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A new source for the polyphonic conductus: MS 117* in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Mark Everist
Mark Everist
Affiliation:
King's CollegeLondon
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Extract

The extent to which the surviving sources can demonstrate the cultivation and consumption of the music of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries differs for each of the genres represented in them. Thus although the versions of the so-called Magnus liber organi contained in the three principal ‘Notre-Dame’ sources are sufficiently different to suggest that in a critical edition they should be edited separately, they are similar enough to allow us to infer a certain amount about the origins and cultivation of the music.

Type
Articles
Information
Plainsong & Medieval Music , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , October 1994 , pp. 149 - 168
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 The principal ‘Notre-Dame’ sources are Florence, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Pluteus 29.1 (F); Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August-Bibliothek, 677 (W1); ibid., 1099 (W2). The other sources discussed in this article, given here with the sigla used, are Cambridge, Jesus College, QB 1 (GB-Cjc QB 1); Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College, 117* (S); Frankfurt-am-Main, Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek, Fragm.lat.VI.41 (D-F Fragm.lat.VI.41); London, British Library, Egerton 2615 fols. 79r-94v (GB-Lbl Egerton 2615(2)); Madrid, Biblioteca National, 20486 (Ma); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Auct.VI.Q.3.17 (GB-Ob Auct.VI.Q.3.17); and Solothurn, Zentralbibliothek, S.231 (CH-Sz S.231). The probably Parisian provenance of F is discussed in Rebecca Baltzer, Thirteenth-Century Illuminated Miniatures and the Date of the Florence Manuscript1, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 25 (1972), 1–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; the appearance of Parisian music in W, at St Andrews is explained in Mark Everist, Trom Paris to St. Andrews: The Origins of W2, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 43 (1990), 1–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the most recent account of W2 is idem, Polyphonic Music in Thirteenth-Century France: Aspects of Sources and Distribution (New York and London: Garland, 1989), 99–110Google Scholar.

2 The organization of the major Notre-Dame sources is laid out in Gilbert Reaney, Manuscripts of Polyphonic Music (11th – Early 14th Century), Repertoire International des Sources Musicales BIV1, (Munich and Duisberg: G. Henle Verlag, 1966), passim.

3 Everist, Mark, French 13th-century Polyphony in the British Library: A Facsimile Edition of the Manuscripts Additional 30091 and Egerton 2615 (folios 79–94v) (London: Plainsong and Mediæval Music Society, 1988), 54–5.Google Scholar

4 Inventories of the polyphonic conductus are found in Gröninger, Eduard, Repertoire-Untersuchungen zum mehrstimmigen Notre-Dame Conductus, Kölner Beiträge zur Musikforschung 2 (Regensburg: Gustav Bosse Verlag, 1939)Google Scholar; Anderson, Gordon, ‘Notre-Dame and Related Conductus: A Catalogue Raisonné’, Miscellanea musicologica, 6 (1972), 153–229Google Scholar; 7 (1975), 1–81; and Falck, Robert, The Notre Dame Conductus: A Study of the Repertory, Musicological Studies 33 (Henryville, Ottawa and Binningen: Institute of Mediaeval Music, 1981).Google Scholar

5 Anderson was one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the view that cum littera sections of polyphonic conductus were subject to the principles of modal rhythm, and he used such later sources as the basis for his arguments. See his ‘Mode and Change of Mode in Notre Dame Conductus’, Acta musicologica, 40 (1968), 92–114CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘The Rhythm of cum littera Sections of Polyphonic Conductus in Mensural Sources’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 26 (1973), 288–304CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘The Rhythm of the Monophonic Conductus in the Florence Manuscript as Indicated in Parallel Sources in Mensural Notation’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 31 (1978), 480–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Anderson's comments must be read in conjunction with Flindell, E. Fred., ‘Syllabic Notation and Change of Mode’, Acta musicologica, 39 (1967), 21–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘Puncta equivoca and Rhythmic Poetry: A Reply to Anderson, G.’, Acta musicologica, 42 (1970), 238–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘Syllabic Notation in Isolated Voices’, International Musicological Society: Report of the Eleventh Congress, Copenhagen 1972, ed. Glahn, Henrik, Sorensen, Saren and Ryom, Peter, 2 vols. (Copenhagen: Wilhelm Hansen etc., 1974), I, 378–84Google Scholar; and ‘Conductus in the Later Ars Antiqua’, Gordon Athol Anderson (1929–1981): In memoriam von seinen Studenten, Freuden und Kollegen, 2 vols., ed. Dittmer, Luther, Musicological Studies 49 (Henryville, Ottawa and Binningen: Institute of Mediaeval Music, 1984), I, 134–204Google Scholar. More measured discussions of the rhythm of the polyphonic conductus are Knapp, Janet, ‘Musical Declamation and Poetic Rhythm in an Early Layer of Notre-Dame Conductus’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 32 (1979), 383–407CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Sanders, Ernest, ‘Conductus and Modal Rhythm’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 38 (1985), 439–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 The question of what constitutes a ‘base-text’ for a polyphonic conductus is a vexed one. Ethel Thurston's edition (The Conductus Collections of MS Wolfenbuttel 1099, 3 vols., Recent Researches in the Music of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance 11–13 (Madison, Wise: A-R Editions, 1980)) uses W2 as a base-text presumably because this was the subject of her 1954 dissertation and because the text-critical background to the edition was predicated on this fact (‘The Conductus Collections in Manuscript Wolfenbüttel 1206: Edition of Music and Text’, Ph.D. diss., New York University (1954)). Knapp, Janet (Thirty-Five Conductus for Two and Three Voices, Collegium Musicum 6 ([New Haven]: Yale University Department of Music Graduate School, 1965)Google Scholar, and still the most attractive extended edition of the genre) follows F as the base-text. Judging the editorial criteria on which Gordon Anderson's edition (Notre-Dame and Related Conductus: Opera omnia, 10 vols., [Institute of Mediaeval Music] Collected Works 10 (Henryville, Ottawa and Binningen: Institute of Mediaeval Music, 1979–) [all but vol. 7 have appeared]) is based is less than easy. See, for a not particularly sympathetic account from a broadly modalist perspective, Tischler, Hans, ‘Gordon Athol Anderson's Conductus Edition and the Rhythm of Conductus’,Gordon Athol Anderson (1929–1981) In memoriam von seinen Studenten, Freunden und Kollegen, 2 vols., ed. Dittmer, Luther, Musicological Studies 49 (Henryville, Ottawa and Binningen: Institute of Mediaeval Music, 1984), n, 561–73.Google Scholar

7 See especially Falck, , Notre Dame Conductus, 10–102Google Scholar.

8 The version of the Magnus liber organi preserved in F has been relocated within the confines of the liturgy of Notre Dame by Wright, Craig (Music and Ceremony at Notre Dame of Paris 500–1550 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 243–58)Google Scholar.

9 Reaney, , Manuscripts of Polyphonic Music, 527Google Scholar; Stenzl, Jürg, ‘Eine unbekannte Notre-Dame-Quelle: die Solothurner Fragmente’, Die Musikforschung, 26 (1973), 311–21.Google Scholar

10 See Everist, Mark, ‘A Reconstructed Source for the Thirteenth-Century Conductus’, Gordon Athol Anderson (1929–1981): In memoriam von seinen Studenten, Freunden und Kollegen, 2 vols., ed. Dittmer, Luther, Musicologlcal Studies 49 (Henryville, Ottawa and Binningen: Institute of Mediaeval Music, 1984), I, 97–118Google Scholar.

11 Facsimile, inventory and discussion of these fragments is in Staehelin, Martin, ‘Conductus-Fragmente aus einer Notre-Dame-Handschrift in Frankfurt a. M.’, Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Gdttingen, 1: Philologisch-Historische Klasse, Jahrgang 1987 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1987), 179–92.Google Scholar

12 ibid., 191–2

13 Personal communication, April 1985

14 Comparing the entrance-exit trajectories of the worm(s) in both leaves shows no signs of any changes of angle or enlargement that might suggest that the leaves were found some distance apart.

15 Falck, , Notre Dame Conductus, 139Google Scholar

16 Falck's taxonomy is unsatisfactory because it oversimplifies the range of musical and poetic resources available to the composer of a conductus. Anderson's attempt to come to terms with a typology for the polyphonic conductus (‘Rhythm of cum littera Sections’, 301) is severely hampered by the fact that his only criteria seem to be notation and rhythm. There is great scope here for a fuller account of the musical and poetic characteristics of the polyphonic conductus.

17 See, for a description and partial facsimile of this manuscript, Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel, ‘Jesus College, Binding Fragments from MS QB 1’, Cambridge Music Manuscripts 900–1700, ed. Fenlon, Iain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 47–51Google Scholar.

18 Standard accounts of Gothic bookhands are Lieftinck, G. I., ‘Pour une nomenclature de l'écriture livresque de la période dite gothique: essai s'appliquant spécialement aux manuscrits originaires des Pays-Bas médiévaux’, Nomenclature des écritures livresques du ixe au xvie siecle: premier colloque international de paliographie latine, Paris 28–30 Avril 1953, no ed., Colloques internationaux du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique: sciences humaines 4 (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1954), 15–34Google Scholar, summarized in John, James R., ‘Latin Paleography’, Medieval Studies: An Introduction, ed. Powell, James M. (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1976), 24–33Google Scholar. See also Bischoff, Bernhard, Paläographie des römischen Altertums und des abendlandischen Mittelalters (Berlin: Schmidt, 1979; 2/1986), trans. Crbinin, Daibhi O and Ganz, David (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 127–36.Google Scholar

19 See Patterson, Sonia, ‘Paris and Oxford University Manuscripts in the Thirteenth Century’, B.Litt. diss., University of Oxford (1969)Google Scholar, partially published as Scott-Fleming, Sonia (née Patterson), The Analysis of Pen Flourishing in Thirteenth-Century Manuscripts (Leiden: Brill, 1989)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Comparison of Minor Initial Decoration: A Possible Method of Showing the Place of Origin of Thirteenth-Century Manuscripts’, The Library ser. 5, 27 (1972), 23–30Google Scholar; idem, ‘Minor Initial Decoration Used to Date the Propertius Fragment’, Scriptorium, 28 (1974), 235–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘An Attempt to Identify Matthew Paris as a Flourisher’, The Library ser. 5, 32 (1977), 367–70Google Scholar; Gumbert, Johan Peter, ‘Et si on dessinait des fioritures?’ Gazette du livre médieval (Spring 1983), 9–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 For example Everist, ‘From Paris to St Andrews’, 4–5.

21 This is, however, the clear basis on which Falck's conclusions rest: ‘By studying concordance patterns, it has been possible to isolate a number of smaller repertories within each of the larger repertories, and to arrive at a fairly good estimate of the role in each repertory played by the Magnus liber and the Notre Dame school’ (Notre Dame Conductus, p. 1).

22 See the sources cited in notes 9–11 above.

23 [de Hamel, Christopher], ‘Book of Hours, of Dominican Use, in Latin, Illuminated Manuscript on Vellum (Flanders, First Half of Fifteenth Century)’, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts and Miniatures [Catalogue of Sale, 23 June 1987] (London: Sotheby's, 1987), 203Google Scholar.

24 [de Hamel, Christopher], ‘Book of Hours, of Dominican Use, in Latin, Illuminated Manuscript on Vellum (Southern Netherlands, First Half of Fifteenth Century)’, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts and Miniatures including Illuminated Manuscripts formerly in the Collections of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart (1792–1872), Sir Alfred Chester Beatty (1875–1968), Major J. R. Abbey (1894–1969) and from the Estate of the Late J. A. Dortmond [Catalogue of Sale, 7 December 1992] (London: Sotheby's, 1992), 63Google Scholar

25 Its style of decoration is very close to that in Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, 241/127. See Rogers, Nicholas, ‘The Miniature of St John the Baptist in Gonville and Caius MS 241/127 and its Context‘, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 10 (1992), 125–38Google Scholar

26 The Calendar is Dominican with SS Peter Martyr and Dominic. Also included are the Feast of 11,000 Virgins and St Severinus which suggest Cologne (de Hamel, ‘Book of Hours’ (see note 24), 63).

27 The book has now been rebound and much of the original binding material is lost. One fragment of the nineteenth-century binding shows that a piece of mid- to late nineteenth-century Rhenish journal was cannibalized. All that is legible on this paper fragment is ‘…den und freuden rhenischer Missionare 18…’.

28 Robert, Branner, ‘The Johannes Grusch Atelier and the Continental Origins of the William of Devon Painter’, Art Bulletin, 54 (1972), 24–30Google Scholar.

29 Staehelin (‘Conductus-Fragmente’, 13–14 and note 15) has correctly pointed out that the colophon in Sarnen, Collegium, MS 16 was misinterpreted by Branner (‘Johannes Grusch’, 24 and 30). However, the erroneous date of 1267 hardly effects the issue since so many of the members of this group support mid-century darings. Two years later, Branner dropped the date from his description of the manuscript (Manuscript Painting in Paris During the Reign of St Louis: A Study of Styles, California Studies in the History of Art 18 (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1977), 223)Google Scholar.

30 Branner, , Manuscript Painting, 10 and note 45.Google Scholar

31 These considerations are discussed in Everist, , Polyphonic Music, 154–70Google Scholar, and, more generally, in Richard, and Rouse, Mary, ‘The Book Trade at the University of Paris, ca.1250-ca.1350’, La Production du lime universitaire au moyen âge: exemplar et pecia, ed. Bataillon, Louis J., Guyet, Bertrand G. and Rouse, Richard H. (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1988), 41–114Google Scholar. In his reviews of Polyphonic Music, Huglo misunderstands the context in which my comments concerning the multiple production of music books in a world that preceded the pecia were set. He writes: ‘Everist évoque… le systeme de production du livre universitaire connu sous le nom de pecia a vrai dire, je n'ai rencontre’ qu'un seul bréviaire dominicain… qui utilise un tel proce'de’ (Cahiers de civilisation medievale, 36 (1993), 88Google Scholar; Scriptorium, 46 (1992), 149–50Google Scholar). This is hardly surprising since the passage to which he alludes discusses only the position before the pecia system had been established and depended heavily on a pre-publication copy of Rouse and Rouse, ‘Book Trade’. No attempt was made to ally the production of F and GB-Lbl Egerton 2615(2) with the pecia, as Huglo alleges.

32 West, Martin, Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique Applicable to Greek and Latin Texts (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1973), 24–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 No attempt was made to interfere with the readings of the poem by Guido Maria Dreves in his edition (Lieder und Motetten des Mittelalters, 2 vols., Analecta hymnica medii aevi 20–1 (Leipzig: O. R. Reisland, 1895), I, 70).

34 Franco identifies conductus as a species of discantus as follows: ‘Cum littera et sine fit discantus in conductis, et discantu aliquo ecclesiastico qui improprie organum appellatur’ (Reaney, Gilbert and Gilles, André, eds., Franconis de Colonia Ars cantus mensurabilis, Corpus scriptorum de musica 18 (n.p.: American Institute of Musicology, 1974), 69)Google Scholar, and positions his discussion of punctus organicus within the domain of discantus thus: ‘Notandum quod tarn in discantu quam in triplicibus etc. inspicienda est equipollentia in perfectionibus longarum, brevium et semibrevium, ita quod tot perfectiones in tenore habeantur quot in discantu vel in triplo etc., vel e converso, computando tarn voces rectas quam obmissas usque ad penultimam, ubi non attenditur talis mensura, sed magis est organicus ibi punctus’ (ibid., 75)