Clues for the Arabian Influence on European Musical Theory

Henry George Farmer

doi:10.1017/S0035869X00089759

Clues for the Arabian Influence on European Musical Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011

Henry George Farmer

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In the diffusion of the sciences of the Saracens throughout Western Europe in the twelfth century, says Professor Haskins in one of his valuable contributions to the English Historical Review, “ England occupies a position of considerable importance. An English scholar, Adelard of Bath, seems to have been the chief pioneer in this movement of study and translation, while the existence of a certain number of dated treatises of his contemporaries and successors makes it possible to follow the spread of the new learning in England with greater definiteness than has so far been attempted elsewhere.” That these Arabian sciences played an important part in the intellectual awakening of England, there cannot be much doubt. Mathematical sciences especially attained a height with the Arabs which had never been reached before in Western Europe.

Type: Articles
Information: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , January 1925 , pp. 61 - 80

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00089759 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1925

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^{page 61 note 1} See the articles entitled The Reception of Arabic Science in England (vol. xxx), Adelard of Bath (vol. xxvi), and The Abacus and The King's Curia (vol. xxvii).

^{page 61 note 2} By Arabs I mean Arabic speaking peoples.

^{page 62 note 1} Leclere, Hist, de Med. Arabe, ii, 344.

^{page 63 note 1} Maclean, , Quarterly Magazine Inter. Mus. Soc., vi (1904–1905).Google Scholar

^{page 63 note 2} Al-Mashriq, vols. ix, xvi.

^{page 63 note 3} For the European names of these instruments, see La Prise d'Alexandrie, by Guillaume de Machaut, and the poem of Juan Ruiz, both of the fourteenth century.

^{page 64 note 1} Coussemaker, Scriptores,

^{page 64 note 2} Wooldridge, Oxford Hist. of Mus., i, 45.

^{page 64 note 3} Naumann, Hist. Mus., i, 171.

^{page 64 note 4} Riemann, Diet. Mus., 559.

^{page 64 note 5} Brit. Mus. OR. 2361; Berlin, 5503 (Ahlwardt). Kosegarten, Liber Cantilenarum.

^{page 64 note 7} India Office, 1811, fol. 172 v.

^{page 65 note 1} Gerbert, Scriptores, ii, 21.

^{page 65 note 2} Coussemaker, Scriptores, i, 114, 175, 212.

^{page 66 note 1} Probably the revision of the laws of consonances ought properly to be dealt with under the literary and intellectual contact period. Yet the instrumental jongleurs must have already given a foretaste of the new scale.

^{page 66 note 2} La Borde, Essai sur la musique, i, 182. Andres, Orig. d‘ogni Lett. ix, 122. Dalberg, Über die musik der Indier, 112. Pocock, Flowers of the East, 41. Crichton, Hist. Arab. Kiesewetter, Musikder Araber, 22. Salvador-Daniel, La musique Arabe, 8. Soriano-Fuertes, Hist. Mus. Espan, i, 80. See also a recent examination of the question in the Quart. Mag. of the Inter. Mus. Society (July–September, 1900).

^{page 67 note 1} Villanueva, Viaje literario á las Iglesias de España, xi.

^{page 67 note 2} in Arabic means “ an unknown person ”. Perhaps the Latin scribe took this for a proper name.

^{page 68 note 1} E. H. R., vol. xxvii.

^{page 69 note 1} Early chroniclers like Adhemar of Monteil and William of Malmesbury say that Gerbert studied at Cordova, but this has been challenged.

^{page 69 note 2} He did not study in Andalus, but in Carthage (Tunis) and Babylon (Baghdad or Cairo).

^{page 69 note 3} E. H. R., vol. xxx. Tannery, Bib. Math., 3rd Ser., v, 416.

^{page 70 note 1} There is no direct evidence that Adelard studied at Toledo.

^{page 70 note 2} Possibly the pretiosa multitudo librorum with which Daniel Morlay returned to England included works on music.

^{page 70 note 3} Steinschneider, Jew. Lit., 154.

^{page 70 note 4} Friedländer, Comm. of Ibn Ezra on Isaiah, p. xxv.

^{page 70 note 5} Steinschneider, loc. cit.

^{page 71 note 1} Ersch u. Gruber, Ency.

^{page 71 note 2} De Rossi, MSS. Heb., Nos. 458, 776.

^{page 71 note 3} Steinschneider, Jew. Lit., 337; cf. De Rossi, 1170.

^{page 71 note 4} Jew Ency., i, 108. See Malter's Saadia Goon, p. 369.

^{page 71 note 5} See Riano, Notes on Early Spanish Music, p. 18.

^{page 71 note 6} Al-Kindî, Brit. Mus., OR. 2361, fol. 165, etc.

^{page 71 note 7} Oxford History of Music, The Polyphonic Period (1904–5).

^{page 71 note 8} Wolf, , Geschichte der Mensural Notation, 1250–1460 (1904).Google Scholar

^{page 71 note 9} Since this was written, Juan Rihera, in his Cantigas de Santa Maria, has pointed out how much Spain borrowed from the Arabs, and especially in the matter of rhythm.

^{page 72 note 1} Ibn Firnâs (d. 888 ?), who is said to have been “ the first who taught the science of music in Andalus ”, was possibly the pioneer of Al-Khalîl's mensural theories. (Al-Maqqari, Muhammadan Dynasties, i, 148, 426.)

^{page 72 note 2} Brit. Mus., OR. 2361. Berlin, 5503.

^{page 72 note 3} Leyden, 1423. Madrid, 602. Milan, 298.

^{page 72 note 4} Bombay, 1887–9. Cairo, 1307 a.h.

^{page 72 note 5} India Office, 1811. Bodleian, Pocock, 109, Marsh, 251.

^{page 72 note 6} Al-Maqqarî, bk. iii.

^{page 72 note 7} Soriano-Fuertes, Hist. Mus. Esp., i, 82.

^{page 72 note 8} Dozy, Mussl., iii, 107.

^{page 73 note 1} See Baer, Dom. Gundissalinus, De Div. Philos. and Steinschneider, Al-Fârâbî, pp. 83–5, 89, 255–6, and the same author's Die europaischen Uebersetzungen aus dem arabischen bis mitte des 17, Jahrhunderts (Sitzungsberichte Akad. Wiss., Wien, cxlix, cli).

^{page 74 note 1} At least, I have been unable to find it in the work they mention.

^{page 74 note 2} Coussemaker originally gave an earlier date.

^{page 75 note 1} Cf. Wooldridge, op. cit., i, 124. Grove, Dict. Mus., iii, 399.

^{page 75 note 2} Pits, De Rebus Anglicis.

^{page 75 note 3} Jourdain, Recherches … Aristote, 106–8. Leclerc, Hist. Med. Arabe, ii, 437, 441.

^{page 75 note 4} Walker, Hist, of Mus. in. England, 6.

^{page 76 note 1} That Mozarabian influence played an important part must be allowed. Christian Spain was famous for its music in these days (Coussemaker, Scriptores, i, 345), and the invention of the minim is placed to the credit of Navarre (Coussemaker, iii, 134). Some of the oldest musical manuscripts in Spain belong to the Mozarabic ritual (Riano, 25). See also Wiener, Contributions towards a History of Arabico-Gothic Culture, iii, 303.

^{page 76 note 2} Coussemaker, i, 339.

^{page 76 note 3} Seybold, Glos. Lat. Arab., sub voce. Dr. T. H. Weir informs me that perhaps elmuahym = al-mubham.

^{page 77 note 1} Coussemaker, i, 358.

^{page 77 note 2} Davey, Hist. of Engl. Mus., 20.

^{page 77 note 3} The Arabic nomenclature seems to point to the English as the pioneers of the new musical science.

^{page 77 note 4} Encycl. Brit., sub voce.

^{page 78 note 1} His respect for the Arabs may be gauged from his remark that Christians were inferior to the Pagans in morals, and were in consequence behind them in invention. Among the Pagans lauded by him are: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Tullius, Ibn Sînâ, and Al-Fârâbî (Comp. Stud.).

^{page 78 note 2} Bacon, , Opera Quaedam Hactenus Inedita (1859), p. 231–232.Google Scholar

^{page 78 note 3} Ibid., 266.

^{page 78 note 4} Ibid., 297.

^{page 78 note 5} It is the same passage as that quoted by Roger Bacon.

^{page 78 note 6} Coussemaker, i, 193.

^{page 78 note 7} Coussemaker, ii, 419.

^{page 79 note 1} England led the way in the world's musical culture until the opening of the sixteenth century. One is inclined to ask how much the fame of Dunstable's school was due to the advantages which the earlier English school took of the new Arabian musical science.

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