Johannes de Grocheio on secular music: a corrected text and a new translation

Abstract

It has long been recognized that Johannes de Grocheio's De musicta is an outstanding source of information about Parisian musical practice c. 1300. However, the critical text of the treatise published by Rohloff in 1972 can be improved by returning to the manuscripts, and the pioneering English translation, by Albert Seay, can now be corrected in some important particulars. The purpose of this article is therefore to present a corrected text and a new (annotated) translation of Johannes de Grocheio's remarks about secular music, both monophonic and polyphonic, generally regarded as the most important part of his treatise.