights to mount and carried that fair one
to his own country and married her, making her a
rich countess. Count Henri is overjoyed now that he has
fair Aiglentine.

Here we have a fully narrative poem whose stanzas (except the last) end
with a refrain which calls us into the tale with an almost minstrelish
insistence:

Or orrez ja
conment la bele Aiglentine esploita.

Bele Aiglentine is characterised not only by its narrative framework but also
by its para-folkloric tone. The tone is established by the archetypal nature of
the characters (a sorrowing pregnant maid, an anxious mother, a lover),
and by the incremental repetition of the narrative technique—as when
Aiglentine’s mother calls to her at the beginning of one strophe:

Bele Aiglentine, or vos tornez de ci... (2271)

and then the narrator begins the next strophe:

Bele Aiglentine s’est tornee de ci (2277)

This device of completing an action with the words in which the action
was commanded or predicted figures in many traditional forms of narrative
(English balladry provides a parallel); it contributes to an impression of the
world as a place where events have a momentum of their own, largely
independent of human will and choice. Yet it does so without establishing
any mature sense of tragedy or even of fate. Motivation and causality
become cryptic and the narrative can be pared down to its essentials,
leaving the reader with a stirring sense of mystery. Who is Aiglentine? When
and where does her story take place? Why does she wait for her mother to
discover her pregnancy before speaking to Count Henri since he seems quite
happy to marry her? Why is Count Henri abed when Aiglentine visits him?
36
 The thirteenth century in the North

At the same time the direct speech assumes a para-folkloric tone with a
stylised and sometimes proverbial manner—as in the stanza quoted above
when Aiglentine’s mother asks to see beneath her dress:

Je voil veoir desoz vostre gent cors.

and Aiglentine replies:

Non ferai, dame, la froidure est la morz.

Or when Aiglentine enters the hostel of her lover and cries:

Sire Henri, veilliez ou dormez? (2283)

The last of the accompanied lyrics in Jean Renart’s Guillaume de Dole is

performed at the command of the king and accompanied on the fiddle (i fet
chanter en la viele):'*

Cele d’Oisseri
ne met en oubli
que n’aille au cembel.
Tanta bien en li
que mout embeli
le gieu soz l’ormel.
En son chief ot chapel
de roses fres novel.
Face ot fresche, colorie,
vairs oils, cler vis simple et bel.
Por les autres fere envie
i porta maint bel joel.

She of Oisseri does not forget to go to the combat;

she is so fine that she graced the game under the elm.
On her head she had a garland ofnew,
fresh roses. She had a fresh, high-coloured visage,
shining eyes with a clear, sweet and beautiful face.
She wore many beautiful jewels there to make others
covetous.

This is an enigmatic little song to say the least. Jean Renart describes it as
une dance composed by maidens of France to commemorate the toils of a
certain bele Marguerite. This is quite plausible since there are references to
commemorative dance-songs of this kind scattered here and there in
medieval writings from at least the ninth century on.
These are the songs which Jean Renart associates with instrumental
accompaniment in Guillaume de Dole. Several points can now be firmly
37
Songs and instruments

stated. Firstly, only three of the forty-six songs quoted or excerpted in the
romance are associated with accompaniment, a proportion of one in fifteen.
Secondly, the accompaniment is provided in every case by a solo fiddle, a
circumstance which suggests a degree of standardisation of performance
practice (since the same, solo instrument is used each time) and also betrays
a certain sobriety of taste; Guillaume de Dole provides no evidence for the
mixed bands of wind, stringed and percussion instruments which have
figured so prominently in modern recordings of this repertory.
But the most important conclusion to emerge from this survey is that in
poetic terms, at least, every accompanied song in Guillaume de Dole shows
pronounced Lower Style characteristics (the music of these songs does not
survive). There is a strong link with dance, with narrative and with refrain-
form. There is no instance in the romance where accompaniment is
associated with a High Style poetic manner.'®
This picture, if an accurate one, seems to accord with the evidence of the
Old Proveng¢al sources examined in the last chapter. There we found that
instrumental accompaniment seems to have been particularly associated
with the descort and the dansa, both of them genres which, in their own way,
subverted the High Style manner. With Jean Renart’s Guillaume de Dole,
instruments seem to lie on the periphery of the surviving corpus of trouvere
monody.
The distinction between High and Lower Styles in lyric, together with the
patterns of instrumental usage appropriate to them, is not a distinction
between what is courtly on one hand and what is uncourtly on the other. A
Lower Style song with a simple, refrain-based melody, sung to the fiddle for
dancing at court, would not be an ‘uncourtly’ song; indeed the fresh and
primaveral ethos of most aristocratic dancing lay very close to the essence of
court-culture in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and characterises the
scene where the Catalan troubadour Guiraut de Cabreira plays the fiddle
for dancing in the palace at Arles.'*
Courtliness is not the main issue here, but art. While any simple dansa
could be as courtly as a High Style troubadour song, its appeal was not to
good taste or judgement, but to the feet. In the same way narrative songs,
whether in the form of epic or lyric like the chanson de toile, catered for a basic
human desire—the desire for stories—in a way that the High Style songs of
the troubadours and trouveres resolutely refused to do. If we have
uncovered a general principle here it is a very general one and seems to be
this: a song was less appropriate for instrumental accompaniment the more
it lay claim to self-conscious artistry.
We may be confronting a fundamental characteristic of twelfth- and
thirteenth-century string-playing here: instrumental music does not seem to
have been associated with the kind of profound creative endeavour which
demanded serious and considered attention from the listener. Time and
time again, medieval literary sources convey the impression that string-
playing was spontaneous, ephemeral and associated with very few emotion-

38
 The thirteenth century in the North

al feelings beyond those which are inspired by gregarious dining and

dancing. The minds of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, both northern
and southern, could find a wide range of significance in poetry, as they could
in poetry with music; but music by itself—so desturmens ses verha—does not
seem to have existed for them on the same plane.

39
 =
Late traditions in
the South
Dansa...deu [haver] so plazent; e la
ditz hom ab esturmens...

Doctrina de Compondre Dictats

I
The value of Jean Renart’s romance of Guillaume de Dole, explored in the
previous chapter, is that Renart’s narrative allows us to establish whether
instrumental accompaniment is meant and precisely what kind of song 1is
being accompanied. In the final analysis this is the only kind of evidence
upon which we can hope to build an understanding of instrumental
participation in courtly monody, and since so little of it survives, every scrap
counts, no matter how late or peripheral it may seem. The purpose of this
chapter is to examine two southern sources which offer explicit information
about the place of instruments in a system of lyric genres, but which are very
late for our purposes, perhaps even too late. Both are treatises on the writing
of lyric poetry in Occitan: the Catalan tract entitled Doctrina de Compondre
Dictats, probably of cl1300, and the annotations to the A text of the
celebrated Leys d’Amors, compiled in Toulouse during the first half of the
fourteenth century. As far as instrumental accompaniment is concerned, we
shall find some grounds for believing that these treatises endorse the picture
traced in Chapters 2 and 3.
The Doctrina de Compondre Dictats was probably composed by Jofre de
Foixa as a supplement to his Regles de Trobar, commissioned by Jacme II
when king of Sicily (Jofre is known to have had connections with the
Catalan court in Sicily after 1289).! The methods and treatment of material
employed in the Regles de Trobar?

... presuppose the existence of a circle of amateurs

anxious to write Provencal verse in the manner of the
troubadours without making linguistic and metrical
40
 Late traditions in the South

errors . . . forJofre, and presumably for his intended

readers, Provencal verse was an object of living
practical interest, not merely of antiquarian
curiosity; their interest was in continuing, to
the best of their ability, a tradition still felt
to be alive.

In Jofre’s eyes, therefore, the writings of the troubadours formed a

classical tradition: a canon ofliterary models from the past setting standards
of excellence in diction and expression for later lyricists to follow. It is
perhaps from just such a man as this that we might expect to derive a
conservative, retrospective view of troubadour practice with regard to
accompaniment.
The Doctrina de Compondre Dictats defines numerous poetic genres accord-
ing to their characteristic stanza-forms, subject matter and length, offering a
few brief remarks on the type of musical setting with which they should be
provided: the plant may have ‘any type of melody you like’, the vers ‘a new
tune’, the danga ‘a pleasing melody’, and so on. In this manner Jofre works
his way through the cango, vers, lays, sirventez, retronxa, pastora, danga, plant,
alba, tenso, discort, and a few minor forms. Suddenly, towards the end of the
treatise, we hear of instruments in Jofre’s account of the dansa:°

Si vols far danca, deus parlar d’amor be e

plasentment, en qualque estament ne sies. E deus
li fer dedents .11j. cobles e no pus, e respost,
una o dues tornades, qual te vulles; totes vegades
so novell... Dansa es dita per ¢o com naturalment
la ditz hom danc¢a[n] o bayllan, cor deu [haver]
so plazent; e la ditz hom ab esturmens, e plaua
cascus que la diga e la escout.

If you wish to compose a danga, you should speak

well and pleasingly of love in whatever state
of mind that you may be in. And you should
compose it with three stanzas, and no more, with
a respost, with one or two tornadas, as you may think
fit; it should always have a new tune... A dansa is
so called because it is normally sung whilst dancing,
hence it should have a pleasing tune; and it is sung
with instruments, and pleases everyone who sings and
hears it.

Jofre’s passing comment that the dansa ‘is sung with instruments’ carries
some weight in the full context of his treatise, for no other lyric form in the
Doctrina is associated with instruments in this way. Here we seem to have a
point of contact with performing traditions reaching as far back as the last
4]
Songs and instruments

decades of the twelfth century, for the dansa is associated with the fiddle in
two Old Provengal texts produced in that period, as we saw in Chapter 2. In
that chapter it was suggested that the dansa (and the descort) may have been
distinctive among the lyric genres known to the twelfth-century troubadours
for their association with instrumental accompaniment (or instrumental
performance); I went on to propose that this was one aspect of a
distinctiveness of form and poetic content which set both descort and dansa
apart from other lyric genres. As far as the descort is concerned, Jofre at least
knows that it stands out on a limb for its melody, ‘the contrary of all other
types of song’, as he puts it,’ while the distinctiveness of the dansa seems
apparent in his treatise for exactly the reason which twelfth-century sources
have led us to expect: it is linked to instruments.
Fortunately it is possible to form a relatively clear impression of what the
dansas known toJofre were like, for it is in early fourteenth-century additions
to an important French chansonnier, the Manuscrit du Roi, that we
encounter dansas with their music for the first (and last) time (see Music
example 8).°

I]
By way of Jofre de Foixa’s treatise we come to the most exhaustive and
systematic of all treatises on troubadour poetry, the Leys d’Amors (‘laws of
love’), compiled, for the most part, during the second quarter of the
fourteenth century by Guillem Molinier.° This treatise, which exists in
several versions, was produced for the Academy of the Gai Saber at
Toulouse, an association which sought to encourage the composition oflyric
poetry in Occitan by organising poetic competitions, probably on the model
of the northern French puis, and the purpose of the Leys d’Amors is to reduce
the art of writing lyric poetry to rule so that it may be taught, propagated
and judged.
Like Jofre de Foixa, Molinier and his collaborators in the Toulouse
Academy can have had no direct knowledge of earlier traditions of
performance-practice, but this does not affect the issue of whether the
practices of their own day—aquesta prezen art—enshrined long-established
conventions—long uzatge acostumat. Our judgement of that issue (insofar as
we can hope to judge it) must rest upon a comparison of the Leys d’Amors
with the two independent sources which we have already examined: Jofre’s
Doctrina and Jean Renart’s Guillaume de Dole.
In an important section of the Leys Molinier describes the characteristic
subject matter and metrical forms associated with each genre of poem,
usually adding a brief note on the kind of melody associated with them. In
this way he works through the principal genres, or dictatz principals, a
category which embraces the traditionally significant troubadour genres.
There is no reference anywhere to instrumental accompaniment or to purely
instrumental forms, and an anonymous member of the Toulouse Academy,
42
 Late traditions in the South

Example8

SSS

_—— === =e a
fatz -me bel sem - blant, gutieu —_ sui to -

SSS x
vos

eee: eS

$e nay aaa ees

eee
$4 Sag cape aeae TS
ota te Besaers HS =

Se
with access to the manuscript, seems to have been struck by the omission.
To remedy it he added an extensive marginal note (Figure 3) which
mentions the purely instrumental garips and also the estampida (which, he
explains, may be either a purely hele es melody or an instrumental
tune to which words have been added).’ He also mentions the bal, a form
43
Songs and instruments

which, he relates, is usually composed as an instrumental tune and then

supplied with words, resulting in a song which is ‘more apt for singing to
instrumental accompaniment than the dansa’ (mays apte per cantar amb
esturmens que dansa).®

Figure 3 An extensive marginal annotation to the A text of the Leys

d’Amors. There are several references to the use of esturmens. Toulouse,
Académie des Jeux Floraux, MS 500.007, f-41v. Reproduced by permission.

We glimpse the outlines of a familiar picture here. As in Jean Renart’s

romance of Guillaume de Dole and Jofre’s tract, instruments in the Leys
d’Amors seem to occupy a minor position within the system of lyric genres,
being closely associated with minor forms that are linked in some way to
dancing. With the exception of the garips, all of the forms which the
annotator of the Leys links with instruments have some direct or historical
connection with dance: the bals, the estampida, and the dansa.
Yet the Leys d’Amors has more to reveal, for a close reading of the text
shows that instrumental accompaniment had a distinctive ethos for the
members of the Toulouse Consistori. It is possible to sense this ethos, for
the members of the Consistori seem to have ranged their lyric genres across
an aesthetic spectrum which corresponds closely to what we have called the
High Style and Lower Styles. At one end of the spectrum lay the principal
High Style forms, the chansos and its didactic equivalent the vers,’ together
with the sirventes, the tenso, the partimen and the plang. By piecing together
various remarks scattered through the treatise we learn that all these genres
were assomatcd with the same kind of tune, fully described in the section on
the vers:
44
 Late traditions in the South

...lonc so . e pauzat . e noel . am belas e melodiozas

montadas e deshendudas . et am belas passadas e plazens
pauzas.

...a slow and sedate tune newly composed, with

beautiful and melodious ascents and descents and
with pleasing [?] phrases and with pleasant pauses.

This was the kind of melody required for a vers, but also for a chansos, a
partimen, a sirventes, a tenso (if it is to have music at all), a retroncha and a plang
(although Molinier does not entirely approve of the plang having a tune of
this kind).'' So it seems that the passage quoted above describes the musical
style and ethos of High Style poetry as the members of the Consistori knew
it.
‘Ethos’ seems the appropriate word in this context since Molinier is
attempting to define this musical style in terms of both its aesthetic effect
(belas passadas e plazens pauzas) and its objective properties (so noel). As every
music critic knows to his cost, the character of musical sound cannot
satisfactorily be captured in language; whence it is no discredit to Molinier
if some of his references to melody seem impressionistic, or if some of his
meaning must remain in doubt (is a lonc so a ‘long’ tune, a ‘sedate’ one, or
something else again?). Yet we can salvage this much: Molinier viewed the
performance of these major genres as a heightened form of declamation in
which singers, like trained readers, pointed the sense of their texts with
pauzas, matching the High Style of the words with a restrained and imposing
style of delivery.
So much for the vers, chanso, sirventes, tenso, partimen and plang. With the
pastorela this musical register changes: the melody of this genre should be
‘not so slow as that ofa vers or chansos, but it should have a tune which is a
little more fast and lively’.'* This fits well with the light tone, outdoor setting
and semi-narrative content of the pastorela and its northern equivalent, the
pastourelle.'°
At the other end of the spectrum in the Leys we find the dance-related
genres, most of which seem to be associated with instruments. In a
particularly revealing passage the anonymous annotator records that the
tune of a bal should have more short notes and be more likely than that ofa
dansa (so mays minimat e viacier), whence the bal is ‘more apt for singing to
instrumental accompaniment than the dansa’.'* This suggests that the
quality which made a song more apt for accompaniment in the view of the
Toulouse Consistori was a pronounced gaiety and dance-like character,
quite in order in certain dictatz no-principals but foreign to the decorum of the
High Style and principal genres.
Turning back to the Doctrina de Compondre Dictats we can now see that
Jofre de Foixa reveals something similar. Writing of the plant, which must
45
Songs and instruments

treat d’amor o de tristor, Jofre says that such a poem may be set to ‘any kind of
melody you like, save that of the danga’.'° This surely implies that the music of
the danga—the only genre with which Jofre associates instrumental accom-
paniment—was somehow distinctive and unlike that of any other lyric
genre.
Here, then, is the aesthetic spectrum of the Leys d’Amors (including the
annotations) showing the position where instrumental accompaniment and
performance seem to be located:

Instruments and the Leys d’Amors

Toulouse, Académie des Jeux Floraux, MS 500.007

f.40r MAIN TEXT

lonc so... pauzat Vers
Chanso
Sirventes
Tenso
Partimen
Plang
Retroncha

f.41r MAIN TEXT

no pero ta lonc cum
vers 0 chansos...
1. petit cursort
e viacier Pastorela

f.40v MAIN TEXT

loyos et.alegre per
dansar . no pero ta
lonc coma vers ni
chansos mas .i.
petit plus viacier
per dansar Dansa

f.41v ANNOTATOR
mays minimat e INSTRUMENTS
viacier [que dansa] HERE
e mays apte per Bal
cantar amb esturmens
que dansa

46
 Late traditions in the South

III
A pattern has emerged from Guillaume de Dole, the Doctrina de Compondre
Dictats and the A text of the Leys d’Amors, the most explicit vernacular
sources that bear upon the problem ofinstrumental accompaniment. With
the Leys d’Amors this pattern has formed itself into a musico-aesthetic
spectrum in which instruments are associated with songs (or instrumental
pieces) whose music is of a predominantly joyful character, and which have
a refrain (or a musical reprise of some kind) often linked to dance.
These conclusions help us to refine some ideas about the aesthetic status
of instrumental sound which were floated at the end of the last chapter. It
seems that during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries instrumental sound
had its own aesthetic colouring—at least when considered as a potential
accompaniment to songs. It was not a colouring which could be painted
onto any kind of lyric. This sense of propriety—of performing decorum—is
not difficult to account for. At this time the apprehension of instrumental
sonorities was in a ‘pre-composer’ phase, for instrumental colours did not lie
on the composer’s palette waiting to be combined for whatever expressive
ends he desired; nobody composed in that way during the Middle Ages (or
so I assume). Instrumental sound therefore had its own, closely-defined,
expressive range according to the kinds of music which, by convention, it
was directed to perform, and according to the kinds of occasion which, again
by convention, it was called upon to adorn.
During the period that we have been examining, this expressive range
seems to have been strongly influenced by the ethos of vivacious dance-
music. According to the annotator of the Leys d’Amors it was because the bal
had a rather more vivacious tune with more short notes than the dansa that it
was ‘more appropriate’ for instrumental accompaniment. Since a high
proportion of medieval instrumentalists were professionals whose livelihood
depended upon their ability to rouse a courtly company to festiveness, and
especially to dance, it is apparent that much instrumental-playing of the
time must have been gay, tuneful, and closely linked to dance. Virtually all
of the medieval dance-music which survives, whether in the form of textless
(and therefore presumably instrumental) pieces, or of songs which could be
sung for dancing and accompanied, is characterised by an instant tuneful-
ness achieved by conspicuous, short-range melodic patternings (see Music
example 9).'°
Only one piece of instrumental music survives from before the thirteenth
century and it bears out these observations. According to a famous account
in the Razos (explanations of how certain troubadour songs came to be
composed), Raimbaut de Vaqueiras composed his lyric Kalenda maya to the
tune of an estampida played at the court of the marquis of Montferrat by two
fiddlers (Appendix 3:11). Fortunately, Raimbaut decided to write a High
Style canso to fit the fiddlers’ melody. The combination ofa High Style text
and a Lower Style melody is part of the wit of the piece—for it is a
ay
Songs and instruments

Example 9

jos SS
SaaS a ==

soil SSS
Se
5aoe ec SS

Example10

= eser b =
re o — = —— =sere eee

% 1.Ka-len-da ma- ya ni fuelhde fa- ya ni chand'au-zel ni flor de gla- ya

= 4 4
oe 9 ==: ee = Se
$= eo
§ 2.non truepque.mplaya pros do-na ga-ya tro c'unir-nel mes-sa-tje n'a - ya

———

3.del vos-tre bel cors,que.mre-tra - ya

2 ee Ss
8 eo

4. pla-zer no-vel c'a-morsm'a-tra - ya

O26 aX
é eo o oo eo ey.
‘ oe oe —
5.qu'ieua-ya, e.m tra-ya vas vos,do-na ve - ra - ya,

—————— a wee ee
8 ——,

6. e cha-ya de pla-ya ge-los ans que.mn'es-tra - ya.

48
 Late traditions in the South

flamboyantly Lower Style tune, packed with conspicuous and_short-

range patternings (see Music example 10).!’
So far we have considered north and south from 1150 to 1220, and have
made a momentary foray into the fourteenth century with the Leys d’Amors.
This leap seemed desirable in order to bring out the patterns which unite
our earliest and latest sources, for those patterns amount to an artistic
tradition for the role of instruments in courtly monody.
An artistic tradition may be a fragile thing. The one which we have been
describing must have been vulnerable in all kinds of ways; we have already
found some suggestive evidence that northern minstrels may have accom-
panied southern trouvére songs in order to make their performances more
accessible to northern audiences who could not fully understand the
Occitan words (or to cover their own incompetence if they could not
understand them themselves!). Up to now we have only glimpsed part ofthe
story; it remains to be seen how things were in the region where most of our
later-thirteenth century evidence from the North congregates: Paris.

49
 pol
Paris ~.
Bonus autem artifex in viella omnem
cantum et cantilenam et omnem formam
musicalem generaliter introducit.

Johannes de Grocheio, De Musica

I
It is time to introduce two Parisian authors of the thirteenth century with
much to offer: the music theorists Johannes de Grocheio and Jerome of
Moravia. I have kept these two celebrities backstage until now for they are
exceptional writers who are reporting the musical customs of an exceptional
city.
Viewed in the context of this book, Paris is exceptional for many reasons.
It is a city, not a court; a hive of ambitious clercs packed into tenements and
hostels, not an assembly of courtiers and knights in a chamber or hall,
‘around the bright fire... amiable and agreeable’.' Above all, Paris is full of
men who can lire et chanter—read from script and sing from musical
notation—the two basic skills of every clerc and the foundation for all of his
ambitions for lucrative office. In later life these skills, acquired in childhood,
perhaps on a bench in a parish school, could help to nurture a taste for the
savant forms of music which reigned in Parisian musical circles, the motet
and the Latin conductus, both monophonic and polyphonic. As Johannes de
Grocheio says, these were forms for Jitterati and divites—for men made
learned by study or made rich by worldly success; trouvére song, in
contrast, was for magnates whom it would be inapt to call litterati and vulgar
to call divites; in Grocheio’s scheme of things they are reges, nobiles and
principes terre (Figure 4).
It is this contrast between courtliness and the world of clerical literacy,
both verbal and musical, which provides the theme for our prolegomenon to
Johannes de Grocheio and Jerome of Moravia. In Chapters 1—4 of this book
I have suggested that in the predominantly notationless world of the
troubadours and trouveres before c1250 there existed a courtly tradition of
instrumental usage. It was courtly because it rested upon a collective moral
and aesthetic apprehension within aristocratic society that it was courtois to
50
 Paris

Oh inepurer auanace ma
Tene ame tle Mlemewlone
atdier: A cethedamcoondte- wna
ter nule riche tame: ong h
tehlemene: erOn aferrment
qn aon ae renomiek: aie
me Lier eryprenc- waligilede cs

Cragree. que ettLariens

Lecth mone que plus Beir
© Sees Lamdtiner
Gram nome
pure pine tem cr ttourobe
wplus qna wens qt four nes
Gleme fer Langu -tree
wofepaay ~~mame crt rt
faumiee (9clamnenke War
Le mont 1¢ ma (anit Dnees oar
pe seen' $ sila be Lymanent bovercisderte -
ee tine: (2ce pine 1anem que
3 Dz arpenas~ maroie
tr md
PleGr- dels quis rau ances
lose Devene
Cans menei: qua
rat Courmon
Mar ecma dar”
Achouce: © jele pour qui foul |
~ pitlaplonty
place: puer tne’
ee Sie Dav crevher-sant
yee a sir (ootamnona mle hatte:

Figure 4 The opening page of the Chansonnier de l’Arsenal. The compilers of

this manuscript were clearly anxious to present a traditionalist and (by the later
thirteenth century) somewhat archaic image of trouvere monody as an essentially
aristocratic art. Thus a composition by the royal trouvere Thibaut king of
Navarre is placed here on the opening leaf, complete with a picture showing a
fiddler before a seated king and queen as courtiers stand nearby. This recalls
another late view of the trouvere art, that of the music theorist Johannes de
Grocheio; in his judgement trouvere songs were to be performed for ‘kings,
nobles and princes of the earth’, and indeed to be composed by them. Like the
painting which opens the Chansonnier de l’Arsenal, Grocheio’s words suggest
that by the later thirteenth century the trouvere art was involved with a nostalgic
mythology of kings, queens and courts. Paris, Bibliotheque de l’Arsenal, MS
5198, f.1. Reproduced by permission.
ol
Songs and instruments

mix instrumental sound with some kinds of songs but vilain to mix it with
others.
This austere ethic of instrumental usage—for an ethic it deserves to be
called—was vulnerable to abuse by the ignorant who had not the taste to
appreciate it, but it was also under threat from the learned and literate who
had the manoeuvrability of mind to bypass the tradition and come up with
something else. This manoeuvrability was already there in the act of
recording courtly songs with neumes and staves, for once a lyric has been
written down (as happened to many troubadour and trouveére songs after
c1250) it ceases to be an event. It becomes an object and can therefore be
objectively perceived. Any moorings which may have tied it to a kind of
occasion, or a kind of performance, become loosened.
The emergence of a literate tradition of troubadour and trouvére song in
the second half of the thirteenth century may therefore have exerted a
profound effect upon performance practice in that repertory, for musical
notation enabled songs to be lifted out of the behavioural conventions in
which they had become embedded. So it is important to look at some of the
ways in which string playing interacted with literacy, both verbal and
musical, in the Parisian milieu which nourished Jerome of Moravia and
Johannes de Grocheio.

Il
‘Music’, writes Jehan des Murs, who attained the academic title of magister
at Paris in the 1320s,”

is immensely refined through the efforts of the moderns,

and not only as a result of the service and artistry of
cultured and studious men in this region; the general
populace, especially young men and girls, are also
motivated to it.

These lines point us towards a fundamental change in the musical

experience of literate men which took place in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries: a change from rural silence in the monastery, broken only by the
sound of liturgy, to the clamour of dancing songs, work-songs and love-
songs in the streets and tenements of cities. Jehan des Murs’s view of music
is that ofa city-man whose experience of a wide range of music, both sacred
and secular, has brought him to the generous belief that the subtilitas of
music is maintained by human effort on many fronts: by the ‘general
populace, especially young men and girls’, as well as by monks entrenched
in their monasteries to resist the siege of Satan. What is more, Jehan senses
that this is all new; it is the moderni who, together with the people, are
helping to refine music.
In this Jehan is expressing the conviction, shared by many musicians of
o2
 Paris

his generation, that musical composition and notation had been trans-
formed to the point where a new art, an ars nova, had arisen. Yet his words
cut deeper than that, for the ‘newness’ he senses involves a recognition that
a new kind of urban community has developed, one which forces the literate
man to widen the range of human activity which he judges to be
consequential.
This sense of the city as a place where a wealth of music comes together
animates Johannes de Grocheio’s De Musica, probably written in Paris
around 1300. It is strongest in what might be called Grocheio’s ‘urban
morality’, for in his view music contributes to the stability of the city and
anything which serves the civitas cannot be bad in itself, although it may
have evil applications.’ Sometimes this philosophy leads Grocheio into
opinions that are surprisingly liberal for the thirteenth century and wildly at
variance with contemporary teaching from the pulpit and confessional.
Consider, for example, Grocheio’s view of the public ring-dances, or coreae,
which were so popular amongst the young men and girls whose musical
initiatives are praised by Jehan des Murs. In the eyes of most contemporary
moralists these coreae were services in Satan’s church, but Grocheio, in
defiance of some of the most respected churchmen of his day, takes the
opposite view: ‘these dances keep young men and girls from vanity and are
said to have force against the passion of erotic desire.’* Even the simplest
and most popular music, it seems, had a role to play in maintaining
civilisation on the banks of the Seine.
As we shall see later in this book, Grocheio has much to tell us about
instrumental practice, and it is probably because many clercs shared his
background of urban experience that we begin to find an increased
awareness of musical instruments in many Latin works of the thirteenth
century: sermons, tracts on the Vices and Virtues, Bible commentaries and
manuals of confession, to name only a few. This new awareness of
instruments is apparent in this kind of vocabulary which these clercs employ.
For many centuries monastic writers had been content with a repertoire of
instrument-names derived from the Bible or from classical literature (cithara
and psalterium, for example), and these words were luminous with the
splendour of Christian history and prophecy. Psalterium evoked Mankind’s
long journey towards the Incarnation, foretold by David as he sang in
psalterio, while cithara spanned the history of Man from Tubal in the first
generation after the Flood to the Revelation of St John where the sound of
citharae is heard amidst the marvels that signal the end of all earthly music.
From the thirteenth century on, however, Latin writings begin to fill up
with a new generation of words which could not be found in the Bible, in
Ovid, in Isidore of Seville or in any other standard and revered source.
Indeed it was precisely this lack of literary charisma which recommended
these new words; they were useful because they were current in vernacular
speech and were directly tied to instruments in daily use. Grocheio gives us
viella, and the highly exotic guitarra sarracenica. Jerome of Moravia has viella
a
Songs and instruments

and rubeba, while other theorists have liuto and cistolla. It is hard to imagine
an eleventh- (or even twelfth-) century Latinist comparing the seven words
of Christ on the cross to the ‘seven notes of a viella tuned up to breaking
point’: .vij. note vielle que usque ad rupturam cordarum fuit tensa, but it does not

n isac)
eca
sareeare

i:
een
“lees od
om awa wa me “s

Figure 5 An interlinear commentary and gloss, in Latin and French, upon a

Hebrew text of Psalm 150. The vernacular-derived terms viella and giga
appear in lines 3 and 4. Instrument-names like these, based upon words in
current vernacular speech, hardly ever appear in Bible commentaries before the
thirteenth century. In the right-hand column the annotator has written: nebel
dicitur viella quia facit pudorum Gallice ‘leydure’ omnibus
instrumentis musicis ... (“The nebel is interpreted as viella because it
puts to shame (in French ‘leydure’) all other musical instruments’). This is
based upon the commentary of Rabbi Hiyya ben Abba in the Jerusalem Talmud,
Sukkah V:6 (55c), where the nebel is said to put all other instruments to
shame. The term viella therefore seems to have been chosen as a gloss for the
Hebrew nebel by a commentator who had observed, in the words ofJohannes de
Grocheio, that ‘the viella takes pride ofplace over all stringed instruments’.
Lambeth Palace, MS 435, f-13lv. Thirteenth century. Reproduced by
permission.

on
 Paris

surprise us in a thirteenth-century collection of sermons.”

A more dramatic demonstration of the way in which instruments had
become more vivid in the mind of the clerc is provided by developments in
Bible commentary. For many centuries monastic readers of the Bible had
been content to know that the psalterium of King David was to be interpreted
as an emblem of praise, the cithara the admission of lowliness, and so on
through countless similar explanations.° In most of this enormous literature
of commentary the literal sense of words like cithara and psalterium was
allowed to shrivel and die; it did not matter to the commentator to have a
clear impression of the instruments behind the names in terms of wood and
strings; the names were left hollow, like vacated shells upon a beach, their
meanings having withered and gone to be replaced by an echo of eternal
truth.
By the later thirteenth century there were many scholars whose curiosity
about the instruments of the Bible went far beyond what a millennium of
Bible commentary had stored up for them. The renewed study of Hebrew,
for example, set many scholars thinking again about the meanings of the
instrument-names used in the psalms, and terms such as viella and giga,
drawn from contemporary life, begin to appear in commentaries, sometimes
with reflections on the status or properties of instruments in current use
(Figure 5).’ In some commentaries, curiosity about the meaning of terms
such as psalterium and cithara led to the production of small treatises,
complete with illustrations (Figure 6). The friars were particularly active in
this field; here, for example, is Jerome of Moravia’s contemporary and
fellow-Dominican, Petrus de Palude, weighing the proposition that the viella
(Figure 7) may have been the very instrument upon which David composed
the psalms:®

Isidore says in Book III of his Etymologies that the psaltertum has a
soundbox in its upper part, and also that its form was like that of the
Greek letter which is called Delta, so it is clear that the psaltertum of
the Ancients was not the same in form as the one now in use.
Whence it should also be noted that, in the realm of modern
instruments, all kinds of vielle (some of which have more strings than
others) have a soundbox above which is rested against the left
shoulder. While these strings are sounded by means of a haired
stick, the sound is modulated below by touching the strings with the
fingers ofthe left hand so that they sound now higher, now lower.
The psalterium [of the Ancients] is comparable to the viella in two
respects: firstly, that it has its soundbox in the upper part, and
secondly, that its sounds are modulated by the touch offingers
below. Yet these two instruments are also to be distinguished in
three aspects: firstly, in the shape and form [of the psalterium of the
Ancients] which, according to Isidore, was like the Greek letter
Delta which looks like this A, yet I do not remember ever having
seen [a viella] of this form amongst those in modern use; secondly,
55
 Songs and instruments

lauder dum.

- ichiloth + Windcicmites ge ouvbat 1h a? mia

id sqnote tpuox fie no CAE TMB rialrokar
date cit m clangore buame +1 tibe so tyabe
Lee qpicdam dear-geite ourtiles
1 alig MEHCS de gubus Gstuc mys
ee ozos thie Ouctibus et ,
meres cttit autem i 4, ;
Ng Ring Agee t forme. SY
fubewo Oudibile ne forma prendebat -
€, Taudate ei m plattio + ptyara -Fru deftpnones dortoar
ne Gihe cident wppatet im indies moderns atimate+
thate quoy different evpsof tecen oe S
ait ae tprptharn
tp 1edhit-amen ah
niferon Jd. falter we BENE
Sampude ipmagmemir alajuc tian
tent mm Fd ccce mide facie ita
ty pe fongie: saceret’ fup benciin +
pare ftir: mt! bearhin sat {>
nus grade: Teddetue A Haperion fod
naruto: ab mferwet-feut m her figure:
dens ab funnets -aruheem fonum a
faprors reddet 4 qr ab mferion
ut patet itt ak Bes23fpr pho
cHyp: (1° 39.8 Punt 3 ligt ev,
onleke aS fornue ptefi
» ordforme eft Pm figured (re
opiedelthaO2Ve op pfaltertii arutiqnts
no Fuit fh Forme dude ati onde ad
(itenddgpm _ modermsé. ae
guia .
anelf ser plucs # oA
naped cx ghryeno “Wwnde for veaht ;
eypphenti’ ad faeryaftanshiest nud cede Ot Onent trastu nie
= cordate modulo id fom fir mfcrins cordAs
fervent’: —— |
+f ue matt finftie ut nein pe doen
aici ce melia us condicoibus Duabus-vun Tak ag
ipeokinndl We wwddit” (on Fapius. Mle op _ , mre
Rebat Fee digitex mfcerius-_ be ds" tribs erat :
mo m figura 4 fonna: 1 Sead O° F f aha
i. pid ee conitat’ ty ie +Bz saablcci” anodet
na memiin me mde talie forme ot fie. 2 Foe em nto
coda re null@ gen meflax modnaxfoptenarid mument

Figure 6 An illustrated treatise on the musical instruments mentioned in

Psalm 150, part of the psalm commentary of the Dominican Sriar Petrus de
Palude. This kind of ‘archaeological’ interest in the literal sense of scripture is
a characteristic of the Franciscan and Dominican commentators active in the
later thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Douai, Bibliotheque Municipale, MS
45, volume 9, f.262v. Reproduced by permission.

56
 Paris

there is the number ofstrings, for no type of modern viella is

equipped with more than seven, yet the psalterium [of the Ancients]
was equipped with ten or eight; a third difference, perhaps, may be
that the psalterium was not played with a bow like the modern viella,
but was plucked with the fingers.

Without taking account of writing like this it is almost impossible to

establish an intellectual tradition in which to place lines like these by
another Dominican, Jerome of Moravia:

Another [tuning] is necessary for secular songs and

for all others—especially irregular ones... Then it
is necessary that all the five strings of this viella
be fixed to the body of the instrument, and not to
the side.

Ill
Jerome of Moravia’s treatise points us to the most obvious way in which
musical instruments came increasingly to impinge upon the lives of clercs:
they were increasingly played by clercs. Jerome’s chapter on the tuning of the
rubeba and viella is embedded in a compilation which, according to his own
testimony, is for the ‘friars of our order or of another’. We can only conclude
that there existed—at least in Paris—a population of well-educated and
musically literate friars who wished to learn the rudiments of the fiddle from
Jerome’s last chapter just as they wished to learn the rules of Franconian
notation from the Ars cantus mensurabilis which 1s one of the treatises included
in Jerome’s compilation. Some of them may even have done so because of an
interest in Bible commentary such as we found in Petrus de Palude’s
treatise on the instruments of the psalms; at least one thirteenth-century
friar was of the opinion that the ideal commentator would be one who not
only knew the properties of the instruments mentioned in scripture but who
could also play them.’ Others may have been attracted by the savant ethos
which had begun to gather around string-playing in the wake ofAristotelian
studies. According to this, the first genuine alternative to the courtly ethos of
string-playing which medieval culture evolved, the skill of playing upon
instruments was regarded as a rational and teachable technology: a scientia.
The Dominican Albertus Magnus, the leading scientific personality of
thirteenth-century Paris and the Germanies, deals with this point in several
places while commenting upon Aristotle’s Ethics:'°

Haec solutio confirmatur per hoc quod dicit

Aristoteles in II Topicorum, quod una scientia
est plurium velut amborum finium: unius tamquam
finis, alterius tamquam ejus quod est ad finem.
57
Songs and instruments

Hujus exemplum est quod Avicenna ponit, quod duae

scientiae exiguntur ad viellare. Una quidem quae
est chordarum compositionis, et altera quae est
de motu vel tactu chordarum. Scientia enim
compositionis chordarum docet componere et
dividere chordam ad sonum gravis vel acuti vel >
medii, et hoc per causas et rationes hujus
compositionis. Alia autem scientia utens quae
ex frequenti motu digitorum et chordarum tactus est acquisita.

Aristotle relates in the second book ofhis Topics

that in any science there are many facets of two
ends: one is the aim, the other is what is directed
to that aim. Avicenna gives this example ofthis
principle: there are two sciences in fiddling; one
which is the arranging of the strings and another
which is the stirring or touching ofthe strings.
The science of arranging strings teaches how to
adjust and stop the string into low, middle and high
according to the rudiments and principles of the
process. The other science uses those things which
are acquired by frequent exercises ofthe fingers
and touching ofthe strings.

Here the intricate art of fiddling is well on the way to being unravelled by
rational thought. Albertus, following Avicenna, and sharing with him a
rigorous, Aristotelian terminology, classifies viella-playing as a scientia: a skill
which rests upon a knowledge of principles, and since principles, by
definition, are ‘intelligible things’ (intelligibilia), fiddling can be taught.
Hence Albertus’s careful choice of words: ‘the science of arranging strings
teaches how to adjust...’. Yet a scientia is more than a set of teachable
principles; it is also something to practise and master: a usus. Hence, once
more, Albertus’s careful use of terms: ‘the other science uses ...’. Here, once
again, is writing without which Jerome’s treatise on fiddles seems unimagin-
able; Jerome imparts what Albertus calls the scientia compositionis chordarum,
the skill of measuring (i.e. tuning and stopping) strings into high, middle
and low notes. It was because the viella had been drawn into this special
constellation of ideas that Jerome thought it worthy of treatment, specifying
three tunings, itemising the stopped notes, mentioning an advanced
technique, and even giving a moment’s attention to repertory.
The most likely place for this constellation to have been formed is among
the students, friars and priests of later thirteenth-century Paris. The
attraction of string-playing for young university students seems to be
everlasting, and it is no surprise to find Gilles li Muisis (1272-1352)
reporting that he had seen the students of Paris returning from the schools
58
 Paris

and playing chistolles as they went.'' Yet there could be more to this
musicianship than the natural ebullience of the young. Konrad of Megen-
berg, a magister at Paris in the fourteenth century, rules that stringed
instruments ‘are sensibly classed amongst modest activities and philosophi-
cal pastimes when intervals from study are given’,'” which suggests that a
more serious notion of string-playing was sometimes involved. Konrad’s
description ofstring-music as worthy to be classed among the ‘philosophical
pastimes’ (philosophicis solatiis) shows how far instrumental skills had
become immersed in a savant ethos owing much to the recovery of
Aristotle’s philosophy in the thirteenth century.
What fragments these may seem, however, beside the reminiscences of
Henri Bate, a student at Paris around 1266-70 and later a distinguished
theologian. In the Nativitas magistri Henrici Mechliniensis Henri gives this
lavish and detailed account of his musical interests while a young student:'*

Hic enim servus Dei a pueritia calamis cantus et

fistulis omneque genus instrumentorum musicorum
libenter audivit et interdum delectatus est in
eis ut quasi de qualibet artium huiusmodi partem
sit adeptus; etenim flatum in tibiis et calamis
diversoque fistularum genere artificio se modulari
novit, organis quoque et choris clavos pellendo
melos elicere. Sed postquam philosophie limites
ingressus est et effectus alumpnus eius animique
magis colens intellectus factus obedentior actum
fistularum amplius exercere non curavit iuxta ¢
illud Philosophi in 8° Politicorum: aiunt enim
palladem cum invenisset fistulas abiecisse .... Novit
equidem natus iste viellam baiulare melodiosam
tactum cordarum elus et tractum arcus
proportionaliter conducendo.... Amplius omne genus
musici cantus sibi notum est... et diverse species
cantionum vulgarium in diversis linguis ipseque
cantans libentius, rithmorum quoque inventor et
cantionum, hylaris, iocundus, amativus corearum
ductor et dux tripudiorum in virgultis ludos
convivia et locos parari affectans, ludum quoque
saltatonis aliis interponens. Hec autem et
huiusmodi non sunt operationibus studiosis
inimica maxime in luvenibus.

This servant of God gladly heard music performed

upon reed-instruments, pipes, and every kind of
musical instrument, and meanwhile he delighted
in them as keenly as if he wished to become
skilled in every aspect of those arts; for truly,
he knew how to rule himself when blowing wind into
59
Songs and instruments

flutes and reed-pipes and instruments of

that kind with varied artistry; he also knew how to
elicit melody from organs and choros[?] by striking
the keys. Afterwards he entered the regions
of philosophy and became a pupil, cultivating his
mind and disciplining his understanding; thus he +
did not wish to pursue wind instruments further,
in line with what Aristotle reports in the Polttics:
Athene, having invented wind instruments, is said
to have cast them away. This boy knew how to
play a fiddle, bringing together, in harmonious
fashion, a melodious touching of strings and drawing
of the bow.... Further, he was familiar with (and
willingly sang) all kinds of monophonic songs in
diverse languages; he was a trouvére (inventor) of
poems and melodies, and a merry and amorous leader
of coreae and master of dances in wooded places,
arranging parties and games, and interspersing
the sport of dancing with others. These and such things
are not inimical to the student life, especially amongst
the young.

Clearly it would be anachronistic to describe this as autobiography; quite

apart from the exaggerations (Henri wants us to believe that he played
everything as a boy), the passage is shaped to project an image of youthful
and almost pastoral insouciance, adorned with the pipings of semi-rustic
wind instruments, followed by an image of the courtly cleric who proceeds
from boyish amusements to the very embodiment of courtly jeunesse:
composing, singing and dancing. Yet for all this rhetoric and literary
burnishing it is a revealing passage. Above all, it highlights what might be
called the ‘Latin quarter’ of medieval courtliness. Henri makes no mention
of courts; he is referring to a period of his life passed in the provincial town
of Malines (now in Belgium) and in the urban environment of Paris, and his
reminiscences therefore show how effectively the aristocratic notions of
courtliness discussed in Chapter | found their way into the culture of town-
bred clerics; there is the same cult of youth, the same vocal and instrumental
skills that we found in Occitanian courtliness of the twelfth century, and the
same emphasis on dancing (which here, as so often in the Middle Ages, has
a bucolic timbre, as witness Henri’s image of himself dancing ‘in wooded
places’).
Henri is a trouvere—an inventor cantionum, to use his own words—but the
confines of the trouvére art are here expanded to embrace the ‘songs in
diverse languages’ (presumably Flemish, French and Latin) which Henri so
willingly sang. He plays the fiddle, but he surrounds that art in exactly the
bookish and savant ethos which this chapter has led us to expect; on one
hand he places fiddling in the context of Aristotle’s teaching that stringed
60
 Paris

instruments are the most appropriate ones for young boys to learn, on the
other he aligns himself with the doctrine (so important in thirteenth-century
theology) that it is legitimate to relieve the tedium of earthly activities and
duties with some kind of play—in this case, play of instruments, ‘not
inimical to the student life, especially amongst the young’. We also notice
how, as in Johannes de Grocheio’s De Musica, ideas which originated
independently of Christian beliefas strictly formulated by theologians could
succeed in stifling any cleric’s doubts about the moral legitimacy of secular
music and its pleasures; for Grocheio, it is a view ofthe city as an organism,
derived from Greek philosophy; for Henri de Malines, it is the imagery of
courtliness as projected in a thousand romances. With these thoughts
in mind, neither shows any reluctance to speak highly of dancing, for
example, despite the passionate opposition of countless sermonisers and
preachers, among whom were some of the most distinguished literary men
of the age.'*

IV
Henri de Malines allows us to draw the Parisian evidence for instrumental
practice in monophonic song together. As a literate fiddle player active in
Paris during the later thirteenth century, he is probably just the kind of
musician who might have encountered Jerome of Moravia’s treatise on the
fiddle, and whose views about performance practice may be embodied in
Johannes de Grocheio’s De Musica. We are unlikely to find a better
candidate for the kind of man whom Grocheio means when He speaks
admiringly of what a ‘good fiddler’—a bonus artifex in viella—can do.
One thing is certain: Henri, and many clerc fiddlers like him, would have
been musically literate to the point of being able to read plainchant
notation. The Paris schools stood on the highway to success in ecclesiastical
or secular office but they were staging posts along a road that began in the
parish schools of the towns and villages where young clergons learned their
alphabet, the psalms and some antiphons, together with staff-notation when
their teachers had some proficiency in cantu. Gautier de Coinci portrays such
an education in his Miracles de Nostre Dame; a poor woman’s son is put to
school at a tender age, ‘to the honour of God and our lady’, and ‘soon he
knows how to sing and soon how to read’ (Tost seit chanter et tost seit lire).'°
The ability to draw words from script and to elicit song from musical
notation was regarded as the characteristic talent of the cleric and the pair
of verbs lire et chanter is found throughout medieval French literature in this
context.
The task of learning to sing from plainchant notation would have
involved clergons like the young hero of Gautier’s story in study of solmisation
and the gamut, for solmisation was the scaffolding for most musical literacy
in the later Middle Ages and was ‘very familiar even to boys only just setting
61
Songs and instruments

out on We study of music’, in the words of the theorist Engelbert of

Admont;'® it was the way that a novice learned to draw sound from musical
notation. So it is revealing that the technique of solmisation seems to have
made inroads into instrumental playing during the later thirteenth century.
The English theorist Amerus, author of the Practica Artis Musice (1271),
mentions a device of solmisation which operates ‘as much with [human]
voices as with the strings of musical instruments’ (tam in vocibus quam tn cordis
instrumentorum musicorum) ,'’while a passage in Engelbert of Admont’s treatise
suggests that literate players ascribed gamut letters to the appropriate
places on their instruments:'®

Advertendum ergo est non sine diligentia, quod .vi.

sunt notae omnium vocum, videlicet la. sol. fa.
mi. re. ut. secundum modernos, quae singulis
litteris in manu musicali et in instrumentis
musicis loco propriorum nominum ipsarum
vocum adscribuntur.

It is to be diligently noted that there are six

marks ofall pitches, that is to say la sol fa
mi re ut according to the usage of today’s
musicians, which are ascribed to the [Guidonian]
musical hand and to musical instruments with
single letters [A B C D E F G] in place ofthe full
names of these pitches.

Jerome of Moravia’s chapter on the tuning and fingering ofthe rubeba and
viella leaves us in no doubt that solmisation had found a secure place in the
primary stages of learning the fiddle. He describes the intervals set between
the strings of these instruments and then inventories the notes produced by
stopping each string within the resources of the first position. In every case
he employs the alphabetic letters of the musica recta gamut to do so, and with
the rubeba (the first instrument to be described) he uses the hexachord
denomination as well: the first string makes C fa ut, with the application of
the first finger D sol re, and so on.!'®
The scales of the rubeba and viella as Jerome presents them are a perfect
marriage of manual technique and literate theory. He stresses that each
finger of the left hand must be put down ‘in a natural fashion’ (naturaliter)
and his implied teaching is therefore that the physical structure of the hand
welcomes the musica recta gamut, for that is what his stoppings produce. He
does not discuss /ficte musice, but it is obvious that they will be produced by
deploying the fingers in a fashion which is not ‘natural’: by ‘twisting’ them,
‘bending’ them, or drawing them up towards the pegbox:”°
62
 Paris

musica recta musica ficta

digitus naturaliter cadit digitus non naturaliter cadit
girando
giratl
supra ad caput rubebe tracti
retort

In this way Jerome’s conception of manual technigue is shaped by music

theory: just as medieval musicians thought of/ficte musice as separate notes
inserted into the musica recta gamut (rather than as modifications of adjacent
notes as in the modern concept of sharps and flats), so Jerome regards the
production of recta notes as requiring one kind of finger technique while the
formation officta notes can be seen (by implication) to require another.
With these instructions Jerome provides the means for reading notation
onto an instrument. This is not to say that any medieval fiddlers ‘played
from music’ in the manner of a modern violinist; medieval pictures hardly
ever show instrumentalists using notation in this way. The literate viellator
probably used notation as a source of repertory to learn by heart. The
mechanics of the process are straightforward. Notation told the fiddler
exactly what it told the singer: where the semitone-steps lay in an otherwise
even series of tones. A c-clef placed upon a line, for example, revealed that
beneath that line was a semitone-step, beneath that a tone, then a tone
again, and so on, according to the musica recta gamut. In terms of solmisation
the crucial syllables in the hexachord were mi and fa

ut re ml fa sol la

for mi had a semitone-step above andfa a semitone-step below. In a notation

like this, therefore,

Example 11

Se

the c-clef establishes the second line as fa and the f-clef does the same for the
fourth line. To play from this notation a fiddler needed to know where to
find a fa on his instrument; this is what Jerome tells him. In the first viedla
tuning, for example, there are three stopping points that may be solmised as
fa and the player can build upon that knowledge to assign the correct
pattern of tone and semitone steps to the notation:
63
Songs and instruments

(The lateral bourdon string has been omitted since it is not stopped by the
fingers. )

ut sol re ut la sol re
r G . dd

first finger la mi re la mi

second finger fa ut

second finger

third finger sol fa ut sol re ut

fourth finger la mi re

Literate string-players equipped in this way would have been able to play
from any of the surviving trouvere chansonniers.
Our best understanding of the repertory of Parisian fiddlers comes from
the music treatises of Johannes de Grocheio and Jerome of Moravia, so often
mentioned in what has gone before. In his account of tunings used on the
viella, or five-stringed fiddle (Figure 7), Jerome makes several direct and
indirect references to repertory in his descriptions of tunings | and 2:°!

Tuning|
dGgd'd'
Et talis viella, ut prius patuit, vim modorum omnium
comprehendit.
And such a viella as just described encompasses the
material of all the modes.

Tuning 2
dGgd'g'
. . necessarius est propter laycos et omnes alios cantus,
maxime irregulares, qui frequenter per totam manum
discurrere volunt.
64
 Paris

... 1S necessary for secular and all other kinds ofsongs,

especially irregular ones, which frequently wish to run
through the whole |Guidonian| hand.

The second of these statements is designed to balance the first, for

whereas tuning | ‘encompasses the material ofall the modes’, tuning 2 is
useful for music which is irregularis, and the meaning of that adjective here is
probably ‘heedless of modal constraints’.*” There is no difficulty in deducing

Figure 7 The viella. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS 638, f-17r.
French (Paris?), thirteenth century. Reproduced by permission.
65
Songs and instruments

what Jerome means when he records that tuning | ‘encompasses the

material of all the modes’, since the compass of every mode is essentially an
octave, and tuning | seems designed to produce a ninth (the d string is not
stopped, and the Gg strings are surely an octave course).”° It is also clear
why tuning 2 should be useful for music which may ‘wish to run through the
whole hand’ (that is, the complete gamut of two octaves.and a sixth); from G
at the bottom to d", stopped by the little finger on the top course, is two
octaves and a fifth.
This contrast between a tuning which suffices for modal music, and
another designed for music that flouts the modes, gestures towards a
contrast between ‘sacred’ and ‘secular’ repertory, or at least a distinction
between the repertory of lay-people (laycos...cantus) and another kind of
repertory imagined here as the special province of the clericus. What is this
clerical repertory? The question is a difficult one to answer satisfactorily
since the music concerned might be ‘clerical’ by virtue of its function
(liturgical, perhaps, or para-liturgical), by virtue of the social station of
those who normally performed and enjoyed it, or perhaps, if it were song, by
virtue of its language (Latin), poetic style and subject matter. One
possibility is that this ‘clerical’ repertory includes the Latin hymn, a genre
whose formal similarity to the trouvere chanson (where every verse is
usually metrically identical and shares the same musical setting) is noted by
Johannes de Grocheio.”* It is possible that some of the fiddlers amongst the
orders of friars for whom Jerome’s Tractatus de Musica was compiled would
have thought it appropriate to plunder the rich repertory of Latin hymns for
hall or refectory music; some hymn settings are certainly as lush and
melismatic as any secular melody by a troubadour or trouvére:”°

Example 12

yeaa CLEAN —- z = Fe ~
zi os i = =
cho - rus no - vae JC tom oe ie meee - lem

Fe = ——— 7 ae
é = e z | 03-5
8
no - vam me - li duly =) «ce We=1 di - nem

= 7 EN —~\
O— Os
G Sse =? —— a=: 7 == =
8
pro - mat co. — Tens cum so - bri - is

6 z a = SS ————— 4
pas - cha - le fes - tum gau - di - is.

With Jerome’s ‘secular and all other kinds of songs... which frequently
66
 Paris

wish to run through the whole hand’ we are on less solid ground, for no
secular music has survived from Jerome’s day which exploits the full gamut
of two octaves and a sixth (an exceptional compass for any medieval piece,
whether monophonic or polyphonic, until the second half of the fifteenth
century). Troubadour and trouvére songs, for example, rarely exceed a
twelfth, and the same may be said of Ars Antiqua motets (most of which
appear to have been written for three voices of approximately the same kind;
a singer who wished to sing tenor parts one moment and triplum parts
the next would find himself required to cover no more compass than he
might expect to exploit in performing a monophonic song). Jerome’s secular
music which wishes to run through the whole gamut of two octaves and a
sixth therefore seems impossible to identify in terms of contemporary
compositions and the answer presumably lies with performance practice;
perhaps the fiddle-postludes, or modi, described by Johannes de Grocheio
were virtuosic improvisations that exploited the whole compass of the
viella.*®
We shall return to Jerome of Moravia; for the moment his source has run
dry and it is Johannes de Grocheio who now offers the fullest information
about fiddle repertory in late thirteenth-century Paris. Grocheio’s De Musica
refers several times to the central genre of the trouvere art, the High Style
chanson, using the terms cantus coronatus (for the most sublime examples of the
genre) and cantus versualis (for those specimens which fall short of the very
highest standards ofliterary and musical excellence).*’ These passages leave
us in no doubt that the cantus coronatus was customarily performed by the
best fiddlers, and Grocheio even describes a performing technique which
these viellatores used when playing trouvére songs:“® ‘

Est autem neupma quasi cauda vel exitus sequens

antiphonam, quemadmodum in viella post cantum
coronatam vel stantipedem exitus, quem modum viellatores
appellant.

A neupma is like a coda or ending following on the

antiphon, just as an ending may be played on the
viella after the cantus coronatus, or the stantipes,
which fiddlers call ‘modes’.

In some ways this is a confusing passage since it is not clear whether

Grocheio is saying that fiddlers accompanied High Style songs when they
were sung, or whether they performed the melodies of such songs as purely
instrumental music. Be that as it may, the interest of Grocheio’s treatise
seems to reach beyond the realm of the High Style song to embrace virtually
every secular genre, both vocal and instrumental, for in a revealing passage
he assures us that ‘a good fiddler generally plays every kind of cantus and
cantilena, and every musical form’ (Appendix 3:42).
In some important respects Grocheio’s distinction between cantus and
67
Songs and instruments

cantilena corresponds to our distinction between the High Style and the
Lower Styles. Cantus is a generic term in Grocheio’s usage, and it embraces:

cantus gestualis sung epic poetry; the chanson de geste

cantus coronatus __the High Style trouvére song)
cantus versualis similar to the above, but lacking its excellence and
containing some Lower Style elements

The cantilena register embraces Lower Style songs, all of which have a
. - OC
reprise or refrain of some kind:”°

rotunda vel rotundellus the rondeau

slantipes the estampie
ductia as a vocal form, apparently a virelai
as a purely instrumental form, closely akin
to the estampie, but having three or four
puncta (thus: A open/A closed; B open/B
closed; C open/C closed).
cantilena entrata uncertain

This is a long list of forms and we may begin to wonder whether the best
fiddlers of thirteenth-century Paris set any limit to their repertory. At first
sight Grocheio’s words suggest that they did not: ‘a good fiddler generally
plays every kind of cantus and cantilena, and every musical form.’ Yet it would
be hasty to proceed from here to the view that the expert viellator played
every kind of music. It is striking, for example, that.Grocheio discusses
musical instruments in the section of his work devoted to ‘monophonic,
popular or un-learned music’ (musica simplex vel civilis vel vulgaris); this might
be taken to imply, as Gushee has pointed out, that instruments did not
perform in polyphonic forms such as the motet and polyphonic conductus—
forms which Grocheio treats under the separate heading of ‘composed,
regulated, rule-bound or measured music’ (musica composita vel regularis vel
canonica vel mensurata).*° Since there is a third category of music in Grocheio’s
treatise (‘Church music’, or musica ecclesiastica) in which instruments were
probably not used (at least as a general rule), then Grocheio’s statement
that good fiddlers played ‘every musical form’ may actually embrace less
than a third of the musical forms discussed in his treatise.
Be that as it may, the key to forming a proper understanding of
Grocheio’s evidence surely lies with the question of literacy versus illiteracy,
and the kinds of performing mentality bred by these two conditions. At the
beginning of this chapter we suggested that when trouveére and troubadour
songs began to be written down, as they were in great numbers from the
mid-thirteenth century on, then they became objects which could be
objectively perceived in isolation from any performing conventions that may
have clung to them when transmission was largely or exclusively oral. As
68
 Paris

this written tradition of courtly monody grew, I suggest, then literate

instrumentalists whose minds were shaped by literacy began to approach
their string-playing as if it were the art of reading: something to be applied
wherever there was scope for pleasing or interesting results. The courtly
decorum which we have glimpsed in Chapters 1-4 was bred in a
predominantly notationless and aristocratic environment; it rested upon a
consensus about performance decorum which could not survive transplan-
tation into the intellectual and urban environment of Paris where there had
been so much experiment with musical forms and practices. By the time of
Johannes de Grocheio’s De Musica, composed when the trouvére movement
was all but dead, this courtly decorum of performance seems to have
collapsed altogether, and a good viellator could perform a High Style
trouvere song one moment and a light, tripping rondeau the next.

V
If this is an accurate picture of performing traditions in Paris, how did these
literate viellatores accompany High Style trouvére songs? The question is out
of place here since it belongs with later chapters on performance practice,
yet we have spent so long in the Parisian milieu of Jerome of Moravia and
Grocheio that it becomes irresistible. Surely Paris, with its vigorous
polyphonic traditions, supported by an ancillary literature of music-
treatises, is exactly the place where we might expect to pick up an echo of
the way a bonus artifex in viella performed a trouveére song.
I believe that there is such an echo in Jerome of Moravia’s chapter on the
rubeba and viella, although it is one that has often been distorted. At the close
of the chapter Jerome describes what seems to be an advanced playing
technique in these terms:*!

Finaliter tamen est notandum hoc quod in hac

facultate est difficilius et solempnius meliusque,
ut scilicet sciatur cum unicuique sono ex quibus
unaqueque melodia contexitur cum bordunis primis
consonanciis respondere, quod prorsus facile est
scita manu secundaria, que scilicet solum provectis
adhibetur, et eius equante que in fine huius operis
habetur.

One thing must be finally noted, namely that which is

most difficult, serious and excellent in this art: to
know how to reply with the borduni in the first
harmonies to any note from which any melody is woven,
which is certainly easy with the fitting second hand
(which is only used by advanced players) and its equivalent
which is to be found at the end of this work.
69
Songs and instruments

The exact meaning of this passage will probably never be clear, for Jerome
is saying too much in too few words. What is meant by replying in the first
harmonies to any note from which any melody is woven?
At some time before 1306 the owner of the only complete surviving copy
of Jerome’s treatise, Pierre de Limoges, decided that these lines about an
advanced viella technique were too cryptic to be of use. Like many medieval
bibliophiles, Pierre was happy to scribble over his books and he felt that
Jerome’s explanation of the advanced fiddle-technique required an exten-
sive annotation. This is what he made ofit:*

Quod D bordunus non debet tangi pollice vel arcu

nisi cum cetere corde arcu tactu faciunt sonos cum
quibus bordunus facit aliquam predictarum consonaciarum
scilicet diapente, diapason, diatessaron etc. Prima enim
corda, scilicet superior exterior, que dicitur bordunus,
secundam primam temperacionem facit D in gravibus, secundum
terciam facit I’, id est gamma. Per manum autem sequentem
scitur cum quibus litteris hae due faciunt consonanciam.

The d bordunus must not be touched with the thumb

or the bow save when the other strings, touched by the bow,
produce notes with which the bordunus will make any ofthe
aforesaid consonances, that is to say: fifth, fourth,
octave, and so on. The first string, that is the upper,
outer one, makes d according io the first tuning and T,
which is gamma, according to the third. It may be known
from the following hand with which letters these two make
consonances.

In this annotation Pierre understands Jerome to mean that the lateral

bourdon string (which runs to the side of the fingerboard; see Figure 7)
should not be sounded constantly, nor may it be sounded in an arbitrary
way; for Pierre the ars of Jerome’s advanced technique lies in the fact that
the bordunus is only to be touched with the thumb or the bow when the
melody lights upon a note which forms a fifth, a fourth, an octave ‘and so on’
with the note to which the bordunus is tuned. Here, then, is one explanation
of what Jerome means by ‘replying in the first harmonies to any note from
which any melody is woven’; the fiddler plays the melody and sounds the
bourdon when the tune steers into a perfect consonance with it.
Closer inspection suggests that this explanation of Jerome’s meaning
presents certain problems of its own. If we take Jerome’s first viella tuning,
for example, it is a simple matter to map the notes which would sound with
the d bourdon in one of the ‘first consonances’ (Music example 13).
According to Pierre’s account the advanced technique would have
involved the player in learning these points of contact and then performing
70
 Paris

Example 13
(relative pitch)

-@-@
= =
Se SS eee
oe

Viella

y EES be be *.

Bourdon
string

melodies in which the drone (if that is now the right word to use) was
sounded here and there as the tune threaded its way in and out of the
required relationships with the bourdon. Yet, as example 13 shows, there
are several notes in the fiddle’s compass which cannot be sounded with the
bourdon ‘in the first harmonies’ (unless we expand what is meant by ‘first
harmonies’ to the point where it embraces thirds and sixths; in that case the
rules of the technique would permit an almost constant drone—presumably
the device which the ‘advanced’ way of playing is intended to supplant).
The difficulty here is that some of the stopped notes on the fingerboard
cannot be sounded in the first harmonies with the bourdon, yet Jerome
requires the skilled player to reply to any note from which any melody is
woven with the bourdon ‘in the first harmonies’.
One way out of this impasse is to assume that Jerome is describing a
playing-style analogous to the contemporary vocal practice of ‘fifthing’.
Sarah Fuller has shown that four music treatises from the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries contain the same core of basic rules for creating a
second voice, largely in parallel fifths over a given melody, and these rules
describe a note-against-note technique in which the singer who is fifthing
must know the octave or fifth of any note in the melody he is accompanying
so that he may sing in parallel fifths above it (and supply occasional passing
notes).°* With this basic knowledge he should then proceed to follow a few
simple directives to negotiate his way into fifths at the start of phrases:**

Example 14

2 pee Ege See re ee |

oe

Jerome of Moravia may be describing a similar practice. Viewed in this

light the key words in Jerome’s account are that the expert fiddler should be
able to ‘reply to any note from which any melody is woven’ with the bourdons
7\
Songs and instruments

in the first harmonies. This means, I suggest, that the fiddler should know
how to ‘fifth’ a given melody, played or sung by another musician, upon his
instrument.’ Jerome’s advanced fiddle-technique would therefore have
evolved as a form of improvised note-against-note counterpoint over
another melody. This interpretation helps to explain Jerome’s insistence
that this is a ‘serious’ and ‘advanced’ way of playing (these are not epithets
one might readily apply to the selective use of the bourdon envisaged by
Pierre de Limoges); it is difficult and specialised because it involves literacy-
based musical devices (albeit simple ones) taken from the realm of the
discantor.
Ata time when a great deal of instrumental playing must have been based
upon drones (as Jerome’s fiddle-tunings suggest), this ‘advanced’ technique
required the viellator to study the learning of the discantor. He needed to know
contrapuntal formulae like the ones listed above and to consult the
Guidonian hand in order to locate the octave and fifth of every note in the
melody. This technique must also have involved the use of musical notation,
for Jerome records that it is more easily accomplished by those who know
the ‘second hand’ (presumably the Guidonian hand transposed up a fifth)
or the normal hand, which implies that players consulted notated melodies
and then built up their fifthing-style accompaniment using the hand as a
mnemonic to tell them where the semitones should lie.
If this interpretation is correct then we can reconstruct a literate style of
accompaniment which may have been used in Parisian circles (and surely
elsewhere?) around 1300 to accompany High Style songs of the trouvére
tradition:*°

Example 15
viella
— 1 =
SG "eo, © oe ee oe = oa ao = ae,
oe

33 Se oe Pith Te
== SSS

Dex est aus- si com-me li pel - li -cans Qui fait son ni ou

= =
FY a ESS ar Baa2 Ls 7

=9: a £ = = fetes

plus haut ar - bre sus;

72
 Paris

There are two striking things about this style of accompaniment. The first
is that it looks like a tidied version of an illiterate, heterophonic technique of
doubling a melody in parallel fifths. No doubt this is exactly what it is, just
as the vocal technique of fifthing was a slightly savant version of the kind of
parallel singing in fifths, octaves and twelfths described in the 1270s by Elias
of Salomon.*’ In other words there must have been illiterate fiddlers who
could produce something quite like Jerome’s advanced technique, and this
is indeed what several sources suggest. ‘Many succeed in the art of fiddling’,
says Albertus Magnus, ‘who cannot explain the rational basis of harmoni-
ous accord,”*® and Engelbert of Admont makes the same observation,
hemming it with a citation from Aristotle: ‘there are many who, without
scientific mastery, accomplish the things which such mastery accom-
plishes.’*? However, only the advanced and literate fiddlers, playing ex arte
as well as ex usu, would have been able to produce contrary motion such as
we see in example 15 on a rational basis, enjoying the satisfation of being
able to explain their procedures with technical terms and concepts.
The second striking feature about the style of accompaniment shown in
example 15 is that Jerome describes it as an advanced form of playing; yet,
in vocal terms, it is quite rudimentary. Amongst the discantores who had
proceeded to the performance of motets and polyphonic conducti the
technique of fifthing was regarded as material for the novice. This
discrepancy between vocal and instrumental practice suggests that the
artistic horizons of voices and instruments were differently placed in the
thirteenth century, even amongst literate players.
It is in this last respect, perhaps, that Jerome’s advanced technique is of
most historical interest. The purpose of the technique is clearly to create a
style of fiddling regulated by literacy-based concepts about consonance,
dissonance and contrary motion. This can only have happened because
written vocal polyphony was fast becoming the respected form of musical
endeavour and fiddling was trying to catch up and imitate some of the
savant techniques of conductus and motet. Indeed the aim of the technique
seems to be to turn a monophonic song into a kind of rudimentary two-part
conductus. With Jerome, in other words, we see an art-instrument coming
under the sway ofvocal polyphony for the first time in the West; this was the
force that was eventually to produce the art of string-instrument intabu-
lation in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and to shape the whole
course of instrumental music in the Renaissance.
Example 15 may therefore represent a late thirteenth-century—and
particularly Parisian—style of performance for three reasons. Firstly, in the
fact that accompaniment is used at all in a High Style song of the trouvére
tradition. Secondly, in the use of a mildly savant and literacy-based
technique of counterpoint as a basis for accompaniment. Thirdly, in the
question of rhythm. Example 15 uses a non-mensural notation in ac-
cordance with the way in which the song has been preserved. Yet it is well
known that there are some trouvere sources in which High Style songs are
ie
Songs and instruments

recorded in mensural notation. Jerome’s advanced technique of fiddle-

accompaniment uses note-against-note counterpoint, and this is surely a
device that requires standardisation of rhythm between singer and in-
strumentalist. The free and declamatory rhythm which probably represents
the traditional mode of delivery of both troubadour and trouveére songs of
the High Style kind is not possible in this context. It has often been
suggested that the mensurally notated trouvére monodies are an adaptation
of an originally free-rhythm genre to the fixed rhythms which ‘Parisian’
listeners associated with polyphony (the musical example below is a case in
point: a chanson by the trouvére Gace Brulé); Jerome’s advanced fiddle
technique seems just such an adaptation, this time in the area of harmony.
Perhaps the sound which the fiddlers of Grocheio’s Paris produced when
they performed a trouvere song was something like this:

Example 16

es
viella (reconstruction) 3

eee ee

eS SS

Here a trouvére song seems well on the way to becoming a rudimentary

polyphonic composition and it is surely the vogue for polyphony in Parisian
circles which lies at the heart of the change in performing aesthetic which we
have been discussing. For men such as Johannes de Grocheio, ‘high’
musical art achieved its altitude by exploiting the savant technique of
ie
 Paris

polyphony, not by using a High Style in words and music as had been the
custom in the monophonic tradition. (Grocheio had some idea of what a
High Style meant in terms of trouvére song, but it is revealing that he
overdoes things in his attempts to capture its ethos; when he places the High
Style song in a half-romantic world of princes, kings and noblemen he is
using his imagination as much as his judgement to describe a repertory all
but dead in his lifetime.) Grocheio’s ears must have been full of the sounds
of polyphonic forms such as the motet, perhaps the most admired form of
music-making in thirteenth-century Paris. The friction of the motet, with its
multiple texts and strong dissonances, was enough to scour away the old
monophonic decorum, for when viewed in terms of that decorum the motet
takes on a highly subversive appearance: it joins a new High Style in music
to the old Lower Styles of poetry.
There is a good deal of poetry in the motet corpus which would be quite at
home in a High Style trouvére song. This, for example:*”

Or voije bien qu’il mi

couvient descouvrir a celi
qui lonc tens
m’a tenu en joie, cum fins amans
doit estre joians,
qui tout adés est a bien faire entendans
et estables et celans,
se je ne vuill a toute honor estre faillans
et amer mesdisans
comme povre truans...

Now I clearly see that I must confess to her who has kept
me injoy for so long, like a true lover who always
intends to do good, and is constant and discreet, ought
to feel, unless I want to lack all honour and, like a
miserable wretch, love slander....

There is too much chiming of rhymes here, perhaps, for the true High
Style chanson of the trouvéres, but the diction and sentiment would do well
enough for that genre. To a very large extent, however, motet poetry in the
vernacular draws upon the idioms of the pastourelle and the simple refrains
often associated with rondeaux. It presents us with a mass of Lower Style
characteristics: diminutives in -ete (amourete, flourete, joliete, pucelete, praélete,
and many more); short lines with chiming rhyme-sounds (‘Je sui joliete,/
doucete/et plaisans/jone pucelete...’); the exclamations which express
strong passion but leave no room for feeling to be explored (“Dieus! hé! plus
Wirai2’); the direct and desperate address to the beloved (‘lady, with clasped
hands I beg your mercy’); allusions to stereotyped narrative situations,
especially those involving marriage (‘I would sing out of sheer pleasure for
the one that I have loved, but she has a new husband who has stopped me
75
Songs and instruments

from seeing her’), and the easy pastiche of the pastourelle manner:*!

Par un matinet |’autrier

m/aloie esbenoiant;
sicom m/aloie tous sous pensant,
Marotele vi seant .
les un sentier...

The other morning I went out seeking pleasure, and as

I was going alone, lost in thought, I saw Marotele
seated beside a path...

The list of Lower Style characteristics in vernacular motet verse might

easily be extended, but it is already long enough to show that one of the
most characteristic techniques of the motet is to mix the old Lower Styles of
poetry with the new musical High Style of written polyphony. When a poem
reaching after the poetic High Style of the trouveres was incorporated into a
motet, the musical idioms and techniques laid upon it could be much the
same as for a light-hearted love-song or a little pastourelle. This may also help
to explain why the pattern of High and Low Styles, so important, I suggest,
in the twelfth and earlier thirteenth centuries, began to be effaced in Paris
and its environs during the body of the thirteenth. It was torn by the hard
edge of the new polyphony and finally fell away.

76
 20.
‘The carole
They serve the Devil with their voices as
they sing, with their hands as they lead one
another, and with their feet as they move in
a circle. Whence their dance is called the
Devil’s mill.

Anonymous, Collatio de coreis'

I
The last five chapters have followed a chronological path from the first Old
Proveng¢al sources of the twelfth century to the music treatises of Grocheio
and Jerome of Moravia, compiled in Paris towards the end of the thirteenth
century. The aim of the three chapters which follow is to investigate some
special repertories which do not press to be included in a chronological
pattern but do demand separate treatment so that their distinctiveness may
emerge.
These repertories are special in various ways. The first comprises the
public dance-songs, or caroles (Latin coreae), which were sung in popular
festivities as well as at court. Although the musical remains of these dances
are relatively scarce, a great deal of evidence survives pertaining to the way
in which they were presented and performed, and in the eyes of contempor-
ary social commentators the carole simply was secular music in the North, not
the highbrow forms of trouvere song or the savant forms of conductus and
motet. The carole therefore presents a particularly striking case of the iceberg
problem which meets us everywhere in medieval music: the forms which
dominate our view of secular music-making in twelfth- and thirteenth-
century France are those which survive, but the view of contemporaries was
dominated by material which has left relatively little trace.
The second repertory comprises monophonic conducti. The texts of these
songs, which are in Latin rather than the vernacular cultivated by the
trouveres, range over many subjects including religious devotion and social
satire and they cannot be placed within the scheme of High Style and Lower
Styles which has guided us in Chapters 1—5. Furthermore, the monophonic
conductus is a largely northern and—in some measure— Parisian repertory,
77
Songs and instruments

and for this reason also it demands separate treatment.

Finally, there is the /ai. Of all the medieval song-forms this is undoubtedly
the one with the most complex history and terminology. I have deliberately
placed this enigmatic genre last to emphasise (what the reader will already
have discerned) that the problem of instrumental involvement in courtly
monody is a very long way from being finally solved and requires much
further research.
Of these three repertories it is the carole that deserves pride of place, for
the surviving poetry and music of the carole have many points of contact with
the Lower Styles of poetry discussed in Chapters 2—4. The carole is also one
of the most colourful forms of medieval song and the one whose performing
dimension can be most fully captured; a wealth of sources—sermons,
treatises on the Vices, manuals of confession, for example—have things to
reveal about this ‘Devil’s mill’.

I]
When the moralists of the thirteenth century turned their gaze upon secular
music their vision was filled with the spectacle of public dances, or caroles

Figure 8 A carole accompanied by a fiddle. Reference as for Figure 7. The

picture illustrates Judges 21:21 (filias Silo... ducendos choros... )
Reproduced by permission.

78
 The carole

(Figure 8). These dances seem to have flourished in every region oflife, from
the village churchyards to the aristocratic halls, and churchmen inveighed
against them throughout the thirteenth century. So abundant are the
references to these caroles and coreae, and so meagre are the moralists’
references to élite music such as courtly monody or the motet,” that coreae
deserve to be placed at the centre of our picture of secular music in
thirteenth-century France.
Beyond the walls of aristocratic residences and castles these dances,
celebrated during spring and summer,’ were public festivals in a world
where almost all the daylight hours were given over to manual labour. To
judge by the quantity of harangue directed against them from the pulpit and
confessional they loomed large in the lives of country people and city-
dwellers, just as they did at court during the great festivals of Christmas and
Pentecost.* In both the popular and courtly manifestations of the corea
(which should not, perhaps, be too sharply distinguished), the dancers
prepared themselves in advance with fresh clothes and floral garlands for
their foreheads; once the corea was under way and the performers, linking
hands, began to move in a circle to the left,? the dance became a public
event where there could never be too many participants or spectators (‘the
more who participate’, comments an anonymous preacher, ‘and the more
who watch, the merrier it is’).° In the eyes of many contemporary moralists
the result of all this dancing and crowding was to produce a grotesque
parody of the Church’s liturgy in which the singers who led the dance were
anti-priests:’

Item in chorea habet diabolus sacerdotem cantantem

et clericum respondentem et quasi omnes horas fecit
cantari per vicos et plateas; et sicut sacerdos mutat
vestimenta quando debet celebrare, sic isti quando
debent choreas ducere. . . et loco officii Dei faciunt
officium diaboli, ad quam conveniunt plures quam ad
officium Dei, et diutius expectant, quia prolixius
est officium et quandoque tota nocte et amplius, et
magis devote et virilius serviunt diabolo quam Deo. ...
Item contra sacramentum ordinis faciunt, quia tali
servitium impendunt diabolo quale clerici Deo, ut
habetur. Sed et per cantus earum cantus ecclesiasticus
contempnitur; quoniam enim deberent interesse vesperis
intersunt choreis.

In a corea the Devil has a priest who sings and a cleric who
serves, and he [the Devil] causes almost all the hours to be
sung through the streets and roadways. And just.as a priest
changes his clothes when he must celebrate, so they who
must lead coreae do... and in place of the Office of God
they celebrate the Office of the Devil, to which many
79
Songs and instruments

more people come than the Office of God and spend more
time because the Devil’s Office is longer (and at one
time or another can last the whole night or more). They
serve the Devil much more devotedly and keenly than
God....In this they sin against the sacrament ofordination,
because they busy themselves in just such a liturgy to the
Devil as clerics perform to God, as has been said. And
through the music [of the women who dance coreae] the
music of the Church is brought into disdain, for when they
should be at Vespers they are present in coreae.

This diabolic liturgy was celebrated in aristocratic courts as well as in

‘streets and roadways’. Old French fiction is replete with references to such
courtly dances known by the Old French equivalent of corea: carole. Jean
Renart, for example, describes several scenes where courtiers go carolling,
complete with the text of the songs to which they dance:®

Mainamain...
devant le tref, en un pré vert,
les puceles et li vallet
ront la carole commenciee.
Une dame s’est avanciee.
vestue d’une cote en graine,
si chante ceste premeraine:

C’est tot la gieus, enmi les prez,

Vos ne sentez mie les maus d’amer!
Dames i vont por caroler,
remirez vos braz!
Vos ne sentez mie les maus d’amer
si com ge faz!

Hand in hand... before the tent, in a green pasture,

the maidens and young men have begun the carole. A lady
has come forward in a scarlet dress and sings this [song]
to begin... [song follows]

Here Jean Renart has captured the ethos of the thirteenth-century carole. His
dance is the very epitome of the primaveral quality of jeunesse, for it is
performed in a green pasture by maidens and young men; it expresses the
elegant and carefree movement of people who, in Jean Renart’s imagin-
ation, are held in an idealised state of candid and insouciant youthfulness.
This emphasis upon youth traversed all classes of society where caroles
were performed. As manifested in these dances the courtly cult of jeunesse
drew nourishment from festivals in the towns and villages where the public
dances were mostly performed by mulieres et iuvenes—by women and young
80
 The carole

men.” The primaveral ethos of the caroles also attracted the young students
in the schools. ‘{I1 was] a merry and amorous leader of coreae and master of
dances in wooded places’, says the theologian Henri Bate; ‘such things are
not inimical to the student life, especially amongst the young.’!?
To judge by a wealth of literary testimony, coreae were usually danced to
songs which the dancers provided for themselves. The writings of thir-
teenth-century preachers and theologians are laden with bitter invectives
against these cantus and cantilene which drew young husbands away from
their wives and seduced serving girls away from their households.!!

Ill
Some degree ofinstrumental involvement in coreae seems to be suggested by
pictorial sources (Figure 8) and by several passing references in the writings
of thirteenth-century theologians. Just as the Israelites danced to instru-
ments when they had crossed the Red Sea, argues Honorius Augustodunen-
sis, so the faithful ‘still use musical instruments in their ring-dances’
(Appendix 3:48). In a comparable passage Guillaume d’Auvergne mentions
how dancers perform coreae ‘making a clamour and springing...to the
sounds...of musical instruments’ (ibid., 45).
Here we seem to be dealing with luxurious evidence: pictures, references
in romances, harangues from the pens of moralists and passing references in
theological treatises and encyclopedias. Yet none of the specific sources
cited so far has clarified the question of whether the songs performed in
coreae were accompanied by instruments, or whether there were certain
kinds of corea which were performed to the music of instruments alone.
Depictions of these dances, for example, are not usually endowed with
sufficient detail to reveal whether any of the participants are singing as they
move. Similarly, it is uncertain whether the coreae mentioned by Honorius
Augustudonensis (‘which the faithful still [perform with] musical instru-
ments’) are accompanied dance-songs or just dance-pieces played upon
instruments.
At this point Johannes de Grocheio’s evidence is of great interest. He is
our principal witness to the musical character and performance practice of
the thirteenth-century corea; the striking feature of his account is that he
draws a clear distinction between purely vocal and instrumental coreae.
Grocheio’s term for the pieces performed during these dances is ductia, no
doubt because of the Latin idiom coreas ducere, ‘to lead [i.e. to dance] coreae’.'*
He distinguishes a vocal and an instrumental form. From his descriptions
we learn that the vocal ductia began and ended with a refrain and that
between the refrains there lay poetic material with some lines sharing the
forms and rhymes of the refrain.'’ These details are confusing at first, and
there are more: from Grocheio’s description of the rondeau (rotunda vel
rotundellus) we may deduce that the added material in the vocal ductia had
81
Songs and instruments

different melodic material from the refrain. Bewildering though these details
may be, they gradually resolve into a description of a virelai like this one:!*

melodic scheme rhymes

He! aloete, A a
joliete, B . a
petit Vest de mes maus. Cc b
S’amor venist a plesir d c
que me vousissent sesir d c
de la blondette, a a
saverousete, b a
jen féusse plus baus. c b
He! aloete, A a
Joliete, B a
petit test de mes maus. C b

In the light of Grocheio’s description of the vocal ductia the crucial lines here
are 3—4: S’amor venist a plesir/que me vousissent sesir; in accordance with virelai
form, this couplet introduces new melodic material and new rhymes not
found in the refrain. This seems to be the kind of piece which Grocheio had
heard ‘sung in coreae by young men and girls’.
Grocheio’s instrumental ductia, however, displays a different musical
form. Its function is exactly the same as that of its vocal counterpart (‘the
ductia excites the soul of man to move ornately .. . in coreis’),'” yet while the
vocal type appears to have been cast in the mould of a virelai, the
instrumental ductia consists of paired melodic sections with open and closed
endings, so following this form (compare Music example 9):
open
closed

open
closed

open
Oe
Sains closed etc.

Thus Grocheio’s account of corea music reveals a fissure between vocal and
instrumental usage. According to his report, vocal and instrumental corea
melodies were identical in name and function but were quite distinct in their
form (and therefore, presumably, in the choreographies which were used
with them).
If we widen our field of view to take in the references of moralists and
preachers we find further sign of a divide between coreae performed to songs
on the one hand and performed to instrumental music on the other. For
example, Albertus Magnus legislates that coreae are not evil in themselves,
82
 The carole

‘whether they be done with song or with musical instruments’ (Appendix

3:47), and since this judgement appears in the context of a treatise on
confession and penitence (a genre of writing which demanded close
attention to distinctions in behaviour) it is tempting to give some weight to
Albertus’s reference to coreae performed to songs or to musical instruments.
A comparable separation of voices and instruments meets us in a
theological encyclopedia by another contemporary of Grocheio, Guillaume
d’Auvergne. In his De Universo, composed between 1231 and 1236,
Guillaume discusses the question of whether there are coreae in heaven
amongst the blessed and offers this description of earthly coreae (Appendix
3:45):
You see, moreover, men and women leaping with
the joy they find in this kind ofsport [i.e. dancing in
coreae|, making a clamour, springing, wishing to
fit the form of their movements to the music of
songs, or of musical instruments, to the best of their
ability.

‘To the music of songs or of musical instruments’: there are many

references to caroles in Old French epics and romances which point in the
same direction as the passages by Albertus Magnus and Guillaume
d’Auvergne. I have not found a reliable reference to the instrumental
accompaniment of a vocal carole anywhere in Old French narratives of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries,’® only a few doubtful examples where it is
impossible to establish whether singing is involved (see Appendix 3:31 and
34-5). Almost all of the references to courtly caroles seem to describe a
purely vocal entertainment which courtly amateurs provide for themselves
without the help of minstrels.'’
There are two vernacular sources which may help us clarify the role of
instruments in vocal corea music a little further. We have already seen that
one of the songs performed to instrumental accompaniment in Jean Renart’s
romance of Guillaume de Dole is a rondeau, C'est la jus en la praele, sung to a
minstrel’s fiddle. This is the kind of song which often figured in courtly
carole-—as many passages in Guillaume de Dole testify.'!* Indeed the minstrel
who accompanies the song had promised, earlier that day, that he would
bring his fiddle to the gathering ‘if we are to have caroles’.'” Yet in the event
there is no reference to dancing when C’est la jus en la praele is performed.
This scrap of evidence may suggest that refrain-songs such as C'est la jus en
la praele, although not habitually accompanied when performed as part ofa
populous carole, could be accompanied when performed as solo songs. At all
times such songs must have been closely associated with the alternatim style
of performance dictated by the carole (where, so it seems, a soloist often sang
the added sections while the company performed the refrain),”” and it is
possible to understand why musicians should have wished to reinforce these
pieces when performing them in a solo context—perhaps with the
83
Songs and instruments

instrument doubling the refrains.

There is a sign that this is indeed what happened in the thirteenth-
century romance of Claris et Laris. At one point in this text knights and ladies
listen to a minstrel in the open air:?!

La escoutoient bonement :
.I. conteor, qui lor contoit
Une chancon et si notoit
Ses refrez en une viele,
Qui assez iert et bonne et bele.

There they listened attentively to a minstrel, who sang

them a song and performed the refrains on his fiddle which
was both good and beautiful.

This chanson with its refrains may be a rondeau or some similar form. This is
suggested by certain features in the poet’s description of the scene, for the
minstrel performs En mi ... d’une praierie which is near la rive de mer; both of
these phrases are key registral terms in the thirteenth-century repertory of
rondeaux and simple refrain songs. Compare the following incipits of lyrics
quoted in Jean Renart’s Guillaume de Dole:”*

C’est la jus en la praele

C’est la gieus en mi les prez
Sor la rive de mer
Tout la gieus, sor rive mer

This is not to claim that the author has scattered clues to the nature of the
minstrel’s song here and there in his account of its performance, but only
that his imaginative apprehension of this musical scene is impregnated with
poetic formulae which suggest that the chanson is a monophonic refrain-song,
perhaps a rondeau or virelai. These few lines may be our only guide to the
way in which such lyrics were performed as solo songs with instruments
during the thirteenth century.

84
 ue
The monophonic
conductus
‘This boy knew how to play a fiddle ... he was familiar with (and
willingly sang) all kinds of monophonic songs in diverse languages. ...’

Henri de Malines, Nativitas magistri

Henrici Mechliniensis

I
According to his own account, Henri de Malines, theologian and graduate
of the University of Paris, was ‘most willing to sing all kinds of monophonic
songs (cantiones vulgarium) in diverse languages’ when he was a young man.!
Since Malines lies midway between Brussels and Antwerp it is likely that
some of these songs in diversis linguis were in Flemish; others were probably
in French, the universal language of courtliness, and some perhaps in Latin,
a language which Henri wielded to good use throughout his distinguished
career as a theologian. In the minds of such clercs as Henri—men who
mingled Latin and vernacular in their sermons, produced French trans-
lations of Latin treatises, and naturalised a host of Latin words into the
vernacular—the distinction between Latin and vernacular lyric cannot
always have been a firm one. Johannes de Grocheio, for example, basing his
views upon Parisian custom, classifies all non-liturgical monophonic songs
together as musica vulgaris (compare Henri’s cantiones vulgarium) and does not
even raise the issue of language; what matters in his eyes is whether a piece
is savant (i.e. polyphonic), or whether it is intended for use in church.
Indeed Grocheio provides clear evidence that Parisian musicians of c1300
assimilated the High Style trouvere song in the vernacular to Latin song;
some Parisians apparently called the trouvere productions simplices conducti,
‘monophonic conducti’.” In adopting this terminology the Parisians were
assimilating a genre whose history has little connection with their city—the
trouvere chanson—to one whose story gathers around the banks of the
Seine—the monophonic conductus. It was an obvious assimilation to make,
for both forms were characterised by their monophonic and predominantly
85
Songs and instruments

syllabic or mildly melismatic melodies, their usually strophic form and their
use of rhyme. The resemblances between the two forms would have been
conspicuous to clercs who enjoyed both kinds of music—men such as the
‘masters and students’ perhaps, who, according to Grocheio, admired
trouvere songs in the High Style ae amongst whom there must have been
many connoisseurs of Latin song.”
Since we have Grocheio’s authority that High Style trouveére songs could
be associated with the fiddle in late thirteenth-century Paris, it seems likely
that Latin monophonic songs may have been performed in the same way
since both could so easily be bracketed together as simplices conducti. This is
only an inference, of course, but a few fragments of evidence suggest that
monophonic conducti may have been associated with instruments as early
as the first decades of the thirteenth century. As early as Le Roman de la
Violette (probably 1227—9) the term conduis is used to denote music played by
jongleurs upon their fiddles,* and although this is a flimsy basis for a
generalisation about the performance of the monophonic conductus reper-
tory it may at least be said that the word conduis undoubtedly passed into
Old French from contemporary Latin usage and may therefore have
retained some specialised meaning.
A more intriguing passage is contained in Gautier de Coinci’s Miracles de
Nostre Dame where Gautier gives his version of the famous miracle whereby
the Virgin caused a candle to descend upon the fiddle of a minstrel who
went from church to church singing her praises (Appendix 3:12 and 37).
Having told this story Gautier takes the opportunity to admonish the
ecclesiastical singers of his day:?

La clere vois plaisant et bele,

Le son de harpe et de viele,
De psaltere, d’orgue, de gygue
Ne prise pas Diex une figue
S’il n’a ou cuer devocion.

A clear, pleasing and beautiful voice, the sound of

harp, fiddle, psaltery, organ and gygue—God does not
hold them worth a fig unless there is devotion in the
[musician’s] heart.

This passage implies that there was some kind of music, involving voices
and instruments, which was ostensibly devotional but failed in that object if
the musicians performing it were defective in faith or conscience. This music
is unlikely to encompass the secular pastoreles, sonnés and chanconnetes which
Gautier so often condemns as trivial and unworthy of educated men.
However, it may well have included the

..chans piteuz et doz

Et les conduis de Nostre Dame

86
 The monophonic conductus

which Gautier deemed proper musical fare for gatherings of learned men.°
The Notre Dame conductus repertory, both monophonic and polyphonic,
incorporates a large hoard of devotional conduis, including 39 conduis de Nostre
Dame (to borrow Gautier’s phrase), 16 pieces in praise of various saints, 43
for Easter and 62 for advent and Christmas.’ The monophonic items may
represent the music which Gautier had heard sung and accompanied by
musicians who (in his judgement) sometimes forgot their devotional
purpose and revelled in their artistry. Gautier would probably have
considered instrumental accompaniment appropriate for conduis de Nostre
Dame (or for any devotional conductus), to judge by the zest with which he
tells the story of the minstrel at Roc-Amadour who sang to the Virgin Mary
and accompanied himself on his fiddle (Appendix 3:37).
To return to the artistic parity between the trouvere chanson and the
monophonic conductus, it seems likely that (at least in Parisian circles)
Latin conducti would sometimes have been performed in much the same
way that their vernacular counterparts were treated by a bonus artifex in
viella. An instrumental accompaniment based upon the practice of fifthing,
such as we reconstructed for trouvere monody in Chapter 5, certainly looks
at home when placed above many conducti:®

Example 17
viella reconstruction

s asec
anaeSi =

$ pttop ty
Mors vi-te pro-pi - ti-a Sex - ta pas -sus fe - ri-a;

— r=p-f—tr
Mor-tis a mi- se - ri-a
itp
Nos e - rex 7 it.

Ses: fees
ee ——s ee
Di - e Chris-tus ter - ti-a Re - sur-rex - it.

87
 Songs and instruments

I]
So far we have dealt with the conductus in the general terms which are all
that the fragmentary state of the evidence allows. However, our last musical
example carries us to a collection of pieces within_the monophonic corpus
where the likelihood of instrumental involvement in some performances
seems strong: the Latin rondeaux in the eleventh fascicule of the Florence
manuscript.
There are sixty of these pieces, most of them in some kind of rondeau form
and provided with bold and ingratiating musical settings.’ For the most part
their poetic forms and musical style are closely related to those of vernacular
dance-songs such as we meet in Jean Renart’s Guillaume de Dole. Compare
the following song, for example, with C'est la jus en la praele, which Jean
Renart describes as being performed to a fiddle (see above, pp. 34—5):!°

Nicholaus inclitus,
Laudet omnis spiritus,
Factus est divinitus
Presul cum letitia;
Laudet omnis spiritus
Gubernantem omnia.

Example18

SSS
SSS SS
SSS SS SSS
SSS
SS Lau - det om - nis spl a=

5 Gu -
PaGaL Saez =
ber - nan - tem

88
 The monophonic conductus

The eleventh fascicule of the Florence manuscript opens with a histori-

ated initial which shows clerics with linked hands; to judge by other
thirteenth-century illustrations (Figure 8) they are dancing a corea or carole.
This accords with the lyrico-choreographic forms of these Latin rondeaux
and ote various references to singing and dancing within some of their
texts:

Vocis tripudio With vocal dance

Psallat hec concio let this company sing.

A further link between the world of the secular corea and these Latin
rondeaux is established by the frequent references in the Latin poems to
‘floral joy’, ‘floral festivities’ or ‘new flowers’:'”

Expellant tedium May these floral festivities

Prestent solatium Expel care,
Festa floralia. and may they grant solace.

Cesset labor studi. Let the labour ofstudy cease!

In hoc floralia gaudio In this floral joy
Floris renovatio the renewal ofthe flower
Lusus est incitatio. is an incitement to play.

On one level these references to flowers and floral entertainments need no

explaining: they express the eternal link between dancing in the open air
and the return of spring. Yet there is probably more to these ‘floral joys’
than primaveral imagery; they evoke the use of flowers for garments and
bodily ornaments which was such a characteristic feature of coreae. In what
may be the longest and most detailed reference to secular musical life in any
non-musical work of the thirteenth century, Guillaume Peyraut inveighs
against the use of floral garlands by women dancers, taking his text from a
mighty passage in Revelation 9:7 (‘the shapes of the locusts were like unto
horses prepared for battle, and on their heads it was as if they had crowns of
gold’):'
Hoc pertinet ad ornatum quem habent tales mulieres
in capitibus, et insinuatur quod ornatos quos iste
mulieres deferunt in capitibus quos adquisierunt
a suis amasiis sint quasi corone multiplici triumpho
quem habuit diabolus per eas. . . . Sic solent strenui
milites in thorneamentis in capitibus equorum suorum
coronas ponere de floribus.

This relates to the adornment which such women

have on their heads, andit implies that the
adornments which these women bear on their heads,

89
Songs and instruments

and which they have got from their lovers, are like
garlands of manifold triumph which the Devil has
won through them ... just as bold knights are
accustomed to place crowns of flowers on the
heads of their horses in tournaments.

Such floral garlands placed upon the forehead were regarded by many
moralists as a sin against the sacrament of confirmation, the sign of the cross
being replaced by the sign of the Devil. One anonymous casuist even breaks
into the vernacular to express his hatred of them:’*
...faciunt contra sacramentum confirmationis quia
in fronte signum crucis suscepunt tanquam empte
Christi sanguine, in choreis vero, signo crucis abiecto,
signum diaboli pro eo posuerunt, scilicet signum
venalitatis in capite quod gerlond dicitur.

... [dancers in coreae| sin against the sacrament of

confirmation because they have taken the sign of the
cross upon their forehead as a sign that they are
bought by the blood of Christ; in coreae, however,
they put aside the sign ofthe cross and replace it
with the emblem of the Devil, that is the sign of
lechery which is called ‘garland’.

Clerics, students and other Jitterati able to read and write Latin also took
part in these coreae. In his reminiscences Henri de Malines candidly admits
that in his younger days he was an enthusiastic corearum ductor, or leader of
coreae, while a sermon preached at St Victor in 1230 by Pierre de Bar-sur-
Aube records how newly-elected Masters of the University of Paris arranged
great festivities in which their friends would ‘lead coreae through the streets
and highways’.'”
But it was not only in Paris that clerics and men of (some) Latin learning
showed their appetite for coreae. In the middle years of the thirteenth century
Odon Rigaud, archbishop of Rouen, visited many ecclesiastical foundations
in Normandy and the records he kept reveal how popular were coreae with
men who, in his judgement, should have known better. At St Yldevert
(Seine-Inférieure) he found ‘clerics, vicars and even chaplains conducting
themselves in a dissolute and scurrilous way on certain feast-days, especially
that of St Nicholas, leading coreae through the streets and making le vireli’,
while at the priory of Villarceaux (Seine-et-Oise) he found members of the
community dressing up ‘in secular clothes... and leading coreae with secular
persons’.'°
It is possible that some of the lighter Latin rondeaux in the Florence
manuscript were intended for performance in contexts such as these. Some
of them may be pious contrafacta of secular dance-songs intended to provide
90
 The monophonic conductus

literate men whose appetite for coreae could not be suppressed with material
which would not pollute their throats, but many of them are more spirited
than spiritual and surely reflect the ebullience of ayoung student population
(‘let the labour of study cease!’) for whom the distinction between Latin and
vernacular lyric was not always conspicuous.
The performing-traditions of the vernacular coreae are therefore our best
guide to the performance of these Latin rondeaux. I tentatively suggest that
these songs were sung unaccompanied when performed as populous dance-
songs (the picture which opens the rondeau fascicule in the Florence
manuscript does not show instrumentalists, for what that may be worth).
Yet they are likely to have been often accompanied when they were
performed as solo songs—customarily, perhaps, by a single instrument.

v1
 oO
The Roman de Horn
and the lai
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape?

Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

l
In Chapter | we encountered what is probably the most striking reference to
accompanied performance anywhere in medieval literature. It is a passage
in the Anglo-Norman Roman de Horn (c1170) where the hero sings something
called a lai to the harp. It is worth looking at again:

Lors prent la harpeasei, quiil la veut atemprer.

Deus! kidunclesgardast cum la sout manier,
Cum ces cordes tuchout, cum les feseit trembler,
Asquantes feiz chanter asquantes organer,
De armonie del ciel i poust remembrer!
Sur tuz homes k’isunt fet cist a merveiller.
Quant ses notes ot fait sila prent a munter
E tut par autres tuns les cordes fait soner:
Mut se merveillent tuit qu/il la sout si bailler.
E quant il out (is)si fait, | si cummence a noter
Le laidont or ains dis, de Baltof, haut e cler,
Sicum suntcilbretun d’itiel fait costumier.
Apresenlestrument __ fet les cordes suner,
Tut issicumenvoiz |’aveit dit tut premier:
Tut le lai lur ad fait, —_n’i vout rien retailler.

Then he took the harp to tune it. God! whoever

saw how well he handled it, touching the strings
and making them vibrate, sometimes causing them to
sing and at other times join in harmonies,
he would have been reminded of the heavenly harmony.

92
 The Roman de Horn and the lai

This man, ofall those that are there, causes most

wonder. When he has played his notes he makes the
harp go up so that the strings give out completely
different notes. All those present marvel that
he could play thus. And when he has done all this
he begins to play the aforesaid Jai of Baltof, in
a loud and clear voice, just as the Bretons are versed
in such performances. Afterwards he made the strings
of the instrument play exactly the same melody as he had
just sung; he performed the whole Jai for he
wished to omit nothing.

These lines are tokens of an ardent imagination. Horn checks the tuning
of the harp by plucking the strings melody-wise (chanter) and chord-wise
(organer).? When he has finished these testing flourishes (Quant ses notes ot
fait) he begins to retune it, making the strings give out completely different
notes (...si la prent a munter/E tut par autres tuns . les cordes fait soner), and then
sings the /ai composed by Baltof, son of the king of Brittany, ‘just as the
Bretons are versed in such performances’. After this he repeats the music of
what he has just sung upon the harp (Apres en lestrument . fet les cordes suner/
Tut issi cum en voiz . avert dit tut premier...).
However we may choose to interpret it, this remarkable description of
something called a /ai being performed by a courtly amateur is one of the
most detailed references to vocal-instrumental delivery that the Middle
Ages have left us; it is an important witness to performing techniques such
as the elaborate tuning-preliminary (which seems to be half preparation and
haif performance in this case) and the alternatim use of voice and
instrument. Yet it is the nature of the music being performed which has
brought these lines from the Roman de Horn to the pages of countless
musicological books and articles,” for by calling Horn’s piece a Jai the author
seems to steer us directly towards one of the most impressive and rewarding
repertories of medieval song. For the troubadours and trouveres a /ai was a
specific lyric form, of most ambitious design, in which each subdivision of
the text had its own metrical form and musical setting. Two verses of the
anonymous French Lai d’Aélis of the thirteenth century will show the
expansiveness of /ai design:*

I En sospirant trop de parfont

Atendrai le confondement
Ke les grans destreces me font
K’en mon cuer font lor fondement,
Et li pensers ki me confont,
Par quoi sospir parfondement;
Je ne sai s’il est folie ou s’il est sens:
En amer me font gaster Amors mon tens.
95
Songs and instruments

Nuit et jor sospir et plor quant me porpens;

Sospirer cele me fait a cui je pens.
Diex m’otroit ke ce ne soit sor son deffens!
Morir quic se de li n’ai secors par tens.

Example 19

ee ee
I

ee
¢ En sos - pi - rant trop de par - font A - ten - drai le

a
t Ss @ eo ZS
—
Zs
= ri =x@: = ra LA os

si con - fon - de - ment Ke les grans des - tre - ces me font

aa ING
o# oe oS aaa aS
ZA fe» — se =, zo * 6

& K'en mon cuer font lor fon -de - ment, Et li pen sers

aS Fea = a = _

——= Lf a ene — 2S = SS SSS

9 ki me con - font, Par quoi sos

- pir par - fon - de - ment

N a Qi YM er
eA, a —, oe 7

Je ne sai s'il est fo - lie ou s'il est sens: En a mer

——— SS SSeS
&
me font gas-ter A - mors mon tens. Nuit et jor sos-pir et

= —
a = as —o os = =p —~ se @ rd 72
oe = e
&
plor quant me por - pens; sos- pi - rer ce - le me fait a

zs ———- — = = a = oo = ama
—

8 -
cui je pens. Diex m'o-troit ke ce ne soit sor son def - fens!

= &
= =
ee
Mo - rir quic se de li n'ai se - cors par tens.

94
 The Roman de Horn and the lai

II France deboinaire,
De ta grant franchise
Ne porroit retraire
Nus en nule guise.
Coment porroit faire
Mes cuers nul servise
Ki te peust plaire?
Ice me devise:
Ne te puis plus taire
Le mal ki m’atise;
Ne m’i fai contraire:
Je aim sans faintise.

Example 19 (contd)
uf

% =
ey
oe
—— = > _= = 2 14S SS SE

Fran - ce de - boin - ai - re, De ta grant fran-chi - se

— 2
= 2 oe = o = _ = =e ae = ;

4 Ne por - roit re - trai - re Nus en nu - le gui - se.

fA dl Co -
o

ment por -roit fai - re Mes cuers

o-

nul
oo

ser -
SS
vi - se.

<——_

% a = . = ro = =e =o: = qe

Ki te pe - ust plai - re? I - ce me de - vi - se:

fs
—— 2
=e eee =e Fe ra = 2 ©: = a as

* Ne te puis plus tai - re Le mal ki m'a - ti - se;

Vm
FG # ts. ear = ra y_meeeeeen oe oe z ai]

Aan? m'i fai con -trai - re; Je tiaim sans fain - ti - se.

At first sight the harping passage of the Roman de Horn seems such a vivid
and detailed piece of writing that the idea of questioning its verisimilitude
barely arises in our minds, and part of its apparent fidelity to contemporary
life lies in the detailed information it seems to provide about the
performance of lyric /ais such as the Lai d’Aélis.
Yet a search through Old French literature soon reveals that this harping
99
Songs and instruments

episode is not unique. Indeed there are passages in other romances which
are so similar to the musical episode in the Roman de Horn that the extract
quoted at the beginning of this chapter begins to look like a complex literary
convention. The key elements in this convention are

(1) the courtly hero/heroine who plays the harp and who
(2) sings/composes works called ais
(3) as part ofa tale richly endowed with what might be called
‘Celtic mystique’—the charisma of Arthurian Britain and all
ancient Celtic realms (especially Cornwall, Brittany and
Ireland).

Here, for example, is Iseut performing a Jai in Thomas’s Tristan of cl 1705

Ysolt chante molt dulcement,

La voiz acorde a l’estrument.
Les mains sunt beles, li lais buens,
Dulce la voiz e bas li tons.

Iseut sings very sweetly,

attuning her voice to the instrument.
Her hands are beautiful, the lai good,
her voice is sweet and the music soft (?low).

In its twelfth-century versions the Tristan legend is perhaps the keenest

evocation of that legendary Celtic past, ‘scented with the forests and sea-
breezes of Brittany and Cornwall’, which fascinated the medieval European
imagination for several centuries.° Iseut is a princess of Ireland (we recall
that Horn performs his /ai in the chamber ofan Irish princess) and the story
of her tragic love for Tristan moves between Brittany, Ireland and Cornwall
(where Marc, Iseut’s husband, is king).
Here is another /ai passage, this time from the romance of Galeran de
Bretagne (the title itself is significant). The hero, Galeran, is teaching his
lady-love how to play a /ai that he has just composed:’

‘Fresne,’ said Galeran, ‘I have tried out my skill with a new Jai and I
am very keen to teach it to you at once’.... ‘Begin,’ said Fresne,
‘then I will harp and learn the /ai on my instrument.’ Then he began
to play, and she listened, studying the way he cast his fingers on the
strings. When he had listened to the notes he tuned them with his
tuning key so that they were perfectly accorded. The words and the
music were sweet, and he sang and played the Jai until she knew
both the words and the tune; then she tuned her silver-stringed harp
to the lai.

Taking these references together we can begin to see the harping episode
96
 The Roman de Horn and the lai

in the Roman de Horn in a fresh light. The passage where Horn sings a lai to
the harp—at first sight such an arresting and seemingly idiosyncratic piece
of writing—now appears to activate a complex narrative motif in which
there are a number of stable elements: the musician is always a protagonist
or an important person in the story; he or she is a courtly amateur; the
instrument which they play (in a most accomplished manner) is the harpe;
the pieces which they perform are called dais; the stories in which these
protagonists appear are fraught with the romance of the ancient Celtic
realms of the North.

I]
The history of this complex motif deserves a study to itself and lies beyond
the scope of this book (although we shall glance at it towards the end of this
chapter). What matters here is that the term /ai is part of the motif. Does
this reveal anything about the performance of pieces such as the Lai d’Aélis
(Example 19)?
It can be said at once that in all cases where a romancer gives examples of
what he means by the /ais which his heroes perform, the pieces presented are
never polymorphous lyric works such as the Lai d’Aélis. Two romances
compiled during the first decades of the thirteenth century will suffice to
demonstrate the point: Guiron le Courtois and the Tristan en prose. These two
works continue the hero-harpist tradition which we encountered earlier in
the Roman de Horn and in Galeran de Bretagne, for they both contain scenes
(shrouded in Celtic mystique) where something called a az is performed to
the harp by some virtuoso courtly amateur. In Guiron le Courtois the poetic
texts of these pieces are inserted into the narrative, and in some manuscripts
of the Tristan en prose these lyric insertions may even appear with their music.
A case in point is provided by a passage from Guiron le Courtois. Here the
author tells how the first ever lai came to be composed. It seems that
Meliadus, king of Leonois and the father of Tristan, has returned home to
his kingdom where he languishes for love of the queen of Scotland. The
extract is well worth quoting in extenso:

King Meliadus did not forget his love, and when he was back in
Leonois he was so unsettled that he did not know what to say for
himself. He was so deeply in love he thought he would die. He
composed songs about his love which he sang night and day, and it
was this which gave him most comfort in this affair. What shall I
say? He suffered for a long time from this love which he did not dare
confess to any man in the world. Eventually, he composed a poem
about his love which was more wondrous and subtle than anyone
had ever composed before, and he set this poem to music such that it
might be sung to the harp (et sor celui dit trowe chant tele que len puet
chanter en arpe), for there was no man in all the world at that time who
o7
Songs and instruments

knew more ofharping than he, or who was a more accomplished

composer of music and notes. Meliadus called this poem which he
composed for the love ofhis lady days, as a sign that he wished to
leave all other music. And you may be sure, all and some, that this
was the first lai which was ever sung to the harp. Before Meliadus no
lai had ever been composed, nor was any lai composed after
Meliadus until Tristan [son of Meliadus] began to sing and compose
lais.
When the king had composed the lai he began at once to harp it
before one ofhis knights in whom he placed great trust (for he had
been raised with him as a child). This knight was also a skilled
harpist and he sang very well in the manner of that country. When
the knight heard the Jai he praised it greatly, and as he had never
heard such a poem he asked the king what it was called. The king
said: ‘It is called daz. I know indeed that you have never heard tell of
such.’ Then he began to explain why he had called it Jaz.
[The knight, learning that Meliadus loves the queen of Scotland,
offers to go to perform the lai before the queen at Arthur’s court]:
‘... I will go to [Arthur’s] court and carry this new lai with me;
when I see the queen of Scotland I will sing and harp it, and when
she hears it she will surely ask who the composer may be; I promise
you that I will say my piece to her then and will advance your cause,
never fear...’. When the king heard this plan he agreed to it, for he
was convinced that what the knight had said was the best plan.
Once the knight had learned how to harp and sing the daz he
departed from Leonois.
[Having arrived at the court of Arthur the knight is taken by
Gauvain to where the ladies of the court are sitting by a river,
singing and playing instruments]:
Among them was the queen of Scotland... there were a few
knights there. With them was a harper who harped a song that a
knight of north Wales had only recently composed. A lady named
Orgayne sang the song while the harper played. ... Then up comes
Sir Gauvain, bringing with him the knight from Leonois. Because
they all knew him [Gauvain] to be a man ofexcellent breeding they
rose at once to greet him and received him most honourably, making
him sit amongst them with the knight from Leonois. As soon as the
queen of Scotland saw the knight she recognised him... . The lady
called Orgayne recognised him also. She had stopped her singing
when the two knights approached, and once they were seated the
ladies said to her: ‘Finish what you have begun for us.’ Orgayne
replied at once: ‘I will not sing unless you ladies agree to command
whomsoever I choose to sing when I have finished my tale and my
song.’ Smiling, they replied at once saying: ‘We promise you that, on
the understanding that it will not be Milady the queen of Scotland
who is here.’ ‘In the name of God,’ said Orgayne, ‘it is not at all the
queen that I am thinking oforwhom I seek.’
[Orgayne finishes her song and asks that the knight from Leonois
should sing]:

98
 The Roman de Horn and the lai

The knight, who wished for further entreaty than that of the lady
Orgayne alone, replied that he had no skill in singing. All the ladies
then entreated him, and when he saw that they (and the knights who
were there) pressed him so intently, he replied: ‘Then give me the
harp’, and they passed it to him at once. When he had settled
himselfhe began to look upon the queen of Scotland so that she
noticed his attention. When he had tuned the harp to the best ofhis
ability, and according to the music that he wished to play, he began
his song and his Jai at once...

Several manuscripts of Guiron le Courtois give the text (but not the music)
of this Jai: it is a long love-poem in monorhymed quatrains, beginning:

Dame, a vos icestui lay mant;

Fait l’ai senz vostre comant.
A vos tuit me recomant;
Autre Deu ge ne demant.

This poem is very similar to many of the so-called /azs inserted in various
manuscripts of another great prose romance, the Tristan en prose. The
majority of these dais, some of which have survived with their music, are
composed of monorhymed quatrains with a melodic scheme aabc (the
melody being more or less exactly repeated for each stanza).'” In one
instance a /ai given the title Lay voir disant is prefaced by a picture of aharper
playing the piece to King Mark at Tintagel (Figure 9). The first stanza
runs:
HM

Example
20

2S Ss
& ant me sui de di - re te = U

—_—————
& : re
que je me sui a- per - che - u

— ee! o> Ss a

% kten mon taire ai an - ui eos)

re ee $e
pour ch'ai mon lay? (ora. “= (men /= ite = u.

It is apparent that these ‘Arthurian’ dais in quatrains are quite distinct

from lyric ais such as the Lai d’Aélis (Example 19) in their form. The essence
99
Songs and instruments

Awne mnefiecto. dintnr leo er

bie amdecs-
altelaren (e*
: pour ow quit wales Dit.
yf ot pave atone or
A wer marry Que orks
ong ongues parler du tat
moral <2 dulay uo drfanr. oct
farhwid march war o1-

Figure 9 A harpist performs the Lay voir disant before Mark, king of
Cornwall. From a thirteenth-century copy of the Tristan en prose. Paris,
Bibliotheque Nationale, MS fr.776, f.271v. Reproduced by permission.

of the lyric /ai is that each subdivision of the text has its own metrical form
and its own melody, but the stanzas of the ‘Arthurian’ /ais are built on the
opposite principle: they are isometric and are all set to the same melody.
These ‘Arthurian’ lais are something of a mystery. They have often been
compared with the Ambrosian hymn,'* and when they are supplied with
music they are usually laid out in the manuscripts like liturgical hymns in
an antiphonal: with music for every verse (Figure 9). These dais might also
be compared with some of the earliest narrative poems in the French
language. The eleventh-century Passion of Clermont-Ferrand, for example,
is composed throughout in quatrains of octosyllables, and was clearly
intended to be sung, for the first verse is provided with musical notation:!°
100
 The Roman de Horn and the lai

Hora vos dic vera raizun

de Jesu Christi passiun:
los sos affanz vol remembrar
per que cest mund tot a salvad.

Compare the eleventh-century Saint Alexis, composed in five-line stanzas

of decasyllables:'*

Bo[e]ns fut lis[iJecles al tens anciénur,

Quer feitiert — e justise ed amur,
S’iertcreance, dunt or(e) n’iat nul prut;
Tutest muez, _ perdut ad sa colur:
Ja mais miert tel cum fut as anceisurs.

It is possible that such stanzaic, narrative poetry lasted into the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries amongst professional entertainers singing songs of
the lives of saints and of the deeds of secular heroes. Perhaps this is the
background of the ‘Arthurian’ Jais.!°
As a coda to Guiron le Courtois and the Tristan en prose there is a passage
from the thirteenth-century romance of Sone de Nausay which also offers a
description of a lai being accompanied on the harp by a courtly amateur,
and where the text of the composition is also given. This poem seems to
reinforce our picture, for while it is not an ‘Arthurian’ Jaz, it is definitely not
a lyric Jai either:'°

Dist Papegais: ‘Dont escoutes,

Et si se taise vos barnés’.
Li bons rois le gierfaut rechoit
Et Papegais en piés estoit.
Lors li fu sa harpe aportee
Li mieudre c’ains fu atempree.
Et Papegais si bielle estoit,
Que cascuns s’en esmierveilloit.
Et quant ot la harpe saisie,
Au roi est errant repairie,
Se li dist: ‘Sire, .I. lai orres
Qui tous est fais de verités.
Ensi est ma dame avenu,
Pour quoi nous sommes chi venu.

Le harpe fait primes sonner,

Toutes les cordes concorder.
Le lay de bouche commencha.
Oyes les vers, comment il va:
‘Gentilleche et pités, pries pour mi,
Et si tenes compagnie a cest lai,
Et si dires a mon tresdouch ami
Premierement, quant mon cuer li donnai,
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Songs and instruments

A lui siervir mon cors abandonnai

Si cuitement, ains riens n’i escondi.
Et nonpourquant si fu en sa mierchi
Pour le peur qu’en la nefpresentai
Et le meschief qu’en ses bras me pasmay.’
.

(Seventeen more stanzas follow, all identical in form to this one.)

Papegais said: “Then listen, and call your magnates

to be silent.’ The noble king takes the falcon and
Papegais rose to her feet. Then her harp was brought
to her, the best ever tuned. Papegais was so fair
that everyone marvelled at her. And when she had
taken the harp she went straight back to the king and said
to him: ‘Sire, you will hear one /ai in which
everything is true. So it went with my lady, and
that is the cause of our coming here... First she
made the harp sound and made all the strings
agree. Then she began to sing the /az. Hear how
the lines go:...’
(song follows...)

The song performed in this extract, Gentilleche et pités, pries pour mi (not
known from any other source) is a somewhat anomalous piece of work. It
has a polished surface that catches many reflections of the High Style
trouvére song: the isometric stanzas of decasyllabic lines; the illusion of an
intense subjectivity (A lui siervir mon cors abandonnai) and exaggerated
sensibility (...qu’en ses bras me pasmay); yet the resemblance to the classic
song-form of the trouveres fades as the text unrolls to more than twice the
length of a normal trouvere chanson.
We have seen that each of the harping episodes in the Roman de Horn,
Galeran de Bretagne, Tristan, the Tristan en prose and Guiron le Courtois activates
a complex narrative motif: the hero-harpist performing something called a
lai in a scene charged with Celtic mystique. There seems no reason to doubt
that these passages embody details of contemporary musical practice (the
harpist tuning-up before his performance, for example), yet it is far from
certain whether the details add up to a whole that reflects reality in the same
direct way. These episodes are not so much snapshots of contemporary life
as oil-paintings, touched and re-touched during many generations.
Yet this leaves a good deal to be explained. Why do we find these detailed
harping episodes in Anglo-Norman and Old French narratives, and why are
they so detailed?
Here we confront some wide-ranging questions about the way medieval
narrators conduct their dealings with music. To begin with the obvious,
these fictional tales must first be read on their own terms as stories; and
stories, as Tolkien pointed out, are like soup in which many ingredients,
102
 The Roman de Horn and the lai

some new, and some ancient, lie simmering together.'’ Indeed there are
reasons for believing that the harping passages we have examined are a
mixed broth of ancient and modern in which the stock is provided by a story-
pattern already in existence by c500 AD: the story of Apollonius of Tyre.

III
Shakespeare’s description of the Apollonius story as one that

... hath been sung at festivals,

On ember-eves and holy-ales

is a fitting introduction to his own version of a tale which had enjoyed more
than a millennium of popularity before Pericles was launched on the theatre-
goers of Elizabethan London. It first comes into view as a Latin prose-tale,
the Historia A pollonii Regis Tyri, probably composed c500.'® This Historia was
much read in the monasteries of Dark Age Europe and by c1000 had already
been translated into English prose. The story tells how Apollonius, prince of
Tyre, is forced to flee his homeland and is eventually shipwrecked and cast
ashore at Cyrene. He dines with the king, and after the meal Apollonius
plays the lyre so well that the princess of that land asks her father if she may
take music-lessons from their guest. Here is the description of that
performance as it runs in the Old English version of the Latin narrative:'”

Da wear0 stilnes and swige geworden innon Oare healle.

And Apollonius his hearpenaegl genam and he tha
hearpestrengas mid craefte astirian ongan and thare hearpan
sweg mid winsumum sange gemaegnde. And se cyngc silf
and ealle the thar andwearde waeron micelre staefne cliopodon
and hine heredon. . .. Sodlice mid thy the thaes cynges dohtor
geseah thaet Apollonius on eallum godum craeftum swa wel
waes getogen, tha gefeol hyre mod on his lufe.

Then there was stillness and silence in the hall.

Apollonius took his tuning-key (hearpenaeg!) and then
began to stir the harpstrings with skill and to mingle
the sound ofthe harp with joyful singing. And the
king himself and all those who heard him called out with
great cries and praised him... . Truly, when the king’s
daughter saw that Apollonius was so well versed in all
noble skills she began to fall in love with him.

Here, if anywhere, is material which may help to establish a literary

tradition for the harping episode in the Roman de Horn. Here is that same eye
103
Songs and instruments

for instrumental technique (‘Apollonius took his tuning-key and then began
to stir the harpstrings with skill’) and that same interest in the manner ofthe
performance (‘[he mingled] the sound of the harp with joyful singing’). In
the Old English version of the Apollonius story, as in the Roman de Horn, the
musician is a courtly amateur who astonishes his royal listeners with a harp
(hearpe in the Anglo-Saxon and harpe in the Roman de Horn).
A closer look at the resemblances between the story of Apollonius and the
Roman de Horn leads to a discovery: in many respects they are the same story.
In both tales the hero leaves his native land in a boat, having been driven
from his homeland; he sets off at the mercy of the waves with no idea where
he will come aground. He then arrives in a foreign land and impresses his
foreign hosts with his accomplishments. Eventually he has a chance to
amaze a royal company by the excellence of his string-playing. Every
listener is lost in admiration as the hero performs, but it is the king’s
daughter who is most struck by his talents and she asks that he may become
her music-teacher.
We can make still more of these resemblances if we turn to the story
which, in many ways, is the fons et origo of the harping mystique which runs
through French chivalric literature: the tale of Tristan. Here again we find
many of the same narrative motifs as have now become familiar from the
Roman de Horn and the story of Apollonius:?”

APOLLONIUS TRISTAN ROMAN DE HORN

OF TYRE

Apollonius flees Tristan, wounded, Horn exiled from his

into exile resolves to go to homeland by pagan
Ireland to be cured invaders
by Iseut

He sets off in a boat He sets offin a boat He is set adrift ina

boat

He arrives ina He arrives ina He arrives ina

strange land strange land strange land

which is Cyrene which is Ireland which is Ireland

He conceals his He conceals his He conceals his _

identity identity identity

He distinguishes He distinguishes He distinguishes

himself by his string- himselfby his harpe- himself by his harpe-
playing at the royal playing at the royal playing at the royal
court of Pentapolis court of Ireland court of Ireland
104
 The Roman de Horn and the lai

APOLLONIUS TRISTAN ROMAN DE HORN

OF TYRE

with an instrument pe: with an instrument

passed from hand to passed from hand to
hand hand

The daughter ofthe The daughter ofthe The daughter ofthe

king wishes tohave king wishes tohave __ king wishes to have
him as her music- him as her music- him as her music-
teacher teacher teacher

If the resemblances between the Historia Apolloniit Regis Tyri and certain
elements of the Roman de Horn are striking, the parallels between the tale of
Apollonius and the medieval legend of Tristan are even more arresting. In
an important article Delbouille has shown that the Apollonius legend was
well-known in twelfth-century France and that it exerted a powerful
influence upon the development of literary fiction in the vernacular.”!
It is universally accepted that many elements in the Tristan story are of
Celtic—perhaps Cornish—origin,”* yet there can be little doubt that many
details of the Tristan story are derived from the tale of Apollonius, including
the detail of Tristan’s skill as an instrumentalist, an element for which no
convincing Celtic analogue has yet been found.”’ The result of this
confluence of story traditions was therefore a hero-harpist charged with the
potent Celtic mystique which bewitched medieval listeners and readers for
three centuries. As a glance at the story of Apollonius shows, this complex of
story motifs allowed for some passing description of performance practice
(‘Apollonius took his tuning-key and then began to stir the harpstrings with
skill’). This set of story motifs is the generating cell of every /ai/harp passage
in Old French fiction, and the history of the set—how it originated and
came to exist as we find it—probably lies with the history of stories rather
than with the history of music and performance practice. There are non-
musical explanations for the emergence in twelfth-century French literature
of (1) a protagonist who is a courtly amateur string-player, (2) whose
chosen instrument is the harp, which he plays in a virtuosic way and (3)
whose story unfolds in a Celtic world.
Those ‘non-musical’ explanations probably lie with what might be called
‘metaphorical’ realism: the realism which emerges when a network of story
motifs which a culture has inherited from the past becomes a means of
confronting current interests or anxieties. The motif of the hero-harpist was
successful, I suggest, because it provided the means for mediating contem-
porary interest in the figure of the trouvére; many of the harper-heroes in
Old French literature are composers (Horn is perhaps the most striking
example).
105
Songs and instruments

On a deeper level the hero-harpist motif might be interpreted as a

mediation of the relationship between music and the far-reaching mental
changes which we generalise as the twelfth-century Renaissance. It is on the
basis of this kind of interpretation that I drew upon the Roman de Horn in
Chapter 1. While many of the musical details in that romance are probably
realistic in a directly referential way (the composition of a song by a noble;
the excitement at court which a new song causes, and so on), the frame
which holds these details together—the motif of the hero-harpist—existed
in all its essentials long before the trouveres.
The question remains of how the word /ai became involved with this
complex of narrative motifs. Here the answer may lie in the distinctively
Celtic mystique of the hero-harpist, for as early as the twelfth century the
word /ai—at least in northern France—seems to have been charged with a
powerful Celtic aura of its own. From around 1150 narrative literature in
France and the Anglo-Norman realm begins to speak of /ais de Bretaigne, and
these references have caused a considerable amount of confusion. The story
seems to begin with a legend that the Celtic Britons—the inhabitants of
Brittany and of the British Isles before the English—were accustomed to
compose works called /ais to commemorate notable events which had taken
place amongst them. This legend is embodied in a famous collection of
narrative poems by the twelfth-century poetess Marie de France, who
claims to be recounting certain notable events which gave rise to the
composition of these /ais amongst the ancient Britons.”*
The reality behind this legend is unknown but may not be difficult to
reconstruct, for there can be no doubt that a host of professional
instrumentalists and story-tellers of Celtic extraction were active in France
and England during the twelfth century; how else are we to explain (1) the
huge fund of stories set in named areas of Wales, Scotland, Cornwall and
Ireland which seem to have been available to French romancers in the
second half of the twelfth century,”” and (2) the many loose references to
instrumentalists from Bretaigne to be found in twelfth-century fiction? It is
easy to imagine these Celtic story-tellers—anxious, like all medieval
narrators, to assert that they had the ‘true’ story—claiming that their
stories, songs and instrumental pieces were actually derived from com-
memorative compositions produced in the very days of the ancient Britons
themselves; there was no better way for professional entertainers to exploit
the vogue for stories laden with the mystique of the ancient Celtic realms of
the North. If, as is generally believed, the word Jai is of Celtic origin, then
there is little difficulty in explaining how that term became attached to the
legend of these commemorative compositions.
Is this perhaps how the myth of the dais de Bretaigne was born? No
minstrel, whatever his speciality, could afford to ignore the popularity of
narrative material (such as the stories of King Arthur) charged with Celtic
mystery, and the involvement of many kinds of entertainers in disseminat-
ing such stories—singers, narrators, string-players, and so on—may
106
 The Roman de Horn and the lai

explain why it is almost impossible to form a clear impression of what the

lais de Bretaigne mentioned by Marie de France and other authors actually
comprised. It was in the interest of twelfth-century entertainers to keep the
mythology of the ancient Jai vague and mysterious; one minute a fiddler
might wish to exploit it, the next, perhaps, a singer-narrator or a
professional reader carrying a book of written stories.
Given the aura of Celtic mystery surrounding the term Jai, it was
inevitable that it should be drawn into the harper-hero motif which was
itself so richly endowed with that aura. Since most of the harper-hero stories
in Old French literature are actually set in Ancient Britain (the story of
Tristan, for example), then a /ai (in the sense ‘an ancient composition of the
Celtic Britons before the coming of the English’) was the obvious thing for
them to perform. When romancers actually quote the Jats which their
protagonists perform, the songs in question are never polymorphous lyrics
like the Lai d’Aélis (Music example 19). However puzzling it may seem— and
in some ways it seems very puzzling indeed—we should probably draw a
firm distinction between pieces like the Lai d’Aélis and Music example 20; it
was the latter that was directly involved in what might be called the /ai-harp
motif. It is possible, however, that pieces like the Lai d’Aélis were sometimes
accompanied to give them a certain ‘Celtic’ glamour, especially in view of
the close relationship between the /ai and the descort (see above).

107
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 PART 2
PERFORMANCE PRACTICE
Our foreheads felt the wind and rain.
Our youth returned, for there was shed
On spirits that had long been dead,
Spirits dried up and closely furled,
The freshness of the early world.

Matthew Arnold, The River

coh,

il Aa) ed 4)
18 (Webitie GIO)
7 rani atria nti

ny ens? “W /
wt 4 wide wet ee
 bey
Open-string instruments:
tunings and techniques
...a small kind of tinkling which symbolised
the aesthetic part of ayoung lady’s education.

George Eliot, Middlemarch

I
In Part | of this book I attempted to reconstruct an artistic tradition for the
use of instruments in courtly monody. The purpose of Part 2 is to explore
certain technical characteristics of instruments which bear directly upon the
character of the accompaniments they would be able to provide—especially
tuning-patterns and the use of drones or other heterophonic techniques.
It seems advisable to include every major kind of medieval instrument
in this survey and yet the evidence for the use of plucked instruments in
any kind of troubadour or trouvére song seems very slight. Time and time
again it is the words viella, viele and viola which appear in sources that refer
to the accompaniment of the voice and it would be no injustice to the
evidence to devote the whole of this part of the book to bowed instruments.
Nonetheless it would be hazardous to deny the possibility that open-
string instruments participated in the performance of monophonic songs
and I have therefore included them here.
One of the first thirteenth-century theorists to bring his Latin down to the
level of wood and strings is the Englishman Amerus, whose Practica Artis
Musice was completed in 1271. Amerus writes that a semitone!

... Minor est tono voce et spacio, quod manifeste

patet in musicis instrumentis. Ponatur quod quelibet
littera gamme ponitur in corda sicut contigit in psalterio
et cythara et huiusmodi instrumentis; et ubi due corde sunt
propiores, ibi est semitonus, et alie corde equedistantes
sunt toni.

111
Performance practice

...is less than a tone as may be clearly seen in musical

instruments. Let a diagram be put down in which each letter
of the gamut has a String, just as happens in the
psalterium and cythara and with instruments of this kind;
and where two strings are placed closer together there is a
semitone, and the other strings which stand apart at equal
intervals describe tones.

In the manuscripts of Amerus’s treatise these comments on the psaltertum

and cythara (probably the pig-snout psaltery and the pillar harp) are
accompanied by a drawing which does little to carry out the author’s
instructions. In the Bamberg manuscript, for example (Figure 10), only the
semitones a-b-4-c are marked with the corresponding strings ‘placed closer
together’; other semitone steps, such as E-F, are not indicated. Amerus’s
diagram seems to imply that open-string instruments were tuned diatonical-
ly in the 1270s, and as late as the fifteenth century the basic tuning ofa harp
seems to have been a diatonic series.* The word ‘basic’ deserves to be
italicised since it is tempting to believe that the increasing use of musica ficta
in vocal music during the fourteenth century is likely to have exerted some
pressure upon instrumentalists to adapt their tunings accordingly.
Several vernacular sources of the thirteenth century suggest that this did
happen, at least amongst harpists. The hero-harpist romances examined in
Chapter 8 often mention the hero’s tuning-preliminary before playing, and
while this ‘tuning’ motif can be traced as early as the Gesta Herewardi written
by Richard of Ely between cl1109 and 1131 (where the hero, Hereward,
‘most skilfully tunes the strings’ before playing),’ it is tempting to assume
that the hero-harpist romances embody a contemporary view of scordatura
as one of the most telling signs of an expert harpist. There are several such
tuning passages in the thirteenth-century Tvistan en prose, one of the most
widely-read chivalric romances of later-medieval France. At one stage in the
narrative Iseut harps a /ai in her chamber and is overheard by a harper who
then offers to play her a /ai himself. Iseut invites him to perform it and the
harper begins by re-tuning the instrument, even though it has just been
played by Iseut:*

...pren ceste harpe et lacorde a ta uolente selonc

le cant de tes uers ... li harperes...le commence a
atemprer selonc ce kil sauoit kil couenoit au
cant kil uoloit dire.

... take this harp [said Iseut], and tune it according

to the music for your lines... the harper... then began
to tune it according to what he knew would be necessary
for the music he was about to perform.

112
 Open-string instruments: tunings and techniques

Another reference to such scordatura occurs when a harp which has

already been used by a young girl is passed to Tristan so that he may show
what he knows of harping:°

Mesire Tristrans prent la harpe et le conmence

a atemprer a sa maniere et a sa guise....

: a ie ae re memos Me dr1d1cte-

& prrties mmo:g manez nd plnn; uro2z- Tonommm- =| aamade toons an

fone fubmovet-1 Taunt -poamih-akenhi-fuewken
fim ct fine. ctoton
Bit -p Ge ie acnF deat -Asop-iiy-nocameur Mita t-anctozales-
qefispio2e Wo|
ca monoamdiyomhdse- Qnaaw: plagales ul plagr diptes uVwitales fine faborg
leo <p TRigza loca poMidences mm kp; fad lace fz aurea generar
amfer fit-
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fubuugalis @qreus- ) unter dr tous anne fabmgaP for? epomus oFterrae
dug a’ fibuugalts €actauns- > ued02he ncran€ finales-d-e-F-y- ne
prnegente seme ileiret ep nanan eS ney a 8 F990) e- ZO
Q-b-ronmd miter, fareypudictatt Facendam-di
dim med clloct-t-qozn
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de audienod; mferet- furt cf abaccat mnuenta-fac dunaem trom fab Fe
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1 - D-momie FPHn ° Soand fy muhea oftat oc-/\ oak; ofondaks qnece —-
quinctdes a gb;dam lent Appeilan-Ouitaii-/\-0009 cedss Sealinate:
nnd -Sddtonnl- Spareilaron > wpapente-Dypapaton-P ge ors cern Ie +
ecdir 9fond tes Gi fru fond he tages thaaii Quanii nodl prio dtic
ten-ut ab-a-m-hi-7-4-¢:7-0-7 0-d-T-e-1 fic deImg hs -Fe fend gy ques due plene
argo fil ice conti efhicttr obindede ctx ab OHA fol-fa-fol-la-1a-Ol.
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Pi
2 pdaaw
Aa?
eyTh tra gtime re Z
{hits » ? CEI +

ry Sirtird eae
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ut fru: oe =

frnitns 2ubidue
abicty come [5 ee
fe Rito” ig ee digtTOy-4-08 sep ;
ofc; reprimiac
nus-t adhe DucateG ; v1 pomunt Smoar
Diltiecs firme tont-

Figure 10 Diagram of a pig-snout psaltery from Amerus, Practica Artis

Musice. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, MS Misc.Lit. 115, f-740.
Reproduced by permission
113
Performance practice

Tristan takes the harp and begins to tune it in his

way and after his fashion....

Here is the familiar motif of the harper-hero who discards the tuning
which a previous player has used; we remember Thomas’s Roman de Horn.
Yet the author of the Tristan en prose is even more determined than Thomas
to stress the close relation between the hero’s tuning-preliminary and the
uniqueness of his musical skill; Tristan does not just re-tune the instrument
artfully, he does so a sa maniere et a sa guise: in his way and after his fashion.
On another occasion it seems that two adjustments are involved. Tristan
arrives with Hector before the house of Bréhus and is led before a young girl
who sings beautifully. Tristan sings a lai which he composed himself,
preparing for the performance by setting the harp ‘according to the music
which he wished to perform’: selonc le cant quil uoloit dire.° Tristan announces
the piece and then ‘he begins it when he has tuned the harp another time’: 2/
le conmenche adont quant il a la harpe atempre autre fois.’
In the Vienna manuscript of the Tristan en prose we have the melodies for
most of the Jais performed in these scenes, but unfortunately they do not take
us further forward. The music of the lai which the harper-messenger
performs for Iseut (A vous, Amours, ains c’a nului) reveals nothing about the
messenger’s use of scordatura since it is a simple diatonic melody which
might be played on any set of strings set to a major scale.? Nor does the
music reveal what may have been involved when Tristan tuned a sa maniere
et a sa guise; the piece which Tristan re-sets for (La u joe fui dedens la mer) can
be played with exactly the same diatonic arrangement as the piece which
has just been performed (Apres chou que je vi victoire).
Yet while they reveal little in precise terms, these passages from the
Tristan en prose are telling insofar as they suggest a willingness on the part of
aristocratic readers in thirteenth-century France and England to scrutinise
the opening moments of a hero-harpist’s performance and to imagine him
setting the instrument in an artful and individualistic way: ‘... he begins to
tune the strings above to those below’ (commence a acorder les cordes desus a celes
desous); ‘he accords some strings to the demands of others so that those
below reply to those above in true sound and true accord’ (acorder les unes
cordes a la raison des autres si que celes desous respondent a celes desus en droit son et en
droit vers).'° These references may not tell us much about the tunings used by
thirteenth-century harpists, yet the way in which the romancers consistently
associate exceptional harping-gifts with scordatura and individual settings
(rather than with rapidity of execution, for example, or with complexity of
embellishment) is most suggestive and may well be a window onto
contemporary harping.
So may a remarkable passage in the Lumiere as Lais (‘Light to the Laity’),
a religious poem in Anglo-Norman which was completed at Oxford in 1267
by one Pierre of Peckham." Pierre’s attention turns to harping when he
compares the condition of Man living in charity with the well-tuned strings
114
 Open-string instruments: tunings and techniques

of a harp. The motif is a common one in medieval literature, but Pierre’s

material is distinguished by the large amount of technical detail which it
contains. It begins:'”

Coment l’em deit temprer la harpe

Ky deyt harpe dreyt temprer,

Pur fere la en acord suner,
Les cordes couient si adrescer
Ke chescune acorde a sun per,
Solum dreyte proporciun.
Ke le oreylle iuge en le sun,
E sulum le art k’est troue
E par art de musike proue,
Ke deus acordent en diapason,
E deus en diatessaron,
E deus ausi en dyapente...

How one should tune the harp

He who wishes to tune the harp aright

And make it sound harmoniously
Must arrange the strings
So that each one agrees with its fellow
According to true proportion.
Let the ear judge the sound
Both according to skill
And according to the demonstrable laws of music,
So that two accord in an octave
And two in a fourth
And two ina fifth...

This is the work of a knowledgeable author who can deploy technical

terms such as dyapente, diatessaron, diapason, meyne (for the theorists’ mese),
espace (for spatium) and proporciun (for proporcio) with confidence. For the
most part it is dull in the extreme, but Pierre has one interesting detail to
report: :

Les regards puet em chaunger,

Par tuens diuersement temprer,
E par diuers ordeynement
De semitoens diuersement.
Par la quele veie e nature
En harpe est la diuerse temprure.
Mes coment ke turne le curs
As treys touz jours auerunt recurs:

P15
Performance practice

Cume diapente, diapason

Ensemble od diatessaron.

One may change the settings

By tuning different notes,
And by different arrangements .
Ofvariously placed semitones.
By this means
There is diverse tuning in the harp.
But wherever it may turn
There will always be need of three:
The fifth and the octave
Together with the fourth.

Even though this use of regards to mean ‘settings’ cannot be documented

(it may be a harpers’ usage, something we would not expect to find recorded
in the dictionaries)'* Pierre’s general meaning is clear: the basic diatonic
sequence can be changed ‘... by different arrangements/Of variously
placed semitones’.
Pierre may be speaking of chromatic adjustments, but not necessarily so:
diatonic playing may demand a great deal of tuning-variation if a player
wishes to play in different registers. Imagine ten strings of a thirteenth-
century harp set to produce a major-scale sequence:

strings l. Qe S.eloror some fel 0

intervals Teeth Stier lee Sasi

If the player of a harp arranged in this way wished to play a melody with
what we would describe as a minor character, and also wished to play it
from the fourth string of his instrument upwards (perhaps in order to
accompany a singer who wished to perform at that pitch), he would move
from tuning (1) below to tuning (2):

(1) strings SS oi a a) Oe

intervals Rel bed hee peas BN

(2) strings ae Sn St Rd)

intervals ESS PET Saal:

For the harpist (who would not perform an infinite number of adjust-
ments such as this, but only those which suited his particular needs and
116
 Open-string instruments: tunings and techniques

repertory) the retuning operation would involve a complex synchronisation

of memory, hearing and touch: automatic movements whose rapidity and
fluency were a measure of his experience and technique (and which listeners
greatly admired, to judge by the evidence of the romances). Since this kind
of adjustment only creates a new stepwise pattern of tones and semitones, it
does not move outside the diatonic setting described by Amerus. Such
diatonic arrangements and adjustments are sufficient to accommodate
virtually all the written music which has survived from the period 1100-
1300.
None the less there must have been some instrumentalists in the
thirteenth century who needed more shelving for their musical ideas than
could be borne by a row of diatonic strings. Those who wished to play
written polyphony, for example, would sometimes have found a need for
both f and f# (to employ modern concepts and terminology) so that they
could play fifths over both bb and b§ (two more notes they would often have
required in the same piece). To employ medieval concepts and terminology:
they would have needed to insert ficte musice into the recta notes of their
tunings.
So it is suggestive that several fourteenth-century theorists appear to have
considered musica ficta to be particularly necessary for musical instruments.'”
The anonymous author of the Summa Musice records that some instrument-
makers were accustomed to insert a semitone on musical instruments
between G sol re ut and F fa ut, while others placed one between G sol re ut
and a la mi re; these adjustments, he comments, are chiefly made on ‘that
instrument which is called the organ’, which seems to allow the possibility
that similar ficta additions may have been made to such instruments as the
harp and psaltery.’®
A few decades later Jacques de Liege remarks that on some instruments,
especially the organ, the tone may be divided almost everywhere (quasi
ubique) into two unequal semitones, ‘so that more music may be accom-
plished there and more harmonies and porpucey (discantusque), but this is
of no profit in the music of the human voice’. '’ Here there is an explicit link
between musica ficta and polyphony. For singers, musica ficta was intangible:
something which they had been taught to conceptualise and then to execute
in a certain way; but for the harpist, psaltery-player or organist every ficta
musica was concretised as a separate string or an individual pipe that had to
be planned for by makers (the artifices mentioned in the anonymous Summa
Musice) and then absorbed into playing-technique. Whence, presumably,
the theorists’ awareness of the special importance of musica ficta to
instrumentalists. A singer did not build extra semitones into his voice; every
conceivable adjustment was present and waiting to be elicited by correct
notation. The special emphasis which the theorists place upon the
usefulness of ficte musice to organists is understandable since ecclesiastical
organists were no doubt sometimes required to aeepitp ay choral singing
and to play written polyphony upon their instruments.’
E,
Performance practice

It is impossible to determine which ficte musice were most often employed

by thirteenth-century string-players; nor can we assess how extensive their
use of ficte musice may have been, save to say that a completely chromatic
tuning (to use modern concepts and terminology) is perhaps unlikely to
have been used. What can be said, however, is that the most literate
instrumentalists are likely to have paid close attention to what we would
now call temperament when they used semitone adjustments. Jacques de
Liége reports that instrumentalists divided the tone into two unequal
semitones, implying that literate players were careful to maintain the
Pythagorean distinction between the major and the minor semitone. '”
There is an appreciable difference between the two intervals; expressed in
the convenient form of cents (one hundredths of a tempered semitone) it
amounts to 24 cents, nearly a quarter of the modern tempered semitone.
The most common ficta musica of the thirteenth century, ff (to use modern
terms and concepts again), is a minor semitone (90 cents) away from the g
above. Since Gothic musicians regarded the semitone as the ‘condiment’ of
music it is unlikely that they would have been careless with such delicate
spices.*” We may imagine that an octave of harp or psaltery strings tuned by
a trained musician with ficta semitones placed between c and d and fand g
might have sounded something like this (the numbers indicate cents):

Liane o0 204 90 14 t90 204509204 90

II
Once tuned, the strings of an instrument become a trellis to shape the
florescence of the player’s invention. The harp and psaltery offered the
medieval player an elaborate lattice of strings with considerable scope for
interlacing his music. It is possible to imagine a medieval harpist or
psaltery-player producing drones with the lower strings, for example,
having perhaps assigned a particular course, or courses, to that function
(compare the special drone-pipe of the thirteenth-century organ, the
bordunus organorum).*' Psaltery-players would have come into their own with
the technique of flourishing a melody with parallel intervals in the manner
of improvised organum; once they had tuned the unison pairs of their double-
courses into octaves or fifths they could produce thickened volutions of
sound from their standard playing-technique.
This is all speculation, of course; yet there is scattered and fragmentary
evidence that all of these techniques may have been exploited by medieval
harpists and psaltery-players. We begin with the word bourdon. When used
in connection with parts of instruments in the thirteenth century its
meaning usually lies in the area of ‘something which produces an unvarying

118
 Open-string instruments: tunings and techniques

note, drone’. Thus the bagpipe’s drone was termed bourdon and the drone-
pipe of an organ was a bordunus organorum; the lateral, unstopped strings of
fiddles were borduni.”* In some cases the term borduni lingered well into the
Renaissance; we find the bottom course of the lute named bordon in late
fifteenth-century Spain, for example,”* and the lowest string of the dulcimer
named bourdon in seventeenth-century France.”*
So it may be significant that the lowest strings of the harp appear to have
been called bourdons in thirteenth-century French (or Anglo-Norman, to be
precise). Let us turn back to Pierre of Peckham’s Lumiere as Lais. Pierre
relates that the harp may be tuned in various ways with differing patterns of
tones and semitones; yet however diversely it is tuned, he continues, there
will always be a need for the octave, fifth and fourth:?
Kar saunz ices ne purra mie
En harpe estre sun de armonie.
Les essais e les burduns
De ces treis unt ausi les suns.

For without these there cannot

be any harmonious sound in the harp.
The essais and the burduns
also exhibit these three sounds.

The terms essais and burduns are presumably intended to cover the whole
string band from high to low, and as all known usages of bourdon-words
display the idea of deepness, the burduns are presumably the lower strings
and the essais the higher ones.”° Everything which we know about the
application of bourdon-words to components of instruments in Pierre’s
lifetime suggests that the lowest strings of the harp acquired the name burdun
because they were (or had once been) used for drone-playing.
A few crabbed words squeezed into the margin of a copy of Alain de
Lille’s Anticlaudianus may help us trace these harp-bourdons a little further.
Alain tells how Natura desires to make a perfect man and how Prudentia is
sent to Heaven as an ambassador to obtain a soul for him. Journeying
through Air and amidst the Music of the Spheres, she hears the ‘celestial
cythara’, sounding so softly ‘that it performs the function of a string lying
lower’ (.. neruique iacentis/Inferius gerit illa uicem edie. WAt, this. point a
fifteenth-century copy of the text in the library of Balliol College, Oxford,
has an important annotation:

corde ordinate in inferiore parte cithare que dicitur bordon

neruique tacentis

of the string called bordon which is arranged in the lower

part of the cithara.
119
Performance practice

In accordance with prevailing medieval usage this cithara with its bordon may
be a pillar-harp.”?
If harpists used drone-strings (at least in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries) then two references to open-string playing from that period gain
something in force and clarity. In his Topographia Hibernica of 1185-8 Gerald
of Wales gives a striking account of the string-playing skills of the Irish. The
musicians of Ireland, Gerald relates, ‘play quite freely the tinklings of the
thinner strings along with the duller sound of the thicker one’ (sub obtuso
grossioris chordae sonitu, gracilium tinnitus licentius ludunt).°° This reference to ‘a
thicker [string]’ in the singular may be nothing more than a stylistic flourish
adorning the simple thought: ‘they make the deep strings accompany the
higher ones’. Gerald’s writing is full of such plain earthenware as this, fired
to a high glaze by rhetoric. But in this case his meaning may be made of
finer matter for he had almost certainly heard Irish harping,*’ and his
‘thicker string’ with its ‘deep sound’ might conceivably be a drone-bourdon
accompanying the melody in the treble.
There may be an echo of such a bourdon-technique in an unpublished
psalm-commentary now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and probably
dating from the twelfth or thirteenth century. Here an anonymous
commentator steps outside accepted traditions of describing the Psalmist’s
cithara and records that ‘... two hands are used in playing the czthara; one
hand continually (iugiter) plucks the lower strings; the other hand plucks the
higher strings, not continually, but at intervals and in turn’ (non iugiter sed
vicissim et interpollatim).** There is no escaping the firmness of the author’s
distinction between lower strings which are plucked continually and higher
ones which are plucked intermittently. Perhaps the lower strings are drones,
plucked constantly to accompany the higher strings which are touched ‘at
intervals and in turn’ as they are used for melody.
A drone, firmly planted, can provide a player with the trunk of a
technique, but it is melody that ramifies his art. It will never be known how
medieval harpists and psaltery players executed their tunes, what graces
and ornaments they used, what tricks of phrasing they employed. Here and
there a poet, busy about some other matter, allows us to glimpse a little of
what has been lost in oblivion; the author of Galeran de Bretagne, for example,
mentions a melodic style (or playing technique?) called ‘Saracen notes’,**
but nothing is known of them. However, amongst these poetic references a
few fragments of evidence suggest some use of parallelism and improvised
heterophony. The Sermones of the twelfth-century German satirist Sextus
Amarcius incorporate a luxuriant description of a performance upon the
chelys (?lyre)** where Sextus even notices the material from which the strings
are made (see Appendix 4:8). Fortunately his eye for detail also extends to
the performer’s technique: as the musician delivers a programme of
narrative songs (or declaimed poems?) he ‘repeatedly adjusts the melodious
strings in fifths’ (Jlle fides aptans crebro diapente canoras).*° This sounds like a
tuning-prelude, but ‘adjusts’ may not be the best translation for aptans;
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 Open-string instruments: tunings and techniques

perhaps ‘he accommodates/harmonises the melodious strings’ would be

better (the minstrel has already done his preliminaries—including, presum-
ably, his tuning—a few lines earlier). Some kind of fifth-based heterophony
during performance may be implied.
We reach slightly firmer ground with the account of harping in the Roman
de Horn of c1170.*° Two verbs denote the techniques Horn deploys: chanter
and organer. Among the surviving texts which may be regarded as part of
Thomas’s literary heritage there is only one other instance of this pair: in
Wace’s Brut (1155). The occasion is a liturgical celebration during King
Arthur’s plenary court at Caerleon: °’

As processiuns out grant presse,

Chescuns d’aler avant s’engresse.
Quant la messe fu comenciee,
Ke le jur fu mult exalciee,
Mult oissiez orgues suner
E clers chanter e organer,
Voiz abaissier e voiz lever,
Chanz avaler e chanz munter;
Mult veissiez par les mustiers
Aler e venir chevaliers;
Tant pur oir les clers chanter,
Tant pur les dames esgarder,
D’un mustier a laltre cureient

There was a great press of people at the procession as

each one pushed forward. When the mass
(which was especially solemn for that occasion) was
begun, you might have heard much noise of organs and
clerics chanter e organer, voices raised and lowered,
music mounting up and falling down; you would have
seen the knights coming and going between the churches,
running from one to the other both to hear the clerics
singing and to look upon the ladies.

Here is the corresponding passage in Wace’s source, Geoffrey of

Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britannie:*®

Postremo processione peracta . tot organa tot cantus

in utriusque fiunt templis . ita ut pre nimia dulcedine
milites qui aderant nescirent quod templorum prius
peterent . Cateruatim igitur nunc ad hoc. nunc ad illud
ruebant.

Afterwards, when the procession was over, so many organa,

so many chants are accomplished in both churches that
12]
Performance practice

because of the great sweetness ofthe music those knights

who were there did not know which church they should enter
first. They flocked in crowds, first to this one and then to
the other.

Geoftrey’s organa are probably to be interpreted as polyphonic liturgical

pieces rather than as pipe-organs (‘organa ... are accomplished’ seems an
unidiomatic way to say ‘organs are played’). Wace certainly does add a
reference to pipe-organs as he renders the passage (Mult oissiez orgues suner)
but then goes on to mention the clerics who chanter e organer. If his verb
organer means simply ‘to play the organ’ then he is repeating himself (‘you
might have heard much noise of organs and of clerics singing and playing
the organ’); I think it more likely that chanter and organer refer to vocal
music—as both Geoffrey of Monmouth’s meaning and Wace’s subsequent
lines (‘voices raised and lowered’) suggest. Chanter would then denote the
performance of plainchant and organer the singing of liturgical polyphony.
This might suggest that Thomas’s opposition of chanter and organer
distinguishes monophonic melody (chanter) from some kind of heterophonic
accompaniment (organer). As was the case with the poem of Sextus
Amarcius, this passage leaves us with a lingering suspicion that Thomas is
describing some kind of tuning-preamble (where organer might denote the
simultaneous sounding of strings in octaves and fifths to tune them).
However, Thomas’s text discourages us from drawing a firm distinction
between tuning on the one hand and performance on the other. His account
of harping reminds us of certain non-Western playing traditions such as that
of the north-east African krar, a bowl-lyre, whose player ‘carefully checks
and rechecks the accuracy of the tuning ... often making minor corrections
while simultaneously playing partially improvised sequences based on the
melodic phrase of the song’.*”

Il
We have been concentrating on the harp where the material is richest. But
what of the members of the zither family—the psaltery, the rota, the medius
canon and the rest?
The psalterium was of passing interest to some of the music-theorists since
it had a string for every note and therefore lay within the conceptual field of
traditional music-theory. The Speculum Musice of Jacques de Liege, for
example, contains several passages in which various matters of musical
mathematics and acoustics are explored through the psalterium (‘if the string
ofa psaltery is touched with a quill in a deliberate or accidental way ...’).1°
Some theorists may even have compiled treatises on the proportions of
psaltery uss for Engelbert of Admont seems to refer to such essays in his
treatise.*’ No such work is known to survive. The closest we come to a
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 Open-string instruments: tunings and techniques

treatise de brevitate et extensione chordarum psalterii is a brief passage in Amerus’s

Practica Artis Musice of 1271 where there is mention of the psalterium as an
instrument which has a string for every letter of the gamut and an
accompanying diagram shows a schematic psaltery of the familiar pig-snout
form (see above, p.112 and Figure 10). This would seem to point to a
diatonic tuning.
This meagre information from the theorists can be supplemented with
some extracts from Petrus de Abano’s Expositio problematum Aristotelis, begun
in Paris and completed at Padua in 1310.*? Abano’s work is extremely
valuable for the precise and unique information which it provides about the
number of strings used on the cythera, zigga, rubeba, medius canon and rota. He
does not describe their tunings, but by collating his information with the
evidence of Amerus we may hazard a reconstruction of the dispositions of
the open-string instruments.
We pass over the cythera (4 strings) which is presumably the gittern or the
citole, the zigga (4 strings) which is probably a bowed instrument, and the
rubeba (2 strings), which is undoubtedly the bowed instrument described by
Jerome of Moravia (see below, p.126). This leaves the medius canon and the
rota, both open-stringed instruments. The medius canon must be a form of
psaltery related to the ganun; Abano says that it has 64 strings, which is
exactly the number recorded for the ganun by the fourteenth-century Persian
treatise Kanz al-tuhaf.** The rota is the triangular zither with strings on both
sides of the soundbox (Figure 11); according to Abano this double string-
band was an archaic feature, and comprised 22 strings in each band,
making a total of 44.** In addition to these figures Abano mentions other
string-totals without specifying the instruments to which they belong:

Figure 11 The rota. Note the double tow of tuning-pegs and the position of
the player’s hands. The double string-band of the rota is mentioned in the early
fourteenth century by Petrus de Abano. Twelfth-century sculpture from
Surgeres.
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Performance practice

medius canon 64
rota (pie app
unspecified 28
unspecified 44 .

This is valuable information—there is almost nothing like it elsewhere—

but Abano goes further. He remarks that some of these string-totals are
reducible to a certain number of notiores, ‘more notable’ strings. These are
his figures:
28 reduce to 7 notiores

44 reduce to 11 notiores

64 reduce to 16 notiores

Each of the numbers in the left-hand column is divisible by 2 and by 4,

suggesting that these instruments, whatever they may be, are equipped with
double or quadruple courses. Assuming for a moment that they are double-
course, we arrive at the figures of 14, 22 and 32 courses for each instrument.
In contrast, the numbers of‘more notable’ strings in the right-hand column
have no common denominator (in two cases, 7 and 11, they are not divisible
at all). I assume that the left-column gives a census of the strings on each
instrument while the right-hand column lists the ‘more notable’ courses:

14 double courses have 7 ‘more notable’ courses

22 double courses have 11 ‘more notable’ courses

32 double courses have 16 ‘more notable’ courses

In each case, therefore, half of the courses are classified as notiores.

Abano reveals this information in the process of explaining how strings
were added to the ancient Greek lyre. The core of that instrument,
according to Abano, was a scalar sequence efgabcde, whose notes were
‘more essential than the others’ on the instrument (ceteris essentialiores).*° The
instrument grew around these ‘more essential’ strings as notes were added
above and below them. By applying a diatonic tuning to the figures given by
Abano we arrive at an approximate disposition for the medius canon and
rota.
As for the playing-techniques of psalteries, we learn almost nothing from
medieval writers. Yet there is some suggestive post-medieval evidence to be
harvested from the pages of Mersenne’s celebrated Harmonie Universelle of
1635. Mersenne gives a fairly detailed account of a psalterion which is a small
hammer dulcimer, but in the text he records that it may be played with a
quill (or with the fingers) and it is therefore a relative of the medieval

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 Open-string instruments: tunings and techniques

psaltery in more than name.*° The drawing displays one striking feature: the
lowest string, which stands on bridges of its own, is tuned a fourth below the
next string. In the text Mersenne calls this low string a bourdon. Now many
Gothic illustrations of psalteries, from all periods and places, show players
with one finger extended over the lowest course (or courses) of their
instruments;*’ this posture suggests that they may be plucking just such
bourdons as are shown in Mersenne’s diagram of the psalterion.
There is one more detail in Mersenne’s account of the psalterion which
may be a relic of medieval practice. He records that the courses may
sometimes be tuned in octaves together with fifths and fifteenths ‘to
augment the harmony’.*® If such parallel harmony was acceptable in the
dulcimer-playing of seventeenth-century France (and Mersenne seems to
have admired the psalterion), it is not likely to have been shunned in the
Middle Ages when the technique of parallel organum was still cultivated by
some liturgical singers.*? It is tempting to build on Mersenne’s evidence and
try a very tentative reconstruction of a possible Gothic psaltery-tuning after
this fashion. As the player’s quill plectra elicited a ringing sound from the
metal strings, and as the melody moved in parallel fifths over a drone
(which may itself have been compounded from unisons and fifths), the
psaltery’s sound-picture would have been a colourful one and a world away
from.the silvery thread of melody which we may hear in our mind’s ear upon
first seeing images of psalteries in medieval manuscripts and carvings.

125
 10
Jerome of Moravia and
stopped-string
instruments
For wise he was, and many curious arts,
Postures of runes and healing herbs he knew.

Matthew Arnold, Balder Dead

I
Jerome of Moravia’s chapter on fiddles opens with the rubeba, an instrument
whose Arabic name and single pair of strings suggest a relationship with the
modern rabab of Morocco. In Jerome’s lifetime we find this instrument
depicted in one of the celebrated Cantigas manuscripts, probably produced
in Seville c1275. At this date the rubeba may only just have reached as far
north as Paris (for the term rubebe first appears in Parisian vernacular
sources around 1270)' and Jerome seems very keen to define the rubeba (‘a
musical instrument played with a bow ...’) as if itwere unfamiliar to his
readers.
According to his account the two strings of the rubeba were tuned a fifth
apart—another link with the Moroccan rabab—allowing the player to
produce a full octave without using the weak fourth finger (although Jerome
allows that it may be used to produce a ninth note). He is quite explicit that
once the little finger has been employed the rubeba can ascend no further and
the technique of changing position is nowhere envisaged in his chapter.
The viella or five-stringed fiddle comes next (Figure 7), a much more
versatile instrument which has not one tuning but three:* :

] D G d
2 D G g

“i r [a eb c c
126
 Jerome of Moravia and stopped-string instruments

That is, in modern letter-notation (relative pitch):

l d Ge mid dilwends

2 d Canoe aa
8 G Gad Amie

In tuning | the d-course, which Jerome calls the bordunus, runs to the side of
the fingerboard and cannot be stopped by the fingers.

Tuning |
The syntax of the first tuning is perhaps that the G and g strings form an
octave pair while the two d' strings make a unison double-course:

PLO Gores
Viewed in this way the tuning looks like a simple fifth g-d' which has been
heaped-up (1) by doubling the g an octave lower, and (2) by filling in that
octave step with d. It is an accretion ofideas and devices that suggests a vital
and generative playing-tradition. The tradition stipulated five strings for the
viella (the number mentioned by Elias of Salomon); in this first tuning the
five-string set has been formed into three courses, each of which is the focus
ofa separate idea: a unison pair, an octave pair, and a single string running
to the side of the fingerboard which may be plucked with the thumb as well
as bowed. Each of these ideas represents a distinct design upon sound and it
is this which makes Jerome’s treatise so engaging; few other writings take us
to that part of the medieval string-player’s mind where sounds were
imagined and then sought after.
What did thirteenth-century fiddlers hear in their mind’s ear which
brought them to this tuning? A comparison with the modern violin may be
instructive here. The four courses of a violin do not represent different
designs upon sound, but one design: each course is single; each is planned to
blend in sonority with the others and each stands the same distance away
from its fellow. In addition, the violin’s tuning is not chordal (a pile of fifths
produces cacophony) but is designed to produce a single line passing
smoothly from string to string without any disjunctions in the quality of the
sound—only a pleasing rise in brilliance as the melody moves to higher
strings and an increasing warmth and vibrancy as it falls to lower ones.
The fundamental contrast between the modern violinist and the thir-
teenth-century viellator is therefore that the violinist generally thinks in
terms of pure monophony whereas his medieval predecessor cultivated
devices that would produce both melody and heterophony: auxiliary noises
clustering around any tune he played. This distinction, a measure of the
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Performance practice

great difference between the thirteenth-century fiddler’s ear and the modern
violinist’s, is clearly embodied in the tunings of the two instruments: the
viella chordal, the violin melodic. The accordatura of the viella points to the
thirteenth-century fiddler’s distinctive tendency to think of his art in terms
of simultaneously sounding strings.
The next important contrast is that whereas the’violinist seeks a certain
homogeneity and continuity, the medieval fiddler who used Jerome’s first
tuning was apparently looking for disjunctions. This tuning unloads three
different colour-making devices upon five strings, and each device is used
once only: unison pair, octave pair, and bourdon. As the player crossed from
course to course, from Gg to d'd'’ and back again, his melody would
comprise a series of parallel octaves one moment and a chain of reinforced
unisons the next. The mixture of harmonics in the tune would be constantly,
and abruptly, changing. And there would be a further disjunction in that all
the notes played upon the double course Gg would set up an octave-
ambiguity leaving the ear uncertain as to where the melody was located,
high or low. Once the player shifted to the top course d’d’ this ambiguity
would be suddenly (but only temporarily) resolved as the octave doubling
dropped away, leaving two strings sounding in a powerful, perhaps even
strident unison.
To these disjunctions would be added a third: the percussive, plucked
drone of the bordunus.
The purpose of these devices was presumably to create an impression of
density, changeability and abundance with just five strings: to confuse the
ear’s awareness of what was actually happening by setting up the kind of
brouillard sonore, ‘sonorous mist’, so beloved of non-Western string-players in
many traditions and®

. often intensified by the attachment of additional

strings (sympathetic strings on the sitar), special
resonators (huge calabashes on the vina) or responsive
buzzers or bells ... metal rings to the strings, blurring
the sound but .. . giving greater projection.

The character of this first tuning might therefore be said to be more

heterophonic than polyphonic, for although there is nothing in the
arrangement which would actually prevent a player from performing a line
in a written polyphonic composition if he wished, the tuning seems to have
been primarily designed to create disjunctions that thread a texture of
auxiliary noise through monophonic melody.

Tuning 3
At this point it will be helpful to jump to Jerome’s third tuning, which
128
 Jerome of Moravia and stopped-string instruments

carries this heterophonic tendency further still. The arrangement of the

strings is probably:

GG d ec

Here a disjunction is introduced by the leap of aseventh between the middle

d course and the top pair c’c’. In terms of post-medieval concepts of bowed
string-playing this seems an outlandish gap, but Jerome’s first tuning has
prepared us for such a thing. Here the thirteenth-century fiddler seems to be
pushing for heterophony even at the expense of the facility which, in post-
medieval bowing, is so important: the ability to produce a smooth melodic
line throughout a generous compass. In the first tuning we saw Jerome’s
viellator arranging his five strings into two double courses and a lateral
bourdon; in this third arrangement the fiddler seems to be thinking of all
five strings as one large, humming block. In the disposition GG d c’c’ the
leap of a seventh between d and c’c’ makes little sense if we think of a viella
tuned in this way as a primarily melodic instrument; why should any fiddler
who wished to play melodies running from course to course have set a
seventh between some of his strings? With the first-position resources of the
period a player could reach to g or perhaps to a on the d course, leaving him
with a gap of a fourth or minor third between those stopping positions and
the next open course c’c’. Surely we would do better to see this tuning as a
constant drone-chord GGd with a melodic facility ofa fifth (provided by the
top string) running over it.
Such a tuning would have been ideal for the short melodic fragments of
the chansons de geste which seem to have loomed large in the repertory of
French professional viellatores during the thirteenth century.* The sole-
surviving example of a chanson de geste melody (possibly the music for a form
of the epic of Girart de Roussillon)’ spans only a fourth and would therefore be
suited to performance on a viella tuned in Jerome’s third manner:

Example 21

Au -di-gier, dit Raim- ber - ge, bou-se vous di,

More than any other information we have about the tuning of medieval
instruments, Jerome’s third accordatura highlights the distance which
separates modern notions of string-playing from medieval ones. It shows
how the viellator’s tendency to think in terms of simultaneously sounding
strings could go so far as to allow the melodic scope of five strings to wither
down to the scope of only one string: a fifth. Self-accompaniment, through
heterophony, is the priority.

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Performance practice

Tuning 2
Jerome’s second tuning is an exception to all this, and it may be some
confirmation of the interpretations we have offered so far that Jerome also
saw it as an arrangement requiring some special comment. In this tuning
the strings produce the same notes as in tuning | save for the top string,
which lies a fourth higher:

d Gg d' g’

This second tuning, says Jerome, ‘is necessary for secular and all other
kinds of songs, especially irregular ones, which frequently wish to run
through the whole hand’.® As we have already seen above (p.65), this is a
problematic remark, for it may be doubted whether there are any pieces of
thirteenth-century music in existence which run through the whole gamut, a
compass of two octaves and a sixth.
Now we move from uncertain ground to the most dangerous terrain. After
the strange landscape of tuning 3 (GG d c’c’) with its small shoot of melody
in a bed of drones, tuning 2 (d Gg d’ g’) seems to bring us home to country
that we recognise. It has a wide compass (two octaves and a fifth when the
top string is fingered) and therefore appears to have been shaped by the
concern for playing melody through a generous compass which has
characterised much art-bowing since the Renaissance; it puts us in mind,
perhaps, of a round-bridged viella where all strings may be played
individually in the interests of clear, smooth melody, as on a violin.
Yet is this necessarily an accurate view of Jerome’s tuning? Consider the
arrangement and ‘pitch’ of the strings. This second disposition has often
been presented as a continuously ascending series Gd gd’ g’, while Jerome’s
use of gamma to denote the lowest string of the set (nominally equivalent to
G) has prompted the view that the bottom of some thirteenth-century
fiddles actually sounded in the region of modern G at the bottom of the bass
clef—or even lower.’ But this is probably a false picture of Jerome’s
instrument. To take the pitch question first, if Jerome had called the lowest
string anything other than gamma he would have been unable to record the
stopped pitches of tuning 2. That tuning spans two octaves and a fifth; a
tone less than the musica recta gamut. If Jerome had started mid-way in the
gamut, for example, he would have exhausted the notational signs available
to him before he reached the ceiling of the instrument’s compass.
As for the order of the courses, Jerome says that the first four strings
produce the same notes as in tuning | (d Gg d’ ...) save that the top string is
tuned to g’ and the d bordunus is allowed to run over the fingerboard so that it
may be stopped; he is quite explicit about these details and so it seems that
tuning 2, like tuning 1, is re-entrant.®
What of the G and g’ strings? Do they form an octave course as they seem
to do in tuning 1? In all probability they do. The open strings of tuning 2
130
 Jerome of Moravia and stop ped-string instruments

span two octaves(G—g"), more or less the limit of what seems to have been
attainable with medieval gut on instruments such as the viella where all the
strings must be of the same length.” Much further than this and players
would have had to endure constant breakages at the top together with poor
tone and tuning instability at the bottom. It seems likely therefore that the
tone of the G in tuning 2 d G gd’ g’ would have been only just satisfactory,
and in this tuning, where all the strings were used melodically, would
probably have required the reinforcement which it also receives in tuning |
(where it is doubled at the octave) and in tuning 3 (where it is doubled at
the unison). We seem to have been led away somewhat from the idea of this
tuning as a vehicle for melody or even sonority.
When the viellator ran through the compass of his instrument it would
have sounded like this (relative pitch):

Example 22
(relative pitch)
strings
=e
=o =

3
SIERO E. ee
eo #£
ra a oe °
—
2 2

Jerome’s three viella tunings imply at least two different instruments. It is

obvious that 3 GG dc'c’ could not be established with the same set of strings
as | d Gg d'd'. The same may be said of | and 2:

l d Ggd'd'
2 d Gg d g’

Although the first four strings of each arrangement are tuned in the same
way, and while the replacement of the lateral d bourdon used in tuning 1
back on the fingerboard for tuning 2 would be only a minor operation, a
fiddler who wished to pull the top d’ string of tuning | up a fourth to g’ for
tuning 2 would encounter problems of string-breakage and tuning instabil-
ity. This does not prove, of course, that players did not sometimes create
tuning 2 out of tuning 1, but it might have made their lives easier to carry a
second viella.

II
A crucial determinant of abowed instrument’s technique is its bridge.'” If it
is round, as on a violin, then the player can bow each string individually; if
13]
Performance practice

it is entirely flat, he must bow all the strings at once. Whence an insuperable
problem: we know very little about the bridges of medieval bowed
instruments.
Bridges are often shown in pictorial sources, but it is very doubtful
whether this material will ever provide enough accurate and trustworthy
evidence to serve as a basis for reconstructing thirteenth-century fiddle-
technique. The problem is not simply that medieval artists must often have
been ill-informed about technical minutiae such as fiddle-bridges; it is also
that a flat-topped bridge can be turned into an effectively round one by
cutting string-slots of graded depth.'' This simple fact vitiates much of the
iconographical evidence which has been brought into the debate concerning
round and flat bridges on medieval fiddles. (Iconographers will find this a
harsh judgement, but they will be the first to admit that very few pictorial
sources are precise enough to incorporate such a detail as this.)
Jerome’s evidence throws a little light on this problem for his chapter
clearly points to the use of heterophonic, self-accompanying devices
(especially the drone) which would be well-served by having all the strings
lying in a single plane or, perhaps better, in a slight arc. Tuning 3 GG dc'c’
seems hardly intelligible unless we interpret it as a drone-block GGd with a
melody running above it, while tunings 1 and 2 are completely concordant:
each forms a consonant chord without a third, suggesting that the bow is
intended to touch several strings at a time. Tunings like these, mixing
fourths and fifths, are not the most advantageous ones for melodic playing
(compare the violin’s neat pile of fifths), but they are ideal for the kind of
polychordal execution where the player uses only the ‘home key’ of his
instrument (in this case g, to use modern concepts and terminology) and is
therefore always safe to fill out his melody by brushing adjacent strings. I
suspect that many thirteenth-century fiddlers played in this way, and it is
doubtful whether many of them can have shared the modern notion of a
‘tune’: a melody abstracted from its accompaniment and from the reflexes of
eye and hand necessary to play it on a particular instrument.
What happened when thirteenth-century viellatores played was presum-
ably something like this: the five strings were disposed in a slight arc so that
players could sound all five at once by applying some pressure to the bow, or
choose them individually or in pairs by bowing delicately; with the five
strings arranged in this way an appreciable number of combinations would
be possible and melodies would be embedded in a constantly changing
‘drone’.

Il
We have lingered long with the viella, but what of other fingerboard
instruments: the lutes, gitterns and citoles? A few scraps ofevidence suggest
that they may have been tuned and played in ways comparable to the

132
 Jerome of Moravia and stopped-string instruments

practices of viellatores. We have already seen that the author of the Summa
Musice records that fingerboard instruments ‘are tuned in the consonances of
octave, fourth and fifth, and by putting down their fingers the players of
these make tones and semitones for themselves ...’.!* This certainly sounds
like the kind of tuning which Jerome describes, and the advantages to a
medieval lutenist or gittern-player of a tuning mixing octaves, fourths and
fifths to produce some kind of accordatura are obvious. Everything we have
said about the fiddler’s wish to turn his instrument into a heterophonic, self-
accompanying resource might also be applied to players of plucked
fingerboard instruments.
Here the evidence of certain sixteenth-century lute-duets, where one lute
plays a constant drone to accompany the florid melody of another, is most
suggestive. These pieces may well be a relic of medieval practice'* and the
same might be said for the drone-tunings which some of them employ. In
the light of these pieces a tuning such as dad’ g' (which accords with the
evidence of the Summa Musice and of some sixteenth-century lute sources)'*
seems a possibility for Gothic lutes, gitterns and citoles. By stopping the top
course a tone above the nut, the player would produce a full accordatura of
dad a’. The gap of a fourth between the top two courses breaks the
accordatura but is none the less ideal for drone-playing; it is comfortable for
the player to have a finger or two on the fingerboard when the full drone is
produced—to hold down the drone, as it were—rather than to find his left
hand suddenly redundant every time a sweep of all four strings is required.

The obscurity which surrounds these plucked instruments only emphasises

the nimbus oflight around the viella, the reigning instrument in the second
feudal age. In the thirteenth century the viella found its way into almost
every area of intellectual life: the sermon; the music-treatise; the psalm
commentary; the gloss upon Aristotle; the romance. No instrument came
more readily to the mind of a thirteenth-century author in search of a
comparison or figure of speech. A passage from a treatise on composing
sermons by the Franciscan friar Thomas Waleys provides my favourite
example. Waleys tells of aMaster of Theology whose sermons were always
greeted with great applause, and who loaned a copy of one of his sermons to
a lesser man eager for the same success. The borrower preached it only to
find that he evoked lukewarm response from his hearers. He returned to the
magister and asked why he had not achieved an equal success, and the
master, looking for a delicate way to point up the other’s failings as a
preacher, replied:'?

‘My dear friend, I loaned you my viella, but you

do not have the bow with which I touch its strings.’

133
 wisp
Conclusions: voices and
instruments

The High Style troubadour and

trouvere song
The main thesis of this book has been that our understanding of the role of
accompaniment in courtly monody must be based upon a sense of genre. It
has not generally been recognised by musicologists that there are many
aspects of troubadour and trouvere song which may be profitably ap-
proached from the point of view of genre (e.g. the question of rhythm; see
above, p.16 and Figure 2).
Although the evidence pertaining to the use of accompaniment in these
repertories is very fragmentary and will only permit the most tentative
conclusions, there does seem to be a pattern in the evidence which survives.
It suggests that the High Style song (Music examples 1, 2, 6, 7, 10, 15 and
16), the summit of the lyric genre system in both Old Provengal and Old
French, was originally associated with performance by solo voice alone.
During the thirteenth century in France this ‘Occitan’ ethos was weakened,
to be replaced by a more liberal use of instruments with the rise ofa written
tradition of trouvere monody and the emergence of a class of string-playing
clercs, especially in Paris.
It is consistent with this picture that the evidence from twelfth-century
Occitania also points to instrumental involvement in two genres which can
be contrasted with the High Style song: the dansa (where the contrast is one
of form and ethos, although the tone of dansa poetry comes increasingly close
to that of High Style poetry as the thirteenth century draws to a close), and
the descort (where the contrast is a far-reaching one of form). The evidence
for instrumental participation in the dansa runs from the last decades of the
twelfth century through to the Doctrina de Compondre Dictats, probably from
the close of the thirteenth. There is also good evidence for instrumental
involvement with the descort. Whether this ‘involvement’ comprised an
accompaniment to sung performances of these lyric genres, or whether it
was restricted to instrumental performance of their melodies, is not clear at
present.
134
 Conclusions: voices and instruments

The lai
As far as can be discerned, the references to accompanied /ais in romances
such as the Tvistan en prose do not refer to the polymorphous lyrics which
musicologists (following an established usage in both Old and Middle
French) now call /ai (Music example 19). In those cases where it can be
established what a romancer means by Jai (i.e. when the song in question is
quoted, either as a song with music or simply as a poem without notation),
the Jai is usually a strophic song in quatrains of a kind scarcely found outside
the romances (Music example 20).

Dance-songs
Refrain songs which could be performed for dancing such as the dansa
(Music example 8) and rondet (example 5) seem to have been closely
associated with accompaniment both in Occitania and France. However,
instruments do not appear to have been much used when songs of this order
were performed for the populous corea.

The pastourelle
The genre of the pastourelle in both north and south seems to occupy an
interesting middle position between the High and Lower Styles. The
pastourelle is almost invariably narrative, and shares a great deal ofits lyric
registration with simple dance-songs (the outdoor setting with rustic girls
and shepherdesses; diminutive suffixes in -eéte, and so on). As we have seen,
the Leys d’Amors associate the pastorela with a melodic style which should be a
‘little more fast and lively’ than that of the chief High Style forms, the vers
and canso, and the music of some French pastourelles is full of the
conspicuous melodic patternings and short-range repetitions which we have
associated with instruments; the celebrated pastourelle by Moniot d’Arras, Ce
fut en mai, for example, which tells in its opening stanza how the poet heard a
viele in the woods, is effectively an estampie with two puncta in its musical
form. This is an exceptional piece, perhaps, yet there seems good reason to
believe that pastourelles may often have been accompanied.

Monophonic conducti
In all probability the performing traditions of these pieces were never
closely involved with the decorums of the High Style song. Accompaniment
may well have been used on a regular basis.
135
Performance practice

Techniques of performance
Most accompaniment seems to have been provided by solo instrumentalists.
In Jean Renart’s Guillaume de Dole, for example, accompaniment for the
voice is almost invariably provided by a solo fiddle, and there is no firm
evidence that mixed groups of string, wind and percussion performed in
courtly monody. Even references to small ensembles of related (or of the
same) instruments are rare (see above, p.30, and Appendix 3:5 (last
reference) for two notable exceptions). In the unique manuscript of the
Doctrina de Compondre Dictats the dansa is said to be accompanied ‘by
instruments’ (ab esturmens), yet even here there is doubt, for it seems that the
scribe originally wrote esturment in the singular.’
This conclusion may be widened momentarily into a proposition that
much—perhaps most—monophonic music of combined voices and instru-
ments was provided by solo musicians in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. To turn from Old French literary evidence to the account books of
the English royal court, for example, is to encounter a similar picture of solo
minstrelsy. As Richard Rastall has pointed out in an important study:?

Bas instruments were generally used for solo minstrelsy,

judging by the many gifts to single das minstrels recorded
in the various account books. ... We who live in an age of
concerted music might be surprised that so much solo music was
heard in the Middle Ages. Household accounts show that
harpers (who probably sang very often), players of the
various bowed instruments, bagpipers ... taborers and
trumpeters could all produce acceptable entertainment
on their own.

This predominance of solo minstrelsy has important repercussions for

playing-techniques. An instrumentalist who must perform alone will often
require his instrument to have some self-accompanying facility so that,
when he plays, the skein of melody will be woven together with some kind of
auxiliary noise. The context in which medieval string-playing was usually
conducted therefore implies some use of heterophonic devices.
This is exactly what we find in Jerome of Moravia’s treatise on fiddles. As
we saw in Chapter 10, Jerome’s tunings suggest that as late as the final
decades of the thirteenth century, viellatores used drone-accompaniments to
their own playing and generally conceived of their own technique in terms of
simultaneously sounding strings. We have found similar signs of polychor-
dal thinking (often involving drones) in relation to plucked fingerboard
instruments, the harp and psaltery. In all probability, therefore, drones
were a resource used by medieval string-players of all levels of attainment.
At the same time there is evidence for accompaniment in parallel
intervals. In some clerical circles vocal ‘organum’ of this kind continued to
136
 Conclusions: voices and instruments

be used as an impromptu means of decorating chant until at least the close

of the thirteenth century and there can be little doubt that it was used by
some instrumentalists in secular contexts. Jerome of Moravia’s advanced
fiddle technique is essentially a rationalised parallel procedure analogous to
(and probably based upon) the contemporary vocal practice of fifthing, and
as late as the seventeenth century we find Mersenne recommending that the
strings of the dulcimer/psaltery may be tuned in perfect consonances ‘to
augment the harmony’. This may well be a relic of medieval practice.

Alternatim
In addition to techniques of simultaneous participation it is apparent that
solo singer/instrumentalists sometimes organised their performance on an
alternatim basis—not surprisingly, since these musicians had only three
colours at their disposal: voice alone, instrument alone, and voice and
instrument together.
There are references to such alternatim performance scattered here and
there in medieval literature and we must go far afield to find them. The most
famous, needless to say, is the passage incorporated in the Roman de Horn of
c1170 (see above, p.5), where Horn sings and then performs exactly what he
has sung upon his harp. At about the same time Gerald of Wales describes
how a band of horsemen travelled with a fiddler and singer going before
them ‘who replied to the notes of the song on his fiddle in an alternatim
fashion’ (cantilenae notulis alternatim in fidicula respondentem).’ This is reminis-
cent of a passage in the Old French romance of Claris et Laris where a
minstrel sings a refrain-song and doubles the refrains upon his fiddle (see
above, p.84). A further reference to alternatim practice—and a most
striking one—appears in a thirteenth-century gloss on Martianus Capella;
here a procedure adopted by minstrels (joculatores) is described: ‘while they
play their instrument, they stay silent; and while their instrument is silent,
they sing’ (dum instrumentum suum tangunt, silent; et dum silet instrumentum suum,
cantant).*
There is ample evidence that such alternatim procedures sometimes took
the form ofpreludes and postludes. Johannes de Grocheio reveals that when
fiddlers performed High Style songs they were accustomed to tack a
postlude on the end which they called modus.” This is a well-known
reference, but there is another, less familiar allusion to this practice in a
treatise on the virtues and vices, Le Somme le Roi (1279), compiled by friar
Laurent at the request of Philippe III; here Laurent compares his own
prologue to the Lord’s Prayer to une entrée de viele, a fiddle prelude.° The use
of such preludes on the harp is abundantly attested in the 77stan en prose.’

137
Performance practice

Tessitura
To judge by pictorial sources (a treacherous source of information in this
context, admittedly), most stringed instruments of the twelfth and thir-
teenth centuries must have played in a tessitura very roughly equivalent to
that of the modern violin or viola. The history of instrumental compass from
c1300 to c1500 is one of expansion downwards—the development being
particularly clear in the case of the lute which began its life in the West with
four courses (thirteenth and fourteenth centuries), then changed to five
(most of the fifteenth century) and then to six (the end of the fifteenth
century). Given what is known of the string materials available to medieval
lutenists, it seems unlikely that this increase in string numbers was
accompanied by a significant movement upward in pitch for the top strings;
it may be that the top strings of a fourteenth-century lute lay in much the
same pitch-range as the top strings of a sixteenth-century lute of comparable
string-length (and equipped with comparable strings). Roughly speaking
we may suppose that the prevailing tessitura of much twelfth- and
thirteenth-century string-playing was probably ranged upwards from the ¢
at the bottom of the viola, perhaps (and I think this more likely) only from
somewhere in the region of g at the bottom of the violin.
Turning now to the human voice we find that the music theorists of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries usually give (more or less) two octaves
as the compass of the voice.® Putting aside the delicate (and probably
unanswerable) question of whether the falsetto voice was cultivated in the
performance of troubadour and trouvere song,’ and restricting our attention
(as the theorists do) to the male voice, we may propose something in the
region of F—f’ as roughly corresponding to the two-octave span which the
theorists give as the compass of the vox humana.
If these are tolerably accurate assessments of vocal and instrumental
tessitura then it is plain that male voices and stringed instruments (which
we have placed at around violin or viola pitch) overlapped for about an
octave: roughly speaking, ff". This means that many stringed instruments
would possess many notes which lay too high for voices to reach—and this
is what certain theorists say.!° A tentative conclusion would therefore be
that any accompaniment which stringed instruments offered to the perform-
ance of lyric songs by male voices is likely to have lain in the same tessitura
as the voice (our crude calculations show that ‘fundamental’ drones would
have been feasible) or to have lain above it—perhaps doubling at the fifth
(as in Jerome of Moravia’s advanced fiddle technique) or at the octave.

138
 Appendix I
Terminology of musical
instruments

The first historians of medieval instruments found themselves in the

position of Adam in the Garden of Eden. Around them lay a new world of
pictures and carvings populated by a mass ofinstruments all waiting to be
named, and like living creatures these instruments seemed to exist in an
almost infinite variety of species. Amongst the fiddles, for example, some
were oval-bodied or pear-shaped while others were almost square, or
shaped like a boat; there were some with only one string while others had as
many as five; some were played on the left shoulder and others on the right;
some seemed to be tiny and smaller than modern violins, while others
looked quite large and bigger than modern violas.
Adam had the freedom to invent new names for the creatures in his world
but the early historians of medieval instruments faced a more difficult task.
They were to choose from names that were already in existence in
contemporary literature—names that were little more than labels that had
long ago fallen off their parcels. What did Old French viele mean, for
example, and did it mean the same as Middle English /ithele? If so, for how
long? Did viele mean that same instrument when it appeared in Latin as
viella?
Many questions ofthis kind had to be confronted, but most pressing of all
was the task of determining whether medieval writers used their instrument-
terminology in a precise way, or whether they often allowed one thing to
have two names and one name to denote two things.
The general view today seems to be that medieval instrument-termin-
ology was confused:'

As the Latin terms for antique and obsolete or

obsolescent instruments continued to be used, their
significance was gradually lost and the old word was
bestowed on a new instrument or on one whose name was
unknown... and, with the introduction of vernacular terms
or of new instruments, confusion was compounded |my italics].

39
Appendix 1

There is surely a danger here that we will assume medieval instrument-

terminology to have been confused merely because we find it confusing. The
most useful question to ask is therefore probably this: why have we become
confused?
Firstly, we have not always been sensitive to the nature of the sources.
Consider, for example, the following table of instrument-names compiled
from John Palsgrave’s Lesclarcissement de la Langue Francoyse of 1530; it has
been said that this table carries ‘confusion to the point of ridicule’:?

Croude an instrument rebecq

Croudar ieuevr de rebecq
Fyddell rebeq
Fydlar or crouder rebecquet
Rebecke an instrument of musyke rebec
I fyddell Ie ieoue du rebecq
Can you fydell and playe Scauez vous iouer du
upon a tabouret to? rebecq et sus le tabouryn
aussi

Palsgrave renders three English words (croude, fyddell and rebecke) with a
single French term (rebecqg). One explanation is that all of these nouns were
employed willy-nilly in the sixteenth century: hence the proposition that
speakers of the time had carried ‘confusion to the point of ridicule’. Yet
there is another explanation: that Palsgrave believed, and was right in
believing, that the single French word rebecg would serve the Englishman in
all situations where, at home, he might have used either croude, rebecke or
fyddell. This workmanlike approach to definition is almost universal in
popular language dictionaries and phrase-books of all periods. Here is a
table comparable to the one based on Palsgrave, compiled from a modern
authoritative dictionary of French:

Do you wear shorts? portez-vous des culottes?

Tights culottes
Tights or knickers culottes
Do you wear breeches or shorts? portez-vous des culottes
ou des culottes?

Here the single French word culotte(s) is equated with four English words:
‘shorts’, ‘tights’, ‘breeches’ and ‘knickers’. Certainly the table could be
improved: un short is now acceptable French usage and ‘knickers’ would
perhaps be better rendered as ‘culottes de femme’. Yet what the list gives is
enough for many purposes and there is no confusion amongst English-
speakers as to what the words ‘shorts’, ‘tights’, ‘breeches’ and ‘knickers’
mean. In the same way there is no feeling amongst French-speakers that
culotte is a vague or imprecise term. It is easy to imagine how a Frenchman
140
 Appendix 1

equipped with this table alone might have difficulties in an English clothes-
shop and become very confused indeed, but that confusion would result
from a mismatching of verbal resources between English and French, and
not from deficiencies in the resources of each language.
The second reason why medieval instrument-terminology often appears
confusing is that some influential writers have dealt lightly with some
important distinctions: of language (English is not the same as French;
vernaculars are not the same as Latin); of date (an eighth-century word is
not the same as a thirteenth-century one); and of usage (learned, bookish, or
Latinate usage is not the same as day-to-day spoken usage). Let one
example from a classic English work suffice. In his Old English Instruments of
Music Galpin reproduces a drawing of a lyre from an Anglo-Saxon psalter of
cl1030—50 now in Cambridge University Library (Galpin’s plate 38). Here
are three references to the illustration from his text:
in an Anglo-Saxon Psalter of the early part ofthe
eleventh century ... the bowed Cruit is seen in the
hands of Asaph
Crowd—early 11th century (Cambridge)
... Asaph is playing on the bowed Rotte (the Crwth or Crowde)
This is a remarkable muddle in which cruit, crowd (and crowde), rotte and
crwth are all used to denote the same instrument. C7ruzt is an Old Irish word.
Crwth is its Welsh cognate, not recorded before the thirteenth century. Rotte
is recorded in northern European Latin as early as the sixth century and rote
is its Old French relative, not recorded until the twelfth century. As for
crowd(e), this is a Middle English borrowing of Welsh crwth not recorded
before c1300. None of these words can be shown to have existed in Anglo-
Saxon.
Finally, the considerable diversity of both the instrument-names (as they
are recorded in texts) and of the instruments (as they are shown in pictures)
goes far to confuse us. This richness in the material has often been
emphasised—indeed it has been over-emphasised and the time has come to
redress the balance. As for the names, once we have discounted variations of
spelling within one language (thus, for example, Middle English fithele,
vydele, fethele, and so on) and gathered cognates together from various
languages (fithele, vielle, fidula, vyhuela, viola, for example) it is the consistency
of the names, and not their diversity, which strikes us. Many of them can be
reduced to a stable skeleton of two or three consonants present in virtually
all the recorded European languages of the Middle Ages, but fleshed out
with vowels in different ways in the different tongues. The ‘fiddle’ words
listed above, for example, all seem to be generated from something like this
(where asterisks denote the variable vowels, and brackets enclose any part
of the skeleton which may be dispensed with):
f/v *(d) *1*
141
Appendix 1

Similarly, ‘psaltery’ words look something like this:

Se Lee (a)
f/v*"(d)ael =
whence Middle English sautrye, Old French psalterion, Old Castilian salterio,
Middle High German psalterium, and so on. Most of the major instrument
terms of the later Middle Ages appear to have been international ones.
It is often supposed that the typological diversity of medieval instruments
would have made accurate use of terminology impossible, but there seems
little to recommend this view. A modern analogy may be helpful. Since the
1930s ‘guitars’ have proliferated in almost every conceivable shape and size
(makers of electrified instruments have been particularly inventive);
‘guitars’ have been built which are arrow-shaped, rectangular and lyre-
shaped as well as figure-of-eight-shaped in the traditional design; they have
been strung with metal and plucked with artificial fingernails or with a
plectrum, and strung with bare and wound nylon and played with the
fingers; ‘guitars’ have been built in both 6 and 12 string forms; equipped
with round soundholes, with f-shaped soundholes like a violin, with flat
bellies, and with curved bellies like a cello; some types have been built with
electronic pickups. Although epithets are sometimes used to distinguish
these various types of guitar (‘folk’, ‘jumbo’, ‘electric’, ‘Spanish’, ‘acoustic’,
and so on), all these instruments are readily identified by speakers of
modern English as ‘guitars’, without any sense of confusion. Could not the
same thing have happened in the Middle Ages?
But the most important point is that when we assemble the sources that
reveal the names which specific instrument-types bore in the Middle Ages
we find evidence of considerable consistency 1n usage. In the remainder of
this appendix I have assembled some of the most detailed and revealing
sources (principally drawings of instruments with their names written by
them). What emerges from this list is that there were certain pan-European
traditions of nomenclature which lasted throughout the later Middle Ages.

Terminology: selective list of sources before

c1350
Labelled illustrations
This category embraces drawings in which names are written next to the
pictures of the instruments named, or where the drawings are inserted, like
diagrams, into texts which have instruments as their subject.
It is important to distinguish illustrations of this kind from pictures in
which instruments figure as part of a scene that is a response to something
described in a text. In illustrations of that kind there is always a danger that
£43
 Appendix 1

the pictorial material is only a partial or imperfect response to the text—

because the artists have relied upon stock pictures in model books, for
example, or because of inattentiveness to what the text actually says.

] Petrus de Palude/Nicholas Trevet, commentary upon Psalm 150

(Figure 6). The cithara and psalterium. This text, which was designed to
carry illustrations, appears in the psalm-commentaries of the Domini-
cans Petrus de Palude and Nicholas Trevet. Both commentaries
achieved wide circulation and therefore there are numerous (illus-
trated) manuscripts of the commentary upon Psalm 150.* The illus-
trations show little variation, although there are clear signs that some
artists wished to bring the pictures closer into line with the instruments
of their own region.°

2 Marginal drawings accompanying Jehan des Murs’s Musica Speculativa,

in Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS Lat. 7378A, f.45v.°

3 Marginal drawings accompanying Alain de Lille’s De Planctu Naturae in

Brussels, Bibliothéque Royale, 21069, ff.39r and 39y.’

4 Albumasar. Numerous manuscripts including Paris, Bibliotheque

Nationale, MS Lat.7330, f.12v and London, British Library, MS
Sloane 3983, f.42v.®

5 Joachim of Fiore, Psalterium Decem Chordarum. The manuscripts of this

early thirteenth-century allegorical treatise on the psalterium usually
contain diagrams of the instrument.

6 Marginal drawings accompanying a psalter-commentary in Oxford,

Bodleian Library, MS e.Mus.15, f.43r.

7 Drawing of Musica with labelled instruments (organistrum, lira and

cithara) in the Hortus Deliciarum of Abbess Herrad of Hohenbourg.
Now destroyed.”

8 Drawing of four labelled instruments (organistrum, lyra, cythara anglica

and cythara teutonica). From a late twelfth- (or early thirteenth-) century
143
Appendix 1

manuscript destroyed in the fire at Gerbert’s monastery of St Blaise in

1768 but copied by him before the catastrophe. Probably produced in
the same scriptorium (or from the same models) as number 7.’°

Illustrations of references in texts :

9 The Sloane Bestiary (British Library, MS Sloane 3544, f.43r). A
reference to the way in which dolphins ‘crowd together and swim
towards any symphonia’ is illustrated with a painting of a figure playing
a rectangular hurdy-gurdy in a boat.'!

10 Guillaume de Deguilleville, Le Pelerinage de la vie humaine. There are

numerous manuscripts of this fourteenth-century allegory, many of
which contain an illustration showing Latria with an organ, horn and a
psalterion which, in all the manuscripts about which I have infor-
mation, is shown as a pig-snout psaltery.'”

Descriptions or revealing allusions

11 Summa Musice

12. Amerus, Practica Artis Musice

13. Jerome of Moravia, Tractatus de Musica

14. Elias of Salomon, Scientia Artis Musice

15 Petrus de Abano, Expositio problematum Aristotelis

Identifications
In this section the labelled illustrations inventoried above are listed by
number.

Fiddle names
The available evidence shows that Old French viele, and its Latin offspring
144
 Appendix 1

viella, were principally used to denote bowed instruments.'? The names viele
and viella are usually associated with five strings (3 [p.20], 12 [p.79], 13 and
14 [pp.20 and 26]), although Amerus, in a general reference to fingerboard
instruments, mentions ‘four or five or less’ (12 [p.79]). Source | is the only
text to mention the possibility of equipping a viella with up to seven strings
(see above, p.57). The body-shapes of these instruments reduce to two main
types: the ovoid, where there is a firm distinction between neck and body,
and the piriform, where the body and neck blend into one another. It seems
likely that the names viele/viella straddled this morphological boundary (and
also the boundary between the tri-chordic and pentachordic traditions of
stringing). It is possible, however, that the piriform instruments often
attracted the name gigue (see below). This leaves the tri-chordic octoform
fiddles played in the lap, very common in pictorial sources before c1300. In
source 4 (Paris MS), such an instrument (and a piriform fiddle) is labelled
viola. It would seem, therefore, that the viele, viella, viola complex covered
most (perhaps all) bowed instruments before 1300.

Rebec names
Although the term rebec is recorded before 1300" it is primarily a late-
medieval word. Old French texts show forms closer to their Arabic parent
rabab. Jerome of Moravia describes the rubeba as a bi-chordic bowed
instrument (13) and Abano lists the rebeba as a two-stringed instrument (15,
Particula 19, problem 3). The guiding factor in the use of names built upon
r—b stems would seem to have been smallness. Jerome of Moravia’s
introductory remarks imply that the rubeba is smaller than the viella—and
not simply because it has only two strings (13, p.88, lines 4—5). In the
fifteenth century Gerson writes of the biblical symphonia that ‘some think the
symphonia to be the viella, or rebecca, which is smaller’,!? while Tinctoris
describes the rebecum as ‘very small’ (valde minus) in his De Inventione et Usu
Musicae.'© The term rubebe does not appear in Old French sources until
c1270,'’ and Jerome of Moravia seems to have regarded the rubeba as an
instrument which might be unfamiliar to his readers. The word therefore
belongs to the very end of our period and the sources suggest that it
generally denoted a two-stringed bowed instrument, played in the lap.

Gigue names
Renaissance usage points to bowed instruments, and the same meaning is
clearly implied for Middle High German gyge in Der Busant (Appendix 4:26).
Abano’s statement that the ziga has four strings points to a fingerboard
instrument. In source 4 (Sloane MS), the words Giga vel lira are written
above a pillar-harp (only giga appears in the Paris manuscript). However,
lira is written in a later hand in the Sloane manuscript and may be an
145
Appendix 1

lak tye cordid-“t+ ibsehnee ee

frente hone ee es

pee nef wets oeae + be

salebatr madi ctrtobsG Es
Nat bascwokie @ Alatuet ext ¢ exe EE,
‘pad lat wiv abals wlilaccd- er
uoeels. BA ee
ad modi a fee ee anne
Ig? Hieane
worn igus “ai

Ss:
aip jee pec

on
e S 3hPane
aphended
pibs
meet WebOth
Oe thstf
ass
aatSt putedokt

en XY Pe
ee eae i We ry
ua in. bot bene ¥ ! Oe

LS Slandeb titestyG valle vege rea flog |

ee

Figure 12 The English Franciscan, Henry of Cossey, on the string-materials

of the viella. Cambridge, Christ’s College, MS 11, f.25lv. Reproduced by
permission.

attempt to supply the more common (or the correct) Latin term for the
harp. Giga might then belong to the hurdy-gurdy nearby, which has no
label, or to the gittern, which is also unlabelled. The latter suggestion
accords eit the gloss Hec giga: getyrne in a fifteenth-century English
Nominale.'® As Laurence Wright has shown, the gittern was a piriform
146
 Appendix 1

short lute so there is no difficulty in assuming that the term often (usually?)
denoted piriform bowed instruments during the Middle Ages.

Lute names
There is almost no medieval evidence apart from Amerus (12, p.97). There
can be no doubt, however, in view of usage in virtually all the vernaculars of
Renaissance Europe (and in medieval/modern Arabic) that terms such as
Old French luthz generally denoted a plectrum-plucked short-lute with a
vaulted back and turned-back pegbox. As Wright has shown, the gitterns of
the Middle Ages were very similar to the lute in form, but smaller. It is
tempting to believe, therefore, that size may have been one of the factors
defining the use of lute names in the Middle Ages, a ‘lute’ before 1300 being
generally larger than anything one would call a ‘gittern’.

Gittern names
Wright has convincingly demonstrated that these names referred to short-
lutes, generally with a vaulted back and sickle-shaped pegbox.

Citole names
In the same article Wright demonstrates that these names were customarily
applied to plectrum-plucked short-lutes, often shown with holly-leaf shaped
bodies and ‘thumb-hole’ in the neck.

Psaltery names
There are numerous thirteenth- and fourteenth-century sources in which
the Latin word psalterium and French psalterion (in various forms and
spellings) are associated with ‘pig-snout’ psalteries (1: see Figure 6), 2, 3, 5
(some manuscripts) and 10 (a large body of illustrations). Earlier manu-
scripts of source 5, the Psalterium Decem Chordarum of Joachim of Fiore, show
trapezoidal instruments with single, central soundhole.'” This seems to be
the form required by Joachim’s allegory and therefore represents one kind of
psalterium that he knew. Pig-snout instruments are not often found in
pictorial sources before 1200, whereas trapezoidal instruments are common
(Figure 14).?? This suggests that in the twelfth century, psalterium, and its
vernacular scions, was usually applied to trapezoidal instruments, but in the
thirteenth century came to denote at least two types of instrument when the
pig-snout form (whose origins are obscure) was disseminated.
147
Appendix 1

Rotta names
Steger has drawn attention to the Moissac cloister sculpture of shortly
before 1100 where a triangular harp-zither is labelled rota. Two new pieces
of evidence can now be adduced, both of which support Steger’s contention
that this was the kind of instrument which (at least in the Gothic period)
bore forms of the name rota. Source 4 (Paris manuscript) shows what is
probably a triangular zither, labelled rota. This has almost certainly been
copied from an earlier manuscript or a pattern-book and its relation to
fourteenth-century usage might be questioned on those grounds. However,
Petrus de Abano states that the rota he knew had two string-bands—a
description which fits the structure of triangular harp-zithers as revealed
with particular clarity in the romanesque sculpture of France (see Figure
LA}:

Harp names
Harp names have changed their meaning since late Antiquity. The
philological and archaeological evidence suggests that the lyres used by
some Germanic peoples during the Dark Ages bore the name harp before the
advent of the pillar-harp in the medieval West.*! The name ‘harp’ must
have been slowly grafted onto the pillar-harp, perhaps from the eighth
century on (the chronology of events here is almost completely obscure). In
some areas of Europe where the old northern lyres continued to be used into
the Gothic period the name ‘harp’ may often have been retained—as
suggested, for example, by certain Scandinavian carvings which interpret
the harpa of the Gunnarr legend as a lyre.””
The meaning of farpa in an eleventh-century text such as the Ruodlieb, for
example, therefore remains uncertain; both lyre and pillar-harp are
possible, and we can only speculate how many other possibilities there may
be. By the Gothic period, however, the evidence from France (where
plucked lyres do not appear to have been used later than the twelfth
century) points directly to the pillar-harp as the instrument denoted by Old
French harpe (the illustrations in certain manuscripts of the Tristan en prose,
for example.)

LATIN TERMS
The histories of Latin terms such as cithara and lyra in the Middle Ages are
complex and have drawn forth some very detailed research.”* Here it is only
possible to draw the outlines of these histories.

148
 Appendix 1

Cithara
In Classical Latin the term cithara, a borrowing from Greek, was reserved for
various forms of lyre (and, perhaps, of harp). This is the usage transmitted,
for example, by Boethius’s De Institutione Musica, where it is clear that the
cithara is an instrument with a string for every note. Cithara could also be
used in a general sense, as revealed in Isidore of Seville’s discussion of
stringed instruments in the Etymologiae (3:22). There psalteria, lyrae and other
instruments are described as different species of cithara.
These two traditions persisted throughout the Middle Ages. It is
tempting to believe that many medieval authors who use the term cithara
(and especially poets) have no more specific meaning in mind than ‘a
stringed instrument’ (for the general sense see source 8). Yet during the
Gothic period there existed a powerful tradition which associated cithara
with the word ‘harp’, in its various forms in different vernaculars, and with
the pillar-harp. In England this tradition can be traced as early as the
eighth century and from 1200-1500 it flourished (see, for example, sources
1, 3, 6 and 7,) although it had to compete with lira (sources 2 and 4 (British
Library MS)).
Yet there are clear signs that this ‘open-string’ tradition was not the
only one which influenced the use of cithara in Medieval Latin. As early as
the fourth century there are references to citharae with four strings.”* This
seems rather a small string-total for a Late Antique lyre, so these citharae
may be fingerboard instruments.
The history of fingerboard instruments in Dark Age Europe is so obscure
that it is impossible to trace this use of cithara into the Gothic period with
any precision. What is clear, however, is that by 1200 plucked instruments
were in use in the West bearing names ultimately derived from Latin cithara
(e.g. gittern and probably also citole). With the increasing acceptance of
vernacular-derived terminology in medieval Latin the form (h)arpa became
an acceptable—although far from universal—way of referring to the pillar-
harp; as a result cithara, so often associated with harps, sometimes became
attached to gitterns and citoles whose vernacular names were so similar to
cithara. This is what seems to happen in Abano (15) where the cythera is said
to have four strings, and in source 2, where the chytara (sic) is shown as a
citole.

Lira
Although this word is found in Latin sources throughout the Middle Ages, it
does not seem to have enjoyed anything more than a sporadic existence in
Old French. The ‘open-string’ tradition which exerted such an influence
upon the use ofcithara in the Middle Ages also controlled the senses of lira to

149
Appendix I

some extent, whence the word is sometimes found in association with pillar-
harps. Two manuscripts of c1200, both illustrated in the region of Alsace,
show the lira as single-string bowed instruments (7 and 8). These two
sources are closely related.”° One of them is the celebrated Hortus Deliciarum
of Herrad of Hohenbourg and it has long been recognised that some
illustrations in this (now destroyed) manuscript show signs of Byzantine
influence. It may be no coincidence, therefore, that the bowed instruments
in these pictures are strikingly similar to the modern Pontic lira. There is
very little evidence to suggest that this use of lira was widely disseminated
during the Gothic period. The same may be said of the usages whereby lyra
(in various forms) was applied to the hurdy-gurdy and the lute; I find no
evidence that these traditions were established during our period.

Symphonia
During the Gothic period, symphonia and its vernacular offsprings was a
general name for hurdy-gurdies (regardless of size or of whether played by
one or two men).”°

Organistrum
A general name for hurdy-gurdies (regardless of size or of whether played by
one or two men) but generally confined to areas of High and Low German
speech.”’

150
 Appendix 2
Selective typology of
musical references in
French narrative fiction
to 1300

The aim of this appendix is to establish a context for the many brief extracts
from long narrative works which will be presented in Appendix 3. Appendix
2 describes some of the most important genres of musical reference in Old
French fiction and is based upon the following texts:

Romances
Amadas et Ydoine
Athis et Prophilias
Attila
Beaudous
Le bel inconnu
Blancandrin et l’orgueilleuse d’ Amour
La chastelaine de Vergi
Le chevalier au lion (Yvain)
Le chevalier de la Charrete
Li chevaliers as deus espees
Claris et Laris
Cligés
La confrere d’amours
Le conte du Graal (Perceval)
Le court d’amours
Durmart le Gallois
Eledus et Serene
Eracle
151
Appendix 2

Erec et Enide
Escanor
L’estoire del Saint Graal
L’estoire de Merlin
Fergus
Floire et Blancheflor
Floriant et Florete
Galeran de Bretagne
Gautier d’Aupais
Gille de Chyn
Gligois
Guillaume d’Angleterre
Guillaume de Dole
Guillaume de Palerne
Guiron le courtois
Hunbaut
Ille de Galeron
Ipomedon
Jehan et Blonde
Joufroi de Poitiers
Kanor
Le lai d’Aristote
Le livre d’Artus
Le livre de Lancelot del Lac
La manekine
Meraugis de Portlesguez
Les mervelles de Rigomer
La mort le roy Artus
Narcisus
Partonopeu de Blois
Peliarmenus
Philomena
Piramus et Tisbé
Prose Tristan (read in Vienna 2542)
Protheslaus
Robert le Diable
Le roman d’Auberon
Le roman de Laurin
Le roman de Silence
Le roman de Thebes
Le roman de Troie
Le roman de la Violette

lo?
 Appendix 2

Epics
Aiol
Aliscans
Ami et Amile
Anseis de Carthage
Anseys de Metz
Auberi le Bourgoin
Aye d’Avignon
Aymeri de Narbonne
La bataille Loquifer
Boeve de Haumtone
Brun de la Montagne
La chanson d’Aspremont
La chanson de Godin
La chanson de Guillaume
La chanson des quatre fils Aymon
Le charroi de Nimes
La chevalerie d’Ogier de Danemarche
La chevalerie Vivien
Couronnement de Louis (verse redactions)
Doon de Maience
Doon de Nanteuil
Doon de la Roche
Les enfances Guillaume
Les enfances Renier
Les enfances Vivien
L’entree d’ Espagne
Fierebras
Floovant
Florence de Rome
Folque de Candie
Garin le Loheren
Gaufrey
Gaydon
Gerbert de Mez
Girart de Roussillon
Girart de Vienne
Godefroid de Bouillon
Gormont et Isembart
Gui de Bourgogne
Hervis de Metz
Hugues Capet
Huon de Bordeaux
Jehan de Lanson
153
Appendix 2

Jourdain de Blaye
Macaire
Maugis d’Aigremont
Moniage Guillaume (verse redactions)
La mort Garin le Loherain
Les Narbonnais
Otinel
La prise de Cordres et de Sebille
Prise d’Orange (verse redactions)
Raoul de Cambrai
Le roman d’Aquin
Le roman du comte de Poitiers
Le siege de Barbastre
Tristan de Nanteuil
Voyage de Charlemagne
Yon

The ‘Reviewing’ Register

(a generalised view of a multifarious activity)

1 The feast
Tet Essentially a listing of the musical (and other) entertainments offered
at some courtly function,
12 usually a feast, and therefore in the hall,
1.3 and in this context often clearly signalled by some formulaic reference
to the termination of the meal, often with Quant... or Apres...
Quant les tables furent levees...
Quant les tables ostees furent...
Quant cho vint apres mangier...
Apres disner i eut...
Apres mengier...
ie The occasion of the feast is often a royal marriage (under the influence
of Brut lines 10543ff and Evec et Enide, lines 1983ff).
35 The doings of professional entertainers, especially instrumentalists
and singers, loom very large in these lists of entertainments at feasts.
Many such lists are mainly strings of instrument-names (a rhetorical
procedure acknowledged in Geoffrey de Vinsauf’s Poetria Nova
(c1200)).
However, many lists also include references to the doings of courtiers,
primarily dancing (see 2.1—13), tale-telling, and (for the men) the
playing of chivalric sports (such as fencing and jumping). In this case
154
 Appendix 2

there may be moments of focus on specific activities.

ley There is a single, stable literary purpose for almost all such material: it
emphasises the luxury and abundance of the scene whilst reinforcing
the image of the court as a stable point of departure and point of return
for all ‘romance experience’.
1.8 In accordance with this fixity of purpose there is a fixity of technique.
Syntax is highly stereotyped and built of paratactic formulae, includ-
ing the following, where (in the first four examples) a cultivated
vagueness of sense—suggesting a feast so magnificent that it all but
defies description in discursive terms—is intensified by anaphora and
asyndeton:
li uns VERB li autres VERB
cil VERB cil VERB
li alquant VERB li plusor VERB
LATO i ea I Pe Pee

la otssiez...
la peussies oir...
1:9 The total effect of the entertainment and its music is often expressed by
the formula
grant joie/noise (de)mener
1.10 The formulae in 1.8 may introduce references ranging from a couplet
to a dozen lines. There are other formulae allowing narrators to signal
the presence of music in a single line, including:
(et) VERB et VERB (et) VERB cil jongler
Cantent et notent, vielent chil jongler Hervis de Metz 569
Cantent et harpent, vielent cil jongler — Hervis de Metz 7929
e cantent et viélent et rotent cil jugler Voyage de Charlemagne 413
e cantent et viélent et rotent cil geugler Voyage de Charlemagne 837

2 The carole
Apres disner i eut vieles,
Muses et harpes et freteles,
Qui font si douces melodies,
Plus douces ne furent otes.
Apres coururent as caroles.
Ou eut canté maintes paroles. Jehan et Blonde 4761—6

21 A dance performed by courtly amateurs and often mentioned in

FEAST passages (1.1—10), often as an entertainment taken up when
155
Appendix 2

the company tires of the music offered by minstrels, or when the

celebrations are carried beyond the hall and into the open air.
222 Carole references therefore often follow the material inventoried in
1.1-10 (as in the example from Jehan et Blonde quoted above).
Zuo The dance is often performed outdoors
2a to songs which the courtiers sing for themselves
2S and which may be accompanied by the instrumental music of
minstrels.
ZO Sometimes, but not frequently, the caroles seem to be purely instrumen-
tal and provided by minstrels (few texts can be securely interpreted to
have this meaning).
2g) The caroles are performed by a mixed company of men and women
2.8 or by women alone
2a and are especially associated with young girls (in numerous references
the young girls are said to dance caroles while the young men indulge in
chivalric sports such as fencing).
2.10 As implied by 2.3, the ethos of the carole is predominantly ‘pastoral’,
and it is associated with the freshness and candour of youth. Whence
caroles are particularly associated with the younger (and perhaps
probationary) members of courtly society and are often danced by
puceles, puceletes jouvenceles, meschines, escuiers, bachelers and vallets.
2 Carole (verb caroler) is the most common word for dancing, although
danser, treschier and baler are also used.
2a? In the tradition of lyric insertion established by Jean Renart’s
Guillaume de Dole some thirteenth-century romances give the texts (and
occasionally the music) of these caroles, a degree of explicitness that
carries such references away from the Reviewing Register towards the
Focusing Register.
23 Occasionally the carole seems to take the form of a joyous train of
courtiers, both male and female, moving across the open country. Here
the genre blends with the SINGING PARTY genre (3.1-—6).

3 The singing party

A genre embracing several classes of reference where courtiers entertain
themselves, often as part of afeast when the meal is over and some (or all) of
the courtiers have tired of the minstrels.
3.1 In a group, indoors (in hall or chamber), or outdoors, courtiers sing
5 We and dance caroles (never in the chamber)
Se) and perhaps tell stories or read romances (the key verb being conter).
3.4 The entertainment may be mixed with references to chivalric sports
3D and may take place indoors or (perhaps more often) outdoors.
3.6 Large caroles danced outdoors to the singing of courtiers often blur with
the motif of the journey or formal progress enlivened by instrumental
music.
156
 Appendix 2

The ‘Focusing’ Register

(a particularised view of a specific activity)

4 Singing on horseback
Boefs si en mounte le palefrei corser...
Tretot en chantaunt comence a chivacher

Boeve de Haumtone 865-5

4.] Outside the CAROLE (2.1—13) and the SINGING PARTY (3.1-6)
the courtly amateur rarely sings except when riding (for the singing of
lais to the harpe see 5.1—9). The hero or some other important character
(generally male) sings having just mounted his horse, or
sings during the course of a journey on horseback.
His song is commonly described as a son.
He may be holding a hunting bird.
Sometimes he is alone
and sometimes with others who sing with him (in which case the genre
may blur with the SINGING PARTY, 3.1-6).
By singing, the hero expresses his fine state of mental and physical
health (in epics before the late-twelfth century)
and also his courtliness and amorousness of bearing (in romance, and
in many of the later epics).
There may also be a powerful suggestion (at least in epic) that the
singing protagonist is enjoying his last moments of light-heartedness
before some disaster, and even that his singing is an expression of a
false sense of security.

Quant Gui lentent, si ist de son donjon,

En sa compengne son senechal Milon,
Ostes et Dreues, qui sont si compangnon.
Es mulez montent, qui _furent au perron,
A Vostel vindrent trestuit chantant un son,
Et li frere se drecent. Les Narbonnais 1000-5
Ferraus repaire et vait notant I. son,
Et Amaufrois disoit 1. lay breton. Gaydon 7778-9
Jolyvement chauntaunt comence a Boeve de Haumtone
chevacher. 1144
Parmi .I. bois s’en vont [no baron] chantant Claris et Laris
Et molt grant joie demenant. 15319—20
Gilles et tout si compeignon
Vienent cantant une chanchon. Gille de Chyn 533—4
157
Appendix 2

... vient [.1. chevalier] .i. esprevier paisant Mervelles de Rigomer

Et .i. noviel sonet cantant. 15199—200
Aallars et Guichars commenceront .1. son,
Gasconois fu li dis et limosins li ton,
Et Richars lor bordone belement par desos;
Dune grande huchie entendre les puet on. * La chanson des
Aine rote ne viele ne nul psalterion quatre Fils Aymon
Ne vos pleist si bien comme li troi baron. 6599-6604.

5 The lai/harp complex

5.1 A courtly amateur
Oe who is invariably a protagonist or an important character in the
narrative, is a gifted harpist,
5.0 and harps pieces, in public, called /ais,
ea and can usually compose them,
aS and often sings them to his/her own accompaniment.
5,6 There is a slot for some technical description of the performance,
usually a tuning procedure.
Dad The tale in which the courtly harper appears will normally have a
‘Celtic’ setting (Brittany, Cornwall, Wales; Arthurian Britain is a
particular favourite)
5.8 and the harpist will often be in disguise when he performs (or
travelling incognito). This does not usually apply if the character is
female.
oe! If not a major protagonist of the tale the harpist will often be the
messenger and ally of a protagonist, carrying the lai as a message or
commemoration on the protagonist’s behalf to one in a foreign realm
for whom the /az has some special significance.

6 The solo performance

6.1 A solo musician, often a minstrel, performs. If a courtly amateur, then
he/she is usually
6.2 a courtly amateur disguised as a minstrel for some purpose
6.3 or a character wrongly brought up as a minstrel following some
tragedy, subterfuge or treachery following his birth,
6.4 or a character within the LAI/HARP COMPLEX (see 5.1—9).
6.5 If the solo performer is an instrumentalist, or a singer/instrumentalist,
then the instrument will generally be a viele unless the reference falls
within 5.1—9.
6.6 If the solo musician is a vocal performer without an instrument then he
is usually a narrator of saints’ lives or epic tales.
6.7 The genre provides a slot for some passing reference to what the
158
 Appendix 2

musician plays (which may or may not be filled), and narrators seem
to have been free to fill the slot as they wished.
6.8 A special sub-genre of references to courtly, amateur instrumentalists
centres upon the private musician/retainer of Charlemagne in epic
tradition (Chanson de Guillaume and Aye d’Avignon).

7 Courtly accomplishment
Many epic and romance heroes are praised for their accomplishments
and education which are often itemised in detail.
| In both Epic and Romance chivalric skills and sports (jousting,
fencing, leaping, etc.) predominate in the lists of male accomplish-
ments, and the main arts of peace are chess and draughts.
72 It is exceptionally rare for a male to be praised for an ability to sing or
to read. References to a hero having mastered the ‘vii ars’ are also very
rare, though rather more frequent in connection with women.
re) Outside of 5.1—9 (and of texts relating to Aristotle’s education of
Alexander) it is almost unknown for a male to be praised for
instrumental skills; exceptions are Florimont, which is related to the
Alexander material, the Roman de Horn and Eracle where, in both cases,
the ability to play the Aarpe is presented as a skill cultivated by the
nobility of the past.
(pe In accounts of female education and accomplishment both singing and
playing are sometimes mentioned, and perhaps the seven Liberal Arts.

159
 Appendix 3
Literary references
relating to the
involvement of stringed
instruments in French and
Occitan monody
Most of the following references are taken from Old French and Old
Provencal literature, together with certain Latin writings produced in
France and Occitania during the time of the troubadours and trouveres.
Since Catalonia shared in the troubadour culture of Occitania, several Old
Catalan sources are included (items 15 and 19-21). One Old Spanish text
has been included (item 4), since it offers the fullest description of a
performing ensemble which occurs time and time again in the following
texts: fiddle and voice.!
The list is restricted to passages bearing upon the performance of lyric
repertory; and references belonging to the lai/harp complex are omitted (see
the selective typology in the previous appendix, section 5.1—10, and Chapter
8).
The ideal reference for our purposes is one which specifies that a certain
kind of song is being accompanied by a certain kind of instrument. A corpus
of such references would provide a solid basis for investigating the
performance practice of twelfth- and thirteenth-century music, but unfortu-
nately very few of the passages gathered here provide clear information of
this kind. Most of them are indecisive for one or more of the following
reasons:
1 It is impossible to establish what kinds of songs are being performed.
2 It is impossible to determine whether (a) instrumental or (b) accom-
panied-vocal performance is being described.
3 When the texts mention voices(s) and instruments(s) together they are
not sufficiently explicit in delineating relations of space and time for us
160
 Appendix 3

to conclude that voice(s) and instruments(s) are performing simul-

taneously and in the same place.
Just as it may be impossible to establish the precise meaning of nouns
such as chanson and vers so it is difficult to determine the meaning of certain
verbs. Every medieval poet had learned from his Bible that Jubal was the
father of those who ‘sing in organs’ (cantant in organis), and the meaning ‘to
play an instrument’ certainly lies within the range of Old French chanter (see
items 14 and 36) as it does of Old French dire and medieval Latin cantare
(compare cantare cum lira in item 14). It is no surprise to find the verb cantar
(‘to sing’) reinforced with de boca (‘with the mouth’), in the Provencal
romance of Flamenca (item 5, line 319).
So it is that we often cannot determine the meaning of a musical reference
with any precision. But it is also the case that many of the references may
have no ‘precise’ meaning. On one level this is a matter of usage: medieval
authors were free to employ words such as chanson and vers in a more broad
and generous way than modern scholars. On a deeper level it is a question of
the quality of thought which medieval writers, especially narrators, brought
to the task of writing about music. Virtually none of the sources gathered
here were written to impart the kind of information we are seeking from
them. The romancers, for example, were rarely interested in describing
musical performances in any detail (the material belonging to the lai/harp
complex, examined in Chapter 8, is an exception here) and the romancers
often describe performances with formulaic phraseology and an inert
imagination that does not so much refer (‘there was a fiddler who
accompanied a singer performing a dance-song’) as gesture towards an idea
(‘there was entertainment’). When referring to music, the romancer’s
fundamental technique was a kind of excited inventory, as if everything
were seen through the eyes of a participant glancing from side to side in
some lavish aristocratic hall, taking in the many different kinds of
entertainment which he sees (or saw over a period of time). This listing
technique is fundamental to the romancer’s engagement with music because
the flamboyance and luxury of aristocratic life are a preoccupation of
romance; one way of emphasising the magnificence of an occasion was to
amass brief references to the musical entertainment on offer there. Many of
the musical passages in romance are generated by associations of this kind
and therefore this listing manner is a pervasive one (see items 2, 3, 5 (lines
593-607), 24, 25, 26, etc.). Such lists of instruments and songs accompany
the very first glimmers of French romance with Wace’s Brut of 1155, a text
where the technique is shown in its most rudimentary form (‘there was A, B,
(i n. Se

Mult peissiez oir chancuns,

Rotruenges e novels suns,
Vieleures, lais de notes,
Lais de vieles, lais de rotes....

161]
Appendix 3

Sometimes the list may be built around verbs rather than nouns (‘the one
does A, the other does B...’), as in Flamenca (item 5):

L’uns viola[1] lais de Cabrefoil,

E l’autre cel de Tintagoil;
L’us cantet cel dels Fins Amanz, 4
E l’autre cel que fes Ivans.
L’us menet arpa, |’autra viula;
L’us flautella, autre siula;
L’us mena giga, l’autre rota;
L’us diz los motz e l’autrels nota... 600-7

One plays the lai of Cabrefoil on the viola, and the other
the lai of Tintagoil; one sang the /ai of the Fins Amanz,
and another the Jai which Yvain composed. One brought the
arpa, another the viula; one plays the flautella, and
another whistles; one brings the giga and another
the rota; one gives out the words and another puts the music
to them.

This listing technique is an efficient way of referring to things in a dis-

tributive way (‘the lai of Cabrefoil . . . the /ai of Tintagoil’) but it does little to
establish relationships between things. Time and time again such references
leave us wondering whether the voices and instruments mentioned are to be
understood to be performing together, or separately, and this uncertainty
extends far beyond the realms of chanson de geste and romance (see items 3,
19, 20, 24, 25, 26, 29, 30, 31, 34, 38 and 39). In some cases it is probably a
critical indecorum to give such close attention to the question of what any
given writer ‘may have meant’, for he may have meant nothing beyond
‘there was playing and singing’. Some such dilution of aim is clearly
signalled by the poetic theorist Geoffrey de Vinsauf (fl. cl1200), who advises
novice poets to adorn their verses with lists of instruments if they wish to
draw out a description of a feast into something elaborate and ‘poetic’.
The stereotyped diction of these lists is another sign ofa dilution of sense.
In Hervis de Metz:

Cantent et notent, vielent chil jongler.

The minstrels sing, play and fiddle.

where the poet is describing a noces in a grand palace.* As we read through

the romance it becomes increasingly difficult to believe that there is any
solid sense behind the fagade of these words. This same line appears three
times elsewhere in the text (lines 189, 6841, 9065)—or rather four times if
we include this slight variation upon the basic scheme at line 7929:°

Cantent et harpent, vielent ciljongler.

162
 Appendix3

A variant also appears in another epic, the Voyage de Charlemagne:

e cantent et vielent et rotent cil jugler

e cantent et vielent et rotent cil geugler

In other words these lists are, in some measure, formulaic: they are
composed of pre-set pieces of language, the common property of poets
working within Old French epic tradition, designed to present a conven-
tional scene or action within fixed metrical constraints.’ (See Appendix
2:1.1-10.)
It is a measure of the simplicity and syntactical poverty of many narrative
references to music that punctuation is rarely a crucial issue in determining
the meaning of a passage. Indeed the only instance in this appendix where
choice of punctuation appears to be crucial is Gerbert de Montreuil’s Le
Roman de la Violette (item 33), where Gerbert offers a passage which stands
quite outside the ‘distributive list’ tradition.
Amidst the ambiguities and uncertainties certain general conclusions
may be drawn:
1 The evidence is overwhelming that the preferred instruments for
accompanying the voice in twelfth- and thirteenth-century France and
Occitania were bowed instruments. This suggests at least a measure of
standardisation and convention in performance practice: the same type
of solo instrument seems to have been used, time and time again. There
is no firm evidence for the accompaniment of any medieval courtly
monody by the bands of mixed string, wind and percussion instruments
which have figured so prominently on recordings and on the concert
platform during the last twenty years. The Old Spanish Libro de A polonio
(item 4) suggests that such fiddle-accompaniment was a highly-prized
and subtle art.
2 There is abundant evidence for the accompaniment of dance-songs. See
items 2 (the Provengal dansa); 3 (?again the dansa); 9 (again the dansa).
Item 13 presumably describes instrumental music since there is no
mention of singing.
3 There is also good evidence for the instrumental accompaniment oflove-
songs (whose identity cannot be precisely established from the texts).
See items 22 and 29.

Sources from Occitania or perhaps

relating to southern French practice
Verse narratives
1 Anon Daurel et Beton

163
Appendix 3

Anon Jaufre
Anon Canso de la Crosada
Anon Libro de Apolonio (Old Spanish)
Anon Flamenca
ND
OC
OS
D Arnaut Vidal de Castelnaudary Guilhem de la Barra
>

Troubadour lyrics
7 Peire d’Alvergne Deiosta.ls breus jorns
8 Guillem Ademar Chantan dissera si pogues
9 Senher n’Aymar, chauzes de tres baros

Old Provengal prose

10 Vidas
ViPS Razos

Miscellaneous Latin sources

12. Muracles of Our Lady of Roc-Amadour
13. Gervase of Tilbury Otia Imperialia
14 Boncompagno da Signa Rhetorica Antiqua

Treatises on poetry (including Catalan and Italian)

15 ?2Jofre de Foixa Doctrina de Compondre Dictats
16 Francesco da Barberino Liber Documentorum Amoris
17 Guillem Molinier Las Leys d’Amors (a version in prose)
18 Joan de Castellnou Compendi

Ramon Llull
19 Libre de Contemplacio en Deu
20 Libre de Meravelles
21 Libre d’Evast e d’Aloma e de Blanquerna

Sources from northern France

Verse narratives
22. Anon Ami et Amile

164
 Appendix 3

Anon Claris et Laris

Anon Doon de Nanteuil
Anon Du vilain au buffet
Anon Florence de Rome
Gautier de Tournai Gille de Chyn
Jean Renart Guillaume de Dole
Anon Hervis de Metz
Anon Latre perilleux
Anon La chanson des quatre fils Aymon
Messire Thibaut Le Roman de la Poire
Gerbert de Montreuil Le Roman de la Violette
Anon Le Roman des Sept Sages
Anon Le Roman du Comte de Poitiers
Anon Les Deux Bourdeurs Ribauds
Gautier de Coinci Les Miracles de Nostre Dame
Huon de Meri Le Torneiment Anticrist
Anon Macaire

Music theorists
40 Elias of Salomon Scientia Artis Musice
4] Jerome of Moravia Tractatus de Musica
42 Johannes de Grocheio De Musica

Treatises on confession or on the vices and virtues

43 Thomas de Chobham Summa Confessorum
Guillaume Peyraut Summa de Vitiis et Virtutibus
Guillaume d’Auvergne De Universo
Guillaume d’Auvergne De Viciis et Peccatis
Albertus Magnus Commentary upon the Sentences of Peter Lombard
Honorius Augustodunensis Gemma Anime

Petrus de Abano
49 Expositio problematum Aristotelis

The numbers in square brackets after the narrative extracts refer to the typology of
literary material presented in Appendix 2

165
Appendix 3

Sources from Occitania

Verse narratives
1 °?12c Daurel et Beton
x

Source: A.S. Kimmel, ed., A Critical Edition of the Old Provencal Epic Daurel et
Beton (Chape! Hill, 1971). See above, pp.20ff., and add the following:

‘Senher, Daurel ay nom, e say motz gen arpier,

E tocar vihola e ricaman trobier...’ 84-5

‘My lord, my name is Daurel and I know how to harp

words in a pleasing way, and how to play the fiddle
and compose in a cunning (?noble) way...’

Pueis [Daurel] pres larpa, a .11. laisses notatz

Et ab la viola a los gen deportat;
Sauta e tomba, tuh s’en son alegratz. 1208-10

Then Daurel took the harp and played two Jaisses

and pleased his audience with the fiddle; he dances
and tumbles, all are delighted by him.

Qua[n]t ac .vii. ans Beto sap gen violar

E tocar citola e ricamen arpar
E cansos dire, de se mezis trobar. 1419-21

When Beton was seven years old he knew how to

fiddle in a noble fashion and harp nobly, and
how to sing cansos and compose unaided.

See also 1941ff (where the piece sung by Daurel to Beton’s fiddling appears
to be in the style of epic rather than lyric).

2 ?cll170 Jaufre

See above, p.22.

[1]

3 cl228 Canso de la Crosada (anonymous continuation)

Source: E.Martin-Chabot, ed., La Chanson de la Croisade Albigeoise, 3 vols.,

Paris (1931-61), 2, p.98, line 46.

A banquet is described which does not lack

166
 Appendix 3

... Jotglars e las viulas e dansas e cansos

(1]

4 13c Libro de Apolonio

Source: G. Battista de Cesare, ed., Libro de Apolonio (Milan, 1974).

Several stanzas of this Old Spanish romance contain what may be the fullest
account of fiddle-accompanied singing in medieval literature. The text
leaves us in no doubt that simultaneous participation of voice and
instrument is taking place, but reveals little about the kind of music which is
being performed. As always, this is primarily a problem of terminology;
although the following passages have received much attention (from
Spitzer, Devoto and Artiles among others) ,° our knowledge of musical
terminology in Old Spanish is too fragmentary to permit much more than a
guess at the author’s meaning in most instances. Yet the text is valuable as
an indication that the author thought of accompanied singing as a subtle
and highly nuanced art. Devoto’s study considers almost all previous
literature on the subject and takes full account of the mass of scholarly
conjecture which has accumulated around these passages.
The Libro de Apolonio is ultimately based upon the Historia Apollonii Regis
Tyri of c500. It exists in two recensions, RA (c500) and RB (somewhat later).
Passages of the Latin which shed light upon the interpretation of the Old
Spanish text are given below. The most important musical episode of the
Latin romance is set at the court of King Archistrates of Pentapolis when
Apollonius is entertained by the singing and playing of the king’s daughter.
In RA the princess sings and accompanies herself:

Puella vero iussit sibi afferri liram. At ubi accedens cepit, cum nimia
dulcedine vocis cordarum sonos, melos cum voce miscebat.

The girl commanded the /ira to be brought to her. And when she
took it she mingled the melody of the string-music with her singing
with surpassing sweetness ofvoice.

Apollonius is dissatisfied with the girl’s playing and asks for the
instrument. Then he performs for the company; in the words of both RA and
RB: ‘he mingles his modulated voice in song with the strings’ (Miscetur vox
cantu modulata cordis). The author of the Libro de Apolonio probably worked
from a version of the story in which the wording ofthis episode left no doubt
about the simultaneous participation of voice and instrument: he had only
to follow it to produce a clear reference to instrumental accompaniment. Yet
this hardly detracts from the interest of the following passages. They are full
of technical terminology (none of which appears to have any precedent in
167
Appendix 3

Latin Apollonius tradition), suggesting that the author’s imagination is

engaging with contemporary performance practice.
The princess begins to play:

178 Aguisdsseladuenya, _fiziéronle local;

tenpro bien le vihuella en un son natural,
dex6 cayerel manto, _ pardse en un brial;
comencé una laude, omne non vio atal.

The girl prepared herself and they made room for her; she tuned
the vihuella well to a natural accord, let fall her mantle and
was left in her gown; she began a laude, none had ever heard the
like.

Lexical problems: the reference to tuning the vihuella ... en un son natural is
tantalising (for previous conjectures as to the meaning of the phrase see
Devoto, op. cit., pp.305ff). Forms of the adjective natural occur as a
description for music twice elsewhere in the poem (427b and 495b, the
former in a reference to fiddling; see below). In each case natural forms the
rhyme-word, as here, which may suggest a relatively weak meaning for the
term (‘pleasing’, perhaps?), but some technical sense may be involved, at
least in the above stanza. A natural tuning might conceivably be an
accordatura of perfect intervals akin to the ones described by Jerome of
Moravia.
The term laude (Devoto, op. cit., pp.297ff) presents an intractable
problem. It may mean little more than ‘song’, although this sense is not
recorded in the available dictionaries of Old Spanish (such as they are). A
connection with Italian /auda (and, for that matter, with Old French Jai) is
possible.

179 Faziafermosos sones, fermosas debailadas;

quedavaasabiendas la boz a las vegadas,
faziaalaviuela dezir puntas ortadas,
semejava queeran palabras afirmadas.

She made beautiful melodies and beautiful debailadas; at times

she skilfully softened her voice and made the viuela give out
masterly puntas, it seemed that [voice and instrument] were
united utterances.

Specific details from the HISTORIA: according to RA the princess’s voice

and instrument sounded together in marvellous harmony (quoted above).
Lexical problems: the noun debailadas, which occurs again at 189b, is a
mystery (Devoto, of. cit., pp.311ff, lists previous conjectures). In various

168
 Appendix 3

forms the term also appears in the Libro de Buen Amor of Juan Ruiz (where it
is also associated with the fiddle) and in the Libro de Alexandre:'°

Libro de Alexandre MSP 2118b = dulges deballadas

MSO 1976c _— doles de las baylas

Libro de Buen Amor MSS 123la_— dulces de vayladas

MST 123la_ dulces baylares
MSG 123la_ dulges vayladas

Libro de A polonio 179a_ _fermosas debailadas

189b —debayladas

In various places this table of forms seems to show the influence of Old
Catalan balar, ‘to dance’ (whence, presumably, the deballadas of Alexandre
2118b), and of Old Spanish bailar, ‘to dance’ (cf. Old and Middle French
balade). It is tempting to translate the debailadas of the Libro de Apolonio as
‘dance-like melodies’, or something similar. This has often been proposed
(see Devoto, loc. cit., and Spitzer, p.370).
Puntas is a term that is elsewhere used for the music ofinstruments in Old
Spanish,'! but not, perhaps, in a technical sense (compare Grocheio’s use of
punctum to denote the sections of the instrumental stantipes and ductia).'”

180 Losaltoselos baxos todos d’ella dizien.

La duenyaelaviuela tan bien se abinien
que.ltenienafazannya quantos que lo veien.
Fazia otros depuertos que mucho mas valien.

Both those ofhigher and of lower rank spoke of her. The girl
and the viuela accorded so well together that all those who saw
her were astonished. She then showed her skill in even more
excellent ways.

Specific details from the HISTORIA: the astonishment of the courtiers. In

RA:'? Omnes convive ceperunt mirari dicentes: ‘Non potest esse melius, non esse dulcius
plus isto, quod audivimus.’
Apolonio does not join in the general praise for the princess’s perform-
ance; in his judgement she does not have a perfect command of the art
(183c). The princess replies to this charge that Apolonio should ‘sing a /auda
on the rota or on the giga’ himself (184c) now that he has disparaged her own
performance:

185 NonquisoApolonio — la duenya contrastar:

priso una viuela, _ sOpola bien tenprar;

169
Appendix 3

188 Alcécontraladuenya un poquiello el ¢ejo.

Fue ella de vergiienza _ presa un poquellejo.
Fue trayendoelarquo _egual e muy parejo,
abés cabieladuenya _de gozo su pellejo.

189 Luegofuelevantando unos tan dulces sones,

doblas e debayladas, | temblantes semitones:

185 Apolonio did not wish to contradict the girl: he took

a viuela—he knew how to tune it well enough!

188 He raised his face a little towards the girl. She was a
little taken aback with embarrassment. He drew the bow in even
and similar strokes, and the princess was beside herself with
UR io

189 Immediately he played such sweet melodies, doblas e

debayladas, with quivering semitones . .

Specific details from the HISTORIA: None. In RA the performance of

Apollonius is described very briefly: Atque ita facto silentio ‘arripuit plectrum
animumque accomodans arti’. Miscetur vox cantu modulata cordis.
Lexical problems: All in 189b. The meaning of doblas e debayladas is obscure
(for the latter see the note on 179a above; see also Devoto, of. cit., p.313f).
On the basis of usage in Latin (and in Old and Middle French) dodlas might
be translated ‘in octaves’, and might then refer to the kind of effect that
would result from Jerome of Moravia’s fiddle-tunings with octave strings. A
connection with sixteenth-century Spanish redobles, ‘diminutions’ is also
possible. The temblantes semitones are a mystery (trills? vibrato?). The author
of the Libro de Alexandre mentions el plorant semiton in connection with
instrumental music, a usage which may be based upon the use ofplango in
contemporary Latin music-theory to denote the insertion of ficta semitone
adjustments into the musica recta gamut.
A further reference to fiddling and singing occurs when the dispossessed
daughter of Apolonio is earning her living as a minstrel. She takes her viola
to the market square:

Priso una viola _ buena e bien tenprada

esallid al mercado __ violar per soldada.

427 Comengo unos viesos _ e unos sones tales

que traien grant dulgor _e eran naturales.

170
 Appendix 3

428 Quando consu viola hovo bien solazado,

asabordelos pueblos _hovo asaz cantado....

... She took a fine viola that was well tuned and went to the
market to earn money by fiddling.

She began to perform words and music that were ‘natural’ and
very sweet ....

When she had well entertained the people with her viola and had
sung very much to their taste ....

Specific details from the HISTORIA: in both RA and RB the princess plays
the lira; the former mentions herfacundia sermonis, the latter her facundia oris.
Lexical problems: the pairing of viesos and sones in 427a recalls a troubadour
usage of the twelfth century (vers e./ so, ‘words and the music’), whence the
translation offered here. See also Devoto, of. cit., pp.295ff. On natural see the
note on 178b above. In the following the musician is again Tarsiana,
daughter of Apolonio:

movi0 en suo viola un canto natural,

coplas bien assentadas, _rimadas a senyal.
Bien entindié el rey que no lo fazie mal.

... She played a natural song on her viola with well-set

stanzas/verses with clear rhyme. The king [Apolonio] saw that
she did it by no means poorly.

Specific details from the HISTORIA: at this point in the Latin Tarsiana sings
a song whose text is given in full, but there is no reference to string-playing.
Lexical problems: the puzzling term natural makes another appearance. ‘In
a natural hexachord’? It is perhaps unwise to press for a technical intepret-
ation of this sort (see note on 178b above).
[6]

5 ¢cl250 Flamenca

Source: M.J.Hubert and M.Porter, eds, The Romance of Flamenca (Princeton,

1962).
bet
Appendix3

A great festivity at the court of Lord Archimbaud:

Li juglar comensan lur faula,

Son estrumen mena e€ toca
L’us e l’autres cantade boca. 317-19

The minstrels begin their narration; one brings up his

instrument and begins to play it while the other sings.

My translation assumes that /faula< fabula, and that this passage

describes the performance of accompanied narratives.

A further passage runs:

Apres si levon lijuglar:

Cascus se volc faire auzir.
Adone auziras retentir
Cordas de manta tempradura.
Qui saup novella violadura,
Ni canzo ni descort ni lais,
Al plus que poc avan si trais.
L’uns viola[I] lais de Cabrefoil,
E autre cel de Tintagoil;
L’us cantet cel dels Fins Amanz,
E Pautre cel que fes Ivans.
L’us menet arpa, |’autra viula;
L’us flatitella, autre siula;
L’us mena giga, l’autre rota;
L’us diz los motz e Pautrels nota... 593-607

After [the meal] the minstrels arise; each one wished

to make himself heard. There you would have heard strings
resounding in many tunings. He who knew some new fiddle-tune
or a canso or descort or lais pressed forward as best he could.
One plays the dai of Cabrefoil on the viola, and the
other the /ai of Tintagoil; one sang the /ai of the Fins
Amanz, and another the /ai which Yvain composed. One brought
the arpa, another the viwla; one plays the flaitella, and
another whistles; one brings the giga and another the
rota; one gives out the words and another puts the music
to them.

These are the opening lines of a remarkable passage in which the author
draws up a long list of heroes from Classical, biblical and Arthurian story,
all of whom are supposed to have figured in the songs sung by the minstrels
at the wedding of Lord Archimbaud and Flamenca. The mention of lais of
172
 Appendix 3

Cabrefoil, Tintagoil and Fins Amanz is surely designed to make the scene
recede into that mysterious and remote ‘Celtic’ past where so many of the
favourite stories of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are located, and to
give the passage a distinctively narrative, ‘French’ feel.
This long passage ends:

L’us diz lo vers de Marcabru,

L’autre comtet con Dedalus
Saup ben volar, e d’Icarus
Co[n] neguet per sa leujaria.
Cascus dis lo mieil[z] que sabia.
Per la rumor dels viuladors
E pel brug d’aitans comtadors,
Hac gran murmuri per la sala. 703-10

One sang the vers of Marcabrun, and another sang

of how Dedalus knew well how to fly, and of Icarus
who was drowned for his recklessness. Each one told
his tale to the limit of his skill. What with the hum
of the viula players and the noise of so many storytellers there
was a great noise in the hall.

Is there some relation between ‘the vers of Marcabrun’ and ‘the hum of the
viula players’?
The romance of Flamenca also contains a reference to the performance of a
dansa at court by two hundred fiddlers. No mention is made ofsinging (lines
716ff).
[1]
6 1318 Arnaut Vidal de Castelnaudary: Guilhem de la Barra

Source: P.Meyer, ed., Guillaume de la Barre, SATF (Paris, 1895), line 635.

A reference to minstrels with lors bals e lors esturmens. These bals are surely
identical with the bals described in nearby Toulouse by Guillem Molinier in
the Leys d’Amors (see item 17): instrumental dance-tunes to which words
could be added to make an instrumentally accompanied dance-song.
[1]

Troubadour lyrics
7 21149-21168 Peire d’Alvergne: Deiosta.ls breus jorns

Source: Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale MS fr.22543 (R) f-6r.

173
Appendix3

The second and final tornada of this poem begins:

Sest uers sabra son pes uiolar adrics

ques daluernhe...

‘Audrics will know how to fiddle this vers, I think, which is by [Peire]
d’Alvergne.’

Deiosta.ls breus jorns is preserved in ten manuscripts in addition to MS R,

and none of those which I have examined support R’s version of the first line
of the tornada. Since there seems no reason to privilege R’s reading it is
unlikely that the above represents Peire’s original text. Peire presumably
wrote something like this (A.del Monte, Peire d’Alvernhe : Liriche (Torino,
1959) 2p22):

En aquest vers sapcha vilans, Audrics,

que d’Alvergne manda c’om ses dompneis
no val ren plus que bels malvatz espics.

Audrics, through this song let every churl know that [Peire]
d’Alvergne claims that a man without a love-service to perform is
worth no more than a withered ear ofcorn.

The most that can be said is that one Provengal scribe of c1300 was
prepared to let a song by Peire d’Alvergne leave his desk with a call for
accompaniment contained in its final tornada.

8 ?1195-1207 Guillem Ademar: Chantan dissera si pogues

Source: Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale MS fr. 856 (C), f.163r.

This canso is preserved only in MS C where the second tornada reads:

Peironet ab nullet apren

lo uers a dir azaut e clar
que me fai albis sospirar
quar midons en mos bratz non tenc.

Peironet, learn to sing this song with nullet pleasingly and

with a clear voice, and say that Albi makes me sigh because I
have never held my lady in my arms.

The poem was first published by Appel (Provenzalische Inedita (Leipzig,

174
 Appendix 3

1890), pp.114—16) who tentatively proposed that the mysterious nullet might
be an error for *viulet, ‘small fiddle’ (he compares Middle French violete,
‘fiddle’). The opening lines of this tornada might then be translated:
‘Peironet, learn to sing this song with a small fiddle pleasingly and with a
clear voice ...’. Yet Middle French violete does not appear to be recorded
before the fifteenth century (Appel’s example is taken from the early
sixteenth-century chronicle of Philippe de Vigneulles), and viulet is not
attested in Old Provengal. K. Almqvist (Poésies du Troubadour Guilhem Adémar
(Uppsala, 1951), pp.116—17) retains the MS reading, construing nullet as
the name of a second minstrel (‘Little Nobody’, as it were) who is being
addressed together with Peironet.

9 1196 Senher n’Aymar, chauzes de tres baros

See above, pp.22-3.

Old Provencal prose

10 13c Vidas

Source: J.Boutiere and A.H.Schutz, Biographies des Troubadours, 2 ed. (Paris,

1973), pp. 252-4 (Elias Cairel), 311-13 (Pons de Capdoill) and 408—9
(Perdigo).

These celebrated ‘Lives’ of the troubadours account for 101 individuals,

roughly a quarter of the known troubadours. Most of the ‘Lives’ probably
date from the later thirteenth century. It is universally acknowledged that
these texts contain a great deal of romantic fiction, much of it based upon
the poems themselves rather than upon any external information.'*

Three troubadours in the Vidas are said to have been fiddlers:

Elias Cairel
fl. first decades of the 13c.
According to his Vida (version of MSS AIK): Elias Cairels ... fetz se joglars
... Mal cantava e mal trobava e mal violava e peichs parlava, e ben escrivia motz e sons,
‘Elias Cairel ... became a minstrel .... He sang badly and composed badly
and fiddled badly and spoke even worse, and wrote words and melodies
well.” MS H omits the reference to the fiddle and gives a different
assessment of Elias’s abilities (Boutiére/Schutz, p.254). The idea that Elias
was a minstrel may have been developed from his tenso N’Elias Cairel, de
l’amor (see H. Jaeschke, ed., Der Trobador Elias Cairel (Berlin, 1921), p.134).
175
Appendix 3

Pons de Capdoill
Pons appears in documents up to 1220.
According to his Vida Pons sabia ben trobar e violar e cantar ‘knew well how to
compose and to fiddle and to sing’. There is a passage in a poem by Pons
which may have given rise to this reference (Max von Napolski, ed., Leben
und Werke des Trobadors Ponz de Capduoill (Halle, 1879), p.52) where the poet
tells his lady that no music of instruments, including viwlas, ‘counts for
anything compared with the solace you can bring’.

Perdigo
fl. late 12c, early 13c.
According to his Vida Perdigo saup trop be violar e trobar ‘knew very well how
to fiddle and how to write songs’. This information is probably based upon
the partimen listed here as item 9.

Only 3 of the 101 troubadours commemorated in the Vidas are said to have
been fiddlers, but as the compilers of the Vidas often had little (or no)
information beyond what they could glean from a literal-minded reading of
the poems this is not a revealing figure. A third of the troubadours with
Vidas are said to have been joglars, and since instrumental skills were
fundamental to the livelihoods of most musical minstrels it is likely that
many troubadours could play an instrument of some kind (for the case of an
aristocratic troubadour who played the viola, unknown to the Vida
compilers, see item 13).

LP ise ha20s

Source: as for item 10, pp.465—6

The Razos, probably composed at about the same time as the Vidas,
explain the circumstances in which various troubadour songs were com-
posed (or the reasons why they were composed, which often amounts to the
same thing). One of the most famous is devoted to Kalenda maya by
Raimbaut de Vaqueiras (Music example 10), a poem apparently devised to
fit the melody of an estampie played by two French players of the viola
(aquesta stampida fu facta a las notas de la stampida qe.l jo[g]lars fasion en las
violas). The Razo text neither says nor implies that Raimbaut’s song was
performed to instrumental accompaniment.

Miscellaneous Latin sources

12 1171 Miracles of Our Lady of Roc-Amadour
176
 Appendix 3

Source: E.Albe, ed., Les Miracles de Notre-Dame de Roc-Amadour au XIle siécle

(Paris, 1907), pp.128ff.

An extract from a story telling how the Virgin caused a candle to light upon
the fiddle of a minstrel who played devoutly before her image at Roc-
Amadour. The story also appears in Gautier de Coinci’s Miracles de Nostre
Dame (item 37) and in the Cantigas de Santa Maria (Cantiga 8) of Alfonso el
Sabio. A related story ofa similar miracle at Arras crops up here and there,
the most interesting instance from the musical point of view being the
anonymous Dit des Taboureurs of the thirteenth century.'”

... Petrus Iverni, de Sigelar ... ex more veniens ad

ecclesias, post orationem quam Domino fundebat,
tangens cordas vidule, laudes Deo reddebat. Qui,
cum esset in basilica Beate Marie Rupis Amatoris,
diuque psallendo fidibus requiem nullam daret, sed
modulatis vocibus interdum instrumento concordans,
sursum respexit: ‘Domina, inquiens, si tibi vel filio
tuo Dominatori meo organica placent cantica ...

... Peter Iverni, from Sigelar . .. coming to churches

according to his custom, after the prayer which he
poured out to the Lord, gave praises to God touching
the strings ofhis fiddle. When he was in the church
of Saint Mary of Roc-Amadour he was hymning upon his
strings for a long time without rest, but harmonising
with musical notes on his instrument the while he raised
his eyes aloft, saying: “Lady Mary, if my playing pleases
you or the Lord your Son ....’

The crucial passage modulatis vocibus ... instrumento concordans presumably

means ‘harmonising with musical notes on his instrument’ (i.e. with vox in
its usual technical sense of‘note’). I assume that Peter is singing to his own
accompaniment.
[elements of 6]

13. cl211 Gervase of Tilbury : Otia Imperialia

Source: Shelagh Grier, The Otia Imperialia of Gervase of Tilbury: a critical edition
of Book III, with introduction, translation and commentary (D.Phil. Thesis,
University of York, 1981), 1, pp.232—-4.

This passage may be based upon an eye-witness report of a troubadour

performing. Gervase of Tilbury married a relative of Imbert d’Aiguieres,
177
Appendix 3

archbishop of Arles 1191-1202, and his marriage brought him the palatium
where the events which he describes here took place. Gervase’s mother-in-
law was probably the source of the story. Gervase was appointed marshall of
Arles by the emperor Otto IV (addressed in the parentheses below), but the
date of the appointment is unknown. He probably settled there in 1190. The
flamboyant protagonist of this story, Giraldus de Cabreriis, is probably the
Catalan troubadour Guiraut de Cabreira.!® >

XCII DE EQVO GIRALDI DE CABRERIIS

... Erat temporibus nostris in Catalonia miles
nobilissimis ortus natalibus, militia strenuus,
elegantia gratiosus, cui nomen Giraldus de
Cabreriis ... Erat miles in iuuentute sua, iocundus,
hylaris, musicis instrumentis plurimum instructus,
a dominabus inuidiose desideratus. In palatio nostro
(quod ex uestri munere uestraque gratia ad nos
rediit per sententiam curie imperialis, princeps
excellentissime, propter ius patrimoniale uxoris
nostre), in presentia pie memorie I!defonsi, illustris
regis quondam Aragonensis, et socrus nostre, que
singulari laude precellebat inter dominas sul
confinil, necnon in conspectu multorum procerum,
miles sepe dictus uiolam trahebat, domine chorum
ducebant, et ad tactum cordarum equus incomparabilibus
circumflexionibus saltabat.

CONCERNING THE HORSE OF GIRALDUS DE CABRERIIS

... There was in our own time a knight in Catalonia
of very high birth, dashing in warfare and gracious
in manners, whose name was Giraldus de Cabreriis .. ..
This knight was in the flush of youth, charming,
lively, highly skilled on musical instruments, and
madly desired by the ladies. In our palace (which
came into our possession as a result of your generosity
and kindness, by the ruling of the imperial court, Your
Excellency, in accordance with our wife’s right of
inheritance) in the presence of Alfonso of pious
memory, the late renowned king of Aragon, and our
mother-in-law, who excelled among the ladies of her
connection in her matchless repute, and in the
sight of many princes, too, the knight I have been
speaking of used to play the fiddle: the ladies led
the dance, and at a touch of the strings the horse
used to frolic with extraordinary capers.

Gervase does not say whether Guiraut (or the ladies for whom he played the
viola) sang as he played dance-music. In view of the conclusions reached in
178
 Appendix 3

Chapters 2—4 it is revealing that this unique glimpse of a troubadour

playing an instrument should reveal him as a fiddler of dance-music.
[elements of 6]

14 b.1215 Boncompagno da Signa: Rhetorica Antiqua

Source: L.Rockinger, ed., Briefsteller und Formelbiicher (Munich, 1863), p.163.

One of the most widely-circulated medieval treatises on the art of letter-

writing. A passage is devoted to letters of recommendation for various
minstrels (including a section on composers, inventores cancionum, which
praises the troubadour Bernart de Ventadorn). One recommendation for a
string-player, entitled De liratore vel symphonatore, asserts that the subject of
the letter nouit cantare cum lira et tangere mirabiliter simphoniam, ‘knows how to
sing with [play upon?] the lira and touch the simphonia most expertly’.

Treatises on poetry
15 end 13c_ 2Jofre de Foixa: Doctrina de Compondre Dictats

See above, pp.40ff.

16 1310 Francesco da Barberino: Liber Documentorum Amoris

Source: F.Egidi, ed., Francesco da Barberino Documenti d’Amore, 4 vols (Rome,

1905-27), 2, p.263.

Consonium antiquitus dicebatur omnis inventio

verborum que super aliquo caribo, nota, stampita, vel
similibus componebantur, precompositis sonis.

Consonium was the word used ofold to denote every

poetic composition devised to fit the pre-existing tune
of any caribo, nota, stampita or some similar melody.

This definition recalls the story of Raimbaut de Vaqueiras (item 11) and the
bals as described in the Leys d’Amors (see above, p.43). Barberino is
describing the practice of putting words to a pre-existing instrumental tune.

17. 1333-40 Guillem Molinier: Las Leys d’Amors (A)

See above, pp.40ff.

179
Appendix 3

18 4c ?first quarter Joan de Castellnou: Compendi

Source: J.M.Casas Homs, Joan de Castellnou Obras en Prosa, 1, Compendi de la

coneixenca dels vicis en els dictats del Gai Saber (1969), passim.

As far as instruments are concerned Joan de Castellnou’s treatise contains

the same material as the Leys d’Amors (both verse and prose redactions)
almost verbatim.

Ramon Llull
19 ¢l272 Ramon Llull: Libre de Contemplacio en Deu.

Source: Ramon Llull, Obres Essencials, 2 vols. (Barcelona, 1957 and 1960).

Llull spent many years at the University of Paris and must have known the
monophonic song-culture of both northern France and Occitania, together
with the largely Provengal-derived art of the Catalan troubadours.

Com hom se pren guarda de ¢o que fan los joglars

1 ...Lart, Senyer, de joglaria comeng¢a en vos a loar e en

vos a beneir; e per aco foren atrobats estruments, e voltes, e
lais e sons novells, ab que hom s’alegras en vos.

2 Mas segons que nosaltres veem ara, Sényer, en nostre temps

tota l’art de joglaria s’és mudada, car los homens qui
s’entremeten de sonar estruments e de ballar e de trobar, no
canten ni no sonen los estruments, ni no fan verses ni cancons
sino de luxuria e de vanitats d’aquest mon.

3 Aquells, Senyer, qui sonen los estruments e qui canten de

putaria e qui loen cantant aquelles coses qui no son dignes
d’ésser loades, aquells son maleits, per go com muden I’art de
joglaria de la manera per qué l’art s’atroba en lo
comen¢ament. E aquells, Senyer, son benauiriats qui en los
estruments ¢ en les voltes e.ls lais s’alegren e.s deporten en
la vostre laor e en la vostre amor e en la vostre bonea; car
aquells mantenen l’art segons ¢o per qué fo comengada.

5 Silos homens, Sényer, se prenien guarda de mal que.s

segueix per los joglars e per los trobadors, ni com lurs cantars
e lurs estruments contenen vils obres de poc profit,jano
serien los joglars ni.ls trobadors tan bé acollits ni tan bé
emparats com son.

180
 Appendix 3

6 Per los estruments que.|s joglars sonen, e per les novelles

raons que atroben e que canten, e per los novells balls que fan
e per les paraules que dien, és oblidada, Sényer, la vostre
bonea....

13 Forca e vertut, e sentetat, e granea, e benedicciéd e noblea

sia coneguda ésser en vos, senyer Déus, car molt he gran
desig que veés joglars vertaders qui loassen ¢o qui fa a loar e
blasmassen ¢o qui fa a blasmar; e encara he, Sényer, desig que
null hom no sabés trobar ne cantar ni sonar null estrument, si
doncs no era servidor e joglar de vera amor e de vera valor, e
que fos sotsmés e amador de veritat.

22 Senyor ver Déus, qui us encarnas en nostra dona sancta

Maria per tal que recreassets l’humanal linatge; nos veem,
Senyer, que los joglars ballen e canten e sonen estruments
davant los homens, per tal que ells moven a alegre e a plaer de
lur cantar e de lur ballar e dels estruments que sonen....

23 Silos joglars, Senyer, per art e per subtilea que han,

saben concordar la nota e.] ball e les voltes e.ls lais que fan
en los estruments, ab la nota que imagenen en lo cor, com pot
ésser aquesta meravella, Senyer, que ells no saben obrir lur
cor a loar-vos ...?

[In the following translation those Catalan terms whose precise meaning is
not obvious are inserted in square brackets after the English equivalent
which I have chosen for them. |

How one should be wary of the doings of minstrels

1 The art of minstrelsy, Lord, began in praising and in

glorifying you, and it was for that purpose that instruments
were invented, and dances [voltes] and songs [/ais] and new
melodies with which men rejoice in you.

2 But, as we may now see, Lord, in our time all the art of
minstrelsy is changed, for those who apply themselves to playing
upon instruments, to dancing and to composing neither sing, nor
play their instruments, nor compose poems or songs save on the
subject of lust and the vanity of this world.

3 Such minstrels, Lord, as play upon instruments and sing of

wantonness, praising in their singing such things as are not
worthy ofpraise; such are damned, for they pervert the art of
minstrelsy away from the purpose for which it was founded in
the beginning. But those minstrels, Lord, who rejoice and take
delight with their instruments, dances and songs in your praise,
18]
Appendix 3

love and goodness are blessed, for they preserve the art of
minstrelsy as it was first established.

5 If Mankind could only beware of, Lord, the evil which ensues
from minstrels and composers and how their songs and instruments
are wretched and useless things, then these minstrels and
composers would not be so readily welcomed and accepted as they
are.

6 Through the instruments that the minstrels play and the new
poems which they compose and sing, through the new dances that
they devise and the things which they say, your goodness is
forgotten, Lord....

13. Might and virtue, holiness, greatness and blessedness and

nobility may be known to be in you, Lord, for I greatly desire that
you might see true minstrels who praise those things which are to be
praised and decry those things which are to be decried; and I further
desire that no man should be able either to compose, sing, or play
any instrument if he be not a servant and minstrel of true love and
true worth, and a subject and lover of truth.

22 Lord, True God, who became incarnate in Our Lady Saint

Mary so that you might renew the race of Mankind! We see, Lord,
that minstrels dance, sing and sound instruments before men, so
that they move them to joy and pleasure with their singing and
dancing and with the instruments which they play ....

23 Since minstrels, Lord, through the art and skill which they
possess, can harmonise the music, dances [ball e les voltes] and
songs [lais] which they perform on their instruments with the music
which they imagine in their hearts, how does this wonder come
about that they do not know how to open their hearts to praise you
a)

Like the moralistic diatribes of every age, this one generalises and
exaggerates its subject. The language and tone of these passages do not
suggest that Llull is engaging with a specific musical milieu (that of Paris,
for example, or of Parma where he compiled the Libre de Contemplacié en Deu).
He twice refers to trobadors (section 5) and uses atrobar and trobar to denote
the art of composing songs (sections 2, 6 and 13), but this Provencal-derived
terminology does not establish that he is referring to such courtly or
sophisticated milieux of southern France and Catalonia as may have
fostered songs of the Old Provengal tradition during the last decades of the
thirteenth century. Llull mentions composition in these extracts because he
is concerned with the moral responsibilities of those who make music—both
of those who compose and of those who merely play. Within this scheme
trobador seems to mean little more than ‘composer’ in the most general sense.

182
 Appendix 3

Llull makes little attempt to distinguish joglars from trobadors. He does not
seem interested in drawing a moral distinction between them, and while he
employs trobador in the sense ‘composer’, he also speaks of joglars ‘who
compose and sing new poems’ (joglars ... per les novelles raons que atroben e que
canten ...). He is content to bundle together all the skills of musical
entertainers—composing, singing, playing instruments, dancing—and his
references to ‘minstrels and composers [with] their songs and instruments’
are perhaps too casual to be truly informative.

20 Libre de Meravelles

Source: as 19, 1, p.381.

Dementre que lo rei e la regina manjaven, joglars anaven

cantant e sonant estruments per la sala amunt e avall....

While the king and queen were eating, minstrels went to

and fro in the hall singing and playing their instruments ....

21) 21283-—5 Libre d’Evast e d’Aloma e de Blanquerna

Source: as 19, 1, pp.221 and 225-6.

Chapter 76 (p.221) tells how a cleric passed a tavern where there were many
rascals and wretches ‘who were drinking in the tavern, singing, dancing and
sounding instruments’ (los quals bevien en la taverna, e cantaven, e ballaven, e
sonaven estruments). He entered the tavern and began to dance with them,
singing a song about the Virgin Mary. Llull gives the text: a strophic song of
two stanzas (inc: A vs, dona verge santa Maria) with one tornada and
apparently without a refrain.

A further passage runs:

Esdevenc-se un jorn que dementre menjava un cardenal,

en sa cort venc unjoglar molt bé vestit e arreat,
e fo home de plaents paraules e bell de persona,
qui cantava e sonava esturments molt bé. Aquell
joglar havia nom Joglar de Valor .... Com lo cardenal
hac menjat, e lo joglar canta cancons e cobles
que l’emperador havia fetes de nostra dona santa Maria
e de valor, e sona esturments en los quals faia los
balls e les notes que |’emperador havia fetes a honor
de nostra Dona. Molt fo plaent a oir e a escoltar lo
joglar e sos esturments ....
183
Appendix 3

It happened one day that, while a certain Cardinal was dining,

there came to his court a minstrel who was very well arrayed and
adorned; he was a man ofpleasing speech and personable, and he
sang and played upon instruments very skilfully. This minstrel
was called ‘the Minstrel of Virtue’ .... When the Cardinal had
dined, the minstrel sang songs and poems which-the emperor had
composed in honour of Our Lady St Mary and ofvirtue, and he
sounded his instruments, playing the dal/s and tunes which the
emperor had made in honour of Our Lady. It was most pleasing to
hear this minstrel with his instruments ....

By associating instruments with a genre named balls Llull parallels the

evidence of Molinier’s Leys d’Amors (item 17) and Arnaut Vidal de
Castelnaudary’s Guilhem de la Barra (item 6). It is tempting to see this
account ofa minstrel performing pieces which ‘the emperor had composed
in honour of Our Lady St Mary’ as an allusion to the Cantigas de Santa Maria,
some of which were apparently composed by King Alfonso el Sabio of
Castile and Leon.

Sources from northern France

Verse narratives
Few of the following texts can be accurately dated and they are therefore
presented here in alphabetical, rather than chronological, order.

22 Ami et Amile

Source: P.F.Dembowski, ed., Ami et Amile (Paris, 1969), lines 2325-6. See
also above, pp.31ff and items 24 and 38.

Lubias and twelve of her knights go to hear mass at Mont St Michel with a
minstrel riding before them:

Devant li vait unsjouglers de Poitiers

Qui li vielle d’ammors et d’ammistié.

Before her goes a minstrel from Poitiers

Who fiddles for them of love and devotion.

In the romance of Guillaume de Dole by Jean Renart a famous song by the

troubadour Bernart de Ventadorn is described as a son Poitevin, where the

184
 Appendix 3

meaning would seem to be something approaching ‘a song from [?north-

west] Occitania’. The above passage may perhaps refer to an Occitanian
musician.
[6]

23 1268 Claris et Laris

See above, pp.84—5.

24 Doon de Nanteuil

Source: P.Meyer, ‘La chanson de Doon de Nanteuil: Fragments Inédits’,

Romania 13 (1884), p.21. See also above, pp.31ff. and items 22 and 38.

At a feast:

Lejor y ot tant rotes et vielle atrempée,

et chancons poitevines y ot mout distintées.

That day many a rote and vielle was tuned, and many a
changon poitevine was uttered.

On the meaning ofpoitevine, see item 22.

[E:5]

25 Dau vilain au buffet

Source: A. de Montaiglon and G.Raynaud, eds, Recueil Général et Complet des

Fabliaux des XIII et XIV’ Siecles, 3 (Paris, 1878), p.204.

L’uns fet livre, l’autres le sot,

Li uns chante, li autres note,
Et li autres dit la riote,
Et li autres la jenglerie;
Cil qui sevent dejouglerie,
Vielent par devant le conte....

One [minstrel] imitates a drunkard, another a half-wit,

one sings, another plays an instrument; one keeps up a flow
of patter, another ofribaldry; those who are skilled in
minstrelsy play their fiddles before the count....
185
Appendix 3

The line Li uns chante, li autres note (‘one sings, another plays an instrument’ )
seems to have been a stereotyped formula; compare Flamenca (item 5) line
607, and Joufroi de Poitiers:'’

Li uns note, li autre conte

[1]

26 13c Florence de Rome

Source: A Wallenskéld, ed., Florence de Rome, 2 vols (Paris, 1907 and 1909),
2 eDal2b.

Milon, son of the king of Hungary, and one of the persecuteurs of Florence of
Rome, is entertained whilst in prison:

Milles fut tot par lui, noblement comme sire,

En la plus haut tor que l’en peist eslire;
Fables et chansonettes la font devant lui dire,
Harper et vieller, conter romans et lire.

Milon was all alone in noble state like a lord,

in the highest tower that could be found; [his
captors] command stories and songs to be performed
before him, with music ofharpe and vielle, and reading
and relating of romances.

[elements mostly 1]

27 ?1230-40 Gautier de Tournai: Gille de Chyn

See above, p.30, and add:

La lor cantoit .I. son nouvel

Uns menestrex en la viele.

There a minstrel sang them a new song on the viele.

[6]

28 cl228 Jean Renart: Guillaume de Dole

See Chapter 3, passim.

186
 Appendix 3

29 ?cl1250 Hervis de Metz

See above, p.31.

30) ?mid-13c_ Latre perilleux

Source: B.Woledge, ed., L’atre perilleux (Paris, 1936), lines 6639-44.

Celebrations after the wedding of King Arthur and Guinevere (a familiar

setting: compare Wace, Brut, lines 10543ff and Chrestien de Troyes, Evec et
Enide, lines 1983ff):

Cil jougleour de pluisors terres

Cantent et sonent lor vieles,
Muses, harpes, orcanons,
Timpanes et salterions,
Gigues, estives et frestiaus
Et buisines et calemiaus.

Minstrels from many countries sing and play their vieles etc.
[1]

31 12c La chanson des quatre fils Aymon

Source: F.Castets, ed., La chanson des quatre filsAymon (Montpellier, 1909).

Grant joie i ot le jor el palais honoré;

Asses i ont vallet et chanté etjoé.... 1765-6

There was great rejoicing that day in the noble palace; the valets
both sang and played there aplenty ....

Old French narrative poets occasionally mention singing and playing in

the same breath—usually, as here, with casual syntax which suggests that
they had no more precise meaning in mind than is captured in the above
translation (compare La Prise de Cordres et de Sebille 2097—8: Cant ot mangié cil
chevalier nobile/ Jugleor chantent et vielent et tinbrent).'®
[1]
An army of Christian knights makes merry to the astonishment of
Saracens camped nearby:

Lor loges an covrirent et par tot alumerent.

Puis dancent anviron, de bon quer [quarolerent];
187
Appendix 3

Li jugleor viellent, li harpeor harperent,

Li donzel anvoissi par de devant chanterent. 15766—9

They covered their quarters and lit candles everywhere.

Then they dance around them and [caroled] in high spirits;
the minstrels fiddle, the harpers played their harps,
and the light-hearted young squires sang before the tents.
[elements of 2 and 3:4]

32 Messire Thibaut: Le Roman de la Poire

Source: F.Stehlich, ed., Messire Thibaut, Li Romanz de la Poire (Halle, 1881),

lines 1140-1.

During a great celebration:

Cil jongleor en lor vieles

Vont chantant cez chanc¢ons noveles.

The minstrels go singing [playing?] new songs on their

vieles.

[1]

33 Gerbert de Montreuil: Le Roman de la Violette

Source: D.L.Buffum, ed., Le Roman de la Violette ou de Gerart de Nevers, SATF

(Paris, 1928), 1400ff.

The following passage has often been cited as firm evidence that the ability
to accompany oneself on an instrument was regarded as an exceptional skill
during the Middle Ages.'®
The immediate narrative context of the extract is as follows. The hero of
the romance, Gerart de Nevers, returns to Nevers disguised as a minstrel to
see how things stand now that the traitor Lisiart is installed there. Gerart is
shown into the hall and called upon to fiddle. He is wet and exhausted from
travelling and so replies that he would gladly warm himself and eat before
he performs. ‘To the devil with your hesitation!’ sneers Lisiart. Hearing this,
Gerart springs forward and begins tuning his viele, complaining that a
minstrel’s life is a hard one, for the more cold and miserable he is, the more
often his masters command him to sing and sit in a draught. In Buffum’s
edition his plaint continues as follows:
188
 Appendix 3

‘Faire m’estuet, quant l’ai empris,

Chou dontje ne sui mie apris:
Chanter et vieler ensamble.’
Lors commencha, si com moi samble,
Con chil qui molt estoit senés,
Un ver de Guillaume au court nes,
A clere vois et a douch son:
Grans fu la cours en la sale a Loon [etc.]

‘Since I have undertaken it I must do that which I am not at

all taught to do: sing and play the viele together.’
Then, as it seems to me, he began a laisse from [the
chanson de geste| of Guillaume au court nez, like one who was
well-skilled in such matters, with a clear voice and a sweet
sound [a laisse of 22 lines follows].

It is this version of the text which has been cited as evidence that self-
accompaniment (or, at least, self-accompaniment with a viele) was regarded
as an advanced skill in the thirteenth century. Yet why should Gerart say
(whether to the company or himself) that he cannot sing and fiddle at the
same time? A glance at the Old French text shows that choice of
punctuation may have a decisive effect upon the meaning of this passage,
and since the two earliest manuscripts of the romance have no punctuation
at this point, we are free to experiment.” A period after apris in the second
line alters—indeed reverses—the sense:

‘Faire m’estuet, quant l’ai empris,

Chou dontje ne sui mie apris.’
Chanter et vieler ensamble
Lors commencha, si com moi samble,
Con chil qui molt estoit senés,
Un ver de Guillaume au court nes,
A clere vois et a douch son.

‘Since I have undertaken it I must do that which I am not at

all taught to do.’ Then, as it seems to me, he began to both
sing and fiddle a laisse from [the chanson de geste] of
Guillaume au court nez, like one who was well-skilled in
such matters, with a clear voice and a sweet sound.

Here the implication that it is difficult to sing and fiddle at the same time
has vanished; when Gerart says he must do something ‘which I am not at all
taught to do’ he now seems to be saying in a covert way that he is not a
minstrel but a count, forced for a moment to act as a minstrel— Chou dontje
ne sui mie apris.
189
Appendix 3

And there is one further possibility. One of the four MSS of Le Roman de la
Violette (Buffum’s MS C of the early fifteenth century) gives a text in which
the third and fourth lines of the extracts quoted above are transposed.’
Here is Buffum’s text with the transposition made:

‘Faire m’estuet, quant l’ai empris, :

Chou dontje ne sui mie apris.’
Lors commencha, si com moi samble,
Chanter et vieler ensamble....

‘Since I have undertaken it I must do that which I am not at

all taught to do.’ Then he began, so it seems to me, to
fiddle and sing at the same time....

With this transposition—which may possibly represent the authentic

text?’ the reference to Gerard’s difficulty in fiddling and singing together
seems to vanish. For the practice of self-accompaniment by fiddlers, see
items 12 and 46.
[6]

34 Le Roman des Sept Sages

Source: J.Misrahi, ed., Le Roman des Sept Sages (Paris, 1933), lines 697-8.

An emperor’s triumphal return:

Li jougleour vont vielant

Et les borjoises karolant ... .

The minstrels go fiddling and the townswomen carolling ...

[2]

35 Le Roman du Comte de Poitiers

Source: B.Malmberg, ed., Le Roman du Comte de Poitiers (Lund, 1940), lines

1364-5.

A description of a festivity at court. According to a common pattern in such

descriptions the young squires busy themselves with fencing and similar
sports, the old men play chess, and the young girls entertain themselves
with dancing:
190
 Appendix 3

Avec le deduit des puceles

Estoit li dous sons des vieles.

With the diversions of the girls was the sweet sound of

fiddles.

Probably a reference to dance-music, perhaps dance-songs (compare

Appendix 2, 2:8—9).”8

36 Les Deux Bourdeurs Ribauds

Source: E.Faral, ed., Mimes Francais du XIII’ siécle (Paris, 1910), p.101.

The poem mocks the stereotyped and boastful patter of professional

minstrels:

Ge suijugleres de viele;
Si sai de muse, et de fretele,
Et de harpe, et de chifonie,
De la gigue, de l’armonie:
Et el salteire et en la rote
Saije bien chanter une note. 29—34

I am a minstrel of the vzele; I know how to play

the muse, the fretele, the harpe, the chifonie,
the gigue and the armonie: and I know how to sing
a melody well on the salteire and rote.

37 cl218—-1236 Gautier de Coinci: Les Miracles de Nostre Dame

Source: V.F.Koenig, ed., Les Miracles de Nostre Dame par Gautier de Coinct, 4
vols (Geneva and Lille, 1955-70).

Gautier de Coinci was a trained musician and a keen observer of secular

song-styles. Several of the lyric insertions in Les Miracles de Nostre Dame are
witty and perceptive parodies of contemporary genres such as the pastourelle.
One of these lyric insertions begins:

Ma viele
Vieler vieut un biau son
De la bele
Qui seur toutes a biau non,
19]
Appendix 3

En cui Diex devenir hom

Vout jadis,
Dont chantent en paradis —
Angle et arcangle a haut ton.
III, p.300, 1-8

My viele wishes to play a new melody about the beautiful one

whose reputation exceeds all others in fairness, in whom
God long ago wished to become a man, of which angels and
archangels sing with loud voice in Paradise.

It is tempting to construe the first two lines of this poem as a call for
instrumental (specifically fiddle) accompaniment. But there is another
reason why Gautier may have wished to name the viele twice in these eight
lines. In the preface to the first book of the Miracles he proclaims:

Or veil atant traire ma lire

Et atemprer veil ma viele,
Si chanterai de la pucele
Dont li prophete tant chanterent ....
I, p.22, 56-9.

Now I wish to take up my Jive forthwith, and I shall tune my

viele; I will sing of the maiden of whom the prophets
have sung so often....

Here, once again, is Gautier invoking his viele, and we scarcely need the
signal provided by the word lire in the first line of the extract to realise that
Gautier is drawing upon more than a millennium of Latin literary tradition
in which literate poets present themselves as string-playing bards. Whence
Statius:

... nunc tendo chelyn satis arma referre

Aonia et geminis sceptrum exitiale tyrannis ....

Now I tune my lyre only for the singing of Aonian arms and
of the sceptre fatal to both tyrants .... (Thebaid, 1:33—4)

Whence also the poeticisms, which abound in medieval Latin verse,

whereby a ‘lyre plectrum’ stands for the poet’s tongue or his pen, and
playing (or tuning) the lyre becomes a high-style periphrasis for ‘writing
poetry’.
Yet there is another layer of meaning in Gautier’s announcement that he
will ‘tune his fiddle’ to sing of the Virgin: the layer of Christian biblical

192
 Appendix 3

commentary whereby the stringed instruments mentioned in the psalms

were allegorically related to aspects of Christian spirituality. [Oratio] est lyra
nostra—‘prayer is our lyre’, says St Jerome in his commentary upon the
psalms, and the idea is common enough in medieval Latin hymnody:**

Lyra laudis formet sonum,

Laudet Blasium patronum,
Nec obstet desidia.

One passage in the Miracles reveals how imagery such as this lay close to
the surface of Gautier’s mind. Having recounted the miracle of the candle
which descended onto a minstrel’s viele at Roc-Amadour (cf. item 12) he
emphasises the importance of inner as well as outward effort in the per-
formance of devotional music by ‘our priests, cantors, clerics and monks’:

... quant la bouche bien s’esforce,

Li cuers se doit si resforcier
Et si les cordes renforcier
De sa viele et si estendre
Que li clers sonz sanz plus atendre
Au premier mot s’en voist et mont
Em paradys lassus amont.
Lors est a Dieu leur chancons bele.
Mais pluiseur ont tele viele
Qui tempre et tart est destempree
Se de fort vin n’est atempree.
IV, p.184, 220-30.

... when the mouth is working hard the heart should so

strive, and so press upon the strings ofits viele, and so
tune them up, that with the first word the bright sound
ascends without delay to Paradise. Then their singing is
pleasing to God. But there are many [liturgical singers] who
have such a viele that will go out of tune all the time
unless it is tuned up with strong wine.

Here liturgical singers are presented figuratively as fiddlers whose viele is

their heart. For Gautier, therefore, the viele is an emblem both of the poetic
muse (atemprer veil ma viele) and of Christian spirituality and communication
with God. To return to the lyric Ma viele: when Gautier announces that his
viele wishes to play a new song I take him to mean that his Christian
devotion and his poetic muse (two aspects ofhis art that he would surely not
have distinguished in these terms) are newly inspired.
Gautier’s telling of the Roc-Amadour miracle incorporates several
references to simultaneous singing and fiddling by the minstrel-hero of the
tale, Pierre de Sygelar:
193
Appendix 3

La viele prent de rechief,

Vers l’ymage lieve ie chief,
Si chante si bien et viele
N’est sequence ne kyriele
Quescoutissiez plus volentiers,
IV, p-178, 77-oU

... $a chancon, sa melodie

Recommencié a de rechief

La bouche chante et li cuers eure.

ibid. p.180, 122—3; 128.

He takes his viele again and raises his eyes towards the
statue [of the Virgin]; he sings and fiddles so well that
there is no sequence or kyrie that you would have heard more
gladly ... he began once more his song and his music . . . his
mouth sings and his heart rejoices.

38 soon after 1233 Huon de Meri: Le Torneiment Anticrist

Source: M.O.Bender, ed., Le Torneiment Anticrist by Huon de Meri (University

of Mississippi, 1976), p.71.

After a feast:

Cil jougleor en pes esturent;

S’unt vieles e harpes prises:
Changons, lais, sons, vers e reprises
E de geste chanté nous ont.
Li chevalier Antecrist font
Le rabardel par grant deduit.
Li autres Antecrit deduit
En sons gacons et aveirgnas.

Li chevalier, tuit se coucherent.

Cil jougleur lur vielerent
Por endormir sons poitevins.
482-9; 493—5

The minstrels rose to their feet and took up vieles and

harpes, then they sang us changons, lais, sons, vers,
reprises and chansons de geste. The knights of Antichrist
dance the rabardel with great delight; another entertains
Antichrist with melodies from Gascony and the Auvergne....
194
 Appendix 3

The knights all went to bed. The minstrels fiddled Poitevin

melodies for them to help them sleep.
(i

39 =Macaire

Source: M.Guessard, ed., Macaire, Les Anciens Poétes de la France (Paris,

1866), lines 58-61.

This French chanson de geste survives only in a Franco-Italian version:

La centil dame estoit en son vercer,

Cun mante dame s’estoit a deporter;
Si se fasoit davanti soi violer,
E una cang¢on e dir e canter.

The noble lady [the wife of Charlemagne] was in her

orchard and was entertained with many other ladies; she
commanded the fiddle should be played before her and that a
song should be sung.

[6]

Music theorists
40 1274 Elias of Salomon: Scientia Artis Musice

Source: Gerbert, Scriptores, 3, p.61.

On the ways in which musica falsa can arise:

Quarto accidit ob defectum et negligentiam boni musici,

qui quando videt falsam notam, non corrigit, nec redigit
in luculentam notam et concordem. Item incidit in
contagionem falsae musicae, quicumque plangit F. vel G.,
c. vel d. quae nullo modo debent neque patiuntur plangi,
ut in palmae natura et figura continetur .... Et hoc contingit
in pluribus, quia ignorans cantor ignorat scientiae naturam,
quam potest videre in palma, et habilitare vocem suam ad
cantandum cantum, qui cum instrumento ligneo, cum viella
optime, cantaretur.

[ Musica falsa] arises in a fourth way from the failure and

negligence of agood musician who, when he sees a false
195
 Appendix 3

note, does not correct it or bring it back to beauty and

concordance. Again, he falls into the contagion of musica
falsa who puts a semitone between F or G, or ¢c or d which
should never have a semitone placed between them so that
[the music] may be contained within the form and content of
the [Guidonian] hand .... And this arises in many instances,
because an ignorant singer does not know the nature of the
learning that he can see in the hand, nor can he adjust his
voice to singing a song which should be sung with a
wooden instrument—with a viella best ofall.

It seems that instrumentally-accompanied cantus is involved here, but what

is this cantus and what kind of musician is meant by cantor? The music may
be secular song of some sort (since it is instrumentally-accompanied), but it
is conceivable that Elias is referring to forms of para-liturgical chant akin to
certain types of secular song (hymns, perhaps, or sequences). The cantores in
question are presumably clerical singers of some kind with a duty (not
always discharged) to learn the Guidonian hand, but Elias may be using the
term cantor to cover all musicians without formal training. As for the music
involved, whatever it may be, it is difficult to understand why it should be
sung with a musical instrument, best of all with a viella. Is it because that is
the most artistic kind of performance for the music invoked? Because singers
liable to make errors in the placing of semitones can sing correctly when
accompanied by an instrument?

41 cl300 Jerome of Moravia: Tractatus de Musica

See above, pp.64ff.

42 1300 Johannes de Grocheio: De Musica

Source: E.Rohloff, ed., Die Quellenhandschriften zum Musiktraktat des Johannes de

Grocheio (Leipzig, 1972).

In describing the musical forms used by the Parisians of his day Grocheio
distinguishes two kinds of music made by the human voice, cantus and
cantilena, each with three sub-divisions:

CANTUS
cantus gestualis
cantus coronatus
cantus versualis

CANTILENA
rotunda vel rotundellus

196
 Appendix 3

stantipes
ductia

We shall return to the meanings of these terms; what matters here is

Grocheio’s statement that accomplished fiddlers normally include all of
these musical forms in their repertory:

Bonus autem artifex in viella omnem cantum et cantilenam

et omnem formam musicalem generaliter introducit. (p.136)

A good fiddler generally performs every

kind of cantus and cantilena, and every musical form.

What are these vocal forms which any good fiddler can generally perform?
To begin with the cantilena group:

CANTILENA
rotunda vel rotundellus
stantipes
ductia

Each genre in this group has a refrain (Responsorium vero est, quo omnis cantilena
incipit et terminatur). Within the group the terms rotunda and rotundellus seem
to have both a general and a precise sense: Grocheio says that some people
use these two words to denote any cantilena, whereas ‘we’ (presumably the
Parisians of his day) confine the terms rotunda and rotundellus to a refrain-
song having the same melody for its refrain as for its verses: a description
which fits the rondeau. The stantipes, to judge by its name, is an estampie.
The ductia is described as a choric dancing-song, light and brisk.
The identification of the three kinds of cantus poses a delicate problem.

CANTUS
cantus gestualis
cantus coronatus
cantus versualis

The cantus gestualis is certainly the epic narrative, or chanson de geste. But what
of the cantus coronatus and the cantus versualis? Van der Werf has proposed that
Grocheio’s account of these types is so imprecise as to be almost useless, but
this is a harsh judgement.” Let us look again at what the theorist has to say:

Cantus coronatus ab aliquibus simplex conductus dictus

est. Qui propter eius bonitatem in dictamine et cantu
a magistris et studentibus circa sonos coronatur, sicut
gallice Ausi com l’unicorne vel Quant li roussignol. Qui
etiam a regibus et nobilibus solet componi et etiam coram
ty
Appendix 3

regibus et principibus terrae decantari, ut eorum animos

ad audaciam et fortitudinem, magnanimitatem et liberalitatem
commoveat, quae omnia faciunt ad bonum regimen. Est enim
cantus iste de delectabili materia et ardua, sicut de
amicitia et caritate, et ex omnibus longis et perfectis efficitur. (p.130)
.

Cantus versualis est, qui ab aliquibus cantilena dicitur

respectu coronati et ab eius bonitate in dictamine et
concordantia deficit, sicut gallice Chanter m’estuet quar
ne m’en puis tenir, vel Au repairier que je fis de
Prouvence. Cantus autem iste debet iuvenibus
exhiberi, ne in otio totaliter sint reperti. .. . (p.132)

The cantus coronatus is called a simple [i.e. monophonic]

conductus by some, which is crowned amongst musical
compositions by masters and students on account of
its excellence in text and music, examples being the
French songs Ausi com l’unicorne or Quant li roussignol.
It is customarily composed by kings and nobles and
usually performed before kings and princes of the land
so that their minds may be moved to boldness, hardiness,
magnanimity and liberality, all of which things are
conducive to good government. This kind of song deals
with pleasing and demanding themes such as friendship
and love, and it is entirely made from perfect longs.

The cantus versualis is called by some a cantilena with

respect to the cantus coronatus, for it lacks its
excellence in poetry and concord, examples being
the French song Chanter m’estuet quar ne m’en puis
tenir, or Au repairier que je fis de Prouvence. This kind of
song should be performed for young people, so that
they may not fall completely into idleness. . .

These definitions are clear and coherent if we think in terms of the register of
the songs involved. A survey of Grocheio’s description of song-forms
suggests that two registrations underlie what he has to say, and I shall call
them the cantilena register and the cantus register. The cantilena register is the
lower, for it is associated
(1) with the refrain (all of Grocheio’s cantilene have refrains);
(2) with dance (although Grocheio only mentions dancing with reference
to the ductia, we know from other sources that the rondeau and estampie,
Grocheio’s other cantilene, were often used for dancing, though this may
not have been Parisian practice);
(3) with the entertainment of the young (this is specified for all Grocheio’s
cantilene).
198
 Appendix 3

In contrast the cantus register is higher (at least as far as it embraces lyric
rather than the narrative cantus gestualis, or epic), because it is headed by the
cantus coronatus, a kind of song which Grocheio validates in almost every
possible way:
(a) its music and poetry are excellent;
(b) it deals with delightful but demanding subject-matter (de delectabili
materia et ardua);
(c) it is normally composed by the highest in the land and
(d) it is usually performed for them;
(e) it does not have a refrain (all the cantilene do);
(f) it is not associated with young people.

This lyric registration may be represented diagrammatically:

Cantilena register Cantus register

rondeau cantus coronatus

ductia cantus versualis
estampie

refrain no refrain (or at least

refrain is not a crucial
signal of this register)

composers not cantus coronatus

mentioned associated with royal and
noble composers

performed for/by cantus coronatus performed

the young for royalty and nobles
but cantus versualis should
be performed by/for the
young

not associated with cantus coronatus deals with

any special subject material which is
matter delightful yet demanding

associated with dance no reference to dance

(only ductia is explicitly
associated with dance in
the treatise)

There is a differentiation within the cantus register, for the cantus coronatus is
clearly superior to the cantus versualis. The cantus versualis (a) lacks the
excellence of the cantus coronatus in text and concord (?music ?rhyme),”° and
is (b) performed for the diversion of the young rather than for the
199
Appendix 3

delectation of the great. We can now see that this last comment about the
proper audience for ihe cantus versualis is a suggestive one once we have
understood Grocheio’s sense of lyric registration; in his terms, to say that a
song should be performed for the young is equivalent to saying that its
registration has a tendency to sink towards the cantilena register where every
type of lyric is performed for the young. Hence Grocheio is being perfectly
consistent—pace Van der Werf—when he says that the cantus versualis is
called a cantilena by some persons.”’
What, then, are the cantus coronatus and the cantus versualis? The cantus
coronatus has been repeatedly linked with the handful of songs in trouveére
manuscripts which are marked with a crown or with the words changon
couronnée, and with the practice of the Puis whereby the composers of
winning songs were crowned and their songs copied down with an
appropriate marking.*® Yet while there is no doubt that such prize-songs
were often called changons couronnées, this term also appears in certain texts
where the meaning ‘a prize-winning song at a Pui’ seems somewhat out of
the way. When the thirteenth-century theorist Anonymous 2 says that
musica falsa is used ‘for the sake of beauty, as in cantinellis coronatis’, it seems
unlikely that he is referring to prize-songs;”’ no doubt winning songs were
often successful because they were judged to have more musical beauty than
their competitors, but can such winning songs have been so markedly
characterised by their use of semitone adjustments that a music theorist
could hold them up as a telling example of musica ficta? Surely Anonymous
2 must be referring to some broader category?
The same may be said of two further literary references to the chancon
couronnée, both of which appear to have gone unnoticed up to now:

(1) In the anonymous Complainte Douteuse of the thirteenth century a lover

announces that he will sing iceste changon coronee as a message to his lady, and
one stanza of an (otherwise unknown) song follows, beginning Paine d’amors e
li maus que jen trai.°°

(2) In the Anglo-Norman Geste de Blancheflour e de Florence the poet enters a

garden and hears a variety of musical instruments (a conventional motif in
love-gardens) together with the chaunceon corounée.>!

Surely these two poets—and Anonymous 2—are referring to a certain

genre of song, rather than to certain individual songs distinguished by the
happy fate of having won a competition? This genre of song must surely be
the grand chant courtois, as the examples of cantus coronatus cited by Grocheio
suggest (one a song of Thibaut de Navarre, and the other perhaps the lyric
Quant li roussignol attributed to the Chastelain de Couci and to Raoul de
Ferriéres).*? In other words, cantus coronatus/chancon couronnée in its general
sense was a thirteenth-century term for distinguishing the most elevated and
excellent form of trouvére song.
200
 Appendix 3

What, then, is a cantus versualis? 1 suggest that this is Grocheio’s term for
songs which did not aim at the highest quality (or did not achieve it), yet
which belonged above the cantilena register. In other words the distinction
between cantus coronatus and cantus versualis was not so much a formal contrast
as an aesthetic one for Grocheio: a cantus versualis was simply not as excellent
as a cantus coronatus when viewed in terms of style, content, characteristic
milieu, function and ethos—in terms of register. Small wonder, then, if
modern scholars comparing Grocheio’s examples of the cantus coronatus and
the cantus versualis have been unable to discern significant differences
between them. Is our understanding of thirteenth-century taste in love-lyric
so fine that we can reconstruct the judgements of contemporaries as to what
made a poem excellent as opposed to merely fine? Jean de le Mote’s Le
Parfait du Paon gives us some idea of what was involved in judging a song’s
claim to be a changon couronnée during the lifetime of Grocheio: one had to
watch for little faults in the use of language (faus ronmant), momentary
tautologies (redicte en sens), failures to achieve the true High-Style of the best
courtly lyric (Li mot ne sont pas haut mes il sont bien plaisant) and so on.°* These
may well be some of the criteria which Grocheio has in mind when he says
that the cantus versualis lacks the excellence of the cantus coronatus in ‘text and
concord’. The songs which he cites as examples of each genre may look more
or less alike to us, but it does not follow thereby that Grocheio had no valid
reason for distinguishing them in the way that he does.

Treatises on confession or on the vices and virtues

43 cl216 Thomas de Chobham: Summa Confessorum

Source: F. Broomfield, ed., Thomae de Chobham Summa Confessorum (Paris and

Louvain, 1968), p.292.

The strongest manuscript tradition gives this work to Master Thomas of

Chobham (Surrey), who is sometimes described simply as sub-dean,
sometimes sub-dean of Salisbury. Yet although this manual for confessors
was probably compiled by an Englishman and in England, Chobham’s
account of minstrels (from which the following excerpt is taken) ese
passages in other manuals, some of which are probably French.? * His
immediate source was probably Peter the Chanter’s Summa de Sacramentis,°°
but the following passage on instrumentalists who perform secular songs
does not seem to have a counterpart in Peter’s Summa.

De histrionibus

.. Est etiam tertium genus histrionum qui habent

instrumenta musica ad delectandum homines, sed
- talium duo sunt genera. Quidam enim frequentant
201
Appendix 3

publicas potationes et lascivas congregationes

ut cantent ibi lascivas cantilenas, ut moveant
homines ad lasciviam, et tales sunt damnabiles....

Concerning minstrels

... There is also a third kind of minstrels who

use musical instruments to delight their hearers,
but there are two kinds of these. Some frequent public
drinking-places and wanton gatherings so that they
may sing lecherous songs there to move the minds of
men to lechery, and these are damnable... . [the second kind
of minstrel with instruments comprises those who sing
of the lives of saints and of the deeds of magnates |

44 b1249/50 Guillaume Peyraut: Summa de Vitiis et Virtutibus

Source: Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Lyell 12 (English, late 13c), f.32r.

De auditu cantilenarum

Sequitur de auditu cantilenarum amatoriarum et

turpiloquiorum et instrumentorum musicorum. Auditus
cancionum valde timendus est. Unde Ecclesiasticus .ix.
ubi sic legitur: cum saltatrice ne scis assiduus
nec audias illam ne forte pereas in efficacia illius.
Ad auditum turpiloquiorum possumus referre quod dicit
apostolus: corrumpunt bonos mores colloquia prava.

Musica eciam instrumenta multum sunt timenda. Frangunt enim

corda hominum et emolliunt et ideo per verbum Sapientis
essent frangenda.

Concerning listening to songs.

Here follows a section on listening to songs of

love, to unclean words and to musical instruments.
Listening to songs is an activity which is greatly
to be feared. Whence Ecclesiasticus 9[:4] where it
says: ‘do not cultivate the company ofa
dancing-girl, and do not listen to her, lest you
may perish through her charms’. As far as concerns
listening to unclean words we have the testimony ofthe
Apostle [I Cor. 15:33]: ‘corrupt speech destroys good
morals’.

202
 Appendix 3

Musical instruments are also much to be feared. They

break and soften the hearts of men; therefore let them
be shattered according to the word of Solomon.

Peyraut’s use of Ecclesiasticus 9:4 (‘Do not cultivate the company of a

dancing-girl’) shows that, like many moralists of the thirteenth century, he
associates the morally damaging effects of love-songs with the public
dances, or coreae, often held on liturgical feast-days and frequently per-
formed in churchyards. Peyraut is giving us, in other words, the moralist’s
perspective on the kind of festivity described by Johannes de Grocheio: the
occasions when ‘girls and young men in festivals and in great gatherings’
performed refrain forms—often for dancing—such as the rondeau Toute sole
passerai le vert boscage and the ductia beginning Chi encor querez amoretes. Peyraut
clearly thinks of instrumental music as something to be condemned in the
same breath, together with the ‘unclean words’ (turpiloquia) which countless
medieval moralists associate with these public dances. For the possibility
that the dance-songs performed on these occasions were sometimes
instrumentally accompanied, which may be implied here, see the following
passage and items 45-8.
In a long section on coreae, full of references to contemporary life, Peyraut
recounts the story told in Gregory’s Dialogues of a man who appeared before
the door of a rich lord, leading an ape and playing cymbals as he cried: ‘alas!
alas! this unfortunate is dead.’*° When the rich man left his house later that
day he was killed. Peyraut comments:

Quale est hoc nisi hominem morti condempnatum cum

choreis et instrumentis musicis ad tormentum suum
ire? Ad mortem suam cantando et letando vadunt qui
choreas ducunt.

What is this if not a man condemned to go to his death

with dancing and with the sound of musical instruments?
Those who lead choreae go singing and rejoicing to their
death.

45 1231-6 Guillaume d’Auvergne: De Universo

Source: Guillaume d’Auvergne, Opera Omnia (Venice, 1591), II, p.704.

[From a section concerning the possibility that there may be dances

(choreae) in the after-life]:

Vides insuper viros, et mulieres, per gaudijs huiusmodi

dissilientes, strepentes, saltantes, et sonis cantilenarum
aut musicorum instrumentorum quam possunt effigiatione
motuum concordare conantes.
203
Appendix 3

You see, moreover, men and women leaping with

the joy they find in this kind ofsport [1.e. dancing in
choreae|, making a clamour, springing, wishing to
fit the form of their movements to the music of
songs, or of musical instruments, to the best of their
ability.
.

46 Guillaume d’Auvergne: De Viciis et Peccatis

Source: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 281 (Canterbury, first half of

the Ibe} fe 13 9rev-

[On human skills that involve many faculties at the same time]:

Similiter se habet in citharizante seu viellante qui

simul et movet pollicem et digitos multos et tangit
nervos cum archu movens archum multipliciter, audit
etiam sonos multos simul ut sciret quam consonanciam
resonarent, cantat et ore proprio et gesticulatur toto
corpore.

It is the same for him who plays the cithara or the

fiddle: at the same time he moves his thumb and many
fingers, touching the gut-strings with the bow and
moving the bow in many different ways; also, he hears
many sounds at the same time so that he may know what
consonance they are producing; and moreover he sings
with his own mouth and moves with his whole body.

This is a clear reference to self-accompaniment by fiddler or (?) harpist. The

passage seems worth including here not only because of the unambiguous
reference which it contains to instrumental accompaniment of the voice but
also for the evidence it provides that string-players, specifically fiddlers,
sometimes accompanied themselves (compare items 12 and 33).

47 Albertus Magnus: Commentary upon the Sentences of Peter Lombard

Source: A. Borgnet, ed., Beati Alberti Magni Opera Omnia, 29 (Paris, 1894),
p.023:

In the celebrated Sentences of Peter Lombard there is a brief discussion of the

Sacrament of Penance which enjoins that penitents should absent them-
selves from all kinds of entertainments (4:xvi). In his commentary upon this

204
 Appendix 3

section Albertus marshals Scriptural and patristic authorities which both

support and contradict the Lombard’s ruling, then offers the solutio from
which the following extract is taken:

Responsio. Dicendum, quod choreae et hujusmodi ludi,

sive flant cantu, sive instrumentis r.usicis, secundum
se non sunt mali, sicut ultimo per auctoritates probatum
BS eter

Solution. It is to be said that choreae and games

of this kind, whether they be done with song or with
musical instruments, are not evil when judged according
to their own natures, as has just been proved by the
authorities cited. ...

48 12c Honorius Augustodunensis: Gemma Anime

Source: PL 172, cols. 587—8 (compared with Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS

Bodley 196 (English, c1300), f.42r).

An extract from a chapter entitled De choro (i.e. the liturgical choir and its
arrangement). Honorius is surely describing the performance-style of
twelfth-century ring-dances in this passage: the dancers sing and move in a
circle, hold hands one moment and clap the next, and stamp their feet—all,
apparently, to the accompaniment of instruments:

Chorus psallentium a chorea canentium exordium sumpsit,

quam antiquitas idolis ibi constituit, ut videlicet
decepti deos suos et voce laudarent, et toto corpore
eis servirent. Per choreas autem circuitionem voluerunt
intelligi firmamenti revolutionem: per manuum complexionem,
elementorum connexionem: per sonum cantantium, harmoniam
planetarum resonantium: per corporis gesticulationem,
signorum motionem: per plausum manuum, vel pedum strepitum,
tonitruorum crepitum. Quod fideles imitati sunt, et in
servitium veri Dei converterunt. Nam populus de mari
Rubeo egressus choream duxisse, et Maria eis cum tympano
praecinuisse, et David ante arcam totis viribus saltasse,
et cum cithara psalmos cecinisse legitur. Et Salomon
cantores circa altare instituisse dicitur, qui voce,
tubis, organis, cymbalis, citharis, cantica personuisse
leguntur. Unde et adhuc in choreis musicis instrumentis uti
nituntur, quia globi coelestes dulci melodia circumferri
dicuntur.
205
Appendix 3

The chorus of praising singers is derived from the

dancing-chorus of singers which the men ofancient times
established before their idols so that the heathens
might worship their Gods both with their voices and
with their entire bodies. By the circling motion of
their choreae they wished to symbolise the revolution of the
heavens; by the linking of hands, the inter-relationship
of the Elements; by the sound ofsingers, the harmony
of the resounding planets; by the gesticulation of the
body, the movement of the constellations; by the
clapping of hands or the stamping offeet, the crashing
of thunder. The faithful have imitated this and turned
it to the service of the true God, for we read that the
Israelites led a ring-dance having crossed the Red Sea, and
that Miriam sang before them with her drum; David danced
with his men before the ark and sang the psalms with a
cithara. Solomon is said to have instituted singers
around the altar who sang songs with voice, with tubae,
organa, cymbala and with citharae. Whence [the faithful]
still use musical instruments in their ring-dances, for the
celestial bodies are said to be borne around by sweet
melody.

Petrus de Abano
49 1310 Petrus de Abano: Expositio problematum Aristotelis

Source: Expositio problematum Aristotelis (Mantua, 1475), part 19, problem 9.

Petrus de Abano’s commentary upon Aristotle’s Problems was begun in Paris

and completed at Padua in 1310. This passage may be the only sustained
discussion of instrumental accompaniment to survive from the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. The following extract gives Aristotle’s text (as it
appears in the Latin translation cited by Abano), followed by Abano’s
commentary:

Propter quid delectabiliter unitatem cantus

audimus si quis adfistulam aut lyram cantat
et ad cordas, et eundem cantum cantant utrobique.
St enim ad hoc magis idem potius oportebat ad
multos fistulatores, et adhuc delectabiliter
esse. Aut quia adipiscens manifestius intentionem
magis quando ad fistulam aut lyram quando vero ad
multos fistulatores aut lyras multas non
est delectabile propter id quod destruit melodiam.

206
 Appendix 3

Quare cum delectatione audimus cantum unitum, seu

in unum coniunctum, ut si quis cantat in fistula
vel lira, et universaliter in cordis ceu in
psalterio, canone et huiusmodi instrumentis ex
cordis multis compositis, dummodo utrobique cantet
eundem cantum (quoniam si unus cantus seu dantia
fieret instrumento, et alius voce canentis etiam,
in illo non consurgeret propter dissonantiam
delectatio). Deinde. Si adhuc. Quasi arguit in
contrarium dicens quod si huiusmodi delectatio
contingat propter unitatem cantus et ydemptitatem,
tunc oportebit magis delectari cum quis cantabit
cum multis fistulantibus vel lirantibus, cum magis
videantur super unum opus unitari vel plures
trahentes navim unitantur ut melius trahant.
Deinde. Aut quia. Solvit dicens causam esse quia
cum aliquis cantat signanter intentionem et maneriem
cantus, magis unitatur vox cum sono instrumenti quam
quando cantaret in diversis instrumentis etiam eodem
cantu utrobique exeunte. Et hoc quia in cantu quedam
reservantur proportiones ut dicetur commensurate,
quibus observatis iocunda consurgit armonia quod quidem
corrumpitur et indelectabilis redditur cum cantans
ad multa cantaverit instrumenta. Quod autem inductum
est in contrarium prius non valet, quia licet multi
possint idem cantare, non tamen eodem modo. Non
enim solum requiritur ydemptitas ex parte illius qui
cantatur et culuslibet cantantis ad se ipsum, ymo
unusculusque et ad alium ad omnes, ita quod ex omnibus
resultent proportiones debite in cantu. Quod autem
subiecit de tractu navis non huic simulatur dicto
quoniam plurimi possunt simul idem ut navim eodem
modo et tempore trahere ut audientes vocem rectoris
navis; non autem talis unitas potest in cantu
plurium observari armonico cum eum ex pluribus
et contrarlis oporteat constituere in unum tandem redditur
quod fit impossibile pluribus entibus vocibus et
instrumentis.

[Aristotle]:

Why do we hear a solo song with more pleasure ifanyone

sings it to a fistula or lyra, and to strings, and yet
the same song is sung on both sides? If it is more
pleasing in this way the same thing should ensue even
more when there are many fistula players, and be yet more
delightful. Could it be that the design of a song is more
clearly expressed when it is sung to a fistula or lyra,
207
Appendix 3

for when it is sung to many fistula players and lyra

players it is not delightful and the melody is destroyed?

[Petrus de Abano]:

Why is it that we listen to solo music (or to music which

has been united into a whole) with more pleasure if it is
sung to a fistula or lira, and upon strings in general,
either to the psalterium, the canon and to instruments of
this kind comprising many strings, if the same music is
performed on both sides (for if one music or setting be
given to the instrument and another be given to the voice
there will arise no pleasure on account of the resulting
discord)? Then: Si adhuc. Here it is as if [Aristotle]
argues to the contrary saying that if this kind of pleasure
arises from the unity and oneness of the music, then we
should be even more delighted if anyone sings to the music
of many fistula or lira players when they might thus be
seen to be all the more united in a common task like many
united to row a boat so that it may be rowed the better.
Then: Aut quia. [Aristotle] answers the question saying
the reason is that when one delivers the design and
musical character of a song in a distinct manner
then the voice is more unified to the sound ofa
[single] instrument than when the song is sung to diverse
instruments giving out the same music. This is because
there are certain relationships (proportiones) which must
be preserved in music if a song is to be performed in a
well-adjusted manner; when they are preserved, the
pleasantness of the music springs forth, and it is only
corrupted and made unpleasant when it is sung to many
instruments. What has been said above to counterbalance this
does not hold [i.e. the argument that if our pleasure in
accompanied song comes from the unity of voice and
instrument then our pleasure should be increased by adding
more instruments and thus increasing the unanimity
displayed], for even if many might perform the same thing,
they cannot perform it in the same way. Not only is
unanimity required in terms of the music which is performed,
and in terms of the singer being consistent with himself, it
is required from everyone, so that the necessary
relationships in the music are preserved by all. What was
said about the rowing of a ship does not hold here, for
while many may row a ship in time together and in the
same manner as they listen to the voice of the ship’s
commander, this kind of unanimity cannot be achieved
in music produced by many when it is constituted from
various and contrary elements and yet is performed as
208
 Appendix 3

one (which is impossible to achieve if there are many voices

and instruments).

For other discussions of accompaniment in Abano’s commentary see

Problems 39 and 43. This material is very closely based upon Aristotle’s text
and may have no independent value as a source of information about early
fourteenth-century practice.

209
 Appendix 4
String-materials in the
Middle Ages
Why wilt thou examine every little fibre of my soul,
Spreading them out before the sun like stalks of flax to dry?

William Blake, The Four Zoas

I
When we speak of the vocal ‘cords’ which produce the human voice we
acknowledge the expressive power of musical strings; there is no finer
metaphor for the part of us which is musical and which best expresses our
thoughts than the tensed filaments of a musical instrument. ‘The comparison
is a suitable one, for the musical personality of achordophone resides in its
strings: to paraphrase William Blake, they are the fibres of its soul. In terms
of timbre and articulation the difference between strings of gut, metal,
horsehair and silk is considerable; a song accompanied by (let us say) a
fiddle strung with horsehair would present a very different acoustic
experience to the listener from one performed to a fiddle strung with gut or
metal. To establish the kind of string-material associated with each
medieval instrument is therefore to bring the sound-pictures of medieval
song into sharper focus.
Little has been done to determine which medieval instruments were
strung with gut, which with metal, and so on. Yet there is an abundance of
literary evidence bearing upon this topic and waiting to be sifted. The
purpose of this appendix is therefore to sketch the outlines of medieval
stringing traditions with the aid of a modest (and mostly new) corpus of
written material. Since the craft of building and maintaining musical
instruments hardly ever commanded written record during the Middle Ages
we must rely upon passing references in a wide variety of texts for our
information.' The backbone of this appendix is formed from allusions in
Latin commentaries upon Psalm 150; the injunction Laudate eum in chordis
210
 Appendix 4

often drew forth a mention of string-materials in these texts as a prelude to

some appropriate allegory. In one case, a commentary by Bruno the
Carthusian (5; these numbers refer to the list at the end of this appendix),
there is even an allusion to the process of manufacturing gut-strings (Figure
13). As we might expect from the brief survey of Bible-commentary
presented in Chapter 5, the friar-commentators active around 1300 are
particularly valuable witnesses. We may include here a note upon psaltery
materials in the monumental encyclopedia De Proprietatibus Rerum, compiled
by the English Franciscan Bartholomaeus (18).
During the thirteenth century musical theorists began to take a passing
interest in the physical and musical properties of instruments, and in some
cases this included the substances with which they were strung. The
anonymous Summa Musice, for example, the only music treatise which
deserves to be placed beside Jerome of Moravia’s Tractatus de Musica for the
diligence with which it considers instruments, reviews the range of materials
in use towards the end of the thirteenth century and, in doing so, provides
the earliest reference to silk strings in the medieval West (20).?
A problem of terminology meets us everywhere. The difficulty is
particularly apparent in the case of terms denoting metals. There are
standard dictionary definitions of words such as aes (‘bronze’) and orichalcum
(‘brass’), but the precise meaning of these terms at any given time and place
in the Middle Ages is a question for metallurgists and cannot be considered
here. There is no guarantee that the aes of some thirteenth-century writer in
France is necessarily the same as the aes of Cicero or Pliny. The problem is
compounded by the likelihood that many medieval writers deploy such
terms in a loose fashion by applying them indifferently to any yellow-looking
metals which were not gold.
A brief survey of the terms and phrases associated with string-materials
will help to clarify what can be achieved with these literary sources:

Gut
Latin cordas...intestinales (20)
cordas de... intestinis (23)
intestinas ...chordas (3)
chorda...de nervo (27)
corda siccatur et tenditur...et caro hominis... (13)

corium mortui animalis (7)

intestine animalium (9:2)
ex intestinis mortuorum animalium (10)
pellibus (25)

de pellibus mortuis (22)

de pellibus mortuorum animalium (14)
211
Appendix 4

Goulet
(See eee aescpp :
te finecegrellhmoe <0 is Gi aca:

:|| na
Sabonbenetna:
os DyGefede
aurredesnentslord
omar

_ agincrfiraie
Fadora peg
Vad Searle
“tet"ities

Figure 13 An allusion to the process of manufacturing gut strings in the

psalm-commentary of Bruno the Carthusian (the passage begins at line 3). See
Appendix 4:5. Grenoble, Bibliotheque Municipale, MS 341, f.379r.
Reproduced by permission.

212
 Appendix 4

cordarum vel intestinis (2)

intestina arietum (5)

ex interioribus ovium (1)

de ovium intestinis factis (18h)
intestina ovium (17)
de intestinis ovium (18:1)
de intestinis ovis (18:2)
de visceribus ovium (18g)
viscera [of sheep] (4)
de intestinis pecoris (12)

de intestinis luporum (18:1)

de intestinis lupi (18:2)
lupina chordula (18i)
de visceribus lupi (18g)

de corio (11)
corium mortui animalis (7)

vervecum...extis (8)

seu pellibus vel pilis equorum (25)

Middle French les menues cordes de boyaux (28)

boyaulx des brebis (18c | and 2)
boyaulx de loup (18c 2)

Old High German indarmum (2)

Middle High German shafes darm (21)

Middle English schepis guttis (18e 1 and 2)

roopis [of sheep-gut] (4b)
wolfes guttes (18e 1 and 2)

Metallic
Latin cordas...metallinas (20)
chorda...de metallo (27)
aeneis...chordis (11)
corde...argentee (24)
cordule...de argento (18:3)
cordas de ere (23)
cordule de auricalco (18:3)
213
Appendix 4

Middle French fil darchal (18c 3)

fil dargent (18c 3)
d’argent (15)
de fin or (16)

Spanish plata (18d 3)

laton (18d 3)

Middle English __latoun (18e 3)

siluer (18e 3)

Middle Dutch latoen (18f 3)

siluer (18f 3)

Salk
Latin chordas ... sericinas (20)

Middle High German mit syden seiten (26)

Horsehair
Latin seu pellibus vel pilis equorum (25)

Gut
Although Classical Latin offers certain distinct meanings for the words
intestina (‘gut’), nervus (‘sinew’), exta (‘the larger internal organs’) and viscera
(‘entrails in general’) it seems best to translate them all by the generalising
English word ‘gut’, for it is usually impossible to establish whether any more
definite meaning is involved. Accordingly, there are many references in this
appendix which will bear no more precise translation than ‘gut string(s)’ or
something similar.
Some texts offer more precise information. Sheep-gut is mentioned as
early as the fifth century in the psalm commentary of Arnobius Junior (1)
and continues to be mentioned throughout the Middle Ages more often than
any other type of gut string (4, 12 (where the animal, which I take to be a
sheep, is called pecus rather than ovis), 17, 18:1 and 2 (plus derivatives), 21).
Ram gut is mentioned in the psalm-commentary of Bruno the Carthusian
(5) and there is one reference to string made from the dyed gut ofa wether
(8).
The terms corium and pellis pose a delicate problem. Strictly speaking both
should be translated ‘skin’ or ‘hide’ or ‘leather’, yet there are reasons for
214
 Appendix 4

assuming that they refer to strings of gut. The earliest use of corium appears
in Pseudo-Haymo of Halberstadt’s commentary upon Psalm 56:9: ‘[The
Psalmist] says chitara to represent mortification [of the flesh], for in the
Passion Christ was stretched on the cross like the corium of a dead animal’
(7). This version of the common allegory that the stretched strings of
David’s instruments pre-figured the bodily sufferings of Christ reveals little
by itself and it may be that ‘leather’ or ‘hide’ is the appropriate translation
here. Yet it is noteworthy that several other psalm-commentaries which
mention strings from ‘an animal’ or ‘a dead animal’ (this phrase is
something of a formula) use intestina rather than corium:?

Chorde sunt intestine animalium (9:2)

ex intestinis mortuorum animalium (10)

The equation corium= gut is reinforced by the report in item 11, the
Topographia Hibernica (1185-8) of Gerald of Wales, that the Irish play upon
‘bronze’ strings as opposed to strings made of corium. Since this observation
is embedded in a passage whose purpose is to contrast the musical talents
and customs of the Irish with those prevailing in the Anglo-Norman milieu
of Gerald’s readers, it seems likely that the coritum which (by implication)
everyone except the Irish uses is the fundamental string-material of the
Middle Ages: gut.
The term pellis (‘skin’, ‘hide’) occurs only twice: once in an anonymous set
of glosses on the psalms (14) where strings are said to be made de pellibus
mortuorum animalium, and once in a tantalising gloss in the psalm-commen-
tary (25) by the English Franciscan, Henry of Cossey, where the phrase
‘Praise him upon strings’ is glossed in this way:

id est instrumentis seu pellibus vel pilis equorum

sicut habent communiter vielle

that is, on instruments either with pellibus or with the

hairs of horses such as fiddles generally have.

Is this a reference to fiddles strung with leather? It is impossible to be

certain. On balance the evidence for the use of leather strings on the art-
instruments of the Middle Ages seems slight.

Horsehair
But the interest of Henry of Cossey’s psalm-commentary does not end there
for his gloss upon Psalm 150 seems to say that horsehair strings were
‘generally’ (communiter) used on the leading art-instrument of the thirteenth
PANE
Appendix 4

century, the viella. It is surprising to find the viella associated with a string-
material which has been excluded from the tradition of Western art-music
since the Renaissance, yet I suspect that Cossey’s allusion to ‘instruments
. with the hairs of horses such as fiddles generally have’ can only be
reasonably construed as a reference to strings of horsehair. It is conceivable
that he is referring to the bow of the fiddle rather than to its strings, but that
is unlikely; there seems no reason to mention bows in a gloss to a phrase
which calls the faithful to praise God upon strings. Cossey could look back
on a millennium ofChristian tradition in which that call had often been
glossed with a reference to string-materials followed by some appropriate
allegory. It is certain that horsehair strings were employed in Wales in the
fourteenth century and it is by no means impossible that they were
sometimes used on the viella.*

Silk
There are only two references to silk strings, both of c1300. The Middle
High German romance Der Busant (26) mentions them in connection with a
spectacularly lavish fiddle which is decorated with gold and ivory, whilst the
author of the Summa Musice (20) merely lists cordas .. sericinas together with
gut and metallic strings. The passage from Der Busant strongly suggests that
strings of silk were regarded as a luxury commodity at the end of the
thirteenth century, but until more references are found it will be impossible
to establish how widely they were used.

Metallic
Only two of the references to metallic strings fail to mention specific
material (they are: cordas . . metallinas in item 20 and chorda de metallo in item
27). All of the remaining sources employ terms for which dictionaries of both
classical and medieval Latin offer distinct meanings: orichalcum (‘a form of
brass or similar alloy’), electrum (‘silver-gold alloy’), argentum (‘silver’), aes
(‘copper, bronze or brass’) and the adjective aeneus (‘bronze, or other alloy of
copper’). The variable meanings of these words even in classical Latin
(where aes may denote at least three different alloys) and the likelihood that
most of the medieval writers who employed them used them loosely, suggest
that it is not safe to lean too heavily upon dictionary definitions for words
such as these. Perhaps the most satisfactory way to deal with these
references is to sort them into two categories: ‘metal strings’ and ‘precious
metal strings’. The justification for this classification is that when a
medieval author refers to aes, for example, it is usually impossible to
establish whether he means anything more precise than ‘a yellowish looking
metal’; but it seems reasonable to suppose that words denoting the precious
216
 Appendix 4

metals gold or silver will have been chosen and employed with more
discrimination.
The foundation for our knowledge of metal stringing in the medieval
instrumentarium is laid by the English Franciscan friar, Bartholomaeus
Anglicus. In his encyclopedia De Proprietatibus Rerum (‘On the Properties of
Things’), completed cl250, Bartholomaeus notes that strings of the
psalterium are made de auricalco et etiam de argento: from ‘latten’ and also from
‘silver’ (18:3). I choose the translation ‘latten’ for auricalco since this is how
the term is rendered in the vernacular translations of Bartholomaeus’s work
(18c, d, e and f).° The metal (and precious metal) stringing of the psalterium
is confirmed almost two hundred years later by the French theologian Jean
de Gerson; in his Tractatus de Canticis of cl426 Gerson records that the
psalterium has chordulas vel argenteas vel ex electro, strings of ‘silver’ or of ‘silver-
gold alloy’, while in his Collectorium super Magnificat of 1428 the strings are
said to be made ex auro vel auricalco, from ‘gold’ or ‘brass’ (‘latten’?).° No
other stringed instruments of medieval France and England are associated
with metallic stringing in our texts.

Il
Several details now fall into place which allow us to sketch the outlines of
medieval stringing traditions.
Firstly, Jean de Brie’s Le Bon Berger (28) of 1379 recommends that gut-
strings are best for ‘vielles, harpes, rothes, luthz, quiternes, rebecs, choros,
almaduries, symphonies, cytholes and other instruments that one makes to give
sound by means of the fingers and of strings’. This is a very comprehensive
remark and few fourteenth-century instruments seem to be excluded from
its range. One is missing, however: the psalterion, presumably because it was
habitually strung with metallic material as attested by Bartholomaeus
Anglicus and Jean de Gerson.’
Secondly, all the medieval evidence pertaining to the string-materials of
stringed-keyboard instruments (which surely began life as mechanised
psalteries, borrowing a good deal of psaltery technology) shows that they
were strung with metallic materials. This supports the assumption that
there was a long tradition of equipping psalteries with such strings.
The picture that emerges from the texts is therefore clear (although it can
scarcely be complete): virtually all of the art-instruments of the Middle Ages
were associated with gut stringing, although horsehair seems to have been
sometimes used on the viella (and, no doubt, on some other instruments).
Psalteries seem to have stood directly outside this tradition in that they were
associated with metal stringing.
Here it may be possible to narrow down what is meant by ‘psaltery’, since
it seems that there was at least one major family of zithers, the triangular
harp-zither, or rota (Figure 11), which was associated with gut stringing;
this tradition is mentioned in two sources widely separated in date (12 and
ZAd
Appendix 4

28). When Gerson speaks of the metallic strings of the psalterium there can
be little doubt that he means a pig-snout psaltery of a familiar Gothic type
(Figure 6),° and to judge by the evidence of illustrations where the term
psalterium (or some vernacular form of the word) is accompanied by a
drawing, the same might be said for Bartholomaeus Anglicus and Jean de
Brie. .
What of the chronology of metallic strings in the West? When were they
introduced? This appendix offers some tantalising clues to how these
questions might be answered. The earliest reference to metallic stringing on
the list is contained in Gerald of Wales’s account ofIrish musicianship (11).
This report, based on Gerald’s own experience, was written during the
period 1185-8, and it implies that the Irish were exceptional for the way
they placed metallic stringing at the centre of their instrumental traditions.
The next references to metallic strings seem to maintain this ‘Celtic’
association: two Old French romances composed in the first decades of the
thirteenth century: Galeran de Bretagne (15) and the Vulgate Merlin (16).
Galeran de Bretagne mentions a harp which is strung with ‘silver’ (argent),? but
the Vulgate Merlin goes one better and presents a harp with strings of‘thin
gold’ being played by the wizard himself in disguise. Arthur is holding a
great feast, and on the second day he, Guinevere, and all the other kings and
queens (of whom there are twelve present) wear their crowns; in the midst of
the festivities a blind minstrel enters the hall; he is beautifully dressed and
all marvel at him. As he walks amongst the tables he playsj lai breton:'°

...ot vne harpe a son col qui toute estoit dargent

moult ricement ouuree et les cordes estoient de fin
or . et auoit en la harpe de lieus a autres pieres
precieuses....

... he had a harpe around his neck which was richly worked
all over with silver and the strings were offine gold,
and there were here and there on the harp precious
stones....

The evidence of Galeran de Bretagne and the Vulgate Merlin is both

mysterious and suggestive. Both texts mention precious-metal strings, and
in each case the instrument so equipped is a harpe. But these two passages
share a good deal more than that. In both of them the harp is used to play
(or accompany) a Breton /ai, and both works belong in the stratum of
medieval French Romance which owes much to Celtic—especially Irish—
story material.
The significance of this Celtic link is that Ireland has a long tradition of
metal-strung instruments (we remember that Gerald of Wales remarks
upon the Irish use of metal strings in the 1180s) and there are several
references to them in Old Irish texts, some of them antedating both Gerald

218
 Appendix 4

and our two romances. The evidence, fragmentary though it is, suggests
that metallic stringing was used by Irish musicians in the twelfth century at
a time when it was still regarded elsewhere as an exceptional material to
employ (the fascinating question of how long the Irish had been using such
strings awaits the attention of a specialist in Old Irish literature). It may
then have passed into the Anglo-Norman and French realms with the Celtic
musicians and story-tellers of whose activity in the twelfth century there is
so much evidence. In these lands, however, metal stringing did not become
established until the fifteenth century, for during the period 1250-1400 the
literary evidence suggests that such strings were primarily associated with
pig-snout psalteries.'!

Tentative chronology of materials

Late Antiquity 1000 1200 1300 1400

Gut
-Silk
~ Horsehair
Metallic —_[psalteries |

String-materials in medieval texts

1 Arnobius Junior /n Psalmos
2 Anon glossator
3 Walther of Speyer Vita Sancti Christophori
4 Wenrico Conflictus Ovis et Lini
5 Bruno the Carthusian Jn Psalmos
6 Pseudo-Remigius of Auxerre Jn Psalmos
7 Pseudo-Haymo of Halberstadt Jn Psalmos
8 Sextus Amarcius Sermones
9 MHonorius Augustodunensis Jn Psalmos
10 Anon In Psalmos
11 Gerald of Wales Topographia Hibernica
12 Anon Surgical Treatise
13. Michael of Meaux Jn Psalmos
14. Anon In Psalmos
15 Anon Galeran de Bretagne
16 Anon Merlin
17. Anon Secretum Philosophorum
18 Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum
19 Guillaume d’Auvergne De Viciis et Peccatis
219
Appendix 4

20 Anon Summa Musice

21 Hugo von Trimburg Der Renner
22 Nicholas de Gorran In Psalmos
23. Nicholas de Lyra Postilla
24 Petrus de Palude Jn Psalmos
25 Henry of Cossey In Psalmos .
26 Anon Der Busant
27 Anon Epistola cum Tractatu de Musica Instrumentali Humanaque ac Mundana
28 Jean de Brie Le Bon Berger

Index to string-materials

Vernacular terminology (only the main terms are listed

here)
FIDDLE NAMES
viella vielle viguela phiala fedele vedel

Gut 1S:ip lel lsdslyQalvels 1SEIR 2b Oe

Silk 26
Horsehair 25

REBEC NAMES
rebecs

Gut 28

GIGUE NAMES

gige

Silk 26

LUTE NAMES

luthz

Gut 28

220
 Appendix 4

GITTERN NAMES
guisterne ghytaern guitarra quiterne

Gut Wel, 2, 18d2tRiShi} 2223

CITOLE NAMES
cythole

Gut 28

PSALTERY NAMES
psalterion psalterio sautry |psalterium|

Metallic 163, 1663, 16d23)18e:3, 1865

HARP NAMES
harp(e) (see also cithara and lira)

Gut ab, de21,.2 08

Metallic 15, 16 (both under Celtic influence)

ROTTA NAMES
rotta rothes

Gut 2426

SYMPHONY-NAMES
symphonies [symphonia]

Gut 28

221
Appendix 4

Latin terminology
CITHARA
‘pillar-harp’ with varying degrees of likelihood

Gut 4, (?)7, 10, 11 (of British Celts), 13 (?harp without

pillar), 14,.18:1, 2, 22,

Metallic 24

CITHARA
‘Lyre’?

Gut 4h

LIRA
‘pillar-harp’?

Gut 17

LYRA
‘lyre’?

Gut 4

PSALTERIUM
‘rotta’?

Gut +, 6,9:

PSALTERIUM
‘psaltery (probably pig-snout)

Metallic 18:3, 18f:3

222
 Appendix 4

CHOROS
‘string-drum’ (?)

Gut 28

CHELYS

‘bre’ (2)
Gut 8

1 433-9 Arnobius Junior: Jn Psalmos

Source: Arnobius Junior, commentary upon Psalm 146:7 in Karlsruhe,

Badische Landesbibliothek MS 184, f.124v. The cithara may be a lyre.

... psallite ei in cithara. Cithara habet lignum crucis,

habet cordas ex interioribus ovium, habet ex Evangeliis
plectrum....

‘... praise Him upon the cithara. The cithara has wood in the
cross, it has strings from the intestines of sheep, and it has a
plectrum from the Gospels. . ..’

2 9c Anonymous glossator

Source: E. Steinmeyer and E. Sievers, Die Althochdeutschen Glossen, | (Berlin,

1879), 154:31/2. A common medieval word-play lies behind this gloss,
between cordis construed as a genitive singular (‘ofa heart’) on the one hand,
and as an ablative plural (‘upon strings’) on the other.

cordarum herzono
vel intestinis indarmum

‘of hearts or on gut-strings’

3 982-3 Walther of Speyer: Vita Sancti Christophori

Source: K. Strecker, ed., Vita Sancti Christophort in MGH, Poetae Latini Medii
Aevi, V, 1 (Leipzig, 1937), p.32, line 217.
220
Appendix 4

...intestinas percussit pectine chordas

‘... he struck the gut strings with a plectrum’

4 ?bcl088 Wenrico: Conflictus Ovis et Lint

Source: M. Haupt, ed., in Zeitschrift fur Deutsches Altertum, 11 (1859), lines

307-10. The lyra is perhaps the round lyre of northern and central Europe,
the cithara may be a pillar-harp and the psalterium a rotta. The following lines
form part ofa speech by the sheep:

... viscera corpore nostro

dulcem dant usum deliciis hominum.
quadam divina resonat dulcedine chorda
apte iuncta lyrae, psalterio, citharae.

‘... the intestines in our body give sweet enjoyment

for the delight of Man. The divine string resounds
with sweetness suitably joined to the lyra, the
psalterium and the cithara.

Compare:
4b (cl440) John Lydgate, Horse, Goose and Sheep (ed. M.Degenhart,
Miunchener Beitrage zur romanischen und englischen Philologie, 19 (1900), pp.66—
7), lines 379 and 383:

Of the shepe is cast awey nothyng:

For harpe stringes his roopis serue echeoon.

Compare also item 28

5 b1101 Bruno the Carthusian: Jn Psalmos

Source: Bruno the Carthusian, commentary upon Psalm 150:4 in Grenoble,

Bibliotheque Municipale MS 341, £.379 (Figure 13).

Laudate eum in cordis, id est in consideratione

cordarum, scilicet ea consideratione qua suos
cordis faciet similes. Sicut enim intestina
arietum Cum prius pinguia sint et grossa, et tunc
ad nullum sonum utilia, separata a pinguedine
exiccantur, et ad gracilitatem perveniunt, et
sic inde corde fierent, que dulcem sonum reddunt,
ita quoque sancti cum hic per nimiam afflictionem
224
 Appendix 4

ieluniorum et vigiliarum graciles in carne fiant,

et macri, per hoc in futuro ad hoc dignitatis
attingent ut ad modum cordarum dulcissimum melos
pure consciencie et corporee glorificationis
reddant.

‘Praise him upon strings’, that is with a meditation

upon what considerations [the Psalmist] wishes to
liken to strings. For just as the guts of rams (which
are first thick and fatty and hence no use for making
sound) are separated from the fat, dried, and made thin
so that strings may be made from them, so it is with the
saints when they become thin and lean offlesh after
immeasurable trials offasting and vigils, so that they
come to a state of excellence in which, like strings, they
give out sweetest melodies of pure conscience and of
beatification of the body.

6 ?12c Pseudo-Remigius of Auxerre: Jn Psalmos

Source: Pseudo-Remigius of Auxerre, commentary upon Psalm 32:2 (PL

131:306).

In psalterio decem chordarum psallite illi... .

Chorda ... primum extenditur, deinde siccatur,
et post torquetur. Ita et nos si volumus fieri
tale instrumentum Deo per similitudinem, extendere
nos debemus, crucifigentes carnem nostram cum vitiis
et concupiscentiis. Siccare nos debemus, id est,
a carnalibus desideriis subtrahere; torqueri
etiam debemus, id est, tormenta aliunde illata
patienter tolerare ....

‘Praise him on the psalterium with ten strings ....

>J

The string [of the psalterium| is first stretched, then

dried and then twisted. Similarly, if we wish to be made
into a likeness of such an instrument for God we must
stretch ourselves, crucifying our flesh with its vices and
desires. We must wring ourselves dry, that is, by drawing
ourselves away from fleshly appetites; we must also twist
ourselves, that is, patiently bear torments ....

7 12c Pseudo-Haymo of Halberstadt: In Psalmos

Source: Pseudo-Haymo of Halberstadt, commentary upon Psalm 56:9 in

229
Appendix 4

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 737, f.100r. Written in the twelfth

century (in France?).

Chitaram dicit propter mortificationem, quia in

passione extensus fuit in ligno, sicut corium mortul
animalis. .

[The Psalmist] says chitara to represent mortification

[of the flesh], for in the Passion Christ was stretched on
the cross like the hide of adead animal.

8 cll00 Sextus Amarcius: Sermones

Source: K.Manitius, ed., in MGH, Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters,

VI. Band, Sextus Amarcius Sermones (Weimar, 1969), pp.74—5. I borrow the
translation of P. Dronke (The Medieval Lyric, revised edition (London, 1978),
p.28) save that I have retained the instrument-name chelys whose meaning is
uncertain.

Ergo ubi disposita venit mercede iocator

Taurinaque chelin cepit deducere theca.
Omnibus ex vicis populi currunt plateisque,
Affixis notant oculis et murmure leni
Eminulisque mimum digitis percurrere cordas,
Quas de vervecum madidis aptaverat extis ....

A minstrel was brought in, his fee arranged; he took

his chelys out of a leather case, and people rushed
in from the streets and courtyards. Watching intently,
murmuring admiration, they see the artist run his fingers
over the strings made from the dyed gut ofa wether.

9 early 12c Honorius Augustodunensis: In Psalmos

Source: (1) Honorius Augustodunensis, De figura psalterii in Vienna,

Nationalbibliothek, Cod. Vindob. 927, f.lv, and (2) commentary upon
Psalm 150:4 in Cod. Vindob. 928, f.188.

(1) Defigura psalterii. Psalterium, quod Christum et

Ecclesiam concinit, forma sua corpus Christi exprimit. Dum
enim inferius percutitur, superius resonat, et corpus
Christi, dum ligno crucis percutitur, divinitas per miracula
resonat. Delta, ad cujus formam psalterium fit, quarta in
226
 Appendix 4

ordine alphabeti notatur, et corpus Christi quattuor

elementis compaginatur: sive Ecclesia, corpus ejus, quattuor
Evangeliis edificatur. Exprimit eciam psalterium formam
hominis, qui constat ex superiori et inferiori, corpore
videlicet et anima, qui debet inferius percutere, id est
corpus suum affligere ieiuniis et orationibus ut sic suum
possit reddere dulce melos Domino .... Chorda exsiccatur,
torquetur, extenditur; ita homo debet a carnalibus
concupiscenciis exsiccari, virtutibus torqueri, karitate
extendi, quia nulla operacio valet sine karitate....

In its form the psalterium, which joins Christ and the

Church, symbolises the body of Christ. For while it is
beaten from below, it resonates from above, and the body of
Christ resounded wondrously while it was beaten with
the wood of the cross. The letter Delta, in whose form the
psalterium is built, is the fourth letter of the alphabet,
and the body of Christ was made from four elements—or
[the significance may be that] the Church, which is his
body, is built upon the four Gospels. The psalterium also
symbolises the form of Man, which consists ofa higher and a
lower [part], that is, the body and the soul, which Man must
beat from below, that is, try his body with fasts and
prayers, so that he may render a sweet melody to God....
A string is dried, twisted, and then stretched; so must
Man dry himself from fleshly desires, be plaited with
virtues and stretch himself with love, for nothing
is of any worth without love ....

Laudate eum in cordis et organo. Chorde sunt intestine

animalium exsiccata et attenuata, dulciter sonancia, et
designant internas cogitaciones iustorum, vigiliis et
ieiuniis exsiccatas, et sancta meditacione attenuatas,
dulcissimum melos pure consciencie resonantes.

‘Praise Him upon strings and the organum.’ Strings are the
dried and stretched intestines of animals which give sweet
music, and they symbolise the inner thoughts of the just,
dried with vigils and fasts, and stretched with holy
meditation, giving the sweetest music of pure conscience.

Anonymous: Jn Psalmos

Source: Anonymous, commentary upon Psalm 32:2 in Oxford, Bodleian

Library, MS Bodley 860, f.48v-9. Written in the thirteenth century in

227
Appendix 4

Cithara reddit sonum ab inferiori, et habet cordas

factas ex intestinis mortuorum animalium.

The cithara gives its sound from below, and it has strings
made from the intestines of dead animals. .

qaacmedcernenmipantnatrmetain — ifetere senor modulate: preddera

derntly fiSisadorsio fieelerarty. eadigenif inretina
imodiea-1p
hw Aden aeaed Watpwcarbtie be‘6
‘bitdia sarance -agantvelanigen alton’ sarectvendh Gage
a otona s6nathah, ceenerefendear “rotor fonermal atmo
‘sta omeanett+ Harntandatt wher ht-vaihatind
©am wmmodtdl-emmta G-anatettopat Dienst eriefecat cam
* iteptena-bybina -annofef ietirtoltepeat: ¢mnotthina -
tetatinttreimt-cichacatarimpane, —tedtftenderer \ .ogndealeiden
Senatecrcharetimpanorchow. — muntvlone gSinetd fanatiartii oteffa
Guathatkcrchamayins
schoo ne’ — dttiestfona
andienf cprbanth condatef
foment endrthidecoustett.mnttoy§ §—-enertlerre loreroga’d
eurbfeefler:vo
5 lwdhte. Stonendaf mt nied anti ware .
“wer efendcear enti1m § bernane ofetoer
be tle Ni tmnberdflacin .asremndl sptleermnttea4
aemehr hoecherie cap:
eee woes ee
taf febar mageagplicarsg.nnent
del-
onf“phere o ; ttoltep-
r artta rr
q faba or
pi +h 9dha :
narLanguaoet. feito modding?
soddrfitma Phamanofl = ware opar-el pesdefnar
gh noletee,
welder Aelecar attra?) nobjei Ceervefand?
fatqBinqecar fund g
addelteial diavefiert forinert 1 retat. serr-anltefmedet. da dolor

Ay ef.4°eeretiggftucleo amend appl §——_atr0F cobsbeenr.cifx1fomodhtdlaee

eefta
ofits feltinlci aaron _ . Prntfat 8 Galomonrtad
sea st ndiriiep ranetdeve ba sedcane
1abbe vfimbibmanm geharator- ferrari spodolont arneloganderem

Figure 14 Gerald of Wales on the string-materials used by the Irish, Scots

and Welsh. British Library, MS Royal 13 B.viii, f-26. English, c1200.
228
 Appendix 4

11 1185-8 Gerald of Wales: Topographia Hibernica

Source: J.F.Dimock, ed., Giraldi Cambrensis Topographia Hibernica, Rolls

Series 21:5 (London, 1867), pp.153—5. See Figure 14.

From an account of the musical instruments of the Irish. Gerald travelled to

Ireland with Prince John in 1183-4; on the whole he formed a low opinion
on the Irish (omnes eorum mores barbarissimi sunt) whilst admiring their string-
playing. He describes their style of performance and then widens his range
of reference momentarily to include the Welsh and Scots. The instrument-
names he uses are cithara and tympanum (Ireland), cithara, tympanum and
chorus (Scotland) and cithara, tibia and chorus (Wales). Chorus and tibia
probably denote wind instruments and can therefore be passed over. The
cithara and tympanum of the Irish may be the pillar-harp and the instrument
known in Old Irish sources as tiompdn (whatever it may have been);!”
various forms of lyres and harps (some of the former perhaps bowed) may
lie concealed under the names of the Scottish and Welsh instruments. It is
possible that cithara means ‘pillar-harp’ each time it appears. After
mentioning the instruments of the Celtic peoples of Britain Gerald points
out that ‘they [i.e. the Irish, but possibly also the Scots and Welsh; the
context is not clear] use metallic strings’.
The translation given here is based, for the most part, on the one offered
in Hibberd, ‘Giraldus Cambrensis’.

De gentis istius in musicis instrumentis peritia incomparabili.

In musicis solum instrumentis commendabilem invenio
gentis istius diligentiam. In quibus, prae omni natione
quam vidimus, incomparabiliter instructa est. Non enim in
his, sicut in Britannicis quibus assueti sumus instrumentis,
tarda et morosa est modulatio, verum velox et praeceps,
suavis tamen et jocunda sonoritas.
Mirum quod, in tanta tam praecipiti digitorum rapacitate,
musica servatur proportio; et arte per omnia indemni, inter
crispatos modulos, organaque multipliciter intricata, tam
suavi velocitate, tam dispari paritate, tam discordi
concordia, consona redditur et completur melodia.
Seu diatesseron, seu diapente chordae concrepent, semper
tamen a B molli incipiunt, et in idem redeunt, ut cuncta sub
jocundae sonoritatis dulcedine compleantur.
Tam subtiliter modulos intrant et exeunt; sicque, sub
obtuso grossioris chordae sonitu, gracilium tinnitus
licentius ludunt, latentius delectant, lasciviusque
demulcent, ut pars artis maxima videatur artem velare,
tanquam ‘Si lateat, prosit; ferat ars deprensa pudorem’.

Notandum vero quod Scotia et Wallia, haec propagationis,

illa commeationis et affinitatis gratia, Hiberniam in
modulis aemula imitari nituntur disciplina. Hibernia
229
Appendix 4

quidem tantum duobus utitur et delectatur instrumentis;

cithara scilicet, et tympano. Scotia tribus; cithara,
tympano et choro. Wallia vero cithara, tibiis et choro.
AEneis quoque utuntur chordis, non de corio factis
[var: AEneis quoque magis utuntur chordis quam de corio
factis]. Multorum autem opinione, hodie Scotia non tantum
magistram aequiparavit Hiberniam, verum etiam in musica
peritia longe praevalet et praecellit. Unde et ibi quasi
fontem artis jam requirunt.°

Among these people I find a commendable diligence only

in musical instruments, on which they are more skilled
than any nation we have seen. For among them the execution
is not slow and solemn as it is with instruments in Britain
to which we are accustomed, but it is rapid and lively,
although the sound is soft and pleasant.
It is astonishing that with such a rapid snatching of the
fingers, the musical proportion (proportio) is preserved,
and with art unimpaired in spite of everything, the melody
is finished and remains agreeable, with such smooth
rapidity, such unequal equality, such discordant concord,
throughout the varied intervals (crispatos modulos) and the
many intricacies of the part-music (organaque .. . intricata).
Whether the strings sound [are tuned in?] fourths or fifths,
they always start from B flat and return to it so that
everything ends with the charm of a pleasant sonority.
So carefully do they enter and leave the melodies
(modulos); thus, along with the duller sound ofa
thicker string, they boldly play the tinklings of the
thinner ones, the more their concealed art delights them,
the more luxuriously they caress the ear so that
the greatest part of their art seems to conceal the
art, as though ‘if art is hidden, that is to its credit;
if revealed, it is to its shame’.

It is to be observed that Scotland and Wales—the former

by virtue of trade and affinity, and the latter by
propagation—strive in practice to imitate Ireland in their
melodies. Ireland uses and takes delight in two
instruments: the cithara and the tympanum, Scotland in
three, the cithara, tympanum and chorus, and Wales in
the cithara, tibia and chorus.
Moreover they [just the Irish? or the Scots and Welsh also?]
play upon ‘bronze’ strings (Aeneis .. . chordis) rather than
strings made ofgut [var: they play upon ‘bronze’ strings
more than strings made ofgut]. In the opinion of many
people, Scotland has not only equalled her mistress,
Ireland, in music, but today excels and surpasses her by

230
 Appendix 4

far. For this reason people look upon her now as the
fountain of the art.

12 12c Anonymous: Surgical Treatise

Source: K. Sudhoff, Beitrage zur Geschichte der Chirurgie im Mittelalter, Part 2

(Leipzig, 1918), p.136.

This section forms art of the treatment for a wounded man prior to the
compounding of a medicine.

Si quis vulneratus fuit, antequam faciat aliquam

medicinam, accipiat cordam rotte, que facta est
de intestinis pecoris, et ligetur ea ad collum cum
dominica oratione et postea non morietur.

If anyone has been wounded, before making a medicine,

take the string of a rotta made from the intestines
of sheep and tie it round his neck with the Lord’s
Prayer and afterwards he shall not die.

13. b1199 Michael of Meaux: Jn Psalmos

Source: Michael of Meaux, commentary upon Psalm 97:5-6 in Oxford,

New College, MS 36, f.54r-v. Written in the late fourteenth century.

Psallite domino in cithara. In cithara duo sunt ligna,

superius et inferius; inferius concavum, superius
solidum. Inter hec tenduntur corde, quibusdam clavis
deorsum tendentibus, quibusdam sursum trahentibus.
Superiores clavos plectrum torquet, ad inferiores
cordas. Corde digitis percusse sonant. Moraliter.
Duo ligna sunt due cruces. Inferius lignum, crux
carnis; superius, crux mentis. Crux carnis est afflictio
in corpore; crux mentis, compassio in corde. Inferius
lignum solidum non est, quia omne quod in carne est,
dolet; si consciencie bone gaudium tollitur foris speciem
doloris habet, sed intus veritatem non habet, et ideo
vacuum est. Superius lignum solidum est quia dolor mentis
ad intima penetrans monstrari potest, fingi non
potest. Corda est corpus quod tenditur et maceratur
inter penam corporis et dolorem mentis. Inferior
clavus est timor, superior amor, quia timore caro
configitur, amore animus vulneratur: illa ne ad mala
moveatur, iste ut ad bona sensificetur. Plectrum

251
Appendix 4

est gratia que atlectum cordis apprehendens ad se

trahit et ad superiora ire facit. Corda siccatur et
tenditur ut sonum reddat, et caro hominis a malo
mundatur primo, post in bono excitatur. Ibi est exsicata,
hic tensa. Siccatur per abstinentiam, tensa est per
pacientiam. Inferiores clavi rotundi sunt, superiores
solidi, quia timor circumspectus debet esse, amor
perfectus.

‘Praise the Lord on the cithara.’ In the cithara there

are two wooden parts, the upper and the lower; the lower
part is hollow and the upper part is solid. Between
these two stretch the strings, some having been tuned
to lower notes and some to higher. The tuning-key tightens
the upper pegs and [tightens] the strings at the lower
[pegs]. The strings sound when struck with the fingers.
Now follows the spiritual interpretation. The two wooden
parts are two crosses; the lower wooden part is the cross
of the flesh, and the upper is the cross of the mind. The
cross of the flesh is bodily affliction, and the cross of
the mind is compunction in the heart. The lower wooden
part is not solid because all that is made offlesh
grieves; if the joy of good conscience is taken away it
has the outer form ofgrief but it has no truth within
and therefore it is hollow. The upper wooden part is solid
because griefofthe mind penetrating to the inmost part
may be shown but not contrived. The string is the [human]
body which is stretched and made lean between suffering
of the body and griefof the mind. The lower peg is fear,
the upper love, because flesh is pierced by fear and
the mind is wounded with love: the former, so that flesh
may not be moved to evil, the latter, so that the mind may
be sensitive to good. The tuning-key is grace which,
grasping the desire of the heart, draws it to itself
and brings it to a higher passion. The string is dried
and stretched so that it may give sound, and the flesh
of man is first washed pure from sin, and then stirred
towards good. There it is dried, here stretched; dried,
through abstinence, and stretched through endurance.
The lower parts of the peg are round, the upper parts
solid [square?], because fear must be circumspect, and
love perfect.

232
 Appendix 4

This appears to be a description of a triangular harp without pillar:

CITHARA
‘tuning-key’

‘the tuning-key tightens

the upper pegs...’

‘the upper ,
[wooden] part peera
[which] is sls]
solid’

‘two ‘between these two [wooden parts|

wooden stretch the [gut] strings’

A
parts’

‘the strings sound when struck

with the fingers’

‘the lower
[wooden]
part [which]
is hollow’

14 12c/13c Anonymous: Jn Psalmos

Source: Anonymous, commentary upon Psalm 32:2 in Oxford, Bodleian

Library, MS Hatton 37 f.49r. Written in the thirteenth century in England.
See above, p.120.

In Cythara. Nota. Cithara sonum reddit ab inferiori,

caro autem inferior pars est hominis. Hinc est quod
per citharam caro significatur. Item, cythare corde
ZOD
Appendix 4

de pellibus mortuorum animalium fieri solent; hinc est

quod per cytharam carnis mortificatio exprimitur. Item,
cytharando duabus manibus operamus: una manu cordas
inferiores iugiter tanguntur; altera non iugiter sed
vicissim et interpollatim cordas superiores.
.

‘{Praise the Lord] on the cithara’. Note. The cithara

gives sound from below and flesh is the lower part of
Man. Hence it is that the cithara symbolises flesh.
Again, the strings of the cithara are usually made from
the guts [literally: ‘skins’] of dead animals; hence it is
that the cithara stands for mortification of the flesh.
Again, we employ two hands in playing the cithara: one hand
perpetually plucks the lower strings; the other plucks the
higher strings, not continually, but at intervals and in
turn.

15 cl230 Anonymous: Galeran de Bretagne

Source: L. Foulet, ed., Galeran de Bretagne (Paris, 1925), lines 2320f. See
above, p.96.

16 early 13c Anonymous: Merlin

Source: H.O.Sommer, The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances, 2, Lestotre

de Merlin (Washington, 1908), p.408. See above, p.218.

17 ?13c Anonymous: Secretum Philosophorum

Source: Cambridge, Trinity College, MS 0.1.58, f.92v, written in the

fifteenth century in England.

The lira may be a pillar-harp.

Ad faciendum cordas lire

Cum autem volumus facere cordas lire . . . recipe intestina
ovium et lava ea munde et pone ea in aqua vel in lexivia per
dimidium diem vel plus usque caro se separet leviter a
materia corde que est similis quasi nervo. Post depone
carnem de materia cum penna vel cum digito mundo. Post pone
materiam in lescivia forti vel rubio vino per 2 dies. Post
extrahe et sicca cum panno lineo et iunge 3 vel 4 simul
secundum quantitatem quam volueris habere et atturna ea
234
 Appendix 4

usque sufficiat. Et extende ea super parietem et permitte

sicare. Cum atuem siccata fuerit recipe ea deorsum et pone
ea in loco non nimis humido nec nimis sicco, quia propter
nimiam siccitatem de facili rumpuntur, et sic propter
humiditatem. Et postea ea reserva.

When we wish to make strings for the lira .. . take the

intestines of sheep and wash them cleanly, then place them
in water or lye for half aday or more until the flesh
comes away easily from the material of the string which is
like a sinew. Then take the flesh from the material cleanly
with a quill or with a clean finger. Next, put it in strong
lye or red wine for two days. Then take it out and dry
it with a linen cloth and join 3 or 4 together according
to the quantity that you wish to have, then twist them
until it is enough. Next, extend it over a wall and allow
it to dry. When it is dry, take it below and put
it in a place that is neither too humid nor too dry, because
excessive dryness easily destroys them—as does dampness.
Then keep them for use.

18 cl250 Bartholomaeus Anglicus: De Proprietatibus Rerum

Source: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 749 (2771), written c1370—80

(in England?).

References 1 and 2 appear to draw upon semi-proverbial lore (cf. 18g—181

below). Reference 3 may be original to this text. The English equivalents of
viella, cithara and psalterium given by John of Trevisa in 1398 are respectively:
fedele, harpe and sautry (see below 18e).

1 f.122r... corde facte de intestinis luporum in viella

vel in cithara cum cordis factis de intestinis ovium eas
destruunt et corrumpunt.
2 £f.245r...cordula facta de intestinis lupi adiuncta
cordis cithare factis de intestinis ovis eas destruit et
corrumpit ...
3 f.281r Psalterium ... Fiu[n]t autem optime eius cordule de
auricalco et etiam de argento.

1... strings made from the intestines of wolves [put] on

a viella or on a cithara with strings made from sheep-gut
destroy and corrupt the sheep-gut strings.
2 ...astring made from the intestines ofawolf
233
Appendix 4

placed beside sheep-gut strings on a cithara destroys

them.
3 Psalterium . .. its strings are best made from ‘latten’ and
also from ‘silver’.

LATER VERSIONS AND DERIVATIVES:

18b (cl1300) Aegidius of Zamora, Ars Musica (M. Robert-Tissot), ed.,

Johannes Aegidius de Zamora Ars Musica, AIM, CSM 20 (1974) repeats
Bartholomaeus’s material on instruments almost verbatim.

18c (1372) Jean Corbechon, La Proprietaire des Choses (quoted from

edition of Lyon, 1491/2). A French translation, with interpolations,
undertaken at the request of Charles V of France. Corbechon follows his
source Closely (but note that he renders Bartholomaeus’s cithara as guisterne
and not as harpe, the translation chosen by Corbechon’s English contempor-
ary, John of Trevisa. See below, 18e.)

1 nv*...la corde quiest faicte des boyaulx des

brebis quant on les mect ensemble en une vi[e]lle ou
en une guisterne...
2 2... toute la nature du loup est contraire a la brebis
entant que qui mettroit en une guisterne une corde faicte
des boyaulx de loup entre les cordes faictes de boyaulx
de brebis elle les mengueroit et corromproit.
3 Bvij_ Les meilleures cordes qui soyent pour le
psalterion sont de fil darchal ou de fil dargent.

18d (1375-1425) Vincente de Burgos, El libro de las propriedades de las

cosas (quoted from the edition of Toulouse, 1494).

1 Evi The wolf- and sheep-gut strings are placed on

the viguela o guitarra.
2 llij* the story is repeated and the instrument is a
vihuela.
3 ppuy* the best strings of the psalterio are made from
plata o de laton.

18e (1398) John of Trevisa, De Proprietatibus Rerum (M.C.Seymour,

general editor, On the Properties of Things: John Trevisa’s translation of
Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De Proprietatibus Rerum: A Critical Text, 2 vols
(Oxford, 1975), 1, p.606; 2, pp.1224 and 1392).

|... strenges imaad of wolfes guttes ido and iput in a

fedule othir in an harpe among strenges imade ofschepis
guttis ... corrumpith strengis imade ofguttis of
schiepes >.

236
 Appendix 4

2 And so I haue yradde in a booke that a strenge ymade

of a wolues gutte ydo among harpestrenges ymade of the
guttes of scheep destroyeth and corrumpeth hem...
3 Strynges of the sautry beth best ymade of latoun or
of siluer.

In the printed edition of 1495 lute is substituted for fedele in reference 1 (see
OED sv String sb. 3a).

18f Anonymous, Van den Proprieteyten der dinghen (quoted from the edition of
Haarlem, 1485).

1 3ij* the wolf- and sheep-gut strings are placed on the

ghytaern and vedel.
2 Miu’ the story is repeated and the instrument is a
ghyteern.
3 EEinj’ the best strings for the psalterium are made
from /atoen and from siluer.

The story of the wolf-gut strings appears to have been proverbial. Compare,
for example, the following three texts:

18g (cl256—-60) Albertus Magnus, De Animalibus (H.Stadler, ed., Alberti

Magni De Animalibus, in Beitrage zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, 15
and 16 (1916 and 1921), 16, p.1411).

... cordae de visceribus ovium factae cum cordis de

visceribus lupi factis permixtae non sonant.

... Strings made from the intestines of sheep mixed with

strings made from the intestines of wolves do not sound.

18h (b 2cl1340) Armand de Belvézer, Sermones (quoted from F. Armandi de

Bellovisu ... Sermones plane divini assumptis ex solo Psalterio Davidico thematis
(Lyon, 1525)).

cxj Ifa string made de luporum intestinis is put

onto aliquo instrumento musico cum chordis de ovium
intestinis factis it will destroy them.

18i (1425) John Amundesham, Annales Monasterii Sancti Albani

(H.T.Riley, Annales Monasterii Sancti Albani a Johanne Amundesham, 2 vols,
Rolls Series 28 (London, 1870-1), 1, p.208).

An extract from questions put by the Abbot to the priors of the cells which
2o9
Appendix 4

reveals the semi-proverbial character of the notion that wolf-gut strings can
destroy strings made from the guts of sheep, or will not accord with them.

... nunquid in concordi claustralium cithara, aliqua

fuerit lupina chordula quae non convenit cum Caeteris.
-

... whether anyone has been the wolf-string which does not
accord with the others in the harmonious cithara of the
monks.

19 Guillaume d’Auvergne: De Viciis et Peccatis

See Appendix 3:46.

20 1274-1312 Anonymous: Summa Musice

Source: St Paul in Karnten, Archiv des Benediktinerstiftes, Cod. 264/4, f.4.

Early fifteenth century.

The cythare are probably pillar-harps, while vielle and phiale are presumably
various kinds of fiddle (or they may be synonyms). Psalteria would then
cover psalteries, monocordium the monochord (the text is probably too early
for any more exotic meaning such as ‘clavichord’), while simphonia seu
organistrum, possibly synonyms in this author’s vocabulary, cover hurdy-
gurdies. The chorus may be a string-drum.

Cordalia sunt ea que per cordas metallinas, intestinales

vel sericinas exerceri videntur; qualia sunt cythare,
vielle et phiale, psalteria, chori, monocordium, simphonia
seu organistrum, et hiis similia.

Stringed instruments are those which are seen to

operate with strings of metal, gut or silk; such are
cythare, vielle and phiale, psalteria, chori, monocordium,
simphonia or organistrum, and others like these.

21 1296-1313 Hugo von Trimburg: Der Renner

Source: G.Ehrissman, ed., Der Renner von Hugo von Trimburg, 4 vols (Tiib-
ingen, 1908-11), 1, lines 12441—50.

238
 Appendix 4

Von tanzen

Wenne sant Gregorius der heilige man

Sprichet, als ich gelesen han,
Daz riuten and eren bezzer si
Denne der dem tanze wone bi.
Sdgetan spil ist tugende hagel:
Swenne einer mit eines pferdes zagel
Strichet tber vier shafes darm,
Daz im sin vinger und sin arm
Mueder werden denne ob si héten
Einen ganzen tac unkrit gejeten.

Concerning dancing
For St Gregory, the holy man, said, as I have read, that it
is better to do manual agricultural labour than to go
dancing; that kind ofplay is injurious to virtue. Whenever
a man bows with a horse’s tail over four sheep-guts let his
fingers and arms be as tired as if he had been weeding all
day.

i 4 c1300 Nicholas de Gorran: Jn Psalmos

Source: Nicholas de Gorran, commentary upon Psalm 70:22, in Oxford,

Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 246, f.187v, written early in the fifteenth
century in England.

In cithara. id est in carnis mortificacione. In

cithara enim sunt corde de pellibus mortuis ....

On the cithara: in mortification of the

flesh. For on the cithara there are strings made
of dead guts ....

23 c1320 Nicholas de Lyra: Postilla

Source: Nicholas de Lyra, commentary upon Psalm 150:4, in Oxford,

Bodleian Library, MS Laud misc. 152, f.7lv.

Laudate eum in cordis; in instrumentis habentibus

cordas de ere seu intestinis.

‘Praise Him upon strings’; that is, on instruments

having strings of‘bronze’ or gut.
239
Appendix4

24 b 1326 Petrus de Palude: Jn Psalmos

Source: Petrus de Palude, commentary upon Psalm 80:3 in ‘Troyes,

Bibliotheque Municipale, MS 144, volume 2, f.2v. The illustrations which
accompany Petrus’s commentary upon Psalm 150 show that he understood
the cythara to be a pillar-harp. .

.xv. corde exiguntur ut bene sonet cythara: vii dona

et quatuor cardinales virtutes et tres theorice
et humilitas que custos est aliarum ... hii sunt .xv. gradus
psalmorum, .xv. stadula quibus distat Bethania et Ierusalem
[secundum] Jo[hannem] .xi. Iste corde debent esse argentee,
id est de sacro eloquio fundate, et quinto corda brevior
est et magis extensa; tanto altiorem et dulciorem sonum
reddit. Humilitas autem abreviat cordam et fervor extendit eam.

Fifteen strings are required if a [mystical] cythara is to

sound well: the Seven Gifts, the Four Cardinal virtues, the
Three Contemplations and Humility which is the defender of
them all ... these [fifteen mystical strings] are also the
fifteen Gradual Psalms and the fifteen furlongs between
Bethania and Jerusalem according to John 11. These strings
should be made of silver, that is, forged from Holy Writ,
and the fifth string is shorter and under greater tension so
that it gives a higher and sweeter sound. Humility shortens
the string and passion for the Divine stretches it.

25 b 1336 Henry of Cossey: In Psalmos

Source: Henry of Cossey, commentary upon Psalm 150:4, in Cambridge,

Christ’s College, MS 11, f.25lv, written in England in the fifteenth century
(Figure 12).

Laudate eum in cordis; id est instrumentis seu pellibus

vel pilis equorum sicut habent communiter vielle.

‘Praise Him upon strings’; that is, on instruments

either with guts or with the hairs of horses such as
fiddles generally have.

26 early 14c Anonymous: Der Busant

Source: Moscow, Central’niy gosudarstvenniy arkhiv drevnikh aktov, Fond

no. 181, ed. hr. 1405, f.74v—75.

240
 Appendix 4

This MS was not used in the edition of F.H. von der Hagen, Gesammtaben-
teuer (Stuttgart and Tiibingen, 1850), 1, p.348, lines 397-411.

Da hif er ym bereyden
Mit syden seiten
Ein fedele erzuget wol
Als sie ein furst foren sal.
Der korper gezieret,
Das lijt gebrieuieret
Mit golde vnd mit gesteine
Von edelm hellfen beyne.
Hinder dem swebet ein palmat siden
Borte; sie waz an allen orten
Mit gulden borten vber leit.
Alsus die gige wart bereit.
Die nagel woren guldin.
Der gygen sag von syden fin
Gewircket wol mit bylden clar.

Then he commanded a fine fiddle with silk strings to be

prepared for him as if it were for a prince to use; the body
decorated, the neck inlaid with gold, precious stones
and noble ivory. Below the neck there hung a band ofsoft
silk; the fiddle was all adorned with golden (?) braid of
silk. Thus the gige was made. The pegs were golden, and the
fiddle-bag seemed to be offine silk embroidered with
beautiful pictures.

27 ?13c Anonymous: Epistola cum Tractatu de Musica Instrumentali Huma-

naque ac Mundana

Source: J.Smits van Waesberghe, ed., Adalboldi Episcopi Ultraiectensis Epistola

cum Tractatu de Musica Instrumentali Humanaque ac Mundana, DMA A.II
(Buren, 1981), pp.15 and 16. In a brief (and rudimentary) discussion of the
properties of strings the author mentions strings de metallo (‘of metal’), de
nervo (‘of gut’) and de nervo velfilo (‘of gut or of ?sinew’).

I include the following, which lies beyond the period covered by this book,
since it offers such full information:

28 1379 Jean de Brie: Le Bon Berger

Source: P. Lacroix, Le Bon Berger (Paris, 1879), p.35.

241
 Appendix 4

No medieval manuscript copy of this work is known to exist; the text

survives only in printed abridgements of the sixteenth century (Lacroix
reprints the edition of Paris, 1541). Of the instrument-names used, vielles,
harpes, luthz and rebecs may probably be taken in their usual senses. The
terms quiternes and cytholes may be taken in the senses proposed for them by
Wright (‘Medieval Gittern and Citole’). The choros may be string-drums
and the symphonies are surely hurdy-gurdies. The word almaduries (which
looks like a borrowing from Arabic) is a mystery. Jean de Brie is discussing
the contrasting natures of the wolf and the sheep.

Les menues cordes des boyaux bien lavez, séchez,

tors, rez, essuez et filez, sont pour la mélodie des
instrumens de musique, de vielles, de harpes, de rothes,
de luthz, de quiternes, de rebecs, de choros, de
almaduries, de symphonies, de cytholes et de aultres
instrumens que |’on fait sonner par dois et par cordes.

The fine sinews of [sheep-] gut well washed, dried,

twisted, scraped, wiped and spun are used for musical
instruments: vielles, harpes, rothes, luthz, quiternes,
rebecs, choros, almaduries, symphonies, cytholes and other
instruments that one makes to give sound by means of the
fingers and ofstrings.

262
 Notes

Preface

] I have assumed throughout this book that the High Style songs of the
troubadours and trouvéres were not generally performed in ‘modal’ or any
directly comparable system of fixed rhythm, but were delivered in
something approaching the ‘declamatory’ rhythm proposed by Van der
Werf (Troubadours and Trouvéeres). Van der Werf’s proposals are beginning
to find favour amongst specialists in courtly monody (see, most recently,
Switten, Cansos). There are also strong arguments in favour of the
isosyllabic style of delivery recently defended by John Stevens (‘Grande
Chanson Courtoise’).

Introduction

] Lacurne de Sainte-Palaye, Histoire Littéraire des Troubadours, especially 1,

pp.43, 378 and 428 (the biographies of the troubadours who are credited
with the ability to play the fiddle in the Vidas). For sixteenth-century
interest in the trouveres and the performance of their works see Fauchet,
Recueil, pp.72¢f.

Bec, La langue Occitane, pp.91ff.

Mansi, Concilia, passim. These volumes have provided a solid foundation

for much twentieth-century work on medieval minstrelsy. For two
classic cases see Waddell, Wandering Scholars, pp.244ff, and Faral, Les
Jongleurs, Appendix 3, items 3, 5, 6c and passim.

See in particular Percy, Reliques, 1, xv-xxiil; 3, 1-xxiv, and Ritson,

Ancient Songs, i-1xxvi.

Op. cit., 2, p.13 and 1, p.428.

Burney, A General History of Music, 2, p.233.

243
Notes

Parker, ‘Troubadour and Trouvere Songs’, p.203. Compare the similar

approach in Le Vot, ‘Interprétation musicale’, p.17. For the older
literature see, for example, Levy, ‘Musikinstrumente’, and Nef, ‘In-
strumentenspiel’.

Van der Werf, Troubadours and Trouveres, p.20.

See Appendix 3, passim.

Chapter 1: Epic and Romance

] On the change from Epic to Romance and its significance see Southern,
The Making of the Middle Ages, pp.209ff; Vinaver, Rise of Romance;
Hanning, The Individual in Twelfth Century Romance. See also Morris,
Discovery of the Individual and Benton, ‘Consciousness of Self’. For an
encyclopedic guide to the presentation of manhood in Old French epic
up to 1250 see Combarieu du Gres, L idéal humain, and for the place of
music in the change see Page, ‘Music and Chivalric Fiction’.

Pope, Horn, gives the text, and on the ethos of this poem (especially its
relation to epic tradition) see Burnley, ‘Roman de Horn’. While I agree
with Burnley that Thomas takes a positive view of Horn, his claim that
Thomas ‘aimed ... at heroic biography, at presenting ... an example of
traditional feudal and epic virtue’ (p.395) is quite out of keeping with
Horn’s expert musicianship. Epic heroes never play instruments before
the later thirteenth century, and even then only in a few isolated cases.
On this question see Page, ‘Music and Chivalric Fiction’.

Pope, Horn, lines 2830-44. This passage has often been quoted,
translated and interpreted. See, for example, Handschin, ‘Estampie
und Sequenz’, 1, pp.6ff; Reaney, ‘Lais of Guillaume de Machaut’,
pp.20ff Bliss, Sir Orfeo, pp.xxix—xxx; Dobson and Harrison, Medieval
English Songs, pp.87—8 (by far the most useful and reliable discussion).

For the interest in songs and their composers see Pope, Horn, lines
2788ff.

See Klaeber, Beowulf, 2105ff (where the musician may be the Danish
king, Hrothgar), and below, Chapter 8, on the story of Apollonius of
Tyre. The earliest appearance of a harper-hero in anything which
might plausibly be called romance occurs in the Ruodlieb, a Latin verse-
tale, probably of south-German origin and dating from cl050. For the
text see Zeydel, Ruodlieb, p.110.
244
 Notes

The qualification (‘as interpreted by secular individuals’) seems

advisable as there may be an important distinction to be drawn
between courtesy as a literate art of self-beautification practised by
courtier clerics inspired by classical ideals of decorum, and courtesy as
understood by (predominantly) illiterate secular persons at court and
much more closely involved with sexual narcissism. See Jaeger, The
Origins of Courtliness, passim.

This question is discussed further in Page, ‘Music and Chivalric

Fiction’.

Whitehead, Chanson de Roland, lines 281—5.

Pope, Horn, lines 1250 and 1255—7. Compare lines 1050ff.

Kimmel, Daurel et Beton, lines 1419-21 and 1564—77.

This contrast is most suggestively discussed in Murray, Reason and

Society, pp.125—7.

Whitehead, Chanson de Roland, line 20.

Ibid., lines 24-6.

Schultz-Gora, Folque de Candie, 2, line 9899.

Tbid., line 12512.

Text in White, La Conquéte de Constantinople, p.90. Compare p.69.

Text from Lecoy, Guillaume de Dole, lines 4120—40; music from the
Chansonnier de |’Arsenal, p.179.

18 Text from Pattison, Raimbaut d’Orange, p.152.

Chapter 2: The twelfth century in the South

] Text and music from Van der Werf, Extant Troubadour Melodies, p.\17*.

2 Gennrich, Rondeaux, Virelais und Balladen, 1, p.10. On this and associated

genres see for example Bec, La Lyrique Francaise, pp.220ff, Delbouille,
Bele Aélis; Doss-Quinby, Les Refrains, and Le Gentil, Guillaume de Dole.

Marshall, Linguistic and Literary Theory, 2, pp.66—7.

24)
 Notes

Text in Bartholomaeis, Jnsegnamenti pe’ giullari, pp.3ff.

Ibid.

Ibid.
.

For the text and music see Van der Werf, Extant Troubadour Melodies,
R227.

Ibid., p.220*.
For some of the evidence see, for example, Faral, Les Jongleurs,
Appendix 3, item 91, and the testimonies of Albertus Magnus
(Borgnet, Beati Alberti Magni Opera Omnia, 8, p.748), Thomas de
Chobham (Broomfield, Summa Confessorum, p.292), Gerbert de Mon-
treuil (Buffum, Roman de la Violette, lines 1400-29; see Appendix 3:33 of
this book), and an anonymous thirteenth-century preacher quoted in
Techener, Description Raisonnée, 1, p.273.

I am assuming here that the text dates from the middle decades of the
twelfth century, as argued by Kimmel (Daurel et Beton), pp.34ff,
although it may date from significantly later (cl200, perhaps?). For
further material from this epic see Appendix 3:1.

1] Kimmel, Daurel et Beton, line 1173ff.

12 Ibid., lines 1498-1505.

The meanings of /ais in Old Provencal are discussed, with lavish

documentation, in Baum, “Troubadours et les lais’.

Text and music from Van der Werf, Extant Troubadour Melodies,
pp.96*—7* (MS R).

For the relative chronology of these terms see Marshall, Linguistic and
Literary Theory, pp.864ff.

Ibid., p.889.

Text from Lavaud and Nelli, Les Troubadours, 1, lines 9811—14.

See, for example, the usage of Marcabrun in his famous Pax in nomine
Domini (text and music in Van der Werf, Extant Troubadour Melodies,
p.227* (line 2)). See also Marshall, Linguistic and Literary Theory,
pp.669ff.
246
 Notes

19 Text from Linskill, Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, p.140, lines 49-50.

20 For the surviving descort tunes see De la Cuesta, Cancons dels Trobadors,
pp.402ff (Qui la vi en ditz, by Aimeric de Peguillan), and pp.531ff (Ses
alegratge, by Guillem Augier Novella). There is some doubt about the
structure of Qui la vi en ditz; Maillard (‘Lai lyrique’, p.125, n.28a)
interprets it as two poems, the second beginning Cilh qu’es caps e guids.
De la Cuesta, op. cit., interprets it (correctly, in my view), as one poem.

21 Baum, “Descort’, p.97. On an important sub-division of the descort

repertory see Marshall, ‘Isostrophic Descort’.

ae There is some dispute as to whether the final A in this scheme

represents the traditional form of the dansa. As pointed out above, the
five surviving dansas with music (all anonymous) are preserved in a
French chansonnier, the Manuscrit du Roi, and are thus both late and
peripheral witnesses to the Occitan dansa tradition which reaches back
to at least the mid-twelfth century. In one instance (here Music
example 8) there can be no doubt that the final A is certainly intended,
since the scribe has signalled it (the hint is not properly taken up by De
la Cuesta (Cangons dels Trobadors, p.741). Perhaps the final A was a
Gallicism. De la Cuesta lists all these dansas as virelais (save Ben volgra,
sesser pogués, which he inventories as ‘Danga, virelai’). For text and
music ofthese pieces see his edition, pp.726—7 (Amors, m’ard com fuoc amb
flama); pp.738—9 (Ben volgra, s’ésser pogués); pp.741—2 (Domna, pos vos ai
chausida; here Music example 8); pp.805—6 (Pos qu’ieu vei la fuelha), and
pp.810—11 (Tant es gaia et avinents). For a meticulous handling of the
descriptions of the dansa given by the poetic theorists see Marshall,
Razos de Trobar, pp.138 and 141-2; idem, Linguistic and Literary Theory, 2,
pp.904ff; Lewent, ‘Dansa’, p.517.

23 The only significant troubadour who has left an important body of

dansas (none of them surviving with music) is the Catalan Cerveri de
Girona. Cerveri’s work also includes some estampidas and is notable for
the high proportion of late and traditionally minor forms which it
includes.

24 For an edition of the full text see Riquer, Guillem de Bergueda, 2, pp.64f.
For further material on refrains in troubadour poetry (including
refrains of this type) see Gorton, ‘Arabic Words and Refrains’, and
Newcombe, ‘The Refrain in Troubadour Lyric Poetry’.

a Text from Suchier, ‘Provenzalische Verse’, p.513.

26 Field, Raimon Vidal, lines 1ff. and p.61. In what follows I paraphrase or
247
Notes

quote the text and translation in this edition.

as, Ibid., lines 48ff and p.61.

28 Ibid., lines 38—46, and p.61.

29 Ibid., lines 52-3.

30 Ibid., line 1245 and p.80.

31 Boutiére and Schutz, Biographies des Troubadours, p.39.

32 Ibid., p.33.

33 Field, Raimon Vidal, lines 1580ff and p.85.

34 Ibid., lines 1020ff and p.76.

35 Whilst it would be impossible to deny the pervasive eroticism of much

troubadour poetry, the distinctive excellence of this love-poetry at its
best is that erotic desire and moral ardour coalesce in one passion
which can only be felt by the refined heart. The tendency of the poetry
to centre on words denoting moral prestige (valors, pretz, onors, and even
the seemingly evanescent joi and jovens) gives many troubadour cansos a
high moral tone which is partly responsible for the altitude of the
‘High’ Style.

36 Field, Raimon Vidal, line 108 and p.62.

2, Ibid., lines 1580ff and pp.85—6.

Chapter 3 : The thirteenth century in the North

] On the northern imitation of the southern canso and other genres see
Bec, La Lyrique Frangaise, pp.44-8.

Text from Vallerie, Garin le Loheren, line 11378. On the presentation of

society in this romance, as contrasted with the later epic of Hervis de
Metz (which we are about to use), see Noiriel, ‘Chevalerie’.

Densusianu, La Prise de Cordres, lines 27-30.

The text is from Lecoy, Guillaume de Dole, lines 4653—9, and the music
from Van der Werf, Extant Troubadour Melodies, p.78*. 1 have added
248
 Notes

several editorial flats to Van der Werf’s transcription. Notes in square

brackets are those for which there is no syllable in Jean Renart’s text of
the song.

Text from Bartsch, Romanzen und Pastourellen, 111, number 42.

For a catalogue of refrains and an attempt to define the corpus see Van
den Boogaard, Rondeaux et Refrains. For further bibliography see
Chapter 2, note 2.

The most recent edition is Lecoy, Guillaume de Dole (with a discussion of

the date on pp.vi-vili). The poem contains detailed references to the
area of Liege; see Lejeune, ‘Principauté de Liege’. In what follows I
shall suggest that Jean Renart has associated accompaniment with
certain kinds of songs cited in his romance, but not with others. The
method will be to establish the genres of the lyrics which are said to be
accompanied, and then to look for a structure of resemblances between
them in terms of metrical form, subject matter, function, and so on. To
assume that this structure of resemblances is significant in some way
relative to the issue of accompaniment is not quite the same as treating
Guillaume de Dole as a ‘mirror’ of contemporary life and we are not
required to ignore its idealising and romanticising impulses. No doubt
many of the song-performances which Jean Renart describes (nobles
singing High Style songs alone in their chambers, for example) are both
romantic and contrived, as argued by Jung (Roman de la Rose).
On the musical and lyrical material in Guillaume de Dole see especially
Coldwell, ‘Guillaume de Dole’; Bec, La Lyrique Francaise, pp.220ff;
Delbouille, Bele Aélis; Doss-Quinby, Les Refrains; Le Gentil, Guillaume de
Dole. A little of the evidence offered by Guillaume de Dole is deployed by
Parker, ‘Troubadour and Trouvere Songs’, pp.187—8, and by Kelly,
Medieval Imagination, pp.239ff.

Lecoy, Guillaume de Dole, lines 1843-51.

Ibid., line 2234. For the typology of the chanson de toile see Bec, La Lyrique
Francaise, pp.107—19, and for some examples with music, Rosenberg
and Tischler, Chanter m’estuet, items 9-11 and 108. On the use of the
refrain in this genre see Jonin, ‘Chansons de toile’.

Lecoy, Guillaume de Dole, lines 2247-52.

1] Ibid., lines 2289-94.

12 Ibid., lines 3419-30. Perhaps the only point of contact between this
song and trouvere lyric is via the Tournoiement des dames of Huon d’Oisi
aa9
Notes

(see Gérold, Musique au Moyen Age, pp.86—8). Compare the materials in

Pelaez, ‘Tornoiement as dames de Paris’.

The association of instruments with Lower Styles clearly involves a link

between instruments and narrative (as in Bele Aiglentine), a registration
which is reinforced by the abundant evidence that Old French epics,
the Chansons de geste, were often performed to instrumental accompani-
ment. See, for example, Faral, Les Jongleurs, Appendix 3, item 91, and
the testimonies of Albertus Magnus (Borgnet, Beati Alberti Magni Opera
Omnia, 8, p.748), Thomas de Chobham (Broomfield, Summa Confes-
sorum, p.292), Gerbert de Montreuil (Buffum, Roman de la Violette, lines
1400-29; see Appendix 3:33 of this book), and an anonymous
thirteenth-century preacher quoted in Techener, Description Raisonnée,
peptide

14 See Appendix 3:13.

Chapter 4: Late traditions in the South

] The Doctrina de Compondre Dictats is edited in Marshall, Razos de Trobar,

pp.95-8. For the arguments in favour of Jofre as the author see
pp.lxxv—lxxvii, and on Jofre’s knowledge of earlier troubadour poetry,
pp.xciii—xcv. There is also an illuminating discussion of the treatise by
Marshall, Linguistic and Literary Theory, 1, pp.274¢f.

Marshall, Linguistic and Literary Theory, p.282.

Marshall, Razos de Trobar, pp.96 and 98.

Ibid., p.98

Music from the Manuscrit du Roi, f.3v. For convenience I take the text
from De la Cuesta, Cangons dels Trobadors, pp.741—2. There are several
errors in De la Cuesta’s representation of the original (mensural)
notation.

The various versions and revisions of the Leys d’Amors are edited in
Gatien-Arnoult, Gay Saber; Anglade, Gay Saber, and idem, Leys d’Amors.
The earliest version is generally supposed to be the treatise published
by Gatien-Arnoult, customarily labelled the ‘A-text’, but Gatien-
Arnoult’s text does not represent the earliest recoverable form of the
Consistori’s doctrines. When his edition is compared with the manu-
script upon which it is based (Figure 3) it becomes clear that he arrived
at his text by running together the work of the main hand with the
250
 Notes

many annotations which surround it. The earliest recoverable form of

the Consistori’s doctrine therefore lies buried in Gatien-Arnoult’s text
amidst a mass of later accretions. For the purposes of this chapter I
shall continue to cite the page numbers of Gatien-Arnoult’s edition for
convenience, although I shall quote directly from the manuscript (since
there are numerous errors in the edition) and indicate when material is
drawn from an annotation.
On the Leys d’Amors, with special reference to the material on music,
see Gonfroy, ‘Reflet de la canso’; Haynes, ‘Music and Genre’; Hibberd,
‘Estampie and Stantipes’, pp.245—6 (n); Stevens, ‘Grande chanson
courtoise’, p.30. The outstanding treatment of the Leys in English is
Marshall, Linguistic and Literary Theory, passim, but especially 1, pp.356ff
and 2, pp.951ff.
As far as concerns the musical interests of the Leys compilers, it seems
that the members of the Toulouse Consistori expected (or hoped) that
some of the poems submitted to their first poetic competition would be
accompanied by music. There are three grounds for accepting this
view. Firstly, most of the references to musical settings in the earliest
version of the Leys are found within the main text, not within the later
annotations. This suggests that these musical prescriptions were part of
the Consistori’s ‘teaching’ from the very first, a view supported by the
earliest treatise to issue from the Consistori, Raimon Cornet’s Doctrinal
de trobar of 1324, where there are also a few musical prescriptions
(Noulet and Chabaneau, Deux manuscrits Provengaux, pp.210—11, lines
380ff.)
Secondly, the substance of the musical prescriptions in the earliest
version of the Leys is preserved in the later versions B and C, which
suggests that it retained some interest and importance throughout the
period when the various texts of the treatise were being prepared.
Indeed Joan de Castellnou (Compendi de la coneixenga dels vicis en els dictats
del Gai Saber, see Appendix 3:18) scrupulously borrows even the
musical material in the annotations to the earliest version.
Thirdly, Molinier’s account (in the C-text) of how contestants were
summoned to the first competition, and his description of how the
songs were to be judged, both suggest that he expected (or hoped) that
music would sometimes be involved. See Anglade, Leys d’Amors, 1, p.9
(Tug nostre major cossirier/E.1 pensamen e.1 dezirier/Son de chantar e d’esbaudir
...), p-11 (Et adonx auziretz chantar/E legir de nostres dictatz ...), p.12 (...
requirem/Que.1 dit jorn qu’assignat havem/Vos veyam say tan gent garniz/ De
plazens sos e de bels ditz ...). See also p.17 (am gay so... ), p.42 (dansa...
am gay so...), and p.44 (... motas acordansas/Fam de chansos, verses e
dansas,/Am sos melodios e prims ...).
The fact that the judges were expected to ‘look over’ (vezer) the
entries (ibid., p.14) rather than to hear them does not, in itself, indicate
that the entries were expected to be without music. Compare the
251
Notes

judging procedure in Jean de le Mote’s Parfait du Paon, roughly

contemporary with the Consistori’s first competition; there the entries
are also read over, yet it is quite certain that they have music (Carey,
Parfait du Paon, 1052ff, and especially 1517—8, where the contestants
‘solmise’ their songs so that copies may be made).

Gatien-Arnoult, Gay Saber, p.350; Toulouse, Académie des Jeux

Floraux, MS 500.007, f.41v.

Ibid.

On the changing sense of vers in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries see
Marshall, Linguistic and Literary Theory, 2, pp.865ff and 951-2.

Gatien-Arnoult, Gay Sabers, p.338, MS f.40r (main hand).

Ibid., pp.338—48, MS f.40r—41v (main hand in all cases).

Ibid., p.346, MS £41r (main hand).

On the registration of the pastourelle see Bec, La Lyrique Francaise,

pp.119-36.

Ibid., p.346, MS f.41r (main hand).

Marshall, Razos de Trobar, p.96.

From La septime estampie real, transcribed from the Manuscrit du Roi,

f.177. Very little instrumental dance-music survives from the thirteenth
century, and my generalisation about the idiom of instrumental music
therefore takes in material surviving from before cl1400. For a guide to
further material see Arlt, ‘Reconstruction’, and Crane, ‘On performing
the Lo estampies’.
Losses of instrumental music and instrument-related lyric genres
have been severe. Only one Old Provengal estampida survives with its
music (Music example 10), while the bal—the genre which the
Consistori annotator considered particularly appropriate for instru-
mental accompaniment—has vanished without trace.

Text and music from Van der Werf, Extant Troubadour Melodies,
pp.292*—293*. This song has been much discussed; see, for example,
McPeek, ‘Kalenda Maia’.

Chapter 5: Paris

Field, Raimon Vidal, lines 158ff and p.63.

252
 Notes

Gerbert, Scriptores, 3, p.282. For important new biographical infor-

mation on Jehan des Murs see Grove 6 sv Jehan des Murs.

For the intellectual and spiritual consequences of urbanisation in the

twelfth and thirteenth centuries it would be hard to improve upon
Little, Religious Poverty (with special reference to the friars) and Murray,
Reason and Society, passim. On the forces affecting the relationship
between minstrel and cleric during this period see Le Goff, Temps,
travail et culture, especially pp.91f and p.100, and Casagrande and
Vecchio, “Clercs et jongleurs’.

Text in Rohloff, Grocheio, p.132. Further on ecclesiastical attitudes to

dancing see Chapter 6.

London, British Library, MS Arundel 395, f.27v.

Material like the following, from the unpublished Flores Psalterii (?11c)
attributed to Lietbertus of Lille, shows the way in which countless
Bible commentaries deal with instruments:

Psalmus enim pertinet ad bonam operacionem. Tympanum autem ad carnis

mortificacionem. Psalterium vero ad iocunditatem laudis. Cythara autem ad
confessionem humilitatis .... Accipe psalterium iocundum et canta letatus sum in
hits que dicta sunt mihi. Adiunge cythara et dic Benedicam dominum in omni
tempore.
(The psalm relates to good works, the tympanum to mortification of the
flesh, the psalterium to the pleasure of praise, the cythara to the admission
of lowliness .... Take up the pleasing psalterium and sing: ‘I have
rejoiced in those things which have been said to me’. Join the cythara to
it and say: ‘I will worship the lord for ever)’. (Oxford, Bodleian
Library, MS Bodley 318, f.128v.)

Here the literal sense has shrivelled up, but not so far that we cannot
see what it once was: the tympanum relates to ‘mortification ofthe flesh’
because the skin of a drum is like the mortified flesh of a believer; the
psalterium is equated with the ‘pleasure of praise’ because its name is
connected with psallendo, ‘praising’, and so on. For surveys of references
to musical instruments in the writings of the Church fathers see Gérold,
Péres de VEglise, especially pp.123ff, 175ff, and 180ff, McKinnon, Church
Fathers and idem, ‘Musical Instruments’.
Vernacular instrument-terminology is very rare in Bible-commen-
taries and glosses compiled before the thirteenth century (I except here
the vernacular psalm-commentary of Notker Labeo and associated
glosses). In a search of published and unpublished commentaries upon
the Psalter the earliest instance I have found is in an eleventh-century
205
 Notes

marginal note to the commentary of Remigius of Auxerre in Rheims,

Bibliotheque Municipale, MS 133, f.221v: cithara genus est musice artis que
vulgo ‘rota’ appellatur.

On the use of Hebrew sources see Smalley, Study of the Bible, pp.241ff.,
and Dahan, ‘Interprétations juives’. The study of Hebrew did not make
an immediate impact upon the glossing of instrument-names in
Scripture, as may be judged from the psalm-commentary of one of the
earliest Hebraists, Herbert of Bosham (London, St Paul’s Cathedral,
MS 2). Herbert’s material on musical instruments is conventional and
of no special interest.
Among the friar-commentators who employed Hebrew material
mention must be made of Nicholas de Lyra, whose monumental
commentary upon the Bible contains several snippets of information
about fourteenth-century instruments (mostly in the glosses on Daniel
3:5). I have consulted the text in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud
misc. 152; see f. 71v (on metallic strings; see Appendix 4:23); ff.236r-v,
on the fistula (a shepherd’s pipe), ctthara (harp) and psalterium (psal-
tery).

Douai, Bibliotheque Municipale, MS 45, volume 9, f.262v:

Sed quia Ysidorus, ethy[mologie] libro] 3, dicit quod psalterium habet lignum
concavum unde redditur sonus a part superiori, et quod eius forma est secundum
figuram littere grece que deltha dicitur, videtur quod psalterium antiquitus non
Juenit illius forme cuius est nunc. Unde advertendum quod in instrumentis modernis
omnia genera viellarum, quarum alique plures alique pauciores habent cordas,
lignum concavum habent unde sonus redditur superius applicatum ad humerum
sinistrum. Cuius corde dum sonant tractu virgule cordate, modulacio illius soni
[MS: sonus] fit inferius tangendo cordas digitis manu [MS: manus] sinistre ut
acucius vel gravius sonent. Convenit ergo psalterium cum viella in condicionibus
duabus; una quod habuit lignum concavum unde redditur sonus superius; alia quod
modulacio eius fiebat tactu digitorum inferius. Sed in tribus erat differencia. Primo
in figura et forma, quia secundum Ysidorum formabatur ad modum littere delthe
quam esse constat huius formeA ,sed nullum inter instrumenta moderna memini me
vidisse talis forme vel similis. Secunda differencia est in numero cordarum, quia
nullum genus viellarum modernarum septenarium numerum cordarum transcendit,
set psalterium vel .x. cordarum erat vel octo. Forte erat et tercia differentia, quia
non tractu virgule sicut moderne vielle sed cum pulsu digitorum sonabat.

These drawings and their associated text appear to have passed

through Dominican channels in the early fourteenth century, for we
find them also in the psalm-commentary of Nicholas Trevet. For an
example, see Page, ‘Early Fifteenth Century Instruments’, p.341.

207
 Notes

9 This is the celebrated English Franciscan Roger Bacon:

... St ipse [expositor], animo in aeterna suspenso, non possit his intrumentis uti,
vocet saltem cum Elizaeo propheta, ut divinas revelationes devotius suscipiat, et
totus in Deum efferatur....Nam licet non oportet propter scientiam scripturae
quod habeat theologus usum cantus et~instrumentorum et aliarum rerum
musicalium, tamen debet scire rationem omnium istorum....

(...if the commentator, his mind set upon eternal things, cannot play
these instruments, he may at least pray with the prophet Elijah that he
may devoutly receive divine revelations and that all may be brought
forth by God. .. . Even if it is not actually necessary that the theologian,
pursuing his studies of Scripture, should have any ability with song,
instruments and other musical matters, he must nonetheless know the
ratio of all these things... .)

Brewer, Roger Bacon, pp.233—4 and Bridges, Roger Bacon, pp.236—7.

Bacon’s view of music is discussed in Adank, ‘Roger Bacons Auffassung
der Musica’; Bacon’s example suggests another way in which literate
and learned men could become interested in musical instruments:
through experimental science and a fascination with instrumenta of all
kinds. On this side of Bacon’s activity see Kupfer, ‘Father of
Empiricism’, and Fisher and Unguru, ‘Experimental Science’.

10 Borgnet, Beati Alberti Magni Opera Omnia, 7, p.4. For other references to
the viella see p.30 (upon the necessity of fiddling and other arts to the
proper running of the state—a view which Johannes de Grocheio
elaborates to produce his notably original De Musica), p.165a, and
Volume 8, p.748. See also Stadler, Alberti Magni de Animalibus, 2,
p.1293. Crombie (Robert Grosseteste, p.189) says that Albertus Magnus
came under the influence of Grosseteste, first lecturer to the Francis-
cans at Oxford from 1229/30, later bishop of Lincoln, and a key figure
in the history of experimental science in the West. There are striking
references to contemporary instruments in the writings of several other
friars connected with Grosseteste’s ‘circle’, suggesting that, as in the
case of Albertus, the friars’ alertness to the properties of instruments
often went hand in hand with an interest in Aristotelian science. One of
these friars is the Franciscan Bartholomaeus Anglicus, whose cele-
brated encyclopaedia, De Proprietatibus Rerum (c1250), records that the
strings of the psalterium ‘are best made from “‘latten” and also from
“silver”? (Appendix 4:18). Another of these friars is the Oxford
Franciscan Roger Bacon, mentioned in the previous note, who seems to
have become a member of Grosseteste’s ‘circle’ by 1249.

1] Cited in Wright, ‘Medieval Gittern and Citole’, p.25.

255
Notes

12 Text in Page, ‘German Musicians’, p.194.

13 Text from Goldine, ‘Henri Bate’, pp.14—15, n.6.

14 On this clerical opposition to dancing see Chapter 6.

.

15 Text in Koenig, Miracles de Nostre Dame, 4, p.44, line 50.

16 Gerbert, Scriptores, 2, p.322.

17 Ruini, Ameri Practica Artis Musice, p.96.

18 Gerbert, Scriptores, 2, p.295. See also pp.296 and 327.

Several further passages in the theorists relating to instruments and
notation may be signalled here.
Lambertus (Coussemaker, Scriptorum, 1, p.269) teaches his students
how to read and write mensural notation ‘so that any piece of music,
however much it may have been diversified to the extreme, may be
suitably made plain through [musical handwriting] in the manner of a
fiddle’ (in modum vielle)’. I suspect that Lambertus is here comparing
the set of five musical staves used in thirteenth-century mensural
notation to the five strings of the viella. He would then be saying that
just as the fiddle’s five strings can encompass the whole gamut (a point
made with reference to the viella by Amerus, Elias of Salomon and
Jerome of Moravia), so the trained musician can write all music,
‘however much it may have been diversified to the extreme’, on five
staves (by learning how to move clefs and how to record any rhythm in
mensural notation).
The anonymous author of the Summa Musice (Gerbert, Scriptores, 3,
p.214) deals with the various ways in which musical intervals are
measured with signa. This term might best be translated ‘ways of
articulating’ since the author’s use of signa goes beyond the sense
‘written marks’ to embrace various non-scriptal ways in which
intervals may be distinguished. This becomes plain when he points out
that instruments articulate intervals in various ways according to their
various properties (Sed in sonoris musicae instrumentis diversimode se habent
signa notarum secundum instrumenti proprietates diversas). Thus wind-
instruments such as the organ articulate them in sequences of tones and
semitones, while fingerboard instruments articulate them in fourths,
fifths and octaves and players must stop the strings to produce further
distinctions. A singer, the author comments in a reference to the
Guidonian hand, ‘has the joints of the hand with differences of sound as
a way of articulating’ (in manu ipsos articulos et sonorum differentias habet pro
signis). If this is the correct interpretation of the author’s use of signa (‘a
way of laying out and articulating tones and semitones’) then the
256
 Notes

Summa Musice may not reveal anything about instruments and notation.
The most confusing and tantalising passage, however, is undoubt-
edly the one by Anonymous 4 (Reckow, Anonymous 4, 1, p.40) which
records that simplicia puncta (principally @ and @) are used ‘in various
kinds of music-books [and] in all and every kind of musical instrument’
(in quolibet genere omnium instrumentorum). 1 can find no secure or
convincing interpretation of this very important passage.

19 Text and translation in Page, ‘Jerome of Moravia’, pp.88—9.

20 Ibid.

ai Ibid., pp.90-1.

22 Compare, for example, a fourteenth-century contrast between liturgical

chant and /rregularis autem dicitur cantus rusticanus sive laycalis...eo quod
neque modis neque regulis constat (‘Irregular music [which] is called rustic
or layman’s music...in that it observes neither modes nor rules’;
Gallo, Tractatulus, p.12).

23 For these arrangements see Chapter 10.

24 Rohloff, Grocheio, p.156.

25 Text and Music from Stablein, Hymnen, p.36.

26 Rohloff, Grocheio, p.160.

27 For these interpretations see Appendix 3:42.

28 Rohloff, Grocheio, p.160.

29 On the interpretation of the ductia as a virelai see below, pp.81—2.

30 Gushee, “Iwo central places’, p.143.

31 Text in Page, ‘Jerome of Moravia’, p.92. It is possible that Jerome is

paraphrasing material here which was originally independent of the
main body of his account. He introduces the description of the
advanced technique with the words Quibus visis et memorie commendatis
totam artem viellandi habere poteris arte usui aplicata (loc. cit.). This is almost
identical to a sentence appearing elsewhere in Jerome’s treatise and
which may well be ‘a formula used to connect sections of two treatises
that were originally independent’ (Fuller, “Theory of Fifthing’, p.262,
n.73).
20d,
Notes

32 Ibid.

33 Fuller, “Theory of Fifthing’.

34 The musical examples are drawn from Fuller’s study.

.

35 This brings out the core of my (reluctant) disagreement with Jerome’s

thirteenth-century annotator, Pierre de Limoges. Pierre sees Jerome’s
advanced technique as a self-accompanying one; | interpret it as a
means of accompanying another instrumentalist or singer.

36 Melody from Van der Werf, Troubadours and Trouvéres, p.123

(melody of MS K).

owt For a full account of Elias’s recommendations see Dyer, “Thirteenth

Century Choirmaster’.

38 Borgnet, Alberti Magni Opera Omnia, 7, p.165:

Similiter viellatio bene suum habet ad harmoniam chordarum ex percussione
conveniente: propter quod a multis bona fit viellatio, qui tamen rationem reddere
nesciunt consonantis harmoniae: eo quod ex usu magis quam ab arte operantur.
(The art of fiddling comes into its own with harmony set up by skilled
stirring of strings; on this account many succeed in the art of fiddling
who cannot explain the rational basis of harmonious accord because
their playing is based more upon practical experience than upon a
scientific knowledge of music-theory.)

39 Melodicus modus et lyratorum et fistulatorum, qui similiter ex usu solo melodias

tonales in lyris et fistulis, et aliis instrumentis musicis contingunt et componunt, arti
per naturam et usum quantum possunt appropinquantes, quia sicut dicit Aristoteles
IT Elementorum, multi sine arte faciunt ea quae sunt artis, et caet[era], sicut e
converso multi ea, quae sciunt per artem, non possunt per usum.
(The ‘melodic’ way [of teaching and learning music] is the one used by
(?) harpists and (?) flautists, for they also perform and compose
melodies on their harps, flutes and other musical instruments accord-
ing to practical experience alone, coming as close to the exercise of truly
scientific mastery as intuitive skill and practice will allow them to do,
for as Aristotle says in the second book of the Elements, there are many
who, without scientific mastery, accomplish the things which such
mastery accomplishes. The converse is also true: there are many who
cannot accomplish the things in practical terms of which they have
scientific mastery.) Gerbert, Scriptores 2, p.289.

40 Text from Anderson, Bamberg Manuscript, p.xc.

4] Tbid., p.cii.

258
 Notes

Chapter 6: The carole

] Birmingham, University Library, MS 6/iii/19, f.103r. On this collec-

tion of collationes see d’Avray, Preaching of the Friars, passim.

For references to lyric in Old French sermons see Zink, La Prédication,

pp.365ff; none of the passages cited seem to relate to the High-Style
trouvere chanson. Latin sermons and devotional works generally have
little to offer here, perhaps because references to trouvére song (as
opposed to popular dance-song etc.) are very hard to spot. For some
possible candidates see Guillaume d’Auvergne, De Universo, p.627 and
a sermon by the Dominican Guido of Evreux (Oxford, Jesus College,
MS E.8, f.13r). References to polyphony in sermons and moral or
theological writings are very few. In the early fourteenth century Petrus
de Palude inveighed against motetti in his commentary upon Psalm 32:2
(Douai, Bibliotheque Municipale, MS 45, volume 2, f.134r; there is no
guarantee that polyphonic music is meant here) and Guillaume
d’Auvergne mentions polyphonic songs with special admiration in his
De Universo (p.996).
These references are as nothing, however, beside the encyclopedic
treatment often accorded to coreae. The outstanding sources are the
chapters on coreae in Guillaume Peyraut’s Summa de Vitiis et Virtutibus
(the passages cited in what follows are from Oxford, Bodleian Library,
MS Bodley 457, ff.25r-28v). These chapters were often copied and
excerpted during the later Middle Ages (for an elaborate fifteenth-
century example see Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 864,
ff.146v-147v). Peyraut is also the main source for the (scanty) material
on caroles in Le Mireour du Monde (Chavannes, Mireour du Monde, pp.76
and 162ff.; this text is often cited by Sahlin, La carole médiévale, pp.10,
32-3, et passim, whose coverage of the Latin source-material in sermons
and treatises on the Virtues and Vices is sketchy).
Other important sources on the corea include London, British
Library, MS Harley 3823, f£.372v—378v, and MS Royal 11 B.iu,
ff.271v-272r. With the spread of treatises on penitence and confession
in the thirteenth century the question of how many sins were involved
in dancing coreae became a pressing one. The most interesting answers
are often to be found in commentaries upon Peter Lombard’s dictum
(Sentences, 1V:xvi) that the sinner should abstain from all amusements
and entertainments during penance. Some of the thirteenth-century
scholastics deal with the issue in a surprisingly indulgent way. See, for
example, Albertus Magnus’s discussion of the question (Borgnet, Beat
Alberti Magni Opera Omnia, 29, pp.632ff). It is material such as this
which lies behind Johannes de Grocheio’s compassionate view that
dancing in coreae is good for those who participate and can actually
quell sexual lust (Rohloff, Grocheio, p.132). This is an opinion which
259
Notes

would have staggered a moralist such as Guillaume Peyraut.

References to the character of corea music are scattered here and
there in theological treatises and technical writings on music. See
Borgnet, of. cit., 29, p.633, for the remarks of Albertus Magnus, and for
various comments in the writings of music theorists see Bragard, Jacobi
Leodiensis Speculum Musicae, 6, p.216, and Gallo, johannis Boen, Ars
Musicae, p.18.

MS Royal 11 B.iii, f.272r: a pascha usque ad autumpnum, probably following

Peyraut, f.26r, whose point is that this is the season when coreae ‘chiefly
hinder the church of God’ (because they were often performed in
churchyards and the singing of the dancers occasionally disturbed
priests).

For the most part the abundant references to coreae in the Vices and
Virtues literature refer to dances ‘performed through the streets and
roadways’ (per vicos et plateas) rather than to the courtly occasions so
often described in romances (see Sahlin, La carole médiévale, for a very
generous selection of romance references).

This detail is mentioned by Peyraut (f.26v), and by many other writers

(e.g. MS Harley 3823, f.375v). The importance which dancers (es-
pecially young girls) attached to performing coreae with fresh clothes is
discussed at great length (and often with attention to picturesque
details) by Peyraut and by the author of the treatise on coreae in MS
Harley 3823, ff.372v—378v. On the floral garlands worn by the dancers
see above, pp.89ff.

British Library, MS Arundel 395, f.58v: quando plures sunt in chorea vel
quando plures spectantes tanto est letior....

MS Harley 3823, f.376r.

Lecoy, Guillaume de Dole, lines 507-19. For references to the songs

performed for caroles see Birmingham, University Library, MS 6/iii/19,
f.103v where they are described as ro[ndellus] aut balatus; Peyraut, f.25r
(audiunt cantus lascivie), and f.26v (how women tempt men to dance with
cantus suavitate).

MS Harley 3823, f.374v (iuvenes et puellas) and 376r (iuvenes et iuvenculas);

Peyraut, f.27, iuvenes...filie familias. Compare also Grocheio (Rohloff,
Grocheio, p.132): in choreis a iuvenibus et a puellis.

10 Goldine, “Henri Bate’, p.15, n.

260
 Notes

Peyraut, f.27r.

Rohloff, Grocheio, p.132.

Loc. cit.

The line of reasoning here is that in Grocheio’s classification the vocal

ductia belongs to the class of cantilene whose distinguishing feature is that
its members begin and end with a refrain (Cantilena vero quaelibet rotunda
vel rotundellus a pluribus dicitur, eo quod ad modum circuli in se ipsam reflectitur
et incipit et terminatur in eodem; ‘Many call any kind of cantilena a ‘rotunda’
or ‘rotundellus’ because it turns in the manner of a circle and begins
and ends in the same way’). Yet Grocheio prefers to reserve the terms
‘rotunda’ and ‘rotundellus’ for pieces whose ‘parts’ (partes) do not differ
from the refrain in their music. In other words Grocheio’s ‘rotunda’
and ‘rotundellus’ are what we are accustomed to call a rondeau, where
the added lines have the same music as the refrain. The ductia must
therefore follow a different scheme in that the music of the added lines
differs from that of the refrain. The virelai seems to fit the bill neatly.

Rohloff, Grocheio, p.136.

Most references are ambiguous in some way. See, for example, Lecoy,
Guillaume de Dole, lines 503ff; are the vieleors in line 503 accompanying
the caroles or do they provide a separate entertainment? See also Sahlin,
La carole médiévale, pp.18—21 (where almost all of the texts cited with
reference to instrumental participation date from the fourteenth
century).

Sahlin, op. cit., passim.

Lecoy, Guillaume de Dole, especially lines 507ff.

Ibid., line 1569.

Sahlin, La carole médiévale, p.23.

Alton, Claris et Laris, p.269, lines 9940-4.

vy Lecoy, Guillaume de Dole, lines 1846, 5440, 2523 and 4164.

Chapter 7: The monophonic conductus

] For the full context of this passage see above, pp.99-60.

261
Notes

Rohloff, Grocheio, p.130.

Loc. cit.: a magistris et studentibus circa sonos coronatur. It is far from clear
what is meant by circa sonos coronatur (literally ‘[the cantus coronatus] is
garlanded around its notes [by Masters and students]’). These words
have been interpreted to mean ‘accompanied (coronatur) with other
sounds (i.e. instrumentally)’; see Seay, Johannes de Grocheo [sic], p.16. I
find this a somewhat forced interpretation but I have none better to
offer.

Buffum, Roman de la Violette, lines 3089-90: Cil jougleour vielent lais/ Et

sons et notes et conduis.

Koenig, Miracles de Nostre Dame, 4, p.186, lines 263-7.

Ibid., 3, p.279, lines 366—7.

The figures are from Falck, Notre Dame Conductus, p.8.

Text and music from Marrocco and Sandon, Medieval Music, p.62.

These monophonic Latin rondeaux are edited in Anderson, Notre Dame

and Related Conductus, 10.

Ibid., p.XLVI.

Ibid., p. XVI.

Ibid., pp.X XVIII and XXIX.

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS 457, f.25v.

London, British Library, MS Harley 3823, f.367v.

Davy, Sermons Universitaires Parisiens, p.248.

Cited in Aubry, La Musique et les Musiciens, entries for 22 August, 1263,

and 9 July, 1249.

Chapter 8: The Roman de Horn and the lai

] Pope, Horn, lines 2830—44. This text has already been fully quoted and
translated above, pp.4—5; it is repeated here for convenience since it is
the centrepiece of this chapter.
262
 Notes

I adopt Harrison’s interpretation of the performance-routine described

in Horn (Dobson and Harrison, Medieval English Songs, pp.87—8).

The passage has often been quoted, translated and interpreted. See, for
example, Handschin, ‘Estampie und Sequenz’, 1, pp.6ff; Reaney, ‘Lais
of Guillaume de Machaut’, pp.20ff Bliss, Sir Orfeo, pp.xxix—xxx;
Dobson and Harrison, Medieval English Songs, pp.87-8.

Text and music from Jeanroy et al., Lais et Descorts, pp.62—3 and 142.

Text from Payen, Les Tristan en Vers, p.171, lines 843-6.

On the mystique of this ‘Matter of Britain’ see, for example, Ollier,

‘Utopie et Roman Arthurien’, p.226.

Foulet, Galeran de Bretagne, lines 2278-81, 2295-301 and 2316-20.

Foulet attributes this romance to Jean Renart, but this attribution has
always been disputed and is now generally rejected. See Lindval, Jean
Renart.

Translated from British Library, Additional MS 12228, ff.218r—222v.

Ibid., £.222v.

For an account of the form of these Jais see Fotitch and Steiner, Tristan
en prose, pp.137ff.

Transcribed from Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS fr. 776, f.27lv.

Fotitch and Steiner, T7istan en prose, p.137.

D’Arco, Passion, p.95.

Rohlfs, Sankt Alexius, p.24.

Compare the remarks on stanza-form in Roques, ‘Deux particularités

métriques’.

Text from Goldschmidt, Sone von Nausay, pp.412ff, lines 15963—76 and
15979-91.

Tolkien, Tree and Leaf, passim, where the image is developed with
characteristic insight and charm.

For the history of the Apollonius story see Kortekaas, Historia A pollonii,
263
Notes

pp.9f, and for an important account of the story’s influence upon the
emergence of romance in twelfth-century France see Delbouille,
‘Apollonius de Tyr’. The Old French prose-version of the Historia is
available in Lewis, ‘Apollonius Romans’.

19 Text in Goolden, Old English Apollonius of Tyre.

20 The Anglo-Norman and Old French metrical versions of the ‘Tristan

story are edited and translated in Payen, Les Tristan en Vers. For
material of musical interest from the Vienna 2542 text of the 77istan en
prose see Maillard, ‘Coutumes musicales’. The Tristan en prose was one of
the most widely-read romances of the later Middle Ages, to judge by
the number and chronological distribution of the surviving sources.
For listings of manuscripts see Fotitch and Steiner, Tristan en prose,
pp. 130-6.

21 Delbouille, ‘Apollonius de Tyr’.

22 For Celtic analogues of the Tristan legend see Schoepperle, Tristan, and
most recently, Padel, ‘Cornish background’ and de Mandach, “Tristan
et Iseut’. Padel and de Mandach present very detailed arguments in
favour of aCornish origin for many elements of the Tristan story. As far
as Tristan’s musical accomplishments are concerned, most research
has focused upon the ‘Harp and Rote’ episode. See Newstead, “The
Harp and the Rote’ and Cluzel, ‘Harpeur d’Irlande’. For a startlingly
different view of the history of the legend see Gallais, Tristan et Iseut,
where it is argued that many elements of the story are Persian in origin.

23 For attempts see Schoepperle, Tristan, passim.

24 For Marie’s text see Ewert, Lais, passim.

25 Loomis, ‘Oral Diffusion’, p.52.

Chapter 9: Open-string instruments: tunings and techniques

1 Ruini, Ameri Practica Artis Musice, p.79. For further references to the
tuning of open-string instruments in the theorists of this period see
Reaney, MS Oxford Bodley 842, p.21 (a diagram of a cythera per modum
boycit, that is, a diagram of Boethius’s fifteen-note gamut imposed upon
a drawing of a medieval pillar-harp); Anon, Summa Musice in Gerbert,
Scriptores, 3, pp.214—15.

2 See, for example, the fifteenth-century English instructions for tuning a

264
 Notes

harp printed in Handschin, ‘Aus der alten Musiktheorie’, pp.3-4. The

text as it stands may need some correction yet there is no doubt that its
instructions are a recipe for producing a diatonic tuning.

For the text see Hardy and Martin, Lestorie des Engleis, p.351. For a text
of the Gesta with facing English translation see Miller and Sweeting, De
Gestis Herewardi Saxonis.

Quoted from Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, MS 2542, f.113r.

Ibid., f.416v.
Ibid., f.485r.

Loe. cit.

The /ais of the Vienna manuscript are edited in Fotitch and Steiner,
Tristan en prose.

Ibid., pp.150-1.

Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, MS 2542, f.356r.

For bibliography on this text see Page, ‘String Instrument Making’,

p.64, n.60.

York Chapter Library, MS 16.N.3, f.112v.

Ibid., £.113v.

See Godefroy, Dictionnaire, sv regart: ‘Aspect, sorte, nature’.

These passages are assembled and discussed in Hibberd, ‘Musica

ficta’. In my view Hibberd tries too hard to smother the implication
that the use officte musice was regarded by many music-theorists as
particularly necessary for instrumentalists.

Gerbert, Scriptores, 3, p.221.

17 Bragard, Jacobi Leodiensis Speculum Musicae, 6, p.146.

18 Compare Coussemaker, Scriptorum, 2, p.441.

Bragard, Jacobi Leodiensis Speculum Musicae, 6, p.146.

265
Notes

20 Coussemaker, Scriptorum, 3, p.18.

21 For illustrations see Perrot, Organ, plates XXVII:2 and XXVIII:3.

22 Godefroy, Dictionnaire, sv bordon, 2; Tobler-Lommatzsch, Altfranzosisches

Worterbuch, sv bordon; Mittellateinisches Worterbuch, sv 2* burdo 1; Page,
‘Jerome of Moravia’, p.90 (line 42).

23 Page, ‘Fifteenth century lute’, p.14.

24 Chapman, Marin Mersenne, p.225.

20 York, Chapter Library, MS 16.N.3, f.113.

26 The exact meaning of essais in this context is unknown. See Stone and
Rothwell, Anglo-Norman Dictionary, sv assai, ‘attempt’. The basic sense is
presumably something like ‘the testers’, perhaps referring to certain
strings which occupied a central position in any tuning procedure or in
some such tuning prelude as is described in the Roman de Horn.

27 For the relevant section of the text in a modern edition see Bossuat,
Anticlaudianus, IV, lines 345ff.

28 Oxford, Balliol College, MS 265, f.69v. Iam most grateful to Dr Nigel

Palmer of Oriel College, Oxford, for this reference. For an account of
the manuscript see Mynors, Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Balliol College,
Oxford, no. 265. I have no doubt that a comprehensive search through
glossed manuscripts of the Anticlaudianus would reveal this same gloss in
an earlier source.

On harp/cithara see Appendix 1.

For full text and translation see Appendix 4:11.

On the background to this text see particularly Gransden, ‘Realistic

Observation’.

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 37, f.49r.

Foulet, Galeran de Bretagne, line 1169.

See Appendix 4:8.

Manitius, Sextus Amarcius, Sermones, p.75, line 416.

266
 Notes

36 For text and translation see above, pp.4—5.

37 Arnold, Brut, lines 10417—29.

Griscom and Jones, Historia Regum Britanniae, p.456.

Kebede, ‘Bowl-lyre’, p.386.

Bragard, Jacobi Leodiensis Speculum Musicae, 1, pp.70—1.

Gerbert, Scriptores, 2, p.328.

I am grateful to Ann Lewis of Keble College, Oxford, for drawing this

source to my attention.

See Grove 6, sv Qanun.

Particula 19, problem 3, and on the archaic character of the rota strung
on both sides, problem 39.

Particula 19, problem 3.

For the diagram and a translation of the text see Chapman, Marin
Mersenne, pp.224—6.

See, for example, Panum, Stringed Instruments, figures 119, 123 and 133.

Chapman, Marin Mersenne, p.224.

See Dyer, ‘Thirteenth Century Choirmaster’, for a study of Elias of

Salomon’s instructions (1274) on how to decorate liturgical chant by
singing in parallel fifths, octaves and twelfths.

Chapter 10: Jerome of Moravia and stopped-string instruments

] Wright, ‘Medieval Gittern and Citole’, p.10.

Z Details from Page, ‘Jerome of Moravia’.

3 Stewart, ‘The echoing corridor’, pp.348 and 351.

For some of the evidence see Chapter 3, n.13.

Chailley, ‘Tu autem’, p.29 (including a facsimile of the line of melody,

267
Notes

taken from the Aix-en-Provence manuscript of Le jeu de Robin et

Marion). The evidence for associating this melodic fragment with the
epic of Girart de Roussillon lies in the fact that it sets (and has clearly
been designed to set) a decasyllabic line broken 6:4. This break is very
rarely used in the surviving Old French epics but is employed
throughout Girart de Roussillon. .

Page, ‘Jerome of Moravia’, pp.90—1. The adjective ‘irregular’ (zrregu-

laris) probably implies that the ‘unlearned’ songs to which Jerome
refers did not follow the rules of the modes. Compare the anonymous
Tractatus de cantu mensurali seu figuratio musicae artis (Gallo, Tractatus de
cantu mensurali, p.12): ‘Irregular music [which] is called rustic or
layman’s music... in that it observes neither modes nor rules’
(Irregularis autem dicitur cantus rusticanus sive laycalis ...eo quod neque modis
neque regulis constat). The point of Jerome’s remark would seem to be
that tuning 2 is appropriate for music which does not observe modal
constraints; this distinguishes it from tuning 1 which, in Jerome’s
words, ‘comprehends all the modes’.

See, for instance, Bowles, ‘Haut and Bas’, p.128.

The tuning is usually presented as a uniformly ascending sequence

(see, for example, Bachmann, Origins, pp.93ff).

I am most grateful to Dr Ephraim Segerman for the opportunity to

discuss this question at length on many occasions.

On Jerome’s virtuoso technique see above, pp.69ff.

As suggested to me by Dr Ephraim Segerman.

Gerbert, Scriptores, 3, p.214.

See Morrow, ‘Ayre on the F# string’, p.11.

Ibid. See also Brown, Sixteenth Century Instrumentation, p.33.

Text in Charland, Artes Praedicandi, p.333.

Chapter 11: Conclusions: voices and instruments

] Marshall, Razos de Trobar, p.98.

2 Rastall, ‘English Consort-Groupings’, p.183.

268
 Noles

Dimock and Brewer, Itinerarium Kambriae, p.48.

Quoted in Chailley, ‘Chanson de geste’, p.11, n.

Rohloff, Grocheio, p.160.

Text in Varnhagen, ‘Ayenbite of Inwyt’, p.36.

See Maillard, ‘Coutumes musicales’, passim.

See, for example, Heinrich Eger von Kalkar (Hiischen, Cantuagium,

p.94), Jacques de Liege (Bragard, Jacobi Leodiensis Speculum Musicae, 4,
p.21) and Engelbert of Admont (Gerbert, Scriptores, 3, p.291).

See Page, ‘False Voices’, for the kind of semantic and terminological
difficulties which stand between us and a satisfactory solution of the
question.

See, for example, Anonymous 4 (Reckow, Anonymous 4, 1, pp.66 and

86).

Appendix 1: Terminology of musical instruments

] Marcuse, Survey, p.370.

2 Remnant, ‘Rebec, Fiddle and Crowd’, p.15.

Galpin, Old English Instruments, pp.56, 57 (caption) and p.4.

For an example from Nicholas Trevet’s commentary see Page, ‘Early

fifteenth century instruments’, p.341.

See, for example, Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, MS Bibl. 63, f.35lv, and

MS Bibl. 64, f.494v, both reflecting attempts to bring the cithara into
line with Bohemian instruments.

Reproduced in Wright, ‘Medieval Gittern and Citole’, plate 1.

Ibid., plate 2.

Reproduced in Montagu, Medieval and Renaissance Instruments {colour]

plate 3.

Reproduced after two (slightly differing) nineteenth-century copies in

Page, ‘Medieval Organistrum and Symphonia’, 2, p.80.
269
Notes

Ibid., p.81.

Reproduced in Galpin, Old English Instruments, plate 21:1.

For an example see Page, ‘Early fifteenth century instruments’, p.342.

For Old Provencal evidence see Wright, ‘Gargilesse’, p.67 and n.3, on
the illustrations in manuscripts of the Vidas which show the troubadour
Perdigo said to be skilled with the viola. For Old Spanish evidence see
Appendix 3:4.

The form rebek appears in an early twelfth-century table of Arabic and

Latin terms (the Arabic has a strong colouring of Romance). For this
important table, with details of the manuscript in which it appears
(Paris, Bibliothéque Nationale, MS lat. 14754, f.244v), see Lemay,
‘Origine arabe’, pp.998f.

Page, ‘Early fifteenth century instruments’, p.347.

Baines, ‘Fifteenth century instruments,’ p.23.

See above, p.126.

Middle English Dictionary sv. giterne.

See, for example, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius B.V, f.3.

For examples see Bachmann, Origins, plates 55 and 60, and Panum,
Stringed Instruments, figures 124 and 125.

For an examination of ‘harp’ terminology in the Dark Ages see Page,

Anglo-Saxon Hearpan.

Panum, Stringed Instruments, figures 85-8.

See, for example, Steger, Philologia Musica.

See Revue Bénédictine, 29 (1912), p.286.

The relationship is discussed in Page, ‘Medieval Organistrum and

Symphonia’, 2, pp.79ff.

Ibid.

Ibid.
270
 Notes

Appendix 3: Literary references relating to the involvement of stringed instruments in

French and Occitan monody

] See further Chapter 3 and the evidence from Jean Renart’s romance of
Guillaume de Dole.
Most readers will no doubt find that items which they would have
expected to be included in this list are not in fact present. Choosing the
material for inclusion has been a difficult—and no doubt somewhat
arbitrary—process. As far as the music-theorists and writers on
vernacular poetry are concerned I have aimed at comprehensive
coverage. The material from theological treatises towards the end of the
appendix, however, is only a minute sampling of a vast quantity of
material still waiting to be gathered and assessed. In the case of
narrative poems and prose-texts I have not hesitated to include
references which, even if they reveal very little by themselves, none the
less illustrate some of the formulaic patterns which underlie the
presentation of musical life in medieval fiction. I have however omitted
references to the performance of /ais to the harp; most of these are quoted
and translated in Chapter 6.
Since the remains of narrative and didactic literature in Old
Provengal are so sparse it is worth extending the above remarks to
record here the musical references which I encountered in Occitan
sources but did not include in the appendix.
Arnaut Guilhem de Marsan Ensenhamen au Cavayer, 131ff.
Blandin de Cornualha (ed. Horst), pp.115 and 990ff.
Canso de la Crosada (ed. Martin-Chabot): II, pp.52, 118, 200, 284 and
298; III, pp.182 and 300.
Garin lo Brun Ensenhamen a la Domna, 525ff, 539ff.
Guilhem Anelier Histoire de la Guerre de Navarre, 27\ff.
Jaufre 3073ff 4485ff and 10786ff.
Matfre Ermengaud Le Breviari D’Amor (ed. Azais), 2, pp.97ff (also
Ricketts, ed., Le Breviari d’Amor, 27924ff and 33994ff).
Raimon Vidal So fo e.l temps, 1097ff.
La Vida del Glorios Sant Frances (ed. Arthur), p.168
Vie de S.Auzias (ed. Campbell), p.96.
I have also omitted: (1) the celebrated Supplication of Guiraut Riquier.
Despite its many references to troubadours and instrumentalists I do not
find that it reveals anything about accompaniment. (2) The satirical
poems against joglars. (3) The Cantigas d’Escarho e de Mal Dizer in
Galician- Portuguese and (4) the writings of the Catalan chroniclers such
as Muntaner. These sources all contain many interesting references, but
they are either somewhat late (4), peripheral (3), or do not reveal
anything about instrumental practice upon closer inspection (2).

2 Arnold, Brut, lines 10545—8. Further on the technique of these lists see
aN
Notes

Devoto, ‘Instrumentos musicales’ and Page, ‘Music and Chivalric

Fiction’.

For Vinsauf’s recommendations see Gallo, Poetria Nova, pp.48—9.

Stengel, Hervis von Metz, line 569. .

Ibid.

Favati, Voyage de Charlemagne, lines 413 and 837.

I am steering close here to some of the issues raised in recent years by

literary scholars in their studies of oral and formulaic poetry. See, for
example, Fry, ‘Old English Formulaic Themes’.

Spitzer, ‘Debailadas-bailar’; Devoto, ‘Libro de Apolonio’, and Artiles,

Libro de Apolonio.

Text from Kortekaas, Historia Apollonit Regis Tyri, p.310. I have

modified Kortekaas’s orthography to the extent of replacing consonan-
tal uw with v.

The readings are from Willis, Libro de Alexandre, pp.370—1; Criado de

Val and Naylor, Libro de Buen Amor, p.380.

See, for example, Criado de Val and Naylor, Libro de Buen Amor, p.378
(all MSS) at 1228b.

Rohloff, Grocheto, p.136.

Kortekaas, Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri, p.310.

The historical elements in the Vidas have been much discussed. See
Egan, ‘Vida’; Bec, Anthologie de la Prose Occitane, 1, pp.20ff; Wilson,
‘Literary commentary’, and De Ley, ‘Provengal biographical tra-
dition’.

For the text of the Dit des Taboureurs see Jubinal, Jongleurs et Trouvéres,
pp.164—9.

As is assumed, for example, by Riquer (Histéria, 1, pp.638).

Fay and Grigsby, Joufroi de Poitiers, line 1160.

Densusianu, La Prise de Cordres, lines 2097-8.

 Notes

As in Bachmann, Origins, p.127.

These manuscripts are: Paris, Bibliothéque Nationale, MS fr.1553 (not

1533 as given in Buffum’s edition, p.vii), f.295, and MS fr.1374, f.141v.

21 Buffum, Roman de la Violette, p.59, gives this reading in his apparatus.

a Buffum, of. cit., pp.viliff gives details of MS C of Le Roman de la

Violette. According to his account it transmits the romance in the
literary language of the beginning of the fifteenth century, while the
text it gives is very close to the oldest copy of the work: MS fr.1374
(although MS C is the only witness to the reading that concerns us
here).

23 See above, Chapter 6.

24 Analecta Hymnica, 3:7.

25 Van der Werf, Troubadours and Trouveres, pp.153ff.

26 Grocheio’s terms are dictamen and concordantia (Rohloff, Grocheio, p.132).

a | Van der Werf, Troubadours and Trouveres, pp.153ff.

28 See, for example (and for details), Grove 6, sv Cantus coronatus.

29 Text in Coussemaker, Scriptorum, 1, p.312.

30 Text in Jubinal, Nouveau Recueil, 2, p.244.

31 Text in Oulmont, Débats du Clerc, p.168.

oe Rohloff, Grocheio, p.130.

33 Carey, Parfait du Paon, lines 1409ff.

34 Compare the materials assembled in Faral, Les Jongleurs, Appendix 3,

items 10] and 106.

35 The part of Peter’s text dealing with minstrels is printed at the foot of
Chobham’s discussion of the issue in Broomfield’s edition.

36 £.37v.

273
Notes

Appendix 4: String-materials in the Middle Ages

] For a review of this issue (with special reference to late medieval

England) see Page, ‘String Instrument Making’.

The best available discussion of medieval’ string-materials is Bach-

mann, Origins, pp.78ff.

On such allegories see Chapter 5, n.6.

The evidence is contained in the cywydd (formerly attributed to

Dafydd ap Gwilym) Rho Duw hael rhadau helynt. The text is printed in
Jarman, ‘Telyn a Chrwth’, pp.174—5. There is an English translation of
the poem in Jones, Welsh Bards, p.102. There are numerous obscurities
and several textual problems in the poem, however; it awaits a full
critical edition and study. There has long been a dispute over the
authorship of the work; some manuscripts attribute it to Dafydd ap
Gwilym and others to Iolo Goch. There is no doubt, however, that it is
a genuine fourteenth-century work; see Parry, Dafydd ap Gwilym,
clxxxill.

By this use of terms I do not mean to imply anything about the

composition of the material so-named.

Page, ‘Early fifteenth century instruments’, pp.341 and 346 and idem,
the Direction of the Beginning’, pp.121—2.

This tradition of metallic stringing was passed on to the harpsichord.

See Page, ‘In the Direction of the Beginning’, pp.121—2.

See Appendix 1.

For translation see above, p.96.

Sommer, Vulgate Version, 2, p.408.

Several important string-traditions may have existed which are not

revealed in the texts. A case in point is provided by the custom of
equipping long lutes (e.g. the Turkish saz) with metallic strings, a
custom which is observed in many parts of the world and which may
have been operative in those (admittedly ‘peripheral’) areas of Europe.
where long lutes were used in the Middle Ages—primarily central and
southern Spain up to, and including, the thirteenth century. Another
tradition of wire-stringing centres upon certain short-lutes which, in
Western tradition, have often been characterised by a somewhat ‘low-
21%
 Notes

brow’ or at least informal ethos. The line of descent here seems to run
from the medieval gittern—an instrument habitually associated with
foppish young men and tavern brawlers during the fourteenth cen-
tury—to take in the Renaissance cittern and, eventually, the man-
doline. On the medieval evidence for the ethos of the gittern, see
Wright, ‘Medieval Gittern and Citole’.

12 On this question see Buckley, Tiompan.

219
 Bibliography
Abbreviations
AIM American Institute of Musicology

AM Acta Musicologica

AfMW Archiv fiir Musikwissenschaft

BBSIA Bulletin Bibliographique de la Société Internationale Ar-

thurienne

CCM Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale

CSM Corpus Scriptorum de Musica

ELN English Language Notes

EM Early Music

FM Forum Musicologicum

GSJ Galpin Society Journal

HMT Handworterbuch der Musikalischen Terminologie

JAMS Journal of the American Musicological Society

MD Musica Disciplina

MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica

ML Music and Letters

MQ Musical Quarterly

MSD Musicological Studies and Documents

276
 Bibliography

PL Patrologia Latina

PRMA Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association

RBdM Revue Belge de Musicologie

SATF Société des Anciens Textes Frangais

SIMP Studia Instrumentorum Musicae Popularis

Z£fMW Zeitschrift fir Musikwissenschaft

Primary sources: manuscripts

Psalm-commentaries

Most of the unpublished psalm-commentaries listed in Stegmiuller’s Reper-

torium Biblicum Medi Aevi were examined. The following list comprises only
the most important or informative.

Cambridge, Christ’s College MS 11

Henry of Cossey

Hereford Cathedral Library MS O.IV.II

Nicholas Trevet (with coloured drawings)

London, British Library MS Royal 19 C.v

Commentary upon the psalter in French

London, Lambeth Palace Library MS 435

Hebrew psalter with Latin glosses

London, St Paul’s Cathedral MS 2

Herbert of Bosham

Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Bodley 246

Nicholas de Gorran

MS Bodley 251
Nicholas de Lyra

MS Bodley 318
Lietbertus of Lille

ie
Bibliography

MS Bodley 727
Johannes Halgrinus de Abbatisvilla

MS Bodley 737
Pseudo-Haymo of Halberstadt

MS Bodley 738
Nicholas Trevet (with coloured drawings)

MS Bodley 860
Anonymous glosses

MS e Mus. 15
Grosseteste (with sketches, f. 43r)

MS Hatton 37
Anonymous glosses

MS Laud misc. 152

Nicholas de Lyra

Oxford, New College MS 36

Michael of Meaux

Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek MS 184

Arnobius Junior

Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, Cod. Vindob. 927

Honorius Augustodunensis

Douai, Bibliotheque Municipale MS 45 (7 volumes)

Petrus de Palude (with coloured drawings)

Grenoble, Bibliotheque Municipale MS 341

Bruno the Carthusian

Rheims, Bibliotheque Municipale MS 133

Remigius of Auxerre

Troyes, Bibliotheque Municipale MS 144

Petrus de Palude (with coloured drawings)

278
 Bibliography

Sermons
Many sermons by major medieval authors are available in early printed
editions. See bibliography, passim.

London, British Library MS Arundel 395

Anonymous

Oxford, Jesus College MS E.8

Guido of Evreux

Oxford, Lincoln College MS Lat. 113

Guido of Evreux

Birmingham University Library MS 6/iii/19

Anonymous Collationes

Treatises on virtues and vices

London, British Library MS Harley 3823
Anonymous (De choreis, ff.372v—78v)

MS Royal 11 B.iu
Anonymous

Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Bodley 457

Guillaume Peyraut Summa de Vitits et Virtutibus

MS Lyell 12
Guillaume Peyraut
y, Summa de Vitiis et Virtutibus

MS Bodley 251
Guillaume d’Auvergne De Viciis et Peccatis

MS Bodley 864
Anonymous Nota de choreis (ff.146v—147v)

Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale MS lat.3726

Anonymous, concerning coreae (f.42v—43)

Old French fiction

London, British Library Additional MS 12228
Guiron le Courtois
29
Bibliography

MS Harley 4903
Peliarmenus
Kanor

MSS Royal 15 E.v, 19 E.ii and 19 E.ii

Perce forest :

Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale

f.fr 93
Peliarmenus
Kanor

f.fr. 1446
Kanor

f.fr. 22549—50
Peliarmenus
Kanor

f.fr. 1374
Le Roman de la Violette

fir 1553
Le Roman de la Violette

Vienna, Nationalbibliothek MS 2542

Tristan en prose

Miscellaneous
London, British Library MS Royal 8 G.iv
William of Auxerre, Summa Aurea

Additional MS 18322
Humbert of Priallaco, commentary upon Peter Lombard, Sentences,
Book IV

Cambridge, Trinity College MS 0.1.58

Secretum Philosophorum

Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Bodley 196

Honorius Augustodunensis Gemma Anime

MS Bodley 749
Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum
280
 Bibliography

Oxford, Balliol College MS 265

Glosses upon Alain de Lille, Anticlaudianus

York, Minster Library MS 16.N.3

Pierre of Peckham, Lumiere as Lais

Toulouse, Académie des Jeux Floraux MS 500.006 the Leys d’Amors

MS 500.007 the Leys d’Amors

St Paul in Karnten, Archiv des Benediktinerstiftes, Cod 264/4

Summa Musice

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307
 Index
Ab joi mou lo vers e.l comens (Bernart de Arnaut de Maroill (Maruelh), 12—16,
Ventadorn), x 26—28
Abril issia (Raimon Vidal), 12, 25-28, Les grans beutatz e.ls fis ensenhamens, 12—14
247-8 Arnaut Guilhem de Marsan Ensenhamen
Adémar II of Poitiers, 22, 23 au Cavayer, 271
Ademar, see Guillem Ademar Arnaut Vidal de Castelnaudary Guilhem
Aegidius of Zamora Ars Musica, 236 de la Barra, 164, 173, 184
Aimeric de Peguillan Qui la vi en ditz, 247 Arnobius Junior Jn Psalmos, 214, 219,
Alain de Lille Anticlaudianus, 119-120, 223,218
266, 281 Ars Cantus Mensurabilis (Franco of
De Planctu Naturae, 143 Cologne), 57
Alba, 41 Ars Musica (Aegidius of Zamora), 236
Albertus Magnus, 57—58, 73, 246, 255, Ars Musicae (Johannis Boen), 260
258 Arthurian narratives, 3, 19, 22, 96-107,
Commentary upon the Sentences of Peter 121-2
Lombard, 82-83, 165, 204—5, 259-60 Au repairer que je fis Prouvence, 198
De Animalibus, 237 Au tens nouvel (Perrin d’ Agincourt), 33
Albumasar, 143 Avicenna (on scientia of fiddling), 57-8
Alfonso el Sabio, 177, 184 Aye d’Avignon, 159
Alfonso of Aragon, 117-18
Amarcius: see Sextus Amarcius Bacon, Roger, 254—5
‘Amateur’ string-playing, 4—8, 20, 92— Bal, 43—48, 173, 179, 184, 252
107, 158-9, 166-71, 189 Bamberg Manuscript, 75—6, 112—3, 258
Amerus Practica Artis Musice 62, 111-13, Bartholomaeus Anglicus De
117, 123, 144-5, 256, 264 Proprietatibus Rerum, 211, 217—9, 235—
Ami et Amile, 165, 184 6, 2559280
Amors, m’ard com fuoc amb flama, 247 Bate, Henri, see Henri de Malines
Amundesham (John) Annales Monasterii Bele Aelis, 245, 249
Sancti Albani, 237-8 Bele Aiglentine, 35-7, 250
Annales Monasterii Sancti Albani (John Bele m’est la voiz altane (Daude de
Amundesham), 237 Pradas), 31—2
Anonymous glossator, 219, 223 Benoit de Sainte Maure Roman de Troie,
Anonymous, 2, 200 29
Anonymous, 4, 256—7, 269 Ben volgra, s’esser pogués, 247
Anticlaudianus, see Alain de Lille Ben volgra que.m vengues mer [cles
Apollonius of Tyre, see Historia Apollonii (Blacasset), 17
regis Tyre & Libro de Apolonio Beowulf, 5, 244
Aristotle, 57-61, 73, 123, 133, 159, 165, Bernart de Ventadorn, 32—33, 179, 184
206-9, 258 Ab joi mou lo vers e.l comens, x
Armand de Belvézer Sermones, 237 Bertran II, Count of Forcalquier, 7

308
 Index

Blacasset, Ben volgra que.m vengues mer(cles Chanter m’estuet, 198, 249
17 Chastelain de Couci, 34, 200
Blake, William, 210 Chelys, 121, 223, 226
Blandin de Cornualha, 271 Chi encor querez amoretes, 203
Boethius De Institutione Musica, 149 Choros, 59, 60, 78, 217, 223, 242
Boeve de Haumtone, 157 Chorus, 229, 230, 238
Boncompagno da Signa Rhetorica Chrestien de Troyes Erec et Enide, 154,
Antiqua, 164, 179 187
Bourdon/Bordunus/Bordone/Burdun, Cilh qu’es caps e guids, 247
64, 69-71, 118-120, 125, 127-131, Cithara/cythara/cythera, 53-5, 112,
158, 266 119-20, 123, 144, 149, 204-6, 215,
Bruno the Carthusian Jn Psalmos, 210— 222-3, 228-38, 253-4
12, 214, 219, 224-5, 278 Citoles/citola/chistolles/cistolla/cythole,
Brut: see Wace 6, 54, 56, 59, 132-3, 146, 149, 166,
Burney, Charles A General History of 217, 221, 242, 274-5
Music, x Claris et Laris, 84, 137, 157, 165, 185, 261
Collatio de coreis, 77, 259
Canso, 6, 15, 22—4, 32, 166-7, 172 Collectorium super Magnificat (Jean de
Canso de la Crosada, 164—7, 271 Gerson), 217
Cantigas d’Escarhno e de Mal Dizer, 271 Compendi de la coneixenga del vicis en els
Cantigas de Santa Maria, 126, 177, 184 dictats del Gai Saber (Joan de
Cantilena, 67-8, 81, 196-201, 261 Castellnou), 164, 180, 251
Cantus coronatus, 67—8, 196-201 Complainte Douteuse, 200
Cantus versualis, 67—8, 196—201 Conflictus Ovis et Lini (Wenrico), 219, 224
Cantus gestualis, see ‘Chanson de Conductus/conduis, 50, 68, 73, 77, 85-91,
Geste’ 135, 261-2
Carole/corea/chorea, 53, 60, 77-84, 89— Conon de Béthune, 8
91, 135, 155-6, 203-6, 259-62 La Conqueste de Constantinople, 245
Ce fut en mai (Moniot d’Arras), 135 Corbechon (Jean) La proprietaire des
Cele d’Oisseri, 37-8 Choses, 236
Cerveri de Girona, 247 Corea/chorea: see Carole
C'est la gieus, en mi les prés, 14—15, 80 Counterpoint, 72—4
C’est la jus la praele, 34—5, 83—4, 88 Courtliness
C'est tot la gieus enmi les prez, 80 and musical skills, 5-8
Chanconete/chanconnette, 35, 86 and sagesse, 8-9
Chanson/chancon, xi, 26, 34, 44—6, 84—
5, 135, 188, 194 Dame a vos icestui lay mant, 99
Chanson de Geste/Cansonz de Gesta/ Dance, 11, 14, 24, 38, 48, 60-1, 77-91,
Cantus gestualis, 22, 68, 129, 162, 135, 154-6, 163, 169, 173, 181, 187,
189, 194 190, 2393255
Chanson de toile, 35—8, 249 Dansa/danga, 17, 22—25, 38, 41-8, 134—
Chan(son) poitevin(e), 29-34, 184—5, 6, 247
194-5 Daude de Pradas Bele m’est la voiz altane,
Chanson de Guillaume, 159 31-2
Chanson des Quatre Fils Aymon, 158, 165, Daurel et Beton, 6, 20, 22, 28, 164, 166,
187-8 246
Chansonnier de |’Arsenal, 51, 245 De Animalibus (Albertus Magnus), 237
Chantan dissera si pogues (Guillem De bonne amour et de leaul amie, 74
Ademar), 164, 174—5 De Institutione Musica (Boethius), 149

309
Index

De Inventione et Usu Musicae (Tinctoris), Etymologiae (Isidore de Seville), 53, 55,

145 149/254
Deiosta.ls breus jorns (Peire d’Alvergne), Expositio problematum Aristotelis (Petrus
164, 173, 174 de Abano), 123-4, 144, 146, 148-9,
De Musica: see Johannes de Grocheio 165, 206-9
De Planctu Naturae (Alain de Lille),
143 Fiddle, see viella
De Proprietatibus Rerum: see Fifthing, 71-3, 87, 137, 257
Bartholomaeus Anglicus Flamenca, 161—4, 171—3, 186
Der Busant, 145, 216, 220, 240-1 Flores Psalterii (Lietbertus of Lille), 253,
Der Renner (Hugo von Trimburg), 220, PTE
238-9 Florence de Rome, 165, 186
Descort/descortz, 22—5, 38, 41—2, 134, Florence Manuscript, 88-9
WP 8) Florimont, 159
De Universo, see Guillaume d’ Auvergne Folque de Candie, 8, 245
De Victis et Peccatis, see Guillaume Folquet de Marseilla S’al cor plagues be
d’ Auvergne Sora huei may sazos, 21-2
Dialogues (Gregory), 203 Francesco de Barberino Liber
Dit des Taboureurs, 177 Documentorum Amoris, 164, 179
Doctrina de Compondre Dictats: see Jofre de Friars, and psalm-commentary, 55-7,
Foixa 133,143,211
Doctrinal de Trobar (Raimon Cornet), 251
Domana, pos vos ai chausida, 43 Gai Saber (Academy of the —), 42, 250-2
Doon de Nanteuil, 165, 185 Galeran de Bretagne, 96—7, 102, 120, 218—
Ductia, 81-2, 169, 197, 203, 261 19, 234, 263
Du Vilain au buffet, 165, 185-6 Garin le Loheren, 30, 248
Garin lo Brun Ensenhamen a la Domna,
Ebles II de Ventadorn, 18 271
Elias Cairel, 175 Garips, 43-4
Elias of Salomon Scientia Artis Musice, 73, Gautier de Coinci Miracles de Nostre
127, 144, 165, 195-6, 256, 267 Dame, 61, 86—7, 165, 177, 191-4,
Engelbert of Admont, 62, 73, 123, 258, 256, 262
269 Gautier de Tournai Gille de Chyn, 30-4,
Ensenhamen a la Domna (Garin lo Brun), 157, 165, 186
271 Gaydon, 157
Ensenhamen au Cavayer (Arnaut Guilhem Gemma Anime: see Honorius
de Marsan), 271 Augustodunensis
Epic, 153-9, 244 Genre, importance to the study of
contrasted with Romance, 3-11, 19 performance practice, 10-11
Epistola cum Tractatu de Musica Gentilleche et Pités, pries pour mi, 102
Instrumentali Humanaque ac Mundana, Geoffrey de Vinsauf Poetria Nova, 154,
220, 241 162
Eracle (Gautier d’Arras), 159 Geoffrey of Monmouth Historia Regum
Erec et Enide (Chrestien de Troyes), 154, Britannie, 121—2
187 Gerard of Wales Topographia Hibernica,
Escribot/Escribotz, 11, 18 120, 137, 215, 218-9, 228-31
Estampie/Estampida/Estampide/ Gerbert de Montreuil Le Roman de la
Stantipes, 42, 44, 48, 68, 135, 169, Violette, 86, 163, 165, 188—90, 246,
179, 197, 247, 252 262, 273, 280
310
 Index

Gerson: see Jeande Gerson 112-22, 136-7, 148-9, 155, 158-9, 162,
Gervase of Tilbury Otia Imperialia, 7, 166, 172, 186—8, 191, 194, 217-8, 221,
164, 177-8 229, 233-7, 240, 242, 264-5, 270
Gesta Herewardi (Richard of Ely), 112, He! aloete, 82
265 Heinrich Eger von Kalkar, 269
Geste de Blancheflour e de Florence, 200 Henri de Malines/Henri Bate Nativitas
Giga/gige/gigue/zigga, 54—5, 84, 123, magistri Henricit Mechliniensis, 59-61,
145-7, 162, 170, 172; 187,191,220, 81, 85, 90, 256, 260
241 Henry of Cossey In Psalmos 146, 215-6,
Gille de Chyn (Gautier de Tournai), 30— 220, 240, 277
4, 157, 165, 186 Herbert of Bosham In Psalmos, 254, 277
Gilles Li Muisis, 58 Hervis de Metz, 31, 32, 34, 155, 162-3,
Girart de Roussillon, 129, 268 165, 187, 248
Gitterns/Quiterne/Guisterne, 132-3, High Style Manner, 10-17, 22-7
P75 829) 2173 2205236; 242) 275 (instruments and subversion of), 31—
Grand chant courtois, 12, 14, 15, 200 34, 38, 44, 48, 67-77, 85, 86, 102, 134,
Gregory Dialogues, 203 137
Grocheio: see Johannes de Grocheio Histoire de la Guerre de Navarre (Guilhem
Grosseteste (Robert), 255, 278 Anelier), 271
Guido of Evreux, 259, 279 Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri, 103-5, 167—
Guillem Anelier Histoire de la Guerre de 171, 244, 263—4, 272
Navarre, 271 Historia Regum Britannie (Geoffrey of
Guilhem Augier Novella Ses alegratge, 247 Monmouth), 121, 122
Guilhem de la Barra (Arnaut Vidal de Hiyya ben Abba, 54
Castelnaudary), 164, 173, 184 Honorius Augustodunensis Gemma
Guillaume d’Auvergne De Universo, 81, Anime and In Psalmos 81, 165, 205—6,
83, 165, 203—4, 259 219, 226-7, 278
De Viciis et Peccatis, 165, 204, 219, 238, Hortus Deliciarum, 144, 150
pH Hugo von Trimburg Der Renner, 220,
Guillaume de Deguilleville La pélerinage 238-9
de la vie humaine, 144 Humbert of Priallaco, 280
Guillaume de Dole, see Jean Renart Huon de Meri Le Torneiment Anticrist,
Guillaume Peyraut Summa de Vitiis et 165, 194-5
Virtutibus, 89, 165, 202—3, 259-260, Huon d’Oisy Tournoiement des dames, 249—
279 250
Guillem Ademar Chantan dissera si pogues, Hurdy-gurdy, 144, 147, 150
164, 174-5
Guillem de Bergueda, 24, 247 Imbert d’Aiguiéres, 177
Guillem Molinier Leys d’Amors, 42, 45, In Psalmos (Arnobius Junior), 214, 219,
164, 173, 179, 184, 251 223, 278
Guiraut de Bornelh, x, 26—28 In Psalmos (Bodleian Library, Oxford,
Guiraut de Cabreira (Giraldus de MS Bodley 860), 219, 227-8
Cabreriis), 7—9, 18—20, 38, 178-9 In Psalmos (Bodleian Library, Oxford,
Guiraut Riquier, 271 MS Hatton 37), 219, 233-4
Guiron le Courtois, 97-102, 279 In Psalmos (Bruno the Carthusian), 210-—
12, 214, 219, 224—5, 278
Harmonie Universelle (Marin Mersenne), In Psalmos (Henry of Cossey), 146, 215—
125,-137 16, 220, 240, 277
Harp/Arpa/Harpe, x, 4-6, 86, 92-107, In Psalmos (Henry of Bosham), 254, 277
SAL
Index

In Psalmos (Honorius Augustodunensis), Johannes Halgrinus de Abbatisvilla, 278

219, 226-7, 278 Johannis Boen Ars Musicae, 260
In Psalmos (Michael of Meaux), 219, John of Trevisa, 235—7
231-3, 278 | Joglars/juglars, x, 19, 22, 26, 28
In Psalmos (Nicholas de Gorran), 220, Joufroi de Poitiers, 186
2599277 Juan Ruiz, Libro de Buen Amor, 169, 272
In Psalmos (Petrus de Palude), 55—7,
1435,240,294, 259 Kalenda Maya (Raimbaut de Vaqueiras),
In Psalmos (Pseudo-Haymo of 48, 252
Halberstadt), 215, 219, 225-6, 278 Kanor, 280
In Psalmos (Pseudo-Remigius of Konrad of Megenberg, 59
Auxerre), 219, 225
Isidore of Seville Etymologiae, 53, 55, 149, Lacurne de Sainte-Palaye, ix, xi, 243
254 Lai(s)/laices/lays, xi, 20—2, 26, 31, 41,
77, 92-107, 112, 135, 157-8, 162, 166,
Jacme IT, 40 168, 172, 181—2, 194, 244, 246, 263
Jacques de Liége (Jacobus Leodiensis) Lai Breton 92—107, 157, 218
Speculum Musice, 117, 118, 122, 260, Lai d’Aelis, 93-5, 97, 99, 100, 263, 271
265, 269 Lai of Baltof, 4-5
Jaufre, 22, 23, 164, 166, 271 Lai of Cabrefoil, 162, 172
Jaufre Rudel, 18, 19, 22, 29, 32 Lai of Fins Amanz, 162, 172
Jean de Brie Le Bon Berger, 217—18, 220, Lai of Tintagoil, 162, 172
241-2 Lay voir disant (Tant me sui de dire tei), 99—
Jean de Gerson 100
Tractatus de Canticis, 145, 217-18 Lambertus, 256
Collectorium super Magnificat, 217 La prise de Cordres et de Sebille, 187
Jean de le Mote Le Parfait du Paon, 201, La Proprietaire des Choses (Jean
251-2 Corbechon), 236
Jean Renart Guillaume de Dole, 10, 31— Las grans beutatz e.ls fis ensenhamens
42, 47, 80, 83—4, 88, 136, 156, 165, (Arnaut de Maroill), 12-14
186, 245, 248-9, 261, 271 L’atre perilleux, 165, 187
Jehan des Murs Musica Speculativa, 52-3, Laurent Le Somme le Roi, 137
143, 253 Le Bon Berger (Jean de Brie), 217-18,
Jehan et Blonde, 155-6 220, 241-2
Jerome of Moravia Tractatus de Musica, Le Breviari d’Amor (Matfre Ermengaud),
50-3, 57-77, 123, 126-33, 136-8, 271
144-5, 165, 196, 211, 256-7, 268 Le Parfait du Paon (Jean de le Mote), 201,
Jeu de Robin et Marion, 268 251-2
Joachim de Fiore Psalterium Decem Le peélerinage de la vie humaine (Guillaume
Chordarum, 143, 147 de Deguilleville), 144
Joan de Castellnou Compendi de la Les Deux Bourdeurs Ribauds, 165, 191
coneixenca del vicis en els dictats del Gai Les Narbonnais, 157
Saber, 164, 180, 251 Le Somme le Roi (Laurent), 137
Jofre de Foixa Regles de Trobar and Le Torneiment Anticrist (Huon de Meri),
Doctrina de Compondre Dictats, 40—45, 165, 194-5
164, 179, 250 Leys d’Amors (Guillem Molinier), 40—49,
Johannes de Grocheio De Musica, 50-4, 135, 164, 173, 179, 180, 184, 250-1, 281
61, 64, 66-9, 74—7, 81-6, 137, 165, Liber Documentorum Amoris (Francesco da
169, 196-201, 253, 255, 259-62 Barbarino), 164, 179
312
 Index

Libre de Contemplacié en Deu (Ramon Coinci), 61, 86—7, 165, 177, 191-4,
Llull), 164, 180-3 256, 262
Libre d’Evast e d’Aloma e de Blanquerna Mireour du Monde, 259
(Ramon Llull), 164, 183-4 Modus, 137
Libre de Meravelles (Ramon Lull), 164, Molinier: see Guillem Molinier
183 Moniot d’Arras Ce fut en mai, 135
Libro de Alexandre, 169, 170, 272 Montaner, 271
Libro de Apolonio, 163, 167—71 Monocordium, 238
Libro de Buen Amor (Juan Ruiz), 169, 272 Mors vite propitia, 87
Libro de las Propriedades de las Cosas Motet, 50, 68, 73, 75-9, 259
(Vingente de Burgos), 236 Musica falsa, 195-6
Lietbertus of Lille Flores Psalterii, 253, Musica ficta, 62, 63, 112, 117-8, 170, 200,
277 265
Literacy, verbal and musical, 53—76 Musica recta, 62, 63, 117, 130, 170
Llull: see Ramon Llull Musica speculativa (Jehan des Murs), 52—
Lower Styles in French and Occitan 3, 143, 253
lyric poetry; their affinity with
instrumental accompaniment, Narrative songs in minstrel repertory,
chapters 2 and 3 passim 19
Lumiere as Lais (Pierre of Peckham), 115, Nativitas magistri Henrici Mechliniensis
119 (Henri de Malines), 59-61, 81, 85,
Lute/luthz/liuto, 54, 132—3, 138, 147, 90, 256, 260
217, 220, 237, 242, 274 Nicholas de Gorran In psalmos, 220, 239,
Lydgate (John), 224 ae)
Lyre/lira, 144—50, 171, 179, 192-3, Nicholas de Lyre Postilla, 220, 239, 254,
206-8, 234—5 277-8
Lyre/lire, 121, 124, 148, 192-3, 222—4 Nicholas Trevet, 143, 277-8
Nicholaus Inclitus, 88
Macaire, 165, 195 Nota/note, 4, 25, 30, 92-3, 162, 172,
Manuscripts, 277-81 176, 179, 191, 262
Manuscrit du Roi, 17, 23, 42, 250, 252 Notker Labeo, 253
Marcabrun, 18, 19, 29, 173, 246
Marie de France, 106, 107 Odon Rigaud, 90
Martianus Capella, 137 Organ, 60, 117-21, 144, 266
Matfre Ermengaud Le Breviari d’Amor, Organer, 92-3, 121-2, 161
271 Organistrum, 144, 150, 238, 269
Medius canon, 122—4 Organon, 187
Merlin, 218-19, 234 Organum, 118, 125, 136, 227, 230
Mersenne (Marin) Harmonie Universelle, Or voi je bien qu’il mi, 75
'25,137 Otia Imperialia (Gervase ofTilbury), 7,
Mervelles de Rigomer, 158 164, 177-8
Messire Thibaut Le Roman de la Poire, Otto IV, 178
165, 188 Ovid, 53
Michael of Meaux In Psalmos, 219, 231—
3, 278 Palsgrave Lesclarcissement de la Langue
Minstrel(s), x, 9-12, 19-22, 26-8, 30-1, Francoyse, 140
33-5, 83—4, 122, 136-7, 154-8, 162- Paris, 49-75, 190-201
3, 170-95, 201-2, 218, 226, 243, 253 Par un matinet lV’autrier, 76
Miracles de Nostre Dame (Gautier de Partimen, 22—3, 44-6
o13
Index

Passion de Clermont-Ferrand, 100-1 Pui, 42, 200

Pastora/pastorela, 40, 45, 46, 135
Pastourelle/pastorelle, 33-4, 75—6, 86, Quant la sesons del douz tens s’asseure
135; 191; 252 (Vidame de Chartres), 9-11
Peire d’Alvergne Deiosta.ls breus jorns, Quant li Roussignol, 197—8, 200
164, 173-4 Qui la vi en ditz (Aimerie de Peguillan),
Peliarmenus, 280 247 ’
Perceforest, 280 Quitarra sarracenica, 53
Percy (Thomas), ix
Perdigo, x, 22—3, 175—6, 270 Rabab, 126
Perrin d’Agincourt Au tens nouvel, 33 Raimbaut d’Aurenga, 11, 245
Peter Lombard Sentences, 204—5, 259, 280 Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, 22, 23, 48, 179,
Peter the Chanter Summa de Sacramentis, 247
201 Kalenda Maya, 48, 176, 252
Petrus de Abano Expositio problematum Raimon Cornet Doctrinal de Trobar, 251
Aristotelis, 123-4, 144, 145, 148-9, Raimon Vidal Abril issia, 12, 25-8, 247-8
165, 206-9 So fo e.l temps, 271
Petrus de Palude In Psalmos, 55-7, 143, Ramon Llull Libre de Contemplacio en Deu,
220, 2405259; 278 164, 180-3
Peyraut: see Guillaume Peyraut Libre de Meravelles, 164, 183
Philippe III, 137 Libre d’Evast e d’Aloma e de Blanquerna,
Philippe de Vigneulles, 175 164, 183-4
Pierre de Bar-sur-Aube, 90 Raoul de Ferriéres, 200
Pierre de Limoges, 70, 72, 258 Razos, 48, 164, 245, 250
Pierre of Peckham Lumiere as Lais, 115— Rebec/Rubeba/Rubebe/Rebeba/
17, 119, 281 Rebecca/Rebecum, x, 57, 62, 123,
Plant/plang, 40, 44-6 126, 145, 217, 220, 242, 270
Poetria Nova (Geoffrey de Vinsauf), 154, Regles de Trobar, see Jofre de Foixa
162 Remigius of Auxerre, 253, 278
Pons de Capdoill, 7—9, 175-6 Respos, 24, 41
Pos qu’ieu vei la fuelha, 247 Retronxa/retroncha/retroencha, 18, 40,
Postilla (Nicholas de Lyra), 220, 239, 45, 46
254, 277-8 Rhetorica Antiqua (Boncompagno da
Practica Artis Musice: see Amerus Signa), 164, 179
Psalm commentaries, as index of Richard of Ely Gesta Herewardi, 112, 265
changes in musical life, 55—7 Ritson (Joseph), ix
Psalterion/salterion/salteire, 125—42, Roger, 255
144, 158, 187, 191, 217 Romance
Psalterium, 53, 55, 57, 112, 122—3, 142— Contrasted with Epic, 3ff
3, 217-18, 222, 224-7, 235, 253-4, Roman de Horn (Thomas), 3-6, 92-107,
255 122, 137, 159, 244-5, 262—4, 266
Psalterium Decem Chordarum (Joachim of Roman de la Poire (Messire Thibaut), 165,
Fiore), 143, 147 188
Psaltery, 112-13, 117-19, 122-5, 136— Roman de la Violette (Gerbert de’
7, 142, 147, 218-22, 236, 238 Montreuil), 86, 163, 165, 188—90,
Pseudo-Haymo of Halberstadt Jn 246, 262, 273, 280
Psalmos, 215, 219, 225-6, 278 Roman des Sept Sages, 165, 190
Pseudo-Remigius of Auxerre Jn Psalmos, Roman de Troie (Benoit de Sainte
219,225 Maure), 29
314
 Index

Roman du Comte de Poitiers, 165, 190-1 Summa Confessorum (Thomas de

Rondeau, 68-69, 81, 84, 88-9, 196-9, Chobham), 165, 201-2, 246, 250
203, 249, 261 Summa de Sacramentis (Peter the
Rondet de Carole, 14, 16, 34—5, 135 Chanter), 201
Rota/rote/rothe/rotta, 122—4, 148, 158, Summa de Vitiis et Virtutibus (Guillaume
162-3, 170, 172, 185, 191, 217, 221-2, Peyraut), 89, 165, 202—3, 259-60, 279
224, 231, 242 Summa Musice, 117, 133, 211, 216, 220,
Rubeba: see Rebec 238, 256, 281
Ruodlieb, 148, 244 Surgeéres, 123
Surgical treatise, 219, 231
Sagesse and eloquence, 8-9 Symphonia: see Simphonia
Saint Alexis, 101,263 _
S’al cor plaques be fora huei may sazos Tant es gaia et avinents, 247
(Folquet de Marseilla), 21—2 Tant es gay es avinentz, 17
Scientia Artis Musice (Elias of Salomon), Tenso, 40, 44-6
73, 127, 144, 165, 195-6, 256, 257 Tessitura, 138
Scordatura, 115 Thibaut, King of Navarre, 51
Scott (Walter), ix Thomas Roman de Horn, 3-5, 92—107,
Secretum Philosophorum, 219, 234—5, 280 122, 137, 159, 244—5, 262-6
Senher n’Aymar, 22—3, 164, 175 Thomas Tristan, 3, 6, 96, 102, 121-2
Sentences (Peter Lombard), 204—5, 259 Thomas de Chobham Summa
Septime estampie real, 252 Confessorum, 165, 201—2, 246, 250
Sermones (Armand de Belvézer), 237 Tinctoris De Inventione et Usu Musicae,
Sermones (Sextus Amarcius), 120—2, 219, 145
226 Tiompan, 229
Ses alegratge (Guillem Augier Novella), Topographia Hibernica (Gerald of Wales),
247 120, 137, 215, 218-19, 228-31
Sextus Amarcius Sermones, 120—2, 219, Tournoiement des dames (Huon d’Oisy),
226 249-50
Simphonia/symphonia/symphonie/ Toulouse, 40, 42, 44, 46
chifonie, 144—5, 150, 179, 191, 217, Consistori, 44, 45
271,238 Toute sole passerai le vert boscage, 203
Sir Orfeo, 263 Tractatulus de Cantu Mensurali seu Figuratio
Sirventes/sirventesc, 11, 18, 19, 41, 44-6 Musicae Artis, 257, 268
So fo e.1 temps (Raimon Vidal), 271 Tractatus de Canticis (Jean de Gerson), 217
Solmisation (and string-playing), 61—3, Tractatus de Musica: see Jerome of
252 Moravia
Son(s)/sun(s)/so/sonus/sonnés, xi, 22, Trevet (Nicholas), 143, 254
30-33, 86, 157-8, 162, 171, 175, 194 Tristan, 3, 97—8, 104—5, 107, 263—4
Sons d’amour, 31, 33, 34 (and see Thomas)
Sone de Nausey, 101—2, 263 Tristan en prose, 97, 99-102, 112—14, 135,
Song of Roland, 3—5, 8, 245 137, 148, 265, 280
Speculum Musice (Jacques de Liege), 117— Troubadours, 3, 7—9, 12—33, 40—41, 52,
8, 123, 260, 265, 269 67-8, 93, 111, 134-8, 160, 173-9,
Stampita: see Estampie 181-2, 243-8, 250-2
Stantipes: see Estampie As string-players, sv. Bertran II,
Strings, 210-41 Count of Forcalquier, Elias Cairel,
Summa Aurea (William of Auxerre), Guiraut de Cabreira, Perdigo, Pons
280 de Capdoill
o1O
Index

Trouvéres, 8—12, 19, 29-38, 51-2, 60, 135-9, 145, 155, 158, 162—3, 166—96,
64, 66-9, 72—75, 85, 87, 93, 106, 111, 204, 216—17, 220, 235-8, 241-2, 255-
134-8, 200, 249 .8, 270
Tuning, 58, 62—5, 70, 93, 111ff Vincente de Burgos Libro de las
Tympanum, 229, 230, 253 propriedades de las cosas, 236
Vinsauf: see Geoffrey de Vinsauf
Van den Proprieteyten der Dinghen, 237 Virelai, 24, 68, 81—4, 247, 261
vers, xi, 11, 18, 26, 40, 44-6, 135, 161, Vita Sancti Christophori, see Walther of
189, 194 Speyer
Vidame de Chartres Quant la sesons del Voyage de Charlemagne, 155, 163
douz tens s’asseure, 9-11
Vidas, x, 7, 27, 164, 175—6, 243, 270, 272 Wace Brut, 121-2, 154, 161-2, 187, 271
Vida del Glorios Sant Frances, 271 Waleys (Thomas), 133
Vie de S. Auzias, 271 Walther of Speyer Vita Sancti Christophori,
Viella/vielle/viele/viola/viula/vihuella/ 219, 223—4
viuela/fedele/fiddle, 6—7, 10, 18-23, Wenrico ConflictusOvis et Lini, 219, 224
30, 37, 53-74, 84, 88, 111, 126-133, William of Auxerre Summa Aurea, 280

316
 66 00 0538 dl
Page, Chris “Awe i.
S an

DATE DUE BORROWER'S NAME

;
Daun Blasberp "3 "
hiwt hoals be 10.a ae

"Chetan 3/4 4 l

Concordia College Library

Bronxville, NY 10708
Dr Christopher Page is well-known as a
performer and scholar of early music and
was recently described by a leading critic as
‘one of the foremost original thinkers in the
field of medieval music’. He directs the
group Gothic Voices, who broadcast and
give concerts frequently and have made four
outstanding recordings. Dr Page, who was
formerly lecturer in Old and Middle English
at New College, Oxford, is now Senior
Research Fellow in Music at Sidney Sussex
College, Cambridge.

The illustration on the front of the jacket

shows the viella (New York, Pierpont
Morgan Library, MS 638); French,
thirteenth century, detail. Reproduced by
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 “Voces and Instruments of the Middle Ages embodies the most sig-
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a welcome contribution of philological expertise into the history of
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because it is new.’ — William S. Newman

The Music of William Byrd, Volume I: The Masses and Motets

by Joseph Kerman

The Music of William Byrd, Volume IIT: Consort and Keyboard Music
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