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New tenor sources for fourteenth-century motets1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Alice V. Clark
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The study of the medieval motet in France has recently been rejuvenated, in part by returning to the motet's point of origin – its tenor. Some scholars have focused on the tenor's pitch content, showing how it shapes the motet's harmonies, and how it is in turn shaped by local chant variants; others, by considering the tenor's text and the origin of that text in the liturgy and frequently in the Bible, have shown the motet to be perhaps the quintessential musical manifestation of medieval intertextuality. By bringing together sacred and secular, Latin and vernacular, the motet, better than any other musical genre, exemplifies both the Boethian ideal of music as something much larger than sound and the interconnectedness of all things in the medieval mind. The discovery of hitherto unknown chant sources for motet tenors is therefore an opportunity to reinterpret the texts of the motets they underpin.

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Plainsong & Medieval Music , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , October 1999 , pp. 107 - 131
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

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References

1 What follows is based on the last chapter of my dissertation, ‘Concordare cum materia: The Tenor in the Fourteenth-Century Motet’, Ph.D. diss., Princeton University (1996),Google Scholar as well as papers read at the 23rd Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Music (1996) and the 30th International Congress on Medieval Studies (1995). I am grateful to all who have made comments on this material, especially my advisor, Margaret Bent, and the second reader of my dissertation, Peter Jeffery.

2 On the tenor's harmonic role, see especialFuller, Sarah, ‘Modal Tenors and Tonal Orientation in Motets of Guillaume de Machaut’, Current Musicology, 45–7 (1990; Festschrift for Ernest H. Sanders), 199–245.Google ScholarRobertson, Anne Walters, ‘Local Chant Readings and the Roman de Fauvel’, in Fauvel Studies: Allegory, Chronicle, Music, and Image in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS français 146, ed. Bent, Margaret and Wathey, Andrew (Oxford, 1998), 495–524,Google Scholar considers the effect of local chant readings, something I survey as well in Chapter 2 of my dissertation. Intertextual considerations are central to Kevin Brownlee, ‘Machaut's Motet 15 and the Roman de la rose: The Literary Context of Amours qui a le pouoir / Faus Samblant m'a deceiü / Vidi Dominum’, Early Music History, 10 (1991), 1–14; Margaret Bent, ‘Deception, Exegesis and Sounding Number in Machaut's Motet 15’, Early Music History, 10 (1991), 15–27 (continuing some of the concerns of Brownlee's article but focusing on the biblical role of Jacob / Israel), and Sylvia Huot, ‘Patience in Adversity: The Courtly Lover and Job in Machaufs Motets 2 and 3’, Medium Aevum, 63 (1994), 222–38 (underlining the biblical context). My own work, seen especially in Chapters 3 and 4 of my dissertation, has concentrated more on liturgical context, and it is that which guides much of the present study.

3 This number refers to that used in Schrade, Leo, ed., Le roman de Fauvel, Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century 1 (Monaco, 1956; reprinted 1984);Google Scholar the Brussels version of this motet has not been edited. Dahnk, Emilie, L'hérésie de Fauvel (Leipzig, 1935), li–lxvi,Google Scholar describes the transformation of the motet. In what follows, motet numbers beginning with ‘V’ refer to The Motets of Philippe de Vitry, also edited by Leo Schrade in Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century 1. ‘H’ numbers correspond to Harrison, Frank LI., ed., Motets of French Provenance, Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century 5 (Monaco, 1968).Google Scholar

4 This material will be further developed in collaboration with Emma Dillon, whose thesis at Oxford University studied the music of the Roman de Fauvel. I am grateful to her for sharing a typescript chapter of her thesis, and for conversations on this motet and other matters.

5 Those added voices, moreover, are almost always untexted contratenors. The only other motet to have texted voices added to it is the musician motet Apollinis eclipsatur / Zodiacum signis lustrantibus / T. In omnem terram (H9), which appears with an untexted quadruplum and the texted voice Pantheon abluitur in the burned manuscript Strasbourg, Bibliotheque Municipale (olim Bibliothèque de la Ville), MS 222 C. 22 (this version is edited as H9a), and an untexted contratenor and the texted voice Sallentes zinzugia in the fragment London, Public Record Office E 163/22/1/24; on the latter see Wathey, Andrew, Manuscripts of Polyphonic Music: Supplement 1 to RISM B IV1–2: The British Isles, 1100–1400, Répertoire International des Sources Musicales B IV1–2 Suppl. 1 (Munich, 1993), 55.Google Scholar

6 One of the only cases of such reduction (combined with extensive reworking of other kinds) also occurs in the Fauvel manuscript, where the motet Floret cum vana gloria / Florens vigor ulciscendo / T. Neuma quinti toni becomes the monophonic prose Carnalitas luxuria. On this transformation, see my ‘The Flowering of Charnalité and the Marriage of Fauvel’, in Fauvel Studies: Allegory, Chronicle, Music, and Image, 175–86.

7 The refrain Fui de ci; de toi n'ai que faire! appears as well in one of the songs of Jehannot de Lescurel also transmitted in the Fauvel manuscript. The uses to which this text is put are described in Ernest Hoepffner, ‘Chanson française du XIIIe siècle (Ay Dex! ou porrey jen trouver)’, Romania, 47 (1921), 367–80, though he was evidently unaware of the Brussels motet. Under those circumstances, it is perhaps all the more impressive that he correctly identified the original text, based mostly on its through-composed melodic setting, as a motet voice. Emma Dillon notes in her thesis that the monophonic settings of the French motetus in the Roman de Fauvel contain the same pattern of rests as that of the motet voice, betraying the origin of those monophonic voices in polyphony and further strengthening the case for the French motetus's priority.

8 Hoepffner, ‘Chanson’, 377–8.

9 Trine vocis tripudio is edited as number E4 in Anderson, Gordon Athol, ed., Notre-Dame and Related Conductus Part 1: Four- and Three-Part Conductus in the Central Sources, Gesamtausgaben / Collected Works, vol. IX/1 (Henryville, 1986);Google ScholarVe mundo a scandalis and Quid ultra tibi facere are numbers K27 and K17, respectively, in Gorden [recte Gordon] Anderson, A., ed., Notre-Dame and Related Conductus: Opera Omnia, Pars sexta: Ipt Conductus – Transmitted in Fascicule X of the Florence Manuscript, Gesamtausgaben / Collected Works, vol. X/6 (Henryville, 1981).Google Scholar All three conductus are transmitted in the Florence manuscript, among other sources, and the last two are attributed to Philip the Chancellor.

10 Emilie Dahnk did suggest two possible Biblical allusions for the tenor: displiceat ei (Proverbs 24: 18) and displicebit Mi (Eccli. 21: 18). As we shall see, neither of these is actually the tenor source, though, with no other evidence available, Dahnk made the most logical connection. I discovered at a conference on the Fauvel manuscript (Paris, July 1994) that Jacques Boogaart had independently found this responsory; I am grateful to him for sharing his discovery with me.

11 Augustine, Sancti Augustini Confessionum libri XIII, ed. Skutella, Martin and Verheijen, Lucas, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina (Tumholt, 1981), 113–14.Google Scholar I was assisted in locating this reference by the CETEDOC database of Christian Latin texts edited in the series Corpus Christianorum; the database, like the printed books, is distributed by Brepols. The English version, by J. G. Pilkington, comes from Oates, Whitney J., ed., Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, 2 vols. (New York, 1948), I: 110–11.Google Scholar

12 A concise statement of the opposition can be found in Enarrationes in Psalmos, Ps. 31, Enarratio 2, pax. 5, 1. 38: ‘amor dei, amor proximi, caritas dicitur; amor mundi, amor huius saeculi, cupiditas dicitur’ (Love of God and of one's neighbour is called ‘caritas’; love of the world and of this age ‘cupiditas’).

13 Brown, Peter, Augustine and Sexuality, Protocol of the Forty-Sixth Colloquy, 22 May 1983, ed. Donovan, Mary Ann (Berkeley, 1983), 3.Google Scholar

14 ‘Ita duae uoluntates, una uerus, alia noua, ilia carnalis, ilia spiritualis, confligebant inter se atque discordando dissipabant animam meam’; Confessions, 120; trans. Pilkington, 116.

15 Margaret Bent, ‘Fauvel and Marigny: Which Came First?’, in Fauvel Studies: Allegory, Chronicle, Music, and Image, 35–52. Emma Dillon in her thesis has also suggested that rhythmic parallels between this motet and Floret vigor ulciscendo / Floret cum vana gloria / T. Neuma quinti toni, which is reworked in the manuscript as the monophonic prose Carnalitas luxuria, may indicate that both motets were written in connection one with another, perhaps both for inclusion in the Roman de Fauvel.

16 Dillon, typescript p. 2. She also argues that it may have been overlooked in the copying process, not because it is unconnected to the actions of the roman but because the folio contains only music. The seminal studies of the process of compiling this manuscript remain the introduction to the facsimile edition: Roesner, Edward H., Avril, François and Freeman Regalado, Nancy, eds., Le Roman de Fauvel: In the Edition of Mesire Chaillou de Pesstain (New York, 1990);Google Scholar and Charles Morin, Joseph, ‘The Genesis of Manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Fonds Français 146, with Particular Emphasis on the Roman de Fauvel’, Ph.D. diss., New York University (1992).Google Scholar

17 The classic description of this topos is Curtius, Ernst Robert, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ageso, trans. Trask, Willard R., Bollingen Series (New York, 1953), 94–8.Google Scholar

18 Text and line numbers are taken from Långfors, Arthur, ed., Le roman de Fauvel par Gervais de Bus, Société des Anciens Textes Francais (Paris, 1914–19).Google Scholar

19 Unless otherwise specified, translations of Latin motet texts are by David Howlett for the recording by the Orlando Consort, Philippe de Vitry and the Ars Nova: 14th-Century Motets (Amon Ra CD-SAR 49), with minor modifications. Translations from the French are my own.

20 The conductus text and its translation are taken from Anderson, lpt Conductus; that of the quadruplum comes from David Howlett's translation for the Orlando Consort recording cited above.

21 Personal and political connections between Saint-Victor and Saint-Quentin in the twelfth century were common; see Margot Fassler, Gothic Song: Victorine Sequences and Augustinian Reform in Twelfth-Century Paris, Cambridge Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music (Cambridge, 1993), 197–202. I am unaware, however, of the nature of the relationship between these two houses by the early fourteenth century, when this motet was written. The proximity of Saint-Quentin to Arras, home of Nevelon and possible source of at least the tenor of another Fauvel motet, Firmissime fidem teneamus / Adesto, sancta trinitas / T. Alleluya Benedictus et cetera (F30(124)) is also intriguing; on the latter see Robertson, Anne Walters, ‘Which Vitry?: The Witness of the Trinity Motet from the Roman de Fauvel’, in Hearing the Motet: Essays on the Motet of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Pesce, Dolores (Oxford, 1997), 52–81.Google Scholar

22 This is Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS 4195, a manuscript Wathey describes as ‘Sermons, addresses delivered in consistory, and other political pieces, in particular against Louis of Bavaria, by Pierre Roger, Archbishop of Rouen, elected Pope Clement VI in 1342’; see Wathey, Andrew, ‘The Motets of Philippe de Vitry and the Fourteenth-Century Renaissance’, Early Music History, 12 (1993), 149.Google Scholar The manuscript includes all three motet texts, with the rubric ‘Magistri Philippus de Vitrejo in laudem Pape dementis vjti anno suo primo circa natalem domini’.

23 Joanna Melville has independently connected the tenor with the gradual verse as well; we are both naturally dependent on Wathey's, Andrew discovery of the tenor text. I am grateful to Melville for sharing with me a copy of her M.A. thesis, ‘A Study in Coherence in Four Motets by Philippe de Vitry’, University of Wales, Bangor (1995);Google Scholar written under the name Joanna Richards). She has suggested that the tenor as a whole is not based on that chant alone, but is rather ‘derived from several plainchant sources … highly relevant to the contents of the upper-voice poems’ (62). While I am not certain I agree with this conclusion, my claim for connecting the motet with the gradual is limited to the text and the opening of the melody. The possibility of other associations does not detract from the power of this one.

24 In Arras, Bibliotheque Municipale, MS 444, the reading ‘Ecce sacerdos’ is used in the Common De uno confessore pontifice and for the following saints: Marcellus, Vigil of Saint Vaast, Athanasius, Deposition of Saint Hadulfus, Urban, Leo, Martial, Firminus, Leodegarius, Calixtus, Amatus, Vigoris, Martin, Clement and Nicholas; all of these have the rank of bishop or higher. The responsory ‘Ecce sacerdos’ appears in the Common and is used as well for Silvester, John Chrysostom, Vigil of Saint Vaast, Ambrose, Deposition of Saint Hadulfus, Leo, Gaugericus, Augustine (of Canterbury), Evortius, Calixtus, Severinus, Amand and Aubertus. I am grateful to Anne Walters Robertson for her assistance in sending me selected printouts from Arras microfilms.

25 Robertson, ‘Which Vitry?’ 69–72.

26 These dates are: 3 December 1328 (Bishop of Arras), 24 November 1329 (Archbishop of Sens), 14 December 1330 (Archbishop of Rouen). See Wood, Diana, Clement VI: The Pontificate and Ideas of an Avignon Pope, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 4th series, 14 (Cambridge, 1989), 10; she gives no information, however, concerning the question of Roger's actual residency in Arras.Google Scholar

27 Réné-Jean Hesbert, Antiphonale Missarum sextuplex… (Brussels, 1935), 20, gives this gradual for Silvester in all sources save the Rheinau Antiphoner (Zurich, Zenrralbibliothek, MS Rheinau 30), which does not include the feast.

28 The full rubric reads ‘Magistri Philippus de Vitrejo in laudem Papa Clementis vjti anno suo primo circa natalem domini’. See Wathey, ‘Vitry’, 134.

29 The Donation of Constantine was actually a forgery of the eighth century, only proven false in the fifteenth; see Valla, Lorenzo, The Profession of the Religious and Selections from The Falsely-Believed and Forged Donation of Constantine, trans. Pugliese, Olga Zorzi, 2nd edn., Renaissance and Reformation Texts in Translation 1 (Toronto, 1994).Google Scholar I am grateful to Peter Jeffery for reminding me of this infamous document and its role in medieval consciousness.

30 Voragine, Jacobus de, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. Ryan, William Granger, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1993), I, 165.Google Scholar The Latin is: ‘ut sicut imperator Romae sic Romanus pontifex caput ab universis episcopis habeatur’; see Theodor, Johann Georg, Legenda aurea: Vulgo Historia lombardica dicta, 3rd edn. (Breslau, 1890), 72.Google Scholar

31 Wathey, ‘Vitry’, 134–5. He cites Wood, Clement, 43–50, on the Christmas 1342 visit of the Roman ambassadors.

32 This last fratricidal conflict, which ended with the murder of Demetrius shortly before Philippus's own death, takes up much of the first half of Book 40 of Livy's history of Rome.

33 On the importance of the sun god to Constantine, see Grant, Michael, Constantine the Great: The Man and his Times (New York, 1993), 131–6.Google Scholar

34 For example, there are twelve pitches in the introitus tenor, which is unrelated to the chant; 12 is not only the number of the Apostles, but also a multiple of 6, reflecting Clement's position as sixth pope of that name. The seven longs of the introitus and seven taleae of the motet could refer to the number of days in the week or the number of Virtues and Vices, but also the number of letters in the name Clemens. The tenor of the motet proper has 203 notes, but 204 are actually given in the manuscript, thanks to a repeated pitch at the end of the final talea; this long should be held for a total of seven breves of music in the upper voices before the final cadence. If the 204 pitches that are notated are added to the 12 notes of the introitus, the total number of tenor pitches adds to 216, or 63. The thirty-three breves of each talea would seem to refer to the age of Christ at the Crucifixion, but 3 + 3 = 6 as well. Joanna Melville has also noted that the tenor talea begins with six breves before the seven-breve hocket. Perhaps the best examples of number symbolism can be found in the musician motets, where twelve (the number of Apostles) is a particularly frequent unit of measure, as Margaret Bent and David Howlett have shown in a number of unpublished presentations.

35 The words ‘similis illi’ could have been included for reasons of sense; the full line also reflects the last line of the motetus: ‘cui non est inventus similis’. They could also be used for reasons of number: both upper-voice texts have ten-syllable lines, and the complete tenor text has the same number.

36 Melville [Richards], ‘A Study’, 65–7.

37 The Ivrea codex has the label Tenor Cum statua, a simple identification of the triplum to which the tenor belongs.

38 Wordplay and obscure references are common in Vitry's texts. For example, the motetus of V12, Petre Clemens, tarn re quam nomine / Lugentium siccentur oculi / T. [Non est inventus similis Mi], includes the lines ‘Petrus primum petrum non deseris’ (‘Peter, you do not abandon the first Peter’) and ‘tu clemens es et Clemens diceris’ (you are clement and you are called Clement). References to Peter in this motet would apply not only to the Apostle whose successor the pope is, but also to Clement's birth-name: Pierre Roger. Both voices are also full of mythological images whose meanings are not always apparent today; see for example the texts edited in Pognon, Edmond, ‘Balades mythologiques de Jean de le Mote, Philippe de Vitri, Jean Campion’, Humanisme et Renaissance, 5 (1938), 385–117.Google Scholar

39 On the assassination, see Léonard, Emile-G., Histoire de Jeanne 1re, reine de Naples, comtesse de Provence (1343–1382), 1: La jeunesse de la reine Jeanne (Monaco, 1932), 465–82.Google Scholar

40 Andrew Wathey presents a tantalizing possibility in his mention of a poem ‘Quondam colla iugo veneris submisserat Hugo’, from a fifteenth-century Bohemian miscellany. As Wathey describes it (‘Vitry’, 142), ‘these verses, initially matching the metre of Colla iugo, narrate the ruin and exile of one Hugo, a cleric deprived of his benefice for keeping a concubine, and his bitter advice to a friend to forswear women’. Unfortunately, to my mind such a clear example of imitation is most likely the work of someone other than Vitry, the object of imitation, and its physical and temporal distance from Vitry would also suggest little or no relationship between this tale and a historical Hugo. Still, the possibility remains. Schrade, Leo suggested, in ‘Philippe de Vitry: Some New Discoveries’, Musical Quarterly, 42 (1956), 342,Google Scholar that Hugo might be Hughes de la Roche, but he just as quickly rejects the idea.