20 - French lyrics and songs for the New Year, ca. 1380–1420

Summary

This chapter explores a lyric tradition that had flourished in France and other Francophone centers from at least 1380. It examines aspects of the sizeable corpus of lyrics with and without music that survives in sources from the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. The chapter discusses how the new order of "fixed form" lyric and polyphonic chanson that crystallized in 1340 quickly became a locus for competitive demonstrations of lyric ingenuity and allusive play held at court and in urban contexts. It describes how the New Year repertory demonstrates a similarly strong sense of lyric community in its texts. Most of the lyrics and songs serve not only to transmit New Year greetings but also to present a gift. The most common kind of gift is immaterial, comprising a pledge of love, loyalty, or devotion.