Download CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 11
MUSIC AT THE COURT OF
THE FRENCH KINGS
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 GrandeSalle where the king entertained
and secular musicians
performed.
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 king’s minstrels
performed.
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 animal’s 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
A plate from the Roman de Fauvel
Showing Fauvel the ass, in the top panel, on his wedding night
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. Vitry’s 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
ISORHYTHM
• Philippe de Vitry’s 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.
In the tenor of Philippe de Vitry’s motet Garrit Gallus/In nova
fert/Neuma there are two statements of the color and each of these
includes three statements of the talea.
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.
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)
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.
• 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.
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.
• 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.
•
•
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.