This volume contains an introduction and translation into English of six poems by Geffroi de Paris, the fourteenth-century French writer and author of Chronique metrique de Philippe le Bel, or Chronique rimee de Geoffroi de Paris. A glossary of proper names is included.

A unique capacity of measured polyphony is to give precisely fixed places not only to musical notes, but also to individual words in relation to them and each other. The Motet in the Late Middle Ages offers innovative approaches to the equal partnership of music and texts in motets of the fourteenth century and beyond, showcasing the imaginative opportunities afforded by this literal kind of intertextuality, and yielding a very different narrative from the common complaint that different simultaneous texts make motets incomprehensible. As leading musicologist Margaret Bent asserts, they simply require a different approach to preparation and listening. In this book, Bent examines the words and music of motets from many different angles: foundational verbal quotations and pre-existent chant excerpts and their contexts, citations both of words and music from other compositions, function, dating, structure, theory, and number symbolism. Individual studies of these original creations tease out a range of strategies, ingenuity, playfulness, striking juxtapositions, and even subversion. Half of the thirty-two chapters consist of new material; the other half are substantially revised and updated versions of previously published articles and chapters, organized into seven Parts. With new analyses of text and music together, new datings, new attributions, and new hypotheses about origins and interrelationships, Bent uncovers little-explored dimensions, provides a window into the craft and thought processes of medieval composers, and opens up many directions for future work.

The essays in this volume offer diverse, innovative approaches to medieval music and culture.

The motet was unquestionably one of the most important vocal genres from its inception in late twelfth-century Paris through the Counter-Reformation and beyond. Heard in both sacred and secular contexts, the motet of the Middle Ages and Renaissance incorporated a striking wealth of meaning, its verbal textures dense with literary, social, philosophic, and religious reference. In Hearing the Motet, top scholars in the field provide the fullest picture yet of the motet's "music-poetic" nature, investigating the virtuosic interplay of music and text that distinguished some of the genre's finest work and reading individual motets and motet repertories in ways that illuminate their historical and cultural backgrounds. How were motets heard in their own time? Did the same motet mean different things to different audiences? To explore these questions, the contributors go beyond traditional musicological methods, at times invoking approaches used in recent literary criticism. Providing as well a cutting-edge look at performance questions and works by composers such as Josquin, Willaert, Obrecht, Byrd, and Palestrina, the book draws a valuable new portrait of the motet composer. Here, intriguingly, the motet composer emerges as a "reader" of the surrounding culture--a musician who knew liturgical practice as well as biblical literature and its exegetical traditions, who moved in social contexts such as humanist gatherings, who understood numerical symbolism and classical allusion, who wrote subtle memorie for patrons, and who found musical models to emulate and distort. Fresh, broad-ranging, and unique, Hearing the Motet makes vital reading for scholars, performers, and students of medieval and Renaissance music, and anyone else with an interest in the musical culture of these periods. Contributors include Rebecca A. Baltzer, Margaret Bent, M. Jennifer Bloxam, David Crook, James Haar, Paula Higgins, Joseph Kerman, Patrick Macey, Craig Monson, Robert Nosow, Jessie Ann Owens, Dolores Pesce, Joshua Rifkin, Anne Walters Robertson, Richard Sherr, and Rob C. Wegman.

Featuring 56 illustrations, this definitive work on the arms of France delves into the mythology of kingship, probes the mystique of kings. Hinkle's comprehensive, chronological study of the origin, evolution, and function of the fleurs de lis covers the 200-year period beginning near the end of the 13th century with the emergence of France as a European power and ending at the close of hostilities between England and France in the late 15th century. His interdisciplinary study focuses on literature, history, and art history but also includes numismatics and sigillography. Hinkle first investigates the precursor to the fleurs de lis, the stylized lily of the early Capetian rulers. The initial literary reference to the later heraldic lily appeared shortly after 1285, with subsequent years witnessing further poetic glorification of the symbol. By 1316, the poetry of the period and of Geoffroy de Paris began to celebrate the three lilies on the royal escutcheon as a symbol of the Trinity. Concurrently, the death of a Capetian monarch without a male heir led to both the proclamation that no woman could succeed to the French throne and the appointment of the dead king's brother as Philip V. A second succession problem occurred in 1328 when the nearest male relative was Edward III of England. The French estates selected Philip VI, founder of the Valois line. To resolve the problem of succession, the pope proposed a crusade led by both Edward III and Philip VI. Preparations for this crusade led to Philippe de Vitri's poem of the 1330s: Le chapel des trois fleurs de lis. Although the crusade was later canceled, the poem signaled the beginnings of French nationalism symbolized by the three heraldic flowers. Two later poems from the 1330s celebrate the divine creation of the fleurs de lis. Hinkle tells a complex story lucidly. Examining the significance of the visual image of the fleurs de lis, he shows how the lilies evolved into emblems of God's favor, directed not only to the kings of France. The English also eagerly adopted the symbolism of the fleurs de lis for their young king, Henry VI, and that, too, is a fascinating part of the story.