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Du Fay the poet? Problems in the texts of his motets*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

Leofranc Holford-Strevens
Affiliation:
Oxford

Extract

The following observations make no claim to either profundity or finality, but attempt to improve on the texts and translations currently available, to comment on their metres (some rudimentary information being given in Appendix A), and to offer a few conjectures concerning authorship. This last question has interested Du Fay scholars, who generally allow him to be the author at least of Salve flos/Vos nunc: whereas Laurenz Liitteken denies him all else, David Fallows writes that ‘Some at least of his song and motet texts are likely to be by him’, singling out Salve jlos for the first-person reference at the end of the motetus; Alejandro Enrique Planchart, having pointed out that Du Fay's literary talent in Latin was recognised at school with a copy of Alexandre de Villedieu's Doctrinale, would give him some others as well. In principle, a composer may write his own text, like Machaut; or collaborate with a poet, as Du Fay evidently did with Périnet in Ce moys de may, and one Nicholas with one William in Argi vices; or be given a text to set by a patron or employer, as when Du Fay was sent texts from Naples on the fall of Constantinople, presumably including 0 tres piteulx, de tout espoir fontaine (OO vi, no. 10).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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References

1 For (often unsatisfactory) editions of the texts discussed, see:

Guglielmi Dufay Opera Omnia, ed. de Van, G., Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae (CMM) 1, i–ii: Motetti qui et cantiones vocantur (Rome, 19471948)Google Scholar;

Guillelmi Dufay Opera Omnia, ed. Besseler, H., CMM 1, i: Motetti (Rome, 1966)Google Scholar, with Latin texts emended by Richard Kienast (cited hereafter as OO i);

Booklet accompanying CD Guillaume de Machaut: 7 Isorhythmische geistliche Motetten; Guillaume Dufay: Sämtliche isorhythmischen Motetten, 7 Cantilene-Motetten, dir. H. Weber with M. Richert Pfau (IHW 3.108: Renaissance der Renaissance, 1993), cited hereafter by the name of the textual adviser, C. Müller-Glauser, or of the English and French translators, E. Wirshbo and J.-M. Bobillon, as appropriate;

Lütteken, L., Guillaume Dufay und die isorhythmische Motette: Gattungstradition und Werkcharakter an der Schwelle der Neuzeit, Schriften zur Musikwissenschaft aus Münster 4 (Hamburg and Eisenach, 1993), pp. 437–83Google Scholar (cited hereafter as Lütteken).

The latter two include translations, which do not always make more sense than the text.

I employ the following sigla for manuscripts:

BU = Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria, 2216

ModB = Modena, Biblioteca Estense e Universitaria, α. X. 1. 11

Mü = Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 14274 (olim Mus. ms. 3232a)

Ox = Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canon. Misc. 213

Q15 = Bologna, Civico Musico Bibliografico Musicale, Q15

Tr (no.) = Trento, Castello del Buonconsiglio, Monumenti e Collezioni Provinciali

My knowledge of Ox is derived from the facsimile edition by Fallows, D., Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Canon. Misc. 213, Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Music in Facsimile 1 (Chicago, 1995)Google Scholar; of Q15 and Mü from materials in the possession of Margaret Bent; of the Trent Codices from the published facsimiles; of BU and ModB from microfilms.

2 Lütteken, p. 339: ‘Als vermutlich einziger Text, den der Komponist selbst verfaβt haben könnte, muβ wegen der Selbstnennung Salve flos tusce … gelten. Alle anderen Gedichte dürften von den jeweils für die poetische “Produktion” Zuständigen oder aus einem Repertoire bereits existenter Vorlagen stammen.’

3 Fallows, D., Dufay, rev. edn (London, 1987; cited hereafter as Fallows), p. 47Google Scholar.

4 Planchart, A. E., ‘The Early Career of Guillaume Du Fay’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 46 (1993), pp. 341–68, at p. 351CrossRefGoogle Scholar; to the statement ‘a number of the texts, where some form of self-reference points to the composer as author, rise well above the standards of mere competence’ is attached n. 45: ‘Among the Latin works I would suggest that Rite maiorem, Nuper rosarum flores, Salve flos Tuscae, Mirandas parit, and Fulgens iubar (both texts) are by Du Fay, while among the French works I believe that virtually all the acrostic poems, notably the exquisite Craindre vous vueil, are also his work. Not all his Latin poetry is inspired; Nuper rosarum and Fulgens iubar are pedestrian.’ That was then; on Rite maiorem see n. 50 below.

5 Guillelmi Dufay Opera Omnia, ed. Besseler, H., Tomus VI: Cantiones, rev. D. Fallows, CMM 1, vi (N.p., 1995; cited hereafter as OO vi)Google Scholar, no. 39, vv. 6–7, with the critical commentary in Fallows, D., The Songs of Guillaume Dufay, Musicological Studies and Documents 47 (N.p., 1995), pp. 129–31Google Scholar.

6 MS Aosta, Biblioteca del Seminario Maggiore, 15 olim A1D19, fols. 4v–7r: Motetus 46–8: ‘Hec Guilhermus dictans favit/Nicolao, qui cantavit/ ut sit opus consummatum.’

7 For a possible explanation see Crawford, D., ‘Guillaume Dufay, Hellenism, and Humanism’, in Comberiati, C. P. and Steel, M. C. (eds.), Music from the Middle Ages through the Twentieth Century: Essays in Honor of Gwynn S. McPeek (New York, 1988), pp. 8193, at pp. 91–2Google Scholar.

8 Epist. metr. 3.24; see Stevens, Denis, ‘Petrarch's Greeting to Italy’, Musical Times, 115, no. 1580 (10 1974), pp. 834–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schmidt, Th. Chr., ‘“Carmina gratulatoria” – Humanistische Dichtung in der Staatsmotette des 15. Jahrhunderts’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 51 (1994), pp. 83109, at pp. 105–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The motet is edited by von Ficker, R., Sieben Trienter Codices, Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich (DTÖ) 76 (Vienna, 1933), pp. 1415Google Scholar; Disertori, B., ‘L'epistola all'Italia del Petrarca musicata nei codici tridentini’, Rivista Musicale Italiana, 46 (1942), pp. 6578Google Scholar. But such distortion is not to be taken for granted: as a counter-example see Du Fay's Vergene bella (OO vi, no. 5), from Petrarch, Rime 366, with only orthographic or minor ponetic variations (see Fallows, , The Songs of Guillaume Dufay, pp. 40–1Google Scholar).

9 This and the other metres used in the texts discussed are described in Appendix A; meanwhile, be it noted that – denotes a long syllable, – a short, ∣ the caesura.

10 Schmidt, ‘ “Carmina gratulatoria” ’, p. 96 n. 60, finds only this verse and a couplet in Salve flos exceptions to the metrical correctness of Du Fay's texts; would they were.

11 The scansion Ǐăcōbus in Claudian (Carm. min. 50, vv. 2, 14) represents the learned pronunciation of a native Greek-speaker; but the everyday pronunciation was much closer to the modern Yákovos, which Latin-speakers reproduced as Jăcŏbus. In literary Greek, initial Hebrew yôdh, like consonantal i in Latin, had to be rendered as a vowel; the spoken language restored or retained the consonant. Furthermore, although both Greek and Latin distinctions of quantity were lost, the Greek accent did not necessarily fall on the same syllable as it would in a Latin word of like syllabic quantities. See Norberg, D., L'accentuation des mots dans le vers latin du Moyen Âge, Kungliga Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Filologiskt Arkiv, 32 (Stockholm, 1985), pp. 1015, esp. p. 13Google Scholar; cf. note on O gloriose tyro, triplum v. 2 Theódore (p. 138).

12 Called ‘the Just’ on account of his fidelity to the Mosaic law; nowadays, despite Mark 15:40, commonly distinguished from James the Less, son of Alphaeus.

13 Called ‘Herod’ at Acts 12:2, but in fact M. Julius Agrippa, king of Judaea 41–4.

14 To quote the Golden Legend (which I do for convenience, without implying that it was the summa of medieval hagiography or the source for our poets): ‘Dicitur Jacobus frater Johannis quia fuit eius frater non tantum carne sed etiam morum similitudine. Ambo enim fuerunt eiusdem zeli, eiusdem studii, eiusdem voti’: Jacobi a Voragine Legenda aurea, vulgo Historia Lombardica dicta, ed. Graesse, Th., 3rd edn (1890; repr. Osnabrück, 1969), pp. 421–2Google Scholar (‘James is called the brother of John because he was his brother not only in the flesh but also in similarity of character; for they both shared the same zeal, the same enthusiasm, the same desire’).

15 Lütteken, p. 475: ‘Jesus has given both brothers [James and John the Evangelist] the same power.’

16 Three syllables are needed, the first short and beginning with a consonant (which rules out Kienast's alumnus), the second long.

17 Ibid.: ‘[wurde berufen], der geliebte [Jünger] zu werden’ (‘[was called], to become the beloved [disciple]’).

18 Müller-Glauser (p. 92), evidently finding too much emphasis on Jesus, renders ‘ein Bruder Jesu’ (cf. Wirshbo ‘Jesus’ brother', Bobillon ‘le frère de Jésus’), but without substituting Iesu in the text.

19 But Wirshbo (p. 93) renders ‘each follows the teacher of his own accord, prepared to become a disciple’.

20 Born c. 1388; married 21 January 1421; despite converting to Orthodoxy, she lost her husband's love; d. 1433. After marriage she is known Greek sources as KλεόπηпαλαιολογϮνα; hence the spelling ‘Cleope’ used by Byzantinists.

21 Born c. 1393, succ. 1407; he was a man of intellectual gifts and interests, but his reign was troubled. In 1443 he surrendered his possessions to his younger brother Constantine (afterwards the Emperor Constantine XI) in exchange for Selymbria in Thrace, where he awaited the death of his elder brother, the Emperor John VIII, but died three months before him in July 1448. See Zakythinos, D. A., Le despotat grec de Morée: histoire politique, 2nd edn, rev. Ch. Maltézou (London, 1975), pp. 165225Google Scholar.

22 See Fallows, pp. 21–2, 250–1, 308; Lütteken, pp. 268–9, where for ‘Goldbulle’ read ‘Silberbulle’; the document is reproduced in Sp. P. Lambros (Λάμπροζ), Παλαιολóγειακαι Πελοποννησιακά, 4 vols. (Athens, 1912–1930), iv, pp. 102–3.

23 Müller-Glauser (p. 70) accepts this text, but avoids translating volens (‘und liebreizende Schönheit schmückt dich’, cf. Bobillon ‘tu es parée des charmes de la beauté’); Wirshbo writes ‘kindly in your beauty’, which is wrong. Lütteken rightly reverts to the text of Q15 and Ox. Did Kienast confuse volens with valens, which would have paralleled pollens but lost the double rhyme?

24 For which see Lambros, , iv, pp. 144–76Google Scholar; Schmalzbauer, G., ‘Eine bisher unedierte Monodie auf Kleope Palaiologina von Demetrios Pepagomenos’, Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik, 20 (1971), pp. 223–40Google Scholar; cf. Woodhouse, C. M., George Gemistos Plethon: The Last of the Hellenes (Oxford, 1986), pp. 113–15Google Scholar.

25 Laonici Chalcocondylae historiarum demonstrationes, ed. Darkó, E., 2 vols. in 3 pts (Budapest, 19221997), i, p. 193Google Scholar: .

26 Ibid., pp. 193–4: ‘Later, however, when he came to hate his wife and having come to hate her quarrelled with her, he resolved to enter upon the manner of life of the Nazirites …’

27 Indeed, they were so taken (save that Thomas was put for Theodore, and v. 12 misunderstood of death) by A. Orel in Ficker, R. and Orel, A., Sechs Trienter Codices, DTÖ 53 (Vienna, 1920), p. 102Google Scholar, and by Van den Borren, Ch., Guillaume Dufay: son importance dans l'évolution de la musique au XVe siècle (Brussels, 1926), p. 27Google Scholar; the truth was seen by de Van.

28 As pointed out to me by David Fallows (pers. comm.). The mixture of paroxytone clausulae such as gáude ~ láude with proparoxytones such as clárior ~ nobílior need not indicate uniform end-stressing by a Frenchman: there is no rhyme between the two classes, since despotus = older Italian despòto, dispòto, which as a medieval not a classical borrowing follows the accent of δεσπóτης, is paroxytone like totus.

29 Ox, fol. 36v; ed. Van den Borren, Ch., Pièces polyphoniques profanes de provenance liégeoise (XVe siècle) (Brussels, 1950), no. 32Google Scholar. Besseler, Heinrich, ‘Neue Dokumente zum Leben und Schaffen Dufays’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 9 (1952), pp. 159–76, at p. 161CrossRefGoogle Scholar, associates Vasilissa with Cleofe's departure from Rimini; Fallows (p. 21) concurs, and takes the same view of Tra quante regione. Lütteken (p. 270) assigns Vasilissa to a proxy wedding in Pesaro, while suggesting (n. 32) that Tra quante regione belongs, not to this occasion, but to a subsequent visit to Mistra by members of the Malatesta court; yet incongruous as it may seem to sing at Rimini in honour of Mistra, it is even more incongruous to sing in praise of the Déspoina but not the Despot in his own capital. (Note that Elena regina is neither Cleofe's daughter, the future Queen of Cyprus, nor Theodore's mother, consort of the Emperor Manuel II, but the wife of Menelaus and paramour of Paris, nowadays known as ‘Helen of Troy’.)

30 I take cecini to be the idiomatic perfect of completion, indicating that the predicated state or action no longer holds true of the subject: uixit ‘he is dead’, dixi ‘I have said my say’ (whence the poetic pluperfect dixerat, ‘ceased speaking’).

31 See Houdoy, J., Histoire artistique de la cathédrale de Cambrai, Mémoires de la Société des Sciences, de l'Agriculture et des Arts de Lille, 4th ser., 7 (Paris and Lille, 1880) pp. 409–14Google Scholar. ‘Dufay died a very wealthy man’ (Wright, Craig, ‘Dufay at Cambrai: Discoveries and Revisions’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 28 (1975), pp. 175229, at p. 220)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 See Fallows, pp. 46–7, but with caveat p. 291.

33 De Van supposed that Du Fay was answering calumnies upon the city; one might think of Filelfo, who propagandised for the violent overthrow of the Medici.

34 I record the grammatical possibility that Du Fay subverts his own wooing by confessing that ‘Men are liars’ only to avoid the accusation of not having thought of it.

35 Very rare in high classical poetry except in Horace's Odes; in prose used (especially in early authors) to mark a new phrase.

36 Anonymous contrafact Tr88, fol. 24v, ‘Imperatrix angelorum’.

37 The few examples in early poetry are intended for special effect.

38 ‘Du Fay and the Cultures of Renaissance Florence’, in Pesce, D. (ed.), Hearing the Motet: Essays on the Motet of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (New York, 1997), pp. 104–22, at pp. 107–8Google Scholar.

39 Note in particular v. 501 ‘gradiensque deas supereminet omnis’.

40 For what it is worth, neither Du Fay nor any contemporary could have encountered it in ancient poetry, though it is conjectured by Housman at Manilius 2.887. One might, but speculatively, suggest that the association of this adjective with the goddess was suggested, verbally though not semantically, by Catullus 34.1–2 ‘Dianae sumus in fide/ puellae et pueri integri’ (‘We are under Diana's protection, maidens and youths all unwed’); unknown for most of the Middle Ages, Catullus was popular in Renaissance Italy.

41 Namely in the emperor Trajan's announcement of his notorious decision, interpreted by the lawyers as restrictively as they durst, to grant soldiers' wills validity despite any defects of form ‘in accordance with my open disposition towards my excellent and most faithful comrades in arms’, secutus animi mei integritudinem erga optimos fidelissimosque commilitones (Ulp. XLV ad edictum = Dig. 29.1.1).

42 E.g. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 376 (Huguitio), fol. 97ra: ‘integer gra grum incoruptus et compar(atur) integrior mus unde integre grius me aduer(bium) et hec integritas tis et integritudo nis’, i.e. ‘integer -gra -grum, “unspoilt”, comparative integrior, superlative integerrimus, whence adverb integre -grius -gerrime, and integritas -tatis (fem.), integritudo -dinis (fem.)’.

43 Fallows, p. 47.

44 So far as the music is concerned see Allsen, J. M., ‘Style and Intertextuality in the Isorhythmic Motet, 1400–1440’, Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1992, pp. 219–20Google Scholar. In a personal communication Dr Allsen writes: ‘I blieve that despite their very obvious variety in outward style, there are several structural intertextualities that tie the three together. In the case of Nuper rosarum and Salve flos, we have a pair of quadripartite motets, in which the lengths of their respective sections match precisely – 56 breves or 28 longs. The motets are laid out in somewhat different proportions, 6:4:2:3 for Nuper and 6:3:4:2 for Salve, but the cumulative length is the same in each case. Furthermore, in each motet, the sections are further divided in half: by the long duets in Nuper and by a more traditional talea repeat in Salve. Finally, there is the placement of divisi passages at proportionally corresponding spots in nearly all sections of the two motets. Mirandas parit is linked to the other two motets by the section length of its secunda pars, and by the placement of a divisi passage within that section. This seems to agree with your notion of interconnections between the three texts.’

45 Lütteken, pp. 402–6 (at p. 402 for ‘Hexametern’ read ‘elegischen Distichen’).

46 Ibid., p. 294.

47 See my remarks in Dufay, Guillaume, Nuper rosarum flores, ed. Blackburn, Bonnie J. (Espoo, 1994), p. 5Google Scholar, appended to text and translation. In v. 23 cruciatu would have been preferable to cruciatus, but the latter is found not only in ModB and Tr92, but in the text source Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS Aedilium 168, fol. 204v of 1438–9; see Bandini, A. M., Bibliotheca Leopoldina Laurentiana, 3 vols. (Florence, 17911793)Google Scholar, i, col. 479. As Bandini recognised, the punctuation required after v. 21 is not a full stop but a comma: the Florentines pray that whoever with pure mind and body shall have obtained (exorarit) a thing through prayer to the Virgin may be found worthy to receive God's favour and forgiveness.

48 Besseler, ‘Neue Dokumente’, pp. 167–70.

49 Seneca has several runs of sapphics, most notably at Thyestes 546–621; Boethius uses them at De Consolatione Philosophiae 2.6, 4.7.

50 Cf. Fallows, p. 29. To the biographical details ibid., p. 242, Alejandro Planchart (pers. comm.) has kindly added others, from which it emerges even more clearly that Auclou, who was later given charge of the grammar school at Cambrai, was a well-educated and much-employed churchman–diplomat, hence to be presumed a competent Latinist.

51 Margaret Bent informs me that it was copied between 1430 and 1433.

52 Hist. Aug. 16.7.3; Capella, Martianus, De nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae 9.907–8Google Scholar; Pseudo-Ausonius, , Septem Sapientum sententiae 43–9Google Scholar. I pass over earlier Greek examples, and a wall-inscription at Pompeii, as not known to the poet.

53 This was the original Latin scansion, but imitation of Greek practice entailed lengthening; from Augustan times the collocation is generally avoided. Shortening is frequent in medieval and not unknown in Renaissance verse; as late as 1825 D. J. van Lennep, in completing L. Santen's edition of Maurus, Terentianus, De litteris syllabis pedibus et metris (Utrecht, 1825), wrote a long and involved note upon the matter, pp. 411–20, as being still controversialGoogle Scholar.

54 So occasionally in Silver and later Latin: Seneca, Troades 264 (and in the dative at Oedipus 942);′ Pseudo-Seneca, , Hercules Oetaeus 1862; Juvenal 3.232Google Scholar; Nemesianus, Bucolica 1.53. Over the course of time, final -o was shortened in all contexts except the dative and ablative singular of substantives, adjectives and participles (hence -o in the gerundive, or the gerund after a preposition, remains long).

55 Such rhymes were much favoured by French vernacular poets of the fifteenth century; Dufay's other mensural canon, the rondeau Les douleurs, is adduced by J. W. Weinberg and G. Denman, ‘Structure as Meaning in a Motet by Dufay’, abstract of paper read 30 March 1990 at Acta 17 Meeting, ‘Words and Music’, of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the State University of New York, Binghamton, N.Y.

56 See now Haggh, B., ‘The Order of the Golden Fleece’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 121 (1996), pp. 268–70, at p. 269CrossRefGoogle Scholar, vindicating Fallows, pp. 61–2, against the Dijon theory (e.g. Lütteken, pp. 297–9).

57 Lütteken, p. 298.

58 Walther, H., Initia carminum ac versuum medii aevi posterioris Latinorum, Carmina Medii Aevi Posterioris Latina 1 (Göttingen, 1959), nos. 11218–19Google Scholar.

59 See Art and Life at the Court of Ercole I d'Este: The ‘De triumphis religionis’ of Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti, ed. Gundersheimer, W. L., Travaux d'Humanisme et Renaissance 127 (Geneva, 1972), pp. 86–7Google Scholar.

60 Lütteken, pp. 276–8; Margaret Bent informs me that the motet was copied into Q15 in 1430–3, not in the pre-1425 layer of Vasilissa.

61 Such persistence-errors often occur mechanically, as when at Supremum est, v. 2 pax, optimum summi Dei donum the scribe of BU writes summum to match the preceding optimum (and see above on Moribus et genere, v. 7); but here a copyist would easily misconstrue oraculum tuum as the subject of trahat, and make spectaculum nostr(um) its object.

62 Ox, fo. 129v; ed. Van den Borren, Ch., Polyphonia sacra (Burnham and London, 1932), no. 32Google Scholar; Allsen, J. M., Four Late Isorhythmic Motets, Antico Church Music (Newton Abbot, 1997), no. 1Google Scholar.

63Ad Honorem Sancti Nicolai – Two Related Motets by Hugo de Lantins and Guillaume Du Fay’, paper read at the 59th Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society, Montreal, 4 November 1993. I thank Dr Allsen for kindly sending me the relevant pages.

64 So e.g. Lütteken, pp. 324–8.

65 Cumming, J. E., ‘Concord out of Discord: Occasional Motets of the Early Quattrocento’ (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1987), pp. 340–5Google Scholar. But Crawford, ‘Guillaume Dufay, Hellenism, and Humanism’, dates the motet to 1439.

66 See Wathey, A., ‘The Motets of Philippe de Vitry and the Fourteenth-Century Renaissance’, Early Music History 12 (1993), pp. 119–50, at pp. 133–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Holford-Strevens, L. A., ‘The Latin Dits of Geffroy de Paris: An Editio Princeps’, in Bent, M. and Wathey, A. (eds.), Fauvel Studies: Allegory, Chronicle, Music, and Image in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS français 146 (Oxford, forthcoming)Google Scholar; Bent, M., ‘Early Papal Motets’, in Sherr, R. (ed.), Papal Music and Musicians in Late Medieval and Renaissance Rome (Oxford, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

67 On Eugene's temperance (triplum vv. 26–7) see Cumming, ‘Concord’, p. 351.

68 Cumming, ‘Concord’, pp. 346–7, presents an edition of the text by herself and L. Rosenwald, and on p. 348 a translation by Rosenwald ‘in consultation with J.C.’; I assign explicit emendations to ‘Cumming–Rosenwald’ and readings implied by the translation to ‘Rosenwald’.

69 For a performance by Pomerium Musices (dir. A. Blachly).

70 Kienast also altered corde to chordo, enforcing the translation ‘By the holy clerks' own belated meditating judgement’; chordus, or rather cordus, is an epithet of late hay and lambs born out of season, explained for the benefit of urban readers by Varro, De re rustica 2.1.19, and the cognomen of the historian A. Cremutius, who fell foul of Sejanus. If a dim notion of propria chorda, ‘practising/playing on their own string’, had entered his mind, he would have done better to dismiss it: even if the clergy could be imagined playing stringed instruments instead of singing, the rhyme would not allow it.

71 Cf. Cumming, ‘Concord’, p. 367 n. 23.

72 See Lloyd-Jones, H., Blood for the Ghosts (London, 1982), pp. 197–8Google Scholar. A. E. Housman was a genuine English poet; but nothing he wrote in English matches – even in the Romantic virtue of speaking from the heart – his Latin elegiacs dedicating the first book of his Manilius to Moses Jackson.

73 Ed. Günther, U., The Motets of the Manuscripts Chantilly, Musée Condé, 564 (olim 1067)Google Scholarand Modena, Biblioteca Estense, α M. 5, 24 (olim lat. 568), CMM 39 (N.p., 1965), no. 3; the sense of the triplum is no doubt correctly paraphrased at pp. xxiv f, but translation is impossible.

74 Opera omnia, ed. Besseler, , CMM 1, v (Rome, 1966), no. 1Google Scholar; see Planchart, A. E., ‘What's in a Name? Reflections on Some Works of Guillaume Du Fay’, Early Music, 16 (1988), pp. 165–75, at 170–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

75 Wright, C., ‘Dufay's Nuper rosarum flores, King Solomon's Temple, and the Veneration of the Virgin’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 47, (1994), pp. 395441, at pp. 434-7, 440-1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

76 At v. 13 ‘Cum pons vivis ligno structus’ we need either vivo or lignis. In the repeated ‘Quo turn corde, quo tum vultu’ (11, 20, 26), the adverb tum makes no sense; the preposition cum, though mere padding and alien to pure style, would at least be used in accordance with its meaning.

77 In v. 3 abs <que> is required for sense and metre; in v. 7 perhaps exsuxit, but in any case an extra syllable is needed. At v. 5 huïc is disyllabic, as occasionally in Silver and often in medieval Latin. Most authorities deny this work to Du Fay, but see Fallows, p. 130.

78 See Fallows, pp. 130, 235; Hamm, C. E., A Chronology of the Works of Guillaume Dufay Based on a Study of Mensural Practice (Princeton, 1964)Google Scholar, does not discuss it, though he includes it in his list of Du Fay's motets (p. 169), not with the erroneously attributed items on p. 170. Lütteken, p. 271, accepts it; it is included on the CD cited in n. 1 and defended in the booklet at p. 148. It was vindicated for Du Fay by J. M. Allsen, ‘Two “New” Motets by Du Fay’, paper read at the 61st Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society, New York, 2 November 1995.

79 Besseler, ‘Neue Dokumente’, pp. 162–5.

80 Planchart, ‘What's in a Name?’, pp. 165–70.

81 Fallows, pp. 34–5; Lütteken, pp. 289–92, attaches it to his coronation on Whit Sunday ten days later.

82 I therefore forbear to record the errors of individual manuscripts, but note that supremus and somnus in Besseler, , pp. xviii fGoogle Scholar, are misprints not repeated in the underlay.

83 Hamm, , Chronology, pp. 70–3Google Scholar; Fallows, p. 291 = ch. 9 n. 3; Lütteken, p. 340. It is edited by Ficker, , Sieben Trienter Codices, pp. 1618Google Scholar, but not in de Van or Besseler. Allsen, who argued for Du Fay's authorship in his AMS paper of 1995, has edited the motet in Four Late Isorhythmic Motets, no. 2.

84 See Housman, A. E., Classical Papers, ed. Diggle, J. and Goodyear, F. R. D., 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1972), ii, pp. 432–3Google Scholar, and in his edition of Manilius at 1.616 (and addenda), 804, 2.795.

85 Induction: Fallows, pp. 60–1. Departure: Stevens, D., in his review of Fallows's original edition, MQ 69 (1983), pp. 601–5, at pp. 604–5Google Scholar, who reads into the Purification commonplaces of the motetus allusions to the traditional vice of schoolmasters from Hamillus to Oscar Browning.

86 Lütteken, pp. 300–1, citing Houdoy, , Histoire artistique, 351Google Scholar: for ‘ab 1460’ read ‘im Jahre 1461’, since it was begun ‘Ian m cccc soixante le xviiie jour du mois de march’, sc. Easter style, = 18 March 1461 modern.

87 Specifically from the end of the repetendum in both the first responsory, Adorna thalamum, and the fifth, Senex puerum portabat. I am most grateful to Barbara Haggh for this information, taken from Cambrai, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 38, fols. 248v, 249v; she adds that the latter text appears with different music in the Recollectio office as the sixth responsory of matins. Both responsories are also found in the Worcester Antiphoner, facs. Paléographie musicals, xii (Tournai, 1922), pp. 268, 270Google Scholar, the former having the same melody as at Cambrai.

88 Planchart, A. E., ‘Guillaume Du Fay's Second Style’, in Owens, J. A. and Cummings, A. M. (eds.), Music in Renaissance Cities and Courts: Studies in Honor of Lewis Lockwood (Warren, Mich., 1997), pp. 307–40, at pp. 314–15Google Scholar. Planchart informs me (pers. comm.) that the Castellum in Petrus' name is Le Cateau-Cambrésis; his connection with the cathedral went back to 1431. He died in 1468.

89 Cf.Bujić, B., ‘Guillaume Dufay as a Reader of Petrarch’, The Italianist, 11 (1991), pp. 162–79, at p. 168CrossRefGoogle Scholar; more generally see Page, C., Discarding Images: Reflections on Music and Culture in Medieval France (Oxford, 1993), pp. 99100Google Scholar; Edwards, W., ‘Phrasing in Medieval Song: Perspectives in Traditional Music’, Plainsong and Medieval Music, 5 (1996), pp. 122CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Note too at Magnanime gentis, motetus, v. 2, the two semibreve rests after enim at the caesura, even though the sense requires enim to begin its clause; the composer has chosen to respect the structure of the verse rather than the sentence.

90 This was long-standing doctrine, but reappears (as Barbara Haggh kindly informs me) in Gilles Carlier's Recollectio texts for the sixth antiphon and the sixth lesson at matins, and also in his Lauds hymn Nunciat angelus, vv 26–7: ‘observat mandatum, lege soluta’ (‘she obeys the ordinance, though free of the law’). However, Carlier is far too fluent an author to be considered in connection with Puerpera pura parens or Moribus et genere.

91 Quellet, H., Les dérivés latins en -or: Étude lexicographique, statistique, morphologique et sémantique, Études et Commentaires 72 (Paris, 1979), pp. 40Google Scholar (obstupor), 46–8 (denidor, praefulgor, resplendor).

92 Legenda aurea, p. 161 Graesse: ‘Non autem dixit pullos turturum, sed pullos columbarum, quia pulli columbarum semper inveniuntur, pulli autem turturum non semper inveniuntur, turtures autem semper inveniuntur; nec dicitur par columbarum, sicut par turturum, quia columba est avis libidinosa et ideo in sacrificio suo Deus noluit offerri, turtur autem est avis pudica.’

93 Corpus iuris canonici, ed. Friedberg, E., 2 vols. (Leipzig, 18791981), ii, cols. 661–2Google Scholar, reading (after the Roman edition of 1584) ille after Iuvenis, certius existimamus for tutius est, praedictam for dictam, tibi after mandamus, and postmodum for postea; see his apparatus, and the sources cited at Jaffé, P., rev. S. Loewenfeld et al., Regesta Pontificum Romanorum ab condita ecclesia ad annum post Christum natum MCXCVIII, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 18851888), ii, p. 84, no. 9655Google Scholar. For the titles De sponsalibus et matrimoniis and De desponsatione impuberum see Friedberg, cols. 661–79, and for the corresponding titles of the Sext cols. 1065–7. The modern mode of citation, used hereafter, is X [= Liber Extra] 4.1.3.

94 These ages were taken over from Roman law: see respectively Dig. 23.1.14 (betrothal), C.J. 5.4.24 (marriage).

95 When both parties were puberes, of age to be married, the exchange of verba de praesenti (‘I take thee for my wife/husband’) committed them there and then, even before consummation (though its failure might nullify the marriage); the exchange of verba de futuro, which might take place once both parties were seven, constituted marriage once copula carnalis had ensued. See X 4.1.15; Brundage, James A., Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago, 1987), pp. 333–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brooke, C. N. L., The Medieval Idea of Marriage (Oxford, 1989), pp. 132–3Google Scholar.

96 I make no claim that the following summary, taken from texts to which I had convenient access, is either exhaustive or representative; it is intended only to illustrate the canonists' abiding concern with the problem. Other relevant texts are cited in passing by Brundage, , Law, pp. 357 n. 159, 437 n. 105, 456 n. 200Google Scholar.

97 Apparatus Domini Inno. Pape quarti super quinque libris decretalium cum additionibus nuper impressis (Trino, 1511), fol. 196va-bGoogle Scholar.

98 Summa perutilis domini Goffredi super Titu(los) Decretalium (Venice, 24 01 1491), 82ra (on X.5.23)Google Scholar.

99 Ioannis Andreae I.C. Bononiensis, omnium canonici iuris interpretum facile principis, in quartum decretalium librum Novella Commentaria (Venice, 1581), 2vb–3raGoogle Scholar, on septemnem (so spelt): ‘ex toto, sed erat proxima, et adeo discreta et doli capax, sicut solunt esse septemnes, secundum communem lecturam’ (‘[not] fully seven years, but she was nearly so, and thus discreet and capable of guile, as seven-year-olds usually are, according to the common reading’, sc. as opposed to Hostiensis' dissent, see below); for this characterisation of seven-year-olds cf. the ‘Lice’ of the text published from Paris, BN lat. 3719 by Spanke, H., ‘Ein unveröffentliches lateinisches Liebeslied’, Speculum, 5 (1930), pp. 431–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

100 ‘Si maior septemnio [sic] cum proxima <septennio> et in qua malitia supplet <etatem> sponsalia contrahat, oritur ex his publicae honestatis iustitia maxime si commisceri temptauerint’: Novella, fol. 2vb, as corrected from Casus breves Iohannis Andree super quinque libros decretalium [Paris, c. 1480], [h6]v and quotations in later canonists. See too Summa dornini Iohannis Andree brevis et utilis super quarto libro decretalium (Paris,1489), [al]r.

101 Henrici de Segusio Cardinalis iuris utriusque monarchae in quartum decretalium librum Commentaria (Venice, 1581), fol. 2va-bGoogle Scholar.

102 This is a frequent use of quidam to denote extension by analogy or metaphor, all too often missed by translators.

103 Excellentissimi Antonii a Butrio iuris utriusque monarchae in librum quartum decretalium commentarii (Venice, 1578)Google Scholar, fol. 4ra-vb; he also holds that an unnatural attempt by an infant made without marital affection would not induce public honesty or affinity (cf. Brundage, , Law, p. 356 with n. 156)Google Scholar. For another protest at the misplaced ‘perhaps’ see Francisci Zabarellae Palavini cardinalis Florentini, iurisconsulti praestantissimi, super IIII. et V. Decretalium subtilissima commentaria (Venice, 1602), fol. 2vbGoogle Scholar.

104 Antonius, Commentarii, fol. 4ra-b: ‘Nota secundo quod quandoque attenditur etiam affectus non ad effectum deductus’ (‘Note secondly that sometimes attention is paid even to an attempt not carried through to effect’).

105 See Piccolominus, Aeneas Sylvius (Pius II), De gestis Concilii Basiliensis commentariorum libri duo, ed. Hay, D. and Smith, W. K., Oxford Medieval Texts, rev. edn (Oxford,1992), p. xxiiGoogle Scholar and n. 3 et passim.

106 Fallows, pp. 35, 281–2, argues that Du Fay's degree was conferred at Rome and after abbreviated study or none at all; Planchart, , ‘Guillaume Du Fay's Benefices and his Relationship to the Court of Burgundy’, Early Music History, 8 (1988), pp. 117–71, at p. 132CrossRefGoogle Scholar, pointing out that Du Fay was not a graduate in January 1436, supposes a papal fiat.

107 Cf.Brundage, , Law, 357 with 162Google Scholar.

108 Abbatis Panormitani Commentaria in Quartum et Quintum decretalium libros(Lyon, 1586)Google Scholar, fol. 3rb-va, beginning with Joannes Andreae's summation, and continuing: ‘Ita communiter summatur, licet in veritate summarium non colligitur ex litera, ut patet clarius ex infra dicendis. Sed inhaerendo literae potest sic summari: Si maior septennio duxit uxorem minorem septennio et earn traduxit ad domum, oritur ex tali contractu publicae honestatis iustitia … Item fundat se super honestatem ecclesiae quia ilia dicebatur coniunx istius. unde si recte ponderetur litera, hie fuit contractum matrimonium per verba de praesenti, licet facto, ut patet ibi, duxit, et ibi, coniunx ipsius etc. … videtur quod oriatur hie publica honestas ex quadam aequitate tamen hoc iure non probatur’ (‘That is the conventional summation, although in truth it is not deduced from the literal sense, as will be clearer from what will be said below. But one may summarize adhering to the literal sense as follows: If a male above seven has taken a wife under seven and moved her to his home, there arises from such contract the justice of public honesty … Moreover, the text founds itself on public honesty because she was said to be his wife; whence if the wording is correctly weighed up, there was a marriage contracted here by words de praesenti, albeit de facto, as is clear at “married” and “his wife, &c.” … it appears that public honesty arises here by a kind of equity, but this proposition is not proved in law’).

109 Fallows, p. 49.

110 Trumble, E., ‘Autobiographical Implications in Dufay's Song-Motet Juvenis qui puellam’, Revue Beige de Musicologie, 42 (1988), pp. 3182, at pp. 60–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

111 Observe the topic, and tone, of the versus cum auctoritate constituting the upper voices of Montpellier fol. 322v, ed. Aubry, P., Cent motets du XIIIe slécle, Études et Commentaires 3 (Paris, 1908), pp. 30–1Google Scholar: the just exclusion from the clergy of bigamists and other sexual malefactors.

112 Besseler, ‘Neue Dokumente’, pp. 172–3.

113 A point made to me by Margot Fassler at Baltimore.

114 Note that it is the syllable, not the vowel, that is lengthened by position; classical scholars have unfortunately failed to adopt the Sanskrit terminology that makes vowels short or long but syllables light or heavy.

115 Moribus et generē Christo is shown by the parallels to be a caesural lengthening, although in a classical poet such a scansion would be positional.

116 Late and post-Roman exceptions are due to misinterpretation of caesural lengthening at Vergil, Aeneid 9.610, or in Carolingian poetry to the strong Germanic h. There are no such complications in our texts.

117 In classical verse, when the second word is es ‘thou art’ or est ‘is’, it is the e that is elided; but medieval practice does not always recognise this rule. See Norberg, D., Introduction à l'étude de la versification latine médiévale (Stockholm, 1958), pp. 36–7Google Scholar.

118 The occasional spondee is permissible in place of the fifth-foot dactyl, but does not occur in our texts.

119 The ancients called this ‘caesura at the third trochee’; the modern name of ‘feminine caesura’ imitates the ‘feminine rhyme’ and ‘feminine ending’ of vernacular verse. It is the preferred caesura of most Greek hexameter poets, but much rarer in Latin. Another modern term is ‘weak’ caesura, that after a long syllable being ‘strong’.

120 These may be broken for special effect or when Greek words are used; but neither consideration applies in our texts.

121 This metre, familiar from Horace, is that of Ut queant laxis (OO v, no. 26) despite the licentious lengthenings of gloriă and spiritŭs (vv. 17. 19), and (despite sundry errors) of Iste confessor (OO v, no. 1); in the Middle Ages the stress-pattern of such verses gave rise to the accentual but unrhymed sapphic stanza imitated in post-Renaissance German and English poetry, three hendecasyllables of ′xx′x′x′x′x (where either the sixth or the eighth syllable may lose its stress) followed by ′xx′x, e.g. Áures ad nóstras deitátis préces (OO v, no. 15).

122 See Meyer, W. (aus Speyer), Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur mittellateinischen Rhythmik, 3 vols. (Berlin, 19051936), i, pp. 7999Google Scholar.

123 This text, not confined to Du Fay's motet (OO i, no. 6), consists of 7pp and 6p verses combined into a dizain rhyming ababcababc (the c lines being 6pp) and a huitain rhyming adadadad (the d lines being 6p); at motetus v. 3, for the nonsensical pars Scythie Müller-Glauser (p. 146) reads par Cynthie, ‘equal to (=like) the moon’. However, the corruption must have been old: pars sithie is given for both upper voices in the anonymous setting at Tr 88, fols. 205v–206r. In Padua, Biblioteca Capitolare, A 17, copied by Giordano Passetto in 1522, a setting of this text on fols. 119v–120r has par sithie; par scithiae appears in all five voices of Maistre Jhan's setting (RISM 15433).

124 Note that (as in classical Latin) short prepositions and conjunctions tend to attract the stress from following monosyllables or iambic words: Norberg, , Introduction, pp. 20–8Google Scholar; idem, L'accentuation, pp. 47–53.