L’organum, un art de cathédrale ? Musiques autour de saint Guillaume

Abstract

Polyphony was sung in prestigious places during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries but, because of their magnificence, the pieces performed in the new Cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris from the end of the twelfth century onwards profoundly marked their time. Concerning this polyphonic art, contemporaneous with the flourishing of Gothic architecture, what about the cathedral of Bourges ? Was organum sung in the Cathedral of Saint-Etienne of Bourges then under reconstruction ? Extant sources have little to say... We shall evoke several elements. First of all, individuals : Guillaume du Donjon and Eudes de Sully, and their intellectual context ; then, the capitulary school of Bourges which exhibited a high level of intellectual achievement. Finally, music as seen in liturgical documents (the cartulary of Bourges and the decretals of Paris) and in the notated sources that transmit polyphonic chants composed in honor of St. Guillaume.