Peripheral Polyphony of the 13th Century

Abstract

A N IMPORTANT ASPECT Of the English repertoire contained in the eleventh fascicle of MS Wolfenbiittel 677 (W1) is its liturgical inclusiveness, which contrasts with the nearly exclusive concern with responsorial psalmody shown by the Notre-Dame composers of organa and clausulae. It is an aspect that W1, i i shares to a degree with the Winchester Troper.1 The first to discuss some features of the eleventh fascicle of W. in great detail was Handschin, who offered a careful analysis of three of its compositions (as well as a fourth from MS Paris, B.N., Lat. i5129) and a comparison with the general characteristics of the Notre-Dame repertoire.2 He made it clear that liturgical cantus firmi were, in this type of composition, laid out in unpatterned rhythms; that the design of the other voice (or voices, since the Sanctus from the Paris manuscript is d 3) in relation to the Tenor is strongly reminiscent of conductus technique; and that, as in the conductus, there is in these pieces no such stylistic dichotomy as in Notre-Dame organa (organum purum vs. discant sections). The common association of this style with the conductus is as untenable as is its designation as insular.3 The pieces are discant settings of cantus firmi, and there are numerous non-English counterparts from the i ith century on. Thus, the same parts of the mass that are represented in W1, i i were apparently sung polyphonically at Mont-SaintMichel vers I 70.4 Quite a few such settings have come down to us from German-speaking areas,5 and a similar liturgical polyphony seems to have been cultivated in Italy in the 12th century.6 The European dissemination, until the i4th century, of the practice of composing