CHAPTER 11 MUSIC AT THE COURT OF THE FRENCH KINGS

If sacred music in medieval Paris was most at home at the cathedral of Notre Dame, secular high art music flourished in and around the court of the French king. This early map shows Notre Dame at the east end (top) of the Île de la Cité in the middle of the Seine River, and the buildings of the royal palace at the west end (bottom). The building seemingly supported by three pillars is the great Grande- Salle where the king entertained and secular musicians performed.

In 1378 French King Charles V gave a banquet in honor of visiting Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV in the Grande-Salle at which the king’s minstrels performed.

THE ROMAN DE FAUVEL The Grande-Salle of the royal palace was built during the reign of King Philip IV ( ) by his chief financial minister, Engueran de Marigny (c ). But Marigny was a corrupt official and the widespread graft at court and high taxes needed to fund it soon brought complaints. Among these was a long satirical poem called the Roman de Fauvel (Tale of Fauvel). In it Enguerran de Marigny and his corrupt henchmen are collectively portrayed as a witless ass, Fauvel. The animal’s name is an acronym derived from the first letters of six wordly sins: Flaterie (flattery), Avarice (avarice), Villanie (villainy), Variété (fickleness), Envie (envy), and Lascheté (loose morals). Written between 1314 and 1317, the Roman de Fauvel survives in several copies, one of which is illustrated and supplied with monophonic and polyphonic music, much of the latter by Philippe de Vitry

A plate from the Roman de Fauvel Showing Fauvel the ass, in the top panel, on his wedding night

PHILIPPE DE VITRY Philippe de Vitry ( ) was a mathematician, astronomer, politician, soldier, and diplomat, and he ended his career as the bishop of the city of Meaux northeast of Paris. He was also an influential music theorist and composer. Vitry’s involvement in royal politics can be seen in one of his contributions to the illustrated Roman de Fauvel, his three-voice motet Garrit Gallus/In nova fert/Neuma

ISORHYTHM Philippe de Vitry’s motets make use of the new technique of isorhythm. In isorhythm (same rhythm) a rhythmic pattern is repeated again and again in a voice part, usually in the tenor voice. In an isorhythmic line the melody is called the color, and the rhythmic pattern, or unit, is called the talea (a segment or slice). Usually there are several appearances of the talea within each statement of the color.

In the tenor of Philippe de Vitry’s motet Garrit Gallus/In nova fert/Neuma there are two statements of the color and each of these includes three statements of the talea.

DANCE MUSIC The two primary genres dance music in medieval France were the carole and the estampie, and both were originally sung as well as played on instruments. In the carole singers and dancers grouped in a circle, as they danced around, a soloist sang each successive strophe of text, while everyone joined in the refrain.

The estampie, or “stomp,” was also originally a sung dance, but during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the text was often dropped, leaving a purely instrumental piece, either monophonic or polyphonic. The estampie is constructed of a succession of pairs of musical phrases each called a punctum (pl. puncta). At the end of each unit in the pair comes first an open and then a closed ending. Thus the form of the estampie can be represented: AxAyBxByCxCyDx Dy etc. This simple formal structure suggests that most estampies were simply improvised on the spot, following this basic plan. The opening punctum of La quinte estampie real (The Fifth Royal Estampie)

INSTRUMENTS AT COURT AND IN CHURCH Among the plucked string instruments at court were the harp, psaltery, lute, gittern (an early cousin of the lute), and vielle. The vielle was a large five-string fiddle capable of playing the entire Guidonian scale. It had a flat bridge and was often used for playing chords by employing drones and multiple stops.

Among the wind instruments at court was the shawm (an ancestor of the modern oboe), a double-reed instrument with a loud penetrating tone. Also present were bagpipes and trumpets, although trumpets sounded mostly fanfares and did not play dance music.

The keyboard instruments of the late Middle Ages consisted of those which produced sound by means of pipes, and those that did so by means of strings. The former category included the portative and positive organ. The portative organ was a small movable instrument that sounded at courtly entertainments or as a solo instrument. A gentleman plays fifteenth-century portative organ while a lady pumps the bellows to send wind pressure to the pipes.

The positive organ was a large stationary instrument that began to appear in large numbers in churches shortly after Because the positive organ was one of the technological wonders of the day, it was usually attached high on a wall in the nave of the church for all the populace to see and hear.

The fourteenth century witnessed the development of the clavichord (literally “key-string”), a keyboard instrument that makes sound when a player depresses a key and thereby pushes a small metal tangent up against a string. Initially the clavichord was called the chekker. The earliest surviving collection of keyboard music, called the Robertsbridge Codex, dates from about 1360 and is associated with the musical repertoire of the kings of France. It includes arrangements of three motets from the Roman de Fauvel as well as three estampies. The beginning of an estampie preserved in the Robertsbridge Codex.