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The term conductuscumcaudisis derived from Anonymous IV's description of a 'volumen de duplicibus conductis habentibus caudas' and other conducti'sine caudis' (DerMusiktraktatdesAnonymus
4, ed. Fritz Reckow, 2 vols., Beihefte zum Archiv ffir Musikwissenschaft, 4-5, Wiesbaden, 1967), i,
82). This article is based on a paper read at the Annual Conference on Medieval and Renaissance
Music, University of Southampton, July 1996. I am grateful to Jean-Paul Montagnier (Universite
de Nancy), Philippe Hoch (Bibliotheque de la Ville de Metz) and Jocelyne Barthel (Archives
Municipales, Metz) for assistance. Research towards this publication was supported by the British
Academy, which funded a visit to Metz in spring 1996. I would like to thank, in addition to the
anonymous reviewers of this article, Rebecca Baltzer, Nicky Losseff, Dolores Pesce, Christopher
Page, Craig Wright, and particularly Thomas B. Payne, who read an early draft of this article and
contributed immeasurably to its development.
1 This definition is based on Leonard Ellinwood, 'The Conductus', Musical Quarterly,27
(1941), 165-204. Poems that were not rithmiwere often not newly composed; a good example is
the three-part Pater nosterin Florence, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Pluteo 29.1, ff. 215-216.
See Robert Falck, The NotreDame Conductus:A Study of the Repertory,Musicological Studies, 33
(Henryville, Ottawa and Binningen, 1981), 230. For exceptions to the principle that the conductus
is newly composed, see the study of intertextual reference between conductusand clausula in
Manfred Bukofzer, 'Interrelations between Conductus and Clausula', Annales musicologiques,1
(1953), 65-103, and the individual commentaries to compositions in Falck, The Notre Dame
Conductus,178-256.
2 See Ellinwood, 'The Conductus', 167, and Janet Knapp, 'Conductus', TheNew GroveDictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 1980), iv, 651-6 (p. 653).
136
MAR EVERIST
3 See Bryan Gillingham, 'A New Etymology and Etiology for the Conductus', BeyondtheMoon:
FestschriftLuther Dittmer, ed. Bryan Gillingham and Paul Merkley, Musicological Studies, 53
(Ottawa, 1990), 100-17 (p. 101).
4 Frank Ll. Harrison, Music in MedievalBritain (London, 1958; 4th edn, Buren, 1980), 124, and
idem, 'Benedicamus, Conductus, Carol', Acta musicologica,37 (1965), 35-48. It seems possible,
however, that Harrison was not seeking to provide an all-embracing function for the conductus
when he wrote: 'What is suggested here is the probable ritual position of those conductus which
are related to the seasons and feasts of the church' (Music in MedievalBritain, 124, n. 2).
5 Nancy van Deusen, Theologyand Music at theEarly University:The Caseof Robert iossetesteand
AnonymousIV, Brill Studies in Intellectual History, 57 (Leiden, etc., 1995), 37-53 (p. 44). For a
bold attempt to separate cantio from conductus,see John Stevens, Wordsand Music in the Middle
Ages: Song, Narrative,Dance and Drama, 1050-1350, Cambridge Studies in Music (Cambridge,
1986), 56-63.
6 The two works are Fontisin rivulumand Associatecumin patria.For the latter, see also Thomas
B. Payne, 'Associatecumin patria:A Newly Identified Organum Trope by Philip the Chancellor',
Journal of theAmericanMusicologicalSociety,39 (1986), 233-54.
7 For a discussion of these two concepts, see Ernest Sanders, 'Sine litteraand Cum litterain
Medieval Polyphony', Music and Civilization:Essaysin HonorofPaul HenryLang, ed. Edmond Strainchamps, Maria Rika Maniates and Christopher Hatch (New York and London, 1984), 215-31.
However pragmatic the distinction between 'music with words' and 'music without words' might
be, it does not do justice to the subtle complexity of the two types of music. They are described
here as contrasting 'discursive modes' in an attempt to emphasize the fact that neither texture,
word setting, harmonic procedures nor rhythm can alone account for the differences between
them.
8 The juxtaposition of music cum litteraand sine litterain a conductusmay be investigated by
analogy with the presence within the same literary work of, for example, prose and poetry. The
literary medieval tradition is long, and stretches back to TheMarriageof Philologyand Mercuryby
Martianus Capella and Boethius's TheConsolationofPhilosophy.It received a major new impulse in
the twelfth century, just as the new mixed forms of conductusand organumwere emerging, from
such texts as Hildebert of Lavardin's Querimonia,Adelard of Bath's De eodemet diverso,Bernard
Silvestris's Cosmographia
and the De planctu naturaeof Alan of Lille. Recent studies on the mixed
form are Peter Dronke, VersewithProsefrom Petroniusto Dante: TheArt and Scopeof theMixaed
Form
on Narratie in Prose
(Cambridge, MA, and London, 1994) and Prosimetrum:Crosscultural
Perspectives
and Verse,ed. Joseph Harris and Karl Reichl (Woodbridge, 1997). The best bibliography of the
zwirsen Sptanike
subject is Bernhard Pabst, Prosimetrum:Traditionund WandeleinerLiteraturform
Ordo - Studien zur Literatur und Gesellschaft des Mittelalters und der frifhen
und Spiitmittelalter,
Neuzeit, 4 (Cologne, etc., 1994). For a fuller account of the ways in which the conductuscumcaudis
may be read as a mixed form, and for analogies with the prosimetrum,see Mark Everist, 'Drying
Rachel's Tears: The Two-Part Conductusas Mixed Form' (International Musicological Society,
London, 14-20 August 1997, and American Musicological Society, Boston, 29 October to 1
November 1998); in this paper and in the current article the approach to the prosimetrunis
AND RECOMPOSITION
RECEPTION
137
different from that employed in Anna Maria Busse Berger, 'Mnemotechnics and Notre Dame
Polyphony', Journal ofMusicology,14 (1996), 263-98 (pp. 281-2). There is a significant difference
in intellectual and sonic comparisons between the conductusand the prosimetrum.The difference
in sound between music cum litteraand music sine littera in the conductus cum caudis is clear;
however, it is far from certain that in the late Middle Ages there would have been any difference
between the spoken delivery of prose and quantitative verse (carmina) in a prosimetrumthat mixed
the two. Nevertheless, the difference between carminaand prose was intellectually as clear as that
between music sine litteraand music cum littera:'Equally important was the intellectual challenge
of writing a carmennow that the length and brevity of Latin vowels existed in the mind alone'
(Christopher Page, Latin Poetryand ConductusRhythmin MedievalFrance,Royal Musical Association
Monographs, 8, London, 1997, 18-19).
9 The four principal manuscript sources for this repertory are Wolfenbiittel, Herzog August
Bibliothek, 628 Helmst. (W1); Wolfenbiittel, Herzog August Bibliothek, 1099 Helmst. (W2);
Florence, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Pluteo 29.1 (1); and Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional,
20486 (Ma). Facsimiles of all four have been published: James H. Baxter, An Old St AndrewsMusic
Book (Cod. Helmst. 628) Publishedin Facsimilewith an Introduction,St Andrews University Publications, 30 (Oxford and Paris, 1931), and Die mittelalterlicheMusik-HandschriftW1: Vollstiindige
ReproduktionderHerzogAugust BibliothekWolfenbiittelCod. Guelf 628 Helmst, ed. Martin Staehelin
(Wiesbaden, 1995) (W1); FacsimileReproductionof the Manuscript Wolfenbiittel1099 (1206), ed.
Luther Dittmer, Publications of Mediaeval Musical Manuscripts, 2 (Brooklyn, NY, 1960) (W2);
FacsimileReproductionof theManuscriptFirenze,BibliotecaMediceo-Laurenziana
Pluteo29,1, ed. Luther
Dittmer, 2 vols., Publications of Mediaeval Musical Manuscripts, 10-11 (Brooklyn, NY, [1966]-7)
(f); and FacsimileReproductionof theManuscriptMadrid20486, ed. Luther Dittmer, Publications of
Mediaeval Musical Manuscripts, 1 (Brooklyn, NY, 1957) (Ma). The most complete list of sources
for the conductusis in Falck, TheNotreDame Conductus,140-52. Although the inventory drawn up
in Gordon Anderson, 'Notre-Dame and Related Conductus: A Catalogue Raisonn6', Miscellanea
musicologica,6 (1972), 153-229, and 7 (1975), 1-81, includes a wider range of material, Anderson's
study includes no listing of manuscripts; contents of the sources have to be gleaned from each of
the individual critical commentaries to his editions in Notre-Dameand Related Conductus:Opera
omnia, ed. Gordon Anderson, 10 vols., Collected Works, 10 (Henryville, Ottawa and Binningen,
1979-86; vol. vii did not appear). For sources that have appeared since Falck's and Anderson's
inventories, see Mark Everist, 'A Reconstructed Source for the Thirteenth-Century Conductus',
GordonAthol Anderson(1929-1981): In memoriamvon seinen Studenten,Freundenund Kollegen,ed.
Luther Dittmer, 2 vols., Musicological Studies, 49 (Henryville, Ottawa and Binningen, 1984), i,
97-118; Martin Staehelin, 'Conductus-Fragmente aus einer Notre-Dame-Handschrift in Frankfurt
a. M.', NachrichtenderAkademiederWissenschaften
in GC6ttingen,
i: Philologisch-historische
Klasse,Jahrgang
1987 (G6ttingen, 1987), 179-92; and Mark Everist, 'A New Source for the Polyphonic Conductus.
MS 117* in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge', Plainsong and MedievalMusic, 3 (1994), 149-68.
10 See below for an account of sources for the polyphonic conductuswhere only single voices or
texts are preserved.
138
MARK EVERIST
" See, for the conventional view, Janet Knapp, 'Polyphony at Notre Dame of Paris', TheEarly
MiddleAges to 1300, ed. Richard Crocker and David Hiley, The New Oxford History of Music, 2
(Oxford, 1990), 632-5 (p. 632): 'the conductus did not survive the old [modal] style. The new
was to find its most striking example in the motet.' Knapp's comments are set in the context of a
deeply rooted belief in the applicability of modal rhythm to cum litterasections of the conductus.
This view, as conventional as the view on the relationship between conductusand motet, has come
under challenge (see below).
12 This work, Aurelianiscivitas,is monophonic, and therefore stands at some distance from the
polyphonic conducticum caudis discussed in this article. See Thomas B. Payne, 'Aurelianiscivitas:
A Conductusand Student Unrest in Medieval France', forthcoming in Speculum,75 (2000).
13 In addition, a
very few conductiwere modified in highly irregular and atypical ways. Perhaps
the best examples of this are the two motets in the notated version of the Roman deFauvel (Paris,
Bibliotheque Nationale, fonds franCais 146) whose texts rework those of conducti.See Lorenz
Welker, 'Polyphonic Reworkings of Notre-Dame Conductus in BN fr. 146: "Mundus a mundicia"
and "Quare fremuerunt"', Fauvel Studies:Allegory,Chronicle,Music, and Image in Paris, Bibliothdque
Nationale de France, MS ftangais 146, ed. Margaret Bent and Andrew Wathey (Oxford, 1998),
615-36.
14 This particular characteristic has been an important point of departure for those who seek
to argue, by backward extrapolation, that the cum litterasections of conductiwere modal, and this
has dominated discussions of the source material. See, for example, Gordon A. Anderson, 'The
Rhythm of Cum littera Sections of Polyphonic Conductus in Mensural Sources', Journal of the
American Musicological Society,26 (1973), 288-304; idem, 'The Rhythm of the Monophonic
Conductus in the Florence Manuscript as Indicated in Parallel Sources in Mensural Notation',
Journal of the American MusicologicalSociety,31 (1978), 480-9; and E. Fred Flindell, 'Syllabic
Notation in Isolated Voices', InternationalMusicologicalSociety:Reportof theEleventhCongress,Copenhagen 1972, ed. Henrik Glahn, Soren Sorensen and Peter Ryom, 2 vols. (Copenhagen, 1974), i,
378-84. For a recent assertion of the same view, but argued at substantially shorter length than
that of Anderson and others, see David Wulstan's reviews of Page, Latin Poetryand Conductus
Journal of theMusic
Rhythm,in Music and Letters,79 (1998), 103-5 (p. 104), and in Notes:Quarterly
LibraryAssociation,55 (1999), 643-5 (p. 643).
15 These observations do not relate to the monophonic conductusor to polyphonic conductisine
caudis.
RECEPTION
AND RECOMPOSITION
139
transcription can satisfy all those who dispute the rhythm of the cum
littera sections of the conductus. In this article, cum littera sections are
140
MARK
EVERIST
18 The apparent self-evidence of the view that the cumlitterasections of conductusshould be transcribed in modal rhythm is well demonstrated by the fact that Anderson never felt the need to
describe or defend his policy and methodology as part of the editorial project (Anderson, NotreDame and RelatedConductus).Descriptions of the missing seventh volume of his publication lead
one to believe that this was to be more a study of the repertory than the explanation of editorial
method.
19 The argument that the prosody of conductustexts (aside from the tiny handful that are not
rithmi)can be used to, and indeed did, determine the rhythm of the cum litterasections of conducti
has been laid to rest in Page, Latin Poetryand ConductusRhythm.
20 Such theoretical statements are vigorously examined in Ernest Sanders, 'Conductus and
Modal Rhythm', Journal of theAmericanMusicologicalSociety,38 (1985), 439-69.
21 See the summary of these phenomena, and the presentation of a new but unique example,
in Janet Knapp, 'Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg? Some Reflections on the Relationship between Conductus and Trope', Essays in Musicology:A Tributeto Alvin Johnson, ed. Lewis
Lockwood and Edward Roesner (n.p., 1990), 16-25.
22 The arguments in Anderson's article ('The Rhythm of Cum litteraSections') are reviewed
below.
23 A full review of the evidence for and against the imposition of modal rhythm on the cum
littera sections of the conductusis outside the scope of this study. The most extreme view is
presented by Anderson (Notre-Dameand RelatedConductus)but condoned by most of his contemporaries; see, for example, Janet Knapp, 'Musical Declamation and Poetic Rhythm in an Early
Layer of Notre-Dame Conductus', Journal of theAmericanMusicologicalSociety,32 (1979), 383-407.
Ernest Sanders was one of the first to suggest that this mode of thinking was unconvincing; see
his 'Conductus and Modal Rhythm'. Nevertheless, the view that modal rhythm - no matter how
loosely applied, nor how loose the argumentation used to support the view - should be used as
the basis for performing cum litterasections of the conductusstill has its adherents.
24 Ravenel's report was published in Bernard Ravenel and Liliane Ravenel, 'Un patrimoine
meconnu: La musique dans les manuscrits medievaux conserves iaMetz', Bibliothzquede la Villede
AND RECOMPOSITION
RECEPTION
141
Metz:CahiersElieFleur, 10 (1994), 13-33 (pp. 30-2). This publication includes a number of errors
that require clarification. The title of the host volume for the fragment, Metz, Bibliotheque de la
Ville, reserve pr6cieux, MS 732bis/20, is given (p. 27) as 'Registre du Gref de la Chambre des
[Experts] (?)'; the final word of the title is, however, 'sauvetes'. This volume is also incorrectly
dated (p. 30) 1667, not 1607; on the same page is the surprising claim that the compositions in
the fragment exhibit a 'rythme homophone' (hardly true for the music sine litteracontained here)
and that the fragment contains parts of two (not four) compositions. The claim that Ego reus
confiteorisunedited is manifestly incorrect: it is found in Anderson, Notre-DameConductus,iii, 130-4
(published in 1981).
25 See 'Archives Municipales de Metz: R6pertoire numerique de la s6rie FF' (typescript, 1992),
unpaginated.
26 See Auguste Prost, Les institutionsjudiciairesdans la citi de Metz(Paris and Nancy, 1893), 9 and
33-5.
27 [Jean Francois and Nicolas Tabouillot], Histoiregenrale de Metzpar des religieuxb~nzdictins,6
vols. (Metz, 1769-90), ii, 343 and 344 n. f.
28 The entire series of registers of the Chambre des Sauvetes, from 1574 to 1634, is in Metz,
Archives Municipales, FF 47-74.
. o
quomw
At4
itnbt
nkmi punmum
*-.
,I -"
.
4'
at
, ,
a.
' "
;L
:.r
:.
a-t.
.
.,
.
?is
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alt
imts
a)c
at.
Figure 1. Metz, Bibliotheque de la Ville, r6serve pr6cieux, MS 732bis/20, ff. 2v-1. Reproduced by k
IR~
II
Irt,t~nf(?i-at_
?1
?a
?;"s~r
t-
- - -;
i ?--?~a
?'NT7
Figure 2. Metz, Bibliotheique de la Ville, reserve pr6cieux, MS 732bis/20, ff. lv-2. Reproduced by k
144
MARK
EVERIST
TABLE1
METZ,BIBLIOTHEQUEDE LA VILLE,RESERVEPRECIEUX,MS 732BIS/20: CONTENTS
f. 1
f. 1
f. l"
f. 2
staves1-3
staves4-12
staves1-12
staves 1-3
time nobilitas'
f. 2
f. 2v
staves 4-12
staves 1-12
unidentified three-part conductusand the beginning of Ego reus confiteor,the continuation of which is also on the front. Table 1 is an inventory of the music in the fragment.
The original manuscript is laid out with 12 staves to a page, divided
into four systems of three-part music. The book measures 39.5 X 29.0
cm., substantially larger than any of the principal thirteenth-century
sources for the conductus,or for any other genre except liturgical chant.
The written block measures 27.5 X 19 cm. Each system consists of three
staves, each of five lines; each stave is 15 mm. deep, and the overall
depth of the system is 7 cm. The minor initials are elaborate and, as
usual, executed in red and blue (the more solid colours in Figures 1-2
are red). Line endings and extensions of melismas are also red and
blue with a touch of white.
In the Metz fragment, the notation of the sine litterasection - as in
earlier sources for these pieces - is measured, and conforms to the patterns controlled by the rhythmic modes. What is striking about the
notation of this fragment is the presentation of the music cum littera.
Unmeasured in earlier sources, here the notation is measured to the
extent that longaeand brevesare clearly differentiated. In this respect the mixing of modal notation for sine litteramusic with mensural notation for music cum littera- the notation of the Metz fragments is similar
to that of other sources from around 1300 that preserve the conductus
discussed below. Many ligatures in the cum litterasections - especially
those sine proprietate et sine perfectione- are presented according to the
principles laid out in treatises on mensural theory from the second half
of the thirteenth century.29 The result is that it is possible to distin-
29 Trying to match the exact notational usage in a single source with the writings of a single
theorist is an impossible task. The theoretical sources that form the basis of these comments are
the treatises ofJohannes de Garlandia (Johannesde Garlandia,De mensurabilimusica:KritischeEdition
mit Kommentarund InterpretationderNotationslehre,ed. Erich Reimer, 2 vols., Beihefte zum Archiv
ffir Musikwissenschaft, 10-11, Wiesbaden, 1972); Dietricus (Eine AbhandlungiiberMensuralmusik
in derKarlsruherHandschriftSt. Peterpergamen.29a, ed. Hans Mfiller, Mittheilungen aus der Grossherzoglich Badischen Hof- und Landesbibliothek und Mfinzsammlung, 6, Karlsruhe, 1886);
Lambertus (Scriptorumde musicamediiaevi nova seriesa Gerbertinaaltera,ed. Charles Edmond Henri
de Coussemaker, 4 vols., Milan and Paris, 1864-76; repr. Hildesheim, 1963, i, 251-81); the St
Emmeram Anonymous (De musica mensurata: The Anonymous of St Emmeram,CompleteCritical
AND RECOMPOSITION
RECEPTION
145
guish, for example, between a three-note ligature reading longawithout having to refer
brevis-longaand one reading brevis-brevis-brevis
to contrapuntal context. There are two types of rest: those for the longa
and those for the brevis.This is not as elaborate as the scheme laid down
in some of the treatises noted above, but it is a significant advance on
the way this music is presented in sources from the first half of the
thirteenth century.3s
In assessing the date of the Metz fragment, there are three available
criteria: notation, handwriting and decoration. The notation of the
cum litterasections puts the copying of this music - at the very earliest
- later than the appearance of notations that distinguish between
longae and breves(c.1260-80); and some fourteenth-century sources
and repertories do not employ a larger notational vocabulary than that
found here.31 There is no obstacle, then, to proposing a date between
1260-80 and 1300 - or later - for the notation of this source. An analysis of the handwriting and decoration suggests a date in the late
thirteenth century or around 1300, with none of the early fourteenthcentury Parisian forms present. In addition, the so-called I-chain-filler
(most visible between the words 'sequio' and 'qui' in Premii dilatio in
Figure 1) points to such a date. As far as provenance is concerned, the
manuscript exhibits the common rosette decoration found all over
north-eastern France at the end of the thirteenth century and, given
the quantity and quality of production in the city during the period
1280-1320, Metz itself cannot be ruled out of consideration. None of
the 'triple-dot' motifs that characterize Parisian manuscripts of this
period are present in this fragment.32 However, it is difficult to reconcile the notation of the Metz conductusfragment with what has been
known variously as Messine, Lorraine or Laon notation. It seems
reasonable to conclude, then, that the most likely provenance of the
146
MARK
EVERIST
147
TABLE2
METZ,BIBLIOTHEQUE DE LA VILLE,RESERVE PRECIEUX, MS 732BIS/20:
CONCORDANCES
Metz
Sursum corda
F
342v-344
Premii dilatio
206v-207v
324-325
WI
172-173v
(163-164v)
74v-75v
(67v-68v)
147v-148v
W2
107v-110
Ma
94-96v
CaJ
Rawl
no. 6
no. 33
87-89
(138v-139v)
ible for the Metz fragments. The composition that remains unidentified could have been composed in three parts originally; alternatively,
and like Egos reus confiteorand Sursum corda, it might have been a two-
part original to which the Metz composer again added a third voice.
Whoever put together these versions of these pieces did two things:
they recast all the music of the sections cum litterain a measured notation and they wrote new tripla.
Example 1 gives the opening cauda of Ego reusconfiteorin the version
found in the Metz fragment.37 It is in three parts, and shares its lower
two parts with three sources from earlier in the thirteenth century.38
The added voice carefully overlaps the simultaneous phrase-endings of
the Foriginal, and creates a seamless flow of polyphony up to the point
when the texted section cum littera begins (see Example 2).39 In this
example, the unmeasured notation of F is replicated by the use of
unstemmed noteheads, and may be compared with the more precise
rhythmic indications of the notation in the Metz fragments. The cum
litterasections are now rewritten in a fully measured notation. With a
couple of exceptions, the declamation of the poetry is clearly characterized as being in the first rhythmic mode.40 As a consequence of this
37 There is an etymological inconsistency associated with using the term cauda to describe a
passage of music that begins a composition, but its modern use and the sources on which it is
based are described and defended in Falck, The NotreDame Conductus,9 and 138-40; they are
followed here.
38 F, ff. 324-325; WI,ff. 147v-148v
(138v-139v); Ma, ff. 87-89.
39 The point of reference for the 'original' version of the two-part conducticum caudis in this
article is F. Given the current state of knowledge concerning date and centrality/peripherality of
the main sources for this repertory, this seems the most logical place to locate such a point of
reference. This does, however, entail certain methodological problems in that the readings in
other early sources (WI, W2and Ma) are often different in two critical ways: the slight graphic
elongation of otherwise unmeasured note-shapes, and the placement of suspirationes,rests and
phrase-endings. For an attempt to take these differences into account, see below.
40 The
exceptions are on the syllables 'De-um' and 'iu-di-co'.The implications of these changes
will be discussed below.
148
MARK
EVERIST
f44
--
I
I
triplum1
A
.IF
VL'L
duplum
AII
tenor
E
__
I,
fl
II
__
'
II
r -
lr
Ar
Fl
AI
7T 7
6m
A
Im
F---- I
1I
F-
II
II
m
8F
A
II
AI
1 i II
Ig
- r-
mI
,-I
1I
---
---m
WWII
Ir
-fm
44
g
rhythmicization, the four phrases in the F version ('Deum et proximum'; 'in publico'; 'me publico'; 'reum valde me iudico') are elided
into a single utterance in the Metz version.41
Examples 1 and 2 show how both the versions of the cum litteraand
41 This is a clear case in point where the phraseological structure of the version of the work in
F is different from those of W, and W2.The poetry of this passage is as follows: 'Sepe Deum et
proximum/In publico me publico/Reum valde me iudico.' The F version of these slightly less
than three poetic lines consists of four phrases: 'Deum et proximum/In publico/[Me
publico]/Reum valde me iudico'; WI,notwithstanding a slight lexical shift, divides the lines into
six phrases: 'Deum/et proximum/In publico/Reum/Me [sic] valde/iudico'; Ma gives a third
version in three phrases: 'Deum et proximum in publico/ [Me publico]/Reum valde me iudico.'
149
AND RECOMPOSITION
RECEPTION
Example 2.
'iudico'.
De
um
et
- xi-mum
In
pub
pro - xi-mum
In
pub
iu
pro
li - co
Metz
De
um
et
- co
-li
Me pub
[Me
pub
- li-
co
Re-uum
val-
co]
Reum
val
de
-de
me
meiu
di
di
co
co
150
MARK
EVERIST
Example 3.
A
'I
Ma
Ma
tri
Ihe - su
cum ce
te - ris
Ce - les - tis
tri
Ihe- su
cum ce
te - ris
Ce - les
tis
ii
au
le ci
-
vi-bus
le ci - vi-bus
au
-
Pi
is
im
Pi
is
-
ret
plo
-
im
plo
-
pre-ci-bus
ret
pre-ci-bus
in Metz simply mirrors the rhythmic structure of the two lower parts.
Three phrases in the Fversion are elided into two in the Metz version.
The transformation of the declamation - as already noted in Example
2 - is again not entirely consistent. In some cases, the Metz version
exhibits a rate of declamation that is analogous either to extensiomodi
or to mode V, in contrast to the prevailing first-mode declamation.43
43 The commentary here is focused on the declamation of the words however the rhythmic
foreground might be described; in other words, there exist two modal layers in play: that of the
rhythmic foreground and that on the level of the declamation of the poetry.
AND RECOMPOSITION
RECEPTION
151
There are two important points: the first syllables of the words 'Matri'
and 'piis'. The composer in each case was aiming to extend the phrase.
In the case of the music for 'Matri' he placed a longaperfectawhere the
rhythmic ordowould have dictated a longa imperfecta,and in the case of
the music for 'piis' he placed two longaeperfectaewhere one might have
expected a longa imperfectafollowed by a brevis.Although each of the
extensions occurs at the beginning of a line of the poetry, and therefore at the beginning of a phrase in the Foriginal, the Metz composer
has given an inconsistency to these two phrases: one is lengthened by
one longaperfecta,the other by twice that value. This is more evidence
of the idiosyncratic nature of the revising process of the Metz composer. It might be suggested that the lengthening of the first syllable of
'Matri' is the result of the presence of the ternariain the duplumof the
two-part original, but this is only one of many instances of such a configuration where the others are assimilated, in Metz, into more regular
modal patterns. In the second instance, at 'piis', the unequivocal ligature sine proprietateet cumperfectionewhich results in two longaeis built
out of a double plicated note in earlier sources. This time, there is a
similar instance in the Metz transmisson of Ego reus confiteor.Such
slavish replication of notational shapes from one type of notation to
another is visible in an examination, for example, of the ways in which
plainsong notational shapes (which result in an imprecise rhythm)
recur in the fully measured tenors of organum,clausulaeand thirteenthcentury motets.
The Metz version of Ego reus confiteorboth compresses and extends
the rhythmic structure of the original state of the composition: it compresses the phraseological structure by the elimination of phrase
endings and extends the modal declamation of the poetry. The effect
of this procedure is to loosen up the regularly repeating modal ordines
that would have arisen from the purely mechanical imposition of
modal rhythm on the unmeasured notation of the original. Exactly why
the Metz composer might have wanted to do this is a question to be
addressed at the end of this article.
Taking a two- or three-part conductusthat uses a modal notation for
its cauda sine litteraand an unmeasured notation that might be interpreted in a wide range of manners for its cumlitterasections - and modifying the latter - is not unknown. Examples of a similar procedure are
found in the sets of fragments now preserved in Heidelberg, in a few
pieces preserved in the Las Huelgas manuscript, and in the monophonic transmissions of conductiin the notated copy of the Roman de
Fauvel.44Broadly speaking, the versions in these sources take the
unmeasured notation of cumlitterasections and impose a more modern
modal notation
152
MARK
EVERIST
153
Example 4.
vereor'.
Ar
Op
'I
A
II
Ly V-
I'
Sp-e
A
-
I\p
pete'
Ad
O
e neor
- -
-dic
tus
O
t
__
ye
_
re-oo
I-
away from those of the other manuscripts in two ways: first, the Metz
editor prefers a single modal interpretation of his original material,
usually in mode I and usually treated flexibly, as is clear from Examples
1-3; second, he mixes those modal interpretations with Anderson's
'longa-syllabic'treatment promiscuously within a single work, in a way
almost unknown to the musicians at work in the other sources discussed
above. Example 4 gives an extract from Ego reusconfiteorwherethese two
policies are brought into close juxtaposition. The words 'Addictus pene
154
MARK
EVERIST
the end of the century, there must have been substantial experimentation with unmeasured notation.49 Some of this has survived from later
in the century as fully worked-out notational revisions. Although this
evidence has been used - until very recently - for the purpose of claiming that the delivery of the unmeasured cum litterasections of conducti
was modal,50 it is instructive to refocus this question and to ask what
the composers of these versions thought they were doing when they
reworked these compositions. It is as part of the answer to this question
that the Metz fragment provides significant new evidence.
When a composer invoked modal rhythm in the context of music
cum litterahe was doing more than simply exploring a way of organizing musical time that had been available since the beginning of the
century: he was examining concepts of notation and rhythm that
brought the conductusinto closer alignment with the motet. By the last
quarter of the thirteenth century, although the conductuswas still alive
as a performing tradition, its currency as a product of composition was
over. In contrast, not only was the motet a vibrant cultural force but, if
the number and quality of the sources are to be believed, it was the
single most prestigious musical genre in thirteenth-century France. It
assumed the musical primacy that organumduplumand the conductus
itself had achieved a century before.
Modal notation and the modal organization of rhythm had been
known - depending
49 This comes close to the view expressed by Edward Roesner that 'by the time of the earliest
surviving Notre Dame sources, towards the end of the first half of the thirteenth century, all parts
of the Parisian repertory were viewed as "modal"by cantoresand theorists alike. But these sources
are a half century and more younger than the early stages of the repertory they transmit' ('The
Emergence of Musica mensurabilis',43). This view may be too extreme, and a more cautious (and
demonstrable) view might be that after the copying of the earliest Notre Dame sources musicians
began experimenting with modal interpretations of unmeasured notation found in those sources.
50 Anderson ('The Rhythm of Cum litteraSections', 293) is typical of this procedure. On the
sole basis that there are uncomplicated melodic correspondences between the conductiin the
Heidelberg fragment and other Notre Dame sources, Anderson turns a leap of faith into 'the
following conclusion [that] seems inescapable: the mensural transmissions in Heid may be used
to give exact rhythms cumlitterafor at least these six pieces [in their "originalversions"]'. Sanders's
devastating critique of the imposition of modal rhythm onto the cum littera sections rejects
Anderson's view: 'Moreover, the versions of Notre Dame conducti in ... mensural sources ...
must be viewed with at least the same degree of caution regarding their reliability as, for instance,
Clavier.In fact, no mensurally notated source of a Notre
Czerny's version of The Well-Tempered
Dame conductus can be automatically regarded as dependable evidence for its original rhythms'
(Sanders, 'Conductus and Modal Rhythm', 454).
AND RECOMPOSITION
RECEPTION
155
156
MARK
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AND RECOMPOSITION
RECEPTION
157
in two voices; the version in F was then copied in more or less the same
format, while others were pared down to monodies. Exactly how the
other surviving sources related to this lost archetype remains an open
question.61
The appearance of two-part conducti stripped down either to
monodies or to texts alone varies. In some cases, the text alone is embedded in a collection of Latin lyrics where it is the only one of its type. In
others, substantial numbers of conductustexts appear in such collections
(Oxford, Bodleian Library, Additional A 44 and Rawlinson C 510, for
example). Or again, monodies may appear among collections dedicated
to other genres or sub-types:Engelberg, Stiftsbibliothek, 102 and 314,62
and Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4660 are good examples.63Again, the medieval editors of those sources that reduced twopart conductito texts or to monodies each took a different view on how
the task should be undertaken. Although, when two-part works were
reduced to monodies, the single parts are always the lower of the two
polyphonic voices, there are radically different policies with regard to
the editing, presentation and composition of the poetry." To find a conductuswhere it can be reasonably certain that a composer is adding
voice-parts to a two-voice original many decades after its composition is
rare indeed.65 To find that this applies to two or perhaps even three
compositions out of four in a single source demands that this procedure
be treated with some degree of importance.
61 Other works that share
similarly wide concordance bases with sources in which they are
preserved as monodies or texts are Beate virginis (Anderson H15; Falck no. 43); Austro terris
influente(Anderson Gi; Falck no. 26); and Fraudececa (Anderson G4; Falck no. 133).
62 See Engelberg
Codex314, ed. Wulf Arlt and Mathias Stauffacher, Schweizerische
Stiftsbibliothek
Musikdenkmdler, 11 (Winterthur, 1986).
63 Rudolf Flotzinger, 'Reduzierte Notre-Dame-Conductus im sogennanten Codex Buranus?',
Muzikologkizbornik,17 (1981), 97-103.
64 In some instances (in the manuscripts Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4660, and
Stuttgart, Landesbibliothek, HB I Asc. 95, for example), it is difficult to identify which of the voices
is preserved, or even whether the monody belonged to the original polyphonic setting at all. In
the case of Beate virginis (H15), the monodies that survive preserve two different melodies not
found in the polyphonic version (see Anderson, Notre-DameConductus,iii, 213).
65 There are two further examples that deserve mention in this context. The Deus in adiutorium
found in Montpellier, Bibliotheque Interuniversitaire, Section de M6decine, H 196, f. 350, Turin,
Biblioteca Reale, vari 42, f. Dv, and Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale, 19606, face, is in three parts in
all sources except the Brussels rotulus,where a fourth part has been added; see Ursula Gfinther,
'Les versions polyphoniques du Deus in adiutorium', Cahiersde civilisation midiivale, 31 (1988),
111-22. Given that all the sources for the three-part form of the composition date from c.1300,
and that the addition dates from later in the fourteenth century, comparisons with the Metz
fragments (made when this article was delivered orally) are strained from a chronological point
of view, and are possibly motivated by a mistaken belief that the absence of a Gregorian tenor
means that the piece must be a conductus-'il s'agit d'un vrai conduit sans cantusfirmus au tenor'
(ibid., 118). Gfinther's reference to 'vrai conduit' is intended to distinguish this composition from
the work setting the same text that opens fascicle 1 in the Montpellier manuscript (f. 1, wrongly
called the beginning of the old corpus by Gfinther (ibid., 111); the old corpus begins on f. 23, as
Rokseth pointed out 60 years ago (Polyphoniesdu treiziemesmicle,4 vols., Paris, 1935-9, iv, passim,
cited throughout by Gfinther)). Much more germane are a pair of readings of the conductusMater
patris etfilia preserved in two parts in Ma, ff. 117v-118, and in three parts in Hu, ff. 147-150. It
seems reasonable to assume that the Hu version represents both a modalization of the Ma model,
and that it adds a third part to the two-part original. What sets it apart from the other sources
discussed in this article is that both sources are Iberian, raising the possibility that this is an exclusively Spanish tradition that should be considered alongside the Metz tradition, and not subsumed
into it. I am grateful to Rebecca Baltzer for drawing this pair of concordances to my attention.
158
MARK
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The effect of the musical changes wrought on the conductiin the Metz
fragment, especially the translation of the music cum litterainto modal
notation and the concomitant relaxing of that modal treatment, is to
smooth over the distinctions between music cum litteraand sine littera.
The presentation of the text still remains different in the two sections:
cum litterasections still declaim the bulk of the text while the sine littera
sections present melismas over single syllables; as the unmeasured notation of the original cum litterasection is replaced with a mensural notation that flexibly projects modal rhythms, the discursive modes
approach one another more closely, and one of the clearest defining
characteristics of the conductus,its 'mixed' form, begins to blur.66
Many of the musical changes carried out on the conductiin the Metz
fragment exemplify a move towards those processes that are more normally associated with other genres around 1300, especially the motet.
The addition of voice-parts to a polyphonic texture - not a characteristic of the conductus- had been a fundamental part of the history of
the motet since its origins, and would remain so for much of its existence.67 When the Metz composer added triplato Sursumcordaand Ego
reusconfiteor,he was acting much as had composers of motets throughout the thirteenth century. Trying to associate the conductuswith the
motet, again, was an attempt to give a currency to a genre whose tradition of composition had ended but of which the music was still
deemed worthy of cultivation.
The versions of conductiin the Metz fragments point to a sort of
generic overlapping of the motet and conductusbetween about 1280
and 1320. To evoke such an idea is to elicit all sorts of resonances from
other repertories. Three immediately spring to mind: the presentation
of Notre Dame organumin Franconian notation, the trouvere chansons
in Paris, Biblioth6que Nationale, fonds fran<ais 846, and the output of
Adam de la Halle. In two of the three cases, music from before 1230 is
66 It needs to be stressed that the degree to which the mixed nature of the conductusform is
blurred in the reworkings around 1300 depends on the attitude taken to the notational profile
of the original. Those who adhere to a rigidly modal interpretation of the cum litteranotation of
Fwill see relatively little blurring of this sort (the nature of the genre has already been blurred);
conversely, those who propose a rigid isochronous or isosyllabic performance will see a very high
degree of blurring. It therefore stands to reason that those who favour a flexible isochronous or
isosyllabic performance will stand somewhere between these two positions.
67 This regular and unchallenged assumption, articulated first by Wilhelm Meyer, 'Der
Ursprung des Motetts: Vorliufige Bemerkungen', Nachrichtenvon der k6niglichenGesellschaftder
Wissenschaftenzu Glittingen:Philologisch-historische
Klasse, 1898, 4 vols. paginated consecutively
Abhandlungenzur mittellateinischen
Rhythmik,3
(G6ttingen, 1898), ii, 113-45; repr. in Gesammelte
vols. (Berlin, 1905-36; repr. Hildesheim, 1970), ii, 303-41, and most recently in my FrenchMotets
in the ThirteenthCentury:Music, Poetryand Genre,Cambridge Studies in Medieval and Renaissance
Music (Cambridge, 1994), has resisted such challenges as those mounted on the grounds of a
spurious historiography of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and a misunderstanding of the
refrainin Wolf Frobenius, 'Zum genetischen Verhailtniszwischen Notre-Dame-Klauseln und ihren
Motetten', Archivfiir Musikwissenchaft,44 (1987), 1-39.
AND RECOMPOSITION
RECEPTION
159
reinterpreted much later in the thirteenth century in a radically different style of notation, one that, by then, characterized the motet.68
The redactions of Notre Dame organumin the first fascicle of the
Montpellier Codex and the Copenhagen fragment undertake slightly
different tasks, but both share the same impulse as the versions of conducti in the Metz fragment. In the first fascicle of the Montpellier
Codex, three-part music - that was originally fully measured in modal
notation - is carefully rewritten and its notation updated to reflect
theoretical preoccupations with ligature shapes around 1270; the
rhythms of the music are not really changed. More important for the
current study is the attitude taken by the musician whose editorial work
is found in the Copenhagen fragment.69 Here, exactly as in the case of
the Metz fragments, the organumper se, which was originally presented
in an unmeasured notation, is now recast in longaeand breves.The free
rhapsodic lines that characterized this music around 1200 have, by
1300, taken on a rhythmic cast that again begins to approach that of
the motet. As has already been observed in the Metz conducti,organum
begins to lose its profile as a mixed form.
The chansons in Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, fonds fran;ais 846
are, in many respects, no different from those found in all other trouvere chansonniers. However, they are different in three important
respects, all of which point to an alignment with the motet and the
types of book in which it is found. The songs are all preserved in the
Paris manuscript in a notation that distinguishes between longae and
this notation has created severe problems for those who have
breves;,
chosen to try to view this manuscript as evidence for the original
interpretation of trouvere song in modal rhythm. The notation often
makes little sense in modal terms since, although the alternations of
longaeand brevesgive a sense of measured organization, they are frequently haphazard or confused. The change in notation can equally
well be viewed as a cosmetic attempt to make the music look like upto-date measured polyphony. This accords with the fact that the compositions are not organized according to author (as is the case with
almost every other trouvere source) but are arranged alphabetically,
and that the size of the volume (smaller than most other trouvere
books) aligns this source with those for the motet.70
160
MARK
EVERIST
APPENDIX1
TWO PART CONDUCTIIN F REDUCED TO TEXTS
Bern, Bfirgerbibliothek,211
Boulogne-sur-mer,BibliothequeMunicipale,
107 (98)
Cambrai,M diatheque Municipale,764 (860)
Cambridge,CorpusChristiCollege, 468
Cambridge,UniversityLibrary,Ff VI 14
71
Portasalutis(12)
Beatevirginis(H15)
Portasalutis(I2)
Omnipenecurie(134)
Avemarisstella(J53)
See idem,'The Polyphonic Rondeauc.1300', 59, and the sources cited in note 2 above.
161
Omnipene curie (134)
Fraudececa (G4)
Nove geniture (113); Sol
sub nube (116); Veni
creatorspiritus (J41)
Porta salutis (12)
Sol sub nube (116)
Sol sub nube (116); Dum
sigillum (J24)
Ave nobilis (J46)
Venicreatorspiritus (J41)
Deduc Syon (G8); Nulli
beneficium(H7)
Nulli beneficium(H7); In
rosa vernat (H9); Sol sub
nube (116); Virtusmoritur
(J12); Heu! Quo progreditur (J26); Verpacis aperit
(J32)
Porta salutis (12)
Gratuleturpopulus (H6);
Verivitis (H14); Puernobis
est natus (H25); O qui
fontem gratie (H28); Si
deus est animus (H32);
Regnum dei vim patitur
(H33); Porta salutis (12);
Artium dignitas (14); Ut
non ponam (I5); Reditetas
aurea (18); Debet se circumspicere(110); In occasu
sideris (Ill); Cum animadverterem (112); Ex
creata non creatus (114);
Pange melos (115); De
nature (118); Omni pene
curie (134); Heu! Quoprogreditur (J26); O varium
fortune (J27); Venerisprosperis (J28); Non habes
aditum (J29)
Porta salutis (12)
Centrum capit circulus
(J38)
Porta salutis (12)
Porta salutis (12); Omni
pene curie (134)
Porta salutis (12)
Sol sub nube (116)
Beatevirginis (H15)
Porta salutis (12)
162
MARKEVERIST
Beatevirginis (H1115)
Fraudececa (G4)
Novegeniture(113)
Ave nobilis (J46)
Austroterris(G1)
Beatevirginis (H15)
Beatevirginis (H1115)
Beatevirginis (H1115)
Ave nobilis (J46)
Beatevirginis (H15)
0 varium fortune (J27);
Vite perdite (J35); Ave
nobilis (J46)
Novegeniture(113)
Ave nobilis (J46)
Nulli beneficium (H7);
Redit etas aurea (18);
Omni pene curie (134);
Virtusmoritur(J12); Heu!
Quo progreditur(J26); O
varium fortune (J27);
Clavuspungens (J39)
Hac in die gedeonis(H126)
Austro terris (Gi); Fraude
ceca desolata (G4); Quod
promisitab eterno(G6)
163
ABSTRACT
A membrane fragment in the Bibliotheque da la Ville de Metz (reserve precieux, MS 732bis/20) contains parts of four works (Premiidilatio,Ego reus confiteor, Sursumcordaand one as yet unidentified composition), of which three
are known from the Florence manuscript (Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana,
MS Pluteo 29.1). The notation, decoration and handwriting of the fragment
suggest that the manuscript from which they were taken dates from c.1300.
The notation of the fragment clearly distinguishes between longaeand breves
in passages cum littera;in sine litterasections, the graphic presentation of ligatures reveals attempts to reflect changing concepts of notational precision
from the last quarter of the thirteenth century. The Metz fragment is therefore analogous with other late thirteenth-century redactions of conducti.
Although all four compositions in the Metz fragment are in three parts, concordances for two of the works from earlier thirteenth-century sources are in
two parts only. While normal practice in the late thirteenth-century transmission of the conductuswas to strip awayvoices, the versions of Ego reus confiSursumcordain the Metz fragment added a new third part to a two-part
teornand
original. Such a practice was more typical of the motet repertory, and in this
as well as its use of mensural notation the Metz fragment shows how the conductuswas beginning to approach the compositional priorities of the motet
c.1300.