Theorizing the Cadence in the Music of Machaut

Abstract

Most aspects of medieval culture reflect a model of hierarchical ordering: the feudal system that places a lord above his vassal; the class system that places nobility above the peasants; the political system that places kings above dukes; and the ecclesiastical system that places not only the pope above the bishops, but also an abbess above her nuns. It is perhaps not surprising then that medieval theorists writing about music draw on hierarchical metaphors and analogies to describe different levels of organization in musical structure. One favorite analogy is that drawn between the grammatical structure of language and the grammatical structure of music. In a survey of a dozen treatises, Calvin Bower elucidates just how pervasively this metaphor appears in medieval explications of musical