Form and Idea in the Ars Nova Motet

8/20/2019 Form and Idea in the Ars Nova Motet

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FORM AND IDEA IN THE ARS NOVA MOTET

A dissertation presented

by

ANNA ANATOLIEVNA ZAYARUZNAYA

to the Department of Musicin partial fulfillment of the requirementsfor the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

in the subject of Music

Harvard UniversityCambridge, Massachusetts

August 2010


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© 2010, Anna Anatolievna Zayaruznaya

All rights reserved.


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F I ARS NOVA M

ABSTRACT

Although ars nova motets have traditionally been viewed as “purely mathematical”

due to their highly structured forms, recent studies by Margaret Bent, Jacques Boogaart

and others have challenged this notion, arguing that text and music are sometimes intri-

cately linked. Building upon these analyses of individual works, the present study aims at a

broader evaluation of text-music relations within the repertory.

Part One is dedicated to identifying the units and mechanisms of text-music rela-

tions. This involves exploring the reception of motet texts, on the one hand, and the variety

of their musical forms, on the other. I find that motet reception, as revealed by citation

practices, manuscript transmission, and literary engagement favors the upper voices, which

in turn influence the structures of motets in ways often audible to audiences. Such emphasis

seems in conflict with the commonly held view that polytextuality masks texts in perfor-

mance. However, cognitive science and historical evidence can both show that the supposed

limitations of polytextuality need not hinder understanding. The idea that upper-voice

texts may generate musical forms also grates against the notion that motets are structured

from their tenors upwards, but a closer look at upper-voice rhythmic organization reveals

that a significant number of motets in the repertory have upper-voice structures that super-

sede those of the tenor.

Part Two consists of a series of case-studies focusing on a group of motets whose

main ideas are disjunct or hybrid: the goddess Fortune, a chimera, a piecemeal statue. In

Professor Sean Gallagher, advisor Anna Zayaruznaya


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these works, the musical settings turn out to be as fragmented as the creatures with which

they are paired, showing segmentation on textural and isorhythmic levels. These hybrid

ideas and their far-reaching effects on musical forms inflect our understanding of late-

medieval modes of musical depiction. More than this, when viewed as a group these motets

have the potential to radically alter our understanding of ars nova aesthetics, suggesting that

disjunction, rather than unity, may sometimes have been the highest aim of composition.


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F OR MY PARENTS ,

without whose courage and foresight

none of this would have been possible.


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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix

ABBREVIATIONS, SIGLA AND EXAMPLES xiii

INTRODUCTION 1

PART ONE: FORM AND IDEA

1. MOTETS AS IDEAS 9The Ontology of Motets 17

The Indexing of Motets and Manuscript Layout 17

Motet Citations in Theoretical Treatises 24The Transmission of Text 32Upper-Voice Texts 33Tenor Texts 48Intabulations 50

Motets and/as Literature 54Reception of Ars nova Motets Outside of Ars nova Circles 63Appendix 1A: Citations of Surviving Ars nova Motets in Treatises 68

2. HEARING VOICES 73

Medieval Listening Practices and Modern Ears 75Timbre 84The Cocktail Party Phenomenon 93

3. WHAT IS A TALEA? UPPER-VOICE PERIODICITY IN A RS NOVA MOTETS 106The Tenor as Foundation? 108The Evidence for Independent Upper-Voice Taleae 115

Terminology and Diagrams 118Supertaleae as Grouped Tenor Taleae 119More Intricate Upper-Voice Arrangements 127

Isorhythm and Memory 134Shifts Between Upper- and Lower-Voice Taleae 144Upper-voice Structures and Hermeneutics in S’il estoit / S’Amours (M6) 152Conclusions: Independent Upper-Voice Structures in the Ars nova Motet 167


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PART TWO: MUSICAL DISJUNCTION

4. VOICE-CROSSINGS AND FORTUNA IN MACHAUT’S MOTETS 173The Motetus Corde mesto cantando conqueror 181

Singing from Fortune’s Wheel 183Cece Fortuna and Blind Isaac 195 Amours/Faus Samblant (M15) 198

Motet 14’s Lying Voices 203The Dishonesty of Poets 207

Fausse Fortune and Amour languour 209Other “Fortuna Crossings” 216

Appendix 4A: Helas / Corde mesto, Texts and Translations 222Appendix 4B: Maugre / De ma dolour , Texts and Translations 225Appendix 4C: Hélas / Corde Mesto / Libera me, Edition 228

5. THE MONSTER IN THE MOTET 234The Texts of In Virtute / Decens 235

Hockets and Rhetoric 240The Isorhythmic Scheme of In virtute / Decens 243

Hockets and Wordlessness 249A Monster-Shaped Motet 256

Intensified Monstrosity 260Hybridity’s Ambivalence 262 Vitry and the Zytiron 264

Ut pictura motetus? 273Appendix 5A: In virtut e/ Decens , Texts and Translations 278Appendix 5B: In virtute / Decens , Edition 280

6. VITRY’S C UM STATUA / H UGO / M AGISTER INVIDIE AND LATE-MEDIEVALINTERPRETATIONS OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S DREAM 285

The Statue’s Layers: A Metallurgical Summary 289

The Motet’s Layers: A Formal Summary 293The Composite Tenor of Cum statua / Hugo 296The Beginning of the Motet: “Cum statua... Hugo [est]” 303“Gradatim deduci ac minus”: The Statue’s Layers in the Motet 307The Motet’s Layers: Questions of Isorhythmic Form 311Feet of Clay: Hockets and Fragmentation 314

Phi millies / O Creator / Iacacet granum / Quam sufflabit 318


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Nebuchadnezzar’s Statue in Machaut’s Complainte 324Nebuchadnezzar’s Statues 335Gower’s “Divisioun” and the Musical Statue 350Epilogue: Ars nova and Disjunction 361Appendix 6A: Cum statua / Hugo, Texts and Translations 367

Appendix 6B: Cum statua / Hugo, Edition 369Appendix 6C: Phi millies / O Creator , Texts and Translations 372

CATALOG OF A RS NOVA MOTETS, THEIR SOURCES, AND EDITIONS 375

BIBLIOGRAPHY 386


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A

IF, AS BOETHIUS JUDICIOUSLY WARNS, good Fortune is to be mistrusted and can be counted

on only in its inconstancy, then I’m in for it. While writing this dissertation I have beenastronomically fortunate in the help and support I have received from a list of colleagues,

friends, and family so long that it can only signal my eventual demise. That is, unless we can

consider their influence Providential rather than merely Fortunate.

Even before I had fully settled on a topic, my colleagues in the thriving field of me-

dieval and renaissance studies were unfailingly generous with their time, energy, and exper-

tise. Margaret Bent set things in motion in 2004 by suggesting that I look at a few motets

by Machaut. And she has stood by me since then, productively challenging and encouraging

me in turn and providing access to unpublished work and other invaluable resources.

Alejandro Enrique Planchart has also been an ally for many years, and I thank

him for sharing his insight and enthusiasm on a range of topics, and for the very material

loan of the fourteenth century’s most important equine Antichrist. To Jacques Boogaart

I am grateful for his generosity with unpublished work and for saving me from several

embarrassing errors. Jane Alden, Bonnie Blackburn and Dorit Tanai were instrumental in

bringing Chapter 4 to its final form. Lawrence Earp kindly offered advice on Chapter 1.

Michael Scott Cuthbert, my closest colleague in geographic and temporal terms, has helped

and advised me at various points in my career. On the eve of my dissertation printing I wishI had heeded his earliest piece of advice: to buy a color laser printer. For discussing difficult

texts that would have been nonsense to me without their expertise I thank Leofranc Hol-

ford Strevens and Gabriela Currie. And for his help with a text that is actually nonsense, I

thank Michael Randall.


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At the beginning and again at the end of my writing I was bolstered in my resolve

by the warm and knowledgeable group of colleagues that gather in the dolomites to think

about medieval music. By organizing these conferences at Novacella Karl Kügle does our

discipline an enormous service. I thank him for this as well as for his help with motet-

related things.

In Massachusetts, Jane Bernstein, Joseph Dyer, Lewis Lockwood, Virginia Newes,

and Joshua Rifkin have provided support, encouragement, and a steady stream of difficult

questions. In Californa, Anna Maria Busse Berger, Beth Levy, and William Mahrt made me

feel welcome. Jesse Rodin has been a friend, colleague, and co-conspirator on both coasts.

Members of Harvard’s medieval studies community have had a profound influence

on the extent to which I have felt interested and able to deal with the ideas and images be-

hind the music. I am especially grateful to Jeffrey Hamburger, Michael McCormick, James

Simpson, Hugo van der Velden, and Jan Ziolkowski. My fellow students in medieval stud-

ies seminars, Steven Rozenski, Anna Huber, and Beatrice Kitzinger, shared with me theirenthusiasm and some very useful references.

This project would not have been possible without the tremendous aid offered by

librarians: at Harvard’s invaluable Isham library, Sarah Adams and Doug Freundlich tol-

erated my perpetual residency and offered continuous held and support. At Loeb Music

Library, Virginia Danielson, Kerry Masteller, and Andrew Wilson made me feel welcome

despite my propensity to leave at 9:59 PM (and sometimes, if I’m to be honest, at 10:01).

I am also thankful to William Stoneman and the staff of Houghton Library for granting

me access to several treasures. Digital access to other treasures was facilitated by the Digital

Image Archive of Medieval Music, and I thank Dr. Julia Craig-McFeely for making this


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invaluable resource available, and especially for allowing me to consult images of the MS

Ferrell–Vogüe, and to reproduce below a few details from this fascinating source. Thanks

also to John Shepard of the Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library at UC Berkeley for making

the beautiful image of En la maison dedalus available to me.

Administrative, emotional, and chocolate support were provided by the powerhouse

staff of the Harvard music department: thank you Kaye Denny, Mary Gerbi, Jean Moncrieff,

Nancy Shafman, Karen Rynne, Charles Stillman, and Fernando Viesca. Several sources of

funding made my research and writing possible: among them a Ferdinand Gordon & Eliza-

beth Morrill Graduate Fellowship, a Richard F. French Prize Fellowship, a Presidential

Fellowship from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, and an

Alvin H. Johnson AMS 50 Dissertation Fellowship from the American Musicological So-

ciety. As a director of graduate studies and later chair of the department, Professor Anne

Shreffler has provided much sound advice and encouragement.

Friends don’t let friends write alone, and I am grateful to Emily Abrams Ansari,Andrea Bohlman, James Blasina, Carolann Buff, Daphna Davidson, Louis Epstein, Ellen

Exner, Bonnie Loshbaugh, Heather Marlowe, Drew Massey, Carrie Menke, Evan MacCar-

thy, John McKay, Rowland Moseley, Matthew Mugmon, Andrew Oplinger, Gina Rivera,

David Trippett, Emily Zazulia, and Hillary Zipper for support, encouragement, and calm-

ing words and deeds. Michelle Atwood deserves special mention for reminding me from

time to time that, after all, it’s only musicology. And to Ryan Bañagale, Corinna Campbell,

and Katherine Lee—the other members of the small but mighty (ethno)musicology G3s of

2007-8—I owe warm thanks for their patience and friendship, and for making me zoom

out at key points.


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Where I come from, “committee” has a harsh ring to it, and usually implies some

body of people whose purpose is to undermine individuality and uphold the status quo. The

committee that advised this dissertation could not have been further from those commit-

tees of old. They acted as three distinct voices that together had an undeniable shaping role

to the content and form of the present work, but they also let me pursue my own instincts,

make my own mistakes, and write in my own style (sometimes ill-advised, but never by

them).

Suzannah Clark has shown me what it means to be a reader. Her careful and honest

feedback has led to much fruitful revision, and the subtlety of her thinking has pushed me

to greater care and creativity in my analytical pursuits. To Thomas Forrest Kelly I am grate-

ful for his generosity, his enthusiasm, and his scepticism. His questions, which sometimes

seemed deceptively simple, have acted as important stimuli. No part of this study has not

benefitted from them, and Chapter 1 is their direct result. And to my advisor, Sean Gal-

lagher, I am indebted for asking the right questions at the right times, for thoughtful com-

ments, and for continuing to encourage me when the topic or the circumstances seemed too

daunting. He has lent this work correctness and added style and dignity to many passages.

As a course head and seminar leader he has shown me what it is to inspire and challenge

students. And as I have begun the transition from student to teacher, he has given honest

and helpful advice at every turn.

My family on both coasts (and in the middle) have been loving and supportive

throughout this long process. I thank them for their patience and understanding. And most

of all I thank my husband Yarrow, whose ways of supporting, knowing, reading, questioning,

and loving are as numerous as the leaves of the achillea millefolium.


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A, S, E

Abbreviations

CMM Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae. 111 volumes. American Institute of Musicol-

ogy, 1947– . Volumes cited: 13. Charles Van den Borren, ed. Missa Tornacensis. 1957.

39. Ursula Günther, ed. The Motets of the Manuscripts Chantilly, Musée condé, 564 (olim 1047) and Modena, Biblioteca estense, a. M. 5,24 (olim lat. 568). 1998.

M1–M32 Machaut’s motets, by number. See PMFC2–3.

PMFC Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century. Leo Schrade, Frank Ll. Harri-

son, and Kurt von Fischer, general editors. 25 volumes. Monaco: Éditionsde l’Oiseau-Lyre, 1956–1991.

Volumes cited: 1. Leo Schrade, ed. The Roman de Fauvel; The works of Philippe deVitry; French cycles of the Ordinarium Missae. 1956.

2–3. ———. Works of Guillaume de Machaut . 1956.5. Frank Llewellyn Harrison, ed. Motets of French Provenance. 1968.21. Gordon K. Greene, ed. French Secular Music: Virelais. 1987.23. ———. French Secular Music: Rondeaux and MiscellaneousPieces. 1989.

Manuscript Sigla

Apt16bis Apt, Cathédrale Sainte-Anne, Bibliothèque du chapitre, Trésor MS 16bis

Apt9 Apt, Cathédrale Sainte-Anne, Bibliothèque du chapitre, Trésor MS 9

Arr983 Arras, Bibliotheque Municipale, MS 983 (olim 766), flyleaf

Barc853 Barcelona, Biblioteca de Catalunya (olim central), MS 853

Barc971 Barcelona, Biblioteca de Catalunya (olim central), MS 971 (olim 946)

Be421 Bern, Burgerbibliothek, A. 471 (flyleaves from A. 421)

BN 1112 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS fonds latin 1112

Br19606 Brussels, Brussels, Bibliothèque Royal Albert I, MS 19606

Br5170 Brussels, Archives générales du Royaume, Archief Sint-Goedele 5170(Olim758)


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CaB Cambrai, Bibliothèque Communale, B 1328 (olim 1176)1

Chantilly Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS 564 (olim 1047)

Cort Cortona, Archivio Storico del Comune, 2 fragments without shelfmark

Durham Durham, Cathedral Library, MS C.I.20, flyleavesFauvel Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS fonds français 146

Ferrell-Vogüé Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Ferrell-Vogüé MS. Private Collec-tion of James E. and Elizabeth J. Ferrell, on deposit at the Parker Library,Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

FriZ Fribourg, Bibliothèque Cantonale et Universitaire, Z 260

Ivrea Ivrea, Biblioteca Capitolare, MS CXV(115)

Leiden 2515 Leiden, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit, Bpl 2515.

Leiden 342A Leiden, University Library, MS fragment in group Ltk 342.a, from thebinding of MS Ltk 342A

Lpr 163 London, The National Archives (olim Public Record Office), E

163/22/1/24

Machaut A Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, fonds français 1584

Machaut C Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, fonds français 1586

Machaut E Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, fonds français 9221

Machaut J Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 5203

Machaut Pm New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M.396

Machaut Vg see Ferrell-Vogüé

Mbs 4305 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4305

McVeigh London, British Library, Additional 41667(I)

ModA Modena: Biblioteca Estense e Universitaria, a.M.5.24 (Latino 568; olim IV.D.5)

ModB Biblioteca Estense e Universitaria, a.X.1.11 (Latino 471)

Munich31 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Handschriften-Inkunabelabteilung,Latinus monacensis 5362, Kasten D IV ad [31]

1 Foliation as in Lerch, Fragmente aus Cambrai .


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Nür9 Nuremberg, Stadtbibliothek, Fragment lat. 9 (from Centurio V, 61)

Oas 56 Oxford, All Souls College, MS 56, binding strips

Ox 213 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canonici Miscellaneous 213

Ox 271 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Bodl. 271, binding fragmentsPadC Padua, Biblioteca Universitaria, MS 658

Paris 2444 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds nouv. acq. latines 2444

Paris 571 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français 571

PArs 595 Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 595

PPic 67 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Collection de Picardie 67

Robertsbridge London, British Library, Add. 28550RosL Rostock, Universitätsbibliothek, phil.100/2

SL2211 Florence, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana. Archivio Capitolare di SanLorenzo, ms 2211.2

Strasbourg Strasbourg, Bibliothèque Municipale (olim Bibliothèque de la Ville), MS222.C.22 (now destroyed; facsimile of Coussemaker’s transcriptions ofsome works in Vander Linden, Le manuscrit musical )

Tarr(1) Tarragona, Archivo Histórico Archidiocesano, ms s.s. (1)

Tarr(2) Tarragona, Archivo Histórico Archidiocesano, ms s.s. (2)

Torino 42 Torino, Biblioteca Reale, Vari 42

Trémoïlle Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ms fonds nouvelles acquisitionsfrançaises 23190 (olim Angers, Château de Serrant, Duchesse de la Tré-moïlle)

Tou 476 Tournai, Chapitre de la Cathédrale 476

Udine Udine, Biblioteca Comunale Vincenzo Joppi, ex Archivio Florio 290

Wroclaw Wroclaw (Breslau), Biblioteka Uniwersytecka Ak 1955/KN 195 (olim MSfragment 82 from I.Q.411)

Yox Ipswich, Suffolk Record Office HA 30, 50/22/13.15

2 Nádas’s new foliation is used throughout; see “Manuscript San Lorenzo 2211,” 154–68.


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Terminology and Titles

Since it no longer seems likely that there was ever a treatise called “Ars nova,” I take

these words as a periodic and stylistic designation that need not be capitalized. I have used

the Latin for “longa” to prevent confusion with the adjective “long,”, but “breve” and “min-

im” as opposed to brevis and minima, to avoid excessive italicization. Foliation is indicated

with “v” for verso and only the folio number for the recto. “Motetus” rather than “duplum”

is used throughout to designate the middle voice in a three-voice motet, regardless of the

language of its text.

Motets are cited by short incipits in the order Triplum/ Motetus. The “Catalog of Ars

nova Motets, their Sources, and Editions” at the end of this study provides longer incipits,

including tenor labels, as well as source and edition information for each motet.

Translations are mine unless otherwise attributed.

Examples and Figures

Unless noted otherwise, musical examples have been newly edited for this study, us-

ing the clearest or most complete source available. I have allowed note-values to remain un-

reduced and preserved original note-shapes, but it should be stressed that these are editions

using simplified ars nova notation rather than diplomatic transcriptions. Thus ligatures and

multi-bar rests are broken up to make alignment in score possible. Dots of addition arerepresented, but not dots of division, since bar-lines are used. In cases where multi-measure

rests affect alteration (such as example 3.9), they are preserved—otherwise not. Modern

clefs are used throughout.


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In some of the examples the music has been shrunk in order to demonstrate larger

points about form. In this case it is not necessary to see the individual notes, but readers of

the higher resolution PDF version should be able to zoom in for details. In some cases color

is used to clarify analytical points. If you are reading this dissertation in a low-resolution

copy scanned by UMI, please contact the author for a PDF.

All images are either reproduced with permission, are under the author’s own copy-

right, are small details printed under fair use, or are in the public domain. The latter status

for photographic copies of public domain images was reaffirmed by the 1999 decision in

the case of Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.


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INTRODUCTION

“I REALLY THINK THAT PROSODY AND THE SENSE OF THE WORDS have no importance in the

isorhythmic motet. It proceeds from a purely musical construction; contemporary

music, in this regard, is akin to the ars nova.”1 So opined musicologist Jacques Chailley in

response to the 1955 lecture in which Willi Apel coined the term “pan-isorhythm.”2 He

was not entirely without opposition—Suzanne Clerx had earlier suggested that “along-

side the mathematics which is the base of isorhythmic motets there is also the inspira-

tion, the imagination and the necessity of adapting the music…to a text which also has itsrequirements.”3 But René Lenaerts countered with a rather categorical reply: “I don’t think

so, due to the fact that relations of text and music only came to life at the end of the four-

teenth and in the fifteenth centuries.”4

Chailley and Lenaerts expressed a prevailing view. The relationship between text

and music, which has long been a chief concern in the study of song, is usually referred to

as “word-tone” relations. These units—individual words and small groups of notes—are

1 “Je pense vraiment que la prosodie et le sens des mots n’a aucune importance dans le motet isorythmique.II s’agit d’une construction purement musicale; la musique contemporaine, a cet égart(sic), est proche ausside 1’ars nova et la récente cantate de Leibowitz le montre bien,” published in Apel, “Remarks about theIsorhythmic Motet,” 145.

2 In drawing parallels between the “purely mathematical” attitude of “Boulez and his partisans” and arsnova motets, Chailley was not doing either repertory a favor. As a composer, he preferred more conservative

techniques, and used serialism only in the service of satire. For example, in ‘Diafoirus père et fils’ in his Suitesans prétention pour Monsieur de Moliére (1953). See Spieth-Weissenbacher and Gribenski, “Chailley, Jacques.”

3 “À côté de la mathématique qui est la base des motets isorythmiques, il y a aussi l’inspiration, la fantaisieet les nécessites d’adaptation d’une musique, savamment élaborée, a un texte qui a aussi ses exigences,” Ibid.144.

4 “Je ne le crois pas, car les rapports du texte et de la musique ne deviennent vivants qu’à partir de la fin duXIVe et du XVe siècle,” ibid., 144–5.


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the scale on which text and music most obviously interact in later repertories. Word-tone

relations are epitomized in 16th-century text-painting: the well-known melodic ascents on

“skies” and “stars” in madrigals, the upward runs on “et ascendit in caelum” in renaissance

masses, and so forth. When judged by these standards, earlier repertories do indeed seem

to fail in relating words to music. Writing at the same time as Chailley, Alfred Einstein de-

scribed the addition of voices to a chant as “the smothering new garb” under which the text

“usually disappears.”5 And we can see the same ethos operating thirty years later with Daniel

Leech-Wilkinson’s assertion that “in Machaut’s view, at least, musical form operated, to a

large extent, independently of textual association.”6

In light of the scholarship of the last twenty years such a view is no longer tenable.

A number of careful and sensitive analyses of individual works—mostly from Machaut’s

oeuvre—have shown that the music of ars nova motets can reflect their texts through men-

sural and isorhythmic design, textural manipulation, control of diction, the symbolic use of

number, and a wide array of other techniques.7 Attention to the musical, textual, and con-

textual content of motet tenors has widened the realm of analysis by increasing the number

5 A. Einstein and E. Sanders, trans., “The Conflict of Word and Tone,” The Musical Quarterly 40, no. 3(1954): 338.

6 “Machaut’s Rose, Lis,” 13.

7 The earliest analyses that argue for correspondence between form and meaning are Reichert, “Das Ver-hältnis,” Eggebrecht’s two analyses of Machaut’s Fons/O livoris (M9) (“Machauts Motette Nr. 9,” and “Mach-auts Motette Nr. 9, Teil II”) and the analyses, especially the one of Sub arturo/Plebs, in Günther, “Das Wort-

Ton-Problem.” More recently Margaret Bent has argued that a motet’s texts are manifest in compositionaldecisions which have musical, rhythmical, structural, and symbolic-numerical manifestations. In the caseof Machaut’s Amours/Faus Semblant (M15) the texts expressed are ideas of falsehood and deception linkedwith False Seeming (“Deception, Exegesis, and Sounding Number”); in Vitry’s Tribum/Quoniam, musicalstructure and diction are linked with the Ovidian quotation at the end of the motetus and with the ideasof sudden downfalls and reversals which it embodies (“The Vitry motet Tribum que); and Machaut’s Fons/Olivoris (M9) shows a number of correlations between musical and textual structure; see “Words and music.” Jacques Boogaart has explored text-music relations in many of Machaut’s motets; see “O series summe rata,”and “Love’s Unstable Balance, Part I.” See also Dillon, “The Profile of Philip V.”


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of texts with which form might interact.8 And consideration of interrelationships between

motets has further expanded the arena in which musico-poetic associations may play out,

allowing for analysis on the level of oeuvre or manuscript.9

The perhaps inevitable side-effect of this is that motets have become “difficult.”

If the ars nova motet of 1955 was a purely musical and sonic object, the ars nova motet of

2010 is almost intimidatingly rich in meaning. In Alice Clark’s summary,

The complexities inherent in the genre—including bitextuality, numbersymbolism, allusions to other motets, and other techniques that are inau-dible or that cloud the surface comprehension of text and music—can makeus wonder whether anyone listened at all, and if so, what they heard.10

This list of complexities —the result of careful and imaginative studies—is both a boon

and a weakness for our understanding of the genre. For while opening up exciting new

arenas for investigation, the existing readings present us with a challenge. So far, the most

productive approach has been to focus on individual motets, and even analyses of multiple

works may ask a different set of questions, and indeed even call upon a separate set of

methodologies to explore the semantic, cultural, and musical content of each motet. Like

a Mahler symphony, each motet is a world in itself—full of intellectual sophistication, in-

tricate compositional schemes, and deeply coded meaning. But these worlds may well be in

different galaxies.11

8 For studies of how tenors relate to musical and poetic aspects of motets, see Clark, “Concordare cum mate-ria,” Robertson, Guillaume de Macaut , and Maurey, “A Courtly Lover.”

9 Several studies have addressed the ordering of motets within a corpus; on Machaut, see Brown, “AnotherMirror for Lovers?,” and Robertson, Guillaume de Machaut. On a series of motets in Fauvel, see Bent, “Fau-vel and Marigny.”

10 Clark, “Listening to Machaut’s Motets,” 487.

11 Boogaart’s analyses are an exception, since he considers Machaut’s motets as an oeuvre and sometimesapplies the same analytical technique—for example, the interpretation of talea rhythms—to several works ata time. However, his most detailed analyses, such as his analysis of Motet 6 (discussed in detail in Chapter3 below) focus on the internal poetics of one work. See his “O series summe rata” and “Love’s Unstable Bal-


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The incommensurability of the existing analyses of ars nova text-music relations is

not necessarily a problem, but it makes it difficult to move beyond the individual work to

consider compositional aesthetics, hermeneutics, and modes of signifying within a reper-

tory. Furthermore, this approach to analysis can leave certain basic questions about genre

unanswered, since an interpretation that stresses the depth and uniqueness of a given work

is more likely to read its properties as individual rather than generic traits. But the oppo-

site approach is perhaps more unpalatable, for in deciding that a given genre is made up of

works that are similar, we will stress the similarities and miss the subtleties of individual

compositions. Indeed, how can we begin to understand the galaxy if we do not know itsworlds?

It is the aim of this study to occupy a middle ground. Though Part II concerns itself

with case-studies that follow in the methodological footsteps of existing work, these case-

studies are linked by similar analytical approaches and common units of analysis. It is my

contention that the units of “word” and “tone,” inherited from text underlay discourse and

madrigalisms, are not productive for discussions of musical-semantic relations in the rep-

ertory of ars nova motets. Rather, I will suggest that larger phrases or even entire composi-

tions depict the main semantic ideas of texts through bold textural and formal gestures.

Both form and style as possible loci of expression were addressed by Ursula Günther

in an incisive 1984 essay. With the goal of codifying an array of text-music relations in

the middle ages, she built a five-step ladder whose rungs progress from the most obvious

relations (mimetic) through more complex arrangements, such as pictorial and emphatic

uses of music. On the final rung of the ladder are located those works which relate text and

ance, Part I.”


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music “in the formal makeup of a composition, as in motets, canonic works or retrograde

rondeaux.”12 Here Günther includes two works notated on circular staves and three compo-

sitions by Machaut: the self-descriptive rondeau Ma fin est mon commencement , the trinitar-

ian three-voiced Lai de le fonteine, and the tritextual canonic ballade Sans cuer / Amis dolens/

Dame par vous, which stages a conversation among its voices.13 Motets are rather underrep-

resented on all rungs of Günther’s ladder, but it is on this fifth level that the issue comes to

the fore. Though she concedes that “there are even some motets in which form and text are

connected so as to produce meaning,” in the end she cites only one: Sub Arturo/Fons, whose

motetus text summarizes the diminutions which the tenor undergoes.14

“In other motets,”cautions Günther, “it seems at least less certain, or even questionable whether we can find

intentional connections between the isorhythmic construction and the numbers mentioned

in the text.”15 In conclusion, she tentatively suggests two possible motets in which a tenor

talea repeated seven times might signify the seven liberal arts.

It is interesting to see how ideas and the forms which depict them change for Gün-

ther depending on the genre in question. Theme or subject is interpreted loosely when it

comes to songs: one of the circular rondeaux depicts a labyrinth, Machaut’s ballade evokes

a conversation, the lai enacts the Trinity. And form, too, is a broad enough concept there

to include number of voices, canonic techniques, and page-layout. But in motets the only

12 “im formalen Aufbau einer Kompositon( sic), etwa bei Motetten, kanonischen Werken oder retrograd

aufzulösenden Rondeaux,” Ibid., 236.13 Ballade 17, edited PMFC 3:88–9. On this work, see Newes, “Dialogue and Dispute,” 71–5.14 “Schließlich gibt es sogar einige Motetten, bei denen Text und Form eine Sinnbeziehung aufweisen,”Günther, “Sinnbezüge zwischen Text und Musik,” 267. Sub Arturo/Fons is edited in Bent, Two 14th-century Motets.

15 “Bei anderen motetten scheint es allerdings weniger sicher oder sogar fraglich, ob man zwischen denim Text erwähnten Zahlen und der isorhythmischen Konstruktion eine bewußt angestrebte Versinnlichungsehen sollte.” Günther, “Sinnbezüge zwischen Text und Musik,” 267.


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valid form is isorhythmic, and thus the only text which can be represented by this form is

one that evokes number. To be sure, numbers were important to the study of late-medieval

motets when Günther wrote, and they remain so today despite challenges to “isorhythm”

as the paradigm for motet construction.16 Günther’s evaluation is instructive here in that

it reminds us that both “form” and “subject” are slippery notions whose definitions can be

broad or narrow depending on one’s view of the genre.

Part One of the present study is concerned with refining these vague terms as they

might apply to ars nova motets. In Chapter One, I bringing together various strands of re-

ception, from the scribal to the poetic, to explore the ontology of motets for their medieval

listeners. Specifically I focus on the different roles played by upper-voice and tenor texts in

the naming, transmission, and citation of motets. The genre emerges as rather top-heavy:

though tenor melodies undoubtedly have a role in the construction of motets, reception

within ars nova circles repeatedly stresses upper-voice texts, which are more carefully trans-

mitted in both musical and poetic sources. Nor is the situation very different for more

peripheral audiences, though interesting variations in emphasis are evident.

But the idea that motets would be encapsulated for medieval listeners primarily by

their upper-voice texts raises a set of questions about performance. For in combining mul-

tiple texts in their upper voices, motets are often charged with rendering those texts inau-

dible. How, then, can upper-voice texts be a key to reception? The question of intelligibility

is the focus of Chapter Two, where I argue that we may be underestimating the extent to

which texts can be audible in live polytextual performance.

16 See the accounts of the elevation of “isorhythmic” construction and objections to the term “isorhythm”in Bent, “Isorhythm” and “What is Isorhythm?”


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that King Nebuchadnezzar saw in an apocalyptic dream (Daniel 2). This allegorical im-

age of decay through time is present in several works by Vitry and Machaut. But the statue

also has broader cultural significance, and can allow us to situate ars nova thought within

contemporary intellectual currents as manifest in the writings of Boccaccio, Deguileville,

Dante, Gower, and others.

When taken together, the analyses in Chapters 4, 5, and 6 show that, in some cases,

semantic contents have been the generating concept for a piece of music. Vitry emerg-

es as a composer particularly interested in disjunct forms and ideas: In virtute/Decens has

been attributed to him by several scholars, and two other motets dealing with hybrids—Phi

millies/O Creator and Cum statua/Hugo are among his most securely attributed works. But a

focus on hybridity and disjunction also allows us to compare the compositional approaches

of Machaut and Vitry, since both dwell on monsters in their works, but they do so using

different devices. Most broadly, the hybrid ideas in ars nova motets—and their far-reaching

effects on musical forms—have the potential to inflect our understanding of late-medieval

musical aesthetics. Viewed as a group, these works suggest that disjunction, rather than

unity, may sometimes have been the highest aim of composition.


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CHAPTER ONE

MOTETS AS IDEAS

ON FOLIO 129 of a well-used copy of Guillaume de Nangis’ Chronicon (a history of

the world from the creation until 1300)1, Philippe de Vitry found himself read-

ing about the defeat of the Parthian Army. Their downfall reminded him of another . And

so he picked up his pen and wrote in the margin: “Nota: Post zephiros plus ledit hiems, post

gaudia luctus, etc.”2 With this first line of a couplet from Joseph of Exeter’s account of the

Trojan war, Vitry linked two parallel scenes of downfall and grief—Nangis’s description of

Orodes I grieving for his son, and Exeter’s account of the death of King Priam, survived by

Hecuba. For both mourners,

Winter harms more after gentle west winds, griefs [harm more] after joys;whence nothing is better than to have had nothing for the second time.3

For us the annotation is of interest because the same couplet appears at the end of the

triplum voice in Vitry’s motet Tribum/Quoniam.4 Andrew Wathey, who first discovered the

marginal note, has pointed to a number of thematic parallels between the chronicle and the

motet.5 If, he argues, the motet predates the annotation, then “the later use of the couplet

may well have been intended to recall not only its generalized moral proposition but also

1 Vatican, MS Regin. Lat. 544.

2 Vitry was a frequent annotator who engaged with his books in both personal and erudite ways—the for-mer as when he annotated the year of his birth, 1291, on fol. 361r of this same book. See Wathey, “Philippede Vitry’s Books,” 145–8, and “Myth and Mythography,” 95.

3 “Post zephiros plus ledit hyems, post gaudia luctus;/Unde nichil melius, quam nil habuisse secundum,”trans. Howlett in Bent, “Polyphony of Texts and Music,” 86. See Wathey’s discussion of this quotation in“ Auctoritas and the Motets,” 68–9.

4 For more information on motets cited in the text, see the “Catalog of Ars nova Motets, their Sources, andEditions” at the end of this study.

5 “Both deal with reprobate tribes, with the excessive ambition and cruelty of their leaders and with theirfinal reduction by fortune to misery and death,” Wathey, “Myth and Mythography,” 97.


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to signal the parallels with the topoi of the motet.”6 But what if the annotation predates the

motet? It is possible that it did.7 If so, I would like to imagine that here Tribum/Quoniam

was born.

And the motet reflects its priorities. Writing about an Ovidian couplet (also about

sudden downfalls) that concludes the motetus text, Margaret Bent has argued that the work

is “constructed backward” from these lines, which are as much “starting points and building

materials for both the texts and music” as the motet’s tenor.8 Thus whether Vitrys’ annota-

tion in the Chronicon represents an actual genesis for Tribum/Quoniam or simply a refer-

ence to the motet, it does in a sense encapsulate that work, causing us to think of it as a

weaving-together of disparate texts whose juxtaposition is interesting, fundamental, even

germinative: “Nota...”!

That is one way to think about Tribum/Quoniam. Here are two others:

tenor V+12(6ic); Tr: 9L+2(12+ 12L) + 12L+9L

(upper voices 3x24 ic)9

Mo: (3+ 12L) +2( I I + 13L )+ 15L T: 6L+3[4(6L)]10

6 Ibid.

7 Wathey is hesitant to put the annotation before the motet, writing that “seems likely [that] Vitry’s motetpredates his annotation of the Chronicon” but notes also that “it remains unclear” when Vitry acquired hiscopy of the Chronicon, and that the dateable annotations indicate only that it was “almost certainly in hishands by 1342” and probably by the late 1320s (“Myth and Mythography,” 97n41 ). Elsewhere, however, Wathey points out that the name of Louis de Bourbon has been erased from a list of deserters given in themanuscript under the description of the Battle of Courtrai in 1302, and Louis de Bourbon was Vitry’semployer “from the early 1320s (or earlier),” so that Vitry may well have been the one to make this earlychange. There is no evidence, in other words, that the book could not have been with Vitry before he wroteTribum/Quoniam.

8 Bent was writing before Wathey’s findings had been published, and unaware of the quotation in the triplum,“The Vitry motet Tribum que,” 87, 89.

9 Adapted from Besseler, “Studien zur Musik des Mittelalters II,” 223 and 223n12.

10 Sanders, “The Early Motets,” 27.


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These are formulae Heinrich Besseler (left) and Ernest Sanders (right) used to describe as-

pects of Tribum/Quoniam which they found important. Besseler identifies the overall struc-

ture of the motet as consisting of a texted introduction followed by 12 periods. 11 Sanders

focuses on the length of phrases in each of the work’s three voices, arguing that Tribum/

Quoniam “represents an imaginative ordering of modal tradition to produce a novel, large-

scale structure” in which “the first four multiples of the number 3 are all represented.”12

And here is Tribum/Quoniam in yet another guise. In explaining the mechanics of

rhythmic organization to his readers, the author of the Compendium totius artis motetorum

cites an example of each type of meter:

An example of [perfect time with] minor [prolation] is the motet Playn suide ameer . An example of imperfect time with major [prolation] is the motet Adesto sancta trinitas. An example of [imperfect time with] minor [prola-tion] is the motet [Tribum/]Quoniam secta latronum and many other motets,rondeaux, and ballades.13

Here the same work that we have already seen characterized as a venue for the juxtaposition

of comments on the idea of sudden downfalls and a mathematical expression of multiples

of three is being invoked as an example of imperfect tempus with minor prolation.

If in that case the upper voices of the composition are being evoked (only they dis-

play differences in prolation), other readings of motets evoke their tenors. To take another

piece as an example, Anne Robertson has argued that the key to understanding Machaut’s

11 “V” is for “Vokaleinleitung. The bottom line specifies that the upper voices are arranged in three periods

of twenty-four imperfect longae. The observation is significant and I will return to the question of indepen-dent upper-voice structures in Chapter Three.

12 Sanders, “The Early Motets,” 26–7.

13 “Exemplum de minori in uno moteto Playn sui de ameer. Exemplum de tempore imperfecto majori inmoteto Adesto sancta trinitas, exemplum de minori in moteto Quoniam secta latronum et in multis aliismotetis, rondellis et baladis,” Wold, ed., “Ein anonymer Musiktraktat,” 37. On the relationship betweenthe Compendium totius Artis Motetorum and the treatises which present the ars nova teachings, see Fuller, “APhantom Treatise,” 45–50, and Balensuela, “The Borrower is Servant to the Lender,” 12–4.


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Amours/Faus Samblant (M15) is through its sacred tenor, “Vidi dominum” (I have seen the

Lord), which “illustrates the inherent importance of sight of God at this point in the [al-

legorical journey].”14 Although the motet’s courtly “upper voices…at first seem to resist the

sacred implications of the tenor,” their content “does not undermine a sacred reading of

[ Amours/Faus Samblant ],” since even the Christian pilgrim must sometimes keep bad com-

pany.15 Here a motet is rendered a complex object whose main idea—sacred and allegori-

cal—flows from its tenor, which is primary, into its upper voices, which are subordinate in

meaning.

And, finally, here is the same motet in different clothes: In a dream, the narrator

of Jean Froissart’s Joli buisson de jonece (1373) witnesses a competition in which a group

of young allegorical people write and perform wish poems.16 After they have recited their

wishes, the question of who will judge the competition arises, and Desire suggests that the

company go to the God of Love, who happens to be nearby. The narrator’s heart leaps at the

opportunity, and his joy causes him to sing:

And when I heard them say this,My spirit rejoicedThat I would be going on this trip,For I greatly desiredTo see and also to knowThe god of Love, who is so esteemed, What kind of man he was and of what age.As I traveled along on this excursion,In peace, joy, and gaiety,Singing a new motet That had been sent to me from Reims,I was neither in the front nor in the back,

14 Guillaume de Machaut , 164.

15 Ibid.

16 Figg & Palmer, Jean Froissart: An Anthology, 444–61.


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But very comfortably in the middle,Dressed in new lace-up shoes,The way lovers go for a late night out.17

Sylvia Huot has argued that the unnamed motet—clearly by Machaut since it came to the

singer from Reims—may well have been Amours/Faus Semblant.18 Here placed into the lips

of a happy lover who sings while walking, the motet (or one of it voices) acts as a sound-

track to an idyllic courtly scene in which the “Vidi Dominum” of the tenor refers to the

God of Love, upon whom the singer expects imminently to gaze.19 But it is not to be. This

musical euphoria is all the more striking for the denouement which follows it. “Someone

shoves me and then I wake up,” the next line reads, and then the dream that takes up most

of the dit is over, and the lover is, in Sylvia Huot’s evocative summary, “plunged back into

the realities of winter, encroaching age, the waning of desire and penitential concerns.”20

Thus the motet, whichever motet it is, here represents an extreme of emotion encapsulated

by joyful sound that is all the more loud for being suddenly interrupted.

In bringing together these various contexts and readings of Vitry’s Tribum/Quoniam

and Machaut’s Amour /Faus Semblant, I have purposely mingled medieval and modern views

of motets. All of these interpretations fit comfortably under the broad category of recep-

tion. Between them, motets emerge as intersections of texts and quotations, as mathemati-

cal structures and explorations of number, as exemplary representatives of a new notational

17 My emphasis; trans. Figg & Palmer, Jean Froissart: An Anthology, 461–3.

18 Huot, “Reading Across Genres,” 2, 8–9.

19 Huot has suggested that given the poem’s broader narrative, the tenor contrasts “the deceptive appear-ances of the courtly lady with the unmediated and always salvific vision of God,” ibid., 9. This interpretationgives the motet broader significance within the narrative, but it is also useful to read this as a moment ofdiagetic, plot-driven music making in which the narrator sings out of joy, especially given the denouementthat follows, which in fact interrupts the song.

20 Ibid., 1.


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system, as elaborations of their tenor texts, and even as spontaneous, joyful sound in a

dream. Nor is such a list exhaustive. That all of these different interpretations are possible

is a function of the complexity of motets. For they combine multiple voices, multiple texts,

and sometimes involved structural schemes with textual and melodic quotations in the up-

per voices and the tenor that lead necessarily outside of the work and into the historical

and intellectual context of its composition. Needless to say, all of these are valid critical

approaches (for even Froissart’s decision to cite a motet at this particular moment is critical

and reveals a particular view of the genre), and motets have at some time been all of these

things, and continue to be all of them in the pluralistic climate of early twenty-first-centuryacademia.

But in practice these various views of motets have some trouble coexisting. For ex-

ample, numerical approaches tend to minimize the role of text, owing to an attitude—often

implicit—that mathematical construction results in “absolute” music which is unable or

unwilling to signify.21 Similarly, approaches that begin with the tenor’s text and liturgical

context tend to interact less with upper-voice texts and quotations, except when these sup-

port the sacred message of the tenor.22 Studies focused on texts and the roles of quotations

often do engage with structure, and especially with numerical symbolism, which is able to

render structure semantic by imbuing number with meaning.23 But this approach depends

on an imaginary listener who can appreciate these numerical subtleties because he is in-

21 See the comments of Chailley and others quoted at the beginning of the introduction and published inApel, “Remarks about the Isorhythmic Motet,” 145. Other studies that focus on structure include Besseler,“Studien II,” Sanders, “The Medieval Motet,” and Leech-Wilkinson, “Related Motets.”

22 E.g. Clark, “Concordare cum materia,” Robertson, Guillaume de Machaut .

23 For example, Bent, “Deception, Exegesis, and Sounding Number,” 15-27, and Roesner, “Labouring inthe Midst of Wolves,” 212–45.


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timately familiar with the work, and presupposing this kind of familiarity in an analysis

in turn gives a less active role to sonority and audible events. None of this is necessarily a

problem: any analysis must decide which factors are to be significant and central, and which

peripheral. The alternative—a reading in which text, number, liturgy, sonority, quotations,

culture, and contrapuntal progressions are all expected to signify —threatens to render a

work infinitely complicated.

Thus decisions must be made about what aspects of motets will be more significant,

and these decisions will have ramifications at every step of the scholarly and performing

process. How we edit motets, whether we translate their texts, how we group them in edi-

tions, what other genres we pair them with in concerts—all of these aspects of our interac-

tions are predicated on attitudes about the nature of the genre and the relative importance

of its competing elements. Even names can be instructive. For example, the same motet

has variously been referred to as “O canenda/Rex/Rex regum,” “Rex quem metrorum,” “O

canenda/Rex/T:Rex regum/CT,” “O canenda vulgo per compita-Rex quem metrorum de-

pingit prima figura-Rex regum,” and “V14.” This is not just a matter of academic fashions

or of the disconnect between modern and medieval notions of what a title is—as we shall

see, the fourteenth century’s naming conventions for motets were very consistent. But “O

canenda/Rex/Rex regum” encourages us to think of a composite entity the different ele-

ments of which are kept neatly apart by slashes. “O canenda/Rex/T:Rex regum/CT” with

its complete top-to-bottom listing of voices seems most concerned with indicating that

this is a four-voice motet, and with putting each listed voice on equal terms with the oth-

ers. “O canenda vulgo per compita-Rex quem metrorum depingit prima figura-Rex regum”

seems rather to be three musical works than one, and “V14” evokes an easy-to-encapsulate


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element of an oeuvre (here, Vitry’s) ready to be compared to others like it (presumably

V1–V13) and having little to do with any text that may or may not be present.

This variety of naming betrays a difference of opinion about what these works actu-

ally are. Are they networks of related compositions or individual creations? Is their mean-

ing contained in the long upper-voice texts or the tenor’s pithy content? To what extent do

the separate voices represent independent musico-poetic statements, and to what degree are

they linked? How defining a characteristic, after all, is text to this genre, and if text, then

which text? Where should untexted voices (such as contratenors) or silently texted voices

(most tenors) stand in our analytical priorities? What is a motet? It may be that not so much

is in a name, but these are the questions that arise from the difference between “O canenda/

Rex/Rex regum” and “ V14.”

If our ways of editing, naming, and citing motets can reveal something about com-

peting modern notions of the “essence” of these works, certainly analogous medieval prac-

tices can do the same. Though no texts have survived that deal specifically with the ques-

tions posed above, a broad range of sources comment upon the cultural and intellectual

presence of motets, hinting at the ways in which they were received. We can begin by consid-

ering naming conventions as they are revealed in manuscript indexes and treatises. These

give some compelling hints about where medieval composers or theorists may have located

“the work” within the complex of relationships that constitutes ars nova motets. I will then

look to the manuscript transmission of motet texts—those of the upper voices and of the

tenor—for what they can tell us about the relative importance of different texts. Next I will

turn to the poetic presence of motets. Citations, allusions, and even irreverent re-workings

of motet passages in dits and short poems attest to a role for upper-voice motet texts in a


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broader literary culture.

Throughout these different arenas, we will see that the reception of motets in ars

nova circles emerges as relatively unified—especially so in contrast with more peripheral

practices. For the priorities or scribes, theorists, and even poets are surprisingly dependent

on geography. Already in the fourteenth century, it seems, the ars nova motet was different

things to different people.

* * *

THE ONTOLOGY OF MOTETS

It may well be argued that the idea of “naming” a piece of music is a later invention,

and that we should not expect motets to be called anything. But insofar as the medieval

evidence can answer these questions, there were clearly conventions involved in referring to

motets. In almost all contexts, ars nova motets are referred to by the first few words of their

motetus text. This is the case in both indexes and treatises for the first three quarters of the

fourteenth century at which point, as we shall see, focus shifted to the triplum. I will discussthe evidence provided by indexes and theoretical treatises in turn.

The Indexing and Manuscript Layout of Motets

The index to the interpolated Roman de Fauvel (c. 1317) gives its motets pride of

place among the musical examples and divides them into two categories. The three-voice

motets are labeled “motez a treblez et a tenur[es]”; the two-voice works, “motez a tenures

sanz trebles.” This designation may not seem intuitive. We can take it for granted that a mo-

tet has a tenor, and in keeping with the construction a modern editor would perhaps re-write

these headings to read “tenors with motetus and triplum” and “tenors with motetus, without


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triplum.” But this would miss the fact that “motet” means both the genre of “motet” and the

voice “motetus.” The Fauvel headings seem to preserve this distinction. What makes a work

a motet, in other words, is not having a tenor with repeating rhythmic patterns or different

texts in different voices (though these are certainly properties of the Fauvel motets a treblez

et a tenur ), but having a motetus. That all motets should be called by their middle voice is

perhaps most surprising in a piece like Tribum/Quoniam, where the triplum comes in first

and declares its opening text clearly, but the motetus enters only later, echoing the triplum’s

opening notes and singing under it (see Example 1.1). Here the experience of hearing the

piece and of calling it “Quoniam secta latronum” seem rather different, and we may wonderwhether someone seeking to find this motet would not be looking under “Tribum que non

abhorriut”. Nevertheless, even this work is indexed by its motetus.

Example 1.1: Tribum/Quoniam, mm. 1–624

The only exception in Fauvel serves rather to prove the rule than otherwise. The

motet Zelus familie/ Ihesu tu dator is listed in the index as “Zelus familie”—that is, by the

incipit of its triplum voice. But upon examination of the music we find that the voices are

almost identical in their rhythmic activity, rate of textual declamation, and range.25 In-

24 Reproduced from PMFC 1:6.

25 Both voices declaim on the level of longa and breve, in a Mode 1 rhythm. Individual semibreves do notcarry text.


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brought his understanding of their musical functions to bear on his decision in making the

index.

Example 1.3: Zelus/ Ihesu mm. 84–end30

Dated 1376 and thus standing near the end of our period of interest, the index of

the Trémoïlle manuscript also separates motets from other genres and, collecting them un-

der the rubric “Motez ordenez et escriz ci aprés,” lists the works by their motetus incipits.31

Within the Machaut corpus, the same approach is taken in the famous index that heads

30 Reproduced from PMFC 1:67.

31 See Bent, “A Note on the Dating,” 222–3. Bent has determined that the date of 1376 only acts as aterminus ante quem for the first part of the index and for the contents of folios 1–32. Even though most ofthe manuscript has been lost, it can be ascertained from the many concordances which exist that all worksare indeed listed by their motetus. Droz and Thibaut assumed that the motet indexed as “O Philippe” was Ophilippe/O bone dux, but is probably the Fauvel motet with the motetus “O Philippe”; see Droz & Thibaut, “Un

chansonnier,” 5. See also comments in Earp, “Scribal Practices,” 66. The Strasbourg codex treats “Portionature” as the triplum of the motet elsewhere presented as Ida/Portio, and Trémoïlle’s citation of this workas “Yda capillorum” may rest on this conception; see Günther, The Motets of the Manuscripts Chantilly, p.lix. Here the distinction between voices is difficult to make, as it was in the case of Zelus/ Jesu: the “Ida capil-lorum” voice sings a long “Ida” at the opening of the motet, while the “Portio naturae” voice declares morequickly. That there was some question about what this motet should be called can be gleaned also from the Ars cantus mensurabilis, whose author normally refers to motets by their triplum voice but in one case callsthis work “Portio nature vel Ida capillorum”; Balensuela, ed., Ars cantus mensurabilis, 256. See also Appendix1A.


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Manuscript A. Here a list headed “Les motets” uses a motetus incipit for all the works but

two.32 The first exception is Quant / Amour (M1), which is entered into the index as “Quant

en moy vint premierement,” with a big decorated Q. Earp has suggested that the triplum is

cited “by virtue of its reference to ‘coming first’,” but the decision to list it thus could also

be a finding aid, since this motet has a miniature above the triplum voice’s decorated Q, and

the eye would naturally be drawn to the left column on fol. 414v, and with it the triplum

“Quant en moy.” The motetus here has only a one-line initial. In all other cases, however,

the motetus has a two-line initial, while the triplum, tenor, and contratenor (where there

is one) have a one-line decorated letter (as in the beginning of He mors/Fine amour , repro-duced in Figure 1.1.33 Thus the manuscript’s decoration is keyed to the index.34

It is a strange aspect of motet reception that sometime during the last quarter of the

fourteenth century the naming convention seems to have changed suddenly and decidedly.

In the Machaut corpus, we may compare the priorities underlying the decoration of He

mors/Fine amour (M3) in Manuscript A (Figure 1.1 above) with the same motet’s layout in

the slightly later Manuscript Ferrell- Vogüé (Figure 1.2). Here and elsewhere in the motet

section of this manuscript, it is the triplum voice that begins with a 2-line capital, while

motetus, tenor, and contratenor parts have one-line capitals.35

32 In contrast, Machaut’s three polytextual ballades are indexed by all of their texts: Sans cuer / Amis/Dame (B17) and De triste cuer /Quant /Certes (B29) are each listed by three incipits, with brackets added on the leftto show the three texts go together. Quant Theseus/Ne quier (B34) was originally indexed as “Quant Theseus,”but the hand providing pagination later added “Ne quier veoir” to the right of the first incipit.

33 Observed in Earp, “Scribal Practice,” 65n146.

34 The other exception is M18, in which all voices begin with “Bone pastor ” but the incipit given in theindex, “Bone pastor Guillerme,” refers to the triplum. Earp has suggested that the triplum is cited becauseit names the work’s dedicatee; ibid., 67. It is also possible that the scribe had a momentary lapse given thesimilarity of the incipits.

35 The only exception is Christe/Veni (M21), where 2-line-high initials in both upper voices allow a clevertrick in texting whereby both the introitus section and the beginning of the motet proper use the same deco-


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Figure 1.1: The Start of He mors/Fine amour (M3) in Machaut A (fol. 416v)

Figure 1.2: He mors/Fine amour in Machaut Vg-Ferrel (fols. 262v–263)

rated inital (fols. 280v–281).


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The change of priority demonstrated by these decorations is also reflected in manu-

script indexes after Trémoïlle. Within the Machaut corpus, Manuscript E (copied in the

early 1390s) lists motets by their tripla. Chantilly’s index lists triplum incipits under the

category “Motes” (fol. 10), and the destroyed Strasbourg manuscript (early 15th c.) en-

ters motets by their triplum under alphabetical headings.36 The same holds true for mid-

fifteenth-century sources. In Ox 213 (c. 1426–36) the index is organized by alphabetic

headings and could in theory have accommodated multiple entries for the same work, listing

its different voices under different letters if it were likely that a user should have look for a

work by several of its texts. However this is not done, and each of the motets and polytextualrondeaux in the chansonnier is listed in the index only once, by its top voice. 37 Similarly,

the section headed “Hic Incipiunt Motteti” in the index to ModB (c. 1440–50) gives a

textual and musical incipit for the highest voice of each motet in the manuscript—usually

the triplum, though sometimes a quadruplum.38 These later collections largely transmit a

separate repertory, but there are enough ars nova motets present for us to be sure that the

naming conventions have indeed changed, and not only with respect to newer works but

also retrospectively.39

36 Copied in Vander Linden, ed., Le manuscrit musical , 16–25. Both texts of Ida/Portio are listed in theindex—perhaps the indexer thought it was two compositions.

37 Polytextual motets whose top voices are found in the remaining part of the index are catalog nos. 51,

68, 267, 275, 277, 279, 308, and 321. Polytextual rondeaux listed by their top voice are nos. 202, 208,219, 254, and 284. No. 77 may be a polytextual ballade or not—it is also listed by its top voice/first verse;see Fallows, ed., Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Canon. Misc. 213, 36.

38 On the ModB index and its category of motet see Cumming, The Motet , 48, 51–4. Q15 also groupsmotets together but the indexer does not include them in his list. See Bent, Bologna Q15 , 1:89–90.

39 Degentis/Cum vix, Ida/Portio, L’ardure/Tres dous, Tant /Bien, and Apta/Flos are concordances between Tré-moïlle or Ivrea and Chantilly, and there are several more concordances between the earlier repertoire andStrasbourg.


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Motet Citations in Theoretical Treatises

There is a large number of references to specific ars nova motets in music treatises

from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Though these have been mined for what they

can tell us about motet authorship and music theory, there is good reason to explore the

rhetorical habits employed by theorists in citing pieces: in referring to particular works of

music, theorists stand to provide valuable hints about the ontology and anatomy of motets

as they were represented in the minds of their early audiences.

References to ars nova motets drawn from 16 treatises are collected in Appendix

1A. The first 55 or so of these belong to the period before c. 1375. As is the case with

manuscript indexes from this time, theorists identify motets by their motetus text almost

without exception.40 Thus the author of De musica antiqua et nova, when he wishes to refer

to Cum statua/Hugo, writes “in moteto qui vocatur Hugo,” and the Compendium totius artis

motetorum talks of “uno moteto Praesidentes in tronis seculi,” by which we are to understand

Super cathedram/Presidentes.41 This consistent use of the motetus incipit is all the more tell-

ing in the presence of formulations such as “in moteto qui vocatur...,” which give the sense

that these incipits functioned as titles. The motetus incipit/title could be employed when a

writer wished to refer to the entire piece (such as in the common cases where a motet serves

as an example of a certain mensuration). But it was also used to reference a specific voice or

40 This tendency has been noted by Besseler, “Studien zur Musik des Mittelalters II,” 235–6, Earp, “ScribalPractice,” 65–6, and Bent, “A Note on the Dating,” 223–4. The three exceptions are the Ars (musicae) citation of Rex/Leticie as “Rex Karole,” the citation of Orbis/Vos as “Orbis orbatus” in the treatise whichbegins “Sex minimae possunt poni,” and the reference to Qui es/Ha Fortune (M8) as “Qui des promesses defortune se fie” in the treatise “Cum de signis temporibus...” (see Appendix 1A). The latter two treatises arein fact later (possibly early fifteenth-century) copies of ars nova-era texts, and the scribes may well have beensupplementing their exemplars with new citations, using the naming conventions that were current whenthey were copying. The first exception, “Rex Karole,” appears only in a reworked version of Boen’s treatise; see Boen, Ars, 14.

41 Coussemaker, Scriptorum, 3:347; Wolf, “Ein anonymer Musiktraktat,” 37.


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passage in either of the upper voices. Thus in his Musica Johannes Boen uses the formula-

tion “in motheto Florens vigor super verbo ‘Mardocheo’” to identify a particular dissonance

that occurs on the word “Mardocheo” in the motetus text.42 But the motetus incipit could

also be used to reference the triplum. For as Boen is explaining the rules of alteration and

imperfection in his Ars, he offers Impudenter /Virtutibus as an example of the “similis ante

similem...” rule and of the inability of breves to alter minims:

No note before a like note takes on imperfection. And this we can observeclearly in the first four little notes of that most excellent motet Virtutibus.From this we can infer that a minim is never altered before a breve, nor asemibreve before a long.43

Although the motet is cited by its motetus like Boen’s other examples, the “primis

quatuor notulis” must belong to the triplum, which is the only voice singing at the begin-

ning of the motet. Its rhythm there (SSMB) illustrates both of Boen’s points, since the first of

the two semibreves is perfect and the minim is not altered by the breve.44

Toward the end of the fourteenth century (and earlier in England and Italy) the

fashion for naming switched to the triplum. Since the word “motetus” still referred to the

genre, this led to some seemingly contradictory statements, such as the reference in the

Tractatus Figurarum “in motetis ipsorum magistrorum videlicet Tribum que non abhorruit

et in aliis” (“to the motet(use)s of those old masters, such as Tribum que non abhorruit , and

others”). The old masters would of course have referred to this work as “Quoniam secta la-

42 Frobenius, ed., Johannes Boens Musica, 68.

43 “Similis ante similem nullam capit imperfectionem. Et hoc in primis quatuor notulis illius excellen-tissimi moteti Virtutibus clare possumus contemplare. Ex hoc subinferri potest, quod numquam minimaalteratur ante brevem, item nec semibrevis ante longam,” Boen, Ars (musicae), 26.

44 When the motetus enters it is with the rhythm S .MSB, which does not illustrate either point. Neitherdoes the tenor whose first four notes—LB B L in imperfect modus—present no problems of alteration orimperfection.


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which would make citing them in a treatise inexpedient. Or even if tenor sources were com-

monly known, it is possible that theorists did not consider them texts in the same sense

as upper-voice texts, since they never sounded in performance. Indeed, a passage from

the seventh book of the Speculum musicae confirms that tenors were not thought to carry

text. Explaining that some kinds polyphony have one text and some, several, Jacobus cites

cantilenae as an example of the former. And as for a polytextual work, his example is not

simply a motet, but a motet with a triplum:

Some of the discanting [voices] are with the same words, and some with dif-ferent: the same [words] in cantilenae and other diverse ecclesiastical songs;different, in motets with a triplum.48

There is even some evidence that the tenor voice, since it belonged to plainchant,

was less fully a part of the motet than the upper voices. For example, Johannes de Muris, in

discussing the terms color and talea, makes a distinction between the tenors of motets and

“motets themselves”:

The placing of one series of similar rhythms repeated several times in thesame voice is called color . But note that some singers make a distinction be-tween color and talea, for they call it color when the same notes are repeated,

48 “Discantuum aliqui sunt cum littera eadem vel diversa: eadem, ut in cantilenis et aliquo cantu ecclesias-tico; diversa, ut in motetis triplum habentibus,” Bragard, ed., Jacobi Leodiensis Speculum musicae, 25. Thisdistinction is preserved and expanded by the author of De musica antiqua et nova, who however seems toqualify the comment with the addition of the phrase “in quibus tenor equipollet littere,” which may meanthat the tenor is of equal value to a text. Nevertheless, his example of a polytextual work is still a motet with

triplum: “Modus operandi in discantu talis est: aut enim discantus cum littera aut sine; si cum littera, hocest dualiter: aut cum eadem littera discantus fit ut in cantilenis, rondellis et in quodam cantu ecclesiastico;aut cum diversis litteris fit discantus, ut in motetis qui habent triplum cum tenore in quibus tenor equipolletlittere.” [The manner of executing polyphony is as follows: discant is either with words, or without; if withwords, these are of two kinds: either the discantus is made with the same words [in all parts], as occurs incantilenae, rondeaux, and in some liturgical songs; or the discantus is made with diverse texts, such as inmotets which have a triplum with a tenor, in quibus tenor equipollet littere.] Coussemaker, Scriptorum, 3:361.See also Aluas, Quatuor principalia, 521 and 747, where the final line is translated “in which the tenor is theequipollent of the texts.”


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but talea when the same rhythms are repeated and thus make diverse notes.This difference, although it may be observed in a great many tenors of motets, is notobserved in the motets themselves.49

What Muris seems to be saying is that the distinction between color and talea disap-

pears in the upper voices, probably because here only rhythms but not pitches are repeated.

Thus the two different kinds of repetition can only be observed in tenors and not in motets

as a whole. For this reason the author prefers to call both kinds color . Muris’s distinction is

preserved in the third treatise of the Berkeley manuscript.50

Keeping in mind that there may be an ontological distinction between motetis ipsis

and motetorum tenores can help nuance our reading of the oft-quoted Tractatus cantus mensu-

rabilis of Egidius de Murino. This text has been interpreted as “detailed instructions for the

composition of motets” and “a precept on motet composition.”51 In fact, the treatise is titled

De modo componendi tenores motettorum (“On the manner of composing motet tenors”).52

Thus when the instructions begin “first take the tenor from some antiphon or responsory...,”

we can by no means assume that the process of composing a motet begins with selecting a

49 Emphasis mine. “Color in musica vocatur similium figurarum unius processus pluries repetita positioin eodem cantu. Pro quo nota, quod nonnulli cantores ponunt differentiam inter colorem et tallam: namvocant colorem, quando repetuntur eedem voces, tallam vero, quando repetuntur similes figure et sic fiuntdiversarum vocum. Que differentia, licet servetur in quampluribus tenoribus motetorum, non tamen serva-tur in ipsis motetis,” Berktold, ed., Ars practica mensurabilis cantus, 78.50 “Que differncia licet in quampluribus motetorum tenoribum observetur, non tamen observatur in ipsismotetis, ut in eis liquidem est videre,” ed. and trans. Ellsworth, The Berkeley Manuscript , 180–3; Ellsworthtranslates the line in question “This differentiation may be observed in a great many tenors of motets, butnot in the motetti themselves.” This would imply that the author has shifted from motet as genre to motetas voice over the course of one sentence, which is unlikely.

51 Leech-Wilkinson, Compositional Techniques, 18; Robertson, Guillaume de Machaut , 146.

52 It is unclear why it is sometimes referred to as “De motettis componendis,” for example in Reany, “Egidius[Aegidius] de Murino [Morino],” and consequently in a number of general reference works such as Randel,ed., The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music, 241, and Kibler, ed., Medieval France: An Encyclopedia,316. Coussemaker’s title is “Tractatus Cantus Mensurabilis” and his subtitle is “De modo componendi te-nores motettorum”; Scriptorum, 3:124. The latter seems to be the correct title of treatise when on its own.In several sources it is appended to the Tractatus figurarum; see Lefferts, ed., Regule, 72n175, and Schreur,ed., Tractatus figurarum, 6–7.


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section from plainchant—though certainly the process of composing a motet tenor must

often have begun there. Murino explicitly states that the tenor is chosen in accordance with

some unspecified but pre-existing materia, with which its words should concord (“et debent

verba concordare cum materia de qua vis facere motetum”), but this feels like an aside. 53

In Clark’s estimation, the theorist seems uninterested in the issue of materia: “it is easy

to overlook this statement “concordare cum materia,” and perhaps even Egidius is more

interested in talea and color formation.”54 Indeed he is, since this is both the stated goal of

his treatise and a personal interest: we know from Apollinis/Zodicaum that Murino had a low

voice, and thus probably sang tenor or contratenor in motets.55

But reading between the lines, we can lean that some materia is already decided

upon when the tenor is chosen, and that indeed the texts of the upper voices may already

be written. (Like reading a recipe from the middle, after the ingredients have been already

measured out, we don’t know where these texts are to be gotten, or what has been done to

them before this—the cook is simply instructed to “take the words which are to be in the

motet and divide them into four parts”.)56 Since the texts of motets are often arranged ac-

cording to their isorhythmic structures, the possibility that they exist before the tenor has

many implications for the role of the upper voices in determining form—a point which will

be addressed in Chapter Three. For now, it will be enough to note that Muris’a distinction

53 Edited in Leech-Wilkinson, Compositional Techniques, 18.

54 Clark, “Concordare cum materia,” 12.55 “Egidius de Morino baritonans cum Garino,” triplum ll. 22–3. Gallo reads this as “Egidius de Murinosinging tenorista with Garino, ” Music of the Middle Ages II , 127. Henricus Helene is identified as one who“noscit…tonorum tenorem bene,” but this is translated as he “knows well the tenor of the tones” (Bent, Two14th-century Motets, 10) and “knows well the characteristics of the ecclesiastical modes” (Gallo, Music of the Middle Ages II , 127). Other singers are indicated as having higher voices, such as Arnold of Martin who iscompared to a nighingale.

56 Ibid., 22.


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between motetis ipsis and motetorum tenores is preserved both in the organization of Murino’s

treatise and more broadly in the habits that theorists exhibit when citing motets: while

either of the upper voices can be referenced by the incipit of one of them, tenors seem to

stand rhetorically apart.

This is not to say that the tenor was considered unimportant. Johannes de Gro-

cheio’s turn-of-the-century comparison between the tenor of a motet and, on the one hand,

the foundation of a house, and on the other, the skeleton of the body, was echoed by numer-

ous later writers.57 For example, the Quatuor Principalia indicates that singers should sing

the tenor articulately so as to avoid dissonant mis-alignment with the upper voices, then

appends the familiar architectural comparison:

It should be known according to…all musical singers that the tenor whichholds the discant should be sung well and strongly to the beat, lest thosediscanting above should meet with a dissonance, and thus [musical] senseshould be expelled. For a stable building cannot be constructed upon anunstable foundation, nor can a discant be performed over an unstable tenorwithout dissonance.58

Jacobus de Montibus invokes the same idea in the seventh book of the Speculum miscae.

In the course of providing a possible etymology for “discantus,” he suggests that the word

comes from “de” (from) and “cantus” (song), since polyphony indeed arises from a song—

namely, the tenor:59

57 “Tenor autem est illa pars, supra quam omnes aliae fundantur, quemadmodum partes domus vel aedificiisuper suum fundamentum. Et eas regulat et eis dat quantitatem, quemadmodum ossa partibus aliis,” ed.

Rholoff, Die Quellenhandschriften, 146–7. The implications of this foundational metaphor for our percep-tion of upper-voice structures is discussed in Chapter Two.

58 “Sciendum…omnes musicales cantores quod Tenor qui discantum tenet integre et solide pronunciaridebet in mensura ne supra discantantes dissonantiam incurrant, et hoc ratio exigit. Nam super instabile fun-damentum stabile aedificium construi non potest, sic nec instabilem tenorem vix sine dissonantia discantuspronunciari potest,” “De musica antiqua et nova” in Coussemaker, Scriptorum, 3:362.

59 “Vel potest dici discantus a “dy” quod est “de” et cantu, quasi de cantu sumptus, idest de tenore,” Bragard,ed., Jacobi Leodiensis Speculum musicae, 7:9.


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The discant is established upon the tenor, somewhat like a building upon itsfoundation; and hence that voice is called “tenor,” since it holds (tenet ) andupholds the discant. For what man sings polyphony without a tenor; whatman builds without a foundation?…The discant is derived from the tenor,by which it should be should be ruled, and with which it should be in har-

mony rather than in discord.60

But directly following this clear statement about the tenor’s harmonic dominance and foun-

dational nature, Jacobus turns things on their heads, explaining that the upper voices are as

much a song as the tenor, and hence the “cantus” in “discantus” may well refer to them:

Not only is the tenor set under the discant, but also the opposite; for thediscanting voices can either be compared to the tenor with which they areobliged to concord (and hence this voice is called discantus), or they can be

considered by themselves: not with respect to the notes of the tenor and sungat the same time as them, but separately and in turn, one after the other, aswhen someone by themselves sings some motetus or triplum or quadruplumwithout a tenor, and then the whole work (et tunc absolute). Such notes havethe grammatical sense of an independent song; and in the same way it is saidof the notes of the tenor, that they can be compared to [those of] discantusand sung together with it, or sung separately on their own.61

There is much to wonder at in this passage. Directly following his traditional statement

about the tenor as a foundation and source of origin for the upper voices, Jacobus now ex-

plicitly states that the upper voices are indeed independent entities, as much a song as the

tenor, and hence not really dependent on the tenor at all. He ends by comparing the tenor to

the upper voices, and using their independence as paradigmatic of the tenor’s independence.

Things seem to have gone full circle.

60 “Idest de tenore supra quem discantus fundatur, sicut aedificium aliquod supra suum fundamentum; undeille cantus teno

Form and Idea in the Ars Nova Motet

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