The Montpellier Codex

The final section of the Montpellier Codex analysed in full for the first time, with major implications for late-medieval music.

The final section of the Montpellier Codex analysed in full for the first time, with major implications for late-medieval music.

The Montpellier Codex (Bibliothèque interuniversitaire, Section Médecine, H.196) occupies a central place in scholarship on medieval music. This small book, packed with gorgeous gold leaf illuminations, historiated initials, and exquisite music calligraphy, is one of the most famous of all surviving music manuscripts, fundamental to understandings of the development of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century polyphonic composition. At some point in its historyan eighth section (fascicle) of 48 folios was appended to the codex: when and why this happened has long perplexed scholars. The forty-three works contained in the manuscript's final section represent a collection of musical compositions, assembled at a complex moment of historical change, straddling the historiographical juncture between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
This book provides the first in-depth exploration of the contents and contexts of the Montpellier Codex's final fascicle. It explores the manuscript's production, dating, function, and notation, offering close-readings of individual works, which illuminate compositionally progressive features of therepertoire as well as its interactions with existing musical and poetic traditions, from a variety of perspectives: thirteenth- and fourteenth-century music, art history, and manuscript culture.

CATHERINE A. BRADLEY isan Associate Professor at the University of Oslo; KAREN DESMOND is Assistant Professor of Music at Brandeis University.

Contributors: Rebecca A. Baltzer, Edward Breen, Sean Curran, Rachel Davies, Margaret Dobby, Mark Everist, Solomon Guhl-Miller, Anna Kathryn Grau, Oliver Huck, Anne Ibos-Augé, Eva M. Maschke, David Maw, Dolores Pesce, Alison Stones, Mary Wolinski

Introduction
Montpellier 8: Anatomy of... - Mark Everist
A palaeographical analysis of the verbal text in Montpellier 8: problems, implications, opportunities - Sean Curran
The style and iconography ofMo folio 350 - Alison Stones
The decoration of Montpellier Fascicle 8: its place in the continuum of Parisian manuscript illumination - Rebecca Baltzer
Double motet layouts in the Montpellier Codex and contemporaneousLibri motetorum - Oliver Huck
Deus in adiutorium revisited: sources and contexts - Eva M. Maschke
Thematic clusters and compilational strategies inMo 8 - Anna Kathryn Grau
Texture, rhythm, and stylistic groupings in Montpellier's eighth fascicle motets - Karen Desmond
'Je le temoin en mon chant': The art of diminution in the Petronian triplum - David Maw
How rhythmically innovative is the eighth fascicle of the Montpellier Codex? - Mary Wolinski
Re-presentation in theArs antiqua: from chant to polyphony - Solomon Guhl-Miller
'[.] Que ne dit "cief bien seans"': Quoting Motets inMo 8 - Anne Ibos-Augé
Montpellier, Fascicle 8 PORTARE Motets and tonal exploration - Dolores Pesce
Repetitions, rhythmical evolution, and rhetoric in the Montpellier Codex - Margaret Dobby
Shedding light onMo 8,304:Alma virgo virginum/Benedicta es, Maria - Rachel Davies
A performance and reception history ofOn parole/A Paris/FRESE NOUVELE - Edward George Breen