This analytical article aims to establish the melodic grammar of the in directum Milanese cantus. Deviations from the generic norms might be experienced in performance as emphasising the words with which they appear. Certain texts (particularly ‘domin-’) are often associated with melodic shapes found elsewhere in the genre on the same words, regardless of what one might expect to encounter formally. Chants that share similar liturgical functions, or which appear in close liturgical proximity, often share melodic material and formal strategies. Building on and responding to Bailey's The Ambrosian Cantus (1987), the present article seeks to appreciate the cantus melodies as they have been preserved, rather than using them as a lens through which to seek a putative (and entirely rationally structured) lost ancestor.

Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut.29.1 (F) is considered the earliest extant manuscript to preserve a collection of motets, with two fascicles devoted to this new genre. Scholars have long emphasised the strict liturgical sequence of the first motet fascicle, in contrast to the seeming lack of order in the second. This article engages with questions of liturgical arrangement in F, exploring the possibility of a liturgical function for motets in this source. It undertakes a re-examination of the ordering of motets in F, proposing two new organisational principles applicable across both fascicles: first, that the arrangement of motets may have been influenced by an awareness of related clausulae and discant materials extant elsewhere in F; and second, that ordering of the collection reflects the relative dissemination or ‘popularity’ of motets and their related materials.

The manuscript Chicago, Newberry Library 54.1, copied in Pavia in 1391 by an English friar, has been the object of attention of scholars for some time now. Because of the presence of Senleches's song La harpe de melodie (famously notated in the shape of a harp), and of the earliest known dated copy of the Tractatus figurarum (which reflects late fourteenth-century developments in the notation of complex rhythms), the Chicago manuscript has often been cited in support of the historiographical hypothesis which sees the Visconti court of Pavia–Milan as the main centre of production of Ars subtilior repertory in Italy. In the absence of records on the scribe ‘G de Anglia’ and the context in which he worked, it has been almost inevitable thus far to associate the compilation of the manuscript with the Visconti court and the city university (founded and supported by the Visconti). A recently identified document, however, provides some clues to the identity of the scribe of Chicago 54.1, who can now be identified as an Augustinian Hermit. This is confirmed by various elements in the manuscript that also indicate Augustinian connections, placing the compilation of the manuscript in the context of the Augustinian house of Pavia. These elements help to shift the focus of attention to other cultural contexts that may have played a role in the compilation of the manuscript, and invite a reassessment of the hitherto assumed connections with the Visconti court and secular university.