Allegorical Play in the Old French Motet

Allegorical Play in the Old French Motet The Sacred and the Profane in Thirteenth-Century Polyphony 'Figurae: EDIEVAL CULTURE ADVISORY BOARD~ Teodolinda Barolini, Margaret Bent, R. Howard Bloch, Kevin Brownlee, Marina Scordilis Brownlee, Brigitte Cazelles, Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet, Georges Didi-Huberman, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Rachel Jacoff, Sarah Kay, V. A. Kolve, Seth Lerer, Charles Mela, ]an-Dirk Muller, Stephen G. Nichols, Lee Patterson, Jeffrey Schnapp, Linda Seidel, Gabrielle Spiegel, Brian Stock, Karla Taylor, David Wallace, Rainer Warning, Michel Zink lAiiegorical Play in the Old French Motet The Sacred and the Profane in Thirteenth-Century Polyphony Sylvia Huol' Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1997 The motet S'Amours eiist point de poer (nral6oo) I Au renouveler du joli tans (531bl6m) I ECCEJAM (M6r) in the thirteenth-century Montpellier codex. Mont pellier, Bibl. Interuniv., Section Medecine, MS H196, fol. 270r. Stanford University Press Acknowledgments Stanford, California © 1997 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University Printed in the United States ofAmerica CIP data appear at the end of the book Stanford University Press publications are It is a pleasure to thank the many friends and colleagues who have distributed exclusively by Stanford University Press contributed to this project. Margaret Switten and Meg Bent both read within the United States, Canada, Mexico, and complete drafts at various stages of writing and made many helpful sug Central America; they are distributed exclusively gestions. Others who offered ideas, information, and general insights in by Cambridge University Press throughout dude Wulf Arlt, Rebecca Baltzer, Kevin Brownlee, Mark Everist, Dolores Pesce, Susan Rankin, and Nancy Regalado. Thanks also go to my hus the rest of the world. band, Leo Krumpholz, for the many acts, both large and small, that fostered the completion of this study. This project has been funded by Graduate School Summer Research Stipends from Northern Illinois University and by a grant from the George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation, which I gratefully acknowledge. Research for this study was conducted at various libraries and would not have been possible without the helpful cooperation of librarians and staff at the Newberry Library, Chicago; Founders Memo rial Library, Northern Illinois University; the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; the Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des Textes, Paris; and the Bibliotheque Interuniversitaire, Section Medecine, Montpellier. Chapter I contains material that first appeared in my essay "Trans formations of Lyric Voice in the Songs, Motets, and Plays of Adam de la Halle," Romanic Review 78.2 (1987): 148-64. Copyright by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York. This material is reprinted by permission from the Romanic Review. Chapter 3 contains material first published in my essay "Languages of Love: Vernacular Motets on the Tenor FLOS FILIUS E]Us," in Conjunctures: Medieval Studies in Ho nor of Douglas Kelly, ed. Keith Busby and Norris J. Lacy (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994), pp. 169-80. This material is used with the permission of Editions Rodopi B.V. Contents Note to the Reader XI Introduction: The Vernacular Motet and Its Dual Heritage I Chapter I Varieties of Textual Polyphony: Intertextual Dialogue in the Vernacular Motet 19 Chapter2 Earthly and Heavenly Revelry: The Sacred and the Profane in Vernacular Lyric 56 .. Chapter3 The Amorous Maiden 85 Chapter4 The Pain of Separation and the Consolation ofLove 128 Chapter5 Sweet Pain and Fatal Desire r6o Conclusion: Allegorical Play and Textual Polyphony 189 Notes 199 Works Cited 221 Index 233 Note to the Reader Motet texts and tenors are identified throughout by the numbers assigned to them in Ludwig's Repertorium. The letters preceding tenor identifica tion numbers indicate whether the tenor's source is in the chant used for the Mass (M) or the Office (0) or in a setting of the Benedicamus Domino (BD). Trouvere songs are identified by the number assigned to them in Spanke's revision of Raynaud's general catalog. Texts are quoted from a variety of editions, given in the notes. Unless stated otherwise, italics in motet quotations are the editor's and indicate a refrain. Chant texts of the Office are quoted from the CorpusAntiphonalium Officii, abbreviated in the notes as CAO. The graduals and alleluias of the Mass that served as sources for motet tenors are quoted from the list in Tischler, The Style and Evolution ofthe Earliest Motets. Biblical quotations are taken from the Vulgate text. All translations, unless indicated otherwise, are mine. Allegorical Play in the Old French Motet The Sacred and the Profane in Thirteenth-Century Polyphony Introduction The vernacular Motet and Its Dual Heritage This book is devoted to an examination of textual polyphony in the thirteenth-century French motet. The vernacular motet in this period is largely a Parisian and northern French phenomenon. A few examples of motets are known in the other medieval vernaculars, but the Old French corpus is substantial: some 300 vernacular or bilingual motets are in the great Montpellier codex, and numerous others appear in a variety of other manuscripts. The investigation focuses on a central feature of vernacular motet composition: its juxtaposition of sacred and profane discourse and the allegorical and parodic readings that emerge from the motet's hybrid structure. Motets were of course a musical art form, intended for oral per formance. It is highly unlikely that people in the thirteenth century encountered them through reading a book, with the possible exception of composers studying the repertoire or singers learning new pieces.1 In deed, the standard layout of motets in medieval manuscripts, with texted voices in parallel columns or on facing pages and the tenor across the bottom of a column or the page (see frontispiece), does not facilitate the coordination of parts: only in performance do the different parts of the motet come together, so that the piece can be appreciated as a whole. Motets are, however, intricate poetico-musical works, composed within a learned milieu, transmitted through a written tradition, and susceptible of detailed textual analysis. In the following study, the word reading refers to the understanding or interpretation of any text, including one destined for performance. Though not strictly appropriate to musical genres, read ing in its modern usage carries implications of critical analysis that are The Vernacular Motet and Its Dual Heritage 2 The Vernacular Motet and Its Dual Heritage 3 lacking from hearing, listening, or singing. The reading in question might motet could serve as model for a new Latin composition just as a Latin be that of a composer, that of a musician who participated in the perfor motet could for a French one. In addition, although some French motets mance of the motet, or that of an audience member who heard it: my use employ vernacular refrains or rondeaux as tenors, the vast majority use of the term includes visual and aural reception as well as meditation on Latin tenors. Thus, even a secular French motet maintains explicit ties to the piece. the liturgical origins of the genre.6 A motet consists of two or more parts, sung simultaneously. The can At the same time, the vernacular motet is closely linked to the varied tus firmus or tenor, normally the lowest voice, typically is a melismatic corpus of vernacular lyric. The motet emerged during an important passage from the liturgy-a syllable, word, or phrase-sung in a slow period in the history of Old French lyric. The composition of narratives rhythm.2 This phrase can be repeated, sometimes with rhythmic varia with lyric insertions began in the early thirteenth century; by midcentury tion, as needed to accommodate the length of the upper voice(s). The the compilation of chansonniers was under way? With the exception tenor is accompanied by an upper voice, known as the motetus or du of the rondeau motet, of which only a few examples are known, motet plum; additional voices, if any, are referred to as the triplum and the texts bear no formal resemblance to other lyric forms. 8 They are not stro quadruplum, respectively. Each upper voice carries its own text.3 A three phic, nor do they follow set patterns of versification: lines vary in length, part motet-that is, one with two texted voices-is known as a double and rhymes repeat seemingly at random. But motet texts are tied to the motet. Motet texts are characterized by considerable diversity in verse vernacular lyric corpus through their use of refrains, including many of form and subject matter. Moreover, though the texts juxtaposed within those that appear in rondeaux, in strophic songs employing refrains, or a given motet may be lexically, metrically, and thematically similar, they as lyric insertions in narrative works.9 More important, motets feature can also be quite different in any or all of these respects. the stock figures and situations, language, and poetic stances-what one The motet began as a form of sacred music, linked to the corpus of might term the poetic registers-associated with the various corpora or organa, or polyphonic settings of graduals, alleluias, and other portions of genres of Old French lyric.10 Many motet texts draw on the chanson cour the chant. Although its origins are not completely clear, there is substan toise. There are also pastourelle motets, featuring such figures as Robin, tial evidence that Latin motets emerged in the early thirteenth century Marion, and Emmelot, and reverdie motets, in which the lyric persona from a practice of composing texts for the upper voices of dausulae, or expresses his amorous joy in harmony with the flowering of the country excerpts from organa.4 Latin motets were also composed with new melo side and the songs of birds.

Load more