Functions of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu

When present, the liturgical prescriptions and the rubrics prescribing the occasions on which to perform the prosula indicate that the primary function of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu was to conclude the Office Hours, as a substitute to the untroped Benedicamus Domino chant. More specifically, it was sung on various Marian feasts, as attested in the all-encompassing rubric ‘ad processione[m] In omnibus festis marie virginis’ (‘at the processions of all feasts for the Virgin Mary’) in Sankt Gallen 546 (fol. 375^v). This same manuscript confirms that the prosula was also used to celebrate persons related to Mary, since the source explicitly lists several textual alternatives: ‘Benedicamus in laude Joachim/Anna/Joseph qui patri/matri/sponsum sancte marie benedixit in eternum domino sit laus deo’ (Sankt Gallen 546, fol. 375^v, emphasize mine; Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Sankt Gallen 546, fol. 375^v (excerpt). St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 546: Joachim Cuontz: sequentiary of St. Gall / Troper with ‘Hufnagelnotation’ <https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/csg/0546> (CC BY-NC 4.0).

The prosula could be sung on other feasts of various ranks. For instance, in Klosterneuburg, it concluded Second Vespers at the feast of medium rank (‘medium festum’) for Saint Stephen Protomartyr,Footnote ¹¹ while in the Seckau monastery, it was sung at Lauds on Holy Innocents’ Day, ranked as a ‘feria tertia’.Footnote ¹² Table 2 provides more examples of the varied liturgical uses for BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu. The instructions about the occasions on which to perform BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu presented here thus demonstrate a great flexibility in its liturgical use.

Three manuscripts point towards contexts for the use of the prosula that were not directly liturgical. BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu is copied on a four-line staff among additions at the end of a commentary on the Metamorphoses by Ovid (Milan P 43 sup, Example 1), commonly referred to as the Vulgate Commentary in literary studies. The Vulgate Commentary is an anonymous commentary composed around 1250 in northern France, perhaps around Orléans, and was widely disseminated during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.Footnote ¹³ Like other commentaries on Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the Vulgate Commentary was intended for use in the classroom, in a pedagogical way which Nicolette Zeeman describes as ‘diverse, expatiatory, and even witty, the residue of a highly interactive, oral classroom culture’.Footnote ¹⁴

The Vulgate Commentary transmitted in Milan P 43 sup is written in two contemporary French hands of the mid- to late thirteenth century, one copying Ovid’s poem, the second the commentary.Footnote ¹⁵ BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu is the only piece of music in the entire manuscript and the other additions that surround it that are related to the main text (further notes in Latin on the Metamorphoses) or are entirely independent (medical notes in Latin, a short text in prose in northern French, about two protagonists, Jehan and Marion). The intended audience of the musical addition remains unknown, however: the text script is similar to the short prose in northern French, but very different from the other hands. At the minimum, the person who added BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu owned this copy of the glossed Metamorphoses, which indicates a learned context, perhaps that of a school master interested in what Coulson describes as a commentary showing a ‘literary sensitivity rare among late medieval commentators on Ovid’.Footnote ¹⁶ Nonetheless, some of the musical notes have been erased and emended, presumably by the same hand, which indicates a knowledge of the prosula and a desire for its correctness.Footnote ¹⁷ This may suggest that the prosula was copied in Milan P 43 sup by a schoolboy as part of his training.

Also curious is the use of the text of the prosula as a colophon in a mid-fifteenth-century copy of the second part of St Augustine’s De civitate Dei (Oxford 226, from north-eastern Italy).Footnote ¹⁸ While the use of the words ‘Benedicamus Domino’ or ‘Deo Gratias’ as a colophon is quite common throughout the Middle Ages, the inscription of an entire prosula is less so. Here, BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu may have had a more general devotional function; for instance, as a prayer outside the canonical hours during which it is usually sung. This may explain why the prosula is also found on an empty folio in Innsbruck 398 (fifteenth century, south Germany or Tirol). There, the prosula is added with two other Benedicamus Domino prosulas: BENEDICAMUS eterno patri and BENEDICAMUS regi polorum. Footnote ¹⁹ None of them is notated and their later addition in an otherwise unnotated book of prayers may confirm that BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu, as well as the two other prosulas, could have a devotional function outside the liturgy.Footnote ²⁰ The flexibility visible in the use of this widespread prosula is also found in the way it receives musical elaborations in its polyphonic transmissions.

Diversity of Musical Elaborations

This section provides an overview of the main musical characteristics of the fourteen elaborations of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu written in polyphony. Its purpose is to outline the diversity of the musical materials. More detailed study of the individual pieces themselves will come in the following sections.

Regardless of the time and place, the fourteen polyphonic elaborations of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu share a compositional technique: one voice carries the prosula melody against new musical material in one or several additional voices, all voices singing the same text. Beyond this, however, the settings each employ various techniques to elaborate the prosula in unique ways. The main musical characteristics of these settings are summarized in Table 3.

Table 3 shows that prosula melody is itself the locus of various elaborations. For instance, in the Bavarian source Munich 14274 (c. 1430–41), the melody is decorated at cadences, while it is undecorated in the bassus of Munich 52 (c. 1510, also from Bavaria), but it is used as a motivic material in the three upper voices. By contrast, the three-voice setting in Paris 16664, copied in the Low Countries at the beginning of the sixteenth century, elaborates on the original prosula melody to the extent that it is barely recognizable (Figure 3).Footnote ²¹

Figure 3.

Tenor voice of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu from Paris 16664, fol. 97^r. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms lat. 16664, fol. 97^r (excerpt).

The notated polyphony is either measured or unmeasured, with no correlation to the time or place, or to the type of counterpoint employed. Indeed, while the two latest sources (Munich 52 and W1123) show a more pronounced taste for imitative counterpoint, the beginning of the sixteenth century also witnessed elaborations of the prosula with contrary and parallel motions (Segovia s.s., composed by Jacob Obrecht – see below). Furthermore, Table 3 shows clearly that there is no correlation between the use of melismas (versus note-against-note counterpoint) and the time or place of the settings’ composition. Finally, and perhaps unsurprisingly, until the sixteenth century, the intervals on the main cadences are unisons, fourths, fifths, or octaves, while the last three sources of Table 3 also feature thirds.

The overall observation is one of a desire for polyphonic elaborations widely shared between different places. This desire took shape in practice through a wide range of compositional techniques which blurs genre distinctions in the polyphonic tradition. Various types of elaborations and of ways of notating it in writing happened at the same type, with no clear sense of stylistic evolution over time or based on geographical origin or provenance. This points to continued interest in the elaboration of this prosula not only over a long timeframe (from the 1300–50s to 1555) and a wide geographical area (Spain, Italy, France, the Low Countries, Germany), but also, and especially, in very different contexts. The analysis of these contexts and the reasons behind the choice of one polyphonic technique over another are the subject of the following three sections.

Liturgical Contexts

Among the twelve sources transmitting BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu with polyphonic notation, four of them have a known liturgical context of performance, either very specific (such as W1123, containing music for Vespers and Compline composed for the church of San Marco in Venice) or more general (Erfurt 44, liturgical music for a church of the Holy Sepulchre in Germany). In what follows, I will use this knowledge to investigate if, and how, the context of performance influences the type of polyphony. For the sake of convenience, Table 4 summarizes brief information on the four sources.

The manuscript Segovia was copied in the first half of the fifteenth century and originates from a church of the Holy Sepulchre (perhaps the Leonhardskloster in Aachen).Footnote ²² It contains music theory treatises as well as chants for the Mass and for the Offices, including a two-voice elaboration of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu. The lower voice carries the ‘flos filius eius’ melody, against an added voice that moves essentially in contrary motions with several melismas (Example 2). The setting contains several dissonances (e.g., on ‘ma-tri’, ‘de-i’, or ‘De-o’) which are not untypical for this kind of simple polyphonic elaboration. They are also present in the other polyphonic pieces found in Erfurt 44. Indeed, the polyphony for BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu is copied alongside other polyphonic and monophonic Office chants, some of which are accompanied by rubrics specifying their position in the liturgical year. In such a context, it seems evident that to the users of Erfurt 44, BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu had a liturgical function, with its polyphony providing a simple melodic embellishment to conclude the Office Hours.Footnote ²³

Example 2

Transcription of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu from Erfurt 44, fol. 38r.

Other locations required longer musical elaborations, as evident in the setting by Adrian Willaert composed for the Venetian church of San Marco (W1123). The setting is printed as part of a collection of sacred songs composed by Willaert for Vespers and Compline, with hymns, antiphons, and Benedicamus Domino chants, all for four voices. The collection was first printed in 1555 by Antonio Gardano in Venice and had two later reprints, in 1561 (W1124) and 1571 (W1125). The ‘index psalmorum’ of the 1571 edition lists the pieces according to their liturgical place and feast. BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu is indexed below ‘Vespro secondo della Madonna’, indicating that it was intended to be used to conclude the Second Vespers on Marian feasts. Moreover, by the time of the first print, Willaert had already been working as maestro di cappella for the church of San Marco in Venice for twenty-eight years, and the whole collection of sacred chants, including BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu, was intended to be sung there.Footnote ²⁴ The musical choices made to set this prosula into polyphony at once reflect the musical skills of Willaert – which were already established in at least the Low Countries, France, and Italy before his appointment at San Marco – and respond to the expectations of Willaert’s prestigious role as maestro di cappella at San Marco. Indeed, the Venetian Doge had a ‘deliberate program meant to bring Venice to a position of leadership in the arts and architecture’, to which Willaert undoubtedly contributed with his musical compositions.Footnote ²⁵ This contribution is also visible in BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu: the unadorned chant melody is carried by the tenor in semibreves against the many shorter note values (minims and semiminims), syncopations, and imitations between the three other voices, which fulfil the musical flamboyance that was desired by the Venetian procurators, and indeed achieved by Willaert (see the transcription in Example 3).

Example 3

Transcription of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu from W1123, p. 18.

Similar to Willaert’s setting, the prosula melody of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu found in Munich 52 (Bavarian court, c. 1523) is presented in semibreves against the comparatively shorter note values of the other three voices (minims and semiminims). Contrary to Willaert’s setting, though, the prosula serves as motivic material to compose the other three voices, and it sounds like the original ‘flos filius eius’ melody has been musically decorated in all voices and arranged in an imitative counterpoint with many syncopations (see the transcription in Example 4). Here, too, the resulting florid composition reflects the musical preferences of a liturgical context in which the addition of polyphony was highly desired. The choirbook Munich 52 is attached to the court chapel of Wilhelm IV, duke of Bavaria (r. 1508–50), who strove to consolidate his power against both the Habsburgs and the Reformation.Footnote ²⁶ As Birgit Lodes has showed, this was achieved, in particular, through the establishment of a court chapel and the creation of a ‘splendidly adorned liturgy’, which included Mass and Ordinary settings, as well as Proper settings, among which Vespers were particularly important.Footnote ²⁷ Moreover, David Crook has noted that only the Mass and Vespers were celebrated on a regular basis.Footnote ²⁸ The new polyphonic elaboration of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu found in Munich 52 was part of this desire to have unique and grand music for Vespers at the ducal court.

Example 4

Transcription of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu from Munich 52, fols. 252v–253r.

Moving away from lavish contexts, Munich 14274 is a manuscript of sacred polyphonic music, composed of thirteen quires, collected by Herman Pötzlinger between c. 1430 and 1441 (the music itself was composed between 1400 and 1440).Footnote ²⁹ Herman Pötzlinger (c. 1420–69) was a priest, schoolmaster, and bibliophile, who spent time studying or working in (among others) Vienna, Leipzig, and at the Sankt Emmeram monastery near Regensburg.Footnote ³⁰ The main part of the manuscript was copied between 1439 and 1440, most likely while Pötzlinger was in Vienna. From the late 1440s, he is found in Regensburg and was rector scolarum of the monastic school of the Bavarian monastery between 1450 and 1452. It is unclear whether the music copied in Munich 14274 was used in the monastery church at all. Ian Rumbold and Peter Wright have convincingly hypothesized that the book fell into practical obsolescence following the Melk reform of Sankt Emmeram in 1452 (the time when the thirteen quires of Munich 14274 were bound), which forbid the singing of polyphony. But Rumbold and Wright have also observed that the quires do show signs of use in performance (e.g., ‘wear in the corners of folios, as well as the frequent correction of errors’Footnote ³¹), and they also argued that ‘the combination of boys, schoolmaster and assistant would then have provided not just a viable, but an ideal combination of voices for the performance of most polyphonic music from this period’. Moreover, they have demonstrated that not only was Pötzlinger involved in the training of boys in the schoolroom and in their singing in the liturgy of the monastery church, but he also participated himself in this liturgy.Footnote ³² This investigation suggests a plausible use of the music transmitted in Munich 14274 in a performance context at Sankt Emmeram, either as part of training boys in singing, or in a liturgical context.Footnote ³³

In this manuscript, BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu is transmitted in a three-voice setting, with two voices copied in black mensural notation at fol. 54^v and a third one added on the following recto in white mensural notation. In spite of the difference of musical notation, the text hand suggests that the third voice is a relatively contemporary addition. The prosula melody is set in the upper voice and is decorated at the cadences. As summarized in Table 3, the three voices move both in contrary or parallel motions and the counterpoint is not particularly melismatic. The main cadences, musically well defined by rests in the upper voice and in the contratenor, against a semibreve in the tenor, are always on perfect consonances (unisons, fourths, fifths, octaves); see also the transcription in Example 5. The resulting musical style is much simpler than the very florid composition by Willaert or the imitative counterpoint and the play on the original ‘flos filius eius’ melody found in Munich 52. It is, however, more florid than the setting of Erfurt 44, even in its two-voice version, and shows a higher degree of compositional intentionality which can perhaps be explained by the possible use of this music before 1452, that is, as part of training boys in singing, or in a liturgical context associated with a school monastery.

Example 5

Transcription of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu from Munich 14274, fols. 54v–55r.

This section has illustrated how the liturgical context of performance could influence the types of musical elaborations that were desired or seen as most appropriate. The simpler polyphonic style of Erfurt 44 suggests that the polyphonic elaboration was strictly functional in the sense that it did not seem to have served a purpose beyond embellishing the conclusion of the Offices. By contrast, Munich 52 transmits music for a ducal court chapel for which the ‘solemn and splendidly adorned liturgy became a potent political tool’.Footnote ³⁴ In Venice, the church of San Marco, including the high quality of the music performed there, was part of the Doge and the government’s desire to show the city’s ‘piety, splendour, and power’ and to ‘reassert the primacy of Venice in all things’.Footnote ³⁵ Finally, the musical elaboration of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu found in Munich 14274 reflects the interest of a ‘modest intellectual’, Herman Pötzlinger, who had no social or academic pretensions,Footnote ³⁶ as well as the type of polyphonic embellishments which could have been desired in the liturgy of the monastery of Sankt Emmeram.Footnote ³⁷ In addition, these observations reveal that the prosula BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu was musically elaborated and the new compositions written down for the liturgy of very different social and economical contexts. More generally, the different contexts highlighted here impacted not only the polyphony that was desired, but also the polyphony that was possible, a thread which I explore in the following section.

Intended and Available Performers

W1123 is very useful for explaining how the available performers impact the choice of elaborations, due to the richness of the surviving sources from the Venetian church of San Marco. Archival documents show that the number of available singers in the chapel move from sixteen adults at Willaert’s arrival as maestro di cappella in San Marco in 1527, to twenty-five adults and two boys at his death in 1562. As Giulio Ongaro speculates, ‘the influence of Willaert as a mentor and teacher of the first class might have been a draw for many of the musicians’, since during Willaert’s tenure, the lists of singers employed at the chapel included an increasing number of skilled musicians.Footnote ³⁸ This, of course, allowed for more florid compositions and more diversity in terms of voice ranges, counterpoint, and rhythms.

While having a group of skilled singers at a given institution can be an impulse for more complex forms of polyphony, the general trend tends in the contrary direction: when an institution wants its liturgy to display power, splendour, and piety, it will seek specifically to hire more skilled musicians. For instance, in a document dated from 1403, six ducal counsellors order that ‘good singers’ should be hired in the church of San Marco, because it contributes to ‘the honour and fame’ of the Venetian Republic.Footnote ³⁹ As far as can be assumed from the polyphonic elaborations of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu, the desire for a splendidly adorned liturgy created the need for skilled singers, rather than the contrary (skilled singers creating the need for a splendidly adorned liturgy).

Conversely, when the context of performance is unknown to us, the type of polyphony can shed light on who could have performed a specific version of BENEDICAMUS in laude, something particularly valuable for understanding curious pieces such as the musical setting by Jacob Obrecht (1457/8–1505), uniquely transmitted in Segovia s.s. The four-voice setting by the renown Flemish composer stands out for its relative simplicity compared with the polyphonic style of his other compositions.Footnote ⁴⁰ The chant melody carried by the highest voice is undecorated, while the other three voices harmonize it homorhythmically and use long note-values (breves). One exception is a short passage during which the second cantus and the lowest voice especially sing more complex rhythms with changes of mensuration (bars 31–35, i.e., only six bars for a setting composed of forty-eight bars).Footnote ⁴¹ Jennifer Bloxam suggested that these musical characteristics could indicate that the prosula was elaborated for and sung by choirboys with the lowest voice perhaps sung by the choirmaster, Obrecht, therefore ‘anchoring the harmony and guiding the young singers through the coloration and changes of mensuration’.Footnote ⁴²

This would not be surprising given the fact that the prosula BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu was frequently sung by children, as the following examples, from three different religious communities, illustrate:

Benedictine monastery of Sankt Gallen (1583):

Benedictine monastery of Sankt Emmeram (1435):

Illustre Lieve Vrouwe Broederschap at ’s-Hertogenbosch (c. 1479):

Similarly, the monophonic BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu transmitted in Munich 100 (often known under its former shelfmark, 2° Cod. ms. 156) is copied as part of an addition to the main corpus of the manuscript, which is prefaced by Johannes von Perchausen, closely associated with the Benedictine monastery of Moosburg.Footnote ⁴⁶ In this preface, it seems that Johannes conceived the added songs to be sung by children during Christmas time, when he writes: ‘these songs by the new little clerks, as if from the mouth of infants and suckling children’ (‘hiis cancionibus a novellis clericulis, quasi ex ore infancium et lactencium’).Footnote ⁴⁷ Furthermore, as discussed earlier, Milan P 43 sup was probably used in a school context, and also contains the monophonic version of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu added at the end.Footnote ⁴⁸ Such potential uses of the prosula by schoolboys and such liturgical prescriptions may explain the choice of a specific technique of elaboration over another, as the four-voice setting by Jacob Obrecht perhaps indicate (Segovia s.s.).

Devotional Expression: the Contrafact Ave celestis regina of Berlin 190 (c. 1480)

The desire for elaboration of a widespread prosula was not limited to its music. Indeed, Berlin 190 not only transmits a unique additional musical voice, but also a new additional text. Nine stanzas have been newly composed on the ‘flos filius eius’ melisma, and the prosula text BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu is the tenth and final stanza of the song thus created. This last stanza somehow contrasts with the rest of the poem. The nine additional stanzas all have the same syllable count (8+8+8+4), follow the same pattern of versification, and are distributed in a similar way over the ‘flos filius eius’ melisma. By contrast, the prosula text has a slightly different placement of its syllables over the melody (see Example 6), and it is clearly a prose text, with no particular poetic elements. The text is reproduced and translated in Table 5.Footnote ⁴⁹

Example 6

First and final strophe of Ave celestis regina from Berlin 190.

The manuscript Berlin 190 was copied by several hands around 1480 in north or west Netherlands. In the most comprehensive study of the manuscript to date, Thom Mertens and Dieuwke van der Poel suggested that it originated from a female community, perhaps affiliated to the Chapter of Windesheim or to the Chapter of Sion, two Augustinian chapters inscribed in the religious movement of the Devotio moderna. Footnote ⁵⁰

The musical setting of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu found in Berlin 190 (hereafter referred to as Ave celestis regina – from the song’s incipit) is typical of polyphonic pieces from this movement in several respects. First, the melody is not invented but is rather a well-known model (that of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu). Contrafacts, while practised everywhere and in many different medieval contexts, were particularly beloved to craft Devotio moderna songs, as these songs were composed for and by the common people, hence the need for well-known melodies to set new Latin texts.Footnote ⁵¹ Another typical aspect is that the original melody is a drawn from a liturgical context.Footnote ⁵² Finally, the counterpoint, note-against-note and syllabic, places the emphasis on the intelligibility of the text.Footnote ⁵³ Example 6 illustrates this point with the texts of the first and final strophes.Footnote ⁵⁴

The intelligibility of the texts was a central concern in the Devotio moderna, especially in monastic contexts such as the Chapters of Windesheim or Sion, and in particular when the texts had to be sung aloud. This was a generally shared concern in medieval monastic contexts, in which, in the words of Bernard of Clairvaux, the melody ‘should never obscure the sense of the words, but enhance them’ (‘cantus ipse […] sensum litterae non evacuet, sed fecundet’).Footnote ⁵⁵ In explaining the simplicity of the musical setting, it is also crucial to remember that Devotio moderna songs could have been sung either aloud (alone or in a group), or silently, ‘in the heart’, pushing the music into the background of the text.Footnote ⁵⁶

The text of Ave celestis regina is truly Marian in character and follows a very logical progression. Starting with a salutation to Mary, strophes 1 and 2 present Mary with an emphasis on the qualities for which she was chosen as the Mother of Jesus (her ‘divine majesty’ (l. 2) and the ‘virtue of [her] character’ (l. 5)). Strophe 3 introduces the more specific topic of the song, that is, Mary as ‘the shining key [intended as ‘explanation’] to many scriptures’. As if to exemplify the third strophe, strophes 4 to 8 each refers to a different episode from the Old Testament (respectively, Ezechiel, Exodus, Judges, Esther, and Judith). The strophes state more or less directly how Mary sheds light on these episodes, how she is the ‘shining key’ to understanding them. For instance, strophe 5 directly quotes the qualities of Mary’s birth (‘chaste and pure’, l. 20). By contrast, in strophe 8, Mary is only suggested in the verb (‘you overthrew’, ‘prosternis’, l. 31), which in turn only implies the presence of Mary in Judith’s actions. Finally, strophe 9 is a more straightforward intercessory prayer to Mary before turning to a general concluding prayer, in the words of the prosula BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu (strophe 10).

The progression of the examples given in strophes 4 to 8 deserves special attention. As mentioned, each of these strophes deals with a specific biblical event in which Mary was somehow present, going from very concrete qualities (chastity, pure birth), to why these qualities are important (they made her suitable to be designated as the Mother of Jesus (strophe 6)), before giving two examples of women who were considered as prototypes of Mary in the medieval Christian tradition. The text therefore moves from an external depiction of Mary (e.g., how Ezechiel saw her, how the bush sung of her) to events not performed directly by Mary, but which can be explained through the ‘virtue of [Mary’s] character’ (l. 6). With such a construction, the text invites a reflexion not only on the virtues of Mary, or on the biblical episodes mentioned in the various strophes, but also, and more importantly, on why and how these virtues are essential. In sum, the text invites its singer(s), and possibly its listener(s), to imitate the Virgin Mary, a crucial aspect of the female devotion of the Devotio moderna. Footnote ⁵⁷ The imitation of Mary was made possible through spiritual exercises, or meditation, in which songs such as Ave celestis regina played an important role.Footnote ⁵⁸ Indeed, through its text, the song invites a meditation on the events narrated and on how one can emulate women such as Esther or Judith. This, in turn, influenced how the music was developed.

According to Johannes Mauburnus (1460–1501), an Augustinian canon at the monastery of Saint Agnietenberg (Chapter of Windesheim), music had two functions in the context of meditation. On the one hand, music served to stir up the mind, in which case, the same melody had to be sung repeatedly.Footnote ⁵⁹ On the other hand, music helped overcome inactivity during meditation. Mauburnus suggests some rhythmic verses to be sung to the melodies of Pange lingua or Crux fidelis, ‘sweetly in the heart or in the mouth when you are feeling too sluggish to meditate’.Footnote ⁶⁰ Mauburnus’s view on music and meditation, which is representative of the Devotio moderna views, helps us to understand the repetitive character of the music and the simplicity of the polyphony of Ave regina celestis, against its rich textual content: music in this case was functional; it was a tool, an aid for a meditative attitude which aimed at the imitation of the Virgin Mary.Footnote ⁶¹

Circulation

As mentioned earlier, two of the three voices transmitted in Munich 14274 are found in another manuscript, Trent 92. This unique concordance of a polyphonic elaboration of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu is the topic of the final section of this study.

Munich 14274 has been described earlier, but it is useful to mention again the following elements for the sake of clarity. Munich 14274 is a manuscript of sacred polyphonic music in which thirteen quires were bound at around 1452, the same time as when the use of the music probably fell into practical obsolescence. The music was collected between around 1430 and 1441 by Herman Pötzlinger, who spent a couple of years as the schoolmaster of the monastery church of Sankt Emmeram, a Benedictine imperial abbey near Regensburg, and who also ended his life as a priest there. In Munich 14274, BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu is transmitted in a three-voice setting, with two voices copied in black mensural notation at fol. 54^v and a third one, the contratenor, added on the following recto in white mensural notation. The cantus and the tenor copied at fol. 54^v contain a lot of emendations and the end of the cantus (from ‘benedixit’ onwards) is copied a second lower than it should be for the counterpoint to work.

These two voices are also found, with errors, in Trent 92. It is a manuscript of sacred polyphonic music, composed of at least three original manuscripts, copied by several hands around 1430–1445.Footnote ⁶² BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu is preserved in the first part of Trent 92, which may have been copied in the region of Basel-Strasbourg for the use of the chapel of the Duke of Savoy Amédée VIII (antipope Felix V).Footnote ⁶³ There, the prosula is a contemporary addition on empty line staves at the end of fol. 119^r. The addition fits the surrounding sacred, and specifically Marian, contents of this part of the book. Two voices are notated in white mensural notation, with the ‘flos filius eius’ melisma carried in the upper voice.

Munich 14274 and Trent 92 are therefore contemporary sources transmitting a similar repertoire. The number of concordant pieces between the two manuscripts is, however, quite small: thirty-three, against a total number of 320 (Munich 14274) and 223 (Trent 92) pieces. Tom Ward compared the thirty-three concordances and observed that ‘the degree of similarity between the versions of individual works varies from near identity to great differences’.Footnote ⁶⁴ On the one hand, the cantus and tenor of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu tend towards the near identity. Copying mistakes notwithstanding, the voices are indeed almost identical. The differences are either related to scribal practices (e.g., a breve in Trent 92 is copied as two semibreves in Munich 14274), or occur occasionally at cadences, with the cantus of Munich 14274 slightly more decorated than the cantus of Trent 92 (Example 7).

Example 7

Differences between Munich 14274 and Trent 92.

On the other hand, the addition of an entire new voice in Munich 14274 certainly is a great difference from Trent 92. Based on his comparison of the concordances between the two sources, Ward convincingly defines the relationship between the two manuscripts as ‘indirect […] with a number of intermediate sources’ – to which I suggest adding oral sources of transmission.Footnote ⁶⁵ Thus, did the third voice in Munich 14274 come from another manuscript that is now lost or unidentified? Or was it composed by someone from Sankt Emmeram who decided to record it in writing on the empty staves at the bottom of fol. 55^r? Conversely, did the scribe of Trent 92 know this voice but decided not to include it in this manuscript? On the other hand, it is possible that the setting had an entirely different circulation route, now lost. More importantly, the differences in the related variants of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu in Trent 92 and Munich 14274 demonstrate that even when the settings themselves may have circulated between places, they were subjected to local elaborations and adjustments. This desire for local adjustments is further supported by the fact that the added contratenor in Munich 14274 is musically correct (and thus did not require emendations, contrary to the cantus and tenor voices) and by the fact the unique voice in Munich 14274 is the one that has been added. These copying observations point towards a musical awareness related to a desire for local or personal adjustments, worth putting down in writing.

Appendix Sources

The folio given situates where BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu is written in the source.

When the prosula has music notation, the number of voice(s) is indicated after the folio number. A question mark (?) indicates that I have no information about the nature of the copy of Benedicamus in laude ihesu (e.g., it has not been possible to consult the source and the catalogue does not give detailed information).

A Sources of BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu with Music Notation (alphabetical order of the abbreviations)

B Related Liturgical Documents that Mention BENEDICAMUS in laude ihesu (alphabetical order of the abbreviations)