Tag: 13thC

Links to online sources for Gautier’s magnum opus.

Recently I very much enjoyed Tony Hunt’s book on Gautier de Coinci‘s exuberant but meaningful use of punning rhymes, anaphora and other rhetorical tricks in the poems that make up his Miracles of Our Lady. These features were much derided by earlier commentators and the secular thrust of twentieth-century studies of medieval French literature led to the neglect of Gautier’s work and its exclusion from canons it ought to be in: for example, it is rarely listed among French narrative poems with interpolated lyrics set to music, probably, as Hunt alleges, because it’s not proper secular courtly literature (for my impatience with these categories, see my earlier post).

Despite the large bibliography on Arlima, Gautier’s work deserves to be even better studied not just by literary scholars but also by by musicologists, because he not only includes songs with notated music in many sources, but also uses musical as fact and metaphor centrally within several miracles. He also seems to have been a serious precursor to Guillaume de Machaut in terms of overseeing the collection of his work and taking an interest in ordering it and making books. This very interesting-looking collection of essays is awaiting me in a local non-borrowing library just as soon as I can get down there (I’m currently rather immobile while on crutches with a sports injury — the perils of sabbaticals!). But in aid of making the study of Gautier a little easier (given the huge source base), I’ve decided to write this post and try to get the manuscripts all together. I’ve used the listings in the editions by Koenig (text) and Chailley (music), a list on Musicologie Médiévale by Arturo Tello, and some additional general web searching. Musicologie Médiévale (which everyone who’s read this far down should join!) also has a link to Kathryn Duys’s list of manuscripts with the songs in them in a chapter in the essay collection just mentioned (log-in required). The beauty of a blog is that I can update it as my own work on Gautier progresses; and anyone reading this can send me updates and corrections too!

Luckily, many of the MSS are online now, some in old black-and-white microfilm uploads, but others in newly done digital colour images. The manuscripts listed below are colour-coded into those that have musical notation, space for musical notation that was never entered, the songs’ verbal texts only or lack the songs entirely. I’ve added a ball-park century dating from Duys. Arlima’s good listing of primary and secondary sources only has links through the libraries’ home pages and/or to Arlima’s own manuscript inventories, not to images themselves. They’re a bit hard to aggregate on Gallica because of variant spellings of Coinci, Coincy, Coinsi, Coinsy, Courci…(*sighs deep medievalist sigh*) so here’s a list with links where they exist. Please submit corrections, questions, and updates via the comment box below!

A — Blois, bibl. mun.34. 13thC; no musical notation. Some images. (VI)

B — Brussels, Bibl. roy. 10747. 13thC; has musical notation. DIAMM description. Link to complete colour images online. (V)

C — GB-Lbl Harley 4401. 13thC; has musical notation. BL listing and some images. (XI)

D — F-Pa 3517-3518. 13thC; has musical notation. DIAMM description. Link to complete colour images here (vol. 1) and here (vol. 2). (IV)

E — F-Pn fr. 817. 15thC; no musical notation. Black-and-white microfilm images. (XVII)

F — F-Pn fr. 986. 13thC; has musical notation.Black-and-white microfilm images. (XIII)

G — F-Pn fr. 1530. 13thC; has musical notation. Black-and-white microfilm images. (VIII)

H — F-Pn fr. 1533. 13thC; musical notation envisaged but not completed. Black-and-white microfilm images. (IX)

I — F-Pn fr. 1536. 13thC; has musical notation. DIAMM description. Black-and-white microfilm images. (X)

K — F-Pn fr. 1613. 13thC; no musical notation. No images. See comment below from Duys; this MS contains no songs.

L — F-Pn fr. 22928. 14thC; has musical notation. Colour images. (II)

M — F-Pn fr. 2163. 13thC; has musical notation. Black-and-white microfilm images. (XVI)

N — F-Pn fr. 25532. 13thC; has musical notation. DIAMM description. Black-and-white microfilm images. (III)

O — I-Rvat pal. lat. 1969. 14thC; musical notation envisaged but not completed. Colour images. (VII)

R — Russia, St. Petersburg, Fr. F. v XIV9. 14thC; has musical notation. DIAMM description. No images. (XIX)

S — F-Pn n.a.f. 24541. 13thC; has musical notation. DIAMM description. Colour images. (I)

T — Besançon, bibl. mun. 551. 14thC; musical notation envisaged but not completed. Some images. (XX)

a — Brussels, Bibl. roy. 9229-30. 14thC; does not contain the songs.

d — La Haye, Bibl. roy. 71-A-24. 14thC; does not contain the songs.

e — Neuchtel, 4816. 15thC; no musical notation. (XVIII)

f — F-Pa 3527. 14thC; musical notation envisaged but not completed. Colour images. (XIV)

g — F-Pa 5204. 14thC; does not contain the songs. No images.

h — F-Pn n.a.f. 6295. 13thC; musical notation envisaged but not completed. Black-and-white images. (XII)

i — F-Pn n.a.f. 4276. 14thC; does not contain the songs. No images.

l — F-Pn fr. 818. 13thC; does not contain the songs. Black-and-white microfilm images.

m — F-Pn fr. 1546. 13thC; does not contain the songs. Black-and-white microfilm images.

n —  F-Pn fr. 1807. 13thC; does not contain the songs. Black-and-white microfilm images.

o — F-Pn fr. 2193. 13thC; musical notation envisaged but not completed. Black-and-white microfilm images. (XV)

p — F-Pn fr. 19166. 13thC; does not contain the songs. Black-and-white microfilm images.

r — F-P Ste-Geneviève 586. 14thC; does not contain the songs.

s — Tours 948. 14thC; no musical notation. (XXII)

t — F-Pn fr. 23111. 13thC; no musical notation. Black-and-white microfilm images.

v — Florence Laur. 45, Ashb 53. 13thC; no musical notation. Catalogue listing here. (XXI)

x — F-Pn fr. 15110. 13thC; does not contain the songs. Black-and-white microfilm images.

8. Lille 130. 14thC; does not contain the songs. No images.

10bis. GB-Lbl Egerton 274. 14thC; has musical notation. DIAMM information. BL inventory and some images.

18. F-Pn fr. 375. 13thC; does not contain the songs. Black-and-white microfilm images.

26. F-Pn fr. 24300; no musical notation. Black-and-white microfilm images.

32. Rennes 593. 14thC; does not contain the songs.

Bibliography

See the essay and appendices in: Krause, Kathy M., and Alison Stones, eds. Gautier de Coinci: Miracles, Music, and Manuscripts. Turnhout: Brepols, 2006.