Cantus fractus in Pre-Hussite Bohemia: Lost Repertories and Reconstruction Challenges

Abstract

The relatively high number of chant books with notated cantus fractus after 1470 as well as their monumental and splendid appearance erroneously gives the impression that rhythmic chant performance only found its way into the liturgical repertory in Prague after the Hussite Wars (1419-34). But the first sources of rhythmically performed plainchant from Prague are much older, dating back to the 1380s. Additional evidence for this can be found in the so-called Jistebnice Cantionale from the 1420s or early 1430s, a source for the Hussite liturgy with numerous Hussite songs that includes vernacular sequences and Patrem chants notated in cantus fractus. Based on the recently confirmed Prague origin of the manuscript and its close connection to the Prague intellectual elite, the presence of the vernacular repertory suggests that a related, Latin repertory would have existed previously, presumably cultivated in the early fifteenth century. Inscriptions in the cantionale display the scribe’s struggles to notate rhythm precisely, which indicates that he was dealing with an entirely new idiom for which he lacked reliable written models.