Taking Notae on King and Cleric: Thibaut, Adam, and the Medieval Readers of the Chansonnier De Noailles (T-Trouv.)
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_full_alt_author_running_head (neem stramien B2 voor dit chapter en nul 0 in hierna): 0 _full_alt_articletitle_running_head (oude _articletitle_deel, vul hierna in): Taking Notae on King and Cleric _full_article_language: en indien anders: engelse articletitle: 0 Taking Notae On King And Cleric 121 Chapter 5 Taking Notae on King and Cleric: Thibaut, Adam, and the Medieval Readers of the Chansonnier de Noailles (T-trouv.) Judith A. Peraino The serpentine flourishes of the monogram Nota in light brown ink barely catch the eye in the marginal space beside a wide swath of much darker and more compact letters (see Figure 5.1). But catch the eye they do, if not in the first instance, then at some point over the course of their fifty-five occurrences throughout the 233 folios of ms. T-trouv., also known as the Chansonnier de Noailles.1 In most cases the monogram looks more like Noā – where the “a” and the “t” have fused into one peculiar ligature. Variations of the monogram indi- cate a range of more or less swift and continuous execution (see Figure 5.2), but consistency in size and ink color strongly suggest the work of a single an- notator. Adriano Cappelli’s Dizionario di abbreviature latine ed italiane includes a nearly exact replica of this scribal shorthand for nota, which he dates to the thirteenth century.2 Thus the notae, and the act of reading they indicate, took place soon after its compilation in the 1270s or 1280s. Ms. T-trouv. conveys the sense of a carefully compiled, ordered, and execut- ed compendium of writings, some designed with music in mind, others not. Four distinct collections are physically set apart from one another by blank folios (see Table 5.1).3 Two discrete libelli of monophonic songs by single au- 1 Some portions of this essay have been adapted from Chapter 3 of my book Giving Voice to Love: Song and Self-Expression from the Troubadours to Guillaume de Machaut (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). 2 Adriano Cappelli, Dizionario di abbreviature latine ed italiane sesta edizione (Milan: Hoepli, 1985), 237. 3 For descriptions of the handwriting and contents of ms. T-trouv., see Eduard Schwan, Die altfranzösischen Liederhandschriften: ihr Verhältniss, ihre Entstehung und ihre Bestimmung (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1886), 19–38; Mark Everist, Polyphonic Music in Thirteenth-Century France: Aspects of Sources and Distribution (New York: Garland, 1989), 175–81; and Roger Berger, Littérature et société arrageoises au XIIIe siècle: les chansons et dits artésiens, Mémoires de la Commission Départementale des Monuments Historiques du Pas- de-Calais 21 (Arras: Commission Départementale des Monuments Historiques du Pas-de- Calais, 1981), 17–19. An inventory of the monophonic songs appears in Gaston Raynaud, © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004379480_007 122 Peraino Figure 5.1 T-trouv. fol. 7r Figure 5.2 T-trouv. fol. 226r thors bookend two more substantial interior collections of diverse authors, genres, and formats. “Li roi de navare” refers to Count Thibaut IV of Champagne (1201–53) who inherited the kingdom of Navarre in 1234; chansonniers that name authors al- ways use his royal title, and seven major collections place his songs first.4 “Adam li boçus” refers, of course, to Adam de la Halle (ca. 1244–ca. 1288); li boçus or li bossu means “crippled,” “hunchback,” “twisted,” or “awkward,” denot- ing an unrefined subject, either himself disfigured, or one who disfigures lan- guage. All but two of the sources that preserve Adam’s works designate him with this epithet – a striking contrast to Thibaut’s honorific; the two excep- tions, ms. W-trouv. and ms. P-trouv., give Adam his full name and title, maistre Adan de le Hale, thus acknowledging his clerical status.5 The physical Bibliographie des chansonniers français des XIIIe et XIVe siècles (Paris: F. Vieweg, 1884), 1:153–72. 4 The seven manuscripts are: ms. K-trouv., ms. N-trouv., ms. R-trouv., ms. T-trouv., ms. V-trouv. (without rubric), ms. X, ms. a-trouv. Charles d’Anjou, despite being a king of Sicily and Naples (and even Jerusalem at one point) is always listed as li cuens d’Angou. 5 See Deborah Hubbard Nelson, introduction to The Lyrics and Melodies of Adam de la Halle (New York and London: Garland, 1985), xv. .