Category: medieval French literature

Putting a tune to a tuneless song

Gace song in N
Gace’s melody in MS N

The fifth song in the grands chants is unique to Douce 308 and is thus transmitted to us without any melody. However, its versification makes it possible to sing it to the tune of a song with a similar poetic structure. Continue reading “Putting a tune to a tuneless song”

Douce 308 complete images now online!

Dead peacock
Porrus kills Fezonas’s peacock in the first item in Douce 308, The Vows of the Peacock. Image, Bodleian Library.

The first thing promised as part of my Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship is now done.

The complete images of the manuscript Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 308 are now online. The photography is funded by part of the Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship that I was awarded for 2015-18 specifically to write a book on this source and what it might tell us about the culture(s) of vernacular song in the few decades either side of 1300. (Some viewers may find it easier to use this alternative link to view the images.)

Many thanks to the Bodleian Library for their great efficiency in getting this done in time for the project start date (1 Oct 2015), which will mean I can get going straight away. I was interested to be asked whether I actually wanted to withhold the open-access web-mounting of the images until after I’d written my book. While I’m glad they asked, I think anyone’s going to ‘beat me’ to saying exactly what I would say about it, and my general view is the more the merrier on people using these images and finding things to say about this wonderful and complex source. I certainly won’t exhaust it!

I’m looking forward to blogging bits and pieces of interesting stuff as I go along.

At the Medieval Academy of America Annual Conference 2015

EEL opening plenaryI was honoured to be invited to give the opening Plenary lecture at the MAA annual meeting, this year held at the University of Notre Dame in the US. Continue reading “At the Medieval Academy of America Annual Conference 2015”

Review of Jennifer Saltzstein’s new book on refrains (with link to full text)

My review of Jennifer Saltzstein’s stimulating new book on thirteenth-century refrains has just appeared in the Cambridge University Press journal, Plainsong and Medieval Music. Continue reading “Review of Jennifer Saltzstein’s new book on refrains (with link to full text)”