MUSIC AT THE COURT OF

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CHAPTER 11

• MUSIC AT THE COURT OF
• THE FRENCH KINGS

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• If sacred music in medieval Paris was most at
  home at the cathedral of Notre Dame, secular high
  art music flourished in and around the court of
  the French king. This early map shows Notre Dame
  at the east end (top) of the Île de la Cité in
  the middle of the Seine River, and the buildings
  of the royal palace at the west end (bottom).
  The building seemingly supported by three pillars
  is the great Grande-Salle where the king
  entertained and secular musicians performed.

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• In 1378 French King Charles V gave a banquet in
  honor of visiting Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV
  in the Grande-Salle at which the kings minstrels
  performed.

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THE ROMAN DE FAUVEL

• The Grande-Salle of the royal palace was built
  during the reign of King Philip IV (1285-1314) by
  his chief financial minister, Engueran de Marigny
  (c1275-1315). But Marigny was a corrupt official
  and the widespread graft at court and high taxes
  needed to fund it soon brought complaints. Among
  these was a long satirical poem called the Roman
  de Fauvel (Tale of Fauvel). In it Enguerran de
  Marigny and his corrupt henchmen are collectively
  portrayed as a witless ass, Fauvel. The animals
  name is an acronym derived from the first letters
  of six wordly sins Flaterie (flattery), Avarice
  (avarice), Villanie (villainy), Variété
  (fickleness), Envie (envy), and Lascheté (loose
  morals). Written between 1314 and 1317, the
  Roman de Fauvel survives in several copies, one
  of which is illustrated and supplied with
  monophonic and polyphonic music, much of the
  latter by Philippe de Vitry

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A plate from the Roman de FauvelShowing Fauvel
the ass, in the top panel, on his wedding night
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PHILIPPE DE VITRY

• Philippe de Vitry (1291-1360) was a
  mathematician, astronomer, politician, soldier,
  and diplomat, and he ended his career as the
  bishop of the city of Meaux northeast of Paris.
  He was also an influential music theorist and
  composer. Vitrys involvement in royal politics
  can be seen in one of his contributions to the
  illustrated Roman de Fauvel, his three-voice
  motet Garrit Gallus/In nova fert/Neuma

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ISORHYTHM

• Philippe de Vitrys motets make use of the new
  technique of isorhythm. In isorhythm (same
  rhythm) a rhythmic pattern is repeated again and
  again in a voice part, usually in the tenor
  voice. In an isorhythmic line the melody is
  called the color, and the rhythmic pattern , or
  unit, is called the talea (a segment or slice).
  Usually there are several appearances of the
  talea within each statement of the color.

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• In the tenor of Philippe de Vitrys motet Garrit
  Gallus/In nova fert/Neuma there are two
  statements of the color and each of these
  includes three statements of the talea.

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DANCE MUSIC

• The two primary genres dance music in medieval
  France were the carole and the estampie, and both
  were originally sung as well as played on
  instruments. In the carole singers and dancers
  grouped in a circle, as they danced around, a
  soloist sang each successive strophe of text,
  while everyone joined in the refrain.

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• The estampie, or stomp, was also originally a
  sung dance, but during the thirteenth and
  fourteenth centuries the text was often dropped,
  leaving a purely instrumental piece, either
  monophonic or polyphonic. The estampie is
  constructed of a succession of pairs of musical
  phrases each called a punctum (pl. puncta). At
  the end of each unit in the pair comes first an
  open and then a closed ending. Thus the form of
  the estampie can be represented AxAyBxByCxCyDx
  Dy etc. This simple formal structure suggests
  that most estampies were simply improvised on the
  spot, following this basic plan.

The opening punctum of La quinte estampie real
(The Fifth Royal Estampie)
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INSTRUMENTS AT COURT AND IN CHURCH

• Among the plucked string instruments at court
  were the harp, psaltery, lute, gittern (an early
  cousin of the lute), and vielle.
• The vielle was a large five-string fiddle capable
  of playing the entire Guidonian scale. It had a
  flat bridge and was often used for playing chords
  by employing drones and multiple stops.

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• Among the wind instruments at court was the shawm
  (an ancestor of the modern oboe), a double-reed
  instrument with a loud penetrating tone. Also
  present were bagpipes and trumpets, although
  trumpets sounded mostly fanfares and did not play
  dance music.

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• The keyboard instruments of the late Middle Ages
  consisted of those which produced sound by means
  of pipes, and those that did so by means of
  strings. The former category included the
  portative and positive organ. The portative
  organ was a small movable instrument that sounded
  at courtly entertainments or as a solo
  instrument.

A gentleman plays fifteenth-century portative
organ while a lady pumps the bellows to send wind
pressure to the pipes.
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• The positive organ was a large stationary
  instrument that began to appear in large numbers
  in churches shortly after 1300. Because the
  positive organ was one of the technological
  wonders of the day, it was usually attached high
  on a wall in the nave of the church for all the
  populace to see and hear.

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• The fourteenth century witnessed the development
  of the clavichord (literally key-string), a
  keyboard instrument that makes sound when a
  player depresses a key and thereby pushes a small
  metal tangent up against a string. Initially the
  clavichord was called the chekker.
• The earliest surviving collection of keyboard
  music, called the Robertsbridge Codex, dates from
  about 1360 and is associated with the musical
  repertoire of the kings of France. It includes
  arrangements of three motets from the Roman de
  Fauvel as well as three estampies.

The beginning of an estampie preserved in the
Robertsbridge Codex.