Machaut's manuscripts
Machaut is unusual in his habit of collecting his works in books. (In the fourteenth century, before the invention of moveable-type printing in Europe, this means manuscripts—books copied by hand, manu scripta.) These manuscripts allow us to be confident of what exactly he wrote: if it appears in these manuscripts, it is his work, if it doesn’t, it isn’t. This situation is very unlike the norm of the time, when much literature and most music circulated anonymously. It also reinforces our image of Machaut as supremely self-conscious as an author, working to ensure that we see him as he wants to be seen. Not only did he have some level of oversight over the compilation of some of these books, there are signs of his concern for the organization of their contents—which in turn controls how we read them. Work on Machaut’s manuscripts relies on the foundation provided by the art historian François Avril and the musicologist Lawrence Earp, summarized in Earp’s Guide to Research, which underpins much of what appears below.
Although the idea of a complete-works source of this size and complexity was fundamentally new in Machaut’s time, it was not unheard of for the works of a poet or composer to circulate as a unit. The manuscripts of troubadour and trouvère song of the previous century were often organized by author, with rubrics or headings (“These are the songs of the king of Navarre”), author portraits, and vidas or biographies. The images and life stories were more idealized than real, but they show a real concern for associating the works with an identifiable author figure. This collecting process is taken a step further for the works of Adam de la Halle, a poet-composer active in Arras in the late thirteenth century. A manuscript now in Paris (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS fonds français 25566) contains nearly all his known works, divided by genre: monophonic songs, polyphonic rondeaux, motets, and dramatic and narrative poetry. This is the closest precedent for what Machaut does, which at its fullest mixes in a single book narrative poetry, lyric poetry with and without music, sacred and secular music, and images.
The earliest of Machaut’s complete-works sources is Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS fonds français 1586, known as manuscript C. This book was copied in the early to mid-1350s and decorated at Paris by artists connected to the royal court. It may have been intended for Bonne of Luxembourg, daughter of Machaut’s longtime employer John of Bohemia, but she died in 1349, before the book could be finished. It is possible that the completed manuscript went to her husband, John of Normandy, who became king Jean II of France the following year. MS C provides a model for all the Machaut manuscripts: it begins with the narrative poetry, continuing with lyric poetry and music. Scholars generally agree that it includes virtually all the poetry and music Machaut had written up to the time of its compilation, so any work not contained here is assumed to have been created after c. 1350 unless a compelling reason can be given for its omission.
Also apparently compiled under some level of authorial control is MS A (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS fonds français 1584), copied in the early 1370s, possibly in Reims. Most of the miniatures were painted in Reims, but the spectacular images at the beginning of the manuscript were created by a Parisian artist known as the Master of the Bible of Jean de Sy. These miniatures, which illustrate the Prologue apparently written for this manuscript, depict first on f. Dr Amours introducing to Machaut his children (Dous Penser, Plaisance, and Esperance), then on f. Er Nature introducing her children (Sens, Retorique and Musique). (The image of Nature was actually intended to appear first, but the order of the two folios was reversed before the book was bound.)
The patron for whom this manuscript was intended is unknown, but it was owned by Louis of Bruges, sire of Gruthuyse, in the late fifteenth century, and by 1518 it was part of the royal library. It includes an index with the heading, “Vesci l’ordenance que G. de Machau wet qu’il ait en son livre” (Here is the order that G. de Machaut wants his book to have). This reinforces both the notion that the manuscript’s creation was overseen by Machaut and the idea that the ordering of his collection is not simply chronological but meaningful. On the other hand, work by William W. Kibler and James I. Wimsatt suggests that Machaut may not have supervised the actual copying of the text very closely, because they show that MS C in fact is more reliable in its readings.
Earp describes a total of seven complete (or formerly complete) Machaut manuscripts containing both text and music, as well as two text manuscripts and references to five more books that no longer survive. Four more surviving manuscripts, and one more reference to a lost manuscript, can be considered partial complete-works manuscripts, while a number of other sources contain single works or small groups of works by Machaut, mixed up with poetry or music by others. [for links to digital images of Machaut sources, go to http://www.stanford.edu/group/dmstech/cgi-bin/drupal/machautmss ]
Although the idea of a complete-works source of this size and complexity was fundamentally new in Machaut’s time, it was not unheard of for the works of a poet or composer to circulate as a unit. The manuscripts of troubadour and trouvère song of the previous century were often organized by author, with rubrics or headings (“These are the songs of the king of Navarre”), author portraits, and vidas or biographies. The images and life stories were more idealized than real, but they show a real concern for associating the works with an identifiable author figure. This collecting process is taken a step further for the works of Adam de la Halle, a poet-composer active in Arras in the late thirteenth century. A manuscript now in Paris (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS fonds français 25566) contains nearly all his known works, divided by genre: monophonic songs, polyphonic rondeaux, motets, and dramatic and narrative poetry. This is the closest precedent for what Machaut does, which at its fullest mixes in a single book narrative poetry, lyric poetry with and without music, sacred and secular music, and images.
The earliest of Machaut’s complete-works sources is Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS fonds français 1586, known as manuscript C. This book was copied in the early to mid-1350s and decorated at Paris by artists connected to the royal court. It may have been intended for Bonne of Luxembourg, daughter of Machaut’s longtime employer John of Bohemia, but she died in 1349, before the book could be finished. It is possible that the completed manuscript went to her husband, John of Normandy, who became king Jean II of France the following year. MS C provides a model for all the Machaut manuscripts: it begins with the narrative poetry, continuing with lyric poetry and music. Scholars generally agree that it includes virtually all the poetry and music Machaut had written up to the time of its compilation, so any work not contained here is assumed to have been created after c. 1350 unless a compelling reason can be given for its omission.
Also apparently compiled under some level of authorial control is MS A (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS fonds français 1584), copied in the early 1370s, possibly in Reims. Most of the miniatures were painted in Reims, but the spectacular images at the beginning of the manuscript were created by a Parisian artist known as the Master of the Bible of Jean de Sy. These miniatures, which illustrate the Prologue apparently written for this manuscript, depict first on f. Dr Amours introducing to Machaut his children (Dous Penser, Plaisance, and Esperance), then on f. Er Nature introducing her children (Sens, Retorique and Musique). (The image of Nature was actually intended to appear first, but the order of the two folios was reversed before the book was bound.)
The patron for whom this manuscript was intended is unknown, but it was owned by Louis of Bruges, sire of Gruthuyse, in the late fifteenth century, and by 1518 it was part of the royal library. It includes an index with the heading, “Vesci l’ordenance que G. de Machau wet qu’il ait en son livre” (Here is the order that G. de Machaut wants his book to have). This reinforces both the notion that the manuscript’s creation was overseen by Machaut and the idea that the ordering of his collection is not simply chronological but meaningful. On the other hand, work by William W. Kibler and James I. Wimsatt suggests that Machaut may not have supervised the actual copying of the text very closely, because they show that MS C in fact is more reliable in its readings.
Earp describes a total of seven complete (or formerly complete) Machaut manuscripts containing both text and music, as well as two text manuscripts and references to five more books that no longer survive. Four more surviving manuscripts, and one more reference to a lost manuscript, can be considered partial complete-works manuscripts, while a number of other sources contain single works or small groups of works by Machaut, mixed up with poetry or music by others. [for links to digital images of Machaut sources, go to http://www.stanford.edu/group/dmstech/cgi-bin/drupal/machautmss ]