Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T16:00:18.025Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

FIRE, FOLIAGE AND FURY: VESTIGES OF MIDSUMMER RITUAL IN MOTETS FOR JOHN THE BAPTIST

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2011

Michael Alan Anderson
Michael Alan Anderson*
Affiliation:
Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The thirteenth-century motet repertory has been understood on a wide spectrum, with recent scholarship amplifying the relationship between the liturgical tenors and the commentary in the upper voices. This study examines a family of motets based on the tenors IOHANNE and MULIERUM from the feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist (24 June). Several texts within this motet family make references to well-known traditions associated with the pagan festival of Midsummer, the celebration of the summer solstice. Allusions to popular solstitial practices including the lighting of bonfires and the public criticism of authority, in addition to the cultural awareness of the sun's power on this day, conspicuously surface in these motets, particularly when viewed through the lens of the tenor. The study suggests the further obfuscation of sacred and secular poles in the motet through attentiveness to images of popular, pre-Christian rituals that survive in these polyphonic works.

Type
Research Article
Information
Early Music History , Volume 30 , October 2011 , pp. 1 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Summarised from Frazer, J. G., The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, 3rd edn, 12 vols. (New York, 1935), x, pp. 183–184Google Scholar (full text in Appendix 1 below) and van Gennep, A., Manuel de folklore français contemporain, 4 vols. (Paris, 1937), i4, pp. 1737–1739Google Scholar .

2 An inscription in a chapel of the parish church of St-Valentin (formerly St-Pierre) in Jumièges indicates that the fraternity was founded in 1390 by Guillaume de Vienne, Archbishop of Rouen. See Gaignebet, C., Le folklore obscène des enfants (Paris, 2002), pp. 41–42Google Scholar and id., À plus hault sens: L'ésotérisme spirituel et charnel de Rabelais, 2 vols. (Paris, 1986), i, p. 363.

3 For a case study involving a public ceremonial use of the Te Deum under Henry III in late sixteenth-century France, see van Orden, K., Music, Discipline, and Arms in Early Modern France (Chicago, 2005), pp. 136–156Google Scholar . The use of Ut queant laxis as both a didactic chant and gloss is discussed in Boynton, S., ‘Orality, Literacy, and the Early Notation of the Office Hymns’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 56 (2003), pp. 111–115CrossRefGoogle Scholar . The most recent edition of Guido's ‘Epistola ad Michaelem’, which encapsulates Guido's discovery, can be found in Guido d'Arezzo's Regule rithmice, Prologus in antiphonarium, and Epistola ad Michahelem: A Critical Text and Translation, ed. D. Pesce (Ottawa, 1999), pp. 437–532.

4 The topics are compatible with the ‘wild man’ image of John the Baptist, who was said to dress in camel's hair and feed on locusts and honey (Matt. 3: 4–5; Mark 1: 6). The hirsute image of the mythic wild man as understood in the Middle Ages is described in Husband, T., The Wild Man: Medieval Myth and Symbolism (New York, 1980), pp. 1–17Google Scholar .

5 For a brief overview of the shifting meaning of religion from the central Middle Ages to around 1300, see Biller, P., ‘Popular Religion in the Central and Later Middle Ages’, in Bentley, M. (ed.), Companion to Historiography (London and New York, 1997), p. 221Google Scholar . Recent studies of popular religion have done well to loosen the understanding of religiosity as simply church worship while accounting for the role of magic, superstition and astrology in the world-view of both official and unofficial ‘religious’ cultures of the Middle Ages. On the difficulty in discerning beliefs of the illiterate from the records of the privileged, see Kieckhefer, R., Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 16–17Google Scholar . For an analysis and critique of the term ‘popular religion’, see Marsh, C., Popular Religion in Sixteenth-Century England: Holding their Peace (New York, 1998), p. 6CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

6 For example, on the ‘final destruction’ of paganism by the fifth century, see Gibbon, E., The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 3 vols. (New York, 1948), ii, pp. 46–71Google Scholar .

7 Thomas, K., Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York, 1971)Google Scholar .

8 Studies of the laity in medieval culture and its relationship to the church have been pursued most rigorously over the past forty years, beginning with the conference proceedings from I laici nella ‘societas christiana’ dei secoli XI e XII (Milan, 1968). Other important studies include Manselli, R., La religion populaire au Moyen Age: Problèmes de méthode et d'histoire (Montreal, 1975)Google Scholar ; Delumeau, J. (ed.), Histoire vécue du peuple chrétien, 2 vols. (Toulouse, 1979), esp. i, pp. 195–364Google Scholar , and Vauchez, A., The Laity in the Middle Ages: Religious Beliefs and Devotional Practices, ed. Bornstein, D. E., trans. M. J. Schneider (Notre Dame, Ind., 1993)Google Scholar .

9 Le Goff has suggested that an elite/clerical religion and lay/popular religion were separate but in constant dialogue, as clerics transformed popular practices both through repression and reinvention of the existing folk traditions. He has also argued for ‘internal acculturations’ (acculturations internes) among these groups by which elite and popular culture borrowed from one another. See, for example, Goff, Le, ‘Culture cléricale et traditions folkloriques dans la civilisation mérovingienne’, Annales: Economies–Sociétés–Civilisations, 22 (1967), pp. 780–791CrossRefGoogle Scholar . Burke conceives of a two-pronged model of early modern culture consisting of a ‘great tradition’ based on literacy and university culture, as opposed to a more localised ‘little tradition’ comprising unwritten traditions of the unlettered. He theorised that while the unlettered mass culture was in many ways isolated from the ‘great tradition’, the opposite was not always true – members of the cultural elite were deeply aware of the ‘little traditions’ and often participated in popular rituals. See Burke, P., Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (New York, 1978), esp. pp. 22–28Google Scholar . The great/little divide has also been applied in some scholarship on South Asia. See Redfield, R. and Singer, M., ‘The Cultural Role of Cities’, in Sennett, R. (ed.), Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1969), pp. 206–233Google Scholar . Many thanks to Stefan Fiol for bringing this early anthropological work to my attention.

10 Many see the church and clergy as monopolists of manuscript culture and thus interpretation of the world. Often, it is explained that Christianity encounters a folk culture which is fundamentally opposed to its principles, assuming some of its practices to render the prevailing ideology more effective. See, for example, Delaruelle, E., La piété populaire au moyen âge (Turin, 1975)Google Scholar .

11 For a postmodern critique of received views of medieval musicology applied to the French song repertory from the later thirteenth century (roughly contemporaneous with the creation of the polytextual motets of this study), see Peraino, J., ‘Re-Placing Medieval Music’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 54 (2001), pp. 209–264CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

12 In his introductory descriptions of the soundscape of late medieval Bruges, Reinhard Strohm drew brief attention to the sacred music that was performed as part of civic street pageants and ‘living pictures’ (tableaux vivants) for visiting nobles. See his Music in Late Medieval Bruges, rev. edn (Oxford, 1990), pp. 6–7. More recently, Anne Walters Robertson noted aspects of popular religion in helping explain the fascination with the Caput draconis (head of the dragon) in late medieval society and the resultant musical artefacts on this theme. In her search for the meaning behind the mysterious Caput tradition in music, she identified widespread paraliturgical and popular enactments involving the stamping out of a mock dragon. The drama seems to be played out symbolically in some of the music associated with the Caput melody, for example through a ‘serpentine’ migration of the cantus firmus (Obrecht's Missa Caput) or by ‘downing the tenor’ (descendendo tenorem) via a relegation of the melody to the bass range, per Ockeghem's instruction in his Caput mass. See Robertson, , ‘The Savior, the Woman, and the Head of the Dragon in the Caput Masses and Motet’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 59 (2006), pp. 537–630CrossRefGoogle Scholar , esp. 572–80, 584–95.

13 C. Page, Discarding Images: Reflections on Music and Culture in Medieval France (Oxford and New York, 1993), pp. 43–64. In particular, the use of diminutives in descriptions of motet performances (magistri organorum singing notule) indeed does seem to suggest a popularising register appropriate for the festival milieu. For a revised translation of Grocheio's observations on secular music, see id., ‘Johannes de Grocheio on Secular Music: Corrected Text and a New Translation’, Plainsong and Medieval Music, 2 (1993), pp. 17–41. For medieval clerics' interest in a genre known as chans de karoles, see Stevens, J., Words and Music in the Middle Ages: Song, Narrative, Dance and Drama, 1050–1350 (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 178–186Google Scholar . On the pre-Christian origin of fairs and their secular atmosphere, see Dexter, T. F. G., The Pagan Origins of Fairs (Perranporth, 1930)Google Scholar .

14 Of course, many thirteenth-century motets with purely sacred texts could easily have been performed within the liturgy and do not pose a problem with regard to their creation by clerics. As an example of such motets, see Baltzer, R., ‘Aspects of Trope in the Earliest Motets for the Assumption of the Virgin’, in Lefferts, P. M. and Seirup, B. (eds.), Studies in Medieval Music: Festschrift for Ernest H. Sanders (New York, 1991), pp. 5–42Google Scholar .

15 Like the solstitial rituals that were brought under the aegis of John the Baptist, countless examples of secular-looking practices were seemingly protected in the sacred realm with the oversight of saints. The laity, for instance, often copied prayers to saints in conjunction with peculiar charms without hesitation. In parts of France during the late Middle Ages, women giving birth swallowed scraps of cloth or paper with prayers to saints written on them in the hopes of a safe delivery for their child. St Margaret and St Anne were especially popular intercessors in this regard. See Bouteiller, M., ‘Rites et croyances de la naissance et de l’accouchement dans les provinces traditionelles françaises', in Bouteiller, M., Lehmann, H. and Retel-Laurentin, A. (eds.), La vie medicale (Paris, 1963), p. 88Google Scholar ; Cousin, B., ‘L’ex-voto: Document d'histoire, expression d'une société', Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions, 48 (1979), p. 109CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; and J. Gélis, History of Childbirth: Fertility, Pregnancy, and Birth in Early Modern Europe, trans. R. Morris (Boston, 1991), p. 149.

16 Since Luke 1: 36 informs us that Elizabeth was six months pregnant at the time of the Annunciation, the Baptist's nativity thus became situated six months before that of Christ in the year (24 June, or a.d. VIII Kalendas Iulias), at the time of the summer solstice. Consequently, John's conception fell on 24 September. The late fourth-century treatise, formerly attributed to John Chrysostom and now considered anonymous, De solsticia et aequinoctia conceptionis et nativitatis domini nostri Iesu Christi et Iohannis baptistae (‘On the solstice and equinox of the conception and nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ and John the Baptist’) arrives at this precise placement of nativities and conceptions, but from a different set of logical deductions. The author takes its starting point neither from 25 March nor from Christmas, but with the conception of John the Baptist. He opens the argument by noting the time of the year that the angel Gabriel's pronouncement to Zechariah about the conception of John would have occurred – during the festival month of Tishri. This particular timing would situate John's conception around the autumnal equinox (24 September or a.d. VIII Kalendas Octobres). After establishing this conception date, the author easily derives the three remaining quarter days (birth of John and the birth and conception of Christ), which must occur on the two solstices and vernal equinox. For an edition of De solsticia et aequinoctia, see the appendix in Botte, B., Les origines de la Noël et de l'Épiphanie (Louvain, 1932), pp. 88–105Google Scholar .

17 Falling halfway between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox is the feast of Candlemas, a celebration derived from an ancient Roman torch ceremony that took place during the February festival of Lupercalia.

18 The earliest documentary sources for the feast of Christmas in fact make no mention of the coincidence with the winter solstice. Although the emperor Aurelian's dedication of a temple to the sun god in the Campus Martius (274 ce) probably took place on the ‘Birth of the Invincible Sun’ on 25 December, the cult of the sun in pagan Rome ironically did notcelebrate the winter solstice nor any of the other quarter days, as one might expect. See Urbain, A., Ein Martyrologium der christlichen Gemeinde zu Rom am Anfang des V. Jahrhunderts (Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur; Leipzig, 1901), pp. 13–18Google Scholar and Talley, T. J., The Origins of the Liturgical Year (Collegeville, Minn., 1991), p. 85Google Scholar .

19 ‘Illum oportet crescere, me autem minui.’ The use in the Vulgate of the words crescere and minui, which suggest a common lunar metaphor, strengthens the analogy. The powerful influence of the moon on the summer solstice and the attendant imagery of the Midsummer season has been demonstrated by Coussée, B., La Saint-Jean, la canicule et les moissons (Lille, 1987), pp. 31–48Google Scholar .

20 The crucial analogy was recognised among the early Christian theologians, most notably by Augustine: ‘Et Joannes ipse: Illum, inquit, oportet crescere, me autem minui (Joan. III, 30). Quod et diebus quibus nati sunt, et mortibus quibus passi sunt, figuratum est. Nascitur namque Joannes ex quo dies incipiunt minui: nascitur Dominus ex quo dies incipiunt crescere’ (‘And as for John himself: He, he said, must increase; and I must also decrease (John 3: 30). And so it was formed with the days in which they are born and in their deaths. For John is born when the days begin to diminish: and the Lord is born when the days begin to increasein length’). See Augustine of Hippo, in Patrologiae cursus completus: Series latina, ed. J. P.Migne, 221 vols. (Paris, 1844–79), xl, p. 42. Guillelmus Durandus, in his well-known treatise Rationale divinorum officiorum, took a similarly Christianising view of the solar movements: ‘Sed tunc sol descendit in circulo; sic et fama Iohanis qui putabatur Christus descendit, secundum quod ipse testimonium perhibet dicens: Me oportet minui, illum autem crescere, quod, dicunt quidam, dictum esse eo quod tunc dies incipiunt minui et in Nativitate Christi crescere’ (‘The sun then descends in a circle; and thus the repute of John, who was thought to be Christ, descends. According to this testimony, John asserts it thus, saying: I must diminish, and he must increase, for they say that it was said by him that the days begin to diminish, but at the birth of Christ, the days increase in length’). See Durandus, G., Rationale divinorum officiorum, ed. Davril, A. and Thibodeau, T. M., 3 vols. (Turnhout, 1995–2000), iii, p. 58Google Scholar .

21 ‘multi in Nativitate eius gaudebant quod observant Christiani & pagani tum propter allegoriam & mysterium’. See Beleth, J., ‘De vigilia Sancti Ioannis’, in Rationale divinorum officiorum Ioanne Beletho theologo Parisiense authore (Antwerp, 1562), pp. 302–303Google Scholar .

22 For an important monograph demonstrating some of these Midsummer rituals in medieval satire, see Billington, S., Midsummer: A Cultural Subtext from Chrétien de Troyes to Jean Michel (Turnhout, 2000)Google Scholar .

23 This study is not the first to address the nativity feast of John the Baptist from a musical point of view. See Ferer, M., ‘The Feast of John the Baptist: Its Background and Celebration in Renaissance Polyphony’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1976)Google Scholar . While Ferer diligently provided the popular practices associated with the feast, she pursued more of a catalogue of Renaissance polyphony and did not provide analysis of the texts and music in connection with these curious rituals.

24 For a concise description of the problems surrounding the development of the early motet and the relationship to assumed parent clausulae, see Everist, M., French Motets in the Thirteenth Century: Music, Poetry, and Genre (Cambridge and New York, 1994), pp. 1–5Google Scholar . On the centrality of the tenor in the thirteenth-century motet, one can point to Johannes Grocheio, who describes the tenor as ‘the part upon which all the others are founded, as the parts of a house or edifice [rest] upon a foundation, and it regulates them and gives substance, as bones do, to the other parts’ (‘Tenor autem est illa pars supra quam omnes aliae fundantur quemadmodum partes domus vel aedificii super suum fundamentum et eas regulat et eis dat quantitatem quemadmodum ossa partibus aliis’). For this passage in Grocheio's De Musica treatise, see E. Rohloff, Der Musiktraktat des Johannes de Grocheo nach den Quellen neu herausgegeben mit Übersetzung ins Deutsche und Revisionsbericht (Media Latinitas musica, 2; Leipzig, 1943), p. 57.

25 To give but one example, in an early fifteenth-century book of hours written and illustrated in Rouen by the Master of Sir John Fastolf for William Porter of Lincolnshire, the image of John the Baptist in the suffrage contains the saint in his usual garment of skins cradling the ‘Lamb of God’ in his left arm while pointing it out with his right index finger. This gesture encapsulates the text from John 1: 29 (‘Ecce Agnus Dei qui tollit peccatum mundi’). The text of the suffrage – called an ‘antiphon’ – features the ‘Inter natos’ text from Matthew, a clear symbol of John in all Christendom. See Master of Sir John Fastolf, Hours of William Porter, Rouen, c. 1420–5, New York, Morgan Library, MS M.105, fol. 24r.

26 This Alleluia is found in four thirteenth-century Parisian sources: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MSS lat. 1112 (fol. 175r), 15615 (fol. 269v), 830 (fol. 230v) and 9441 (fol. 139r). The verse is not preserved in the oldest layer of surviving chant sources catalogued in Antiphonale Missarum sextuplex, ed. R.-J. Hesbert (Brussels, 1935). The transcription relies chiefly on the first manuscript listed above. The melisma on ‘mulierum’ typifies this first-mode orientation, except for the second line, which unfolds an unusual gesture (D–F–a–c), not common in D- or E-mode alleluia verses. The gesture D–F–a–c – a filled-in variation of the initial D–a–c gesture – is rarely found in the corpus of Alleluias and their verses. When it does occur, asin the verse of Alleluia. Deliciarum ortus floridus (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cgm 716, fol. 109v), the four notes are not represented as a single ligated gesture and often are split between words or phrases. See Monumenta monodica medii aevi, vols. 7–8, ed. K. Schlager (Kassel, 1956). The chain-of-thirds motif was, however, common in the German vernacular repertory parallel to the troubadour and trouvère traditions. See H. van der Werf, The Chansons of the Troubadours and Trouvères (Utrecht, 1972), p. 50. The ascent of consecutive thirds further has a connection to one of the most memorable and striking musical gestures of the Marian antiphon Salve Regina, sung to the text ‘Ad te suspiramus’. The musical (and spiritual) resonance of the MULIERUM tenor with the Salve Regina might suggest that the Latin motets in particular on MULIERUM could have been used as substitutes for the Salve, as the conclusion to Compline. Though not suitable within the church, the vernacular motet texts Souvent me fait souspirer and En grant effroi sui souvent (with emphasis) in Appendix 2 below might still act as assonant tropes on the word ‘suspiramus’ of the Salve Regina, which were heard outside the confines of the liturgy. On the subject of assonant tropes, see Walters Robertson, A., ‘Benedicamus Domino: The Unwritten Tradition’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 41 (1988), pp. 1–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

27 The E-mode that governs this Alleluia as a whole was not a typical mode for the earliest Parisian motets, which on the whole were set in D- or G-modes. As a representative sample of early motets, the Latin motets of Fascicles VII and VIII of the manuscript W2 reveal not a single E-mode motet. See The Latin Compositions in Fascicules VII and VIII of the Notre Dame Manuscript Wolfenbüttel Helmstadt 1099 (1206), ed. G. A. Anderson, 2 vols. (Brooklyn, 1968–76).

28 This form is not uncommon in Alleluias. See Treitler, L., ‘On the Structure of the Alleluia Melisma: A Western Tendency in Western Chant’, in Powers, H. (ed.), Studies in Music History: Essays for Oliver Strunk (Princeton, 1968), pp. 59–72Google Scholar . Tenor repetition is also a typical feature in thirteenth-century motet settings and, in the context of a textless discant clausula, may signal its possible function as a compositional étude. See Le Magnus liber organi de Notre-Dame de Paris, ed. E. Roesner et al., 6 vols. (Monaco, 1993–6), v, p. xl.

29 Among the important earlier studies, see Pesce, D., ‘The Significance of Text in Thirteenth-Century Latin Motets’, Acta musicologica, 58 (1986), pp. 91–117CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; ead., ‘Beyond Glossing: The Old Made New in Mout me fu grief/Robin m’aime/Portare’, in ead. (ed.), Hearing the Motet: Essays on the Motet of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (New York and Oxford, 1997), pp. 28–51; Hoekstra, G. R., ‘The French Motet as Trope: Multiple Levels of Meaning in Quant florist la violete/El mois de mai/Et gaudebit’, Speculum, 73 (1998), pp. 32–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; and most importantly the book-length study by Huot, S., Allegorical Play in the Old French Motet: The Sacred and the Profane in Thirteenth-Century Polyphony (Stanford, 1997)Google Scholar . Until recently, it was generally assumed that the liturgical tenors of the mid-thirteenth-century vernacular motets had little, if any, correspondence with the upper-voice texts. For instance, there is no discussion of the liturgical tenors in Smith, R. E., French Double and Triple Motets in the Montpellier Manuscript: Textual Edition, Translations, and Commentary (Ottawa, 1997)Google Scholar . Everist confirms the long-standing assumption that the upper-voice narratives do not seem to interact with the tenors, but he notes – as an exception – the significance of the tenor in a small category of vernacular texts, which are devotional in nature (French Motets in the Thirteenth Century, p. 127).

30 Baltzer, R. A., ‘The Polyphonic Progeny of an Et Gaudebit: Assessing Family Relations in the Thirteenth-Century Motet’, in Pesce (ed.), Hearing the Motet, pp. 17–27Google Scholar ; Pacha, D. J., ‘The Veritatem Family: Manipulation, Modeling and Meaning in the Thirteenth-Century Motet’ (Ph.D. diss., Washington University, 2002)Google Scholar . The first part of David Rothenberg's study on the emphasis on springtime in Marian texts examines several text settings composed on the tenor IN SECULUM. See his ‘The Marian Symbolism of Spring, ca. 1200–1500: Two Case Studies’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 59 (2006), pp. 319–98, esp. 329–54.

31 The four tenors that provided the foundation for more motets than the Johannine family are: IN SECULUM (73), FLOS FILIUS EIUS (51), PORTARE/SUSTINERE (37), APTATUR (30).

32 Within the eleven MULIERUM motets, a subgroup of six motets (boxed in Appendix 2) forms a small motet complex, related to each other musically, though not rooted in a known parent clausula. For a brief description of the motets on MULIERUM, see Göllner, M. L., ‘Rhythm and Pattern: The Two-Voice Motets of the Codex Montpellier’, Viator, 30 (1999), pp. 145–164CrossRefGoogle Scholar , at pp. 153–4. Two separate motets on MULIERUM share W1-65 as their clausula ancestor, whereas the three remaining motets on this tenor have little in common beyond their tenor, only one of which has a source clausula (F-146). With regard to the sixteen motets on the IOHANNE tenor, a single pre-existent clausula (F-148) accounts for a subset of five motets, while no motets are based on the other known clausulae in connection with this tenor. Another subset of five motets is notable for its addition of new layers to two-voice models. In addition to the usual two- and three-voice offerings in this subset, there is a rare four-voicesetting from the Montpellier Codex (Celui de cui je me fi que je fi/La bele estoile de mer cui amer doit l'en sans fauser/La bele en cui je me fi merci cri/IOHANNE). There are two additional settings of IOHANNE clausulae for which motets do not survive: F-147 (cf. W1-66) and F-258.

33 On the interaction among vernacular and liturgical genres contained in the motet, see Huot, , ‘Intergeneric Play: The Pastourelle in Thirteenth-Century French Motets’, in Paden, W. D. (ed.), Medieval Lyric: Genres in Historical Context (Urbana, Ill., 2000), pp. 297–314Google Scholar . On the conflation of courtly and popular registers in the thirteenth-century Le Tournoi de Chauvency, see Butterfield, A., Poetry and Music in Medieval France: From Jean Renart to Guillaume de Machaut (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 142–143Google Scholar .

34 Three of the Latin motets in honour of the Virgin Mary (nos. 372, 386 and 391) have been noted in Baltzer, R., ‘Why Marian Motets on Non-Marian Tenors? An Answer’, in Bailey, T. and Santosuosso, A. (eds.), Music in Medieval Europe: Studies in Honour of Bryan Gillingham (Aldershot, 2007), pp. 112–128Google Scholar at 113. Baltzer sees the Marian emphasis as reflection of the high rank and constant reinforcement throughout the liturgical year of the Virgin at the Cathedral of Notre Dame of Paris in the thirteenth century.

35 Vlasopolos, A., ‘The Ritual of Midsummer: A Pattern for A Midsummer Night's Dream’, Renaissance Quarterly, 31 (1978), pp. 26–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar . For more details on the carnivalesque spirit and unbridled sexual escapades socially sanctioned on Midsummer's Eve in particular, see Muir, E., Ritual in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge and New York, 1997), p. 118Google Scholar .

36 Recent scholarship has emphasised the compatibility of women from ostensibly lower vernacular registers with the Virgin Mary. See Schine Gold, P., The Lady and the Virgin: Image, Attitude, and Experience in Twelfth-Century France (Chicago, 1985), pp. 68–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Huot, Allegorical Play in the Old French Motet, pp. 85–127; and most recently, Rothenberg, ‘The Marian Symbolism of Spring’, pp. 323–9. On the blending of sacred and erotic interpretations of Mary in visual culture, particularly in sacred spaces, see Camille, M., The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art (Cambridge, 1989), p. 220Google Scholar .

37 Christopher Page has discussed the sheer sonic effect of two of these texts at the outset of the French double motet Mout souvent m'ont demandé/Mout ai esté en doulour/MULIERUM, whose upper voices otherwise speak of the allure of a merciless woman. Despite the slight discrepancy in pronunciation Mu [my] and Mout [mut] (using International Phonetic Alphabet), Page suggests that this may be evidence of a vocal performance of the tenor MULIERUM. See Page, Discarding Images, p. 103. The word mout (variations: molt, moult or mot) can mean ‘much’, ‘many’ or ‘very’ depending on the word that follows. My thanks to Emmanuelle Bonnafoux for confirming this subtlety.

38 The four ‘mulier-’ motets on the tenor MULIERUM exemplify two prominent aspects of the earliest motets: the phonetic attention to the musical surface and the exegetical capabilities of the upper voice. These two facets have typically been presented as mutually exclusive properties in the scholarly literature. Page (Discarding Images, pp. 84–93) acknowledges the subtlety of the thirteenth-century motet as the interaction of phonyms on the musical surface, while generally dismissing the interpretative connections between upper voices and tenor. For a view of the purely sophisticated, intertextual potential of motet texts, see Huot, ‘Polyphonic Poetry: The Old French Motet and its Literary Context’, French Forum, 14 (1989), pp. 261–78; Pesce, ‘The Significance of Text’; and Hoekstra, ‘The French Motet as Trope’. For a case study that compellingly recognises the exegetical considerations of both music and text (though of a slightly later period), see Bent, M., ‘Deception, Exegesis and Sounding Number in Machaut's Motet 15’, Early Music History, 10 (1991), pp. 15–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

39 John 5: 35.

40 Durandus, Rationale divinorum officiorum, iii, p. 55. ‘Joannes dictus est lucifer, quia obtulit novum tempus … quia nativitas fuit quasi aurora; nativitas vero Christi fuit quasi ortus solis’ (‘John was called light-bearer, for he brought a new season … for his nativity was like daybreak; truly, though, the nativity of Christ was like the rising of the sun’).

41 There is some evidence of motet texts hailing the Virgin Mary as a ‘light’, even the ‘light of lights’ (‘lumen luminum’ or ‘lux luminum’) in four motet texts, namely Ave lux luminum ave splendor (784), Virgo virginum lumen luminum (127), O Maria decus angelorum mater (225) and Salve salus hominum (221).

42 Of the motet texts on MULIERUM that speak about the life of the Baptist, Prodit lucis radius is the only upper-voice text that does not begin with a form of the word ‘mulier’.

43 Translation in Anderson, The Latin Compositions, i, pp. 238–9, with revisions to the first line.

44 A Marian reading of the conventional pastourelle plot can be seen in Huot, Allegorical Play in the Old French Motet, p. 65.

45 I thank Professor Karl Kügle for suggesting this interpretation.

46 The verb appears to be a variant of esclarir and should have been expressed in the third person singular (as either s'esclaire or s'eclere). My thanks to Professor Peter Dembowski for assistance with this passage.

47 Summer is a season rarely mentioned in the vernacular motet repertory. Out of some 400 vernacular motets surveyed from thirteenth-century sources, I have located only two motet texts that mention the season of summer (Au comencement d'este [118] and Quant voi revenir d'este la saison [126]). Both texts are found in conjunction with the tenor HEC DIES for Easter. Eastertide can sometimes be taken to extend all the way until the beginning of summer, hence it is not surprising to find some overlap in the motet repertories between Easter tenors and the Johannine tenors. The texts surveyed include those found in The Latin Compositions, ed. Anderson; Compositions of the Bamberg Manuscript: Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Lit. 115, ed. G. Anderson (Rome, 1977); Motets of the Manuscript ‘La Clayette’: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, nouv. acq. fr. 13521, ed. G. Anderson (Rome, 1975); and Smith, French Double and Triple Motets. The two-voice vernacular motet La bele en cui je me fi merci cri/IOHANNE (Appendix 2) further contains Midsummer resonance, owing to its seemingly casual mention of nuit et jour (‘night and day’). In the presence of the IOHANNE tenor, this stock phrase from the troubadour repertory cues the notions of the extended day and abbreviated night, the latter of which offered a time for crude and unpredictable activities.

48 In this case, I have only found three thirteenth-century motets that mention sheep along with a shepherdess: L'autrier chevauchoie (227), C'est a Paskes en avril (1045) and Au douz mois de mai (275).

49 John 1: 29. This traditional association is suggested in the motet Clamans in deserto docens in aperto (379)/IOHANNE.

50 See Coussée, La Saint-Jean, p. 47 and Ferer, ‘The Feast of John the Baptist’, p. 38.

51 For example, an early sixteenth-century Flemish illumination from the Breviary of Eleanor of Portugal by Master of James IV of Scotland (Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, MS M.52, fol. 4v) emphasises the close relationship between the feast of the Baptist and sheep, as various sheep-shearing activities are placed in the lower border of the calendar month of June. Not only is the Baptist's nativity feast a red-letter day in this month, but the manuscript also reveals a scene from the Baptist's birth in the third medallion from the top on the left border. I have found nine additional examples in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century manuscripts from the Pierpont Morgan Library collection alone that feature sheep-shearing in the month of June. See MSS 399 (fol. 7v), 451 (fol. 4r), 452 (fol. 7r), 1053 (fol. 6r), 28 (fol. 6r), 632 (fol. 6r), 117 (fol. 3v), 144 (fol. 6r) and 170 (fol. 3v). Countless representations in the visual arts of this period also prominently feature the Baptist pointing out the Lamb with his finger or holding him in his palm, activities often accompanied by a banner inscribed ‘Ecce Agnus Dei’. Other common ciphers for the Baptist in late medieval art include the depiction of a wilderness setting and meagre garments to signal the Forerunner's ascetic lifestyle. For the full range of portrayals of the precursor saint in visual culture, see Masseron, A., Saint Jean Baptiste dans l'art (Paris, 1957)Google Scholar .

52 I have found one instance where sol iustitie is applied to the Virgin Mary. In the motet O Maria, maris stella/VERITATEM, part of the motet text reads: ‘Mater simul et puella / Vas munditie / Templum nostris redemptoris / Sol iustitie / Porta celi, spes reorum / Thronus glorie’ (‘At once, [you are] both mother and maiden, vessel of cleanliness, Temple of our Redeemer, Sun of Justice, Gate of Heaven, Hope of Sinners and throne of Glory’). For a case involving the political significance of the appellation ‘sol iustitie’, see Strohm, R., The Rise of European Music, 1380–1500 (Cambridge, 1993), p. 37Google Scholar .

53 Malachi 4: 1–3: ‘Ecce enim dies veniet succensa quasi caminus et erunt omnes superbi etomnes facientes impietatem stipula, et inflammabit eos dies veniens dicit Dominus exercituum quae non relinquet eis radicem et germen. Et orietur vobis timentibus nomen meum sol iustitiae et sanitas in pinnis eius et egrediemini et salietis sicut vituli de armento. Et calcabitis impios cum fuerint cinis sub planta pedum vestrorum in die qua ego facio dicit Dominus exercituum’ (‘For lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven, when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble. And the day that is coming will set them on fire, leaving them neither root nor branch, says the Lord of hosts. But for you who fear my name, there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays. You will gambol like calves out of the stall and tread down the wicked, and they will become ashes under the soles of your feet on the day I take action, says the Lord’).

54 The title of the tenth-century hymn text Iam Christe sol iustitiae (no. 8325 in Hesbert, Corpus antiphonalium officii, 6 vols. (Rome, 1963–79) confirms the connection with Christ in no uncertain terms, while many later medieval writers also refer directly to Christ as the ‘sun of justice’. See, for example, sermon 45 from Aelred, the twelfth-century Abbot of Rievaulx (line 361): ‘Quasi dicerent: Quae est ista tantae auctoritatis, tantae potestatis, quae sicut ipse sol iustitiae Christus, ipse Dei Filius, nos omnes etiam secundum carnem transcendit, ita et ipsa, post eum nos omnes supergrediens, ad eius thronum provehitur?’ (‘As if they might say: Who is that with such authority, of so much power? Who just as Christ himself, the sun of justice, the Son of God himself, who according to the flesh even transcended us all, and thus, after him surpassing us all, is carried to his throne?’). For an edition of this sermon, see Aelred, Aelredi Rievallensis opera omnia, ed. A. Hoste and C. H. Talbot (Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis, 1, 2a; Turnhout, 1971), ii, pp. 352–65.

55 The same level of clarity exists in the use of this phrase (sol iustitie) from the motet text In celesti curia (400). The reference to the ‘Lamb’ is also Christological, as a trope of the ‘Ecce Agnus Dei’ motto.

56 The two-voice motet is found only in Burgos, Monasterio de Las Huelgas, fol. 110r.

57 The opposing equivalence of these figures, witnessed in the solar analogy, is even reminiscent of the symbolic process of reversal in the theology of the maze. See Wright, C., The Maze and the Warrior: Symbols in Architecture, Theology, and Music (Cambridge, Mass., 2001), pp. 64–70Google Scholar .

58 Cressy, D., Bonfires and Bells: National Memory and the Protestant Calendar in Elizabethan and Stuart England (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1989), p. 80Google Scholar . For more general discussion on bonfires, see Hutton, R., The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy (Cambridge, Mass., 1991), p. 183Google Scholar .

59 On the idea of regenerative fires in Greek and Roman mythology, as well as in earlier traditions in Iranian and Indian mythology, see Edsmann, C. M., Ignis divinus: Le feu comme moyen de rajeunissement et d'immortalité. Conts, légendes, mythes, et rites (Lund, 1949)Google Scholar .

60 While testimony to the Midsummer tradition of lighting bonfires may be traced to Pliny the Elder in ancient Rome, details on specific fire practices do not amass until a millennium later. Pliny advised farmers to light bonfires in the fields during the height of summer to ward off disease. See Pliny, The Natural History, trans. H. Rackham, 10 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1938), v, pp. 370–5. For references to St John's fires in the mid-twelfth century (1140s), see Hone, N. J., The Manor and Manorial Records (New York, 1906), p. 98Google Scholar .

61 Le Goff, J., The Birth of Purgatory, trans. A. Goldhammer (Chicago, 1984), p. 7Google Scholar and Van der Leeuw, G., La religion dans son essence et ses manifestations (Paris, 1955), p. 53Google Scholar .

62 ‘Et ista animalia [dracones] in aere volant, in aquis natant, per terram ambulant.’ See Beleth, J., Summa de ecclesiasticis officiis, ed. Douteil, H., 2 vols. (Turnhout: Brepols, 1976), ii, p. 267Google Scholar . Beleth uses the word fumus in reference to the conflagration.

63 Voragine, Legenda aurea, ed. G. P. Maggioni, 2 vols. (Tavarnuzze, 1998), i, p. 550. ‘Cuius duplex est causa, ut ait Iohannes Beleth. Una est ex antique institutionis observantia; sunt enim quedam animalia que dracones vocantur que in aere volant, in aquis natant, in terra ambulant’ (‘The reason [for having fires and burning animal bones] is twofold, as Johannes Beleth said. One reason is out of an observance of an old custom; also there are certain animals called dragons that fly in the air, swim in the waters and walk the earth’).

64 On the tradition of leaping over the Midsummer flame in hopes of healthy crops and protection from agricultural disaster, see Zemon Davis, N., ‘Some Tasks and Themes in the Study of Popular Religion’, in Trinkhaus, C. with Oberman, H. A. (eds.), The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion; Papers from the University of Michigan Conference (Leiden, 1974), p. 309Google Scholar .

65 The act of leaping over flames and the association with fertility may have a deeper connection to John the Baptist: John famously leaped (Vulgate: exultavit) in his mother's womb when he sensed Jesus in Mary's womb at the scene of the Visitation, an event that took place shortly after Mary's own miraculous conception (Luke 1: 39–57).

66 Passiones vitaeque sanctorum aevi Merovingici et antiquiorum aliquot, ed. Krusch, B., 5 vols., Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum (Hannover, 1896–1920), iv, pp. 705–706Google Scholar . ‘Nullus in festivitate sancti Iohannis vel quibus sanctorum sollemnitatibus solestitia aut vallationes vel saltationes aut cantica diabolica exerceat’ (‘Let no one perform solstice rites, nor dances, leapings, or devilish songs on the feast of St John or some other solemnity of the saints’).

67 ‘Ioannes fuerit ardens lucerna, & qui vias Domini praeparaverit. Sed quod etiam rota vertatur hinc esse putant, quia in eum circulum tunc sol descenderit ultra quem progredi nequit, a quo cogitur paulatim descendere, quemadmodum vulgi rumor de beato Iohanne Christo adveniente ad summum pervenit, quum Christus putabatur, posteaque descendit ac fuit diminutus, ut vel ipse de se testis est: Me, inquiens, opportet minui, illum autem crescere.’ See Beleth, ‘De vigilia Sancti Ioannis’, in Rationale divinorum officiorum, pp. 304–5, cited with translation from Billington, Midsummer: A Cultural Subtext, p. 20.

68 The Roman festival for the goddess Fortuna was celebrated earlier in June, though not universally. On the connection between the ancient wheel-rolling practice and the ‘Wheel of Fortune’, see H. L. Chrétien, The Festival of San Giovanni: Imagery and Political Power in Renaissance Florence (New York, 1994), p. 21; Billington, Midsummer: A Cultural Subtext, pp. 5–10, 213–20; and Scullard, H. H., Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic (Ithaca, NY, 1981), pp. 155–156Google Scholar .

69 I have found only three uses of ‘fire’ – all Latin – in a survey of some 600 Latin and vernacular motet texts. None of these examples approaches the specificity of incendium (i.e., a conflagration or large blaze). The Marian text Ex semine Abrahe (483), set above the Marian tenor EX SEMINE, uses the word ‘ignem’ for fire: ‘Ex semine Abrahe, divino moderamine, ignem pio numine producis, Domine …’ (‘From the seed of Abraham, by divine control, thou in thy divinity dost bring forth a fire, O Lord …’). In Adesse Festina (58) over the ADIUVA ME tenor (from the feast of St Stephen), the reference to fire is in the context of a ‘fiery furnace’: ‘craticula me crema ignea’ (‘fiery furnaces consume me’). Finally, a motet on the tenor [Benedicamus] DOMINO also uses the word ‘fire’. The text Alpha bovi et leoni (762) engages ‘fire’ in a series of disparate items that are said to be praised as God's creation: ‘igne lepra grano, tramiti plano’ (‘The corn with leprous fire, the open path’). While the larger series is full of scriptural references, Gordon Anderson (The Latin Compositions, ii, pp. 300–1) could not suggest an origin of this particular allusion, nor can I propose one. I am not counting several other instances related to fire in the motets, because there appears to be no contextual link to a fire festival or liturgical feast. The motet text Dum superbit impius et pauper incenditur (584d) uses the verb form of ‘incendium’ for fire (not ‘ignis’), but instead figuratively to mean ‘stirred up’ or ‘aggravated’: ‘While the wicked one shows too much pride, and the pauper is aggravated, the sword is brought forth raging, the innocent one is crushed, and the proud one is praised’. The entire vernacular motet repertory is effectively devoid of fire references. I consider forms of the French feminine noun esprise (‘fire [of love]’, according to The Old French–English Dictionary, ed. A. Hindley, F. W. Langley and B. J. Levy (Cambridge, 2000), p. 298) to be metaphorical references to fire. Forms of this word (including the past participle espris) occur in two motet texts, always in relation to love: Amours dont je sui espris (858) over the vernacular tenor CHOSE TASSIN and Deboinerement (638) over the TAMQUAM tenor. Similarly, the French cheminëe does not directly refer to fire, but rather to a place where fire is kindled (and is related more to the English ‘chimney’ than to fire), as in the case of A la cheminëe (453) (‘by the fireside/mantle in the cold month of January’), which is set above the French tenor PAR VERITÉ.

70 From Book XIII, which describes Aeneas' journey to Sicily following the fall of Troy (lines 713–18): ‘Certatam lite Deorum Ambraciam, versique vident sub imagine saxum Iudicis, Actiaco quae nunc ad Apolline nota est, Vocalemque sua terram Dodonida quercu Chaoniosque sinus, ubi nati rege Molosso, Impia subiectis fugere incendia pennis’ (‘They saw Ambracia, now famous for its Apollo of Actium, once contended over by quarreling gods; and they saw the image of the judge who was turned to stone; Dodona's land with its oracular oaks, as well as Chaonia's bay, where the sons of Munichus, the Molossian king, escaped the impious flames on new-found wings’). See Ovidii, P.Nasonis quae supersunt. Ad optimorum librorum fidem accurate edita, 3 vols. (Lipsiae, 1820), ii, p. 287Google Scholar .

71 Frazer, The Golden Bough, x, pp. 188–91.

72 Bertrand, A., La religion des Gaulois (Paris, 1897), pp. 116–121Google Scholar ; F. Chapiseau, Le folk-lore de Beauce et du Perce, 2 vols. (Paris, 1902), i, pp. 318–19; Dupin, C., ‘Notice sur quelques fêtes et divertissemens populaires du department des Deux-Sèvres’, Memoires et Dissertations Publiés par la Sociéte Royale des Antiquaires de France, 4 (1823), p. 110Google Scholar ; and Noguès, J. L. M., Les moeurs d'autrefois en Sintonge et en Aunis (Saintes, 1893), pp. 72 and 178Google Scholar . Clerical participation in the lighting of Midsummer bonfires is confirmed first-hand by the late seventeenth-century Bishop of Meaux, Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, who reported that numerous parishes in France kindled ‘ecclesiastical fires’ at Midsummer in order to offset the practice of those who ignite mundane bonfires with no religious significance. See Bossuet, Oeuvres complètes de Bossuet, évêque de Meaux: Revues sur les manuscrits originaux, et les éditions les plus corrects, 43 vols. (Versailles, 1815–19), vi, p. 276.

73 There is a fifth source of this motet (Louvain, Univ. Bibl., ‘Herenthals fragment’) that was destroyed in the First World War. Photographs of these fragments have been published in Anthologie van muziekfragmenten uit de Lage Landen, ed. E. Schreurs (Middleeuwen-Renaissance: Polyfonie, Monodie en Leisteenfragmenten in Facsimile; Leuven, 1995), pp. 3–6. Only the first phrase of Greve m'ont li mal d'amer survives, found at the bottom of the last verso.

74 In this case, there is a sexual connotation to the act of ‘follying’, most closely aligning with intransitive verb foloier (sometimes spelled foliier), which can be defined as ‘to sleep around’ or ‘to play the wanton’. See The Old French–English Dictionary, p. 324.

75 See n. 35. Also, on the irony and humour of this motet text in the light of the IOHANNE tenor, see Huot, Allegorical Play in the Old French Motet, p. 74.

76 In late medieval France, some nine of ten men had some connection to the agricultural sector of the economy. See Potter, D., France in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 2002), pp. 50–52Google Scholar .

77 For a critical edition of Franco's treatise, see Franco of Cologne, Ars cantus mensurabilis, ed. G. Reaney and A. Gilles (Corpus scriptorum de musica, 18; Dallas, Tex., 1974). For a translation of this source and several related anonymous treatises that cite Franco's work, see Franco of Cologne, Ars cantus mensurabilis: XIIIème siècle, ed. J-P. Navarre (Paris, 1997).

78 Fol. 178r.

79 The tenor incipit in this case (D–D–a) is a variant of the typical D–a–a.

80 Franco illustrates these intervals found in discant with six consecutive examples, of which Arida frondescit/IOHANNE is the second. In this section, the theorist demonstrates that a discant can begin at the unison, diapason, diapente, diatessaron, ditone (major third), or semiditone (minor third).

81 The spring liturgies for Rogationtide and Pentecost saw considerable decoration of churches with foliage. See, for example, Huet, G., ‘Coutumes superstitieuses de la Saint-Jean’, Revue des traditions populaires, 25 (1910), pp. 461–465Google Scholar and Cressy, Bonfires and Bells, p. 90.

82 A. Franklin, Midsummer: Magical Celebrations of the Summer Solstice (St. Paul, Minn., 2002), p. 20 and Frazer, The Golden Bough, xi, pp. 45–75.

83 For the power of vervain in Normandy, see Bosquet, A., La Normandie romanesque et merveilleuse: Traditions, legendes, et superstitions populaires de cette province (Paris, 1845), p. 294Google Scholar .

84 For more on the healthy eye benefits gained at Midsummer, see Vlasopolos, ‘The Ritual of Midsummer’, p. 26 and Frazer, The Golden Bough, xi, pp. 54–6.

85 Translation by Smith, French Double and Triple Motets, pp. 261–2, with slight emendations.

86 The use of the word ‘erbe’ in first line of the triplum may even be loosened from its traditional meaning as ‘grass’ to suggest a potent ‘herb’ or ‘plant’ (such as St John's wort or vervain). The word ‘erbe’ is defined more broadly in the Middle Ages as either ‘grass, herb, or a plant (fed to animals)’ in The Old French–English Dictionary, p. 278. The occurrence of this word in the vernacular repertory is surprisingly infrequent, despite the numerous references to nature in the proliferous pastourelle texts. Out of nearly 300 vernacular motet texts in the Montpellier manuscript, for example, only five texts use the word ‘erbe’ in the descriptions of the pastoral setting.

87 I have found the word ‘garland’ (chapelet/coroie) in twelve of some 400 vernacular motet texts (or 3%) surveyed in the thirteenth-century sources. Two mentions of the word ‘garland’ are found in the triplum and motetus of a single motet (L'autrier trovai une plesant tousete/L'autrier lés une espinete (183) / [IN SECULUM]), unique to Mo (fols. 162v–164r). Other tenors located beneath a mention of chaplets or garlands in motet texts include IUSTUS, NOSTRUM, SECULORUM AMEN, IN SECULUM (2), ET GAUDEBIT, APTATUR and PORTARE. The garland's connection to the Marian realm (via the rosary) and springtime has yet to be articulated in the scholarly literature on motets.

88 The garland is not associated with women alone in the Middle Ages. In the motet texts L'autrie les une espinete (previous n.) and Les un bosket vi Robechon (296), the male protagonists(the shepherd and Robechon respectively) also wear garlands. On the sexual connotations of the purse, an item hanging below the waist, see Pesce, ‘Beyond Glossing’, p. 42. On the weaving of garlands in some religious Tagelieder (dawn songs) and their secular connotations, see Winston-Allen, A., Stories of the Rose: The Making of the Rosary in the Middle Ages (University Park, Pa., 1997), p. 105Google Scholar .

89 A particularly rich description of the St John's Day rituals, including references to garlands and even the hurling of a fiery wheel, survives from the mid-sixteenth-century south German Protestant theologian and dramatist Thomas Kirchmeyer in his polemical Regnum papisticum on the superstitions and abuses of the church. See The Popish Kingdome or reigne of Anti-Christ, written in Latin verse by Thomas Naogeorgus and Englyshed by Barnabe Googe, 1570, ed. R. C. Hope (London, 1980), fol. 54v. A separate tradition derives from the French region of Comminges (Midi-Pyrénées), where garlands of flowers were fastened to the tops of trees. When the St John's fire was lit, the man who had been most recently married had to climb up a ladder and bring the flowers down. See Frazer, The Golden Bough, x, p. 192.

90 The concluding verse is catalogued as no. 1665 in Rondeaux et refrains du XIIe siècle au début du XIVe, ed. N. H. J. van den Boogaard (Paris, 1969) and as no. 1441 in Friedrich Gennrich, Bibliographisches Verzeichnis der französischen Refrains (Langen, 1964). This text might appear to be a cleverly imported refrain from outside the motet sources; however, this musico-textual unit is only found in this motet. Therefore, in the absence of surviving evidence to the contrary, we must consider that this potentially ironic pseudo-refrain was part of the original fabric of the motet. On the possibility that the early vernacular motet could have given rise to some refrains in the broader vernacular repertory, see Everist, French Motets in the Thirteenth Century, pp. 55–7, 70. In fact, nearly half (282 of 651) of the refrains that have been catalogued are unica from the motet repertory. For an excellent case study on the subtlety of refrains woven into the motet repertory, see Evans, B., ‘The Textual Function of the Refrain Cento in a Thirteenth-Century French Motet’, Music & Letters, 71 (1990), pp. 187–197CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

91 I have located only six other occurrences of ‘dancing’ in the vernacular motet texts (about 1.5% of those surveyed): Amors vaint tot (335), Li jalous par tout (467), Tuit cil qui sunt (468), L'autrier les une espinete (183), S'Amours eust point (531a) and Au tens pascour tuit il pastour (201). The texts Li jalous par tout and Tuit cil qui sunt appear to describe a similar ritual dance, occurring in the same motet on the VERITATEM tenor (uniquely in Mo, fol. 218v). I am aware of only one other motet that speaks of both dancing and a chaplet (chapel) in the same context (L'autrier lés une espinete/IN SECULUM in Mo, fols. 163r–164r).

92 On folkloric dancing rituals enacted at Midsummer, see Walsh, W. S., Curiosities of Popular Customs and of Rites, Ceremonies, Observances, and Miscellaneous Antiquities (Philadelphia, 1898), pp. 568–569Google Scholar . Dancing also had connections in the liturgy, especially in the Easter season, as described in Wright, The Maze and the Warrior, pp. 129–58.

93 The irony registers at the musical surface when one discerns the two simultaneous texts in the final gesture: at the moment the triplum declaims ‘je voudrai baler’ (‘I would like to dance’), the duplum simultaneously utters ‘font pis’ (‘do worse’). For an edition with the simultaneous texts, see Y. Rokseth, Polyphonies du XIIIe siècle: Le manuscrit H 196 de la Faculté de médecine de Montpellier, 4 vols. (Paris, 1935–9), iii, pp. 128–30.

94 Mark 6: 17–29. For a brief analysis, see Kraeling, C., John the Baptist (New York, 1951), p. 84Google Scholar .

95 An illumination from the early thirteenth-century Munich Psalter by an English miniaturist (Munich, Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 835, fol. 66r, c. 1200–10) encapsulates the story of Herod Antipas's banquet in three registers with the dance of Salome (bending over backwards in her dance) occupying the central position in the image. On this particular illumination in the Munich Psalter, see Rickert, M., Painting in Britain: The Middle Ages (London and Baltimore, 1965), p. 98Google Scholar and Steger, H., ‘Der unheilige Tanz der Salome’, in Mein ganzer Körper ist Gesicht: Groteske Darstellungen, ed. Kröll, K. and Steger, H. (Freiburg, 1994), p. 139Google Scholar , fig. 38. Nearly 400 artistic, literary, musical and theatrical presentations of the figure of Salome alone have been found even closer to the present, during the years 1840–1940. See A. Pym, ‘The Importance of Salomé: Approaches to a Fin-de-siècle Theme’, French Forum, 14 (1989), pp. 312–13. Recent musicological attention has been drawn to the American fascination with the character of Salome, reflected in popular songs around the turn of the twentieth century through to the 1920s. See Hamberlin, L., ‘Visions of Salome: The Femme Fatale in American Popular Songs before 1920’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 59 (2006), pp. 631–696CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

96 On the atmosphere of social inversion and protest engendered at Carnival, see Zemon Davis, N., Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford, 1975), pp. 97–123Google Scholar ; M. Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World, trans. H. Iswolsky (Bloomington, Ind., 1984), pp. 10–11; Walsh, M. W., ‘Festivals and Celebrations’, in Lindahl, C.et al. (eds.), Medieval Folklore: A Guide to Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and Customs (Oxford and New York, 2002), p. 135Google Scholar ; and James, M., ‘Ritual, Drama, and Social Body in the Late Medieval English Town’, Past and Present, 98 (1983), pp. 3–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

97 On the Feast of Fools and the proclamations against the practices associated with the inversion of power on 1 January, see W. Arlt, Ein Festoffizium des Mittelalters aus Beauvais in seiner liturgischen und musikalischen Bedeutung, 2 vols. (Cologne, 1970) and Wright, C., Music and Ceremony at Notre Dame of Paris 500–1550 (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 239–241Google Scholar . For other aspects of the Feast of Fools, see Fassler, M., ‘The Feast of Fools and Danielis ludus: Popular Tradition in a Medieval Cathedral Play’, in Kelly, T. F. (ed.), Plainsong in the Age of Polyphony (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 65–99Google Scholar and Lagueux, R. C., ‘Glossing Christmas: Liturgy, Music, Exegesis, and Drama in High Medieval Laon’ (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 2004), pp. 371–442Google Scholar .

98 On the rowdiness of the feast in early modern France, see Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe, pp. 94–5. For a summary of the anthropological view of folk festivity in general as both a venue for ritual rebellion and a cultural refuge, see Klaniczay, G., The Uses of Supernatural Power: The Transformation of Popular Religion, trans. S. Singerman (Princeton, 1990), p. 12Google Scholar . See also studies by R. Caillois, L'homme et le sacré (Paris, 1961); M. Eliade, Das Heilige und das Profane: Vom Wesen des Religiösen (Hamburg, 1957); and Gluckmann, M., Rituals of Rebellion in South-East Africa (Manchester, 1954)Google Scholar .

99 For excellent studies on the hot-headed political attitudes in Midsummer found in French medieval literature and also on the symbolism of the hilltop as the locus both of the haughty and of Lady Fortune, see Billington, Midsummer: A Cultural Subtext, pp. 1–43, at pp. 21–2 and ead., Mock Kings in Medieval Society and Renaissance Drama (Oxford, 1991), pp. 63–5.

100 Patch, H. R., The Goddess Fortuna in Mediaeval Literature (Cambridge, 1927), pp. 164–166CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

101 As a result, some rulers took part in the festivities to acknowledge their own vulnerabilities and submission to higher authority. Louis XI, for instance, lit the St John's bonfire in the streets of Paris in 1471. See de Roye, J., Journal de Jean de Roye, connu sous le nom de Chronique Scandaleuse, ed. de Mandrot, B., 2 vols. (Paris, 1894)Google Scholar , i, p. 260. And in 1604, the Lyonnais historian Claude de Rubys (Histoire véritable de la ville de Lyon (Lyon, 1604), pp. 499–501) vividly described the practice of public denigration of temporal rulers on the summer solstice.

102 Evidence of early modern French and English ‘mock lords’ in summer has been proffered by Billington, Mock Kings in Medieval Society, pp. 55–85 and also ead., Midsummer, pp. 24–7. On inversions of the ecclesiastical hierarchy on the feast of Holy Innocents and the election of a ‘boy bishop’, see Boynton, S., ‘Work and Play in Sacred Music’, in Swanson, R. N. (ed.), The Use and Abuse of Time in Christian History (Studies in Church History, 37; Woodbridge, 2002), pp. 57–79Google Scholar , esp. p. 68. For additional studies of seasonal observances that included popular rebels assuming fictional regal titles, see Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France and Y.-M Bercé, Fête et révolte: Des mentalités populaires du XVIeme au XVIIIeme siècle (Paris, 1976). A. van Gennep (Le folklore du Dauphiné, 2 vols. (Paris, 1933), ii, pp. 338–46) even found a residual tradition of a festival mock lord in the Dauphiné as late as the 1930s.

103 Billington (Midsummer: A Cultural Subtext, pp. 5, 12, 21) has shown that, in some cases, rituals related to the celebration of Fortune were allowed to continue, but only if the name of Dame Fortune was replaced with that of John the Baptist.

104 See Matt. 14: 3–5, Mark 7: 17–19 and Luke 3: 19. On the censure of authority by several prophetic figures from the Old Testament, see Kraeling, John the Baptist, pp. 91–2. The most intriguing connection to John the Baptist's story is with Elijah (with whom John is frequently compared), who carried on a bitter feud with Ahab and Jezebel.

105 Billington, Midsummer: A Cultural Subtext, pp. 14, 23, 37.

106 On the extravagance and corruption of the Avignon papacy, along with its struggle with French kings in the fourteenth century, see Zutshi, P. N. R., ‘The Avignon Papacy’, in Jones, M. (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History, vi: c. 1300–1415 (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 653–673Google Scholar .

107 See Clark, W. W. and Bell Henneman, J. Jr., ‘Paris’, in Kibler, W.et al. (eds.), Medieval France: An Encyclopedia (New York, 1995), p. 705Google Scholar . On the lawlessness of the day, exhibited even by nobles, see Potter, France in the Later Middle Ages, pp. 47–50.

108 On the political state of affairs surrounding Philip the Chancellor, see Payne, T., ‘Poetry, Politics, and Polyphony: Philip the Chancellor's Contribution to the Music of the Notre Dame School’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1991), pp. 80–88Google Scholar .

109 The years between 1310 and 1316 saw the rapid succession of four kings of France (Philip IV, Louis X, John I and Philip V). While Louis X was the son of Philip IV, the former could not produce a male heir, so the crown was passed laterally to his brothers Philip V and then Charles IV. The Capetian dynasty ended hereafter, causing the French succession crisis of 1328. On the succession of kings in this period, see Bradbury, J., The Capetians: Kings of France, 987–1328 (London and New York, 2007), pp. 239–287Google Scholar and Fawtier, R., The Capetian Kings of France: Monarchy and Nation (987–1328), trans. Butler, L. and Adam, R. J. (London and New York, 1960), pp. 40–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar . For recent discussions of the politics of the Fauvel manuscript, see Mühlethaler, J. C., Fauvel au pouvoir: Lire la satire médiévale (Paris, 1994), pp. 82–106Google Scholar ; Vale, M., ‘The World of the Courts: Content and Context of the Fauvel Manuscript’, in Bent, M. and Wathey, A. (eds.), Fauvel Studies: Allegory, Chronicle, Music, and Image in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS Français 146 (Oxford, 1998), pp. 591–598Google Scholar ; A. Wathey, ‘Gervès de Bus, the Roman de Fauvel, and the Politics of the Later Capetian Court’, ibid., pp. 599–614; and E. Dillon, ‘The Profile of Philip V in the Music of Fauvel’, ibid., pp. 215–32.

110 Billington, though, has admirably compiled several examples of midsummer criticisms in the vernacular from various town chronicles in western Europe. For accounts of rebellion and displays of civic power on the feast of Midsummer that have survived from the cities of Metz and Leuven, see Billington, Midsummer: A Cultural Subtext, pp. 115–26.

111 There is no mention, for instance, of a ‘corruption’ category in Everist's French Motets in the Thirteenth Century, suggesting that vernacular texts on the subject were rare. It is likewise instructive that no French motet texts from the large Montpellier Codex (except Ne sai que je die, to be explored here) address corruption.

112 Some of the Chancellor's texts of admonition were used in conductus pieces and thereby do not properly have a liturgical tenor by definition (e.g. Venit Jhesus in propria, Aurelianis civitas, Bulla fulminante and Crucifigat omnes). The recipients of his attacks range from the clergy (In veritate comperi/VERITATEM, Ypocrite pseudopontifices/Velut stele/ET GAUDEBIT) and lawyers (Venditores laborium/EIUS) to humankind at large (In omni fratre tuo/IN SECULUM). For editions and commentary on Philip's texts, see Payne, ‘Poetry, Politics, and Polyphony’, pp. 642–1079.

113 Several motet texts encourage repentance for evil-doers, including O nacio nephandi generis (599), De facili contempnit omnia (843) and Ad solitum vomitum (439).

114 The two-voice motet appears on fol. 235r, whereas the expanded three-voice correlate falls on fol. 305v. For a brief analysis of Ne sai que je die/IOHANNE, see Göllner, ‘Rhythm and Pattern’, p. 158.

115 Translation by S. Stakel and J. C. Relihan in The Montpellier Codex, ed. H. Tischler, 4 pts. (Madison, 1978–1985), iv, p. 67.

116 These motets are separated by two fascicles in W2. Cecitas arpie fex ypocrysie appears on fol. 191v in fascicle 8 among the two-voice Latin motets, whereas Ne sai que je die tant voi vilanie occurs in the collection of two-voice French motets in fascicle 10 (fol. 219a).

117 1 Sam. 17: 1–54.

118 2 Sam. 11: 1–17. The scenes with the overconfident Goliath and the naive battle-figure Uriah represent two important moments in David's life and encapsulate his rise and fall – from his courageous actions on the battlefield to his infamous moral lapse as king. See Peterson, E. H., First and Second Samuel (Louisville, Ky.,1999), pp. 180–183Google Scholar .

119 A sermon by the late fifteenth-century preacher Johann Meffret of Meissen (Sermones de tempore [I–II] et de sanctis [III], sive Hortulus reginae (Nuremberg, 1487)) provides additional evidence that these specific figures both were witnesses to acts of adultery and remained ‘loyal soldiers’. Meffret connects the plight of the Baptist to that of Uriah the Hittite in a sermon for the Decollation of John the Baptist (29 August): ‘Ita etiam Johannes qui arguit Herodiadem de opere nephario iussu eius missus est in carcerem. Illud adulterium occiditur iam fidelem militem. Legit ii Reg. Xi. Postquam David adulterium commisit cum Bersabee uxore urie ducens eam in domum suam misit nunciu[m] ad Joab dicens, Mitte uriam ex adverso belli ubi fortissimum est prelium et relinquite eum ut procussus interiat quod et factum est et plura alia mala fecit adulterium’ (‘Thus, John – who accused Herodias of a vicious deed – was sent to prison by his [Herod's] command. That adultery was struck down by the already loyal soldier. We read in 2 Kings [Samuel] 11: After David committed adultery with Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, by leading her into his house, he sent word for Joab, saying: Send Uriah to the front lines where the fighting is the strongest and then withdraw from him. Thus it was done and the adultery made many other bad things’).

120 Billington, Midsummer: A Cultural Subtext, p. 21.

121 It may seem unusual to have this particular motet text, ostensibly aimed at clerics, included in the Roman de Fauvel, which was probably given to King Philip V of France. One must keep in mind, however, that the manuscript was not merely an admonitio regum (cautionary document to kings), but also aimed its satire at the church and society at large. See Le Roman de Fauvel in the Edition of Mesire Chaillou de Pesstain: A Reproduction in Facsimile of the Complete Manuscript, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français 146, ed. Roesner, E. H., Avril, F. and Freeman Regalado, N. (New York, 1990), p. 1Google Scholar .

122 For recordings illustrating the drama of the cadence in Ne sai que je die/IOHANNE, see Love's Illusion: Music from the Montpellier Codex, 13th century, Anonymous 4, Harmonia Mundi France 907109 and Music of Medieval Love, New York's Ensemble for Early Music, Ex Cathedra Records 70070-29005-2 (Text: Veritas arpie).

123 This premise contrasts with the position of Charles Scobie, who, in his seminal book on John the Baptist, ascribed ‘no political significance for John’. See Scobie, John the Baptist (Philadelphia, 1964), p. 86.

124 See, for example, Matt. 3: 1–3.

125 Pliny, Natural History, ed. and trans. J. Bostock, 6 vols. (London, 1855–7), iv, pp. 92–3.

126 Frazer, The Golden Bough, x, pp. 181–2. Similarly, Françoise Laurent has called the opposing nativities ‘le jeu de ricochet entre les destinées de Jésus et de Jean’ (‘The game of ricochet between the destinies of Jesus and John’). See Laurent, ‘“Une voix crie dans le desert…” Parole sainte et parole inspirée dans la Vie versifiée de saint Jean-Baptiste composée dans le premier tiers du xive siècle’, in Jean-Baptiste: Le precurseur au Moyen Age, Actes du 26e colloque du CUER MA, 22–24 février 2001 (Aix-en-Provence, 2002), p. 155.

127 Another related case that awaits study is the intersection and relationship of May Day and Maypole rituals with the SUSTINERE/PORTARE motet complex for the Feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross (3 May).

128 References to water and fecundity on the feast of St John the Baptist appear in the final stanzas of the sequence Helizabet Zachariae from Las Huelgas Codex. For a transcription, see The Las Huelgas Manuscript, ed. G. A. Anderson, 2 vols. (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1982), i, pp. 111–12. Also, there was a widespread tradition of gathering dew on the feast, in order to cure various ailments. Curiously, allusions to dew in music for John the Baptist surface in Basis prebens, the lone sequence from the Ivrea Codex. For a study and transcription of this sequence, see Kügle, K., ‘Aspects of Composition in the Late Middle Ages: The Rhymed Sequence “Basis prebens firmamentum”’, in Il Codice I-IV.115 della Biblioteca Capitolare di Ivrea, Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi, 15–16 settembre 2000, ed. Baldi, S. (Turin, 2003), pp. 51–62Google Scholar .