Among the treasures of surviving medieval instrumental music are eight French royal estampies in the Manuscrit or Chansonnier du roi, c. 1300. This article includes:
• an outline of the manuscript, putting the estampies in context; • a description of the estampie form from a contemporaneous French source, Ars musice by Johannes de Grocheio, c. 1300; • a video of each of the eight royal estampies performed on either gittern, citole or medieval harp; • the music for all the royal estampies in the original neume notation and in modern notation; • music analysis and historically-informed performance suggestions, looking at a different aspect of performance for each estampie.
This is the fourth in a series of eight articles about the 71 stone and wood carvings of musicians created between 1330 and 1390 in Beverley Minster, a church in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Since Beverley Minster has more iconography of medieval musicians than any other surviving historical site, these articles are a survey of the musical life of 14th century England.
Having given the Minster’s history in the first article, described the medieval musicians of the arcades and triforium in the second article and those on the walls either side of the nave in the third article, here all the outstanding medieval stone and wood carvings are explored in the remaining parts of the church. We will see 14th century carvings of musicians playing bagpipes, hunting horn, vielles (medieval fiddles), harps, portative organs, psaltery, oliphants, and nakers. These carvings raise questions about: the history of the influential de Percy family from the Norman conquest to the English Civil War; the royal and military practice of blowing elephant horns; and the pre-eminence for medieval musicians of the fiddle, bagpipe, harp and portative organ.
The estampie was an internationally popular musical form of the late middle ages. Eight beautiful French estampies from circa 1300 are written in the Manuscrit du Roi, seven of which are complete. The first estampie is a fragment, due to the top half of the page being torn to remove illuminated letters, seen on the right.
After examining what we know about the estampie and the particular characteristics of French estampies, this article searches for historical principles upon which the fragment of La prime Estampie Royal can be made whole again.
The article begins with a video performance of the finished piece played on gittern, then explains the process of historically-informed construction, and ends with the completed music in modern notation.
In the middle ages, minstrels were regularly accused by church commentators of vanity, idleness, inflaming carnal desire, lechery, and leading others into vice. In the 12th century, Bishop of Chartres John of Salisbury expressed the view that all minstrels should be exterminated. Because of this reputation, the church wanted to ensure that its most sacred music was different in kind to minstrel music, and restated several times that only the voice and organ were allowed in the liturgy, not instruments of minstrelsy. Still some writers complained bitterly of secular styles of music corrupting singers’ voices in sacred chant.
How can we account for the contradiction between clergy’s invectives against minstrels and the innumerable quantity of medieval and renaissance paintings in which gitterns, shawms, harps, fiddles, lutes – the instruments of minstrels – are shown in worship of the Virgin Mary and in praise of the infant Jesus? How can we reconcile the critiques of clerics against minstrels with their regular appearance in religious manuscripts, their likenesses carved in churches, and their employment by the church? This article seeks answers through the evidence of medieval Christian moralists; church councils; music treatises; religious paintings; records of church ceremonies; and the relationship of the church with organised minstrelsy.
Images from The Luttrell Psalter, 1325-1340 (BL Add MS 42130). Top row, left to right: church singers (f. 171v); bishop (f. 31r); pilgrim (f. 32r); nun (f. 51v). This row, left to right, players of: harp (f. 174v); pipe and tabor (f. 164v); organistrum, also called the symphony (f. 176r); portative organ (f. 176r).
One of the earliest surviving pieces of English instrumental music has survived with the 13th–14th century manuscript, Douce 139, now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It is exciting in its musical drive and complexity, but interpretation of the neume notation has its problems, leaving us to make judgements about intention. The music is untitled, and is often named Estampie or English Dance in modern sources.
This article works through the puzzles in order to gain some performable answers. What is an estampie? Is the Douce 139 piece an estampie? How can the musical problems left by the scribe’s imperfect notation be reconciled? Drawing on music theorist, Johannes de Grocheio, writing in c. 1300, this article looks for solutions, with a video of the music played on citole.
The most fundamental question of all in playing early music today is: how can the music be played to reflect historical practice? This is the third of three articles on this topic for medieval music, aiming to be practical guides with plenty of musical examples and illustrations, and a bibliography for those who wish to delve further.
The first article discussed historical instrument combinations and the second how to create polyphonic accompaniments for music written monophonically. This third and last article discusses a wide variety of questions of style: the performance of the non-mensural (non-rhythmic) notation of the troubadours; the role of the voice and instruments; ornamentation; questions of intelligibility, language and sung translations; musical preludes and postludes; and the effect of the various functions of music on the way it is performed.
This article features a video of Martin Carthy singing a traditional English song on the basis that his free style, with the voice leading and guitar following, each verse phrased differently, so free that it is mensurally unwritable, may have something important to tell us about the historical performance of troubadour songs.
Harp, vielle and citole in the Peterborough Psalter, England, 1300-50.
The most fundamental question of all in playing early music today is: how can the music be played to reflect historical practice? This is the second of three articles looking at historically-informed ways of performing medieval music, aiming to be a practical guide, with plenty of musical examples and illustrations, and a bibliography for those who wish to delve further.
The first article focussed on historical instrument combinations, using the illustrations of two 13th century manuscripts as representative examples. This second article distinguishes the difference between modern harmony and medieval polyphony, and the main body of the article looks at styles of medieval accompaniment by referencing historical models. For simplicity and clarity, the same passage of music is used as the basis for exploring a variety of accompaniments. Arrangements of the first section of Cantiga de Santa Maria 10 illustrate heterophony, parallel movement, fifthing, the gymel, the importance of medieval modes, drones and drone-like accompaniments, the type of organum derided by a cleric as “minstrelish little notes”, the rota and ground bass, and the motet.
For each method, there is a sound clip of a short musical performance, composed in historically informed style by Ian Pittaway, performed by Kathryn Wheeler on recorder and vielle, and by Ian Pittaway on harp, gittern and oud. There are links to 15 illustrative videos, putting the techniques in this article into practice. Finally, the question of what to do if there isn’t a tune is addressed.
The key message of this article is: once informed, be creative.
Raimbaut de Vaqueiras as depicted in a 14th century French manuscript (Bibliothèque nationale de France ms. 854, folio 75v).
Kalenda maya is a 12th century song by troubadour, Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, one of the Occitanian (later southern French) poets and singers who developed the musical tradition of fin’amor, refined or perfect love. Via Roman fertility festivals and Irish fiddle tunes, this article discusses the poetic content of the song and the problems of interpreting the musical notation of Kalendamaya, penned when written music was still developing in medieval Europe. Can there be a definitive version when there are textual variants of the same song or melody? How credible are renditions of Kalenda maya that impose a musical rhythm not present on the original page?
Raimbaut de Vaqueiras based the melody of Kalenda maya on an estampie he heard at court in Italy. Using principles written in 1300, I attempted to reverse engineer the sung estampie back into the tune it originally was. The reasons this proved impossible tell us something important about medieval music and the continuance of the spirit in which it was played.
We begin with a video of two interpretations of the melody played on gittern.
