Prions en Chantant: Devotional Songs of the Trouvères

354 Pages·1997·12.13 MB·English

by  Marcia J. Epstein

Toronto Medieval Texts and Translations, 11
TRIONS EN CHANTANT'
Devotional Songs of the Trouveres
Edited and translated by Marcia Jenneth Epstein
The rich medieval French tradition of vernacular devotional songs has not
received much scrutiny. With 'Prions en chantant,' Marcia Epstein aims to
remedy that situation by offering an edition of largely anonymous trou-
vere devotional songs, designed for both scholars and performers, from
two late-thirteenth-century manuscripts.
The majority of the music is published here for the first time. Sixty-one
songs are presented, with forty-nine songs exhibited in Old French with a
facing-page modern English translation followed by old musical notation
and facing-page modern musical transcription. An additional twelve
songs, which lack music in the original sources, are represented by the Old
French text and the modern English translation only. The introduction
extensively describes the social, musical, literary, and theological aspects
of the trouvere songs contained in the volume. This is a valuable and
welcome addition to the study of medieval music.
MARCIA j. EPSTEIN is a professor at the Faculty of General Studies, Univer-
sity of Calgary. She is also a performer of medieval music and a composer.
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Trions en chantant':
Devotional Songs of
the Trouveres
Edited and translated by
Marcia Jenneth Epstein
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 1997
Toronto Buffalo London
Printed in Canada
ISBN 0-8020-0840-2 (cloth)
ISBN 0-8020-7826-5 (paper)
00
Printed on acid-free paper
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Epstein, Marcia Jenneth, 1951-
Prions en chantant
(Toronto medieval texts and translations,
ISSN, 0821-4344; 11)
Sixty-one songs in the manuscripts Paris,
Bibliotheque nationale Fr. 24406 and
Bibliotheque nationale N. A. Fr. 1050.
Songs in old French, with English translation.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8020-0840-2 (bound) ISBN 0-8020-7826-5 (pbk.)
i. Trouvere songs. 2. Songs, Old French. 3. Sacred
vocal music - France - 500-1400. I. Bibliotheque
nationale (France). Manuscript. Frangais 24406.
II. Bibliotheque nationale (France). Manuscript.
Nouv. acq. fr. 1050. III. Title. IV. Series.
ML182.E671997 782.25/0944/09022 9€ 6-932545-2
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its
publishing program of the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council.
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities
and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Contents
LIST OF TABLES VI
PREFACE Vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS IX
MANUSCRIPT SIGLA xi
TRIONS EN CHANTANT'
1 The Manuscript Sources of the Trouvere Songs as Visual Records 3
2 The Trouvere Devotional Songs in the Context of Popular Culture 13
3 The Texts 20
4 The Music 54
APPENDIX A: Notational Forms 73
NOTES 75
BIBLIOGRAPHY 85
THE SONGS
Introduction to the Edition 93
List of Songs 98
The Devotional Songs of Manuscripts X and V 101
APPENDIX B: Additional Stanzas 323
APPENDIX c: Alternative Musical Notation 329
TITLE INDEX 337
GENERAL INDEX 339
Tables
1 Text categories for the songs 23
2 Comparison of qualitative terms in secular, devotional, and theological
vocabularies 31
3 Names, images, and roles of Mary in the vernacular songs 34
4 Names and images of God, Christ, and Satan in the vernacular
songs 44
5 Proper names in the songs 45
6 Correlation of text categories with musical structures 55
7 Scales of songs in the secular repertoire of the Chansonnier Cange 58
8 Scales of songs in the devotional repertoire of manuscripts V and X 58
Preface
This volume embodies a number of intentions and is directed towards a
diverse audience. It is primarily an edition of two representative collec-
tions of trouvere songs with devotional texts in the Bibliotheque nationale
in Paris, the trouvere manuscript X (nouvelles acquisitions frangaises,
1050) and the trouvere manuscript V (fonds frangais 24406). The edition
will, I hope, be useful to musicologists and performers, since it presents
the music of many of these songs, where it exists, for the first time in
published form. Its significance is enhanced by a descriptive commentary
on the socio-historical context which gave rise to the phenomenon of ver-
nacular devotional songs in late medieval Europe, thus making the songs
more accessible to historians of the period. Finally, the song texts proved
to be a treasure trove of clues on the attitudes of aristocrats of thirteenth-
century France, for whom they were written, toward their religion. Far
from consisting of a static set of doctrines, Catholicism at that time was a
dynamic and changeable faith, and what the established church taught
was not always what the laity chose to learn. In the songs are vivid exam-
ples of the images aristocratic laypeople had of their faith. As members of
a feudal military society, they saw God the Creator as a stern overlord,
Jesus Christ as a valiant commander who sacrificed himself to save his
troops, Mary as a sword and shield to defend imperilled souls, and the
devil as a treacherous adversary. It is hoped that the texts of their songs
will bring new challenges to scholars of religious history and of lay spiri-
tuality as well as to literary historians.
In shaping this volume I have tried to follow the course of making all of
its parts - history, texts, music, and interpretations - as accessible to read-
ers of varied backgrounds as possible. A comprehensive scholarly edition
was certainly considered, but it would not have reflected the needs of per-
formers or their desire to keep the music alive. At the same time, a per-
forming edition devoid of literary, theological, and historical contexts
would have been inadequate for those whose interests lie in obtaining a
greater comprehension of late medieval society and ideas. In following a
middle course I have tried to strike a balance in providing background
viii Preface
information for the general reader and technical information for the
specialist. The following features are present in this volume: i) a brief
description of the manuscript sources; 2) an introductory background on
the sociocultural context of the trouvere devotional songs; 3) a commen-
tary on the form, content, and imagery of the song texts and on what they
reveal about the religious beliefs of their authors and audiences; 4) a
commentary on the forms and contents of the music in the songs; 5) a
description of editorial methods and decisions in presenting the songs;
and 6) an edition of the sixty-one songs in the two manuscript collections
transcribed into modern music notation where music exists, along with
supplemental translations of the texts into English and diplomatic tran-
scriptions of the original musical notation in order to give an indication of
the original intentions for phrasing.
It is therefore the purpose of this study to place the devotional songs of
the trouveres in the context of their literary, musical, and sociological
background, to examine them as documents attesting to the beliefs of their
creators and listeners on a number of doctrinal issues, and to explore the
circumstances of their creation and performance. The reader interested in
the songs as devotional documents may choose to concentrate on the text
commentaries and translations; the historian may peruse the background
materials without concern for the music; the performer can turn directly to
the edition to find recital material. It is hoped, however, that members of
each group will venture beyond their usual area of expertise and investi-
gate the phenomenon of the trouvere devotional songs as an undivided
whole. To present them as anything less would be to diminish their magic.
Acknowledgments
This study has had several incarnations and a number of mentors at each
stage. It has grown from the seed of my dissertation in medieval studies
and musicology at the University of Toronto, where Robert Falck of the
Faculty of Music first suggested the topic to me, having found - to his sur-
prise - a musicology student passably literate in Old French. I owe that
fortunate circumstance in part to the perseverance of Douglas Kelly,
whose courses in Old French language and literature at the University of
Wisconsin nurtured in my avid undergraduate mind an eccentric passion
for the language, as did the inspiring and affectionate examples provided
by Eugene and Elisabeth Vinaver. Also at Wisconsin were Larry Gushee
and Milos Velimirovic, extraordinary scholars and teachers of the intrica-
cies of music in the medieval period and of the craft of musicology.
A pilgrimage to Toronto brought me to the Centre for Medieval Studies,
to its sister institution, the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, and to
the Faculty of Music, all of which proved to be oases on my path. Special
mention is due to Andrew Hughes, Tim McGee, Tim Rice, David Klaus-
ner, George Rigg, Robert Taylor, Peter Grillo, and especially Leonard
Boyle, O.P., who showed me that intellect and intuition need not be rivals.
Funding from the University of Toronto enabled me to travel to Paris in
order to check the original manuscripts and to breathe the essence of
parchment and time that brought the project fully alive.
The next phase of my journey led to the University of Calgary, where
a post-doctoral fellowship at the Calgary Institute for the Humanities
enabled me to expand the dissertation into a more accessible work. Gerry
Dyer at the Institute was generous with her time and energy in typing and
preparing an early draft of the manuscript. Thanks to Marsha Hanen and
Robert Weyant I found a continuing haven at Calgary's Faculty of General
Studies, a hive of interdisciplinary activity that has honed my skills as a
cultural historian. Special thanks are due as well to Christine Sutherland
and the late Anthony Petti.
Richard Troeger of the University of Alberta read the next-to-last draft
of the manuscript and suggested numerous improvements. Gerry Hebert