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Johannes de Muris's Musica speculativa cited by Jacobus de Ispania
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 April 2022
Abstract
It is known that the seventh book of Jacobus's Speculum musicae contains, alongside other quotations from Ars Nova treatises, the earliest extant transmission of the salient passage of Johannes de Muris's Musica speculativa, Conclusio XVIII, where Muris questions the nature of the fourth as a perfect consonance. However, the relevant passages of Musica speculativa cited and discussed by Jacobus have not yet been analysed in the context of the rich manuscript tradition of the Musica speculativa, which served the needs of musical education throughout Latin Europe for at least two hundred years. In order to position Jacobus's citations of Muris within the framework of the Musica speculativa tradition, I examine several significant variant readings contained in Speculum musicae, comparing them to two French, most probably Parisian, manuscripts transmitting versions A (A-SPL Cod. 264/4) and B (BnF lat. 7378A) of Musica speculativa. Both A and B versions are provided with colophons dated 1323 and 1325, respectively. Establishing which version of Musica speculativa was the source of Jacobus's citations provides a new basis for the dating of two other treatises by Muris to which Jacobus refers, namely Notitia artis musicae and Compendium musicae practicae, and, more generally, for the date of the seventh book of Speculum musicae.
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References
1 I follow here the attribution discovered by Margaret Bent in an inventory of the Vicenza sacristy dated 1457, see her ‘Jacobus de Ispania? – Ein Zwischenbericht’, in ‘Nationes’, ‘Gentes’ und die Musik in Mittelalter, ed. Frank Hentschel and Marie Winkelmüller (Berlin and Boston, 2014), 407–22, at 417. Jacobus's identity is still unresolved, see Desmond, Karen, ‘New Light on Jacobus, Author of Speculum musicae’, Plainsong and Medieval Music, 9/1 (2000), 19–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Margaret Bent, Magister Jacobus de Ispania, Author of the Speculum Musicae, Royal Musical Association Monographs 28 (Farnham, 2015); Wegman, Rob C., ‘Jacobus de Ispania and Liège’, Journal of the Alamire Foundation, 8/2 (2016), 253–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 See Michels, Ulrich, Die Musiktraktate des Johannes de Muris, Beihefte zum Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 8 (Wiesbaden, 1970), 55Google Scholar.
3 Desmond, Karen, ‘Did Vitry write an Ars vetus et nova?’, Journal of Musicology, 32/4 (2015), 441–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 486.
4 Desmond, Karen, Music and the moderni, 1300–1350. The ars nova in Theory and Practice (Cambridge, 2018), 30–1 and 157Google Scholar.
5 Ibid., 260.
6 Ibid., 260.
7 E-Sc, 5-3-23, fols. 91–101v; see Karl-Werner Gümpel, Répertoire Internationale des Sources Musicales, The Theory of Music, vol. V, part III, ‘Portugal and Spain’ (Munich, 1997), 57–134, at 121; see Christian Meyer, ‘… per venerandae memoriae magistrum Iohannem de Muris … La tradition parisienne de l'enseignement de Jean de Murs’, in Gedenkschrift für Walter Pass, ed. Martin Czernin (Tutzing, 2002), 217–34, at 219.
8 Michels, Die Musiktraktate des Johannes de Muris, 20–1.
9 Christoph Falkenroth, ed., Die ‘Musica speculativa’ des Johannes de Muris, Beihefte zum Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 34 (Stuttgart, 1992), 4.
10 Gushee, Lawrence, ‘Review of Christoph Falkenroth, ed., Die “Musica speculative” des Johannes de Muris’, Music and Letters 76/2 (1995), 275–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 280.
11 Bent, Magister Jacobus de Ispania, 55.
12 Zayaruznaya, Anna, ‘Old, New, and Newer Still in Book 7 of the Speculum musicae’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 73/1 (2020), 95–148CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 128, n. 111.
13 Desmond, ‘Did Vitry write an Ars vetus et nova?’, 488, n. 100. Desmond writes (without any further argument): ‘Musica speculativa appear [sic] to match those found in a smaller subset of three sources that Christian [sic] Falkenroth labels version A/B, two of which are Parisian, one from Dijon.’
14 Michels, Die Musiktraktate des Johannes de Muris, 119–25.
15 See Christian Meyer, with Giuliano Di Bacco, Pia Ernstbrunner, Alexander Rausch and Cesarino Ruini, Répertoire Internationale des Sources Musicales, The Theory of Music, vol. VI: Manuscripts from the Carolingian Era up to c. 1500: Addenda, Corrigenda (Munich, 2003), 769; Eva M. Maschke, ‘B V 9. Johannes de Muris, Musica speculativa’, in Die mittelalterlichen und neuzeitlichen Handschriften der Stiftungsbibliothek am Oberlandesgericht Celle, ed. Hiram Kümper (Wiesbaden, 2018), 109–11.
16 See the description of this manuscript in Ulrich Michels, ed., Johannis de Muris Notitia artis musicae et Compendium musicae practicae. Petrus de Sancto Dionysio Tractatus de musica, Corpus Scriptorum de Musica 17 (Rome, 1972), 31–4.
17 Meyer, Christian, ‘Review of Christopher Page, The Summa Musicae: A Thirteenth-Century Manual for Singers (Cambridge, 1991)’, Revue de musicologie, 78/2 (1992), 333–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 334.
18 As has been shown by Michael Bernhard, the text of south German origin, unicum contained in A-SPL cod. 264/4, was probably written in France. See his ‘La Summa musice du Ps.-Jean de Murs: Son auteur et sa datation’, Revue de Musicologie, 84/1 (1998), 19–25.
19 See description of this manuscript in Michels, ed., Johannis de Muris Notitia, 17–19, and in Matthias Hochadel, ed., Commentum Oxoniense in musicam Boethii. Eine Quelle zur Musiktheorie an der spätmittelalterlichen Universität, Veröffentlichungen der Musikhistorischen Kommission 16 (Munich, 2002), XII–XVI.
20 See Michels, ed., Johannis de Muris Notitia, 24–31.
21 Falkenroth, ed., Die ‘Musica speculativa’, 8–11.
22 Fol. 78v: ‘Explicit algorismus de minucijs editus a magistro Johannes de linerijs parisius scriptus per fratrem petrum de Tolla anno domini MoCCColxixo ibidem studentem’.
23 Meyer, ‘… per venerandae memoriae’, 220.
24 Susan Fast, ed., Johannis de Muris Musica ‘speculativa’, Musicological Studies 61 (Ottawa, 1994), XXIII.
25 Meyer, ‘… per venerandae memoriae’, 219.
26 Ibid., 220.
27 Falkenroth, ed., Die ‘Musica speculativa’, 292–301; Fast, ed., Johannis de Muris, 335–44.
28 On the manuscripts transmitting Speculum musicae, see Roger Bragard, ed., Jacobi Leodiensis Speculum musicae, Books I–VII, Corpus Scriptorum de Musica 3 (Rome, 1955–73), Book I, Introduction, V–XX. See also Bent, Magister Jacobus de Ispania, 4–7.
29 Michels pointed to the similarity of this description to the explicit in manuscript A-SPL cod. 246/4, arguing that Jacobus was quoting version A of Musica specultiva (see Michels, Die Musiktraktate des Johannes de Muris, 21). Falkenroth disputed this opinion (see Falkenroth, ed., Die ‘Musica speculativa’, 32–3).
30 See version A in Elżbieta Witkowska-Zaremba, ‘Musica Muris’ i nurt spekulatywny w muzykografii średniowiecznej (‘Musica Muris’ and Speculative Trend in the Medieval Musicography), Studia Copernicana 32 (Warsaw, 1992), 191–2 and apparatus criticus, 233–5; Christian Meyer, Jean de Murs, Écrits sur la musique. Traduction et commentaire (Paris, 2000), 168–71; and Falkenroth, ed., Die ‘Musica speculativa’, 212–22, even pages. See version B in ibid., 213–23, odd pages. See Version A/B in Fast, ed., Johannis de Muris, 214–31.
31 See Version A in Witkowska-Zaremba, ‘Musica Muris’, 175 and apparatus criticus, 211–12; Meyer, Jean de Murs, Écrits sur la musique, 140; Falkenroth, ed., Die ‘Musica speculativa’, 108–12, even pages. See version B in ibid., 109–11, odd pages. See version A/B in Fast, ed., Johannis de Muris, 46–52.
32 Bragard, ed., Jacobi Leodiensis Speculum musicae, Book VII, Chapter 6, sentence 16 (at 16): ‘Haec sunt verba tacta doctoris ad que respondissem, puto, supra in loco suo et quaedam alia quae habentur in tacto opere, si illud vidissem.’
33 Ibid., Book VII, Chapter 5, sentence 3 (at 11): ‘Tres sunt consonantiae quibus principaliter utendum est in diaphonia, idest diatessaron, diapente et diapason.’
34 Ibid., Book VII, Chapter 5, sentence 6 (at 12): ‘Hoc autem est contra quendam modernum doctorem qui ponit diatessaron sub diapente non esse consonantiam, sed supra. Et de hoc infra videbitur.’
35 See Hirschfeld, Robert, Johann de Muris. Seine Werke und seine Bedeutung als Verfechter des Classischen in der Tonkunst (Leipzig, 1884), 24Google Scholar; Frobenius, Wolf, Johannes Boens Musica und seine Konsonanzlehre, Freiburger Schriften zur Musikwissenschaft 2 (Stuttgart, 1971), 148–52Google Scholar; Witkowska-Zaremba, ‘Musica Muris’, 80–2; Frank Hentschel, Sinnlichkeit und Vernunft in der Mittelalterlichen Musiktheorie, Beihefte zum Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 47 (Stuttgart, 2000), 205–7.
36 See Friedlein, Godofredus, ed., A.M.T.S. Boethii De institutione musica libri quinque (Leipzig, 1867)Google Scholar, Book II, Chapter 27 (259–60) and Book V, Chapters 9–10 (358–60).
37 Attention was drawn to this by Michels (Die Musiktraktate des Johannes de Muris, 21), and later by Falkenroth (Die ‘Musica speculativa’, 34). Gushee (‘Review of Falkenroth’, 280) regarded this issue as irrelevant.
38 Bragard, ed., Jacobi Leodiensis Speculum musicae, Book VII, Chapter 6, sentences 10–11 (at 15): ‘Ego autem dico: Si conceditur diapente priorem esse quam diatessaron, sicut sesqualtera proportio quam sesquitertia, concessum erit diatessaron ante diapente non esse consonantiam, quare neque sub <vel supra> diapason, cum etiam ibi diatessaron sub diapente ponatur’; sentences 14–15 (at 16): ‘Sic dico diatessaron ante diapente non esse consonantiam, ut Pythagorici voluerunt, sed partem eius; post diapente autem consonantia debet dici, et sic <diapason> ex se non est sed ex duabus consonantiis, actu <diatessaron> scilicet et diapente. Quibus duabus positis, impossibile est eam non poni, imo forte non nisi secundum quid differt ab ambabus’; see Martin Gerbert, ed., Scriptores ecclesiastci de musica sacra potissimum, 3 vols. (St Blasien, 1784), 3: 272b–73a.
39 On scribal errors in the manuscripts of Speculum musicae, see Bragard, ed., Jacobi Leodiensis Speculum musicae, Book I, Introduction, XIX.
40 See ibid., Book VII, Chapter 7, sentences 25–7 (at 17).
41 See Falkenroth, ed., Die ‘Musica speculativa’, ‘apparatus criticus’, 221.
42 Michels noted the same practice of using two manuscripts when copying Notitia in manuscript A-SPL cod. 264/4 (the same hand that copied Musica speculativa), see his Johannis de Muris Notitia artis musicae, 41.
43 Manuscript CZ–Pu V.F.6. (928) contains a copy of Musica speculativa version A, with commentary, entered by Wenceslaus de Prachatycz. The page recording the eighteenth Conclusio was, unfortunately, torn out of the manuscript and lost. The reading ‘sub diapason’ appears in the commentary, on fol. 46r: ‘Igitur diatessaron consonancia non est ante diapente, sed post, et per consequens nec ante seu sub diapason, ut in textu.’
44 See Maschke, ‘B V 9. Johannes de Muris’. I gratefully thank Eva M. Maschke for giving me access to this manuscript.
45 See Bragard, ed., Jacobi Leodiensis Speculum musicae, Book VII, Chapter 7, sentences 4–7 (at 18).
46 Falkenroth, ed., Die ‘Musica speculativa’, 33.
47 See Gushee, ‘Review of Falkenroth’, 280.
48 See Witkowska-Zaremba, ‘Musica Muris’, 58–60; Hentschel, Sinnlichkeit und Vernunft, 239–42.
49 A-SPL cod. 264/4 seems to be similarly positioned in stemmas of Notitia and Compendium prepared by Michels: in both cases the respective transmissions are separated from a lost original by two other lost sources (see Michels, ed., Johannis de Muris Notitia artis musicae, 42 and 117). Michels suggests that Jacobus quoted Compendium from a lost exemplar directly copied from an archetype (ibid., 115 and 117). Desmond writes that ‘Jacobus's quotations from the Compendiun appear closest to the readings found in A-SP Ms. 264/4’, however, without any further argumentation (see her ‘Did Vitry write an Ars vetus et nova?’, 488, n. 100).
50 Bragard, ed., Jacobi Leodiensis Speculum musicae, Book VII, Chapter 1, sentence 15 (at 7).
51 Desmond, Music and the moderni, 119 and 178; Desmond: ‘Did Vitry write an Ars vetus et nova?’, 486–8.
52 Bragard, ed., Jacobi Leodiensis Speculum musicae, Book VII, Chapter 8, sentence 15 (at 22).
53 Michels, ed., Johannis de Muris Notitia, 145; Bragard, ed., Jacobi Leodiensis Speculum musicae, Book VII, Chapter 10, sentence 6, (at 25).
54 Desmond, Music and the moderni, 29.
55 Ibid., 30–1.
56 Michels, ed., Johannis de Muris Notitia, 87.
57 Michels, ed., Die Musiktraktate des Johannes de Muris, 7–8.
58 Michels questions the authenticity of the colophon from the manuscript BnF lat. 7378 A, which carries the date 1319. This colophon, today almost illegible, was deciphered by Coussemaker (see Michels, Die Musiktraktate des Johnnes Muris, 2–7). Desmond does not exclude the possibility of 1321 being the date of the creation of Notitia and seems to be undecided regarding the choice between 1319 and 1321, using the formula ‘1319/1321’ when dating Notitia (see Desmond, Music and the moderni, 28 and Appendix 6, 259).