Reception and Recomposition in the Polyphonic "Conductus cum caudis": The Metz Fragment

Author(s): Mark Everist

Source: Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Vol. 125, No. 2 (2000), pp. 135-163
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Royal Musical Association
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Journalof theRoyalMusicalAssociation,125 (2000)

? RoyalMusicalAssociation

Reception and Recomposition in the

Polyphonic Conductus cum caudis: The
Metz Fragment
MARK EVERIST

of the conductus that seek to explain the entire genre seem

DEFINITIONS

doomed to failure. Twelfth- and thirteenth-century song generally set

stanzas of accentual poetry called rithmi,consisted of anything between
one and four parts, and was not normally based on, nor made reference to, pre-existing musical or literary material.1 The function of the
conductusis the most open of all the questions that surround the genre,
and - with the exception of those that implicitly admit that a single
explanation cannot account for the entire repertory - few proposals
approach a workable definition for the genre as a whole. The most pervasive description of the function of the conductuscentres on the idea
that the work was in some sense associated with processions, and that
its very name, conductus,could be harnessed etymologically in support
of this claim.2 However well received initially, the evidence on which
this view was based has been subjected to vigorous challenge, and it has
been alternatively proposed that the term conductusexplains the origins
of the genre, as music that results from the 'joining together' of
disparate elements, and that it may well have been a contraction of

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

materials related to the hymn and sequence.3 Others have suggested

that the conductusfunctioned as a substitute for the Benedicamusdomino
(certainly plausible for some works),4 while more recently it has been
suggested that ' Conductus,as a genre, is about conduct.'5While the latter
claim certainly holds true for the two works used to exemplify it, both
with texts by Philip the Chancellor, it is difficult to see how this explains
the wider repertory of conducti.6
The conductus cum caudis plays off two clearly marked discursive
modes: music cum littera,where the bulk of the text is declaimed, and
music sine littera,where strictly musical concerns govern the construction of the parts of the work called caudae.7It is possible to view the
interplay of the two discursive modes within the context of other
so-called 'mixed' forms or prosimetrathat characterized much literary
production and reception in the Middle Ages.8 Identification of such

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

contrasting discursive modes not only opens up opportunities for a

more sophisticated typology of the conductus but also permits the
development of an analytical methodology that does justice to the complexity of the individual compositions.
Sources for the conductusare shared with the other principal forms
of twelfth- and thirteenth-century polyphonic music: organum,and - to
a lesser extent - the motet. The large manuscripts of polyphony of this
period, in Wolfenbfittel, Florence and Madrid, all preserve various
parts of the conductusrepertory.9 In addition, a wide range of lesser
sources preserves smaller numbers of compositions; each adds a little
to our knowledge of this superficially transparent, but in fact sophisticated and complex, musical genre.10
The view that the conductuswas superseded by the motet in the
middle of the thirteenth century is now becoming more difficult to

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

sustain.11 Certainly it seems likely that compositional energies were

being redirected into polytextual works based on borrowed tenors by
the middle of the thirteenth century: the latest datable composition
among the surviving conductuscollections suggests a terminuspost quem
of 1236.12This is not to say, however, that the conductushad fallen into
any sort of decline, nor that it was no longer a living tradition. Conducti
were copied in the second half of the thirteenth century and recast in
ways that betray a great deal of how contemporary musicians thought
about questions of notation - and therefore perhaps rhythm, addition
or subtraction of voice-parts and musical structure. The two principal
characteristics of the reworking of the conductustowards 1300 were a
mode of transmission that reduced the work to either a monody or
sometimes just the poetry alone,13 and an interest in imparting a notational precision to those parts of the conductusthat, in the notation of
their earliest sources, remained imprecise.14
The opposition between music cum littera and music sine littera,
central to the structure of the conductuscum caudis, has almost always
been couched in terms of rhythm. Although it has alwaysbeen agreed
that the rhythm of music sine litterawas subject to the control of - or at
least explainable in terms of - rhythmic modes, the rhythm of music
cum litteraremains one of the most hotly contested areas in musicology
of the Middle Ages.15 Sections of conductisine litteraare always notated

" 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

modally, and present a rhythmic profile in keeping with the precepts

of the rhythmic modes; they develop rhythmic patterns using combinations of ligatures cum perfectione et cum proprietate.No single rhythmic

transcription can satisfy all those who dispute the rhythm of the cum
littera sections of the conductus. In this article, cum littera sections are

presented in unstemmed noteheads; this is in the expectation that a

committed modalist will be able to decide which rhythmic mode, or
modification of rhythmic mode, is to be imposed on the original notation, or (alternatively) that each syllable of the text, or note of the
melody, will last more or less the same amount of time.16 Such a mode
of presentation accomplishes two things. It permits the assimilation of
a range of rhythmic ideologies in a way that modal transcriptions of
music cum litterado not. It also allows the presentation of a rhythm
without metre, which is an interpretation of the original notation of
sources close in time to the composition of the music that demands
preservation (for obvious reasons, this excludes the mensurally notated
sources discussed elsewhere in this article, including the one which is
its subject). There are many other potential rhythmic solutions to these
passages. For example, in many instances unmeasured notation (where
longaeand brevesare not distinguished) is inflected by the elongation
of particular pitches. This might be used by committed modalists as evidence that such pitches are in fact longaeor, more plausibly, that within
a broadly isosyllabic delivery elongation of such notes may be read as
an indication that they should be of greater duration, but not simply as
a doubling of length.17 Of all the possibilities for the interpretation of
the notation of cum litterasections in conducti,the one that has received

16 It is erroneous to regard this

style of presentation to be 'no rhythm at all', as claimed by
Wulstan in the second of the two reviews cited in note 14 above; the mistake is to confuse metre
with rhythm. Unstemmed noteheads do not prescribe an unequivocal metrical performance, but
they do permit rhythmical ones. The notes may be interpreted as being of equal duration, in a
binary or ternary relationship to one another, or - and this is what Wulstan seems so unwilling
to comprehend - in a much less rational and less easily quantifiable set of durational relationships that have been espoused by many over a long period of time. For a useful recent summary
of these issues from the perspective of a scholar of troubadour song, see Elizabeth Aubrey, The
Music of the Troubadours(Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1996), 240-54 (the quotation that
Wulstan imputes to p. 236 of this work (Notes,55 (1999), 644) is found on p. 260). Significantly,
almost all the editions and examples in Aubrey's book are notated in exactly the same way as
proposed here for the earliest notated conducti.The only exceptions are late redactions from
around 1300 which are notated mensurally in their original sources (again, exactly the same
treatment as proposed in this article). For a similar view, but one that starts from a very different
set of premisses, see Edward H. Roesner, 'The Emergence of Musica mensurabilis',Studies in
Musical Sourcesand Style:Essaysin Honorof an LaRue,ed. Eugene K. Wolf and Edward H. Roesner
(Madison, WI, 1990), 41-74 (pp. 70-4).
17 Within an isosyllabic context, these notes may be treated as freely as the state of development of the original performer's imagination permitted, or (to read the notation the other way
around) it may be argued that such elongation should be treated as reflections of medieval
performances (admittedly much mediated by a literate codicological tradition), and that that is
the way in which they should be treated today. Accordingly, such elongations are transcribed in
the examples in this article in the same manner as in the ongoing edition of the Magnus liber
organi,with a horizontal stroke above the unstemmed notehead. See, for the latter, Les organa a
deux voixpour la Messe(Noiljusqu 't la fete des Saints Pierreet Paul) du manuscritdeFlorence,Biblioteca
Plut. 29.1, ed. Mark Everist, Le magnus liber organi de Notre-Dame de Paris,
Medicea-Laurenziana,
3 (Monaco, forthcoming), xxviii.

140

MARK
EVERIST

most exposure (the thoroughgoing use of modal rhythm) is the one

that has come under the greatest challenge.
The single complete edition of this music, however, subjects these
passages cum litterato an interpretation which - like the sections sine
littera- depends on the use of the rhythmic modes.18 The problem is
that cumlitterasections are not written in modal notation; the argument
that modal rhythm is applicable to these sections depends on views on
the nature of the delivery of rithmus,19on statements from contemporary theory that are open to alternative interpretations,20 on the
presence of cum litteramusic from one conductusin the sine litteramusic
of another,21 and on the retrospective interpretation of much later
sources that use a type of notation that can project measured
rhythms.22The last of these views is important for the interpretation of
the manuscript that this article describes, since this new source is one
that reinterprets the original notation of the music contained within it
in a strictly modal fashion.23
The fragment Metz, Bibliotheque de la Ville, reserve precieux, MS
732bis/20 is an important new source for the polyphonic conductuscum
caudis. In 1996, Bernard Ravenel published an inventory of binding
fragments containing music in libraries in the Metz region, and MS
732bis/20 was among them. The fragment was exhibited as part of a
colloqueentitled 'L'art du chantre carolingien: D couvrir l'esth tique
premiere du chant gr gorien' at the Arsenal, Metz, in March 1996, and
a brief report on the fragment was published in the house journal of
the Bibliotheque de la Ville de Metz.24The source must have been in

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 from at least as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century,

since it was used as the binding of a register whose title is still legible
on the fragment; it reads 'Registre du grefz de la Chambre/des
Sauvet s commence le/iii may 1607'. The original volume was the
register of the so-called Chambre des Sauvetes that covered the years
1607-9; it is now Metz, Archives Municipales, FF 522, and its dimensions match exactly the folds in the conductusfragment.25The Chambre
des Sauvet s was a committee that dealt with the affairs of minors, the
assignment of tutors and children's education.26 It was abolished when
the Baillage was established in 1634.27All the other surviving registers
in this category, and as many similarly sized Messine documents from
the first 20 years of the seventeenth century as possible, were searched
in a hunt for fragments of the original conductusmanuscript.28 There
was no return on this investigation. The manuscript from which the
conductusfragment was taken may have been broken up and used for
binding in the first decade of the seventeenth century. It is unlikely that
the manuscript, and the music contained in it, would have had any currency around 1600; it may well have been used for binding another
book before then, which would account for the fact that no other parts
of the conductusmanuscript seemed to be circulating in Metz around
1600.
The fragment consists of a bifolium - not the centre of a gathering
- that preserves parts of four three-part conducti.Figures 1 and 2 are
views of the fragment. On the front (Figure 1) may be seen where the
spine of the host manuscript lay, as may the dates 1607, 1608 and 1609
at the top of the spine; also visible is the title of the register, given twice
on the right-hand leaf. The music on the right-hand leaf consists of the
end of a three-part setting of Sursum cordaand the beginning of the
three-part Premii dilatio;both are known from other sources. On the
left-hand leaf is most of the second half of the conductusEgo reus confiteor,it breaks off during the sixteenth line of a 24-line poem. On the
back (Figure 2) may be seen, on the left-hand leaf, the end of Premii
dilatiothat began on the front. On the right-hand leaf is the end of an

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

ca

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

end of Sursumcorda'. .. [pa]-cem'

beginning of Premiidilatioto '... ne recepto ...'
remainderof Premiidilatio
end of unidentified three-part conductus '. .. -veret

time nobilitas'
f. 2
f. 2v

staves 4-12
staves 1-12

beginning of Ego reusconfiteorto '. .. et vereor ...'

continuation of Ego reus confiteorfrom'. .. quod
mereor...' to '... precibus a [filio] ...

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

ed. Jeremy Yudkin, Bloomington, IN, 1990); Anonymous VII

Edition, Translationand Commentary,
(Scriptorumde musicamediiaevi nova series,ed. Coussemaker, i, 378-83); Anonymous IV (DerMusiktraktatdes Anonymus4, ed. Reckow); Franco of Cologne (Franconisde ColoniaArs cantus mensurabilis,ed. Gilbert Reaney and Andre Gilles, Corpus scriptorum de musica, 18, n.p., 1974); and the
Discantuspositio vulgaris (Janet Knapp, 'Two XIII Century Treatises on Modal Rhythm and the
Discant: Discantus positio vulgaris and De musica libellus (Anonymous VII)', Journal of Music
Theory,6 (1962), 201-15).
30 For an examination of the use of rests in musical (as opposed to theoretical) sources in an
essentially Franconian context, see my 'Music and Theory in Late Thirteenth-Century Paris: The
Manuscript Paris, Biblioth6que Nationale, fonds lat. 11266', Royal Musical AssociationResearch
Chronicle,17 (1981), 52-64 (p. 59).
31 The date of the appearance of notational systems differentiating between longaeand breves
in musical rather than theoretical sources appears to coincide with the copying of the corpusancien
of Montpellier, Bibliotheque Interuniversitaire, Section M6decine, H 196. This is, however,
contested territory. See the cautious view in Mark Everist, PolyphonicMusic in Thirteenth-Century
France:Aspectsof Sourcesand Distribution(New York and London, 1989), 110-34; a view contrain
Mary Wolinski, 'The Compilation of the Montpellier Codex', Early Music History, 11 (1992),
263-301; and my response in 'The Polyphonic Rondeau c.1300: Repertory and Context', Early
Music History,15 (1996), 59-96 (p. 89 n. 48).
32 I am grateful to Patricia Stirnemann for giving a reading of the Metz fragments, their decoration and handwriting, on which parts of this paragraph are based (private communication to the
author, 2 July 1998).

146

MARK
EVERIST

original manuscript was somewhere to the east and south-east of Paris,

where square notations might be found.33
Such a date for the Metz fragment is much later than the date of the
composition or most of the copying of the music. The main sources
that preserve this repertory - F, W1,W2and Ma - mostly date from the
period 1230-50;34 at least some of the music contained in those sources
goes back to the closing years of the previous century. It is difficult to
judge when the music in the Metz fragment was composed beyond
retreating behind the terminus ante quem of the earliest surviving
source.35 Nevertheless, it seems clear that if the Metz fragment was
copied c.1300, it contained music nearly a century old.
The versions of the four conductipreserved in the Metz fragment raise
four issues central to the reception of the genre c.1300: (1) the presentation of the cum litterasections in mensural notation; (2) the functioning of the rhythmic modes within these mensural versions; (3) the
addition of a third voice-part or triplumto a two-part original; and (4)
the eliding of discursive modes that characterize the mixed form.
The investigation may begin with an examination of the concordance
base for the conductipreserved in the fragment (see Table 2).36 The
three identifiable pieces are preserved in one or more of the so-called
central sources. Premiidilatio,which is also found in the Jesus College
fragments and the Rawlinson text anthology in the Bodleian Library,
presents few problems; it surviveseither in three parts or as a text alone.
The settings of Ego reus confiteorand Sursumcordaare in only two parts
in all other sources; in the Metz fragment, however, they are in three.
The chronological gap between older known sources - F, W1,and so
on - and the Metz fragment is so great, and the levels of textual agreement between readings in the known sources so high, that the
33 See Jacques Hourlier, 'Le domaine de la notation messine', Revue grigorienne,30 (1951),
96-113; Solange Corbin, 'Neumatic Notations, IV, 5: Western Europe - Aquitaine', TheNew Grove
Dictionaryof Music and Musicians, xiii, 137-41 (p. 137) (Lorraine) and the map on p. 138); and
David Hiley, WesternPlainchant:A Handbook(Oxford, 1993), 347 and 351 (especially the map on
p. 350, and p. 349, where Hiley proposes the terminology 'Laon').
34 See, for F, Rebecca Baltzer, 'Thirteenth-Century Illuminated Miniatures and the Date of the
Florence Manuscript',Journal of theAmericanMusicologicalSociety,25 (1972), 1-18, glossed in Mark
Everist, PolyphonicMusic in Thirteenth-Century
France,58-86; and, for W2,ibid., 99-109. The date of
W1has perhaps generated the most discussion: see Edward Roesner, 'The Origins of WI',Journal
of the AmericanMusicologicalSociety,29 (1976), 337-80; Julian Brown, Sonia Patterson and David
Hiley, 'Further Observations on WI', Journal of thePlainsongand MediaevalMusic Society,4 (1981),
53-80; and Mark Everist, 'From Paris to St. Andrews: The Origins of WI', Journal of theAmerican
MusicologicalSociety,43 (1990), 1-42. For the dating of Ma, and the claim that it was written in
Spain by a French copyist, see Jutta Pumpe, Die Motettender MadriderNotre-Dame-Handschrift,
Miinchener Ver6ffentlichungen zur Musikgeschichte, 48 (Tutzing, 1991), 14, and Michel Huglo's
review in Scriptorium,47 (1993), 169.
35 Dating conductustexts is a contentious matter. For the most sensitive contribution to the
subject, see Ernest Sanders, 'Style and Technique in Datable Polyphonic Notre-Dame Conductus',
GordonAtholAnderson(1929-1981), ii, 505-30.
36 Full collocations for manuscripts not mentioned in note 9 above are: (CaJ) Cambridge,Jesus
College, QB 1; (Rawl) Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson C 510. A concordance for Sursum
cordaamong the Worcester Fragments (Worcester, Chapter Library, MS 68, fragment xxxv, f. dv
[WF 63] is often cited. Although the poetry begins similarly to the Notre Dame Sursumcorda,there
is no certainty that it continues in the same way, and the music differs substantially from what is
found in the Notre Dame sources. It is therefore omitted from Table 2.

147

RECEPTION AND RECOMPOSITION

TABLE2
METZ,BIBLIOTHEQUE DE LA VILLE,RESERVE PRECIEUX, MS 732BIS/20:
CONCORDANCES

Metz
Sursum corda

F
342v-344

Premii dilatio

206v-207v

... -veret time nobilitas'

Ego reus confiteor

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)

inescapable conclusion is that these are two-part originals to which a

third part - a triplum - has been added later by the musician respons-

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

Example 1. Ego reus confiteorMetz version, opening cauda.

I

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

Ego reus confiteorin F and Metz: 'Deum et proximum' to

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

sine litterasections of Ego reus confiteorin the Metz fragments typically

differ from the versions in the original sources. Example 3 contrasts a
passage from later in the work in the two versions from F and Metz.42
The Metz composer again adds precision to the notation of the F
version (indicating a thinly veiled mode I), and the added third voice
42 Example 3 also shows the use of imperfect ligatures in the notation of the Metz fragments
(the shapes are given above the stave). On the syllable 'Ma-tri' are ligatures cumproprietateet sine
perfectioneand on the syllable 'pi-is' ligatures sine proprietateet cumperfectione.

150

MARK
EVERIST

Example 3.

Ego reus confiteorin Fand Metz: 'Matri' to 'precibus'.

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

onto it. In doing so, they exhibit the same sorts of

4Heidelberg, Universitditsbibliothek, 2588; Burgos, Monasterio de las Huelgas, MS without

shelfmark; Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, fonds francais 146. Anderson's inclusion of the textless
additions in Fand the fragmentary concordance in Darmstadt, Hessische Landes- und Hochschulbibliothek, 3471, adds little to his argument, and is not relevant to the current discussion (see
Anderson, 'The Rhythm of Cum litteraSections', 293).

152

MARK
EVERIST

practices visible by comparing the two versions of Ego reus confiteor.In

short, and in general terms, the recasting of unmeasured notation cum
litterain notation with longaeand brevesin the Metz fragment fits into a
pattern of reworking that characterizes the preservation of the conductus at the end of the thirteenth century.
Each of the musicians responsible for the modal rewriting of the conductusat the end of the thirteenth century took a different view of the
subject and its treatment. An examination of the revisional strategies
that each editor of a modal version of a conductusadopted helps to bring
the musical preoccupations of the Metz editor into focus. The editor of
the Fauvel pieces rhythmicized the notation of the cum litterasections,
reduced them to monodies and adjusted the texts; the Heidelberg musician recast three two-part works and, of the two three-part originals,
copied all three parts of Transgressuslegemdomini except for the final
cauda (which was left in two parts as in earlier sources) and copied all
three parts throughout of Ave presulglorie.45Of the six revisions in the
Heidelberg manuscript, five consistently translate the original notation
into what has been variously described as mode V or longa-syllabic
rhythm: each single note of the original is rendered as a longaperfecta
or its equivalent.46 The exception is the revision to the cum littera
sections of Transgressus
legem,where the setting of two lines (out of 24)
atypicallyswitches to a setting in mode I.47The editor of the Fauvel conducti takes a more eclectic approach: two works are reconfigured in a
longa-syllabicstyle, four are modal, and two (Heu! Quo progrediturand
Clavuspungens acumine)mix both styles within a single composition.48
What emerges from a consideration of other sources that revise the
notation of the cum litterasections of Notre Dame conductiat the end of
the thirteenth century is a sense that individual editors were aware of
two different procedures as they reworked the earlier material: each syllable-bearing note was either treated as a longaperfectaor brought into
the domain of one of the other rhythmic modes. With the exception of
the Heidelberg transmission of Transgressuslegem,each of these two
principles is restricted to individual compositions; the technique of
turning each note into a longaperfectawas the most popular. The principles guiding the editor of the Metz fragments stand some distance
45Ibid.,288-92. This sketch hardly doesjustice to the complexity of the Heidelberg transmission
of Transgressuslegemdomini,which falls outside the scope of this study.
46 For the purposes of this discussion, Anderson's distinction (ibid., 289) between longa-syllabic
and longa-ftactiois not relevant.
47 This is Anderson's Example 3 (ibid., 291).
48 Paris, Bibliotheque
Nationale,MSf fr 146 (LeRomandeFauvel in theEditionof MesireChailloude
Pesstain), ed. Edward Roesner (New York, 1990), 22-4. See also Hans Tischler and Samuel N.
Rosenberg, TheMonophonicSongsin theRoman de Fauvel (Lincoln, NE, 1991); Gregory Alexander
Harrison, 'The Monophonic Music in the Roman de Fauvel' (Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford
University, 1963); Myrta Cereghetti, 'Le monodie del Roman de Fauvel' (Tesi di diploma, Universita degli Studi di Pavia, 1989); andJoseph Morin, 'The Genesis of Manuscript Paris, Bibliotheque
Nationale, fonds franCais 146, with Particular Emphasis on the Roman de Fauvel' (Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1992). Morin's paper 'Thirteenth-Century Conducti in the Hands of
a Fourteenth-Century Scribe: Aspects of Rhythm in the FauvelConductus Repertoire' (Fifty-Ninth
Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society, Montreal, 3-7 November 1993) is an
important source for the comments in this paragraph.

153

RECEPTION AND RECOMPOSITION

Example 4.
vereor'.

Ego reusconfiteorMetz setting of 'Addictus pene teneor/et

IIO

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

teneor' are set in mode I, whereas the declamation of the following

phrase, 'Et vereor', is in longaeperfectae.
Exactly how one might describe
the rhythmic organization of the music accompanying 'Et vereor' is
open to question: mode I with extensiomodiis perhaps the most likely.
The reworking of the notation of conductiat the end of the thirteenth
century and the beginning of the fourteenth is an important feature
of the musical culture of the period and one of the clearest bodies of
material that inform our understanding of the reception of late twelfthand early thirteenth-century polyphony. From the time of the copying
of such manuscripts as F, W, and W2- between 1240 and 1260 - and

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

which authorities are followed - since between

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
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155

1180 and 1220.51 It was of course central to the sine litterasections of

the polyphonic conductus, as well as to the clausulae embedded in
organumduplumand to all parts of organumtriplumand quadruplum.But
all these genres were sine littera, and in them modal notation is
restricted to melismatic music. It fell to the composers of the earliest
motets to align modal rhythms with syllabic music cum littera;they first
used non-mensural notation and then progressively more precise mensural notation. Modal notation using contextually contingent ligatures
cum perfectioneet cum proprietatewas not available for music cum littera.
Composers of motets therefore put a distance between syllabic
polyphony and those musical genres that, in part, employed syllabic
monophony: secular song and liturgical chant. So when musicians
around 1300 reworked their originally unmeasured conductusnotation,
they were creating a type of relationship between notation and declamation that more closely approached the style of the contemporary
motet than that of the conductuson which they were ostensibly building. This is not to say that they were building motets out of conducti;the
latter were still primarily homorhythmic, and still independent of a borrowed tenor. The motet depended on a liturgical or secular tenor and,
almost since its inception, had developed the idea that learned music
should exploit asymmetrical phrases and voice-parts that overlap regularly. But the modally notated conductusaround 1300 was beginning to
sound - especially in its cum litterasections - more like a motet than the
conductus - in its original form - ever had.52

Musicians at work recasting the notation of the conductuswere also

relaxing the modal constraints of the rhythmic patterns that served as
the tools for undertaking the reworking of these compositions. In Ego
reusconfiteorthe Metz composer was treating his modal reinterpretation
of the notation of his F original with a significant degree of flexibility,
and was compressing or extending phrases in a way that his precursor
in Fcould not have done because the latter did not enjoy a graphic distinction between longae and brevescum littera.53Here again, the composer of the Metz version of Ego reus confiteorwas behaving very much
like a composer of motets, juggling the details of modal rhythm to
create rhythmic patterns that are almost impossible in notation cum
litterawithout longa-brevisdifferentiation. 20 years ago it might have
been assumed that text delivery was the most obvious explanation for
this procedure, but in the light of more recent reading of medieval and
51 See Roesner, 'The Emergence of Musica mensurabilis',and the sources cited there for the
most up-to-date reading of this particular problem.
52 There are ways in which the modally notated conductuscould never sound entirely like the
motet: the presentation of a single text and the homorhythm of all voices would always mark out
the two genres. Furthermore, there are (admittedly very rare) exceptions where a reasonable case
can be made for the fully measured performance of original conducti,especially where their texts
are quantitative.
53 The same is true of the musician responsible for the reworkings of the conductiin the Heidelberg fragments; this is the background to Anderson's terms 'melismatic-text', 'longa-syllabic'and
'modal syllabic' ('The Rhythm of Cum litteraSections', 289). These comments are not meant to
imply that the scribe of Fdid not attempt to present cerain types of modifications to the framework
of modal rhythm, since there is abundant evidence of just such attempts.

156

MARK
EVERIST

modern writing about rithmusby Sanders, Page and Fassler, such an

explanation becomes perhaps a little less obvious.54 It is now possible
more respectably to suggest that these shifts in rhythm, permitted by
the use of a notation that distinguishes between longaeand breves,may
have been motivated by more exclusively musical concerns - possibly
also as a result of the reinterpretation of the original notational shapes
- and may be largely independent of the text. In this respect, again, the
style of the conductusaround 1300 was approaching that of the motet.
Adding a third part to a two-part original is the most striking characteristic of the Metz fragment. This characterizes at least two of its four
pieces, furnishing a rare instance where one can clearly show that a twopart conductus from the so-called Notre Dame sources has been
reworked in three parts by the addition of a new triplum. Conducti
survive in varying numbers of parts, but the patterns of transmission of
two-partworks generally seem to work in one way only: when copied in
later sources, or in musical environments far removed from the centres
of production, they are stripped of voice-parts rather than being furnished with additional ones. Two-part conductiare regularly transmitted
in one or both of two forms - either as monodies or as texts.55 An
example will make the point.
The conductusAve nobilis is found in the seventh fascicle of F in a
version in two parts.56It is found in a monophonic version in four separate manuscripts, from a wide range of locations and copied at very
different times, which are now in Donaueschingen, Munich, Limoges
and Paris.57In addition, the text of the work is found in manuscripts
in Maihingen and Trier.58 Although it is possible to be reasonably
certain that the two-part version was copied in Paris between 1245 and
1255,59 it is impossible to judge the date of its composition. Little is
known of the exact dates of the other sources apart from Munich,
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4660, the so-called 'Codex Buranus',
which seems to have been copied before F, either in the South Tyrol
or in Bavaria.60There is no evidence to suggest any other explanation
that that all sources, including F, depend on a lost archetype that was
54 Sanders, 'Rithmus',Essays on Medieval Music in Honor of David G. Hughes, ed. Graeme M.
Boone, Isham Library Papers, 4 (Cambridge, MA, 1995), 415-40; Margot E. Fassler, 'Accent,
Meter, and Rhythm in Medieval Treatises De rhythmis',Journalof Musicology,5 (1987), 164-90; and
Page, Latin Poetryand ConductusRhythm.
55 Appendix 1 below is a handlist of sources that preserve versions of two-part conductithat give
the text only; Appendix 2 lists those that preserve versions in a monophonic form.
56 F. 363v. It is listed as J46 in Anderson's inventory ('Notre-Dame and Related Conductus: A
Catalogue Raisonne', 172) and no. 35 in Falck (The NotreDame Conductus,185).
57 Donaueschingen, Ffirstliche Bibliothek, 882, ff. 175v-177v;Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4660, f. 111; Limoges, Bibliotheque Municipale, 17, f. 282v;and Paris, Bibliotheque de
l'Arsenal, 3517-18, f. 13'.
58 Miihingen, Schloss Harburg, Ffirstliche Bibliothek, II, 2 80, ff. 132v-133; and Trier, Stadtbibliothek, 1878, f. 154'.
59 See above, note 9.
60 For the dating and provenance of the Codex Buranus, see Georg Steer, '"Carmina Burana"
in Sfidtirol: Zur Herkunft des Clm 4660', ZeitschriftfiirdeutschesAltertumund deutscheLiteratur,112
(1983), 1-37; Peter Dronke, 'A Critical Note on Schumann's Dating of the Codex Buranus',
Beitrdgezur GeschichtederdeutschenSprachenund Literatur,84 (1962), 173; and John Stevens, Words
and Music in theMiddleAges, 517-18.

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
EVERIST

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

68 There is a further repertory which bears

comparison with the Metz redactions of the twopart conductuscum caudis,and that is the body of conductiin insular manuscripts from around 1300
in which, it has been argued, there is a differentiation between longaeand breves,and in which the
distinction between the discursive modes of cum litteraand sine litterais further blurred. See Nicky
Losseff, TheBest Concords:PolyphonicMusic in Thirteenth-Century
Britain, Outstanding Dissertations
in Music from British Universities (New York and London, 1994), 95-188 and passim.
69 See John Bergsagel, 'The Transmission of Notre-Dame Organa in Some Newly-Discovered
"Magnusliber organi" Fragments in Copenhagen', Atti del XIVCongressodella SociettInternazionale
di Musicologia:Trasmissionee recezionedelleformedi culturamusicale,ed. Angelo Pompilio et al., 3 vols.
(Turin, 1990), iii, 629-36. A facsimile edition of these fragments does not accompany this article.
70 See, for a fuller account of the context for the production of fonds fr. 846, Everist, Polyphonic
Music in Thirteenth-Century
France,201-3.

160

MARK
EVERIST

Modifying the notational foreground of the cum litterasections of the

conductuscumcaudisblurs boundaries and, smoothing over generic confines, is a characteristic of a great deal of musical activity around 1300;
this is evident in the motet itself, where secular tenors begin to replace
sacred ones, and where repeating patterns derived from secular song
begin to appear in all parts of the polyphonic fabric. All these features
are present in the work of Adam de la Halle. This is not the first
occasion on which the wide range of generic overlap in Adam's oeuvre

- particularly between polyphonic rondeau, motet and refrain - has been

pointed out. Not only do the composer's attributed works encompass

motets, polyphonic

rondeaux, grands chants and jeus partis,71 but the

manuscript in which Adam's works are collected also includes - in a

way that makes clear that this was not haphazard - romances(themselves
including music), dits and other literary texts.72Again, around 1300, a
generic curiosity - a willingness to explore the generic boundaries that
had been so strong around the middle of the thirteenth century - is as
visible here as it is in the conductiin the Metz fragment.73
The Metz fragment constitutes a new source for the polyphonic conductus, and it preserves late redactions of music written perhaps a
century earlier. The Metz versions of these conductirework passages
cum litterain mensural notation that use the longaeand brevesof later
thirteenth-century notation, and very probably give a high level of precision to what was a much more flexible original rhythmic organization.
They also give a precise sense of how the underlying basis of the modal
system can function flexibly in support of the declamation of the text.
In at least two cases, a composer added new triplato earlier thirteenthcentury two-part originals. The treatment of conductiaround 1300, as
witnessed in the Metz fragments and its counterparts, reflects a more
wide-ranging and eclectic approach to generic boundaries at the dawn
of the fourteenth century.
University of Southampton

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.

72 See Silvia Huot, FromSong toBook:ThePoeticsof Writingin OldFrenchLyricand LyricalNarrative

Poetry(Ithaca, NY, and London, 1987), 64-74.

73 There is an interesting parallel here as the conductusat the end of its career began to assimilate characteristics of the motet and other genres in a similar way to that in which the motet, at
the beginning of its career, drew on the conductusand other genres.

RECEPTION AND RECOMPOSITION

Cambridge, University Library, Hh VI 11

Fulda, Hessische Landesbibliothek, C 11
Graz, Universititsbibliothek, 409
Leiden, Universitditsbibliothek,Vulc. 48
Leipzig, Universitditsbibliothek,225
London, British Library, Royal 7.A. VI
Mfiihingen, Schloss Harburg, Ffirstliche
Bibliothek, Cod. II, 2, 8'
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 11333
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4600
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Additional A 44

Oxford, Bodleian Library, Auct. F.5.16

Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson C 510

Oxford, Trinity College, 18

Paris, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal, 526
Paris, Bibliothbque de l'Arsenal, 758
Paris, Bibliothbque Nationale, fonds latin, 1544
Paris, Bibliothbque Nationale, fonds latin 3639
Paris, Bibliothbque Nationale, fonds latin 4880
Paris, Bibliothbque Nationale, fonds latin 18571
Prague, Archiv Metropolitni Kapituly, 1479
(M118/2)

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

Prague, Chramovni Knihovna, N.VIII

Centrum capit circulus

(J38); Regis decuset regine
(J47)
Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, lat. 3324
Verpacisaperit(J32)
Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, urbs lat. 602 Ave marisstella (J53)
Venicreatorspiritus(J41)
Rouen, Bibliotheque Municipale, A408
St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, 383
Verpacisaperit(J32)
St Omer, Bibliotheque Municipale, 351
Sole sub nube (116); Ver
pacis aperit (J32)
Ave nobilis (J46)
Trier, Stadtbibliothek, 1878
Porta salutis (12)
1840
Communale,
Troyes, Bibliotheque
Porta salutis (12)
Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, 4119
Auctorvite virgine (H13)
Wfirzburg, Universititsbibliothek, M. Ch.
Austro terris (Gi); Rose
Zfirich, Stadtbibliothek, C58/275
nodum (I1); Cortexoccidit
(16); De naturefracto iure
(118); Novum sibi textuit
(122)
APPENDIX 2
TWO PART CONDUCTIIN F REDUCED TO MONODIES

Berlin, Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, Ms Mus. 40580

Beromfinster, Stiftsbibliothek, C 2
Cambridge, Trinity College, R.9.11
Donaueschingen, Ffirstliche Bibliothek, 882
Engelberg, Stiftsbibliothek, 102
Engelberg, Stiftsbibliothek, 314
Graz, Universitfitsbibliothek, 756
Innsbruck, Universitditsbibliothek,B 457
Limoges, Bibliotheque Municipale, 2 (17)
London, British Library, additional 22604
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4660
Munich, Universitfitsbibliothek, 156
Paris, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal, 3517-18
Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, fonds francais 146

St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, 383 (122)

Stuttgart, Landesbibliothek, HB I Asc. 95

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)

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RECEPTION AND RECOMPOSITION

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.