The complete French estampies of c. 1300: music, analysis, performance

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.

The source: Manuscrit du roi

Manuscrit du roi or Chansonnier du roi is a collection of 600 troubadour (Occitan) and trouvère (Old French) songs. The works of early poets such as the troubadour Jaufre Rudel (first half of the 12^th century) and the trouvère le Châtelain de Coucy (late 12^th to early 13^th century) are included. The latest datable song is Thibaut de Bar’s De nous seigneur, que vous est il avis, about his captivity following the battle between Guy de Dampierre and Jean d’Avesnes in Walcheren (now Zeeland, Netherlands). He was captured for a year in 1253, putting the earliest date for the completion of the collection at 1254. The absence of the later poets such as troubadour Guiraut Riquier (c. 1230–92) and the trouvère Adam de la Halle (c. 1250–late 13^th/early 14^th century), and the fact that the motets are not written in mensural notation, gives us a date range of 1254–c. 1270 for the main body of the collection.

The anthology is now held by Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, classified as Français 844, or BnF 844, or F-Pn fr. 844, or Paris 844. In the modern cataloguing system for troubadour and trouvère manuscripts, it is known as both Troubadour W and Trouvère M.

The modern name for the compilation, Manuscrit du roi – Manuscript of the king – is so-called after Charles d’Anjou (1226/7–85), Count of Provence, Forcalquier, Anjou and Maine, Prince of Achaea, King of Sicily and Albania. The manuscript’s association with Charles d’Anjou was proposed by Jean Beck (1927) and has long been accepted by many modern scholars, but based on what John Haines (2002) calls “tenuous evidence … Nothing in the scribal layer … suggests that the lord of Anjou was the original commissioner.” Whether Charles d’Anjou commissioned or owned the manuscript is not certain, and its place and precise time of production is unknown.  

What we do know is that sometime after the collection was complete, an unknown person circa 1300 added 11 tunes in blank spaces, namely:

untitled (folio 5r)         
Danse (folio 5r)            
torn page – given what follows, the missing title must be La prime Estampie Royal (folio 103v)            
La seconde Estampie Royal (folio 103v–104r)
La tierce Estampie Roial (folio 104r)
La quarte Estampie Royal (folio 104r)
La quinte estampie Real (folio 104v)
La Sexte estampie Real (folio 104v)
La Septime estampie Real (folio 104v)
La Uitime estampie Real (folio 104v)
Dansse Real (folio 104v)

This article focuses on the royal estampies numbered prime to Uitime, first to eighth. That they are royal estampies alongside a royal dance gives us a courtly context for performance. To define what an estampie was, we turn to a contemporaneous French witness.

Defining the estampie: Johannes de Grocheio, Ars musice, Paris, c. 1300

Ars musice was written by Johannes de Grocheio sometime between the 1270s and c. 1300, probably nearer the later date, and it survives in two manuscript compendiums: British Library, Harley 281, folios 30–52, and Hessische Landes- und Hochschulbibliothek, MS 2663, folios 56–59. Grocheio states that he is describing musical practice in the Paris of his day. Among his subjects, Ars musice includes the most detailed, substantial and significant theoretical description of the estampie.

The musical type in question was both a sung and instrumental form, and was called estampie (Old French, Middle French), estanpie (Old French), estampida (Occitan), stampen (Middle High German), stampita or istanpitta (Tuscan). All these words denote a reverberating sound, explained in the following way in c. 1290 by the anonymous author of Doctrina de compondre dictates, an attempt to systematise genres of troubadour poetry and music: “An estampida is so called because it is taken vigorously in counting or in singing, more than any other song”. The need to count vigorously will be seen and heard in the royal estampies to follow. We are used to musical phrase lengths being equal in every section of a piece and thus predictably countable. In an estampie, the length of any section is unpredictable in principle, cannot be anticipated, and can only be known by being familiar with that particular and singular estampida.

Johannes de Grocheio used Latin terms for the estampie: stantipes, stantipede, stantipedem and stantipedis. These words mean standing, standing foot or standing feet. Grocheio doesn’t explain why these terms are used, but it is easy to imagine from what he does write: due to its irregularity, both musicians and audience need to focus on the stantipes, and they can only do so by remaining focussed and stationary. Of the vocal stantipes, Grocheio writes: “On account of its difficulty, this makes the minds of young men and of girls dwell upon this and it leads them away from wicked thoughts.” Similarly, he writes of the instrumental stantipes that “because of its difficulty, it makes the mind of the performer and also the mind of the observer focus on it, and it often diverts the minds of the rich from wicked thoughts.”

Almost all modern writers on medieval music who mention the estampie describe it as a dance, yet no manuscript with estampie notation indicates that it was danced. Whether there is any medieval evidence at all for the estampie as a dance will be presented in an article on this site, to appear in 2025.

Grocheio describes the vocal and instrumental stantipede as follows. Grocheio’s key points are in bold, followed by my commentary.

a. Stantipes is a musical form that employs musica falsa or musica ficta, chromatic changes to the gamut.

Guido of Arezzo, an 11^th century Italian Benedictine monk, mapped the gamut, all the available notes in medieval music theory. Gamut is from the Latin gamma ut, being the Greek letter gamma, Γ, used for the lowest note, G, and the syllable ut, being the lowest note of a hexachord, a pattern or scale of 6 rising notes with the names ut, re, mi, fa, sol, and la. The chart above shows all the notes theoretically available in the gamut. 

The notes of the gamut are all natural, with the exception of b^b. In medieval music theory, these diatonic or natural notes are musica vera or musica recta, true or correct music. Grocheio explains that some musical forms use musica falsa, false music (also known as musica ficta, fictitious music), that is, chromatic alteration to the diatonic notes of the gamut. He names two musical forms in particular that use musica falsa: the stantipede and the ductia.

The semitone alteration of b^b to b♮ and vice versa is used regularly in the French royal estampies – in the second, third, fourth, sixth, seventh, and eighth – these notes being musica vera or musica recta, part of the gamut. As we will see below, La Uitime estampie Real also includes a flattened e’’, the only one of these eight estampies to employ musica falsa. We can therefore clarify Grocheio’s statement to say that estampies may use musica falsa, but it is not used in every estampie – at least, not in the case of the French royal estampies.

b. Stantipes are made from units of music called punctus (sing.) or puncta (pl.). A punctus has an open ending, followed by a repeat of the unit, completed with a close ending.
c. The open and close endings begin the same then diverge.
d. The length of the open and close ending are not the same – one is longer than the other.

Of the instrumental stantipes, Grocheio writes: “The parts of the ductie and stantipedis are commonly called puncta. A punctus is an ordered assemblage of successive notes making harmony by ascending and descending, having two parts, similar in the beginning, different at the end, which are commonly called closed and open. I say ‘having two parts’ etc. in the likeness of two lines, of which one is longer than the other. The greater encloses the lesser and differs from the lesser at the end.”

What Grocheio means is that a punctus, plural puncta, literally point in English, is a musical unit of successive notes which leads to an open ending, the equivalent of a modern first time bar, with a return to the beginning of the unit, terminating in the close ending, the equivalent of a modern second time bar. The initial notes of the open and close ending are the same, then they diverge, and the open and close are different lengths. These are the features of a punctus, the musical units that make up a stantipes.

We see this on the right in the first 4 staves of La tierche Estampie Roial – The third Royal Estampie. The first line is the A section; the second line is the open ending up to the vertical line, followed by the close ending. The third and fourth lines are the B and C sections, followed at the end of each line by the initial notes of the open and close ending. As with the other estampies, the open and close are not written out every time, but indicated by the initial notes, which are the same for both the open and the close ending: they begin identically then diverge, as Grocheio indicated.

The open and close endings are missing for La prime Estampie Royal. In 4 estampies, the open and close are different lengths, as Grocheio indicated, but in the remaining 3, open and close are the same length. We may therefore modify Grocheio’s observation that open and close are different lengths to: the open and close ending are usually different lengths. (This is also true of estampies in other sources.)

e. The recta percussiones or correct number of percussive beats in a stantipes punctus is not standardised, and can be any length within the same piece of music.
f. The unpredictable length of a musical unit is the recta percussiones – correct mensural length or number of beats – for the stantipes and is its distinctive feature.

Grocheio explains that the puncta of the stantipes are distinctive. “A stantipes is a textless melody, having a difficult structure of notes determined through puncta … because of its difficulty, it makes the mind of the performer and also the mind of the observer focus on it … I also say ‘determined through puncta’ in that it lacks the percussio [percussive beating] of the ductia, and it is recognised only by the distinction of its puncta.” Later in the treatise, Grocheio concludes his explanation of the instrumental stantipes with a reiteration of its distinguishing feature: “To compose a ductia and stantipes is to shape musical sound into the puncta and rectas percussiones for a ductia and stantipes.”

Rectas percussiones means correct number of beats. Grocheio is saying that the stantipes is difficult and requires focus from performer and listener alike because, unlike the ductia, a musical form with predictable and identical-length units of music, with every punctus having the same number of beats, a stantipes has unpredictable and different length units of music. Grocheio then restates that in a ductia each punctus is the same length, and this is the rectas percussiones, the right number of beats for a ductia; whereas in a stantipes, each punctus is an unpredictably different length, and this is the rectas percussiones, the right number of beats for a stantipes, and its distinguishing feature.

This is true of all royal estampies, as demonstrated in the chart below. Taking La seconde Estampie Royal as an example, the formula for the chart is as follows. Each new letter is new musical material, x is an open ending, y is a close ending, and letters grouped together are a punctus. La seconde Estampie Royal is in the form:

AxAy BxBy CxCy DxDy ExEy FxFy = 6 puncta 

AxAy is one punctus, consisting of the A material leading to an open ending x, then repeated with a close ending y. The next punctus is BxBy in likewise manner, then CxCy through to FxFy, 6 puncta in all.  

Information about the length of the puncta is as follows. The letters are as above, A B C etc., representing new material in a new punctus. The number is the length of the punctus before the open and close endings, played once, and is the number of perfections. A perfection in medieval mensural music is a musical unit of 3 beats. Since open and close endings respectively are repeated at the end of each punctus, the number of perfections or measures in the open and close is given once at the end, x for open, y for close. Therefore … 

A8 B8 C8 D10 E8 F10 | x10 y9

… shows that punctus A is 8 measures or perfections, which is repeated after the open ending leading to the close ending, B is 8 measures, C is 8 measures, D 10 measures, E 8 measures and F 10 measures, the open ending x is 10 measures and the close ending y is 9 measures.

For all the royal estampies, the analysis is as follows:

The analysis of the royal estampies of BnF 844 above confirms Grocheio’s stipulation that the puncta are of differing lengths, with open and close endings that are (usually) of different lengths; therefore the recta percussiones or correct number of percussive beats in a stantipes punctus is that it is irregular. 

g. The number of puncta in an instrumental stantipes is 6 or 7.

Grocheio lets his desire to have a symbolic number of puncta in a stantipes get in the way of the facts. We see Grocheio’s concern with analogous and symbolic numbers elsewhere in the treatise, to prove that the organisation of creation reflects the orderliness of “the sublime Creator of all things”. He draws links between the Trinity and 3 musical consonant intervals (unison, octave, fifth); between the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit, 7 planets, 7 days of the week and 7 concordantias or concords, meaning 7 diatonic musical pitches; between 8 ecclesiastical modes and the 8 Beatitudes of Jesus. He claims that a ductia has 3 puncta to be analogous to 3 perfect consonances, which means that a ductia with 4 puncta must be “imperfect”, presumably because he couldn’t think of an analogy for the number 4. He claims that the stantipede has 6 puncta to be analogous to the hexachord, a series of 6 diatonic notes in medieval music theory, or it has 7 to represent the number of concordantiarum, concords, the notes of the diatonic octave. This analogical basis for the number of puncta means he ignores estampies with 4 or 5 puncta, such as those in the Manuscrit du roi. Even if he didn’t know those particular pieces, he describes the form so well that it is difficult to imagine he didn’t know of instrumental estampies with a number of puncta other than 6 or 7, but he didn’t mention them as they don’t fit his theological framework.

Grocheio is therefore not reliable in stating that stantipes have 6 or 7 puncta, as he is trying to serve a theological numerical agenda. This is shown in the chart of the BnF 844 estampies above, in which we see estampies with 4, 5, 6 and 7 puncta. 

h. The stantipes has a postlude, called a neupma in a religious context, a modum in a secular context.

If there are rules for the modum, Grocheio does not explain them. We have to assume that the estampie postlude or modum was improvised, as not only is this not written out for the royal estampies, it is not written for any existing estampie.

i. The stantipedem does not follow the rules of the 8 ecclesiastical modes.

Taking the same example as above, in La seconde Estampie Royal, the music resolves on d, as does the dorian mode, but we cannot say it has any notable dorian characteristics: there is no repeated reciting note giving the melody a distinctive tonal quality; and there are no characteristic melodic sequences (intonation figures) of the dorian mode. The same lack of compliance with modal rules is true of the other seven royal estampies, and true of estampies universally. This type of music is in the category of what Parisian friar and music theorist Jerome of Moravia called “irregular” music, i.e. non-modal secular music, in his Tractatus de Musica, c. 1280.

Having described the contemporaneous theory, we can now apply this to each of the eight royal estampies, with a video performance, the original neumes, modern transcriptions, and historically-attested performance suggestions for each.

The eight royal estampies: music, analysis, performance

Each of the eight royal estampies is presented with the same formula, for consistency and for easy comparison, as follows:

• A video of the estampie, first to eighth, demonstrating performance suggestions.
• The neume notation from Manuscrit du roi.
• The estampie in modern notation.
• A brief analysis of the music.
• A description of historically-informed performance suggestions, as shown in the video.

In modern books published as performance editions of medieval music, I regularly find myself frustrated by the fact that a facsimile of the original notation is never included. Without the neumes in front of me, I am left to guess: Is this an accurate reflection of what the scribe wrote? Was it originally mensural, or has the editor imposed rhythm not present or removed rhythm that was present in the manuscript? Where there is clear scribal error, how has the editor reached a solution, and would it be the solution I would choose? If you ever have the same questions, they can be easily answered by comparing the neumes to the modern notation in this article.

Since there were no time signatures in medieval music, in my modern notation no time signature is given. The bar lines represent the completion of a perfection, as described above. The modern 1^st and 2^nd time bars are the open and close endings respectively.

The music is briefly analysed to compare with Grocheio’s contemporaneous commentary, to bring out any salient features, and to resolve any issues of interpretation.

Historically-informed performance suggestions are made. This is intended to be helpful for any solo instrumentalist or small ensemble. Though only one line can be played at a time on a solo monophonic instrument such as a bagpipe, shawm, duct flute or symphonie, there are still questions of style and variation. Players of instruments capable of polyphony, such as gittern, citole, harp or early keyboard, or performers in groups, will likely want to go beyond the monophonic presentation in the manuscript, so the creation of an additional polyphonic line is addressed. As I explain in the article, Performing medieval music. Part 2/3: Turning monophony into polyphony, this is what a medieval performer would do: a monophonic line is the starting point for creativity, not a performance straitjacket. The article Turning monophony into polyphony outlines the evidence for medieval ways of adding a second polyphonic voice, and the performance suggestions below show how to put some of these methods into practice. So that these suggestions for style, variation and polyphony do not remain abstract and theoretical, the title of each section names the performance suggestion, and each section begins with a video putting the accompaniment idea into practice, beginning with …

[La prime Estampie Royal]: moving drone

• A brief analysis of the music.

The second to eighth royal estampies are complete. As we see below, the first estampie is a fragment. We have the opening 3 notes of the open and close (which are the same notes, as discussed above), two complete sections before the open and close, and a third partial section.

If we are to attempt a completed construction of this piece, first we need to discern how much music is missing. The surviving half of folio 103v has, on the right side of the page, 5 complete staves and the lower portion of a 6^th staff. Of these, 2 complete staves and the incomplete staff have La prime Estampie Royal; 1 staff is blank, usual in this manuscript for separating the pieces; and 2 staves have the beginning of La seconde Estampie Royal. The left side of folio 103v ends partway through a word, indicating at least 1 verse written on the missing top of the right column of folio 103v instead of a staff. This indicates a maximum of 10 staves in the right column, rather than 11 seen in the columns of folio 104r.

Since we have 5 complete staves and 1 partial staff remaining, a maximum of 4 complete staves of music are missing from La prime Estampie Royal. Since we have 2 complete and 1 partial punctus, this suggests that the original prime Estampie Royal was written on 7 or fewer staves. Other estampies are written with 1 punctus per staff, spilling over to 2 staves only when the open and close ending is written in full the first time through. On the basis that the first punctus, with the open and close ending written out in full, would take up 2 staves, the whole piece would be on 7 staves with 6 puncta. This is in line with other estampies in the manuscript, which have between 4 and 7 puncta. This is the basis of my construction for the missing music in the video above. 

For much more detail, there is a dedicated article about the incomplete first estampie, examining the features of estampie melody to compose a speculative construction of the missing parts: La prime Estampie Royal: completing the fragment of a medieval melody.

• Historically-informed performance suggestions.

The first estampie is played on a reproduction of a gittern painted by Simone Martini in 1312–18 (see How reliable is medieval music iconography? Part 3/3: Making the Martini gittern), which is clearly shown with octave stringing throughout. This creates the effect of octave organum throughout the piece, as the parallel octave is integral to the Martini instrument, just as a drone is integral to the portative organ and many (but not all) bagpipes.

The chosen method of accompaniment in additional to the monophonic line is the most straightforward thing one can do on a plucked instrument other than playing single notes. The idea is taken from the vielle or viella, the medieval fiddle, which often had a flat bridge. The practical effect on the fiddle is that, for the most part, all strings are played at once, and the sonic effect is that the melody is heard weaving in and out of a block of drone notes. As the melody changes courses, the stopped and droning notes respectively change, so the drone changes through a piece.

Since the gittern is tuned in fourths – c’’ g’ d’ a (as described in the Berkeley theory manuscript, University of California Music Library, Ms 744, written before 1361) – playing all strings at once would result in cacophony; but a moving drone similar to that on the vielle can be created by regularly sounding the adjacent open course to the melody, either higher or lower. This functions in the same way as on the vielle: when the melody changes course, the available courses for the drone change, and the drone changes with it.

La seconde Estampie Royal: voice crossings and resolving notes

• A brief analysis of the music. 

As discussed above, Jerome of Moravia, Tractatus de Musica, c. 1280, and Johannes de Grocheio, Ars musice, c. 1300, state that secular music does not follow ecclesiastical modes. Tonally, the Manuscrit du Roi estampies bear only a passing resemblance to the modes, where there is any resemblance at all. The seconde Estampie starts on f’ and has no tenor or reciting note, but since the finalis is d’, may we describe it as broadly dorian? The dorianesque sound, due the melody’s diatonic range, can be heard particularly in the open and close endings. The open ending finishes on g’, which we can hear is unresolved, whereas at the finish of the close ending on d’ there is a sense of resolution and completion, as there would be on that note in the dorian mode. The striking opening notes of the open and close are a’ c’’ b’. A modern composer would make this a’ c’’ b^b’ so that the intervals sound smoother, as in a modern minor key, but this medieval sound is more angular, resulting in melodic tension, as we would expect in the unmodified dorian mode. 

• Historically-informed performance suggestions.

The instrument is a citole, tuned in two fourths and a second – c’’ g’ d’ c’ (as with gittern tuning, this is described in the Berkeley theory manuscript, written before 1361). The same method of playing the melody and droning the adjacent course is used as for La prime Estampie Royal, sometimes below, sometimes above the melody, here with greater emphasis on when to play the single notes of the manuscript and when to add a second voice for emphasis or musical effect.

In both these first two estampies I make use of unisons at points where the melody rests on an open course, fretting the course below at the same pitch as the open course to double the note. This is particularly audible when I play the resolving final note d’ in the close ending, played on the open 3^rd course and doubled at the 2^nd fret on the 4^th course.

Both these methods emphasise particular features of medieval polyphony. Adding the second voice sometimes below and sometimes above the melody reflects that, until the 15^th century when voices began to be thrown wide apart, polyphonic voices were at a similar pitch, and there would be regular voice crossings. The use of unisons, particularly on the finalis, emphasises that in medieval polyphony there were three intervals considered consonant or harmoniously resolving: unison, fifth and octave. Thus, in all these estampies, a second voice added at the point of resolution is always a unison, a fifth or an octave.     

La tierce Estampie Roial: the prelude

• A brief analysis of the music. 

The scribes of the Manuscrit du roi estampies (scribe 1: first to fourth; scribe 2: fifth to eighth) wrote clearly, so musical intentions are unambiguous, though there are occasional questions of interpretation. One such is in the opening punctus of the third estampie. My own reading of the opening notes is on the top line above, which shows the third estampie to have the only double longa of all the estampies.

Other readers of these neumes interpret the music as on the bottom line above. I suspect this is due to the unusual gap between the penultimate and final neume groups (as we see on the right), and due to the presumption that there won’t be a double longa or maxima in an estampie. This second interpretation requires us to think there are some scribal errors rather than taking the notation literally. In modern recordings of this piece, you will hear one or the other interpretation, depending on the musician. 

Like the second estampie, we could say the third estampie has a dorian character, but without meeting all the requirements for the dorian mode in ecclesiastical chant.

• Historically-informed performance suggestions.

In Ars musice, Johannes de Grocheio elevates the viella (vielle, medieval fiddle) as the best of all instruments, and states that: “The good artist generally introduces every cantum and cantilenam and every musical form on the viella.” This appears to mean that fiddlers play all the corresponding instrumental versions of vocal forms, which would include the estampie, and that fiddlers begin them with preludes.

Does Grocheio’s comment imply simply playing a few notes of introduction, perhaps the notes of the close ending, or is he suggesting an established practice of playing a prelude of some kind? This is not clear. Grocheio also mentions postludes: “A neupma is a kind of tail or postlude following the antiphon, comparable to the postlude which is performed on the viella after the cantus coronatus or stantipes, which viellatores [fiddlers] call a modum.” As with the prelude, Grocheio does not explain the nature or musical structure of the modum or postlude.

There is evidence of preludes and postludes performed by harpers in the Anglo-Norman Roman de Horn by Thomas, c. 1170. According to Horn, the prelude is a combination of monophonic runs and polyphony to test the tuning of the instrument; then the song itself is sung; then an instrumental version of the song is played. (This is explained in detail in the article, The medieval harp (3/3): performance practice).

Since it is highly unlikely that Grocheio’s comment about viella preludes and postludes applied only to the fiddle, nor is it likely that the practice of harp preludes and postludes in Roman de Horn was particular to the harp, we might take preludes and postludes as general practice. But this leaves us with questions. If preludes and postludes were general practice, was this for all types of music, or only particular genres? Grocheio suggests fiddlers introduce “every musical form”; but he only mentions the modum or postlude for the stantipes and the cantus coronatus. (The cantus coronatus “is customarily composed by kings and nobles and sung in the presence of kings and princes of the land so that it may move their minds to boldness and fortitude, magnanimity and liberality, all of which things lead to good government.”) Did Grocheio mean literally that the postlude was only played after a stantipes and a cantus coronatus, or were these non-exclusive examples? The latter seems most likely, since Horn the harper plays a postlude after singing a lai. But Grocheio and Thomas were 100–130 years apart, so there is the question of changing practice over time. None of these questions have definitive answers.

Roman de Horn states than a song was preceded by a prelude and followed by an instrumental version of the melody, the latter of which may or may not have been the same as the neupma or modum mentioned by Grocheio. Since, for La tierce Estampie Roial, one cannot play an instrumental version for a postlude when the piece is already instrumental, I therefore added an improvised prelude only.

For his prelude, the harper Horn is described playing strings melodically – “causing them to sing” – and harmonically – “at other times to join in harmonies”. This fits the exact format of five early 16^th century pieces called Taster de corde – Testing the strings – in Italian lutenist Joanambrosio Dalza’s print of 1508, Intabulatura de Lauto Libro Quarto (Lute Intabulations Book Four), which consist of brief, fast-moving passages up and down to check the melodic tuning, with spread chords to check harmonic tuning, just as in Horn. Though more than 300 years apart, the function of Horn’s “touching the strings” and Dalza’s Testing the strings is the same: a preliminary performance to test the instrument’s tuning in readiness for the main piece that follows.

As my model for the improvised prelude to tierce Estampie Roial in the video above, I therefore used a combination of the description in Horn and surviving renaissance lute preludes, which were clearly composed for the same purpose. 

La quarte Estampie Royal: octave swapping for harp accidentals

• A brief analysis of the music. 

Tonally, La quarte Estampie Royal illustrates that, while secular medieval music was not bound by ecclesiastical modes, those church strictures and sounds were immensely influential for secular composers.

The fourth estampie begins with a jump from d’ to a’ which, in an ecclesiastical context, we would see as establishing the finalis and reciting note of the dorian mode immediately. In the open and close endings the note a’ predominates, the reciting note around which the melody is built in the dorian mode. Yet, defying modal rules, the finalis is f’.     

• Historically-informed performance suggestions.

La quarte Estampie Royal is played on medieval harp, a diatonic instrument for a diatonic age. The natural notes of the gamut are available on the strings of the medieval harp, but not b^b, which is needed in punctus D and E. The player cannot simply tune all the b strings flat, as b♮ is needed in other puncta, and in sections D and E the player needs both notes, b^b and b♮. Since all the evidence points to medieval harpers having only one string for both b^b and b♮ (that evidence is presented here), what did musicians do in such situations? We have to look to the renaissance for evidence of solutions.

One solution is in the treatise, Declaracion de instrumentos musicales, 1555, by Franciscan friar Juan Bermudo. Bermudo describes the playing of Ludovico, royal harper to Ferdinand II, King of Aragon (r. 1479–1516). Bermudo refers to a cadence, the closing notes of a musical phrase, in which a string is raised by a semitone compared to the same note in other parts of the music. For example, in the dorian mode, the 7^th note is C and the 8^th and 1^st note or tonic is D. At a resolving cadence in the music of the time, the leading note C is raised to C^#. Bermudo wrote: “I was told that Ludovico, whenever he played a cadence, he placed a finger under the string and thus made it sound as a semitone. Great ability was required to do that”. This involves reaching up with one hand to the part of the string that lies vertically across the wood below the tuning pin, and pressing the string against the wood, thus effectively shortening the vibrating string length and raising the note by a semitone. This technique is known as fretting. This can be seen at 0.28–0.31 in this video of Quhat mightie motione by Alexander Montgomery (1540?-1610?).

Another solution to needing the same note either flat and natural or natural and sharp in the same piece is to tune the string natural in one octave and flat in the other, or sharp in one octave and natural in the other, and play the phrase which includes the needed note in the available octave. This is present in Alonso Mudarra’s piece for vihuela, imitating Ludovico’s harping: Fantasía X que contrahaze la harpa en la manera de Ludovico – Fantasía 10 that imitates the harp in the style of Ludovico – in which the final passage has lower f played against higher f^#’. This can be seen and heard played by Ema Stein on vihuela here and heard played by Sofia Asuncion Claro on harp here.

This second option is the one I use in La quarte Estampie Royal: we see the differently-tuned-octave solution in the video above for punctus D, beginning 1.09, and punctus E, beginning 1.29.

La quinte estampie Real: methods of organum

• A brief analysis of the music. 

La quinte estampie Real is an excellent example to show that while the estampies do not follow the parameters of medieval modal music, they do not fit the rules of modern music, either. In today’s terms, the fifth estampie looks at first as if it is in C major: it starts on c’’, there are no sharps or flats, and the open ending finishes on c’’. However, we can hear that c’’ is not a resolving note, and we can see it from the fact that c’’ is the last note of the open ending. The opening repeated c’’ sets up musical tension, resolving in the close ending on a’. This fits neither the criteria for a medieval mode nor a modern major or minor scale.      

• Historically-informed performance suggestions.

The word used in medieval sources for a second polyphonic line, accompanying the leading melody, is organum. Some types of organum are described or implied in sources specifically for the harp, the instrument used for La quinte estampie Real, while other polyphonic techniques used in vocal music would logically have been applied to the harp, as follows.

One type of organum is the drone, a continuous note or notes supporting the melody.

The vocal drone above or below the melody was a form of organum described as common in Rome by Guido d’Arezzo in his Micrologus de Musica, 1026. In the anonymous chant treatise, Summa Musice, c. 1200, the vocal drone is called diaphona basilica – basilica usually refers to the Roman ecclesiastical tradition.

The bourdon refers to a drone note on a range of medieval instruments. The bourdon is the drone pipe of a portative organ – bordonus organorum; the drone pipe of a bagpipe; and the plucked or bowed drone string of a vielle (medieval fiddle).

In 13^th century Anglo-Norman, the bottom string of the harp was likewise called the bourdon, indicating the same technique for the harp as suggested in some psaltery iconography, as we see below: a lower string or strings continuously plucked. In a 12^th or 13^th century unpublished commentary on the Psalms in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (referenced by Christopher Page, 1987, p. 120), the playing style of the cithara of the Psalms is described. Depending on context, cithara can mean lyre, harp, or psaltery. The commentary states that “two hands are used in playing the cithara; one hand continually plucks the lower strings; the other hand plucks the higher strings, not continually, but at intervals and in turn.” The obvious meaning is a melody over a drone. That the drone is played on “the lower strings”, plural, indicates more than one bourdon or drone string. This exactly how I play La quinte estampie Real on the harp the first time through in the video above, droning on the tonic and the fifth underneath the melody, from 00.00 until 1.19.

The second time through the melody I use the following historically–attested methods of organum.

Punctus A, 1.20–1.33: heterophony, which means following the melody line with some variations, such as adding in some extra notes or holding notes compared to the melody. This is played an octave below the melody, so I am also playing in parallel octaves.

Punctus B and C, 1.34–2.14: contrary motion, in which the organum voice moves contrary–wise to the cantus superior, e.g. when the lead voice moves up, the second voice moves down.

The third time through the melody, from 2.33, I play what I term “minstrelish” organum: the melody with runs of additional notes, similar to what was known as divisions or diminutions in the renaissance. The term “minstrelish” organum is taken from a comment by Robert of Courçon or Robert Curzon, English cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. Curzon was contemporaneous with the Notre Dame school of polyphony, composers at or around the Parisian cathedral of that name from circa 1160 to 1250. The Notre Dame school developed a new type of organum, florid counterpoint consisting of elaborate melismata – several notes sung for one syllable – over a slow moving tenor. It was not to Robert Curzon’s liking. In his Summa, c. 1208, he complained of “masters of organum who set minstrelish and effeminate things before young and ignorant persons, in order to weaken their minds … If, however, some sing any organa on a feast-day according to the liturgical customs of the region, they may be tolerated if they avoid minstrelish little notes.” Robert’s account is valuable: it tells us that this type of organum was new, and that he objected to it because he heard in it a derivation of secular music: fast virtuoso passages played by minstrels, “minstrelish little notes”.

For more detail and explanation of these forms of organum, see Performing medieval music. Part 2/3: Turning monophony into polyphony.

La Sexte estampie Real: “in the manner of a stantipes”

• A brief analysis of the music. 

An anacrusis in music is a note or notes played before the first strong beat, sometimes called lead-in notes, up-beats or pick-up notes. The note or notes of the anacrusis, being before the first strong beat, are in an incomplete opening bar when written in modern music notation.

Anacruses in medieval music are rare, and in interpreting neumes we would usually assume as a matter of course that the first note is a strong beat. Though rare, anacruses do appear. One of the best known medieval songs, In dulci jubilo, starts with an anacrusis, and must do so for the syllable stresses to be correct:

In dulci jubilo

and certainly not

In dulci jubilo

In dulci jubilo being a song, if we read the neumes without an anacrusis and therefore with incorrect stresses, the natural syllable stresses will put us right. It can be more tricky, as with La Sexte estampie Real, when the music is textless. If we read the neumes from the beginning without an anacrusis, then we soon run into trouble as the note values, the threefold division of notes into perfections, don’t add up without it. The sixth estampie is unusual in that we need an anacrusis almost universally to begin phrases: at the beginning of 3 of the 4 puncta, and at the beginning of the open and close endings.   

• Historically-informed performance suggestions.

As with La quarte Estampie Royal, this piece requires b ^b and ♮ on the medieval harp, in this case both within the fourth punctus, so again octave swapping is the solution. The higher octave b’ is tuned natural, the lower b is flat, which we see utilised in the video above at 1.19 and 2.58. 

Grocheio describes to his readers how liturgical music is sung by comparing it to secular instrumental music. In so doing, he gives us a valuable but tantalisingly ambiguous insight into the feel or style of estampie performance: “The responsory and alleluia are sung in the manner of a stantipes … so that it impresses devotion and humility on the hearts of the hearers.”

What this means is open to interpretation. What manner of music impresses devotion and humility? Would that be quiet and contemplative? Or would it be majestic and dominating? I had this in mind when recording the video above, and tried to bring out from the music a sense of being stately, reverential, reflective and joyful. 

The polyphonic accompaniment is a mixture of parallel octaves, parallel fifths, long holding notes and, second time through, from 1.48, some gentle “minstrelish” organum. 

La Septime estampie Real: the slow-moving tenor

• A brief analysis of the music. 

 

The French Septime estampie Real makes an interesting comparison with the slightly earlier English song of circa 1265–90s, Edi beo þu heuene quene, the music for which is shown above in modern notation. Both Septime and Edi have sweet and memorable melodies, both begin and resolve on f’, La Septime with the note b flattened except in the third punctus, Edi with a fixed b^b throughout.

This gives rise to two observations, first about the non-modal nature of their melodies, then about the quality of the estampie melody.

Tonally, Edi beo þu heuene quene (Blessed are you, queen of heaven) is outside the 8 ecclesiastical modes. This tells us that Edi, though religious and devotional, its subject being worship of the Virgin Mary, was not liturgical music. In 1547, Swiss music theorist Heinrich Glarean (or Glareanus), extended the 8 modes to 12 in his Dodecachordon, published in Basle. One of the 4 modes he added was ionian, with a finalis of c. We could say that Septime and Edi are in the ionian mode, transposed up a fourth, with a starting note and finalis of f’ and a fixed b^b’. But whether this is helpful or even meaningful is a moot point, as neither Septime nor Edi have the reciting note or intonation figures of modal music, and neither were modal in any sense when they were written. 

Edi beo þu is a song in two voices. Alongside Edi, what strikes the listener about the 7^th estampie, of all the royal estampies, is how song-like the melody is. Could it ever have been sung?

There is plentiful evidence of sung estampies, their words an addition to the existing melodies of instrumental estampies.

• The earliest record we have of an estampie was a song by Raimbaut de Vaqueiras (fl. c. 1155–1205), a Provençal troubadour and joglar (jongleur, in England a minstrel, a professional entertainer), serving at court in Italy. The song is Kalenda maya, written c. 1200, the melody for which Raimbaut took from two fiddlers at court visiting from France, playing an instrumental estampie. (This story is in a Provençal manuscript of 1310: Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Florence, Plut. 41.42.)

• Johannes de Grocheio, c. 1300, wrote of the vocal stantipedes before he moved to its corresponding instrumental form, suggesting that he thought the vocal form was primary and the instrumental form derived from it.

• MS Douce 308 is a manuscript from Lorraine, France, 1309–16, with 19 vocal estampies (probably 17, as 2 appear to be wrongly categorised) by trouvères, the French counterpart to the Occitan troubadours (unfortunately without music in the manuscript).

• Francesco da Barberino of Tuscany, Italy, wrote Liber Documentorum Amoris, also known as Documenti d’amore, in c. 1309–15, in which he stated that new troubadour poetry could be composed to fit the melody of an existing stampita.

This means there is ample evidence that, in theory, the melody for any of these royal estampies could have been and may have been used by a trouvère or troubadour to write a new song. There are many ‘orphaned’ troubadour and trouvère poems, separated from their lost music. If the scansion of any happen to fit La Septime estampie Real, it seems a reasonable project to use this striking and sweet melody. 

• Historically-informed performance suggestions.

La Septime estampie Real is played on citole, the historically-attested tuning of which was c’’ g’ d’ c’. The tuning is noteworthy because it fits the French estampies so well: the lowest note needed, c’, is also the lowest note on the citole, and most of the estampies fall under the fingers so well and naturally in this tuning of two fourths and a second at the bottom. Sometimes I have played these estampies on citole with a medieval fiddler (Kathryn Wheeler, who can be heard playing Edi beo þu above and also a Salterello here), who has commented that if she had that low c on the fiddle it would be very helpful in some phrases and make that note less of a grunt. That the c’ string is only a tone below the d’ string suggests that its use was almost entirely an open unfretted string or to make a unison with the d’. In Septime estampie it seems intuitive to utilise this to play supporting long notes underneath the melody.

Supporting the melody with long notes is an established method in medieval polyphony.

• The Notre Dame school of polyphony produced the Magnus Liber Organi, the Great Book of Organum. As we have seen above (in the commentary for La quinte estampie Real), they created a new type of organum, florid counterpoint consisting of elaborate melismata – several notes sung for one syllable – over a slower moving tenor. In this context the tenor, from the Latin tenēre, to hold, is the original holding melody of the chant, sung very slowly to give the singer of organum time to fit in the fast elaborations.

• The same idea is present in the three voice motet: the melody of the top voice is fastest, the motetus voice moves more slowly, and the tenor moves very slowly indeed, as with Notre Dame organum.

• The same idea was later used for the slow written tenor of the basse danse in the 15^th and early 16^th centuries, over which a musician would play an elaborate, fast-moving, improvised melody.

• And the same idea is present in surviving two voice polyphonic estampies. There are 4 or 5 surviving polyphonic instrumental estampies. There are 2 complete – and 1 fragment, probably an estampie – in the Robertsbridge Codex (British Library Additional 28500), England, c. 1320–1400. Of these, the fragment (folio 43r) has a fast-moving melody over a slower tenor; as has the untitled complete estampie (folio 43r), which occasionally has 2 harmonising notes rather than 1 in the supporting tenor; and the third piece, Petrone (folio 43v), has dynamic interplay between rapid upper and lower voices. There are 2 two voice estampies in the Faenza Codex (Biblioteca Comunale di Faenza, Biblioteca Comunale 117), Italy, c. 1430–40: both tüpes or tumpes (folio 52v) and sangolio (folio 54v) have slow-moving tenors under a more rapidly-moving melody.  

It seems entirely appropriate, then, to utilise that idea in accompanying La Septime estampie Real. What I play in the first two puncta first time through is shown in notation below to give the general idea, heard in the video that begins this subsection. On an instrument such as a bowed fiddle, a blown trumpet or shawm, or an organ with pressurised air blown through pipes, a single note of the slow-moving tenor can stretch over several bars (in modern terms) if required. On a plucked instrument such as a citole, gittern, harp or lute, the notes die away quickly so, while the tenor can certainly be slower-moving than the melody, more notes are required in the tenor to keep the sound going. As well as utilising the slow-moving tenor under the melody, the second time though I add “minstrelish” organum.

La Uitime estampie Real: creating consonance and dissonance, cantus inferior, “minstrelish” organum

• A brief analysis of the music. 

As we see from all the examples on this page, medieval music (neume notation) is not written with bar lines or a time signature. In my analysis of La Sexte estampie Real above, I mentioned the importance of recognising an anacrusis, and that the default assumption in interpreting neumes is that the first beat is strong unless there is clear evidence to the contrary, such as the obvious need to stress the words In dulci jubilo naturally. As I describe above, the textless music of La Sexte estampie Real only makes sense with a series of anacruses.

For the unwary, the opposite problem is present in La Uitime estampie Real: the assumption of anacruses where there are none. In his book, Medieval Instrumental Dances, Timothy J. McGee assumes that the first note of the first and second puncta of La Uitime estampie is an anacrusis, so he translates the rhythm incorrectly in those sections in his modern notation, putting the emphasis or downbeat on the second note rather than the first. The reason for the mistake is possibly that the rhythm of Uitime estampie is unusual to modern ears. Further explanation requires some background. 

The rhythmic mode is the underlying pulse of a piece of medieval music. Written rhythmic modes were created by the Notre Dame school of polyphony, which flourished from c. 1160–70 to 1250. An anonymous member of the school wrote De mensurabili musica (The measurable music) in 1260, the first to describe the six rhythmic modes. In ecclesiastical melismatic music (with syllables sung over many notes), the rhythmic mode was indicated visually by the way the notes were grouped using ligatures, indicating rhythmic accent. The rhythmic modes give an overall pulse, an underlying rhythm, a quite different way of measuring the pulse of music compared to the modern idea of time signatures and bar lines. The rhythmic modes were as follows. In each case, in writing the rhythm in modern notation, it is relative value of notes that is important, so the first rhythmic mode may also be rendered minim crotchet, the second mode crotchet minim, and so on.

In practice, the first mode was used most often, with modes two, three and five also common. The fifth and sixth modes occurred typically in only one polyphonic voice, the fifth in the lower voice and the sixth in the upper voice. The fourth mode was used rarely.

My point in referencing the Notre Dame rhythmic system is its helpful identification of underlying rhythm. There is clear and incontrovertible evidence for the application of rhythmic modes outside the church. For example, all three pieces of two voice secular instrumental polyphony on folios 8v–9r of the English manuscript, Harley 978, c. 1250–75, are written in the first rhythmic mode. (One of these pieces can be heard here.) La Uitime estampie Real is clearly written with the underlying pulse of the second rhythmic mode, hence no anacrusis. It is an unusual rhythm to modern ears, which apparently wrong-footed Timothy McGee (and some other modern translators of The Eighth Royal estampie into modern notation).

The eighth estampie starts on c’’, has no reciting note, ends on f’, and includes b’ ^b and ♮, and e’’ ^b and ♮. This gives it musical characteristics which sound quite different to modern music, while also not conforming to the medieval modal system. Tonally, the semitone alteration of b^b to b♮ and vice versa is used regularly in the French royal estampies – in the second, third, fourth, sixth, seventh, and eighth – these notes being musica vera or musica recta, part of the gamut. La Uitime estampie Real also includes a flattened e’’, the only one of these eight estampies to employ musica falsa, the semitone alteration to a note of the gamut.

The form of La Uitime estampie Real is AxAy BxBy CxCy DxDy ExEy = 5 puncta. The open and close endings both have 4 measures; puncta B, C, D and E all have 8 measures. Only punctum A breaks the pattern of predictable phrase lengths, with 4 measures instead of 8. We can therefore state that, in terms of the estampie criteria described by Johannes de Grocheio and observed in the other royal estampies, it is only the shorter punctum A that justifies La Uitime estampie Real being an estampie.

• Historically-informed performance suggestions.

Organum began to be written down at the end of the 10^th and beginning of the 11^th century with the advent of tropers, books of tropes (from the Greek, τρόπος, tropos, a turn or a change), additions of new music to existing chants in which organum was written but the plainsong it accompanied was not included. In the late 11^th or early 12^th century there were stylistic shifts, with an increasing emphasis on contrary motion of voices (described in suggestions for the fifth estampie), resulting in voice crossings.

What this potentially means for medieval instrumental players is that musicians may well have read or, more likely, learned by ear some monophonic music and had the skill to add free organum as they played. The video of this final royal estampie (for which, click here) illustrates three ways of adding organum to a monophonic line:

i. creating consonance and dissonance
ii. cantus inferior
iii. “minstrelish” organum

i. creating consonance and dissonance

A simple and effective way to create accompaniment was suggested for the first estampie, ported over from medieval fiddle playing: drone on the adjacent higher or lower course. When the course on which the tune is played changes, the adjacent course and therefore the drone accompaniment also changes.

This is the first step to the accompaniment technique in the video above of La Uitime estampie Real, used on the first solo citole. The second step for devising accompaniment on a plucked or bowed instrument is based on the fact that medieval polyphony works on the basis of consonance and dissonance. A piece of polyphonic music begins with a consonant interval – unison, fifth or octave – then moves through various dissonant and consonant intervals between voices, then ends with consonance. Thus medieval polyphony is characterised by the tension between resolved and unresolved intervals. There are four ways to create this.

First, when an ascending phrase begins on an open course, fret the course below to play an initial unison from which the melody rises, the initial note on the fretted unison continuing as the melody moves away from it. This happens at 00.22 and 0.33 in the video of La Uitime estampie Real, and at 1.02 and 1.16 in the video of La tierche Estampie Roial.

Second, when a descending phrase could begin on an open course, start it instead on the equivalent note on the fretted course below, and drone on the course above on the first note of the phrase as the melody descends. This happens at 2.58 and 3.15 in the video of La tierche Estampie Roial.

Third, when a descending phrase ends on an open course, fret the course below to play the final note of the phrase as the phrase begins, so that the melody descends to a unison.

Fourth, at a point when an opening phrase begins or a resolving phrase ends, fret the course above at an interval of a fifth to make a consonance. This happens at 05.29 in the video of La Uitime estampie Real.  

The effect of these techniques is to have the two voices either moving away from consonance to dissonance, or away from dissonance to consonance.

ii. cantus inferior

Cantus inferior is the name given to an accompanying polyphonic voice, the lead voice being the cantus superior. We see this, for example, written in the untitled two-voice instrumental piece on folio 8v-9r of British Library Harley 978, c. 1261–65, which can be seen and heard by clicking on the picture below.

The medieval methods used to devise a cantus inferior, and therefore the methods by which we may add one now to existing monophonic music, are heard in the piece above and described in the article, Performing medieval music. Part 2/3: Turning monophony into polyphony. The cantus inferior I devised for La Uitime estampie Real begins in the video at 01.51, and is shown in modern notation below on the second line. As that music shows, it consists of some of the methods described in Turning monophony into polyphony: contrary motion (the cantus inferior moving contrary-wise to the cantus superior), some parallel thirds, fifths and sixths, and cadences resolving at the fifth, octave and unison to the cantus superior.

iii. “minstrelish” organum

The estampie in the manuscript, with additional cantus inferior from 01.51, has “minstrelish” organum added from 03.41. The origin of the term “minstrelish” organum is described above in relation to La quinte estampie Real: a derogatory description in c. 1208 by Robert Curzon, English cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, to describe the then-new practice of adding quick runs or “minstrelish little notes” to existing music. This is shown in modern notation below on the third line. The method is to take the tune and divide it into smaller notes passing between the existing notes of the melody, what in the renaissance was called divisions or diminutions.

Bibliography

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Page, Christopher (1980) Fourteenth-Century Instruments and Tunings: A Treatise by Jean Vaillant? (Berkeley, MS 744). The Galpin Society Journal, Vol. 33, March 1980, pp. 17-35. Available online by clicking here.

Page, Christopher (1987) Voices & Instruments of the Middle Ages. Instrumental practice and songs in France 1100-1330. London: J. M. Dent & Sons.

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Pittaway, Ian (2018) Performing medieval music. Part 2/3: Turning monophony into polyphony. Available online here.

Pittaway, Ian (2022) The medieval harp (3/3): performance practice. Available online here.

Pittaway, Ian (2022) La prime Estampie Royal: completing the fragment of a medieval melody. Available online here.

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