Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-03T20:04:59.386Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Refrain Cento: Myth or Motet?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Mark Everist
Mark Everist*
Affiliation:
King's College, London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Of all the genres of thirteenth-century vernacular polyphony, none is more elusive than the so-called refrain cento. Such types of composition as the motet enté and the motet with a single terminal refrain make regular appearances in the literature on the thirteenth-century motet. Most of these genres are defined by the presence or absence of a refrain, the musico-poetic entity which seems to drift from chanson to rondeau, to verse narrative, to motet. The nature of the problem concerns the degree to which the pieces which have been termed refrain cento can actually be seen to constitute a genre. Generic considerations will therefore be given some weight in this article.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 114 , Issue 2 , 1989 , pp. 164 - 188
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 Royal Musical Association

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

This article is a revised version of a paper given at the Colloque. Notre-Dame et son rayonnement at Royaumont, 3-5 July 1987, and subsequently at Dartmouth College and the Universities of Pennsylvania and Texas (Austin) in October 1987. I would like to thank Norman Smith (University of Pennsylvania). Rebecca Baltzer (University of Texas at Austin), David Fallows (University of Manchester), Wulf Arlt (Basel University) and especially the participants at the interdisciplinary medieval and Renaissance seminar at Dartmouth College which met in October 1987.Google Scholar

1 In this study, the word refrain is italicized when it is used in the sense of a single structure migrating from genre to genre, to distinguish it from the ‘refrain’ in its modern sense of an element which repeats within a single lyric. The standard bibliography of the refrain is Nico H J. van den Boogaard, Rondeaux et refrains du xii' siècle au début du xive Collationnement, introduction, et notes. Bibliothèque française et romane, série d. Initiation, textes et documents, 3 (Paris, 1969). This replaces Friedrich Gennrich, Bibliographisches Verzeichnts der französischen Refrains des 12 und 13 Jahrhunderts, Summa musicae medii aevi, 14 (Langen bei Frankfurt, 1964). See also Eglal Doss-Quinby, Les Refrains chez les trouvères du Xiie siècle au début du xive, American University Studies, 2/17 (New York, Berne and Frankfurt am Main, 1984)Google Scholar

2 Rudolf Adelbert Meyer, ‘Die in unseren Motetten enthaltenen Refrains’, Die altfranzösischen Motette der Bamberger Handschrift nebst einem Anhang, enthaltend altfranzösische Motette aus anderen deutschen Handschriften mit Anmerkungen und Glossar, ed. Albert Stimming, Gesellschaft für romanische Literatur, 13 (Dresden, 1906), 143.Google Scholar

3 The sigla used in this study are the following. D-BAs Lit. 115: Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Lit 115, D-Mbs Mus. Ms. 4775: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Mus. Ms 4775; D-W 1099 Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August-Bibliothek, Helmstedt 1099; F-B 716: Besançon, Bibliothèque Municipale, 716, F-MO H 196 Montpellier, Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, Section de Médecine, H 196; F-Pn fr. 372. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français 372, F-Pn fr. 837: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français 837; F-Pn fr. 844: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français 844; F-Pn fr 845. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français 845; F-Pn fr 1558. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français 1558; F-Pn fr. 1581. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français 1581, F-Pn fr. 1593. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français 1593; F-Pn fr 12615 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français 12615; F-Pn fr. 25566. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français 25566, F-Pn n a. f 1731 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, nouvelles acquisitions françaises 1731; F-Pn Vma 1446: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Vma 1446; I-Tr van 42 Turin, Biblioteca Reale, vari 42. For lists of facsimiles and descriptions of these sources, see Reaney, Gilbert, Manuscripts of Polyphonic Music (11th – Early 14th Century), Répertoire international des sources musicales, B IV/1 (Munich and Duisburg, 1966).Google Scholar

4 Ludwig, Friedrich, Repertorium organorum recentioris et motetorum vetustissimi stili, 2 vols. i/1 (Halle, 1910; rev Luther A Dittmer, Musicological Studies, 7, Brooklyn, NY and Hildesheim, 1964), i/2, ed. Friedrich Gennrich (including reprint of ‘Die Quellen der Motetten ältesten Stils’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 5 (1923), 185–222 and 273–315), Summa musicae medii aevi, 7 (Langen bei Frankfurt, 1961; rev. Luther A. Dittmer, Musicological Studies, 26, Binmngen, 1978); ii, ed. Friedrich Gennrich, Summa musicae medii aevi, 8 (Langen bei Frankfurt, 1962; rev. Luther A. Dittmer, Musicological Studies, 17, Brooklyn, NY and Hildesheim, 1972) See, for example, i/1, 292 and 297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 ‘Well-known refrains .. become woven into the motet in various ways Some pieces consist almost entirely of them’ (Gustave Reese, Music in the Middle Ages with an Introduction on the Music of Ancient Times (London, 1941), 317); ‘There are even a few motet texts that consist entirely of refrains. in the manner of a cento’ (Willi Apel, ‘Refrain’, Harvard Dictionary of Music, ed Willi Apel (Cambridge, Mass., 1944), 633); ‘In a few cases, the entire text of a motet appears to consist of nothing but refrains’ (Richard H Hoppin, Medieval Music, Norton Introduction to Music History (New York and Toronto, 1978), 338)Google Scholar

6 Gennrich included a large number of so-called refrain centos in his Bibliographie of 1958 (Friedrich Gennrich, Bibliographie der ältesten französischen und lateinischen Motetten, Summa musicae medii aevi, 2 (Darmstadt, 1958)), largely without comment. It is in his article entitled ‘Refrain-Studien’ of 1955 that his philosophy concerning these pieces can be recovered. ‘Moreover, there are refrain centos, i e. pieces which consist exclusively of a sequence of refrains and which are used as motet voices’ (‘Refrain-Studien. Sind die Refrains Fragmente von populären oder populär gewordenen Liedern oder vollständige Volkslieder?’, Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 71 (1955), 376–7) He then proceeds to give examples. Klaus Hofmann leant very heavily on Gennrich's views of genre in refrain compositions – too heavily in some cases. In his examination of compositional practice in those motets built on the In seculum melisma, he took some pieces which Gennrich had suggested might possibly (‘vielleicht’) be refrain centos and described them as probably (‘wahrscheinlich’) refrain centos (Klaus Hofmann, Untersuchungen zur Kompositionstechnik der Motette im 13 fahrhundert durchgefuhrt an den Motetten mit dem Tenor IN SECULUM, Tübinger Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft, 2 (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1972), 122). He identified (166) La bele m'ocit, Dieus! (see below, Table 1) as a refrain cento (ibid., 46).Google Scholar

7 Hans Tischler, Gordon Anderson and Eglal Doss-Quinby have been the three most active in these archaeological exercises. Tischler's position is most clearly established in his The Style and Evolution of the Earliest Motets (to circa 1270), 4 vols., Musicological Studies, 40 (Henryville, Ottawa and Binningen, 1985), i, 63, 77–9 and 152 Anderson's views are scattered amongst the commentaries to his editions of this repertory: The Latin Compositions in Fascicules VII and VIII of the Notre Dame Manuscript Wolfenbüttel Helmstadt 1099 (1206), 2 vols., Musicological Studies, 24 (Brooklyn, NY, [1971]-6); Motets of the Manuscript La Clayette, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, nouv acq f fr 13521, Corpus mensurabilis musicae, 68 (American Institute of Musicology, 1975); Compositions of the Bamberg Manuscript Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Lit 115 (olim Ed IV 6), Corpus mensurabilis musicae, 75 (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1977) Doss-Quinby's observations are confined to a single list, Les Refrains chez les trouvères, 263, n. 61, a discussion of (433) Cele m'a s'amour donée and some selective comments on the classical background to the cento. Leo Treitler and van den Boogaard have also reinforced this view. See Treitler, Leo, ’ “Centonate Chant” Übles Flickwerk or E pluribus unus?’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 28 (1975), 14, and van den Boogaard, Rondeaux et refrains, 23, n 21 Treitler's statement to the effect that ‘sometimes, various late medieval practices in which melodic material from here and there is combined (the motet enté, for example) have been referred to under the heading of cento' apparently fails to distinguish between a refrain cento and a motet enté, and seems to assume that the latter represents a subset of the former The references to which he alludes are difficult to identify since he fails to cite sources, the compositional distinction between motet enté and refrain cento would seem, in the secondary literature at least, to be fairly secure, notwithstanding Hoppin's equation of motet enté with all (apparently) motets which use refrains in one way or another (Medieval Music, 338–40)Google Scholar

8 John D. Denniston and Roland G. Austin, ‘Cento’, The Oxford Classical Dictionary, ed Nicholas G. L. Hammond and Howard H Scullard, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1970; repr. 1979), 220–1.Google Scholar

9 Perhaps the best-known fourth-century cento is a summary of the biblical account of the creation of the world and the lives of the evangelists made up of lines and half-lines from Virgil. It is attributed to Proba, the wife of Clodius Celsinus Adelphius, Prefect of Rome in AD 351 (edited in Karl Schenkl, ‘Probae cento, et tres centones a poetis Christianis compositi’, Poetae christiani minores, ed Michael Petschenig et al., Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, 16 (Vienna, Prague and Leipzig, 1888), 511–609); see also Filippo Ermini, Il centone di Proba e la poesia centonaria latina (Rome, 1909) The view expressed by Domenico Comparetti (Virgilio nel medio evo, 2 vols. (Livorno, 1872); trans by Edward Felix Mendelssohn Benecke as Vergil in the Middle Ages (London and New York, 1895; 2nd edn 1908; repr. London, 1966), 53–4) that the author of this cento was Faltonia Proba was destroyed by Terrot Reaveley Glover in his Life and Letters in the Fourth Century (Cambridge, 1901), 144–5. Dating apparently from around 1200 is a rather different text, written anonymously and compiled from segments of the Old and New Testaments. The subject-matter of the poem is very different from those which have already been discussed: it is a historical account of an attempted assassination of Henry the Liberal, Count of Champagne, in Provins around 1175 (edited in Félix Bourquelot, ‘Cantique latin à la gloire d'Anne Musnier, héroïne du douzième siècle’, Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes, 1 (1839–40), 289–304, Joseph Octave Delepierre, ‘Centoniana, ou encyclopédie du centon’, Miscellanies of the Philobiblion Society, 10 (1866–7), 141–7, repr. in Revue analytique des ouvrages écrits en centons, depuis les temps anciens, jusqu'au xixième siècle (London, 1868), 141–7, and in Tableau de la littérature du centon chez les anciens et chez les modernes, 2 vols. (London, 1874), i, 149–53). See also the précis in Germain François Poulain de Saint Foix, Essais historiques sur Parts, 4th edn, 5 vols. (London, 1767; vols. i and ii trans. from the 3rd (1763) edn as The History of the City of Paris or Anecdotes Concerning the Origin and Improvements of that Celebrated Capital, 2 vols., Lynn, 1770), ii, 142 (page nos. refer to the 1770 English translation) There is a range of textual problems associated with this cento, the most significant of which concerns the absence of any medieval source for the poem. I am grateful for the assistance of the Section Latine of the Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des Textes, Centre Félix Grat in controlling sources for this text. See also André Molinier, ‘Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque de Provins’, Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France Départements, 61 vols. (Paris, 1897–1980), iii, 293Google Scholar

10 Of the two most famous descriptions of a cento, one prefaces the Cento nuptialis written by Decimus Magnus Ausonius who died around AD 395. His poem, like Proba's, is constructed from lines and half-lines from Virgil, and he is perfectly candid about the technique he is using in the composition of this poem. In the introduction to this work, he explains some of its characteristics (edited in Quarti saeculi poetarum christianorum, Juvenei, Sedulii, Optatiant, Severi et Faltoniae Probae, opera omnia, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, 19 (Paris, 1846), 902–5, and in Ausonius with an English Translation, ed. Hugh G. Evelyn White, 2 vols., The Loeb Classical Library (London and New York, 1919–21), i, 370–93). For a view of Ausonius in the late Middle Ages, see Weiss, Roberto, ‘Ausonius in the Fourteenth Century’, Classical Influences on European Culture A D 500–1500 Proceedings of an International Conference Held at King's College Cambndge, April 1969, ed. Robert Ralph Bolgar (Cambridge, 1971), 67–72, and for a summary of the textual tradition of the Ausonius canon, see Michael D. Reeve, ‘Ausonius’, Texts and Transmissions A Survey of the Latin Classics, ed Leighton D. Reynolds (Oxford, 1983), 26–8. Not dissimilar is Isidore of Seville's seventh-century discussion of how a cento is constructed from the works of Homer and Virgil (Isidori hispalensis episcopi Etymologiarum sive Onginum libri XX, ed. Wallace Martin Lindsay, 2 vols., Scriptorum classicorum bibliotheca oxoniensis (Oxford, 1911), i, 39, 25).Google Scholar

11 For example, François Auguste Gevaert, Histoire et théorie de la musique de l'antiquité, 2 vols (Ghent, 1875–81), ii, 315–16, Peter Wagner, Einführung in die gregorianischen Melodien Ein Handbuch der Choralwissenschaft, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1895–1921), iii, 352–96; Walter Howard Frere, Antiphonale sarisburiense A Reproduction in Facsimile of a Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century with a Dissertation and Analytical Index, 22 fascicles (London, 1901–24), i, 58 and passim.Google Scholar

12 Ferretti, Paolo Maria, Estetica gregoriana Trattato delle forme musicali del canto gregoriano, 2 vols. (Rome, 1934, vol. ii ed. Pellegrino Maria Ernetti, Quaderni dei Padri Benedettini di San Giorgio Maggiore, 3, Venice and Rome, 1964), i, 114–31.Google Scholar

13 This is the thrust of the argument in Treitler, ’ “Centonate Chant” ‘.Google Scholar

14 The conductus Hac in die rege nato is often mentioned in connection with cento procedures It is to appear in the fourth volume of Notre-Dame and Related Conductus Opera omnia, ed. Gordon A. Anderson, 11 vols., [Institute of Mediaeval Music] Collected Works, 10 (Henryville, Ottawa and Binningen, 1979-). I am grateful to Luther Dittmer for allowing me access to this edition at proof stage. Meanwhile, the text is edited in Lieder und Motetten des Mittelalters, ed. Guido Maria Dreves, 2 vols., Analecta hymnica medii aevi, 20–1 (Leipzig, 1895), i, 123. Its text is more or less completely made up of incipits of other conducti, as was pointed out by Anonymous 4, who describes it as a piece ‘in quo continentur nomina plurium conductorum’ (Der Musiktraktat des Anonymus 4, ed. Fritz Reckow, 2 vols., Beihefte zum Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 4–5 (Wiesbaden, 1967), i, 82). See also Robert Falck, The Notre Dame Conductus A Study of the Repertory, Musicological Studies, 33 (Henryville, Ottawa and Binningen, 1981), 208. This procedure shares characteristics of the literary cento in that the resultant text makes reasonably coherent sense, but it is different in that it draws on its own repertory, in an intertextual sense, rather than on some sort of classic body of material.Google Scholar

15 Everist, Mark, ‘Polyphonic Music in Thirteenth-Century France. Aspects of Sources and Distribution’, 2 vols. (D.Phil. dissertation, University of Oxford, 1985), i, 175–87Google Scholar

16 A brief but useful summary of the views of Alfred Jeanroy, Joseph Bédier, Georges Lote, Paul Verrier, Pierre le Gentil and Nico van den Boogaard is in Doss-Quinby, Les Refrains chez les trouvères, 5–9.Google Scholar

17 van den Boogaard, , Rondeaux et refrains, 16. He asks: ‘Est-ce à dire qu'il faille considérer tous ces refrains comme des citations de pièces préexistantes? Nous ne le croyons pas Le système poétique d'utilisation des refrains s'est généralisé assez rapidement et a persisté pendant tout le xiiie siècle Il a fini par entraîner la création de “refrains” nouveaux qui remplissent dans l'oeuvre les mêmes fonctions que les refrains-citations véritables Ces nouveaux refrains, utilisés peut-être pour une seule fois, n'en sont pas moins des refrains, puisqu'ils furent conçus comme tels par l'auteur.’ Now, while van den Boogaard is absolutely correct in his statement that, from the point of view of the author, newly composed refrains which are used only once are still refrains, from the standpoint of an examination of compositional process, they are clearly different Such a distinction between the creation of such ‘pseudo-refrains’ and the use of genuinely pre-existent material is fundamental not just for the study of the refrain cento but also for all motets which depend on the use of the refrain.Google Scholar

18 See above, note 1.Google Scholar

19 Approximately 25% of all so-called refrains listed in toto by van den Boogaard appear in only one motet. Bearing in mind the fact that only about 32% of all refrains have any impact on the motet repertory at all, this means that, of all the so-called refrains used in motets, about three-quarters appear only in a single source.Google Scholar

20 Doss-Quinby, Les Refrains chez les trouvères, 57–91.Google Scholar

21 There is a variety of works in which Bec's position is advanced. See Bec, Pierre, Nouvelle anthologie de la lyrique occitane du moyen âge Initiation à la langue et à la poésie des troubadours, Les Classiques d'oc ([Avignon, 1970]), 53–60; idem, La Lyrique française au moyen âge (xiie–xiiie siècles) Contribution à une typologie des genres poétiques médiévaux, études et textes, 2 vols., Publications du Centre d'Études Supérieures de Civilisation Médiévale de l'Université de Poitiers, 6–7 (Paris, 1977–8), especially i, 33–43; Anthologie des troubadours. ed. Pierre Bec, Gérard Gonfroy and Gérard Le Vot, Bibliothèque médiévale (Paris, 1979). See also Paul Zumthor, Essai de poétique médiévale, Collection poétique (Paris, 1972), 157–285.Google Scholar

22 See Ludwig, , Repertonum, i/1, 294 and 298, and Klaus Hofmann, ‘Zur Entstehungs- und Frühgeschichte des Terminus Motette’, Acta musicologica, 42 (1970), 140.Google Scholar

23 All texts in this article are newly edited unless otherwise specified.Google Scholar

24 These are van den Boogaard (hereafter vdB) 1364/Gennrich (hereafter G) 1287; vdB 457/G 1290, vdB 785/G 1285; vdB 158/G 1464; vdB 755/G 458.Google Scholar

25 F-Pn fr 837, ff. 253v-255 Edited in Paul Meyer, ‘Le Salut d'amour dans les littératures provençale et française’. Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes, 28 (1867), 154–62. The rondeau itself is edited in van den Boogaard, Rondeaux et refrains, 37. The reading ‘ne s'en doit’ is found in the motet voice but not in other appearances of the refrain, where it is presented as ‘ne se doit’. Minor differences of this kind occur in other texts discussed below.Google Scholar

26 No 1449 in Raynaud's listing See G Raynauds Bibliographie des altfranzösischen Liedes, ed. Hans Spanke, Musicologica, 1 (Leiden, 1955), 206Google Scholar

27 Elwert, Theodor Wilhelm, Traité de versification française des origines à nos jours, Bibliothèque française et romane, série a: Manuels et études linguistiques, 8 (Paris, 1965), 106Google Scholar

28 The edition of these lines above follows the suggestions made in Recueil de motets français des xiie et xiiie siècles publiés d'après les manuscrits, avec introduction, notes, variantes, et glossaires, ed Gaston Raynaud, 2 vols., Bibliothèque française du moyen âge, 1–2 (Paris, 1881–3, repr. Hildesheim and New York, 1972), i, 52, and Die altfranzösischen Molette der Bamberger Handschrift, ed. Albert Stimming, 61 The line is divided as follows. ‘Fins cuers ne s'en doit repentir / De bien amer, de bien amer’ in The Montpellier Codex, ed. Hans Tischler, 4 vols., Recent Researches in the Music of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, 2–8 (Madison, Wisc., 1978–85), iv (ed. and trans. Susan Stakel and Joel C. Relihan), 31.Google Scholar

29 The refrain consists of either a couplet of 12 and four lines respectively or of two octosyllabic lines.Google Scholar

30 Again, the edition above follows Raynaud and Stimming Tischler splits this single line into two lines of four and six syllables.Google Scholar

31 Lote, Georges, Histoire du vers français, 3 vols. (Paris, 1949–55), ii, 192–3. Lote's examples are Raynaud/Spanke nos. 894a and 1406 (see Chansons satiriques et bachiques du xiiie siècle, ed Alfred Jeanroy and Artur Langfors, Classiques français du moyen âge, première série: Textes, 23 (Paris, 1921), 82 and 86)Google Scholar

32 Meyer, ‘Die in unseren Motetten enthaltenen Refrains’, 161–2.Google Scholar

33 VdB 468/G 1204.Google Scholar

34 F-Pn fr. 837, ff 271–272v Edited in Oscar Schultz-Gora, ‘Ein ungedruckter Salu d'amors nebst Antwort’, Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 24 (1900), 358–69.Google Scholar

35 Raynaud/Spanke no. 459.Google Scholar

36 F-Pn fr. 1558, f. 114v. Edited in Oeuvres poétiques de Philippe de Rémi, Sire de Beaumanoir, ed. Hermann Suchier, 2 vols., Société des anciens textes français (Paris, 1884–5), ii, 313–16Google Scholar

37 VdB 314/G2 For concordances see van den Boogaard, Rondeaux et refrains, 121 Note however that this version of the refrain begins with the word ‘car’, which does not appear in any of the other sources for this refrain. This type of modification, for the purposes of continuity, is different from the cross-relations which exist between the last two lines of the poem and the refrain itselfGoogle Scholar

38 Raynaud, Recueil, i, 123.Google Scholar

39 van den Boogaard, , Rondeaux et refrains, 187 and passim, Gennrich, Bibliographie, 100Google Scholar

40 Doss-Quinby is alone in her assertion that the piece is a refrain cento (Les Refrains chez les trouvères, 263, n 61).Google Scholar

41 Tischler, Style and Evolution, i, 79Google Scholar

42 IbidGoogle Scholar

43 Ludwig, Repertorium, i/1, 304–5Google Scholar

44 Three other works fall into this category: (367) Ja ne mi marierai, (436) J'ai fait ami a mon chois; (457) A vous pens, bele, douce amieGoogle Scholar

45 Van den Boogaard assigned a number to most so-called refrains in the composition and Gennrich. Bibliographie, 4 gave it the label ‘Refrain-Cento‘Google Scholar

46 van den Boogaard, , Rondeaux et refrains, 174.Google Scholar

47 For a discussion of the definition of the type-cadre, ultimately derived from Zumthor, see Everist, Mark, ‘The Rondeau Motet Paris and Artois in the Thirteenth Century’, Music and Letters, 69 (1988), 10–14.Google Scholar

48 van den Boogaard, , Rondeaux et refrains, 31Google Scholar

49 The chanson and motet which share this refrain are given in van den Boogaard, Rondeaux et refrains, 219Google Scholar

50 Doss-Quinby, Les Refrains chez les trouvères, 263, n 61.Google Scholar

51 ‘Amoureusement metient li max que j'ai’, vdB 144/G 85 For concordances see van den Boogaard, Rondeaux et refrains, 105.Google Scholar

52 Ff. 184, 190 and 189 (the last leaves of this manuscript are misbound).Google Scholar

53 (335) Amors vaint tout fors has been signalled as a refrain cento by Doss-Quinby and, only slightly less incorrectly, as ‘partly’ a refrain cento by Tischler. The text of the second half of the voice-part consists of direct speech enclosing passages of indirect speech. Gennrich and van den Boogaard claim that all this material consists of refrains. Of the seven so-called refrains, only three (vdB 587, 900 and 664) appear in other sources. Significantly, the first two of these both appear in the motetus of (286) Nus ne sait les biens – (287) Ja Dieus ne me doinst – Portare (M22), although the transposition levels are different (respectively a fifth and a second higher) in both cases.Google Scholar

54 Doss-Quinby, Les Refrains chez les trouvères, 107–8 and n. 18.Google Scholar

55 Of the three sources for Cis a cui, F-MO H 196 capitalizes the first letter of the text of every refrain except the last, but also capitalizes the initial letters of both the first and second lines of refrain vdB 636/G 1377. D-BAs Lit 115, however, capitalizes only three of the first letters of its refrains, and I-Tr vari 42 only two. For (433) Cele m'a s'amour donée, the picture is clearer: F-Pn fr. 12615 capitalizes all first letters of refrains except the last D-W 1099 does the same but leaves out the initial letters of the second, eighth and last refrainsGoogle Scholar

56 Hofmann, Untersuchungen, 7–51.Google Scholar

57 Everist, ‘The Rondeau Motet’, 18.Google Scholar

58 F-Pn n a. f 1731, ff. 36–72.Google Scholar

59 Renart le nouvel is preserved in four manuscripts: F-Pn fr. 25566, ff 119–79; F-Pn fr. 372, ff. 1–60; F-Pn fr. 1593; F-Pn fr. 1581, ff 1–57. See the edition in Renart le nouvel par Jacquemart Gtelee publié d'après le manuscrit La Vallière, ed. Henri Roussel, Société des ançiens textes français (Paris, 1961).Google Scholar

60 Even the fourth source, F-Pn fr. 581, contains blank staves for the notation of the refrains and music for one of them.Google Scholar

61 Past studies of musical and lyric input into the roman have concentrated insufficiently on those sources intended to contain notation but into which it was never copied (Maureen B. McC. Boulton, ‘Lyric Insertion in French Narrative Fiction in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries’ (M Litt. dissertation, University of Oxford, 1979); Maria V. Coldwell, ‘Guillaume de Dole and Medieval Romances with Musical Interpolations’, Musica disciplina, 35 (1981), 55–86; idem, ‘Musical Interpolations in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century French Narratives’, 2 vols. (Ph D dissertation, Yale University, 1979)). In collaboration with Ardis Butterfield (Downing College, Cambridge), I am assembling a source-critical bibliography of all verse narratives and cognate material in which refrains, with and without music, are embedded.Google Scholar

62 In her discussion of this piece, Beverly Evans (‘The Unity of Text and Music in the Late Thirteenth-Century French Motet A Study of Selected Works from the Montpellier Manuscript’ (Ph D dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1983), 230) argues that ‘Nothing suggests that the exact textual environment of refrains 6, 7, and 9 [of Cis a cui] in La cour d'amour needs to be taken into account in developing a plausible interpretation of the compositional technique behind the construction of [Cis a cui]’ While this seems defensible in Evans's own terms – a reading of the poem which seeks to analyse coherence and compositional technique in terms of a consistent series of lexical choices, rhymes and phonemes – it surely underplays the potential historical and cultural significance of these correlations.Google Scholar

63 The works in question are (787) Grant solas me fait amours – (788) Plëust Dieu, qu'ele sëust – Neuma (Neuma III. Toni), (182) L'autr‘ier trouvai une plaisant tousete – (183) L'autr‘ier, lés une espinete – In seculum (M13); (172) Trop souvent me duel et sut en grieté – (173) Brunete, a cui j'ai mon cuer doné – In seculum (M13); (184) En son service amourous – (185) Tant est plaisant – In seculum (M13).Google Scholar

64 Everist, ‘The Rondeau Motet’, 8–10Google Scholar

65 Ludwig, Repertorium, i/1, 80; see also idem, ‘Die mehrstimmige Musik des 14. Jahrhunderts’, Sammelbände der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft, 4 (1902–3), 30Google Scholar