Current Musicology 2011-12

Paper: Music, love, sex, birds and a cardinal

Geert Jan Kroon 3426475

Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................... 2
The approach of Elizabeth Eva Leach ............................................................................ 3
Motets, love, sex, birds and a cardinal ......................................................................... 10
The sexual and devotional nightingale ......................................................................... 13
Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 16
Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 17

Introduction
The goal of this paper is to provide an overview of the current state of medieval
musicology. My interests lie with the work of Elizabeth Eva Leach and therefore I will be
focusing on two of her publications, one about birds in medieval song1 and the other about
Leachs feminization of the semitone.2 In my opinion it is not very satisfactory to only look
at the current state of medieval musicology by looking at other scholars, but also at their
relation to my own work. In my view my research is also part of current musicology. I also
believe that every assignment should fuel my own interests and research. For these reasons I
will incorporate my own research as part of this assignment.
I like Leachs approach of embedding her work in medieval thinking and interpreting
it with concepts like gender or birds. After she establishes a theory she starts to analyse music
with it. However, she also uses musical examples to redefine and improve these theories. I
like to think that this is the hermeneutic circle at work. This paper explores this approach and
asks the question if Leachs work is useful for my own research.
First I will introduce Elizabeth Eva Leach and her book Sung Birds and article
Gendering the semitone, Sexing the Leading tone. According to me these publications are
two good examples of her work. Following, I will briefly introduce my own research and
some new hypotheses I have. Finally, I will focus on the concept of the nightingale developed
by Leach in Sung Birds and try to apply this to the triplum of Mo-M312 (The motet Au tans
nouvel que naissent flour/Chele ma tollu ma joie/Jai fait tout nouveletement from the eight
fascicle of the Montpellier Codex3).

Elizabeth Eva Leach, Sung Birds : Music, Nature, and Poetry in the Later Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2007).
2
Elizabeth Eva Leach, "Gendering the Semitone, Sexing the Leading Tone: Fourteenth-Century Music Theory
and the Directed Progression," Music Theory Spectrum 28, no. 1 (2006), 1-21.
3
Mo f. 359, VIII, 312.

The approach of Elizabeth Eva Leach

Leach is Professor of Music at the University of Oxford. She describes herself as
music theorist and musicologist, with wide-ranging interests in everything from the minutiae
of musical structures and manuscripts to the broadest cultural, historical, and philosophical
contexts for music.4 Her main focus is on music and poetry of the fourteenth century.
The following publications are taken from a long list produced by Leach. I am going to
use the top two publications and the last is a recent book by Leach about Machaut.
-

Elizabeth Eva Leach, Sung Birds: Music, Nature, and Poetry in the Later Middle
Ages. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007).

Elizabeth Eva Leach, Gendering the Semitone, Sexing the Leading Tone: FourteenthCentury Music Theory and the Directed Progression, Music Theory Spectrum 28
(2006): 1-21.

Elizabeth Eva Leach, Guillaume de Machaut: Secretary, Poet, Musician (Ithaca:

Cornell University Press, 2011).

Leach describes on her website that Sung Birds deals with the ontology and ethics of musical
sound through the lens of the earliest composed pieces that imitate birdsong.5 The chapter on
sirens in Sung Birds led to the article Gendering the semitone, which won the Outstanding
Publication Award of the Society for Music Theory 2007 and started a heavy debate with
Sarah Fuller, which I will discuss later.
In her latest book on Machaut Leach tries to combine several aspects of Machaut. The
dismembered Machaut, who is sometimes a secretary, sometimes a poet, and sometimes a
musician, is put back together by Leach to make a total Machaut. Although, we could ask
4
5

Elizabeth Eva Leach, "About Me," http://eeleach.wordpress.com/about-me/ (accessed october, 24, 2011).
Ibid.

ourselves if a separation between the poet and musician is even legitimized. In addition to the
two publications discussed here I would recommend this book as a fine example of current
work in the field of medieval musicology. However my interest lies not in Machaut, therefore
I will not discuss it.
What strikes me is that Leachs work is a combination of music and medieval
thinking, writing and theory. She interprets the work medieval thinkers and theorists to show
how medieval thinking was formed and the impact it had on music. I my view her approach is
one of trying to construct a framework in which we can try to understand music as people
from medieval times would have understood it. However after an encounter with LeechWilkinson6, I should ask myself if this approach is in any way a better approach than any
other. Actually, I can only say that her approach is very useful for me and that is the only
argument I need.

Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, The Modern Invention of Medieval Music: Scholarship, Ideology, Performance (New
York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

SEXING TONES AND SINGING BIRDS

Sung Birds is the first publication I will examine. I will focus on the first chapter of
this book, because this is the part where she forms her theory. I will also discuss one example
where she looks at a virelai. Following I will discuss Gendering the Semitone by looking at
the discussion it sparked between Leach and Sarah Fuller.
Sung Birds
The first sentence of Leachs book is: Is birdsong music? The second sentence is the
answer: no. Through the perspective of birds and how they were performed in music Leach
tries to show what music was in the Middle Ages.
Following, Leach explains the medieval conception of music as a rational thing, which
is totally different from our current view of music as emotional or aesthetic. Of course I could
argue that the production of current music could be seen as a rational act, but listening is
mostly not. Even if listening could be seen as a rational act, Leach shows that in the Middle
Ages sound is only music when it is both produced and received by an intellectually engaged
rational animal7. In this context the beautiful sound of a bird is never music, because a bird is
not a rational being. Leach illustrates this with an example from Augustines De Musica, were
Augustine shows that a nightingale does not understand the liberal art of music8, thus
making it incapable of producing music.
In the first chapter Leach claims that musica the medieval concept is actually
broader than our definition of music. She tries to prove this by looking at music treatises and
asserts that music is in fact much more then sounding music in performance, because there are
also political, ethical and mathematical discourses that should be considered. As an example
7
8

Leach, Sung Birds : Music, Nature, and Poetry in the Later Middle Ages
Ibid.

Leach uses Boethius using his De institutione musica who divides music into three
species: musica mundane, musica humana and musica instrumentalis. Only the latter is
something we would define as music, but when Boethius gives his extended discussion about
musica instrumentalis he writes about harmonics. Or, to quote Leach, this study of
harmonics is a study of musica instrumentalis9.
The Boethius example is, for me, a good argument for thinking about music through a
medieval conception of music, because Leach clearly shows that ratio, mathematics and
number are certainly a bigger part of music in the Middle Ages than they are now. Leach also
states that it is self-evident (or axiomatic) that theoretical writings that consider music are
part of a spectrum of information about the cultural status of music of this period.10 I think in
this quote she explains and justifies her way of working.
Chapter one continues with examples of how grammar and music are linked and how
vox (voice) has been theorized and divided. In essence Leach gives an overview of how music
was perceived as a rational thing in the Middle Ages and illustrates this with examples of
theoretical writings. To me this chapter is the most useful part of the book for medieval
musicologists. Leach explains and justifies her approach and gives a clear example of how the
conception of music in the Middle Ages influences her work. However, in the second chapter
Leach is comparing birdsong and human singing and her exposition about the nightingale is
very useful to my own research and I will explain this later.
All the above mentioned parts of the book do not relate to musical examples.
However, in her third chapter Birds Sung Leach interprets several medieval songs with
birdsong as a feature. Senlechess En ce gracieux is a virelai that is used as an example. A
narrator imitates a nightingale and a cuckoo in this song. The fact that the imitation of the
9

Ibid.
Ibid., 14

10

nightingale has displacement syncopations11 and a downward melodic sequence leads

Leach to believe that the narrator and in her view also the author finds the singing of the
nightingale pleasing in opposition to the monotonous song of the cuckoo, which is
represented by a simple repetition. With the medieval discourse around nightingales and
cuckoos in mind Leach interprets text, melody, rhythm, counterpoint and other aspects of
music in detail to explain what is happening. This kind of analysis a very narrow one and
based in medieval thinking yields the most interesting results, according to me, although it
is never based on solid evidence. In the end every interpretation Leach makes could be wrong.
Gendering the semitone
I will be showing Leachs methodology in Gendering the Semitone, Sexing the
Leading Tone and its shortcomings by looking at the reaction to this article by Sarah Fuller,
Leachs reaction to Fuller, and the much shorter letter by Fuller in the music theory spectrum
volume 33 (Fall) from 2011.
Leachs method in Gendering the Semitone is one of interpreting medieval texts
about music using the concept of gender. Sarah Fuller presented some strong reactions to this
article in an article of her own.12 She shows that Leachs claim that the semitone is gendered
feminine is based on a small number of music treatises within a larger body of treatises. Fuller
asserts that the fact that most treatises do not use the exemplum of the men of Phrygia or other
feminine examples does not make the idea that the semitone could be gendered as feminine
commonplace.13 In my view Fuller has a point: maybe the feminine semitone was not
commonplace in the Middle Ages. However, the absence of a gendered context does not make

11

Ibid., 125-7
Sarah Fuller, "Concerning Gendered Discourse in Medieval Music Theory: Was the Semitone 'Gendered
Feminine?'," Music Theory Spectrum 33, no. 1 (2011), 65-89.
13
Ibid., 68
12

it untrue either. Leach reacts by stating that she is interpreting the, indeed commonplace,
notion of the semitone as imperfect as feminine.14 A rather small, but crucial difference.
The second argument against the feminization of the semitone by Fuller is asserting
that several theorists have described the use of semitone as positive, sweet and beautiful and
therefore the negative connotation of feminine is out of the question.15 According to me this is
a really bad argument, because Leach never claims that feminine is a negative category. A
directed progression, with its semitones, is interpreted as feminine, desiring or sensual by
Leach, but to me these categories are not negative. Fullers claim that when Marchetto of
Padua speaks of elegance and beauty when a lightly inflected imperfect consonance
approaches a subsequent consonance by the smallest possible distance16 a directed
progression poses a challenge to Leachs interpretation, holds no grounds for me. Leach
asserts that Fullers citations on this point serve to strengthen the reading of the semitone as
feminine, since the positive characteristics are all those that are part and parcel of feminine
gendering in the Middle Ages. Women are beautiful, colored, about surface, necessary,
imperfect.17 It seems Fullers attack is towards an anachronistic use of gender by Leach
(gender is part of our current mind set), but in her attack she is using her own mind set
feminine is negative in an anachronistic manner.
Another point made by Fuller in her latest letter is: Progressions from imperfect to
perfect consonance are commonplace in both sacred and secular music of that [the fourteenth]
century and occur in a variety of textual contexts in which an erotic signification would be

14

Elizabeth Eva Leach, "Reading and Theorizing Medieval Music Theory: Interpretation and its Contexts,"
Music Theory Spectrum 33, no. 1 (2011), 90.
15
Fuller, Concerning Gendered Discourse in Medieval Music Theory: Was the Semitone "Gendered Feminine?",
76-7
16
Ibid., 77
17
Leach, Reading and Theorizing Medieval Music Theory: Interpretation and its Contexts, 93

unlikely or inappropriate.18 Here Fuller claims that an erotic signification in a religious

context would be out of the question in the Middle Ages. To me this is also an anachronism.
The fact that church and sexual context do not mix in our time, does not mean it did in the
Middle Ages. If anything is clear about the Middle Ages it is that most symbols are
ambiguous. The symbol of desire (directed progression) can also be interpreted in a
devotional way as the desire for God. In my view Leach is open to this ambiguity, but Fuller
is not.
What I can learn from this rather broad discussion between Leach and Fuller, besides
the fact that this debate is fiercely fought, is firstly that as a scholar you should always be
clear that you are making an interpretation. Secondly, an interpretation should not be
generalised. Leach uses a small amount of sources to make a point about medieval music in
general, which is, in my and Fullers view, wrong. However, using this concept of the
semitone as feminine in musical analysis delivers fruitful results. It is this usefulness of
Leachs research that makes it valuable for me. Finally, it becomes clear that scholars should
never dismiss interpretations on the basis of their own beliefs. Falsification should be based
on the context in which a theory is formed.

18

Sarah Fuller, "To the Editor: A Brief Response to Elizabeth Eva Leach's 'Reading and Theorizing Medieval
Music Theory: Interpretation and its Contexts'," Music Theory Spectrum 33, no. 2 (2011), 231.

Motets, love, sex, birds and a cardinal

After an analysis of the motet La mesnie fauveline/Jai fait tout nouveletement/Grant
despit from the Roman de Fauvel I continued my research with an analysis of a motet from
the Montpellier Codex, Au tans nouvel temps/Chele ma tollu/Jai fait tout nouveletement (MoM312), textually connected to the Fauvel motet. The triplum of the latter motet is about two
nightingales. Therefore I would like to look at the triplum and use some of Leachs ideas to
make some new interpretations.
NIGHTINGALES IN MY WORK
The triplum of Mo-M312 tells the story of how the writer/singer saw two nightingales.
The male bird wants to make love, but the female bird wants none of it. The female bird says
that word goes round that he will let off singing (let off as in leave off or he will sing.
The French supports the latter). The male bird is offended and says that he only will sing
more gaily, but when they have children he will leave of singing and in silence cry.19 This can
be interpreted as the still current discussion between young people, who want to make
love but are afraid of the consequences.20

19

Here I deviated from the translation that I found in Tischler, The Montpellier Codex 4, 106-7. The translation I
found is I leave off singing and whistling henceforth, cry. Upon examining the French I came up with the
translation I leave off singing and henceforth, whistling (in silence) cry.
20
Singing is interpreted as ejaculation, as it does in the Dutch expression: to leave church before singing,
which is a metaphor for Coitus interruptus.

10

1 Au tans nouvel, que naissent flours,

2 Quamant ont les cuers eslevs
3 Du dous tans de leurs amours,
4 Lors que petit paroit li jours
5 Me sui par un matin levs;
6 Si entrai en un bosquet
7 Et vi le roussignolet
8 Et da femelete
9 Seur une brancete,
10 Ls ls;
11 Il voloit jor de li,
12 Et ele de selete Le feri
13 Et li dist: Fuis!
14 Vo chant en lairis,
15 Ce dist on communement.
16 Il respondi simplement,
17 Comme cremans et blescis:
18 Bele, que nus en die,
19 La verit ne set mie,
20 Qui ensie lentent,
21 Ains en chant plus gaiement;
22 Mais vraiement,
23 Loes quavons oiselons,
24 Lai mes chansons,
25 Et puis en avant,
26 En siflant plour.
27 Cantent gent
28 Tout amant
29 Qui aiment leur honour.

In springtime, when the flowers sprout

and lovers are light hearted
from the mild clime
and their loves,
then one day at dawn I arose;
I went out into the woods
and saw the nightingale
and his mate
on a branche,
side by side;
he wanted to make love to her,
but she hit him with het winglet
and said: Get away!
Everyone says that
you will let off singing.
He answered straightforwardly,
as one fearful and hurt:
Fair one, whatever anyone may say,
truth is not to be found
in statements such as these;
rather will I sing more gaily.
But truly,
as soon as we have little birds,
I leave off singing
and henceforth,
in whistling(silence) cry.
All lovers
who value their honour
sing nobly.

Table 1Text of the triplum of Mo-M312

HYPOTHESES
A question always in the back of my mind was: how did the
author(s)/composer(s)/poet(s) of the Fauvel motet know about the tenor of Mo-M312?21
Maybe they did not know it at all through this source or maybe they had access to the
manuscript? In a footnote I found a lead towards the owner or sponsor of the Montpellier
Codex:

21

The possibility of it being a refrain is not considered here, but that could also be a viable option.

11

The statement of ownership names 'Johannis Cardinalis dicti Cholet' (quoted in A.

Barzon, Codici miniati, Biblioteca capitolare della Cattedrale di Padova (Padua, 1950), p. 13).
S. J. P. Van Dijk and J. H. Walker (The Origins of the Modern Roman Liturgy (Westminster,
MD, and London, 1960), p. 404) assume that Cholet had the missal together with a matching
epistolary (Padua, Biblioteca Capitolare, C. 47) and evangeliary (now lost) made for him
while he was a papal legate in France, beginning 1283. Branner (p. 132) also supposes the
books were made for Cholet, but not necessarily while he was cardinal.22
The last source, Branner, asserts that the manuscript was signed by the Cholet group who
worked under order of Cardinal Jean Cholet23. I still have to consult the other sources, but
based on Wolinksys article I am under the impression that the book could have been ordered
by or possessed by Cardinal Jean Cholet.
A preliminary search, with nothing more than Wikipedia, shows that there is a
possible link between Cholet and Charles Valois, because Cholet accompanied Valois in 1285
on a crusade and pronounced him king, which supposedly gave him the nickname king of the
hat. Furthermore, it is said that Cholet left a considerably amount of money to Valois war
chest. Another source states that Cholet was in fact friends with Philip III and Philip IV of
France, the latter being the brother of Valois and the former being his father.24 These possible
connections could mean that the Montpellier Codex and the Roman de Fauvel have been
located in the court of Paris around the same time or the were used in the same circles.
Because of this possible connection to a cardinal I want to take another look at the
Mo-M312 motet and also make a reading with a devotional perspective The fact that the

22

Mary E. Wolinski, "The Compilation of the Montpellier Codex," EMH Early Music History 11 (1992), 276.
Robert Branner, Manuscript Painting in Paris during the Reign of Saint Louis : A Study of Styles (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1977), 132.
24
Salvador Miranda, "The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church," http://www2.fiu.edu/~mirandas/bios1281.htm
(accessed november 3, 2011).
23

12

Montpellier Codex could be made for a religious audience opens up this devotional space for
interpretation, according to me. Even if it was not made for a cardinal another interpretation
can yield new results and insights. I will pursue this by looking at the triplum of the MoM312 and using the nightingale concept by Leach, which can be both explained in a secular
sense and a devotional sense.

The sexual and devotional nightingale

Leach shows in Sung Birds that the nightingale occupies a number of sharply distinct
spaces25. These spaces are a positive secular space and a devotional space. The positive
nightingale or oral nightingale is the bird of love, spring, the poet, his messenger26 and a
conventional representation of youthful sexual desire.27 The nightingale is often
symbolical association with the je of courtly love poet.28 As mentioned earlier the tenor of
Mo-M312 reads: Jai fait tout nouveletement amie. Translated it means I have gained a
new sweetheart quite recently. The I in the tenor can be interpreted as the author29
speaking; i.e. the author has a new flirt. Following Leach, I would like to suggest interpreting
the nightingale in the triplum as a symbol for the author.
In hindsight I, unknowingly, used the positive secular context of the nightingale as
Leach described it. The text clearly directed me towards this sexual interpretation and it is
quite clear that the nightingale in this story is a symbol for this youthful sexual desire.
Furthermore another link to the nightingale as a bird of love and spring is present in the text
au tans nouvel or in English in the new time, meaning in the spring. The extra

25

Leach, Sung Birds : Music, Nature, and Poetry in the Later Middle Ages, 91
Ibid., 91
27
Ibid., 93
28
Ibid., 91
29
With author I always means author/composer/poet.
26

13

dimension that Leach provides with her interpretation of the nightingale gives me new
insights in the nightingales used in this triplum.
In the devotional interpretation the nightingale is often seen as female. It is a positive
bird that wants to die for the desire of God, but the negative devotional nightingale is often
seen as seductive, leading a religious man from the straight path. This nightingale is also often
interpreted as female.
THE DEVOTIONAL NIGHTINGALE IN THE MONTPELLIER CODEX
In addition to my earlier reading of triplum I will try to read it in another context. I
will try to interpret the text with the devotional nightingale in mind. First of all, it is clear that
there are two birds presented in the triplum one female and one male. This fact opens up more
than one possible interpretation.
Leach suggests that the devotional nightingale is mostly female, so I will start with the
female bird. A negative variant is easily spotted in the triplum: the female bird is the seductive
one and the male bird, possibly a cleric I, is seduced. However, it is the female bird that
corrects the male bird and that seems rather strange, because in medieval thinking it should be
the more rational male that should be able to withstand temptation. Trying to interpret the
female bird with the positive context is more difficult and I have not yet found a satisfactory
reading.
Changing my our focus to the male bird I think both a positive and a negative reading
are possible. In the negative sense the male bird is the seduction and the female bird is able to
withstand this temptation. Again this is a rather strange situation, except if the gender roles
are turned around in this example. In the positive sense the male bird is actually a clerical I
that wants to make love, but with true intentions. Love being the love for god. So the bird
14

wants to love god, but for the right reasons. As the male bird says: All lovers (of god) who
value their honour sing nobly. I interpret singing nobly as being a good Christian.
I think that, with this Christian connection in mind, I could say that there is a possible
Christian message carried by this text, namely be a good Christian and not only when it suits
you. However, there seems to be something going on with the gender roles in this triplum.
This ambiguity needs to be further researched to be fully understood. If there is something to
be understood.
To make better interpretations and grasp the message behind this triplum I first have to
be more at home with the Old-French language. For instance, the difference between leave off
and let off could be very crucial to my interpretations. Let of singing, could be seen as coitus
and leave off singing could mean, leave the faith, which opens up a totally new and different
interpretation. Also some more research into the use of nightingales as symbols in poetry
could give more insights.

15

Conclusion
For me Leach sums up her approach towards medieval music when she writes I take
it as axiomatic that theoretical writings that consider music are part of a spectrum of
information about the cultural status of music during this period.30 The medieval writings
about music give information about the cultural status of music in the Middle Ages and
therefore a context for interpreting medieval music. I like Leachs way of working, but it is
not a given that everyone can work in this way. To read medieval theoretical treatises and
understand medieval philosophers I have to invest a lot of time in Latin and get to know a big
amount of manuscripts. With that in mind I am content with using Leachs work for my own
research.
The question is if Leachs research is useful to my own research? Her approach seems
to give good results and the theories and concept she works out are very useable, for me at
least. The things Leach picks up on seem to come back in all types of music of the Middle
Ages. The feminized semitone seems to work when applied to musica ficta and the
interpretation of molle hexachords as soft or feminine and durum hexachords as hard or
masculine also seems to work when applied to music, especially in the Roman de Fauvel. As
we have seen Leachs theory about the nightingale makes for some interesting interpretations
that are not immediately apparent from the triplum itself. In sum I think I can use Leachs
work, but only when critically engaging with it. In my own research the different perspectives
used and produced by Leach give me new insights and open up new paths to pursue as to
better understand a very small part of medieval music.

30

Leach, Sung Birds : Music, Nature, and Poetry in the Later Middle Ages, 14

16

Bibliography
Branner, Robert. Manuscript Painting in Paris during the Reign of Saint Louis : A Study of
Styles. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977.
Fuller, Sarah. "To the Editor: A Brief Response to Elizabeth Eva Leach's 'Reading and
Theorizing Medieval Music Theory: Interpretation and its Contexts'." Music Theory
Spectrum 33, no. 2 (2011): 230-231.
. "Concerning Gendered Discourse in Medieval Music Theory: Was the Semitone
'Gendered Feminine?'." Music Theory Spectrum 33, no. 1 (2011): 65-89.
Leach, Elizabeth Eva. "About Me", accessed October, 24, 2011,
http://eeleach.wordpress.com/about-me/.
. "Gendering the Semitone, Sexing the Leading Tone: Fourteenth-Century Music
Theory and the Directed Progression." Music Theory Spectrum 28, no. 1 (2006): 1-21.
. "Reading and Theorizing Medieval Music Theory: Interpretation and its Contexts."
Music Theory Spectrum 33, no. 1 (2011): 90-98.
. Sung Birds : Music, Nature, and Poetry in the Later Middle Ages. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2007.
Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel. The Modern Invention of Medieval Music : Scholarship, Ideology,
Performance. Cambridge; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Miranda, Salvador. "The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church." , accessed november 3, 2011,
http://www2.fiu.edu/~mirandas/bios1281.htm.
Wolinski, Mary E. "The Compilation of the Montpellier Codex." EMH Early Music History
11, (1992).

17