Between Copyist and Editor: Away From Typologies of Error and Variance in Trouvère Song

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article describes the range of attitudes and techniques used in the process of notating trouvère song. These variant attitudes shine through most clearly in cases of self-correction and adjustments to the music in response to the exemplar made by the copyists. Text scribes’ habits of correction and adaptation have been studied; music notators, however, have yet to receive the same attention. Contrafacted songs, where the same music sets multiple texts, reveal particularly diverse scribal approaches. Certain scribes take care to regularize the verses they copy according to an overarching concept of the piece, matching the music to each text. Others base inventive readings on notational mistakes. An easily corrected discrepancy could result in a revised picture of the entire melody later in the piece. Accidents of copying thus determine the entire shape of written melodies. My study is a defence of this supposed failure to correct.