Thanks in part to a fine translation by Oliver Strunk, the Ars cantus mensurabilis of Franco of Cologne is a treatise we all think we know. It is perhaps for this reason that Franco's treatise has been all but ignored in most of the recent discussions of the rhythm of Notre Dame organum. The one noteworthy exception to this is Fritz Reckow's discussion of organum purum in his dissertation on Anonymous iv and in his various articles on organum and related topics in the Handwörterbuch der musikalischen Terminologie, in the Schrade Gedenkschrift, and elsewhere. But for Reckow, and presumably for most other scholars as well, Franco's description of organum is strongly coloured by his theories of mensuration, appearing to place even organum purum under the heading of ‘mensurable music’. This in turn seems to distance Franco from the earliest layer of organum composition at Notre Dame, rendering his ideas of little value in arriving at an interpretation of the rhythmic character of this music.

A number of scholars have begun to explore the activities of music-printers in sixteenth-century Italy. The first music-print produced by movable type was issued by Ottaviano Petrucci in 1501, and by the 1540s improvements in printing techniques, and particularly the introduction of single-impression printing, had set music-printing on a firm commercial footing, first and foremost in Venice, the centre of the printing trade on the peninsula. The two chief Venetian music-printers in the mid-century, Antonio Gardano and Girolamo Scotto, headed commercial enterprises the organisation of which merits close study by economic historians. But the activities of these and other music-printers must also be examined for their effect on contemporary musical culture. Through their editorial policies and commercial strategies, printers such as Gardano and Scotto had an undeniable influence on the composition and dissemination of music in this period, creating and defining a market or markets for their wares which increasingly directed the activities of contemporary composers.

It is safe to say that the collections of the Museo Comunale Bardini, situated in Piazza dei Mozzi on the oltrarno in Florence, remain comparatively little known. The museum's vast store of paintings, sculpture, architectural ornament, rugs and tapestries, armour, bronzes, furniture and musical instruments all belonged to Stefano Bardini, the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century collector and art dealer. Born in 1836 in the province of Arezzo, Bardini came to Florence to study painting at the Accademia delle Belle Arti. After the political turbulence of the 1860s, when Bardini fought with the Garibaldini, the young painter turned to restoration, connoisseurship and art dealing. By the age of forty-five he had established his reputation and an extraordinary personal collection. At the height of his career his patrons included the Rothschilds, the Vanderbilts, Isabella Gardiner and J. Pierpont Morgan. Many objects now in some of the world's best-known public collections passed through his hands.

The Treaty of Brétigny, concluded in May 1360, inaugurated the longest period of peace between England and France that the century had yet seen. Although the English success in this agreement later turned out to be less than complete, the king and higher nobility in England could now look to the consolidation of their position in the overseas dependencies of Brittany, Gascony and Ponthieu, to the enjoyment of their new-found wealth at home, and to a superficially more amicable relationship with French magnates. External relations were thus transformed, and the period between 1360 and 1369 also saw a fundamental change in the accessibility in England of French musical culture and in the opportunities for contacts with French musicians.

Marian guilds and confraternities proliferated in fifteenth-century Brabant. They gave expression to the pride, devoutness and community spirit of the urban middle classes. Their chapels were invested with all the riches their members could afford: altarpieces, stained-glass windows, painted statues, silk and velvet cloth, gold and silverware, and other expensive ornaments. But the jewel in the crown for every confraternity was polyphony. Prestigious Marian confraternities such as those at 's-Hertogenbosch, Bergen op Zoom and Antwerp were among the major musical establishments of the Low Countries. They employed some of the best-known composers of their time: Jacob Obrecht, Pierre de la Rue, Johannes Ghiselin, Jacobus Barbireau, Matthaeus Pipelare, Nicasius and Jheronimus de Clibano, Paulus de Roda and Hermannus de Atrio. Other Marian confraternities in Brabant are also known to have cultivated polyphony, though probably on a lesser scale, for instance Brussels and Diest.