New light is shed on the song culture of Sankt Gallen almost a century before its earliest notated sources through consideration of the poetic section of a manuscript copied at the Abbey shortly after the year 800, i.e. the second part of Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek Vossianus Lat. Q. 69. The predominantly Merovingian accentual Latin verse (rhythmi) and metrical verse by the late-antique poet Prudentius (his Liber Cathemerinon and Liber Peristephanon) were written out in song forms. It is newly proposed that Prudentius’ verse from the Liber Peristephanon was arranged into a liturgical cycle. The poetic section of the Leiden manuscript is accordingly understood as a collection of songs, which prompts reflection on the way in which earlier sung versus at Sankt Gallen may have provided models for the later Liber ymnorum. Witnesses to the song culture of Sankt Gallen in the first half of the ninth century are re-examined and a leading role during this period for the nearby Abbey of Reichenau is proposed. Finally, it is suggested that Iso’s advice to Notker that singulae motus cantilenae singulas syllabas debent habere was at least partly informed by the existing tradition of sung versus at both abbeys.

The multi-confessional cities of early modern Central Europe resounded with sacred music. People sang to express faith, to challenge the beliefs of others, and to lay claim to shared urban spaces. This study considers how such music was heard in Prague, the capital of the Holy Roman Empire, during the reign of the Habsburg Emperor Rudolf II (1576–1612). During this period, the city’s Catholics jostled for supremacy with Czech-speaking Utraquists (followers of Jan Hus), who vastly outnumbered them, and a growing population of German-speaking Lutherans. Focusing on the sonically rich Corpus Christi processions held by Prague’s Jesuits, this article examines how sounds that aggressively promoted Catholic Eucharistic doctrine were received by those who were––by chance or by design––within earshot. Viewing Catholic claims alongside non-Catholic resistance suggests that music’s power lay as much in the fact of its performance as in its deployment of specific texts and sounds.

The mass O Venus bant by Gaspar van Weerbeke enjoyed notable fame and diffusion, as shown by the considerable number of surviving copies. This study formulates a new hypothesis about the origin of the mass. An examination of the transmission of the mass suggests a new scenario for its composition in Milan in connection with a major political event: the alliance of the Duchy of Milan and the Duchy of Savoy with Charles the Bold in 1475. The choice of a Flemish cantus firmus is thus linked to a specific occasion related to the region in which the melody originated. Since some compositional elements can be read as intentional references to the L’Homme armé tradition, the specific context proposed for the performance of the polyphonic cycle seems particularly plausible because it can be linked to the court of Burgundy both in terms of historical and political events, as well as on the compositional and symbolic level. Finally, the possibility that Gaspar van Weerbeke was the initiator of the musical tradition of polyphonic settings of the chanson O Venus bant is explored.

This article presents a textbook case for the examination of generic interplay in the thirteenth century, investigating four works that offer transgeneric reworkings relating polyphony to trouvère song. These works are found as anonymous motets and clausulae in polyphonic gatherings, but their upper voices are also copied as multi-strophic songs in songbooks, where they are attributed to the trouvère Robert de Reims. This case therefore touches on the issues of generic borders and mixing, on trouvère involvement in this generic interplay, and on the relationships between attribution and authorship in the Middle Ages. The investigation has important outcomes for the reconstruction of the genetic map of the motet, revealing works playing havoc with the vectors of transmission customarily established in the interplay of motet, chanson and clausula, and revealing early trouvère involvement in the repertoire as an essential key to the comprehension of cross-over activity between song and polyphony.

Philippe de Vitry’s tenure of the bishopric of Meaux in the last decade of his life, 1351–61, the crowning event of his court and church career, has often been regarded as a period of retirement from creative activity. A reassessment of this judgement is timely, following new musical discoveries and literary work exposing links between Vitry and his contemporaries. Using new archival material, this article explores the geopolitical context of Vitry’s work in the diocese of Meaux; his engagement with political society, king and court; and his role in events under a national government fractured by the capture of Jean II at Poitiers in 1356. It examines the interplay of Vitry’s career, relationships and output, identifying the composer’s house in Paris, and exploring his family relationships, and his engagement with Pierre Bersuire, among others, in the creative circles of mid-fourteenth-century Paris. It also illuminates a context and opportunities for the continuation of his creative work into the late 1350s, some remnants of which survive in the literary miscellany Paris, BN Lat. 3343.

The notational treatises of Johannes Tinctoris are among the most important texts on late fifteenth-century musical practice. His monumental treatise on the art of counterpoint, De arte contrapuncti, affords modern scholars a great insight into the intricacies of counterpoint practice on the cusp of the era of printed music theory. In the examples for this text, Tinctoris regularly uses additional markers to specify the key passages he is discussing. These signs often closely resemble signa congruentiae, though their function in these theoretical contexts is somewhat different from the deployment of such symbols in practical music sources. This article re-examines the historical justification for the term signa congruentiae, offering a new perspective on Tinctoris’s usage of such signs to explicate the rich text–example relationship underpinning his theoretical arguments and drawing attention to some novel uses of these signs that underpin these relationships.