fragments

“With Eyes Fixed on the Jongleur”: Fragments, Context, Memory, and the Re-
construction of Medieval Secular Latin Song Performance


Dr. Mauricio Molina

The Medieval song in Latin and vernacular languages was primarily a poetic-musical
discourse composed to be performed. As such it only achieved its completion and

“materialization” through the symbolic and ritualistic act of delivery. It was in the
moment of performance when the singer assembled poetry and music to create an

aesthetic, emotional, and intellectual experience that promoted communication and the

transmission of message and meaning. This evanescent moment was of incredible
importance for the construction and definition of the song since it was in performance

where the repertoire was articulated and disseminated. Thus, delivery should be
1
considered a fundamental issue in the study of medieval song repertoires. But
unfortunately this is a daunting task since the information about this subject offered in

medieval music sources and treatises is scant at best. Clearly, the delivery of song was
after all an oral practice based on conventions that medieval people did not feel

necessary to explain or prescribe in music sources. Performers knew what to do and
expectant audiences judge their delivery based on common standards and principles that

have been lost in time.


But not all is lost. Since performance in general was an important element of social
ritual and a symbol of class, education, piousness, political prestige, and economic




1 For studies about the performance of medieval song, see Christopher Page, Voices and Instruments of
the Middle Ages: Instrumental Practice and Songs in France, 1100-1300 (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1986) and also C. Page “Music in Chivalric Fiction: 1150-1300,” Proceedings of the
Royal Musical Association, 111 (1984 - 1985): 1-27; Timothy J. McGee, The Sound of the Medieval Song
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998); Sylvia Huot, “Voices and Instruments in Medieval French Secular
Music: On the Use of Literary Text as Evidence for Performance Practice,” Musica Disciplina 43 (1989):
63-113; Leo Treitler, “Improvisation in Medieval Performance,” in With Voice and Pen: Coming to Know
Medieval Song and How it was Made (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Thomas Brothers,
Chromatic Beauty in the Late Medieval Chanson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006),49-87;
Manuel Pedro Ferreira, Cantus coronatus: 7 Cantigas d’El´Rei Dom Dinis (Kassel: Reichenberger, 2005),
and M. P. Ferreira Aspectos da Música Medieval no Ocidente Peninsular vol. 1 Música Palaciana
(Lisboa: Faundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2009); Elizabeth Aubrey, The Music of the Troubadours
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 237-272, and E. Aubrey “References to Music in Old
Occitan Literature,” Acta musicologica 61 (1989): 110-149; Ian Parker, “The Performance of Troubadour
and Trouvère Songs: Some Facts and Conjectures,” Early Music 5 (1977): 184-207; John Haines,
Medieval Song in Romance Languages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); E.J. Dobson and
F. Ll. Harrison, Medieval English Songs (London: Faber and Faber, 1979). Related discussions can be
found in Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, The Modern Invention of Medieval Music (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press); in Linda Marie Zaerr, Performance and the Middle English Romance (Cambridge: D.
S. Brewer, 2012); in articles contained in Handbook of the Troubadours, ed. F.R.P. Akehurst and Judith
M. Davis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), and in the different essays that conform The
Performer’s Guide to Medieval Music, ed. Ross W. Duffy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
2000).

power, it was on the other hand frequently referred to and even described with some

2
detail in non-musical sources. In literature and art a record of performance could help
the audience to identify and evaluate context, tradition, and social register among other

things. For example, in a narrative a knight might be described as singing a song to
3
indicate his degree of education and knowledge of courtly ideals. Likewise, in a
sermon, theological concepts might be allegorically explained trough the description of

a music performance drawing on the immediacy, attractiveness, and conventionality of
its elements. To promote a response a mental image of a performance had to be incited

in the mind of the medieval reader/listener/viewer. This image could in turn be

considered and evaluated in relation to the context of the entire text or visual
representation. To promote the formation of this image, writers and artists knitted

together a series of fragments of information that could be recognized an assembled
4
correctly in the mind of their audiences. As explained by the Carolingian scholar
Alcuin of York (d.804) in his De animae ratione, the fragmentary data captured by the
eye or the ear is translated, organized, and informed by the intellect with the help of data

already saved in the mind. Consequently, a mental picture is formed, or better re-

constructed, thanks to the agency of memory:


Thus one who sees Rome also fashions [an image of] Rome in his soul, and forms it as it actually
is. When he might hear or remember “Rome” immediately its essence recurs to his memory…
And it is more remarkable that with respect to unknown things, if they come to our ears from
reading or hearing something, the mind immediately fashions a figure of the unknown thing. So
perhaps one of us might have formed in his mind an image of the putative Jerusalem… He
actually does not imagine the actual walls and houses and squares of Jerusalem, but whatever
he has seen in other cities known to him…Thus the human mind makes up images concerning
5
each matter; from what it knows it fashions things unknown.
Along these lines, the medieval writers and artists understood that the classification of

information and the construction of mental pictures were directly dependent on the

recollection of actual experience. In descriptions and depictions of performance the
authors anticipated a reaction from the audience based on the familiarity and

2 This reflects not only the high appreciation that music making had during the period, but also the
potentiality of the performance as a symbol bestowed with layers of meaning. After all, as Paul Zumthor
has put it, medieval culture was a “performative culture.” See Zumthor, La Poesie et la voix dans la
civilisation medievale, College de France: Essais et Conferences (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
1984); and Zumthor, "Les Marques du chant: Le Point de vue du philologue," Revue de musicologie 73
(1987): 7-17. See also Philip Weller, “Vox – littera –cantus: aspects of voice and vocality in medieval
song,” in Music in Medieval Europe: Studies in Honor of Bryan Gillingham, ed. Terence Bailey and
Alma Santosuosso (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 240.
3 See Christopher, “Music in Chivalric Fiction,” 1-27
4 Mary Carruthers, The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400-1200
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 116-122; 196-209.
5 Alcuin, Liber de animae ratione 7-8 (Pl 101. 642 A-C). This translation taken from Mary Carruthers,
The Craft of Thought, 119-120.

understanding of a certain practice. To promote a proper image of performance,

fragments of information or markers were strategically placed within narratives to
activate the memory of their audiences. For this reason, all elements that construct the

description of a performance are essential since they were the bricks chosen by authors

to shape a figure of song delivery based on the experience and memory of an actual
practice (from the things known as explained by Alcuin). Surely, every detail in the

description counted for this “re-construction”: the physical environment, the moment of
performance, the specific use of musical instruments, the elements of material culture,

the attitude of the musicians, the repertoire implied, and even the behavior of the

audience. All these elements would have helped to trigger memory and to re-construct a
complete mental picture of a conventional performance in the mind of the medieval

reader/listener.

Unfortunately, we don’t have all the information that helped medieval people re-

construct an image of performance from mere fragments of data. Thanks to experience

and memory a mind that knew the actual practice could connect the patchy elements and
“fill in the blanks”. Since we don’t know medieval conventions recreating song

performance seems therefore a futile endeavor. Nonetheless, I believe that throughout a

critical analysis and contextualization of the surviving data we can attempt to reconnect
these fragments to attempt a possible reconstruction of medieval music practice. These

are the suggested steps: 1) assessment of the role of each fragment in the recollection of
information; 2) analysis of the degree of convention and expectation generated and

attached to each element; 3) contrast and comparison of performative elements across
sources (to expand our knowledge and check conventional traits); 4) connection of

elements and “filling in of blanks” based on the knowledge gain from 1, 2, and 3 (this

reconstruction of performance is attempted in the same way archeologists reconstruct an
6
ancient vessel out of mere fragments).

In this article, working with the description of performance of a group of secular Latin

songs offered in a single text and creating connections with other contemporaneous
fragments of data, I will attempt to show how medieval writers utilized and carefully

entwined traces of actual practice in their descriptions to help recalling specific
experiences. This recollection, tainted by emotion and personal and cultural assessment


6 For this type of procedure, see Andrew R. Willis, “Compositional Analysis of Archeological Ceramic
Vessels and Their Fragments,” in Digital Imaging for Cultural Heritage Preservation Analysis,
Restoration, and Reconstruction of Ancient Artworks, ed. Filippo Stanco, Sebastiano Battiato, and
Giovanni Gallo (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2011), 323-352.

prompted the formation of a mental image that was based on familiar usage and cultural

expectation. By piecing these fragments of information within a medieval aesthetic and
intellectual context, we might be able to re-compose how a medieval performer

“materialized” the song through the fashioning of an attractive and memorable
7
experience.

Among the descriptions of music performance in medieval literature there is one that

stands apart from the others due to the wealth of information that it offers about

performers, contexts, audiences, and even specific musical details such as instrumental
accompaniment and rhetorical delivery. The account is also quite unique in that it

specifically records the performance of a group of secular Latin songs that can be traced
back to extant repertoire. This description is included in the Sermones, a collection of

satirical texts written by the German poet Sextus Amarcius towards the end of the
8
eleventh century. In this work Amarcius denounce the secular vices and the
ecclesiastical abuses of his period echoing the writings of classical authors such as

9
Horace and Prudentius. For his criticism of society Amarcius vividly portrays different
aspects of contemporary life to illustrate the difference between right and wrong

behavior. These descriptions are, of course, of great value in the reconstruction of

medieval customs and mentalities. In book one of the Sermones Amarcius describes the
10
musical performance of a jongleur before a prelate. The text reads as follows:

Puer, o puer ales adesto! / scin aliquem liricum, dic, aut gnaurum chitaristam / aut qui
casta cavo concordet tympana plectro?/… / Ergo ubi disposita venit mercede iocatur, /
taurinque chelin cepit deducere theca, / omnibus ex vicis populi currunt plateisque, /
affixisque notant oculis et murmure leni / eminulis mimum digitis percurrere cordas, / quas
de vervecum madidis aptaverat extis, / nunc que ipsas tenuem nunc raucum promere

bombum. /…/ Ille fides aptans crebro diapente canoras, / straverit ut grandem pastoris

7 Unfortunately, despite of the fact that delivery was crucial in the articulation, transmission, and re-
composition of the song and that coherent information about this subject can be carefully extrapolated
from literary, musical and iconographic sources, musicologists have paid little attention to the subject of
performance favoring research on other central topics of this repertoire. Such studies are mainly
concerned with codicology, written transmission, compositional technique, and the use of the Latin
monophonic song as a germ for polyphonic development. See Haines, Medieval Song, 12-21; and Leo
Treitler, ‘Medieval Music and Language’, in With Voice and Pen: Coming to Know Medieval Song and
How it was Made (Oxford, 2003), 436-438.
8 See Gilbert Highet, Anatomy of Satire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962), 43-46. For an
edition of the text and its translation, see Ronald E. Pepin and Jan M. Ziolkowski, Satires of Sextus
Amarcius and Eupolemius, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
2011).
9 Ibid, x-xii.
10 Peter Dronke, The Medieval Lyric, 3rd edition (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1996); Christopher J.
McDonough, The Arundel Lyrics. The Poems of Hugh Primas (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
2010), 250, n. 23; Elizabeth Eva Leach, Sung Birds: Music, Nature, and Poetry in the Later Middle Ages
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007), 81-82.

funda Goliath, / ut simili argutus uxorem Suevulus arte / luserit, utque sagax nudaverit octo
11
tenores / cantus Pytagoras, et quam mera vox Philomene perstrepit.

[‘—Come, boy, come, O winged boy! Tell me, do you know some lyric poet or skillful

chitara player, or one who harmonizes chaste timbrels with hollow plectrum?—... And so
when a minstrel arrives after his salary has been arranged, and starts to remove his lyre
[chelys] from its ox-hide case, people rush forth from all the neighborhoods and streets, and
with eyes fixed on him and with low murmuring observe the minstrel with the tips of his
fingers stroke the strings which he furnished from the moist entrails of wethers, and now
they put forth a gentle sound, now a harsh one… Frequently adjusting the melodious strings
a fifth of an octave, that minstrel [tells] how the shepherd’s sling once laid out mighty

Goliath, how the sly little Swabian with similar skill tricked his wife, and how shrewd
Pythagoras laid bare eight tones of music, and how pure the call of the nightingale echoes
12
forth’].


To better understand the information offered in the text we need to consider first the

purpose of the description. As explained above, the Sermones was written with the
objective of criticizing secular and ecclesiastical vices and abuses. The specific account

of performance is found in a section of the work entitled “On the Various Enticements
of Luxury” in which the writer denounces the luxurious and extravagant customs of rich

and powerful clerics. Obviously, the impact of his discourse depended on the

recognition and criticism of the examples given. Since the author’s purpose was to
criticize luxurious behavior and generate its appropriate evaluation it is important that

the performance recorded could be placed in a specific cultural context and recognized
as a lavish and opulent experience. For this the poet presents fragments of information

(payment, tuning, and singing of specific songs) that woven together will help forming a
mental image of a conventional music presentation appropriate to the context of the

13
text. These fragments are carefully lay out in chronological order—arrival of the
jongleur, monetary agreement and payment, preparation of the instrument, and singing
of songs—and as such they function as organized stages or markers in the ductus or





11 Sermones, verses 396-421. The text and translation are taken from Ronald E. Pepin, Satires / Sextus
Amarcius, 34-35.
12 The translation is taken from Ronald E. Pepin, Satires / Sextus Amarcius, 34-35. For comments about
this passage, see Peter Dronke, The Medieval Lyric, 28; Page, Voices and Instruments, 226, Gillingham,
The Social Background (Ottawa: The Institute of Mediaeval Music), 33; Jan M. Ziolkowski, The
Cambridge Songs (Carmina Cantabrigiensia) Garland Library of Medieval Literature, (New York:
Garland, 1994), xliv-xliviii; and Karl Breul, The Cambridge Songs: A Goliard’s Songbook of the
Eleventh Century, 1st edition 1905 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 40 n. 1.
13 For the theory of how memory works, see Mary Carruthers, The Craft of Thought, 13-16.

14
“flow” of the composition. Furthermore, there is also the presence of material culture
within the narrative: the harp, the bag or case made out of ox-hide, and the material of
the strings. These features, all tangible elements, help coloring the information creating

images that contribute with the formation of a complete picture. As Mary Carruthers

explains in her study of memory in medieval culture, such components create mental
images that are “emotionally” colored by the agency of personal experience and cultural

15
precepts. Thus, the combination of performative and material elements plus the
description of musical skills and actual repertoire generate expectation, recall

16
experience, and finally foment criticism within the context of the satirical text.
Clearly, these fragments of information are traces of performance conventions that were
part of the oral delivery of secular Latin songs at least circa 1100. With them we can

attempt to recover medieval practice as if putting together an ancient vessel for which
only few fragments have survived: to create a coherent shape of the vessel it is crucial to

17
“fill in the blanks.” This can be attempted by recovering those elements not
mentioned in Amarcius’ narrative but that were also recalled by the markers presented

by the author. This might be done by comparing and contrasting the information in the

text with other relative data.


The performance routine described in the Sermones starts with the call for music an
entertainment. In the text it is described how at first a prelate expresses his will to be

amused by a musician and a jongleur is summoned for this purpose (Scin aliquem
liricum, dic, aut gnaurum chitaristam…ergo ubi disposita venit mercede). Within the

context of the text, the hiring of entertainment and the delight on music and poetry is an
aspect of indulgence. Contemporary complains against the hiring of entertainers by

prelates and clerics confirm that Amarcius was in fact making reference to a familiar

18
practice of period. We know from example that around 961 King Edgar protested to
the English bishops and heads of monasteries about the presence of music entertainers





14 Mary Carruthers, “The Concept of Ductus or Journeying Through a Work of Art,” in Rhetoric Beyond
Words, ed. Mary Carruthers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 190-213. The first analysis
of the word ductus as a separate phenomenon of rhetorical art was conducted by the forth-century
Christian rhetorician Consultus Fortunatianus. See G. A. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and its Christian
and Secular Tradition (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 104-106.
15 Carruthers, The Craft Thought, 16.
16 During the Middle Ages memory was considered both as the capacity of recalling, as a cognitive tool,
and as the ability of composing in the mind a picture that generated thinking. See Mary Carruthers, The
Craft of Thought, 62-66.
17 See Andrew R. Willis, “Compositional Analysis of Archeological Ceramic,” 323-352
18 For a collection of condemnations about this practice, see E. K. Chambers, The Medieval Stage
(London: Oxford University Press, 1903), republished by Dover (Mineola: Dover, 1996), 35-41.

19
and dancers (histriones) in the households of the clergy. Similarly, in an Anglo-
Norman commentary on the Psalms written circa 1165 we find complains and
condemnations against in the clerics who enjoy the performance of acrobats and

20
jongleur who sang and played musical instruments. Thus, from this information we
can start to compose a picture of a secular musical practice that was valued and desired
by people with an ecclesiastical education. As we will see, Amarcius’ text indicates that

this audience demanded skillful performances of well-known repertoire.


Following the monetary agreement, the entertainer pulls out a plucked string musical
instrument out of an ox-hide case (iocatur taurinque chelin cepit deducere theca). In the

Latin text the instrument is called chelis which in tenth- and eleventh-century glossaries
21
produce in the Old German linguistic area the term is equated to harp. The hypothesis
that the chelis is in fact no other than harp is further supported by a good number of

representations of harp players produced during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
where the instrument is depicted as coming out of a leader-made bag. In most cases the

bag is shown on top of the players’ lap and is used as a nest that helps the musician
22
maintaining the instrument in vertical position on the lap or between the legs. The
mention of a harp (or at least a plucked string instrument related to it) is a calculated

element in Amarcius’ narrative: it promotes the formation of a mental image that helped
recalling experience. Evidently, the author expected his educated audience to recognize

the harp’s common use in the music of the time and its function in performances of the
medieval secular Latin song repertoire. Similarly, the ox-hide case or bag where the

instrument is carried—and that might have been used to maintain the instrument secure
between the legs or on the lap—is an important element of material culture in the

narrative. The reference to the case is relevant because it helped the audience recall a

feature related to both the musical instrument and its use in performance. The leader
case helped protecting the harp which indicates that the instrument was considered a

19 For information about this source and the translation of its text, see William Tydeman, The Medieval
European Stage, 500-1550 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 30.
20 See R. S. Loomis, “Some Evidence for Secular Theatres in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.”
Theatre Annual (1945): 33-43.
21 For example, in verse 388 of the poem Apotheosis by the Christian Prudentius (348-410) the chelis is
described as an instrument that is appropriate for the adoration of God. In the glossaries connected to this
work the instrument is glossed as harpa, harpha, harepha, and harfa. For a study of the term and a list of
these glossaries see Martin van Schaik, The Harp in the Middle Ages: The Symbolism of a Musical
Instrument (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1992), 23-25. See also Christopher Page, Voices and Instruments, 121,
223-226.
22 Good examples are found in the thirteenth-century Rutland Psalter (British Library Add Ms 62925,
fols. 55r and 98r) and Arundel Psalter (British Library 233 fol. 1). Although these representations were
produced more than hundred years after our text (to my knowledge there are no depictions of harp bags in
eleventh- or twelfth-century art), they seem to represent an ongoing practice.

23
valuable object capable of producing music and entertainment. If the bag was used to
keep the instrument in secure playing position (as suggested by iconographic data), then
its presence in the narrative also triggered in the mind a mental image of the performer’s

posture. Of course, the way the harp was held determined the playing technique and

sound possibilities of the instrument: if the harp was fixed between the legs, the
performer could use his two hands to play its strings multiplying thus the options of

sound production. Thus, we can conclude that this material element contributed to the
construction of a mental image of a characteristic performance based on visual and aural

24
experience. The elements mentioned up to this point: the yearning and calling of the
jongleur, the monetary agreement, and the instrument with its leader bag not only
helped introducing the narrative of the performance, but they were used as markers that

trigger emotion and memory.

Continuing with the account of performance Amaricus describes how an audience is

formed as the jongleur plays the strings with his fingers (omnibus ex vicis populi

currunt plateisque, affixisque notant oculis et murmure leni eminulis mimum digitis
percurrere cordas). Since this is done after the instrument is taken out of the bag and

before the songs are sung, we can assume that this part of the performance served as a

type of tuning-prelude. From our own musical experience and the observation of some
oral traditions we can theorize that this type of introduction had two main purposes: the
25
tuning of the stings and the creation of a sound meant to grab people’s attention. A



23 The constant presence of the harp in medieval fictional narratives and art demonstrated that during the
period this instrument was regarded as an intriguing and valuable object. During the Middle Ages objects
were valued according to the quality and beauty of their materials, the level of their craftsmanship, the
technology used in their construction, and their utility. Thus, the harp was valued because it was a well-
made object composed of good materials, had a beautiful and proportional shape with ornamentation, and,
in the hands of an expert player it could produce beautiful sound and even music. Not surprisingly, the
harps represented in contemporary art shows ornamented pillars, ornate soundboards, undulating necks,
and proportional bodies made out of wood. Within this context the description of strings of the harp and
their material in Amarcius’ narrative seem to be particularly important: they reflect material culture and
technology. For the development and value of material culture during the Middle Ages, see Umberto Eco,
Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 92-94; George Duby, Art
and Society in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), 21-41; and Meyer Schapiro, “On the
Aesthetic Attitude in Romanesque Art,” in: Romanesque Art, Selected Papers (New York, George
Braziller, 1977), 1-27.
24 It is easy to create parallels with a modern description of a performance (let’s say jazz or rock music).
The type of instrument, the quality of its construction, and it selected materials (all implied sometimes in
a mention of its model and brand) help us imagine the type of music, musician, performance, and even the
venue.
25 These types of preludes are used in music from around the World, see Page,
voices, 122; Alexander Akorlie Agordoh, African Music: Traditional and Contemporary (New York:
Nova Science Publisher, 2005), 8-9; Natalia Lozano, Playing Music, Performing Resistance: The
Dynamics of Resistance Through Music in the Colombian South Pacific Coast (Münster: Lit Verlag,
2012), 52-53; A. J. Racy, Making Music in the Arab World: The Culture and Artistry of Tarab

more detailed description of this type of prelude is fortunately found in another

narrative written some seventy years later, this time not in Latin but in Anglo-Norman.
The source is the Roman de Horn, and adventure story written by a cleric named

26
Thomas around 1170 for a lay courtly audience. In one passage of the text it is
described how the hero, named Horn, takes a harp and before singing and playing a lai
he performs a prelude while tuning the instrument. Even though the Sermones and the

Roman de Horn are different in their language, overall purpose, and audience, both of
them speak of the splendid and exquisite musical customs and tastes of affluent people

and of the skills expected from great performers. The two descriptions are placed in the

text for basically the same reason: to be identified by their readers/listeners as events
that marked class and culture. Thus, there are probably many shared elements between

the two. In Thomas’ description the performer is said to grab his harp and tune it

masterfully before starting to sing:

Lors prent la harpe a sei, qu’il la veut atemprer. / Deus! Ki dunc l’esgardast, cum la sout
manïer, / cum ces cordes touchout, cum les feseit trembler, / asquantes feiz chanter, asquantes
organer, / de l’armonie del ciel li poüst remembrer! / sur tuz homes k’i sunt fet cist a merveiller.
/ Quant ses notes ot fait, si la prent a munter / e tut par autres tuns les cordes fait soner: / mut se
merveillent tuit qu’il la sout si bailler. / E quant il out si fait, si cummence a noter / le lai dont or
ains dis, de Baltof, haut et cler, / si cum sunt cil bretun d’itiel fait costumier. / Apres en
l’estrument fet les cordes suner, / tut issi cum en voiz l’aveit dit tut premier: / tut le lai lur ad
fait, n’i vout rien retailler.

[Then he took the harp to tune it. God! Whoever saw how well he handled it, touching the
strings and making them vibrate, sometimes causing them to sing and at other times join in
harmonies, he would have been reminded of the heavenly harmony. This man, of all those who
are there, cause the most wonder. When he had played his notes he makes his harp go up so that
the strings give out completely different notes. All those present marvel that he could play thus.
And when he has done all this he begins to play the aforesaid lai of Baltof, in a loud and clear
voice, just as the Bretons are versed in such performances. Afterwards he makes the strings of
the instrument play exactly the same melody as he had just sung; he performed the whole lai for
he wished to omit nothing.]
27
The text of the Roman de Horn offers valuable information about performance elements

such as the tuning and retuning of the harp within the context of Pythagorean
28
29
proportions (implied by the heavenly “harmony”), voice production and intention,

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 226; Peggy Holroyde, Indian Music: A Vast Ocean of
Promise (Allen & Unwin, London, 1972), 17-18.
26 For a discussion of the Roman de Horn and its audience, see Marianne Ailes, “What’s in a Name?
Anglo-Norman Romances or Chansons de geste?,” in Medieval Romance, Medieval Contexts, ed.
Rhiannon Purdie and Michael Cichon (Cambridge: D.S: Brewer, 2011), 69-77; Page, Voices and
Instruments, 92-107.
27 Text and translation taken from Page, Voices and Instruments, 4.
28 Jamie James, Music of the spheres: Music, science, and the natural order of the universe (London:
Abacus/Little, Brown Co. 1993), 261-263; James Haar. “Music of the spheres,” in The Grove Music
Online, ed. L. Macy (10th June 2005), http://www.grovemusic.com

30
and alternation between singing and instrumental playing. Nonetheless, I will limit our
discussion to those elements that find direct concordance in Amarcius’ narrative. The
most interesting element in the performance of the tuning-prelude in the Roman is how

Horn tunes the strings by making them sometimes “chant” or “sing” and others

“produce organum” (asquantes feiz chanter, asquantes organer). It has been advanced
that in the context of the period chanter indicates singing melodically (like singing

plainchant) and organer as singing in a polyphonic manner (like in the singing of
31
organum). Information about the tuning process could be further expanded by data
contained in the Lumiere as Lais, a religious poem also in Anglo-Norman written by a

certain Pierre of Peckman in 1267. In this text the author compares the condition of
Man in charity with a well-tuned harp. Despite of its late date (almost one hundred and

fifty years after the Sermones) and its allegorical character the precise technical
information offered in the source is of great value for our purpose:


Ky deyt harpe dreyt temprer, / pur fere la en accord suner, / les cordes couient si adrescer / ke
chescune acorde a sun per, / solum dreyte proporcium. / Ke le oreylle iuge en le sun, / e sulum le
art k’est troue / e par art de musike proue, / ke deus acordent en diapason, / e dues en
diatessaron, / e deus ausi en diapente /…
[He who wished to tune the harp aright / and make it sound harmoniously / must arrange the
strings / so that each one agrees with its fellow /according to true proportion, / Let the ear judge
the sound / both according to skill / and according to the demonstrable laws of music, / so that
32
two accord in an octave, / and two in a forth, / and two in a fifth…].
The description of the tuning practice from the Roman de Horn and the Lumiere as Lais
help us “filling in the blanks” left by Amarcius. During the tuning-prelude his jongleur,

following conventional practice, tuned the strings of the harp by octaves, fourths, and

fifths while mixing melodic and harmonic textures. The combination of the data offered
in the three sources suggests that: 1) careful tuning was valued in medieval music; 2)

that tuning-preludes were customary in the performance of songs with instrumental
accompaniment; and 3) that the intervals of octave, fourth, and fifth were used to tune

the instrument during this routine. We assume that the intervals were tuned following

Pythagorean rations because the author prescribes their tuning “according to true


29 For a study of vocal references in medieval literature and the song, see Haddar Beiser, “The Singing
Voice in the Late Middle Ages” (Master diss. Tel Aviv University, 2016); and Mauricio Molina, La
canción monódica profana y religiosa en el Occidente medieval (850-1200) (Madrid: Dairea, Upcoming
2018).
30 For the practice of alternatim between voice and instrument, see Page, Voices and Instruments, 93.
31 For a discussion of chanter and organer in the text and in contemporaneous literature, see Page, Voices
and Instruments, 121-122.
32 For the text and translation see Page, Voices and Instruments, 114-115. For bibliography on this text,
see Christopher Page, “String Instrument Making in Medieval England and some Oxford Harpmakers,”
Galpin Society Journal 31 (1978): 44-67.

33
proportion.” For the moment, based on these principles we can theorize that in the
process of tuning there were three main possibilities. One was the articulation of
melodic lines—probably with the exploration of tetrachords, pentachords, or octave-

34
scales—to principally check the tuning of notes melodically. Another one was the
playing of consecutive or intermittent intervals of fourth, fifth, and octave to tune a
single note against another one. And finally, the activation of pedals or drones under or

above musical phrases—by articulating a note once or consecutive times—to check the
tuning of intervals in relation to a main note in a melodic and harmonic manner. As we

will see later when we discuss song accompaniment, all these textures are in fact

described in medieval sources in connection with simple polyphonic techniques.
Following the discussion about the formation of mental images within specific cultural

contexts, we can assume that Amarcius’ medieval reader could recall in his/her mind
these types of sounds just based on the fragmentary description of the tuning-prelude

practice. Here Amarcius anticipated a response from his audience based on the common
knowledge of performance conventions and expectations.


Returning to our main text, we learn that while playing this sort of tuning-prelude

Amarcius’ jongleur changes the intention and intensity of his fingers’ touch making the

strings sound sometimes “soft /delicate ” and other ones “harsh /raucous” (nunc que
ipsas tenuem nunc raucum promere bombum). The description of this part of the

performance is as remarkable as it is rare in medieval literature. Contrasting changes in
tempo, intention, and intensity are not commonly recorded in the narratives.

Nonetheless, both music notation and prescriptions about rhetorical delivery suggest
that this was in fact a common and well-considered practice. For example, in some

tenth- and early eleventh-century manuscripts containing ecclesiastical music scribes

added lower-case letters just above the regular neumes to indicate rhetorical, melodic,
and rhythmic nuances. These letters, known as Romanian letters, pointed to the

application of changes in rhythmic movement, pitch change, dynamics, and sound
35
quality. The letter f, for example, was used to prescribe the production of a “harsh”

33 J. Javier Goldáraz Gaínza, Afinación y temperamento en la música occidental (Madrid: Alianza
Música, 1992), 15-32.
34 Medieval musicians understood melodies as composed of a combination of tetrachords and
pentachords, see David Fenwik Wilson, Music of the Middle Ages (New York: Schirmer, 1990), 78-86;
Charles M. Atkinson, The Critical Nexus: Tone-System, Mode, and Notation in Early Medieval Music
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009),171-201.
35 These types of letters were found in manuscripts produced in different places. The meaning of the
letters, at least in the St. Gall area, is explained in a letter attributed to Notker Balbulus. For a discussion
of these letters, see David Hiley, Western Plainchant: a Handbook (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1993), 373-375.

36
sound (cum fragore seu frendore). Changes in intention and sound are also found in
some rhetorical and poetic treatises that discuss delivery. For rhetoricians, variation in
movement and direction were the ornamental proprieties of a well-constructed and

attractive oral discourse. Changes in speed, measure, and liveliness were crucial to
37
help with the communication of meaning and to maintain listeners attentive at all
39
times. For example, Cicero in his De oratore, a book known to medieval scholars,
38
speaks about the importance of applying variation in the modulation of the voice, the
facial expression, and the gesticulation of the orator to ensure attention from the

audience. Interestingly enough, the Roman author further explains that these variations
40
can be compared in fact to the changing sounds produce on the strings of the lyre. The
tirteenth-century Rhetorica divina of William of Auverge reveals that such precepts in

41
the delivery of a discourse continued to be paradigmatic throughout the Middle Ages.
In this work William, conscious of the importance of a good performance, recommends

to his preachers to blush, weep, groan, and sigh while praying in order to be
42
convincing. Thus, it is within the context of persuasion of the audience and of keeping
their constant attention that we can place the “harsh” and “soft” changes of sound

conducted by Amarcius’ jongleur. From the text we gather that variation of intensity
and sound were important elements in instrumental playing. Amarcius, possibly

knowing that they could create powerful sensual and emotional responses, included
them in their narrative as markers that helped activated in the mind of his audience the

memory of outstanding players and enticing performances. They certified that the harp

player was skillful and knowledgeable of rhetorical conventions. At this point we can
create a mental image of sound based on the markers used by Amarcius in combination

with data extrapolated from other sources. The jongleur, skillful in music theory and
practice, and conscious of the rhetorical power of music (implied in the use of an

36 Ibid.
37 Carruthers, “The concept of Ductus,” 195-98.
38 Ibid.
39 Jan M. Ziolkowski, “”Pronuntiatio in the Latin Rhetorical Tradition,” in Rhetoric Beyond Words, ed.
Mary Carruthers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 129-30; and Damian Riehl Leader, The
History of the University of Cambridge, Vol. 1: The University To 1546 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1899), 236.
40 Cicero, De oratore III. 217: Nam voces ut chordae sunt intentae… Nullum est enim horum generum,
quod non arte ac moderation tractetur. Hi sunt actori, ut pictiri, expositi ad variandum colores. For a
discussion about Cicero’s recommendations, see Ziolkowski, “”Pronuntiatio,” 126-131; and for a
translation of the text, see Carruthers, “The Concept of Ductus,” 198-99.
41 William of Auvergne: Rhetorica divina, seu ars oratoria eloquentiae divinae. Edited by Roland J.
Teske (Dallas Medieval Texts and Translations 17 (Paris: Peeters, 2013). For the influence of Cicero in
other medieval authors, see Ziolkowski, “”Pronuntiatio,” 126-131
42 For a discussion of this and other similar treatises, see Ben McCorkle, Rhetorical Delivery as
Technological Discourse: A Cross-Historical Study (Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 2012),
80.

instrument, the proper way of tuning it, and the eloquence of his playing), had prepared

the audience with an attention grabbing tuning-prelude for the next step: the singing of
songs.


Fortunately, in his description of performance Amarcius does not just limit himself to

name the songs sung by the jongleur as carmina, himni or cantilenae—as it is usually
43
the case in literary works or music treatises. The author in fact choses to be more
precise and registers the subjects of the four songs: in one of them it is explained how

David killed Goliath, in another one it is recounted how a Swabian man tricked his wife,
in a third one it is illustrated how Pythagoras discovered the tones of music, and in one

last one the purity and reverberation of the nightingale’s voice is recorded (… straverit
ut grandem pastoris funda Goliath, ut simili argutus uxorem Suevulus arte luserit, utque

sagax nudaverit octo tenores cantus Pytagoras, et quam mera vox philomene
perstrepit.). The four pieces described by Amarcius can be actually traced to actual

compositions contained in an eleventh-century song collection known as the Carmina

44
cantabrigiensia (Cambridge, University Library, Ms. Gg.5.35). Philologists have
suggested that the song that refers to the nightingale can be identified with the

composition Aurea personet lira (fol. 434v); the piece about the cunning Sawian with

the narrative sequence Advertite omnes populi (fol. 435v); the composition that talks
about Pythagoras with the piece Ad mensam Philosophie (fol. 440v); and the song about

David and Goliath with the composition David vates Dei which is found in an extra leaf
45
that also belongs to the collection. Although the songs are not presented with music
notation in the Cambridge manuscript, at least Aurea personet lira survives in other
46
sources accompanied with a melody. It seems clear that by describing the subjects of
the four pieces Amarcius was anticipating a reaction from his audience. He wanted


43 For the generic and specific terms used in Latin to describe songs during this period, see Bryan
Gillingham, A Critical Study of Secular Medieval Latin Song (Ottawa: Institute of Mediaeval Music), 49-
55.
44 See, Ziolkowski, The Cambridge Songs, xliv-xliviii; Breul, The Cambridge Songs, 40 n. 1; and Dronke,
The Medieval Lyric, 28-29, 281.
45 Ibid.
46 The piece is included in both lyric collection and music treatises from the eleventh and twelfth
centuries. This is indicative of its popularity during the period. See, Elizabeth Eva Leach, Sung Bird:
Music, Nature, and Poetry in the Later Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007), 81-82. The
sources where the song is copied with music are Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds latin 1928, fol.
178v; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds latin 10275, fol. 178v; Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale
Centrale. F. III. 565, fol. 4v; and Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Reg. Lat. 586, fol. 82. Also in
the manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds latin 1118, fol. 246 there is a parody of the piece
(Aurea frequenter lingua). While in the Florence manuscript the pitches are precisely written down with
Letter notation, in the other sources the melody is copied with either heighted or unheighted neumes. In
none of the cases the notation gives any type of rhythmic indications.

his/her Latin-educated reader to easily identify well-known compositions of the secular

Latin song repertoire to trigger in his mind a familiar performative context and practice.
The inclusion of these songs in his description not only indicates the popularity of

certain pieces and repertoires in specific contexts, it also suggests that these particular

song and other related compositions were performed during the period with the
accompaniment of a harp or other type of plucked string instrument.


There is one more important trace of performance that needs to be discussed here. In

Amarcius narrative the jongleur not only sings the songs but also accompanies himself
with the instrument by “adjusting fifths” over the “melody” (… Ille fides aptans crebro

47
diapente canoras). From this line of the text we gather that there was simultaneous
48
singing and playing during the performance. The description of this type of
accompaniment might have helped triggering in the mind of a musically educated reader
the memory of a specific procedure or a variety of practices. For us this is difficult to

reconstruct since it all belongs to an oral tradition lost in time. Nonetheless,

contemporaneous music treatises that explain how voices were added to an original
melody can serve us to explore possibilities of fifth-related accompaniment. The first

option could be the performance of parallel intervals like the one mentioned in the

ninth-century Musica and Scolica enchiriadis: to the principal melody another voice
49
(vox organalis) is added a fifth below. The principal and the added voice move then
together in parallel fifths from beginning to the end with some adjustments to avoid
tritons. With this technique, the fifth might be also double at the octave producing thus

parallel fourths and fifths. In the case of harp accompaniment the sung melody could be
doubled in the instrument at the unison or at the octave and the fifth or fifths built

50
around this voice on the other strings. The interval relation between voice and
instrument depends on the size and range of the harp and the tessitura of the singing
voice. If the singer was a tenor and the range of the harp was from G3-C6 then the

doubling of the voice would probably be at the octave and some of the fifths a twelfth
higher. In relation to this type of doubling there is an interesting passage in the Musica

Enchiriadis that reads: “If you double both the organum and the [principal] voice, or


47 I agree with Christopher Page that the line Ille fides aptans crebro diapente canoras (‘frequently
adjusting the melodious strings a fifth’) could be understood as referring to a kind of fifth-based
heterophony applied to the melodic line. See Page, Voices and Instruments, 121.
48 Page, Voices and Instruments, 120-121.
49 For a study and translation of these treatises, see Richard L. Holladay, “Musica Enchiriadis et Scholia
enchiriadis: A Translation” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1977), The full original text can be found
at http://boethius.music.indiana.edu/tml/9th-11th/MUSENCI.
50 For a study and explanation of this technique, see Fenwick Wilson, Music of the Middle Ages, 97-99.

even if you triple both of them…In both human voices and in some instruments, not

51
only two and two, but also three and three at a time can be mixed together…”

Example:

A second possibility is related to the technique known as quintare or “fifthing,” a

52
polyphonic practice described in thirteenth-century treatises. This technique, which
might have served as the first step to the creation of more complex polyphony, is
comprised of fifths built on top or below the melody in conjunction with some unisons

53
and octaves reached by contrary motion.

Example

We can theorize that in the two possibilities explored above fifths could have been

played intermittently—at regular or irregular rhythmic intervals—around the melody.

For example, on the accents of the text, on specific notes of the melody, every time the
sound of the last interval was starting to decaying, and so on. There are of course many

options but unfortunately the lack of examples of actual harp accompaniment in the

music of the period forbids us from reaching any definite conclusions.

Information about harps and their performance in medieval literature further suggests

the addition of droning to the parallel fifth and quintare techniques explored above.
From the Lumiere as Lais of Pierre of Peckham we learn that some strings of the harp

were called burduns or drones: “[in the harp] the essais and the burduns also exhibit

54
these sound [fourths, fifths, and octaves]”. In his study of plucked string instruments
Christopher Page suggests that since the built-in low drones of instruments such as the

organ and the bagpipe were known during the Middle Ages as bourdons, then with the


51 … seu et organum gemines et cantum, sive etiam triplum utrumque facias, descripta ad invicem
consonat ratione. Possunt enim et humanae voces et in aliquibus instrumentis musicis non modo binae et
binae, sed et ternae ac ternae hac sibi collatione misceri, dum utique uno inpulsu vel tribus in unum
vocibus actitatis totidem voces respondent organum. Musica Enchiriadis, Ch XIV. The translation is
taken from Holladay, “Musica Enchiriadis,” 97. The text is copied from
http://boethius.music.indiana.edu/tml/9th-11th/MUSENCI.
52 One of the earliest mentions of quintare or quintoier in literature is recorded in Les miracles de Notre
Dame written by another cleric, Gautier de Coinci. For the text and its discussion, see Sarah Fuller,
“Discant and the Theory of Fifthing,” Acta Musicologica 50 (1978): 241–75.
53 In some pieces that seem to make use of the basic features of the technique we observe that octaves are
placed at the endings of phrases and sections. These intervals are reached by contrary motion. For a
thorough study of the technique, the treatises and the pieces, see Fuller, “Discant and the Theory of
Fifthing,” 241–75.
54 Kar saunz ices ne purra mie / en harpe estre sun de armonie. / Les essais e les burduns / de ses treis unt
ausi les suns [For without these there cannot / be any harmonious sound in the harp. The essais and the
burduns /also exhibit these three sound]. Text and translation taken from Page, Voices and Instruments,
119.

55
term burduns Peckman is making reference to the lowest strings of the harp. Page
further theorizes that since in the these instruments and in the vielle the term bourdon
was used in connection with drone-playing, therefore in the harp these lower strings or

56
burduns might have also been used to play pedals. Within this framework a
twelfth/thirteenth-century anonymous Psalm commentary that offers specific details
about harp playing can be further help. In this source it is explains that the chitara—a

term also equated to that of harp in medieval sources—is an instrument played with two
hands: “one that continuously play the lower strings, [and the other] one that plucks the

higher strings, not continually but at intervals and in turn (non iugiter sed vicissim et
57
interpollatim). This information, probably cited by the author from personal
observation or playing experience, not only supports the idea that the lower stings of the

harp were used to play pedals, but also that the melody and intervals played on the
higher strings where were performed intermittently (as I had suggested before).


58
Drone playing seemed to have been a common practice in medieval music. Drones
were not only built in contemporaneous musical instruments like the vielle, the bagpipe,
and the organ, their vocal use is also recorded in actual twelfth and thirteenth-century

59
pieces. Furthermore, the use of pedals is discussed at least in one music treatise, the
60
Summa musicae, a work dated circa 1200 by Christopher Page. In this treatise two
practices are described. The first one, named Diaphonia basilica, is comprised of a note

being held throughout a whole piece with the main melody sung a fifth or an octave
61
above. The second one, called Triphonia basilica, is also composed of a single note
held as a pedal but this time accompanying two voices: one singing the melody a fifth

55 Page, Voices and Instruments, 118-119.
56 Ibid.
57 Oxford, Bodleian Library Ms Hatton 37, fol. 49r. The text is taken from Page119-120
58 Edith Gerson-Kiwi, “Drone and 'Dyaphonia Basilica’” Yearbook of the International Folk Music
Council, 4 (1972): 9-22.
59 Example of such pieces are the twelfth-century Benedicamus Domino: Amborum sacrum
(Cambridge University Library, Ms Ff.i.17. fols. 7-8, and the thirteenth-century Hec est Mater from the
famous Codex Las Huelgas (Burgos, Monasterio de Santa Maria la Real de Las Huelgas Codex IX, fol.
27).
th
60 Bernhard Michel has advanced that the Summa musicae is on the contrary a late 13 century
manuscript. The musicologist bases this conclusion on certain terminological particularities that only
seem to occur in the music practice of this period. See Bernhard Michel, “La summa musice del Ps Jean
de Murs: Son auteur et sa datation. “ Revue de Musicologie 84 (1998): 19-25.
61
Diaphonia est modus canedi duobus modis, et dividitur in basílica et organica. Basilica est canedi
duobos modis melodia ita quod unus teneat continue notam unam que est quasi basis cantus alterius
concinentis; alter vero socius cantum incipit vel in diapente vel in diapason quandoque ascendens,
quandoque descendens, ita quod in pausa concordet alquo modo cum eo qui basic observat … The
(diaphonia) basilica is a way of singing in which a singer continually holds a note which is like a
foundation melody for the other singer; his companion begins a chant either at the fifth or the octave,
sometimes ascending, sometimes descending, so that when he pauses he accords in some way with him
who maintains the foundation. Text and translation taken from Page, Summa musice, 124. 200-01.

above the drone and the other one singing the same melody an octave above the pedal

(i.e. a fourth above the melody: G-d/g).This procedure will create parallel moving
62
fourths over the drone.

There is yet one more piece of information about instrumental accompaniment and

droning that needs to be considered here even though it is contained in a treatise
composed about 1280, almost two hundred years after Amarcius’ text. The source is the

Tractatus de musica of the Dominican friar Jerome of Moravia and the information that

interests us here is about the use the lateral bourdon of the vielle. Despite of its lateness,
the data offered by Moravia seems to be relevant for our study because of its relation to

the procedures explored above. In his treatise Moravia simply explains that the lateral
drone of the vielle should be played only in combination with certain concordant

63
intervals. Fortunately, this rather incomplete explanation was glossed by Pierre de
64
Limoges, the owner of the only complete copy of the treatise. In his comment, Pierre
elucidates that what Moravia is trying to say is that the lateral drone of the vielle was to

be played with the bow or plucked by the thumb only when the melody was in a perfect
65
fifth, fourth or octave relation to its open note. We can entertain this idea in relation to
harp accompaniment: a pedal in the lower string(s) of the harp could have been played

only when the notes of the melody were in a fourth, fifth, or octave relation with it
(them). Consequently, the drone would have been perceived as intermittent.

Furthermore, the notes of the melody could have had fifths and fourths built around




62 Triphonia est melodia sive modus canendi a tribus vel a pluribus, et modis tribus ita scilicet ut ab uno
vel pluribus teneatur pro basi continue nota una, et ab alio uno vel pluribus idem cantus incipiatur in
diapente et in eodem cursu cantetur usque in finem; a tertio uno vel pluribus idem cantus in diapasón
continue incipiatur. Et in prima voce cursus eiusdem cantus legitime finiatur. Et hic modus triphonie
similiter basílica triphonia nuncupatur. [Triphonia is music or manner of singing employing three or
more and in three different ways so one note is continuously held by one or many as a foundation, and the
same chant is begun by another one or more at the fifth. They sing the same melody in this way to the
end. The same chant is continuously begun by a third one or more at the octave, and the course of this
chant may be legitimately brought to a close in [unison with] the first voice, and this type of triphonia is
similarly called basilica triphonia]. Text and translation taken from Page, Summa musice, 124, 200-01.
63 …Ut scilicet sciatur cum aniquique sonoex quibus unaquenque melodia cintexitur cum bordonis primis
consonanciis respondere [To know how to reply with the borduni in the first harmonies to any note from
which any melody is woven…]. For the full text and its translation, see Page, Voices and Instruments, 69-
70.
64 This gloss seems to have been written around 1306. See Page, Voices and Instruments, 70.
65 Quod D bordunus non debet tangi police vel arcu nisi cum cetere corde arcu tactu faciunt sonos cum
quibus bordunus facit aliquam predictarum consonanciarum scilicet diapente, diapason, diatessaron etc.
[The D bordonus must not be touched with the thumb or the bow, save when the other strings touched by
the bow produce notes with which the bordonus makes any of the aforesaid consonances, that is to say:
fifth, fourth, octave, and so on]. Text and translation taken from Page, Voices and Instruments,70. The
lateral string is well recorded in depictions of the instrument. A good example could be seen in the
illumination that accompanies the text of Judges 21:21in the thirteenth-century Pierpont Morgan Library
Old Testament (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library Ms 638, fol. 39v).

following the principles of the fifth-based accompaniments that has been discussed.

This would be the possibilities if the drone was the note D: d/a; d/g; a/d; g/d.


Thus, based on extant information about the harp, the vielle, and the polyphonic
techniques explored and reconstructed above, we can theorize that both droning and

fifth-related accompaniment were procedures available to skillful singers and
66
instrumental players of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. As it is
suggested in Amaricus’ text, techniques like these were used by jongleurs in the

performance of secular Latin songs around 1100. The performance feature “adjusting
the melodious strings a fifth” (Ille fides aptans crebro diapente canoras) included in the

text might have triggered in the memory of a reader/listener of the Sermones one or
several of the following reconstructed practices:


1) The construction of parallel or intermittent fifths and fourths around the melody. See
example a.

2) Same as 1) but with the addition of a constant or an intermittent drone(s). The latter
activated only when the melody was in a perfect consonance relation to it (fifth, fourth,
or octave). See example b.


3) The performance of mainly parallel fifths but with some contrary motion to the
octave or unison (quintare or “fifthing”).

4) Same as 3) but with constant or intermittent drone(s). See example c.

5) A combination of all of the above. See example d.

Example

67
First phrase of Aurea personet lyra from ……. with possible accompaniments.

Of course, the options presented are based on data taken from sources written in
different places and times and therefore they can be only conjectural. Nonetheless, each

of them is taken from indications of actual performance practice.


The analysis of the fragmentary information given by Amarcius in his Sermones in
conjunction with data extrapolated from other musical and non-musical

contemporaneous sources has revealed that the performance of secular Latin song circa
1100 was an enticing and memorable affaire. Specialized musicians of great skill were

hired to perform popular pieces of the repertoire for entertaining purposes. These

66 See Page, Voices and Instruments, 118-122.
67 The transcription of the melody has been taken from Bryan Gillingham, Secular Medieval Latin Song:
An Anthology (Ottawa: The Institute of Mediaeval Music, 1993), 1. Gillingham´s transcription is based on
Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale. F. III. 565, fol. 4v.

performers used plucked strings instruments to accompany their voices. The whole

event was introduced by an instrumental tuning-prelude where the musician showcased
his tuning and playing skills. During this opening the performer utilized a mixture of

melodic and “harmonic” textures on the instrument to construct a scale “according to

true proportion” (Pythagorean tuning). While doing this, he also changed the intensity
of sound to transform a mere tuning routine into an attractive and effective rhetorical

discourse. Finally, when the songs were sung, their melodies were enhanced and
supported by a fifth-based and drone accompaniment conducted on the instrument. With

all these elements the performer—working within contemporaneous conventions—not

only managed to achieve correct tuning, prepare the listener, and present the chosen
repertoire, but more importantly he/she also constructed an enthralling and captivating

experience that served as vehicle for the realization and dissemination of song.

As we can see, the critical reading of medieval texts that include descriptions of music

making helps us to conceptualize medieval performance practice. From Amarcius’ text

we have being able to extrapolate valuable clues about the function, audiences,
performers, and of course oral diffusion of the secular Latin song repertoire at the

beginning of the twelfth century (moment of its great development). We have also

gathered information about musical instruments and the accompaniment of secular
monophonic songs during this time. The data collected and the conclusions reached

after its analysis not only can be carefully associated to other contemporaneous song
repertoires, but it can also be used to elucidate certain connections between religious

and secular musical practice (such as the one implied by the fifth-related
accompaniment mentioned in the Sermones). Thus, performance descriptions could give

us great inside into the essence of a repertoire and its placement within the musical and

performative context of the period. Thanks to Amarcius and his bitter criticism of
contemporary practices we have learned that in the fleeting act of performance secular

songs in Latin were “materialized” and made memorable through the combination of
mediums, textures, and forms of delivery.