Recycling Reversed Studies in the History of Polyphony in the Northern Low Countries Around 1400
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Recycling Reversed Studies in the History of Polyphony in the Northern Low Countries Around 1400 Recycling Reversed Een verkenning van de geschiedenis van de polyfonie in de noordelijke Lage Landen omstreeks 1400 (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Utrecht op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof.dr. G.J. van der Zwaan, ingevolge het besluit van het college voor promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op vrijdag 18 mei 2018 des middags te 2.30 uur door Eliane Andrea Fankhauser geboren op 24 juli 1986 te Winterthur, Zwitserland Promotor: Prof.dr. K. Kügle This thesis was accomplished with financial support from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Acknowledgements My first encounter with the polyphonic fragments which are the subject of this study happened on an afternoon at the Special Collections of the Utrecht University Library. The fragments were presented during a general introduction into the Special Collection’s keepings of music manuscript and fragments. Immediately, I was fascinated by the frag- ments’ formats, notational features, and music and text scripts. That a research project about these fragments would be anything but a simple undertaking was apparent from the very deteriorated state of some of the fragment leaves. Nevertheless, I was eager to delve into them. If only I examined them closely enough, these—at first glance—random assemblies of fragment leaves will reveal more about their genesis and history of use, so I thought. This idea kept me going during the whole process of doing research. That it proved wrong may be a disappoint- ment at first sight but really this is one of the most important insights that I will take with me in my further career. In the period of the research project I was in contact and exchange with a great number of scholars, librarians, archivists but also with friends, family and supporting staff at the University. All of them helped me and contributed to this study in one way or another for which I am very grateful. First of all, I would like to thank my super- visor Karl Kügle for his efforts and the time he invested into reading and commenting on my writings. Amongst others, Karl made me rec- ognize the nature of research as carried out in the field of medieval musicology and made me think about the ways in which I want and do not want to contribute to it. A major part of my research time was I spent at special collections and archives. I certainly would not have been able to carry out the research in the way I did without the help and friendly support of the staff at these institutions. I owe special debts to Bart Jaski, curator at the Special Collections at Utrecht University Library I owe special debts. His strong interest in my research and will to collaborate led to sessions during which we took additional photos of the fragments and their host books without which I would not have been able to carry out v the codicological and paleographical analysis the way I did. Moreover, I am grateful to the librarians and support staff at the Special Col- lections at the universities of Leiden and Amsterdam, Het Utrechts Archief, the Royal Library at The Hague, and the Museum Meermanno also at The Hague. To Joost van Gemert, moreover, I owe a debt for making available books and services through the Utrecht University Library. I benefitted from discussion with and feedback from many scholars of medieval musicology. Michael Scott Cuthbert played a key role in welcoming me into the field and supporting me in the course of the project. Thank you for always treating me as an equal and for spending an entire afternoon with me transcribing the long and incomplete- ly transmitted Dutch-texted piece … ic hebbe ripe kersen. Moreover, I would like to express my special gratitude to Jason Stoessel and David Catalunya who both gave important inputs at an early stage of the pro- ject. Margaret Bent, Jaap van Benthem, Karen Cook, Julia Craig-Mc- Feely, Felix Diergarten, Ulrike Hascher-Burger, Eric Jas, John Nádas, Elizabeth Nyikos, Catherine Saucier, and Peter Wright all read and/or commented on my work. Thank you! I am grateful to Dennis van Ark, Anne Maria van Egmond, Bram van den Hoven van Genderen, Cécile de Morrée, Dieuwke van der Poel, Paul Wackers, Frans de Valk, and Rozanne Versendaal, who of- fered their kind support in understanding the fields that my research touched upon, and in which I was not an expert myself. During my PhD one of the things that I enjoyed most was the in- ternational atmosphere and the encounter with so many colleagues from other fields and backgrounds. Thank you for making daily life at the office enjoyable: Donya Alinejad, Laura Canete, Laura Candi- datu, Gisela Carrasco, Zerrin Cengiz, Gianmaria Colpani, Alex Gek- ker, Adri Habed, Harm Langenkamp, Michiel Kamp, Lian Ko, Sjors Martens, Liliana Melgar, Melis Mevsimler, Claudia Minchilli, Desi Prianti, Floris Schuiling, and Sarah Verideri. I would like to express special thanks to Sarah Dellmann, Bram Hendrawan, Matjaž Matošec, and Olga Panteleeva, for sharing lunch meals, beers, stories of life, recipes and much more and who became friends over the years. I am especially grateful to my friends and colleagues Marnix van Berchum, Leo Lousberg, Manon Louviot, Ruxandra Marinescu and Reinier de Valk, all of whom I had stimulating conversations with about my work and who read parts of my dissertation. From 2015 to 2017 I was a member of the University Council. This additional function turned out to be the perfect addition to my research activities. When in 2016 I came up with the idea to set up a party for PhD candidates within the university, my colleagues Frank Hendriks vi and Stephanie de Smale and especially Nico Naus were crucial in sup- porting the idea at an early stage and establishing the party. It is be- cause of you that Utrecht University has the much-engaged Utrecht PhD Party, UPP, and I am very proud of that. Rianne Giethoorn, Frank Kessler, and Simone Veld offered general and psychological support at difficult moments especially at end of this project. I do not take for granted the effort and time they invested and it is quite clear that without them I would not write these acknowl- edgements now. Thank you! Veronika Bacova, Roos Burmanje, Paolo Capanna, Anna Ciepiela, Colin Elliot, Natassia Gili, Berber Hagedoorn, Andrea Hamann, Frie- da van der Heijden, Brigitta Keij, Phoebe Kisubi, Ulrike Müller, Taco Nijssen, Ron Ranjan, Liliane Schärmeli, all member of the choir Ars Nova Trajectina and many other friends who are not mentioned by name: thank you for dragging me away from my laptop, contributing to the work-life balance that I felt I could not have kept up so easily without you in my life. I do not want to leave unmentioned Jeanne van Hest and Frans de Valk at the house of whom I spent memorable days having inspiring discussions and writing parts of this dissertation. I would like to express my gratitude to the members of Ensem- ble Diskantores, Niels Berentsen, Oscar Verhaar, Benjamin Jago Lar- ham, and Andrew Hallock with whom I presented my research in lecture-concerts and recorded some of the pieces in the Utrecht and Leiden fragments. It means a lot to me that, next to the written dis- sertation, there is also some actual music as an outcome of this project. I owe the biggest thanks to my family. The emotional support and love of my parents and my brother and their positive and encouraging attitude towards my professional career as a musician and musicologist were exceptional. Certainly, it was also because of all the love and sup- port that I was able to finish this important chapter in my life. I thus close these acknowledgements with my favorite poem by the German writer Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff. Schläft ein Lied in allen Dingen, Die da träumen fort und fort, Und die Welt hebt an zu singen, Triffst du nur das Zauberwort Table of Contents v Acknowledgements xiii List of Figures xv List of Tables xviii List of Examples xix Manuscripts and Prints xxiii Abbreviations xxv Notes on Terminology, Transcriptions, and Currency xxviii Research Data and Recordings 1 Introduction 4 Defining and Naming: From the Northern Low Countries to The Netherlands 6 A Brief Note on the Political Situation of the Northern Low Countries Around 1400 8 Past Research on the Music History in the Northern Low Countries 11 The Transmission of Mensurally-Notated Polyphony in the Northern Low Countries 12 The Holland Fragments in Previous Scholarship 15 The Cultural Context Part One History and Examination of The Utrecht Fragments NL-Uu 37.I 19 Chapter 1: Description and History of Uu 37.I 19 Methodological Considerations 21 General Description of Uu 37.I 24 Tracing the Fragments in Early Modern Utrecht Book Bindings ix 31 Chapter 2: Codicological and Palaeographical Examination of Uu 37.I 31 Uu 37.I, Bifolios I and VI 40 Uu 37.I, Bifolio III 47 Uu 37.I, Bifolio II and Snippet IV 57 Uu 37.I, Folio V 59 Internal Order: Convolutes Within Uu 37.I 61 Conclusions Part Two The Cultural Environment in Late Medieval Utrecht 65 Chapter 3: The City of Utrecht in the Late Middle Ages 65 The City of Utrecht: A Brief Historical Overview 70 Mapping Ecclesiastical Institutions 81 Archival Records at the Utrecht City Archive (HUA) 83 History and Archival Transmission of the Cathedral and the Collegiate Churches 89 Conclusions 91 Chapter 4: Culture at Ecclesiastical Institutions in Late Medieval Utrecht 92 Selection of Archival Records