Murray,

MUSIC Explores the practice of music education before Bach Weiss, Music Education in the
and
Cyrus Middle Ages and the Renaissance

RUSSELL E. MURRAY, JR., is Professor Music Education in the Middle Ages and
of Music Hiory and Literature and the Renaissance explores the teaching and

Middle Ages and the Renaissance

Associate Chair of the Department of learning of music in the early centuries of
Music at the University of Delaware. the Weern art music tradition. The au-
thors of these essays seek to underand the

Music Education in the

SUSAN FORSCHER WEISS is Chair of methods and philosophies of various teach-
Musicology, The Peabody Initute of the ers, as well as what udents learned and
Johns Hopkins University. how the act of learning is embedded in the
broader context of music and music-making
CYNTHIA J. CYRUS is Associate Dean in this period. Gender, social atus, and
and Professor of Musicology at the Blair the role of the church are considered along
School of Music at Vanderbilt University. with the educational rationale and motiva-
tions of medieval and early modern peda-
gogues. From England to Italy, these essays
provide an expansive view of the beginnings
of music pedagogy as a tradition. Opening
the way and suggeing further avenues of
inquiry, Murray, Weiss, Cyrus, and their
contributors add invaluable nuance to the
place of education in our current maer
narratives of music hiory.

The contributors are Charles M. Atkinson,

Colleen Baade, Susan Boynton, Cynthia J.
Cyrus, Kriine K. Forney, Anthony
Grafton, John Griths, James Haar,
PUBLICATIONS OF THE
EARLY MUSIC INSTITUTE
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Russell E. Murray, Jr., Susan Forscher Weiss, and Cynthia J. Cyrus Schubert, Pamela F. Starr, Gary Towne,
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Music Education in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

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Paul Elliot, editor

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 Music Education in
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%the Renaissance&
EDITED BY

Russell E. Murray, Jr., Susan Forscher

Weiss, and Cynthia J. Cyrus

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS

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To my wife Lysbet and my daughter Diane
keen proofreaders and patient listeners

RUSSELL

To my husband Jim, our children, grandchildren, and

all my students for inspiring me to explore the many
aspects of musical learning past and present

SUSAN

To John and Helen Cyrus, models of a lifetime spent in learning

CYNTHIA
 Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Reading and Writing the
Pedagogy of the Past Russell E. Murray, Jr.,
Susan Forscher Weiss, and Cynthia J. Cyrus xi

PERSPECTIVE 1
1 Some Introductory Remarks on Musical
Pedagogy James Haar 3

PART 1 MEDIEVAL PEDAGOGY

2 Guido dArezzo, Ut queant laxis, and Musical
Understanding Dolores Pesce 25
3 Some Thoughts on Music Pedagogy in the
Carolingian Era Charles M. Atkinson 37
4 Medieval Musical Education as Seen through Sources
Outside the Realm of Music Theory Susan Boynton 52

PART 2 RENAISSANCE PLACES OF LEARNING

5 Sang Schwylls and Music Schools: Music Education
in Scotland, 15601650 Gordon Munro 65
6 A Proper Musical Education for Antwerps
Women Kristine K. Forney 84
7 Juan Bermudo, Self-instruction, and the Amateur
Instrumentalist John Griths 126
 PERSPECTIVE 2
8 The Humanist and the Commonplace Book:
Education in Practice Anthony Grafton 141

PART 3 RENAISSANCE MATERIALS AND CONTEXTS

9 Musical Commonplaces in the
Renaissance Peter Schubert 161
10 Music Education and the Conduct of Life in Early Modern
England: A Review of the Sources Pamela F. Starr 193
11 Vandals, Students, or Scholars? Handwritten Clues in
Renaissance Music Textbooks Susan Forscher Weiss 207

PART 4 MUSIC EDUCATION IN THE CONVENT

12 The Educational Practices of Benedictine Nuns:
A Salzburg Abbey Case Study Cynthia J. Cyrus 249
13 Nun Musicians as Teachers and Students in
Early Modern Spain Colleen Baade 262

PART 5 THE TEACHER

14 Isaac the Teacher: Pedagogy and Literacy
in Florence, ca. 1488 Blake Wilson 287
15 Zacconi as Teacher: A Pedagogical Style in Words
and Deeds Russell E. Murray, Jr. 303
16 The Good Maestro: Pietro Cerone on the
Pedagogical Relationship Gary Towne 324

PERSPECTIVE 3
17 You Can Tell a Book by Its Cover: Reflections on Format
in English Music Theory Jessie Ann Owens 347

List of Contributors 387

Index 391
 Acknowledgments

This book results from a collaborative eort on the part of many individu-
als, all of whom, if they could, would thank the many people who provided
them with help, encouragement, and the occasional helpful citation. While
we cannot possibly acknowledge these people individually, we oer a general
thanks on our contributors behalf. As for ourselves, we wish to acknowledge
the many people who have played a role in our shared project.
We owe our greatest debt to the authors themselves, whose commitment,
determination, and patience is matched by the quality of their contributions
to this volume. It has been our great pleasure to work with these scholars
throughout this long and complex project. We have learned from their re-
search, and have been inspired by their commitment. Our work has been made
all the easier by the care that they have taken in preparing their essays, and we
can only hope that we have presented their work to its best advantage.
The initiation of this project in the form of a three-day conference, its
continuation in an online bibliography, and its culmination in this volume
were all supported by a generous Collaborative Research Grant from the
National Endowment for the Humanities, and we would like to thank the
Endowment, and specifically Elizabeth Arndt, whose indefatigable work on
our behalf and her unwavering interest in our work were both enormously
helpful and deeply gratifying. We have also been supported by our various
chairs and deans at the University of Delaware, the Peabody Institute, and
Vanderbilt University, and we owe special thanks to the Peabody Institute
and the Johns Hopkins University for their hosting of the original confer-
ence, and to the Blair School of Music of Vanderbilt University for a generous
subvention to partially defray publication costs.
In addition to the institutional support we have received, we also owe an
enormous debt to a number of colleagues who have provided advice and en-
x Acknowledgments

couragement along the way, most notably Allan Atlas, Patrick Macey, Honey
Meconi, Cristle Collins Judd, and Craig Wright, each of whom provided sup-
port and wise counsel at various stages of this endeavor. We are fortunate to
have such generous colleagues whoalong with a host of others, too numer-
ous to be named herehave all contributed in small but crucial ways. We
are also indebted to all the libraries and their stas for their generous help in
securing the many images reproduced in this volume.
Of course, this book would never have seen the light of day without the
hard work of many people at Indiana University Press. We are especially in-
debted to our editor, Jane Behnken, whose excitement at our initial proposal
and continuous work on our behalf were a source of strength, particularly
when the inevitable glitches and delays tried our patience. We also wish to
thank Janes assistants, Katherine Baber and Sarah Wyatt Swanson, and our
project editor June Silay, for keeping track of all those details that so easily
slip through the cracks, along with David L. Dusenbury for his assiduous
copyediting and Paula Durbin-Westby for her expert indexing. Finally, we
would like to thank the anonymous readers of our initial proposal: their many
helpful comments have made this a stronger work.
Virginia Woolf famously noted that a writer needed a room of ones
own in order to create. While we often think of that room in the physical
sense, it is just as often the room created by the patient love of family and
friends that makes the writers work possible. The three of us owe our final
thanks to our friends and families, who provided the much-needed grounding
and space for us to take on this task. Our work is richer for their presence in
our lives.

Russell E. Murray, Jr.

Susan Forscher Weiss
Cynthia J. Cyrus

16 July 2009
 INTRODUCTION

Reading and Writing the

Pedagogy of the Past*
RUSSELL E. MURRAY, JR., SUSAN FORSCHER
WEISS, AND CYNTHIA J. CYRUS

This collection of essays addresses questions of how music was taught and
learned in the past. The answers to these questions not only inform our un-
derstanding of musical literacy and musical learning in the Middle Ages and
Renaissance, but can help guide our investigations of the subject in other eras.
In past scholarship, many of the most valuable observations on musical learn-
ing in this period have been found in the margins of other kinds of studies:
biographies, institutional or regional histories, source studies, iconographical
research, history of theory, investigations of compositional and performance
practices, and so on. This volume places the issue of musical learning at the
center of investigation.
In order to bring these questions into better focus, we have limited the
chronological and the geographic scope of this collection to music in the
Western European art tradition in the period dating from the Middle Ages to
approximately 1650. Even within these limited parameters the authors explore
a variety of topics and methodologies, providing a sampling of strategies for
approaching the questions that will, we hope, spur further scholarly pursuits
in this area. The result is thus as much prescriptive of further study as it is
descriptive of the present state of inquiry.
From their various perspectives, the essays in this volume address five
basic issues that seem central to the investigation of music teaching and learn-
xii Introduction

ing. The first and perhaps most obvious question is one of methodthe heart
but not the sum total of the term pedagogy. What were the pedagogical
methods used by various teachers? How did they parallel or depart from
those of other teachers and even other disciplines? How much variation was
there in the accepted methods of teaching, and how self-aware were teachers
of their own pedagogical stances?
A second question is repertorialboth intellectual and material: what
did the student learn? In part, this involves fitting the act of learning into the
broader context of music and music-making in the period. It may also invite
comparisons to other repertoires or even other kinds of pedagogical endeav-
ors of the time. Also of importance is the question of the materials used for
learning and teaching. While some materials, such as treatises, seem uniquely
pedagogical, what other materials served pedagogical ends?
The third is a question of identity. Who were the teachers, and who were
the learners? How did their social role, gender, or professional status shape
the course and outlines of their musical education, and how, in turn, did that
education play a role in their own identities?
The fourth overarching question is one of place. Where and when was
music learned? Beside the physical locations associated with the formal and
informal institutions of learning, we need to address the cultural locations of
class and gender. The question also suggests the need to understand the place
of the activity itself and its place within the lifespan of the learners.
Finally, the authors address the question of educational rationale: why
was music learned? What were the motivations of the learners and the teach-
ers? How was their activity supported and encouraged by the institutions and
social structures of the time? What was the value of music learning within
the culture?
While no individual author can focus on every issue in a given chapter, in
the aggregate these case studies create a broad portrait of musical pedagogy
that embraces all of these issues, often in intriguing combinations. The au-
thors, in addressing musical questions, employ a wide cross-section of mate-
rial and methodology from the social sciences and humanities, among them
art history and cultural history; history of medicine, science, and technology;
economic history; linguistics, and the history of the book. What unites these
scholars is an interest in the ways in which knowledge and the materials of
learning were passed from one individual to another.
By presenting such a wide range of topics and methodology, we hope
to establish useful approaches to studying the educational practices of the
 Introduction xiii

period. Comparing the materials and techniques of our colleagues in the hu-
manities and social sciences brings us closer to defining the parameters of
our own field. The end result is a more coherent picture of musical learning
within the larger socio-cultural context of education in general. In short, the
editors see this project as the beginning of a discussion that we hope will
inform investigations of the past for decades to come; for the question of how
music was passed on from one individual to another is fundamental to the
understanding of musics place in that culture.

The volume is framed by three essays of a broader nature, intended to provide

a context for the more focused investigations and thus referred to as perspec-
tives. While not intended as introductions to general areas of investigation,
they nevertheless touch on issues that can be viewed as both centripetal and
as points for outward expansion. James Haars essay provides a context for
much of what follows, posing salient questions about the development of
pedagogical thought over the course of the Renaissance, and focusing on the
somewhat messy, but ultimately illuminating synthesis of pedagogical ideals
found in the first of Ludovico Zacconis pratticae. Anthony Grafton takes the
reader outside of the purely musical realm, exploring the ways in which the
typical student in the Renaissance approached the use of classical texts, teas-
ing out the strategies that they used to assess, understand, and remember the
information under consideration. His exploration of the theory and practice
of the commonplace reminds us that the study of music took place within
the larger context of instruction of literary studies, and that epistemological
and methodological concerns of one field could easily find a home in others.
Finally, Jessie Ann Owenss closing essay brings us back to the material world,
focusing our attention on the physical materials used by teachers and learn-
ers, and providing us with a useful reminder that these objects had special
meaning to their users, and that we can learn a great deal by knowing the
positions that they occupied in the pedagogical world.
These three essays present strands that can be followed in the work of
our other authors; yet the varied approaches taken by the others go beyond
the categories suggested by Haar, Grafton, and Owens, and are organized in
an independent scheme, suggesting more specific anities. We begin with
three case studies from the Middle Ages. Dolores Pesce returns to one of the
touchstones of musical pedagogy, Guidos system of solmization. Question-
ing the simple, skill-based reading we have given Guidos approach, she sug-
gests a larger, Boethian context combining sense and intellect into a coherent
xiv Introduction

pedagogical whole. Charles Atkinson likewise questions the simple view we

have of the basis of medieval musical pedagogy, showing that the methodol-
ogy of the time partook of a rich blend of ancient sources and the traditions
of grammatical instruction. Susan Boyntons work echoes the extra-musical
context suggested by Pesce and Atkinson, describing the use of some non-
didactic materials such as customaries and glossed hymnaries as a source for
understanding the act of teaching across the period.
The second section of the volume deals with the places of learning. Gor-
don Munro and Kristine Forney look at the roles of institutions over the
course of time, responding to new social realities. Munro charts the develop-
ment of music schools in Scotland as they respond to the secularization of
musical institutions under the Protestant regime, while Forney chronicles the
somewhat extraordinary opportunities provided to young women in Antwerp
to learn sacred and secular music within the context of the church and the
home, along with the important musical role played by the teaching guilds of
the sixteenth century. John Griths shows how objects with multiple uses
(pedagogical, theoretical, and performance) can serve as important sources
for understanding both formal and informal education, entering the world of
the urban amateur as he created his own school of self-study.
The authors of the third section look at larger strategies for teaching,
and evidence for diering attitudes toward pedagogy. Peter Schubert extends
Anthony Graftons discussion of commonplace books by looking at the ways
that musicians compiled musical commonplaces, and used them as the basic
material for their composition. Pamela Starr looks at attitudes toward music
and by extension, its teaching, in early modern England, gleaning evidence
from conduct and courtesy manuals of the day. Susan Weiss makes the case
that marginalia and annotations, often treated as at least an aesthetic hin-
drance, provide important clues for the understanding and reception of musi-
cal thought, and insights into the development of theoretical ideas.
The locale of musical learning intersects with the social categories of
individuals who were granted musical instruction, and the rationale for that
instruction can therefore vary quite widely depending on the needs of the stu-
dent. Nowhere is this truer than in the convent. Cynthia Cyrus and Colleen
Baade explore the education of the female religious in two dierent national
traditions. Cyruss purview is the Nonnberg Abbey in Salzburg, where she
traces the move toward a more literate approach to musical learning in the
post-Tridentine period, and its impact on the musical practice of the women.
Baade extends our understanding of the level of training received by nuns
 Introduction xv

in the more prestigious convents, and reveals the importance of both family
dynamics in the perpetuation of musical culture and the roles of women as
teachers in this large musical society.
Our final section brings us to where we might rightfully have begun
with the teacher of music. The meeting of teacher and student is, of course,
the ultimate vantage point in our study of pedagogythe place where theory,
practice, philosophy, and practicality meet. Blake Wilson demonstrates that
the ideals of pedagogy were often intimately woven into the daily practice of
musicians and music lovers, and that not all schooling occurred in a formal
setting. With the growing literacy of the larger population, their interactions
with musicians and composer provided surprising chances to teach and learn.
Russell Murray returns to Haars focus on Zacconi, here reading his sec-
ond Prattica of 1622 for evidence of a pedagogical program in his approach to
teaching counterpoint, comparing it to the pedagogical imperatives expressed
in his numerous stories of the teaching habits of many of the musicians he
had encountered in his life. But perhaps the clearest statement of teaching
philosophy is found in Pietro Cerones sprawling El melopeo y maestro, and
Gary Townes painstaking reading of that text fleshes out Cerones philoso-
phy, providing us with perhaps the clearest picture of the individual teacher.
In the end, our study of institutions and individuals, as well as of sources
and their uses, points us toward the most fundamental of questions, and that
has to do with the basis of knowledge that stood behind all teaching in this
period. Teachers of any discipline had implicit understandings of the ways of
knowing and of teaching. This philosophy of teaching is recoverable from the
writings that were left behind, as well as from the materials used and how
they were employed. It is especially important to understand that the teach-
ing of music was not separate from other areas of knowledge, and that many
of the same conditions held consistent in all fields. It is therefore our task to
outline these philosophical and pragmatic underpinnings and to relate them
to the larger context of education in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. While
our scope is broad, its focus remains firmly fixed on recognizable figures and
materials from the musicological tradition. The major figures discussed are
familiar from the musicological literature: Isaac, Morley, Cerone, Pontio,
Zacconi, Scaletta, Bermudo, and a variety of other theorists, teachers, stu-
dents, printers, and patrons. While each author has developed his or her own
methodological approach to the materials, a common thread or a series of
threads established early in the process link their arguments and the materi-
als. Student notebooks, manuscripts, and prints with marginalia, traditional
xvi Introduction

theory-treatises, and musical anthologies all play a part in our eorts to de-
code the teaching strategies of our predecessors.
Together, the chapters presented here focus our attention on an often
ignored part of musical life. While the results of pedagogical practicethe
music itselfis justifiably of primary concern, there is likewise a need to ex-
plore the learning and teaching that led to the creation of these musical works.
Our goal here is to study the ways in which music was learned by perform-
ers and composers, professionals and amateurs, men and women, singers,
instrumentalists, and hearers of music in the historic past. By identifying
the methods and materials of musical pedagogy, we come that much closer
to understanding the subtleties of the musical discourse that preceded and
surrounded musical creativity in the Middle Ages and thereafter.

In her 1997 book, Composers at Work, Jessie Ann Owens noted that musical
education remains an area badly in need of further investigations. Although
she cited a number of scholars working in the area of musical literacy in the
Early Modern era, there existed at that time no comprehensive scholarly
source on the subject of musical pedagogy.
Our own interest in the subject began with a symposium held at the
opening roundtable of the 14th Congress of the International Musicological
Society in Bologna, in 1987. A wide range of topics was addressed, from music
curricula and treatises to what was being taught within the university and
in surrounding schools, dance halls, and in private lessons. Another area of
discussion focused on the nature of the manuals or other texts used to teach
music. The central question posed by Craig Wright, the session chair, was
how the earliest manuscript materials should be viewed: is it better to view
them as mere reflections of what was taught (essentially transcriptions of uni-
versity lectures) or as prescriptive sources of pedagogy? This led to a parallel
discussion of the innumerable books of musical learning that appeared fol-
lowing the advent of printingeverything from childrens primers to manu-
als for amateurs learning the rudiments of music or how to play instruments
such as the cittern. Finally, we concluded that it is one matter to know what
materials were used in musical instruction and quite another to know what
actually went on in music lessons, be they in the classroom or on a one-to-
one basis, within or outside a school or institution. These general questions
became, then, the core of the investigations presented in this book.
In the intervening years, a few studies have appeared, but have received
little attention in the discipline as a whole. Bernarr Rainbow addressed this
 Introduction xvii

problem directly in The Challenge of History, in which he highlighted the

need for historical awareness as an integral component of music education.
He attempted to arrive at a deeper understanding of and justification for
music education by concentrating on its application in two historic periods
antiquity and the Middle Ages. Rainbow is also the author of Music in Educa-
tional Thought and Process, which traces the development of music education
from 800 BC to 1985, and more recently of Four Centuries of Music Teaching
Manuals, 15181932.
Within the field of musicology, a number of scholars have addressed is-
sues of education in the context of larger studies. Examples can be found in
Craig Wrights work on music at Notre Dame, in Anna Maria Busse Burgers
study of memory and music, in John Kmetzs study of German partbooks, and
in John Butts exploration of education and performance. Klaus Niemller
has looked at music in Latin schools in Germany, while Edith Weber has
looked at what was taught in humanist and Protestant schools. More recently
Michael Long, among others, has looked at teaching in medieval Italy, and
Kate van Orden has explored the connection of music and literacy for chil-
dren in France in the sixteenth century. And finally, a recent collection of es-
says edited by Susan Boynton and Eric Rice illuminates the role of education
in the lives of young singers in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
In recognition of this growing interest in historical approaches to musical
pedagogy, we organized a three-day conference with the generous support of
the National Endowment for the Humanities. This conference, Reading and
Writing the Pedagogies of the Renaissance: The Student, the Study Materials, and
the Teacher of Music, 14701650, was held in June 2005 at the Peabody Institute
of the Johns Hopkins University. All of the contributions to this volume grew
out of papers presented there, and the conversations and collaboration that
the conference engendered have enriched all of our individual contributions
to this book.
Work in other disciplines, of course, has much to teach us about general
educational practices of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Some scholars in
related fields take as their focus a broad array of educational strategies. Ad-
dressing topics that range from in-home education through apprenticeship
to the various kinds of schools and universities, scholars such as Nicholas
Orme, Paul Grendler, Anthony Grafton, James van Horn Melton, Rebecca
Bushnell, and others have provided a solid cultural backdrop for educational
practice. Hints of themes such as emerging notions of childhood, shifts of
methods and approaches to scholarship and learning in sixteenth-century
xviii Introduction

practice, the impact of humanism, and the financial and intellectual import
of education have emerged as serious topoi over the last two to three decades.
We have encouraged our authors to invoke a broad range of cross-disciplinary
experts, as the historical study of music is situated in a broader institutional
context for the education of children and adults in the historical past. A more
extensive survey of the scholarly literature has been provided in MIML: Mu-
sical Instruction and Musical Learning, a searchable bibliography on how music
was taught and learned, circa 14501650.

NOTES
1. Bernarr Rainbow, The Challenge of History, Philosophy of Music Education Re-
view 3 (1995): 4351; Music in Educational Thought and Practice: A Survey from 800 BC (Ab-
erystwyth: Boethius, 1990; repr. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2006); Four Centuries of Music
Teaching Manuals, 15181932 (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2009).
2. Craig Wright, Music and Ceremony at Notre Dame of Paris, 5001550 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1989); Anna Maria Busse Berger, Medieval Music and the Art of
Memory (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005); John Kmetz, The
Piperinus-Amerbach Partbooks: A Study in Sixteenth-Century Musical Pedagogy, in The
Sixteenth-Century Basel Songbooks, Publikationen der Schweizerischen Musikforschenden
Gesellschaft, ser. 2, vol. 35 (Bern: Haupt, 1995): 83124; John Butt, Music Education and
the Art of Performance in the German Baroque (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1994); Klaus Wolfgang Niemller, Untersuchungen zu Musikpflege und Musikunterricht an
den deutschen Lateinschulen vom ausgehenden Mittelalter bis um 1600 (Regensburg: Bosse,
1969); Edith Weber, Lenseignement de la musique dans les coles humanistes et protes-
tantes en Allemagne: thorie, pratique, pluridisciplinarit, in Enseignement de la musique
au moyen age et la renaissance (Luzarches, France: ditions Royaumont, 1987): 10829;
Michael Long, Singing Through the Looking Glass: Childs Play and Learning in Medieval
Italy, Journal of the American Musicological Society 61 (2008): 253306; Kate van Orden,
Childrens Voices: Singing and Literacy in Sixteenth-Century France, Early Music History
25 (2006): 20956; Susan Boynton and Eric Rice, eds., Young Choristers 6501750 (Wood-
bridge, UK: Boydell, 2008). For a more comprehensive listing of such sources consult the
MIML database described below.
3. MIML: Musical Instruction and Musical Learning, designed and edited by Cynthia
J. Cyrus with Susan Forscher Weiss and Russell E. Murray, Jr., and hosted by the Jean and
Alexander Heard Library at Vanderbilt University: http://miml.library.vanderbilt.edu/
(first posted April 2006).
Perspective 1
 1
Some Introductory Remarks
on Musical Pedagogy%
JAMES HAAR

It is a privilege and a pleasure to be asked to open a volume such as this; so I

thought when I was invited to write this piece, and so I still think. But when
I sat down to begin writing these remarks I realized, after some stale and un-
profitable early attempts, that it might be something of a chore as well. Even
before looking at the range of subject matter in the titles of this volume, I
recognized that musical pedagogy is a large and varied field and that the Early
Modern period with its mix of medieval and classicizing elementsa mixture
so markedly characteristic of the musical artsis not short and compact but
long and untidy. How to begin a discussion of what suddenly seemed so big
and unwieldy a subject?
Several issues were paramount: terminology, in particular the word
pedagogy, and location and time frame. For a specific location I chose to
concentrate on Italy (aware that other chapters are focused on musical edu-
cation not only in Italy, but also in Germany, Spain, England, and the Low
Countries). For the former, I turned to trusted sources of etymology, such as
Greek, Latin, and English dictionaries. From the classical sources I learned
that a pedagogue was, in ancient times, a person (often a male slave) charged
with the education and governance of children, chiefly boys. Ignoring the
gender warning flags (for I knew that the education of women would fig-
4 James Haar

ure prominently in this volume), I went on to the Oxford English Dictionary,

which added that a pedagogue is a schoolmaster, teacher, preceptor (now
usually hostile, with implication of pedantry, dogmatism, or severity). The
noun pedagogy is, according to the same source, associated with introductory
training. As for music, to the ancients the word indicated lyric poetry and its
setting in song. I like this not just because the word music is Greek in origin,
nor even because the classical tradition was important in Renaissance peda-
gogy, but rather for the words relation to the Muses, to Apollonian elements
in art, and ultimately to the concept of the liberal arts within which music
was included.
There are of course many ways to define music. For this term as well as
for pedagogy we need not restrict ourselves to what the ancients, or even the
august editors of the OED, thought. I will try to avoid suggestions of hierar-
chical ranking: flute lessons, the sociological background of hip hop, and the
theoretical substratum of Ars Nova polyphony are all valid elements in musi-
cal pedagogy. What I will take from the dictionary definitions is a recognition
of the importance of providing an education in music to childrenwhich is
where I will begin my remarksas well as the validity of considering music as
a science and a liberal art, however much various cultures including our own
have, with reason, stressed the primacy of musical performance.
Training in instrumental performance was, throughout the period of our
concern here, mostly an individual practice, often a father-son relationship
that resembled guild apprenticeship. We know of many instances of the suc-
cess of this instruction, as well as occasional examplesthat of Benvenuto
Cellini is a famous oneof the resentment it caused. Playing genteel in-
struments, especially keyboards and the lute, was an instruction-aided goal
for aristocratic amateurs in what was otherwise a professional and definitely
a non-aristocratic calling. Not all or even many children were taught to play
an instrument. By comparison, a much larger number learned to sing; it is not
too much to say that instruction of the young in music centered on singing.
What did this consist of?
Fillipo Villani tells us that Francesco Landini, the greatest musician of
late fourteenth-century Florence, who was blind from early childhood, decan-
tare pueriliter capit, that is, began as a child to repeat in singing, doubtless
meaning that he learned to sing by repeating what his teacher sang to him,
perhaps simple songs but also melodic formulas such as psalm tones. Not
only the blind boy Landini but probably most children began to sing before
FIGURE 1.1. Bonaventura da Brescia, Breviloquium musicale (Brescia, 1497), sig. Aiii verso
(Bologna, Museo Internazionale, A 57).
6 James Haar

they learned to readimitating adult song in general, but under a teacher

learning the elements of trained vocal utterance as well as the basic features
of the musical system.
It seems likely that children learned to read music soon after, if not
at the same time as, they learned to read texts. Elementary musical text-
books from our period, for which I will use the frequently encountered term
cantorinothe young singerwere probably not designed to be read by the
students themselves, though older children could certainly have done so.
Their emphasis on learning about music through reading its notational sym-
bols suggests on the other hand that musical instruction stressed reading at
a very early stage. The Breviloquium musicale of Bonaventura da Brescia, first
published in 1497 and often reprinted (as Regula musicae planae), intended
by the author for the poor and simple religious but surely used for teach-
ing children, is a cantorino typical of its time, dealing with the elements of
cantus planus. It begins with the Guidonian hand, illustrated with square
notesone for each syllable on or between lines drawn on the fingers along
with clefsthe whole not only illustrating the solmization series but pre-
figuring the sta-clef system, shown at the base of the hand (see figure 1.1).
These are explained in the text but were doubtless gone over visually, with the
children tracing them on their own left hands, memorizing their sequence,
then leaving the lesson with a personal copy of the basic elements of music,
sound and sight, printed invisiblyor perhaps visibly, if they took noteson
their hands.
As the hand is further explained, clefs are defined in a way which at first
seems unnecessarily wordy but is both clear and thorough: every letter-name
is a clef identifying the note, something of importance for those who had
recently learned their letters; every separately designated clef is a fa, whether
C, F, or B; (thus the C clef indicates both C-fa and B-mi). There is no men-
tion of the G clef since it is not normally seen in plainchant. B-fa and B-mi
are separately discussed; this must have been the most dicult element in
the hand, needing repeated and varied explanation. Bonaventura shows his
erudition in a passage probably not read to children, in which he reveals that
his musical system is based on Pythagorean tuning.
Mutations, for many of us the most dicult element in the hexachordal
system, are explained in the Breviloquium musicale with admirable clarity and
economy, once again in reference to the Guidonian hand. The only normal
mutations are those to and from solmization syllables attached to the notes.
Thus G sol re ut has six possibilities: three upward (sol-re, sol-ut, re-ut) and
 Some Introductory Remarks on Musical Pedagogy 7

three down (re-sol, ut-sol, and ut-re), representing changes from natural to soft,
natural to hard, soft to hard hexachords (this last an imperfect mutation
because of its mi-fa problem) and their reverse motions. Only B-faB-mi has
no possible mutations since it represents not one but two pitches.
A discussion of intervals, taken one-by-one from unison to octave, seems
pedantic until one sees that each is illustrated by musical examples which
were doubtless written by the teacher or copied out by the students them-
selves on slates, to read and sing, learning them in the usual way by singing
scalewise successions, then unmediated intervals. Having mentioned the
solmization types of fourths and fifthsdoubtless also memorized by the
studentsBonaventura can proceed directly to the eight modes, each briefly
described and illustrated by examples calling for newly learned expertise in
singing melodies that are surprisingly full of skips and the athletic rise-and-
fall of line. He gets briefly through imperfect, perfect, and pluperfect modal
rangesmaterial that is often tedious to read but essential in learning ac-
curacy in modal identification. Bonaventuras economy does not serve him
as well in his account of modal mixture and commixture, which students
could not have grasped without further illustration.
The remainder of the Breviloquium musicale is devoted to the psalm tones,
giving their intonations, tenors, and finals, but not, oddly, their varied termi-
nations, which might have been too detailed for the purposes of an introduc-
tory book. By way of a closing statement, Bonaventura tells his students that
in chanting the Mass and Oce they should sing nocturnal Responsories
loudly to wake up the sleepy; Introits, with trumpet-like sound to get the at-
tention of the faithful; most Mass chants, calmly and smoothly. This advice,
surprising in the context of the book, is attributed to Guido dArezzo, who is
not (otherwise) known to have said anything of the kind.
Except for a few details, Bonaventuras little book aims to present the
essentials of a musical system of unchanging stabilityor at least one that
was unchanged since the time of Guido. Though directed at clerical novices
it would have served any beginners and all children, who could well have
learned to read music as they learned their letters, the local vernacular, and
basic Latin. Changes in musical style did not aect the elements of music in
the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries; but by mid-century Bonaventuras
work must have seemed out of date: reprints of it, frequent up to ca. 1540,
become rare and then stop altogether. Some idea of what was taught children
and novices toward the end of our period, however, is given by the Cantorino
of Adriano Banchieri, published in Bologna in 1622.
 Some Introductory Remarks on Musical Pedagogy 9

Much of the material in the Cantorino is, details aside, nearly the same as
that covered by Bonaventura. The two books dier in appearance mainly be-
cause Banchieri includes much more music, forming something like a pocket
Liber usualis. He uses both the four-line (red) sta and square black nota-
tion normal for printing chant (canto plano) and white mensural notation for
canto fermo. This latter, which is what his book is chiefly devoted to, is chant
which includes some figural (mensural) values and is to be regarded as the
basisliterallyfor counterpoint improvised or written over it. Counter-
point itself is not dealt with since principianti (beginners) are not ready to
deal with it.
The most striking dierence between Bonaventura and Banchieri is that
the latter substitutes for the Guidonian hand, so central to the earlier writers
pedagogical method, a shorter and simpler hand (see figure 1.2) ranging from
A re to g sol re ut, fourteen notes in place of the classic twenty. Banchieri,
citing the Aristotelian axiom that it is idle to do with more what can be done
equally well with less, says rather surprisingly that the full Guidonian hand
is needed for study of canto figurato, counterpoint with its four vocal ranges;
the shortened diagram includes the total compass of the eight modes, all that
is necessary for those singing in unison (and for children, he might but does
not add, singing at the octave). It is clear, though he does not say so, that for
Banchieri the octave modal scales are more important than the hexachords,
even though he maintains the use of Guidonian solmization.

"

Instruction at a more advanced musical level must have taken various forms,
often perhaps consisting of individual tutelage. It surely included counter-
point and details of the mensural system, the latter probably taught after
many of them were no longer in use. If the teacher was an active composer,
his pupils may have been, at least in an informal sense, apprentices. One
wonders whether a composer as prolific and in-demand as Orlando di Lasso
might at times have had a small workshop, members of which could have

FIGURE 1.2. ( facing) Adriano Banchieri, Cantorino, utile a novizzi, a Chierici secolari e
regolari, principianti del Canto Fermo alla Romana (Bologna, 1622), 26 (Bologna, Museo
Internazionale, C 74).
10 James Haar

written bits and pieces of music, even an occasional motet pars or Magnificat
verse, done in imitation of the masters style and forming part of his published
work. At any rate, composition was surely undertaken through study and,
in a hopeful sense, emulation of real music.
Manuscript and, beginning in the closing years of the fifteenth century,
printed treatises emphasizing or at least including substantial sections de-
voted to practical music could certainly take a student to the point of begin-
ning to compose. The books would have been particularly useful if they were
in the hands of capable and experienced teachers. Gauriuss Practica musicae
was one of the most successful of these books, far more widely read than were
his volumes devoted to musical theory, the science of music. Books on the
latter subject did, however, continue to be read and to be written. Whether or
not they were used by university students, as fourteenth-century music trea-
tises certainly were, there was a market for instructional books dealing with
ancient and modern theoretical issues. I would like very much to dwell on this
category of musical pedagogy, which is not as much studied as it deserves to
bebut space does not permit.
By the mid sixteenth century writers on music were combining theo-
retical and practical elements into single works. Notable examples are the
Dodecachordon (1547) of the Swiss musical humanist Glareanus, using ancient
Greek theory to justify an expansion of the traditional modal system; the
Antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica (1555) of Nicola Vicentino, with
its adaptation of the classical Greek genera to modern polyphony; and, most
influential of all, the Istitutioni harmoniche (1558) of the Venetian Gioseo
Zarlino, which might be subtitled The importance of the senario (that is,
the series one-to-six) in the theory and practice of music. Students in the
field that has come to be known as history of theory have paid close atten-
tion to the theoretical novelties in these works, but far more notice has been
taken of their sometimes more conventional practical contents. I think this
emphasis is misplaced, resulting in a superficial view of the musical thought
of the periodbut that too is a subject for a dierent study.
Zarlino was the dominant figure in later sixteenth-century writing on
music, but his careful balance between theory and practice was gradually
lost as theorists either specialized more or else aimed at encyclopedic uni-
versality, while the rapid and dramatic changes in musical style in the period
began to preoccupy writers of practical musical texts to an increasing extent.
Some were content to produce tame digests of Zarlinos work; others turned
to handbooks of vocal and instrumental performance, emphasizing the ap-
 Some Introductory Remarks on Musical Pedagogy 11

parently growing richness and popularity of ornamental passaggi. A few

chose to write large books incorporating rules and instructive language into
a discursive, sometimes almost conversational framework, mixing axiomatic
material with anecdotes and personal opinions. This can sometimes lead to
tedious verbosity but it can also be surprisingly rewarding, like the post-lesson
conversation of a garrulous but experienced and informed teacher. In this
category the longest and in some ways most remarkable work of musical peda-
gogy is Cerones El melopeo y maestro (1613). I find this sort of book at once
tiresome and fascinating. For our subject it has the potential for providing in-
formation that humanizes and enriches pedagogy as no formally constituted
textbook can. The rest of these remarks will be devoted to an examination of
another such idiosyncratic book, the Prattica di musica of Lodovico Zacconi
(1592).
Zacconi (15551627) was born and died in Pesaro on the Adriatic coast
of central Italy. He joined the Augustinian order and became a priest, but
seems to have taken frequent leaves from his ecclesiastical duties. He spent
six years in Venice, and shorter periods in Mantua, at a Habsburg court in
Graz, and Munich, where he knew Lasso in the closing years of the latters
life. He learned to play the organ, to sing polyphonic music, and to play the
lute and gamba, but probably did not advance beyond amateur status as a
performer. He may have studied with Andrea Gabrieli and Ippolito Baccusi,
but seems to have written music only for didactic purposes. He was not a
trained linguist nor a creative thinker, and he seems to have avoided the whole
field of musica theorica. We might define him as a reasonably well-informed
observer of the musical life of his time, with a notable interest in the history
of music through the whole of the sixteenth century, and possessing enough
competence to enable him to make his way professionally at a modest level.
Neither composer nor virtuoso performer nor creative theorist, he might in
brief be summed up as a musicologist avant la lettre. What sets Zacconi apart
is his urge to communicate everything he has learned about music, and his
ability to do so in unusually vivid language. His treatise is uneven in quality
and untidy in organization; but if one reads him with a certain patience there
are many rewards on the way.
Books II through IV of the Prattica are relatively orderly, dealing re-
spectively with the mensural system, proportions, and the twelve modes or
tuoni harmonialithe latter not to be confused, says Zacconi, with the eight
psalm tones, which he calls aeri da salmeggiare. These topics correspond
with books II, IV, and I of Gauriuss Practica musicae, whose third book is
12 James Haar

devoted to counterpoint. Reading Zacconis Prattica back-to-front, then, one

would expect the first book to be about counterpoint, possibly prefaced by a
brief introduction on the origin and powers of music. This turns out not to
be the case, though polyphonic music is what Zacconi is focused on. The first
book is instead concerned with teaching his readers, who presumably knew
the most basic elements of music but might need a review, how to become
better musicians and more literate composers. In this respect, his book is on
the one hand unique, and on the other is allied with the cantorino tradition;
in any event it merits closer inspection here.
The intensely personal tone of Zacconis writing is apparent from the
start. In the first five chapters (fols. 15) he spends more time explaining why
he is writing the book than laying out its subject matter. Zacconi has seen too
many people departing from the rules and correct paths of music; he aims to
keep his readers on the right track. Disposing of Boethian cosmic theory in a
couple of sentences, he announces a presupposition that sounding music
will be his theme. There are for Zacconi two kinds of music, canto chorale or
plainchant, and canto figurale or mensural polyphony; only the second is to
be considered. Mensural theory is indeed treated, in the second book; coun-
terpoint is notat least, not in any systematic way. A kind of explanation for
this is given in chapter 4 (fols. 3v4v), in which Zacconi defines some terms
as he means to use them. A theorico, formerly one devoted to the science of
harmonics, is now one who has mastered the science of composition; only
if he sings is he also a musico. A prattico arranges notes, prepares music on
the written page, becoming a musico if he performs it as well. A cantore sings,
reading but not composing or writing music. Thus his Prattica di musica (chap.
5, fols. 4v5) is to be a study of music as it has been written according to es-
tablished rule; though touching on the activities of composer and singer, it is
neither a counterpoint treatise nor a singing manual.
In these early chapters Zacconi appears undecided as to what this first
book should actually be, veering between the personal communication he
obviously enjoys writing, and more orthodox introductory content. Thus
chapters 6 through 8 (fols. 57) describe music as the sole art dedicated to
pleasing people, producing only good eects and hence attractive both to its
practitioners and its listeners. Giving one of what is to be a whole series of
yanks at his authorial helm, he turns in chapter 9 to listing theorists described
as antichi, with expected names such as Pythagoras, Boethius, and St. Au-
gustine. Composers designated as antichi are, surprisingly, not Orpheus or
Terpander but the following: Jusquino, Giovan Motton, Brumello, Henricus
 Some Introductory Remarks on Musical Pedagogy 13

Isaac, Lodovico Senfelio (fol. 7). Following them is a list of vecchi, two of
whom were still alive when Zacconi was writing: Adriano Vuilarth, Morales,
Ciprian Rore, il Zerlino, il Palestina. No theorists contemporary with these
composers are mentioned. The next three chapters contrast the music of the
antichi, depending for its eect on the invention and artistic use of fughe,
that is, imitative procedures, with the vecchi, who added to this some new
vaghezzenot defined, but presumably new harmonic color and, as Zacconi
later makes clear, the use of ornamental passaggi. At this point no moderni are
named or described, but we may assume that they carried on and developed
modern charms without sacrificing contrapuntal skills; despite his admira-
tion of contemporary vaghezze, Zacconi remains essentially conservative in
outlook. But in his view people must move with the times; thus, even singers
can no longer be called good just by being secure: they must sing con gratia,
& accentuatamente, that is, using the techniques and styles already in practice,
and to be demonstrated in print in a few years time, of Giulio Caccini.
Zacconis lists of composers have been noted by a number of scholars.
Though not exceptional in themselves, they cannot be dismissed as mere
name-dropping. Throughout the Prattica Zacconi cites, often including mu-
sical examples, the work of many of the composers on his lists, going as far
back as the contents of Petruccis Odhecaton and ranging from small details
to a complete Mass, Palestrinas Missa Lhomme arm, published in 1570.
Whether he owned a number of music prints, ranging from the beginnings of
printed polyphony to his own time, we cannot be sure and may be entitled to
doubtsurely Zarlino, for example, had much greater ready access to music,
though in comparison to Zacconi he cites it more sparingly. But Zacconi
surely saw a lot of music, and he may have copied out many passages which
struck his fancy, holding them available for later use. In paying real and
respectful attention to the music of several generations of earlier composers,
Zacconi, who clearly thought that one must understand the past for its own
sake and in order to grasp fully the achievements of the present, qualifies as a
pedagogue of a historical breadth and generosity that is unusual in his time.
A series of short chapters (1316, fols. 89v) is devoted to another change
of direction, to what Zacconi calls the intrinsic and extrinsic eect of music.
In a passage of extraordinary acuity (chap. 13, fols. 88v), he says that the in-
trinsic quality of music is the arrangement of numeri sonori (a Zarlinian term)
in the mind of the composer. It becomes extrinsic after it is written down,
and hence can be seen by others, and even more so when it is performed, and
thus heard by others; but the piece as imagined by the composer is a thing
14 James Haar

apart from its performance. Though he occasionally criticizes composers as

a class, Zacconi clearly respected and perhaps came close to idolizing them;
he took to a new degree the respect for the composer that is evident in the
work of Glareanus and Zarlino, and wanted to inculcate this admiration in
his readers.
For music to become extrinsic in the first degree, it had to be notated.
Zacconi is full of admiration for the notational system of his time; indeed his
whole pedagogical method is based on notation. He would like to have given its
history, but here his limited knowledge restricted him to a few remarks (chaps.
1516) about early notational signs and the achievements of Guido dArezzo.
A rather disappointing set of chapters on the scientia of music follows (chaps.
1722, fols. 9v12v). By scientia he does not mean the old Quadrivial science of
music, explicitly kept out of his book, but rather a kind of expertise and refine-
ment in both composition and performance. Zacconi cannot find language
for generalizing about this subject, the acquisition of compositional and vocal
technique, though he can see and hear its successful results. The best he can
recommend here is discovery of the good through trial and error, followed by
a stern rejection of the bad. As we shall see, he does better when speaking of
observable detail in the making and performing of music.
Chapter 23 (fols. 12v13v) returns once more to ancient music and its
inventors, vigorously dismissed as fable, proceeding dalle cose incognite all
occulte; & dalle dubbiose all oscure. In ancient times, people may have sung
poetry in an artless way, like modern shepherds in the fields or those who sing
Dante, Petrarch, and Ariosto in the streets. Real music, meaning mensural
polyphony, is not known to be older than the time of Ockeghem, who is said
to be Josquins teacher. Enough of this nonsense! says Zacconi, it is time to
begin discussing the music of today.
In chapter 24 (fols. 13v15) Zacconi does indeed beginand at the begin-
ning. Guidos innovations are again mentioned, as is his invention of the hand
for pedagogical use, so that not only men but even children have been able
to learn. We turn the page to find the hand (see figure 1.3), and indeed the
very hand used by Bonaventura da Brescia a hundred years earliernot, of
course, printed from the same woodblock but identical in all but the tiniest
details. Like Banchieri, Zacconi finds the hand suitable for the study of po-
lyphony with its four vocal ranges. At this point a series of chapters, really a
cantorino for adults, describes the elements of music: sta, clefs, metric signs,
notes, rests, dotsall necessary elements of music; buone voci, vaghi accenti,
FIGURE 1.3. Ludovico Zacconi, Prattica di musica, utile et necessaria si al compositore
per comporre i canti suoi regolarmente, si anco al cantore per assicurarsi in tutte le cose
cantabile (Venice, 1596), vol. I, chap. 24, fol. 14v (Newark, University of Delaware
Library Special Collections).
16 James Haar

belle pronuncie, & glornamenti are not necessary (nor are they notated), but
they add to the charm of music and the repute of performers. For the mo-
ment we will skip past these pages to chapter 59 (fols. 5151v), titled Del novo
& moderno modo dinsegnare a cantare. Zacconi begins by arming the use
of the complete hand for learning about polyphony and how to compose. For
those who simply want to learn to sing, all that is needed are the seven letters
AG, still bearing their solmization syllables. Each type of voice learns a
single octave: bass, Aa; tenor, cc'; alto, aa'; soprano, c'c''. Familiarity with
the octave above or below ones range allows for singing melodies exceeding an
octave. This, it is said, can be learned quickly and easily. Zacconis innovation
seems to me less good than that of Banchieri, which is designed to accom-
modate the eight modes (see above). Its implied though unstated novelty is
that it emphasizes octaves over hexachords (as well as the linkage, observable
in traditionally scored polyphony, between bass and alto, tenor and soprano).
The Guidonian hand was not yet cut o, but by 1590 it was clearly beginning
to tremble.
In recounting the elements of music Zacconi connects them all with no-
tation, trying to show its rationalityone might almost say its inevitability.
Everything has a reason, and Zacconi adduces reasons almost as if answering
questions from a child. Why, for instance, does the sta have five lines, or
strings (corde)? Because this number will accommodate an eight-note scale
(scala); notice the renewed stress on the octave (chap. 26, fols. 15v16). How
many clefs are there, and why are they drawn the way they are? Three, one
for each location (F, C, G) of ut; since they must be placed on a string, not a
(passive) space, they must make their precise location clear, and are drawn ac-
cordingly (chap. 27, fols. 16v18). The nature and meaning of mensural indica-
tions and the primacy and meaning of Tempo (c, C) are thoroughly addressed
(chaps. 2833, fols. 1822); Zacconi carefully avoids comparing real and rela-
tive time, and relegates triple time to the category of proportionsmore signs
of incipient modernity.
Turning to notes, Zacconi shows the eight mensural valuesmaxima to
semicroma (chaps. 3435, fols. 2224)and dwells on their use in filling out
the tempo or tactus (tatto). The hexachord syllables when sung turn written
notes, silent if unaccompanied by language, into figures filled with sound;
like an alphabet, they suce for all of music (chaps. 3840, fols. 2627v).
Zacconi seems curiously unconcerned about mutations, merely pointing out
that to obtain an octave one just blends hexachords. This may be a sign that
he was tiring of cantorino simplicity; though he explains dots and rests (chaps.
 Some Introductory Remarks on Musical Pedagogy 17

FIGURE 1.4. Ludovico Zacconi, Prattica di musica, utile et necessaria si al compositore

per comporre i canti suoi regolarmente, si anco al cantore per assicurarsi in tutte le cose
cantabile (Venice, 1596), vol. I, chap. 55, fol. 44 (Newark, University of Delaware
Library Special Collections).

4142, 47, fols. 27v28v, 3436), he begins to move into more advanced ter-
ritory, introducing ligatures, full and half coloration, and minor color (chaps.
4346, fols. 28v34).
What Zacconi wants to turn to, as book I proceeds, is how singers can
use mastery of the elements of musicchiefly, musical notationto achieve
good eects. Thus in speaking of B fa-mi (chaps. 4851, fols. 3640v) he begins
at the beginning but moves into more interesting territory, showing among
other things where E la-mi in a piece with a flat signature is sung fa, and where
mi. Zacconi mentions sadness and happiness as polarities in musical expres-
sion, but although he says that flats produce dolcezza, and naturals asprezza,
he does notI repeat, does notequate minor and major (these terms are
not so much as mentioned) with sadness and joy.
An excursus on the diesis, with a Marchettan third-of-tone interval and
ventures into the chromatic and enharmonic genera (chaps. 5051, fols. 38v
40v), taking on Vicentino and Zarlino as it goes, is not very felicitous. Here
Zacconi may have been out of his depth. More successful, if at the same time
another abrupt change of direction, is a chapter on syncopation (chap. 52,
fols. 40v41v). In avuncular fashion, Zacconi cautions inexperienced sing-
ers not to try figure sincopate alone; they will at first need to sing them con
una forza accentuate until they feel more secure and can proceed smoothly.
18 James Haar

This, like many of Zacconis scattered observations, is all but timeless in

character.
There follows a series of chapters on diculties a singer may encounter:
odd rhythms, such as sudden short bursts of triplets, illustrated by a clutch
of examples from Josquin, Isaac, Obrecht, and Layolle (chap. 53, fols. 4243);
abrupt mi-fa successions, and extravagant melodic leaps, with examples rang-
ing from Josquin to Giaches Wert (chap. 54, fols. 4344); odd passages us-
ing small note values and rests, before which il timido e poco sicuro cantore si
spaventa (chap. 55, fol. 44). More dicult than all of these can be passages
written contra tatto (against the tactus). Zacconi provides one, presumably of
his own composition, challenging singers to get it right. I give it to the reader
(see figure 1.4) to try, barring it by the semibreve and remembering that it
must come out in complete semibreves.
Zacconi moves into still more dicult problems, including performance
of canons whether or not provided with resolutions (chap. 56, fols. 44v47)
and compositions that can be inverted, retrograded, or aected by propor-
tional signs (chap. 57, fols. 4750v), creating complexities that can often bead
the brow of even a good singer.
Perhaps judging at this point that his readers might be getting discour-
aged, Zacconi says that everyone is inclined by nature to sing; but as with
learning to speak well, one has to learn to sing harmoniously and in company
(chap. 58, fol. 50v). The first step is to learn the letter names and solmization
syllables according to Zacconis new method (chap. 59, fols. 5151v; see above).
Next, one should copy out ascending and descending scales, practicing mu-
tations on them (chap. 60, fols. 51v53v). Here we see Zacconi, clearly not a
master of organization, reverting to the cantorino level.
Who should become a singer? In chapters 61 and 62 (fols. 53v55v), Zac-
coni tells us that singers should be refined, gentle young peoplechiefly
male. The old should give it up unless they are composers or others who are
learned in music. Women should be trained to sing rarely and only in or-
der to praise God. It might be prudent to refrain from editorializing here; I
would only remind my readers that Zacconi was a cleric who was active at the
full tide of the Catholic Reformation. He concludes the chapter by advising
singers not to use facial and bodily gestures, to avoid an artificial tremolo and
anything suggesting showing-o or disapproval of other singers.
Chapters 64 and 65 (fols. 5758) deal with how singers should deliver the
text. Here Zacconi shows a lack of interest in the sets of rules given by other
sixteenth-century theorists such as Zarlino. He contents himself with what
 Some Introductory Remarks on Musical Pedagogy 19

was, for his time, a commonsense piece of advice: singers should enunciate
text as if they were reading it aloud.
Most of the remainder of book I is devoted to improvised ornamental
passaggi or the art of gorgia (chap. 63, fols. 55v57; chap. 66, fols. 5876; chaps.
7778, fols. 82v83v). Zacconi, one of the first to write on this practice, gives
page after page of examples, apologizing for their primitive character as he
does so and dropping a number of helpful hints: stay in time; practice for-
mulas on the five vowels; learn to execute a succinto & vago vibrato, and then
apply it in all passaggi; share use of gorgia among voice parts.
Zacconi manages to cram a few more admonitions and bits of advice into
miscellaneous chapters as book I draws to a close. Among the more interest-
ing is a list of qualities a maestro di cappella must have: he should know the
modes or tuoni; he must hear errors and identify and correct the oending
voices; and, most importantly, he must keep the tactus even (chap. 67, fols.
7677). In the midst of this Zacconi lets fall the extraordinary, dare I say
prescient, remark that ordinary musicians are often better at all of this than
are composers, who sometimes have a kind of durezza or grossezza that keeps
them from hearing acutely.
Pausing to speak of what kind of voices produce the best musical results
(chap. 68, fols. 7778), Zacconi says he prefers the voce di petto or chest tone
to the voce di testa or head tone, in what seems to me a quite early use of voice
teachers language. He mentions the voce obtusa, one that does not speak
clearly, as unfortunately common in untrained singers but occasionally use-
ful to lend balance (one wonders what size choir Zacconi was thinking of).
Avoid singers who are falsi (untrue) in pitchespecially those who go flat.
As maestro (chap. 69, fols. 7878v), give your singers the final and principal
notes of the mode before starting, since a good beginning is vital and one does
not want there to be a bisogna di ritornar da comminciare (need to go back and
begin again). When starting a new piece (in, say, the same mode as the one
just finished), raise or lower the pitch so as to make a fresh start. Do not let
the singers shout, when they are performing in church. Again it can be hard
to remember that all of this was written more than four hundred years ago.
Zacconi has more to say, but his remarks become increasingly disjointed;
he appears to sweep up the workroom floor as he brings the first book to a
close. And I must similarly bring my remarks to a close; but just as Zacconi
reminds his readers that there are a lot of good things to come in his three
remaining books, so I urge you all to stay attentive as you read the many in-
teresting studies that follow this brief introduction.
20 James Haar

NOTES
1. A Lexicon Abridged from Liddell and Scotts Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clar-
endon Press, 1958), 511; John T. White, The White Latin Dictionary (Chicago: Follett, 1955),
s.v. pedagogus.
2. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 3rd edition (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1964), s.v. pedagogue.
3. See the thoughtful entry on the word, by Bruno Nettl, in The New Grove Diction-
ary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edition, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 2001) 17:
32537. Curiously, the New Grove contains no entry on pedagogy, musical or otherwise.
4. Benvenuto Cellini, Opere, ed. Bruno Maier (Milan: Rizzoli, 1968), Vita I, chap.
5: 55: Cominci mio padre ansegnarmi sonare di flauto e cantare di musica; e con tutto
che let mia fussi tenerissima . . . io ne avevo dispiacere inistimabile, ma solo per ubbidire
sonavo e cantavo.
5. Philippi Villani, De origine civitatis Florentie et de eiusdem famosis civibus, ed. Giu-
liano Tanturli (Padua: Antenore, 1997), 150. Cited by Alessandra Fiori, Francesco Landini
(Palermo: Epos, 2004), 24.
6. Two facsimiles exist: Regula musica plana (Milan: Bollettino Bibliografico Musicale,
1936); Regula musica plana (New York: Broude Brothers, 1973). An English translation by
Albert Seay was published in 1979; see Bonaventura da Brescia, Rules of Plain Music (Colo-
rado Springs: Colorado College). For reprints of Bonaventuras volume, see ke Davidsson,
Bibliographie der musiktheoretischen Drucke des 16. Jahrhunderts (Baden-Baden: Heitz, 1962),
1718. Davidsson (pp. 1022) lists an often-reprinted book called Musices compendium ad
faciliorem instructionem cantum choralem discantium . . . qui Cantorinus intitulata (Venice:
Simon de Luere, 1509).
7. Seay, Rules of Plain Music, 9. Bonaventura is author of a longer treatise, the Brevis
Collection Artis Musicae, ed. Albert Seay (Colorado Springs: Colorado College, 1980).
8. In many respects, Bonaventuras method here and elsewhere is close to that of
Franchinus Gauriuss Practica musicae (Milan: Ioannes Petrus de Lomatio, 1496), book I.
Both Gaurius and Bonaventura depend ultimately on the work of Marchettus of Padua
(Lucidarium, ca. 13171318).
9. Bonaventura gives the number of notes above and below the chorda, a tone a third
above each modal final, as a determinant of plagal versus authentic (Seay, Rules of Plain
Music, 26). This seems to be an early reference to terminology that is usually associated
with mid sixteenth-century theorists such as Glareanus.
10. Seay, Rules of Plain Music, 22526.
11. Adriano Banchieri, Cantorino, utile a novizzi, a Chierici secolari e regolari, princi-
pianti del Canto Fermo alla Romana (Bologna: Heredi di Bartol[omeo] Cochi, 1622; facs.
Bologna: Forni, 1980). In his preface, Banchieri says that he compiled the book for use of
members of his Olivetan order, but decided farne alcune copie per uso universale di qual
si voglia giovinetto Religioso principiante.
12. Banchieris Il principiante fanciullo (Venice: Bartolomeo Magni, 1625), which I have
not seen, might make an interesting to comparison with his Cantorino.
13. Banchieri, Cantorino, 26; see pp. 2730 for his explanation of the system.
14. Banchieri adds the seventh syllable ba-bi in his Cartella musicale (Venice: Giacomo
Vincenti, 1614).
15. For an example, see James Haar, Lessons in Theory from a Sixteenth-Century
Composer, in Altro Polo: Essays on Italian Music in the Cinquecento, ed. Richard Charteris
(Sydney: Frederick May Foundation, 1990), 5181.
16. An occasional single piece ascribed to a little-known musician shows up in Lasso
prints. Lasso himself may have written at least one madrigal for a volume by one of his teach-
 Some Introductory Remarks on Musical Pedagogy 21

ers in Italy. See James Haar, A Madrigal falsely ascribed to Lasso, Journal of the American
Musicological Society 28 (1975): 12629.
17. Zarlino did write several essentially theoretical works (Dimostrazioni harmoniche,
1571; Sopplimenti musicali, 1588). Zarlinos senario, the numbers 1 to 6, includes the Pythago-
rean ratios 2:1 (octave), 3:2 (fifth), 4:3 (fourth), plus two others: 5:4 (major third) and 6:5
(minor third) in a system of just intonation.
18. For Zarlinos influence on other theorists, a subject that to my knowledge has not
been studied thoroughly, see Claude Palisca, Zarlino, New Grove Dictionary, 27: 753. On
manuals dealing with the art of passaggi see Howard Mayer Brown, Embellishing Sixteenth-
Century Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), esp. viixiv.
19. Gary Towne surveys many aspects of Cerone as teacher in his contribution to this
volume (chap. 16). Cerone, who was active in Spain and Italy, also wrote an elementary book,
Le regole pi necessarie per lintroduttione del canto fermo (Naples: Gio. Battista Gargano e
Lucretio, 1609).
20. Ludovico Zacconi, Prattica di musica, utile et necessaria si al compositore per comporre
i canti suoi regolarmente, si anco al cantore per assicurarsi in tutte le cose cantabile (Venice: Gi-
rolamo Polo, 1592; repr. Bartolomeo Carampello, 1596). In 1622 Zacconi published a seconda
parte of the Prattica (Prattica di musica seconda parte. Divisi, e distinti in Quattro Libri [Ven-
ice: Alessandro Vicenti, 1622]), concerned chiefly with new developments in counterpoint.
Both volumes are available in facsimile (Bologna: Forni, 1967). I should note that Russell
Murray has recently worked on anecdotal aspects of Zacconis work, concentrating on the
seconda parte (1622) of the Prattica. He delivered a paper on this subject at the 1999 annual
meeting of the American Musicological Society in Kansas City; and see also his contribution
to the present volume, Zacconi as Teacher: A Pedagogical Style in Words and Deeds.
21. On Zacconi see Gerhard Singer in The New Grove Dictionary, 27: 707708. Infor-
mation about him is derived mostly from an unpublished autobiography that survives in
Pesaro (Bibl. Oliveriani, MS 563). For a summary of this work, see Friedrich Chrysander,
Lodovico Zacconi als Lehrer des Kunstgesanges, Vierteljahrsschrift fr Musikwissenschaft
7 (1891): 33796; 9 (1893): 249310; 10 (1894): 53167. See specifically 10 (1894): 53349 for
the biographical information.
22. Zacconi, Prattica (1592), IV, chap. 16 (fols. 202v203).
23. Gauriuss Practica musicae, nearly one hundred years old by the time Zacconi
wrote, was still influential; Zacconi had surely read it. He must also have read Zarlino,
whom he had met (and was not well received by) in Venice; but for him Zarlino was prob-
ably a rival rather than a model.
24. Zacconi, Prattica (1622), IV, chap. 23 (p. 278) mentions with favor Monte and Mar-
enzio, whom he must have considered as moderni even though both were dead well before
1622.
25. Zacconi, Prattica (1592), I, chap. 12 (fol. 8): Per il che possiamo senzaltra conclu-
dere, che essendo i cantori quelli i quali con le buone Musiche raddoppiano gleetti che
essendo le Musiche moderne fatte con buonissimo regole, & cantate da buonissimi cantori,
patroni de gli accenti vaghi, & delle gratiose maniere, che le habbiano molto piu forza che
non haveano lantiche gi che i cantori di quel tempo, non attendevano ad altro che a cantar
bene le loro cantilene, & a non fallarle: perche in quello consisteva tutto il loro honore, & la
lor gloria: come anco hoggi giorno la gloria, & lhonore di un buon cantore non solo consiste
nellesser sicuro cantante: ma anco nel cantar con gratia, & accentuatamente.
26. For the reference to the Odhecaton, see Zacconi, Prattica (1592), I, chap. 79 (fols.
83v84). The Palestrina mass is given in full (except for the Patrem), with resolution of the
tenors prolatio notation, in vol. II, chap. 38 (fols. 115v122).
27. Zacconi, Prattica (1622), III, chap. 33 (pp. 16162), recommends this practice of
scoring and copying such passages into notebooks as useful for aspiring musicians. See
22 James Haar

James Haar, A Sixteenth-Century Attempt at Music Criticism, Journal of the American

Musicological Society 36 (1983): 19798.
28. Zacconi, Prattica (1592), I, chap. 24 (fol. 14): Per volendoli ogni dicult torre
simagin che con questo modo, non solo gli huomini fatti; ma gli fanciulli ancora lhave-
riano potuta imparare.
29. Returning to the subject of mutations later in the same book (chap. 60, fols. 51v
53v), Zacconi is still casual about them, although he does give some useful examples.
30. Zacconi, Prattica (1592), I, chap. 55 (fol. 44).
31. . . . fanno assai volte sudar la fronte a qualche buon cantore (fol. 47).
32. Chrysander, Lodovico Zacconi, 33796, focuses on Zacconis gorgia (see note
20, above, for a full citation).
33. Zacconi, Prattica (1592), I, chap. 67 (fol. 76): E ben vero che uno piu dall altro ha
ludito pronto & acuto, che per si vede challe volte anco chi non compone rimette prima di
un compositore; ma quella tanta grossezza dudito che si chiama durezza in chi compone, si
parte dal proprio naturale, et da glascoltanti piu tosto vien giudicata ignoranza.
 Part One

Medieval Pedagogy$
 2
Guido dArezzo, Ut queant laxis,
and Musical Understanding+
DOLORES PESCE

"

Guido dArezzo (b. ca. 991/2; d. after 1033) is associated with the invention of
a singing method that uses the syllables ut, re, mi, fa, sol, and la, a method we
now call solmization. In our modern application of this concept, we sing a new
melody using the text syllables themselves. Is that what Guido intended? How
did a singer in Guidos time use this device? Were older methods of learning
discarded?
My purpose in this essay is to examine what Guido actually said about
solmization syllables in his Epistola ad Michahelem (Letter to Michael), to
speculate on what he left unsaid, and ultimately to shed light on what musi-
cal understanding meant to him. Simply put, the syllables, viewed in the
context of their self-contained six-note segment, embody all essential pitch
principles. In directing his singers to internalize the proprietas or property
of every pitch by means of this vehicle, Guido called into play both sensory
perception and intellect.
Boethius had defined a musicus as someone who understood the prin-
ciples of music and who could judge composition and performance, while a
performer was a mere practitioner. This distinction was carried over into
mid-ninth-century Carolingian writings, but with some ambiguity. Because
the Church needed performers of chant (i.e., cantors), performance could no
26 Dolores Pesce

longer be relegated to a second seat. Given his task, Guido had little use for
the speculative inquiries of the musicus, for he needed to train boys to sing
chant as eciently as possible. As a result, understanding had to serve the
act of singing.
Guido wrote four treatises: the Micrologus (after 1026), the Regule, the
Prologus (a prologue to an antiphoner), and the Epistola (before 1033). He
used the Latin word sensus only twice, once in the Micrologus and once in
the Prologus. The Prologus passage is relevant for this study: In our times, of
all men, singers are most foolish. For in every art, exceedingly more numer-
ous are the things that we learn through our sensus than those that we have
learned from a teacher (Prologus, 13). Sensus has a range of lexical meanings,
divided roughly into the categories of corporeal and mental, with the latter
being further subdivided into moral and intellectual. The moral aspects do
not seem relevant to the present discussion. Appropriate translations for the
corporeal are perception, feeling, sensation, and for the intellectual aspect
of the mental, sense, understanding, mind, reason. Although Guidos use
of sensus in the Prologus does not clearly indicate the roles of feeling versus
thinking, the Regule (ll. 810) contain other relevant evidence:

Great is the gap between musicians and singers;

the latter talk about what music comprises, while the former understand
these things.
For he who does what he does not understand is termed a beast.

So, Guido clearly derided a singer who remained the unknowing cantor.
He wanted a singer to be independent of a teacher and, ultimately, to be able
to sight-sing any melody. To this end he promoted, in all four of his treatises,
notational and pitch-training devices that superseded the rote learning meth-
ods on which musicians had hitherto relied.
In his Micrologus, Regule, and Epistola, Guido stated that one must learn
the pitch system of seven letters and reinforce this with an understanding of
their location on the monochord. The next step was to learn intervals. In the
earlier two treatises, Guido said that one should hammer out the intervals on
the monochord until they are impressed on the memory. He implied that if
one has learned intervals well in the abstract, retaining them in the memory,
then the sounding of a new melody at the monochord would be consciously
or unconsciously perceived as a succession of intervals rather than of isolated
pitches, thus aiding the ear. Sensory perception rather than thinking seems
 Guido d'Arezzo, Ut queant laxis, and Musical Understanding 27

EXAMPLE 2.1. Hymn Ut queant laxis, as presented by Guido in the Epistola.

foremost in this stage of training, although Guidos wording in the Micrologus

does not rule out an intellectual component.
Guido refined his instructional method in the Epistola when he recom-
mended that one learn the proprietas or property of every tone through
an associational device such as the hymn Ut queant laxis (see example 2.1).
Ut re mi fa sol la are the respective first syllables of the first six lines of this
hymn. For each phrase one memorizes the starting pitchs propertythat
is, its quality based on the configuration of tones and semitones around it.
Then one matches a new melodic phrase to one of the hymns phrases. In so
doing, one gets ones bearings for a given tone within a nexus of tones. Thus,
learning a new song would still require memorizing its specific succession of
intervals, but now geared to a focal point. In the earlier Micrologus, Guido
certainly understood the concept of a focal point when he explained that one
could recognize a mode by hearing the tones immediately preceding the final
(chap. 11). But it was not until the Epistola that he articulated a precise and
novel approach to teaching a pitchs property.
Not incidentally, Guido no longer prescribed learning the six melodic
intervals in and of themselves on the monochord. Immediately following Ut
queant laxis, he oered a didactic exercise Alme rector (see example 2.2). It al-
lows one to practice intervals in relationship to a given tone, in a systematic
orderfor example, an ascending second, third, fourth, and fifth from D, and
so forth. Guido apparently intended this more abstract, systematic exercise
to complement the associative learning of a tones property as oered by Ut
queant laxis.
The other component of Guidos approach that solidified between the
writing of the Micrologus and the Epistola was a notation that used color to
28 Dolores Pesce

EXAMPLE 2.2. A didactic exercise Alme rector, as presented by Guido in the Epistola.

distinguish two vital pitches, F and C, both of which have a semitone below
them. These colors allow a singer to discern visually when a semitone ap-
pears in a phrase of a new melody, reinforcing his awareness of the property
of the tone that governs that phrase.
Thus, Guidos new singing method consisted of the a priori learning
of a tones property (using Ut queant laxis and Alme rector), which is then
applied by association with Ut queant laxis at the time of hearing or sight-
reading a new melody, and reinforced in the latter case by the visual aid of
colored lines. Guidos method required that a singer train his senses to per-
ceive correctly, and then reflect upon what is transmitted. Both the associa-
tive Ut queant laxis and the more abstract exercise Alme rector can instill in a
singer tone-consciousness, so that the singer can apply his previous knowl-
edge to a new situation rather than start from scratch. At the moment of
sight-reading or hearing a new song, the singer perceives and recognizes the
property of a tone and thus acts knowingly, although this knowledge is not
of the detailed acoustical-theoretical sort that was fostered by Pythagorean
writers. It arises, instead, primarily through a combination of sensory and
intellectual experiencea sensus that is both corporeal and mental. Thus,
the musicus/cantor distinction is blurred: Guidos musician is a thinking
practitioner.
Returning to example 2.1, we now explore how exactly Guido tells us to
use Ut queant laxis:
 Guido d'Arezzo, Ut queant laxis, and Musical Understanding 29

TABLE 2.1. Descents and Ascents from Each Starting Pitch of Ut queant laxis.

ut C ascent of a fourth
re D descent of a second, ascent of a second
mi E descent of a third, ascent of a third
fa F descent of a third, ascent of a third
sol G descent of a fourth, ascent of a second
la a descent of a third

And thus do you see that this melody begins in each of its six phrases with
six dierent pitches? If someone, thus trained, knows the beginning of every
phrase so that he can without hesitation immediately begin any phrase he
chooses, he will easily be able to sing the same six pitches according to their
properties wherever they appear. Also, when you hear any neume that has
not been written down, consider which of these phrases is better adapted
to its ending, so that the final pitch of the neume and the beginning of the
phrase may be of the same pitch.

Guido explicitly says: learn the phrases of the hymn, each of which
starts on a dierent pitch. Then, match the final pitch of the new melody to
the opening pitch of one of the hymns phrases. Guidos wordingconsider
which of these phrases is better adapted to the new melodys endingrests
on an assumption that one should know what goes on within the hymns
phrase, that is, how the intervals are situated around the starting pitch.
Then, given that one knows that phrase of Ut queant laxis well, one can
more easily learn the new melody, which would presumably have the same
arrangement of intervals around its final pitch. However, interpreting Guido
literally is problematic. Table 2.1 shows the actual descents and ascents from
each starting pitch of the hymn, with ut positioned on C. The phrase be-
ginning on D lacks an adequate amount of surrounding interval motion
to dierentiate it from Gboth ascend only a second, whereas it takes an
ascent of a third to distinguish them. One has to consider D in relation-
ship to the whole six-note segment (utla) in order to understand its tonal
property. Therefore, a less literal interpretation of Guidos words would be:
match the final pitch of the new melody to the opening pitch of one of the
hymns phrases because they share the same arrangement of intervals within
the six-note segment. A possible scenario in practice would be: take a new
melody that ends on D. Sing all of Ut queant laxis, then start over and stop
when you get to the first tone of the second phrase. Think about how that
tone feels or is situated with respect to the intervals around it. Now sing
30 Dolores Pesce

your new melody and make sure that it ends with the same feel. This seems
a reasonable interpretation of how Guido intended Ut queant laxis to serve
associative learning.
One can take this discussion a step further and reflect on the degree
to which Guido retained traditional associative melodies such as Primum
querite as a means of identifying the mode of a chant. To that end, a largely
undiscussed passage in the Epistola is of interest. Following the letter in which
Guido informs his friend Michael about his method of using Ut queant laxis,
we find an overview of Guidos pitch theory. After he presents intervals and
related tones, Guido takes the phrase Tu Patris sempiternus es Filus from the
Te Deum and presents it at four dierent pitch levels. He states: In accor-
dance with the fact that these pitches have a dierent arrangement of tones
and semitones, one may thus sing that melody in various modes according to
the property of every single sound.
Thus, he reintroduces proprietas or property, which he had first broached
when discussing the intervallic quality of each starting tone of the Ut queant
laxis phrases. But he has now linked that concept to mode: If one changes
a melody to a dierent pitch, one changes the proprietas, and therefore, one
changes the mode. The next connection is also of interest:

So, it ought to be considered carefully regarding every song according to

which kind of property it sounds, whether at the beginning or at the end,
although we are accustomed to speak only of the end. Certain neumes have
been invented, by whose shape we are accustomed to observe this, as for
example: Primum querite regnum Dei. Secundum autem simile est huic. For,
when after some chant has ended, you see that this neume agrees well with
that ending, you recognize at once that that chant ending is in the first
mode.

This seems to be a retreat into a tried and true method of modal recogni-
tionmatch your melody to one of the eight well-known melodic formulas
and you thus know its mode. But Guido here links the formulas to the pre-
ceding discussion of proprietas: you recognize the property of the new song
by matching up the melody with a designated melody that reveals the same
property, and in turn the mode. He thus points out a complementary rela-
tionship between this associative method of modal identification familiar to
singers and his intervallic way of thinking related to proprietas; he encourages
using the modal formulas with some recognition of the principles behind
themthat is, in an informed way.
 Guido d'Arezzo, Ut queant laxis, and Musical Understanding 31

We come full circle, then, to the issue of understanding. A Guidonian

singer would begin his interval training by gaining an aural memory of how
Ut queant laxis flows. But to use it eectively, he would have to understand its
core information: that within the totality of the six-note configuration utla,
a given tone has a contextual identitya propertythat can be abstracted
and matched to a new melody that ends on that same tone. We return to the
earlier hypothetical scenario: Take a new melody that ends on D. Sing all of
Ut queant laxis, then start over and stop when you get to the first tone of the
second phrase. Think about how that tone feels or is situated with respect
to the intervals around it. Now sing your new melody and make sure that it
ends with the same feel. Intellect and senses combine in this experience.
We can extrapolate from what Guido explicitly says to this model of musical
understanding.
One final point takes us back to the Primum querite formulas and their
lingering importance in Guidos theory within the Epistola. He had integrated
them into his theory of pitch property instead of discarding them altogether.
He could perhaps be considered conservative for doing so, but I prefer to
think of this as a practical pedagogical solution. By retaining a feature of tra-
ditional training, he was able to adapt what his singers already knew, rather
than start from scratch with a new method. Undoubtedly Guido encouraged
a greater reliance on intervallic hearing and reading in the Epistola than he
had in the Micrologus. He may have envisioned an eventual learning state in
which the melodic formulas were unnecessary. In the meantime his prefer-
ence, as expressed to Brother Michael, was that his singers use his Ut queant
laxis melody, which neatly and succinctly embodies all pitch properties in one
device. Leading to a musical understanding that is born of sensory percep-
tion and intellect, it constitutes Guidos legacy to music pedagogy up to the
present day.
In closing, I want to bring into focus how Guidos approach to informed
singing fits into the wider context of medieval speculative philosophy, for
his concerns with the senses and intellect as mutual guides to musical un-
derstanding are broadly reflective of the debates of his day. Beginning in the
ninth century and with a second wave in the eleventh, thinkers debated how
to understand the Eucharist, that is, whether the bread and wine are the body
and blood of Christ in veritate (in truth) or merely in figura (symbolically).
On one side of the argument, the physical implied the spiritual, and did not
need interpretation; Gods Word, available through Scripture, supplied the
link between the two. On the other side, some writers recognized that sen-
32 Dolores Pesce

sory data were the starting point for all genuine understanding, but that the
mind played the crucial role in reaching that understanding. So, in the case of
the Eucharist, the bread and wine are apprehended as such exteriorly by the
senses; but they assume spiritual significance as the body and blood of Christ
only interiorly, that is, the mind interprets them as symbols.
Outside the question of the Eucharist, the relative roles played by the
senses and the intellect figured in the more general discussions of language
and meaning that channeled into Abelards philosophy of language in the
twelfth century. Boethius was important to these discussions since he had
translated and commented on Aristotles De interpretatione, which, with
Boethiuss commentary, formed the basis for Abelards own commentary.
Boethius, who was known throughout the Middle Ages, comments on the
interrelationship of language with sense, imagination, and understanding.
He states:

For intellections rest on the foundation of sense and imagination, like a fully
colored painting on the backdrop of a pencil sketch. In other words, they
provide a substratum for the souls perceptions. When a thing is seized by
the sense or imagination, the mind first creates a mental image of it; later,
a fuller understanding emerges as the hitherto confused pictures are sifted
and coordinated.

He continues:

But these very products of the mind generate intellections in their wake:
For instance, if one sees a sphere or a square, one grasps its shape in the
mind. But one also reflects on the likeness while it is in the mind, and,
having experienced this mental process, readily recognizes the object when
it reappears. Every image mediated by the senses is capable of generating a
likeness of this type. The mind, when it engages in understanding, reasons
through such forms.

Boethiuss discussion resonates with the interpretation oered here of

how Guido intended his singers to reach musical understanding. Guido pro-
vided his singers with aids by which they could internalize a sense of a pitchs
proprietas or property: Ut queant laxis and Alme rector. This stage resembles
Boethiuss grasp[ing] its shape in the mind. Then, when the singer sight-
reads or hears a new song, he or she perceives and recognizes the property of
the tone on which the song ends as being similar to the property of one of the
tones that have been ingrained in the minds memory. This stage resembles
 Guido d'Arezzo, Ut queant laxis, and Musical Understanding 33

Boethiuss readily recognizing the object when it reappears, for every image
mediated by the senses is capable of generating a likeness of this type. Gui-
dos singer thus sings knowingly, fueled by a combination of sensory percep-
tion and intellect. When Guido instituted his pedagogical approach based on
Ut queant laxis, he oered for those of his time, and of the future, a concrete
realization of Boethiuss last phrase in the above citation: The mind, when it
engages in understanding, reasons through such forms.

NOTES
1. An overview of solmization is found in Andrew Hughes and Edith Gerson-Kiwi,
Solmization, in Grove Music Online. See Oxford Music Online: www.oxfordmusiconline
.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/26154 (accessed 25 September 2008).
2. Gottfried Friedlein, ed., Anicii Manlii Torquati Severini Boetii De Institutione Ar-
ithmetica Libri Duo, De Institutione Musica Libri Quinque (Leipzig: Teubner, 1867), 22325;
trans. Calvin M. Bower, in Fundamentals of Music (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1989), 5051; and in Oliver Strunk and Leo Treitler, eds., Source Readings in Music History
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 14243.
3. Guido commented in both the Micrologus and Epistola that he did not wish to pres-
ent musical matters that were of little benefit to singing. In the Micrologus, he turned to the
science of music only in the last chapter, entitled How the nature of music was discovered
from the sound of hammers. The Epistola ends with a reference to Boethius, whose book
is useful to philosophers only, not to singers. See Dolores Pesce, Guido dArezzos Regule
rithmice, Prologus in antiphonarium, and Epistola ad michahelem: A Critical Text and Trans-
lation with an Introduction, Annotations, Indices, and New Manuscript Inventories (Ottawa:
Institute of Mediaeval Music, 1999), 531.
Lawrence Gushee comments, The pragmatic emphasis of the Micrologus is not, in
my opinion, a new phenomenon, but the resolution of ambiguous views of the positions of
musicus and cantor that had existed since Aurelian at least. See his Questions of Genre
in Medieval Treatises on Music, in Gattungen der Musik in Einzeldarstellungen: Gedenk-
schrift Leo Schrade, ed. Wulf Arlt, Ernst Lichtenhahn, and Hans Oesch (Bern and Munich:
Francke, 1973), 409; see also pp. 36872, 407408. Another important study on the subject
of musicus and cantor is Erich Reimer, Musicus und Cantor: Zur Sozialgeschichte eines
musikalischen Lehrstucks, Archiv fr Musikwissenschaft 35 (1978): 332.
4. For the Micrologus, see Guido dArezzo, Micrologus, ed. Joseph Smits van Waes-
berghe, Corpus Scriptorum de Musica 4 ([Nijmegen, Netherlands]: American Institute of
Musicology, 1955); see also Hucbald, Guido, and John on Music: Three Medieval Treatises, ed.
Claude V. Palisca, trans. Warren Babb (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), 5783.
The Micrologus usage is less relevant to the present discussion: Nec mirum regulas musi-
cam a finali voce sumere, cum et in grammaticae partibus pene ubique vim sensus in ultimis
litteris vel syllabis per casus, numeros, personas, tempora discernimus (van Waesberghe,
CSM 4: 145). Sensus here seems to suggest meaning.
5. Pesce, Guido dArezzos Regule, 327403.
6. Ibid., 40535.
7. Ibid., 437531.
8. Ibid., 406407: Temporibus nostris super omnes homines fatui sunt cantores.
In omni enim arte valde plura sunt que nostro sensu cognoscimus, quam ea que a magistro
didicimus.
34 Dolores Pesce

9. Charlton T. Lewis, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 167071.

Charles Du Fresne Du Cange, Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis (Graz: Akademische
Druck-U. Verlagsanstalt, 1954) defines sensus as intellectus, while intellectus, in turn, in-
cludes sensory perception and mental understanding, as well as moral consciousness.
10. Pesce, Guido dArezzos Regule, 33033: Musicorum et cantorum magna est distan-
tia; isti dicunt, illi sciunt, que componit musica. Nam qui facit quod non sapit, dinitur
bestia.
11. Guido discusses monochord divisions and the resulting intervals in the Micrologus,
chaps. 36. In chap. 4, referring to the six intervals, his directive is: Since all melody is
formed by so few formulas [clausulae], it is most helpful to commit them firmly to memory,
and, until they are completely perceived and recognized in singing, never to stop practicing
them, since when you hold these as keys, you can command skill in singingintelligent-
ly, and therefore more easily (Babb, Hucbald, Guido, and John, 61). The original here is:
Cumque tam paucis clausulis tota harmonia formetur, utillimum est altae eas memoriae
commendare, et donec plene in canendo sentiantur et cognoscantur, ab exercitio numquam
cessare, ut his velut clavibus habitis canendi possis peritiam sagaciter ideoque facilius
possidere (van Waesberghe, CSM 4: 105106). Babb thus translates sagaciter as intel-
ligently, but its root sagax allows for quick perception by either the senses or intellect.
Guidos corresponding discussion in the Regule occurs in lines 30118; see Pesce, Guido
dArezzos Regule, 33653.
12. Pesce, Guido dArezzos Regule, 46667 and appendix C. The hymn Ut queant laxis
as Guido described it now appears in chant-books for the Nativity of St. John the Baptist on
24 June, with its phrases starting successively on the pitches C, D, E, F, G, and a. The text
was associated with eight dierent liturgical melodies through the twelfth century, but none
matches the Guidonian profile. Although there is no conclusive evidence, scholars infer that
Guido composed the melodic version of the hymn as we know it. See in particular Jacques
Chailley, Ut queant laxis et les origines de la gamme, Acta musicologica 56 (1984): 4869.
13. Pesce, Guido dArezzos Regule, 47275 and appendix C. The rubrics found next
to each phrase inform us whether or not the intervallic configuration of that particular
phrase can be found at more than one starting pitch. See discussion of related tones in
ibid., 2022.
14. Guido discussed the idea of colored notation in the Prologus; see ibid., 41831.
15. In his discussion of monochord divisions, Guido promoted a basic understanding
of string ratios. See Micrologus, chaps. 36, and 20. The Pythagorean number information
could add another level of meaning for some people and Guido acknowledged the utility of
learning it, but not in the context of singing.
16. What follows is an elaboration of ideas presented in Pesce, Guido dArezzos Regule,
1920, 2326.
17. Ibid., 46869: Vides itaque, ut hec symphonia senis particulis suis a sex diversis
incipiat vocibus? Si quis itaque uniuscuiusque particule caput ita exercitatus noverit, ut
confestim quamcumque particulam voluerit, indubitanter incipiat, easdem sex voces ubi-
cumque viderit secundum suas proprietates facile pronuntiare poterit. Audiens quoque
aliquam neumam sine descriptione, perpende que harum particularum eius fini melius
aptetur, ita ut finalis vox neume et principalis particule equisone sint.
18. Byzantine intonation formulas (enechemata), with nonsense words set to them
as identifications of the individual modes, are found in all Carolingian tonaries until the
mid-eleventh century, and in some cases as late as the twelfth. These formulas end with
long melismas on the words noenoeane for the authentic modes and noeagis for the pla-
gal modes. Model antiphons beginning Primum querite provided another way to identify
mode; of unknown origin, they were introduced with the intonation formulas and ulti-
mately displaced them. These antiphons ended with the same melismas as the intona-
 Guido d'Arezzo, Ut queant laxis, and Musical Understanding 35

tion formulas. See Michel Huglo, Tonary ( 2), in Grove Music Online. Oxford Music
Online: www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/28104 (accessed 25
September 2008).
19. Pesce, Guido dArezzos Regule, 49697: Et secundum quod ipse voces diversam
habent tonorum et semitoniorum positionem, sic variis modis secundum uniuscuiusque
proprietatem eam pronuntiet.
20.
0. Ibid., 498500: Igitur curiose est intendendum de omni melo, secundum cuiu-
smodi proprietatem sonet, sive in principio sive in fine, quamvis de solo fine dicere soleamus.
Quedam enim neume reperte sunt, quarum aptitudine hoc solemus advertere, utpote: Pri-
mum querite regnum Dei. Secundum autem simile est huic. Cum enim finito aliquo cantu
hanc neumam in eius fine bene videris convenire, statim cognoscis quia cantus ille finitus
sit in primo modo . . .
21. See Klaus-Jrgen Sachs, Tradition und Innovation bei Guido von Arezzo, in
Kontinuitt und Transformation der Antike im Mittelalter: Verentlichung der Kongreak-
ten zum Freiburger Symposion des Medivistenverbandes, ed. Willi Erzgrber (Sigmaringen:
Thorbecke, 1989), 23738. Sachs argues that, since Guido urges the singer to seek proof of
intervals through monochord measurements (in the Micrologus and Regule), he has not dis-
carded the Pythagorean tradition, but instead echoes the Boethian division into sensus and
ratio, die beiden partes iudicii der armonica vis. On the other hand, Sachs takes Guidos use
of sensus in the sentence quoted earlier from the Prologus (ll. 13) to mean an amalgamation
of the senses and intellect.
22. The Eucharistic debate between the ninth and twelfth centuries is discussed by
Brian Stock in a chapter entitled The Eucharist and Nature, in The Implications of Lit-
eracy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983). See esp. pp. 25973, where Stock discusses
two ninth-century writers, Paschasius Radbertus and Ratramnus of Corbie, who respec-
tively supported the idea of the bread and wine as a mark of truth and as a symbol.
23. The Cambridge Companion to Abelard, ed. Jerey E. Brower and Kevin Guilfoy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), includes a chapter on Abelards philoso-
phy of language, by Klaus Jacobi.
24. These translations of Boethiuss commentary on Aristotle, Commentarii in Librum
Aristotelis Peri ermeneias, are taken from Stocks chapter, Language, Texts, and Reality,
in The Implications of Literacy, 36672.
25. Mary Carruthers, in The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), discusses how a mnemonic structure can
have heuristic value as an elementary device for retaining and recollecting materials, yet
not necessarily hermeneutic value as an interpretation of their meaning. She mentions
how in the fourteenth century, Robert of Basevorn used the solmization syllables to cre-
ate a division into six of the theme Ego vox clamantis in deserto, parate viam Domini,
in which the six syllables are the first words of the six subdivisions (p. 105). According to
Carruthers, This is a most revealing application of the technique called solmization, for
it shows that Robert of Basevorn understood that the device was primarily a mnemonic,
and could thus be utilized in non-musical contexts (p. 106). The present essay argues that
Guido envisioned his syllables being used in a more meaningful way than Carrutherss
specific statement about solmization allows, because, viewed in their entirety within the six-
note segment, they embody all essential pitch principles. Carrutherss more general point
about how mnemonics work brings in the concept of likeness discussed above: rules
were thought to be, as Aristotle says, built up from repeated memories, the principle being
to recognize and organize likeness, even in things never seen before. This is not mnemonic
in the restricted sense that moderns tend to understand it, but in the larger sense of how
all learning takes place (p. 106).
36 Dolores Pesce

26. As suggested above, the written enters into this discussion of musical learning
when Guido prescribes using colored sta lines to accentuate where semitones occur in a
melodys unfolding. This visual aid reinforces a singers awareness of the property of the
tone that governs a phrase, and thus plays into the signification of tonal property. It re-
mains unclear, however, whether Guido required the written component at an early stage
of learning, or whether he may have considered the oral use of Ut queant laxis and Alme
rector to be sucient.
 3
Some Thoughts on Music
Pedagogy in the Carolingian Era%
CHARLES M. ATKINSON

Given that many musicologists hold academic positions, and given the aca-
demic culture we have all grown up in, pedagogy is a topic with which we are
all familiar. Moreover, many of the primary sources we work withespecially
if our research is oriented toward intellectual historyhave some didactic
purpose. One might therefore assume that an examination of music pedagogy
in a well-researched period such as the Carolingian era would be a relatively
easy task. That proves to be an incorrect assumption. The mere fact that one
occupies oneself with music as a part of the intellectual history of the Middle
Ages does not mean that one actually knows what was taught on that subject
in monastic and cathedral schools in the eighth and ninth centuries. We can
know what was recommended to be taught, and we can gain some idea of what
teaching materials were availablebut finding out what was actually taught
about music in Carolingian schools is no easy matter. The present study will
briefly address each of these issues in order to gain some insight into the na-
ture and character of music instruction during the Carolingian era.
Most readers of this essay will be at least somewhat familiar with what
Charlemagne and his Minister of Education, Alcuin of York (ca. 735804),
thought should be the subject matter taught in schools of the Frankish King-
dom. Two capitularies issued by Charlemagne document the importance he
38 Charles M. Atkinson

attached to the founding of schools and give us information as to their func-

tions. The first of these is the Admonitio generalis issued by Charlemagne to
the Frankish clergy in 789 (see text I).

Text I. Admonitio generalis: Et ut scolae legentium puerorum fiant. Psal-

mos, notas, cantus, compotum, grammaticam per singula monasteria
vel episcopia et libros catholicos bene emendate [thus in three MSS;
emendent in one, emendatos in ten others]; quia saepe, dum bene aliqui
[aliquid in three MSS] Deum rogare cupiunt, sed per inemendatos li-
bros male rogant. Et pueros vestros non sinite eos legendo vel scribendo
corrumpere; et si opus est euangelium, psalterium et missale scribere,
perfectae aetatis homines scribant cum omni diligentia. (Ed. Alfred
Boretius, MGH Leges II, vol. I: Capitularia Regum Francorum, no. 22,
chap. 72, p. 60.)

In its seventy-second chapter, this document states that in every monas-

tery and diocese there should be schools for teaching boys to read, and im-
plies that they should be given instruction in Psalms, written characters,
chants, calculation, and grammar (psalmos, notas, cantus, compotum, gram-
maticam). It goes on to emphasize the necessity of having accurate texts of
religious works, making the statement that catholic bookspresumably
bibles, psalters, and liturgical booksshould be carefully emended. The
importance of these books in the spiritual life of a monastery or congrega-
tion is underscored by the statement that all too often men desire to ask
some grace of God aright but ask it ill, because the books are faulty. Hence,
young clerks should not be allowed to corrupt these texts, either in reading
aloud or in copying, and the making of new copies of books such as the
evangel, psalter, or missal should be done by a grown man, not a boy, work-
ing with care.
The second Carolingian document to urge the formation of schools is the
capitulary De litteris colendis, issued circa 795. It oers an eloquent rationale
for teaching (see text II).
It has seemed to us and to our faithful councilors that it would be of great
profit and sovereign utility that the bishoprics and monasteries of which
Christ has deigned to entrust us the government should not be content
with a regular and devout life, but should undertake the task of teaching
 Some Thoughts on Music Pedagogy in the Carolingian Era 39

Text II. Karoli epistola de litteris colendis: Notum igitur sit Deo placitae
devotioni vestrae, quia nos una cum fidelibus nostris consideravimus utile
esse, ut episcopia et monasteria nobis Christo propitio ad gubernandum
commissa praeter regularis vitae ordinem atque sanctae religionis con-
versationem etiam in litterarum meditationibus eis qui donante Domino
discere possunt secundum uniuscuiusque capacitatem docendi studium
debeant impendere . . . Quamvis enim melius sit bene facere quam nosse,
prius tamen est nosse quam facere. (Ed. Alfred Boretius, Karoli epistola
de litteris colendis (780800), MGH Leges II, vol. I: Capitularia, no. 29,
pp. 7879.)

those who have received from God the capacity to learn . . . Doubtless good
works are better than great knowledge, but without knowledge it is impos-
sible to do good.

As even this brief excerpt suggests, the scope of teaching advocated in

De litteris colendis is broader than that in the Admonitio generalis. Here, the
door is opened to virtually all of ancient learning, with a more complete un-
derstanding of the Bible as the primary goal (see text III):

Text III. Karoli epistola de litteris colendis: Hortamur vos litterarum studia
non solum non negligere, verum etiam humillima et Deo placita inten-
tione ad hoc certatim discere, ut facilius et rectius divinarum scriptura-
rum mysteria valeatis penetrare. Cum autem in sacris paginis schemata,
tropi et cetera his similia inserta inveniantur, nulli dubium est quod ea
unusquisque legens tanto citius spiritualiter intellegit, quanto prius in
litterarum magisterio plenius instructus fuerit. (Ed. Alfred Boretius,
MGH Leges II, vol. I: Capitularia, no. 29, p. 79.)

We urge you not only not to neglect the study of [ancient] literature, but
indeed to learn it eagerly, with humble and devout attention to God, so that
you may be able to penetrate more easily and correctly the mysteries of the
divine scriptures. Since figures of speech, tropes and the like may be found
within the sacred pages, there can be no doubt that anyone reading them
can more quickly understand them spiritually to the extent to which he has
first been fully instructed in the mastery of [non-spiritual] literature.
40 Charles M. Atkinson

With an exhortation such as this it is hardly any wonder that Carolin-

gian schoolmasters would ultimately seize the opportunity to teach sophisti-
cated ancient works, such as the last book of Martianus Capellas De nuptiis
Philologiae et Mercurii and Boethiuss De institutione musicae. But first their
students had to learn the basics, and the most basic discipline of all was learn-
ing to read and write according to the rules of grammar.
An early medieval tract on education, De commendatione cleri, which is
preserved in the Vatican Library (Pal. lat. 1252), says that from the springtime
of his seventh year until the end of his fourteenth, when the light of reason
begins to shine, a boy should make grammar his chief object of study, with
music and arithmetic at its side. We know from Alcuins plan for the school
at Tours that it had one division for Bible study, a second for the liberal arts,
and a third devoted specifically to grammar. It thus comes as no surprise to
read what John Contreni has written about the place of grammar in Caro-
lingian education: For the sixty or so authors of the Carolingian world . . .
as well as several generations of unknown masters and their disciples, proper
use of language was paramount. To mispronounce a word in the liturgy or to
use the wrong case ending, as Gunzo of Novara learned, was to reveal oneself
as uneducated.
But one might well ask, what about the other artes, such as music? For-
tunately, we are not without resources here. We know from ninth-century
library catalogues, such as those at Reichenau and St. Gall, that monasteries
had available to them handbooks on specific disciplines, such as Donatuss Ars
grammatica and Boethiuss Arithmetica and Musica, as well as encyclopedic
works, such as Cassiodoruss Institutiones divinarum et humanarum lectionum,
Isidore of Sevilles Etymologiae, and Martianus Capellas De nuptiis Philologiae
et Mercurii. Theodulf of Orlans poem De libris quos legere solebam et quali-
ter fabulae poetarum a philosophis mystice pertractentur (ca. 800) provides an
excellent guide to the authors that were to be read in school, and Hrabanus
Mauruss De institutione clericorum (816819) is a fairly detailed handbook for
the training of clergy.
But how do we know what was actually taught in the schools? Our two
best sources of information here are first, the manuscripts that were scored
for reading aloud, as Leonard Boyle has pointed out, and secondand per-
haps most importantthose texts that received glosses or commentaries by
Carolingian schoolmasters. A third source for music would be those treatises,
such as the ninth-century Scolica enchiriadis and the early eleventh-century
 Some Thoughts on Music Pedagogy in the Carolingian Era 41

Text IV. Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, book III

(ed. Willis, p. 71):
26869: Hactenus de iuncturis; nunc de fastigio videamus. qui locus
apud Graecos PERI` PROSWDIWN appellatur. hic in tria discernitur: un-
aquaeque enim syllaba aut gravis est aut acuta aut circumflexa; et ut
nulla vox sine vocali est, ita sine accentu nulla. et est accentus, ut quidam
putaverunt, anima vocis et seminarium musices, quod omnis modula-
tio ex fastigiis vocum gravitateque componitur, ideoque accentus quasi
adcantus dictus est. omnis igitur vox Latina simplex sive composita ha-
bet unum sonum aut acutum aut circumflexum; duos autem acutos aut
inflexos habere numquam potest, graves vero saepe.

Dialogus de musica of Pseudo-Odo, that present the fundamentals of music

progressively ordered in dialogue form.
To provide some idea of what the ninth-century schoolboy might actu-
ally have heard from the Magister scholarum, I should like to discuss three
sets of glosses: two on Martianus Capella, one of which treats grammar and
one that treats harmonic theory, and one on Boethius, treating the modes.
I have chosen to present them in this order, in keeping with the chronol-
ogy presented by Marie Elizabeth Duchez. In a series of articles published
during the 1970s and 1980s, Duchez posited three stages in the reception
of ancient texts and their assimilation into musical discourse by scholars
in the Carolingian era. The first of these stages begins in the later eighth
century, with the reception of and commentary upon texts on grammar (e.g.,
Donatus, Martianus Capella, Isidore of Seville); the second stage is ushered
in by commentaries on book IX (De harmonia) of Martianus Capellas De
nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii; and a third is represented by the reception of
Boethiuss De institutione musica. Mariken Teeuwen has pointed out that
the tradition of glossing the texts on harmonic theory in Martianuss and
Boethiuss works seems to begin at about the same time, but the general
progression outlined by Duchez still holds up in its broad outlines. (See
text IV.)
The first text appears in book III of De nuptiis, the introduction to Mar-
tianuss treatment of prosodic accents, de fastigio. Upon introducing this topic,
Martianus says that it is called in Greek PERI` PROSW DIWN (i.e., De prosodia),
and that it is divided into three aspects. He continues, saying:
42 Charles M. Atkinson

Every single syllable is either grave, acute, or circumflex; and just as there
is no utterance [vox, here meaning syllable] without a vowel, so too there
is none without an accent. As some assert, accent is the soul of utterance
and the seedbed of music (seminarium musices), because every melody is
composed of elevation or depression of the voice. Thus accentus is called
ad-cantus, so to speak [i.e., for the purpose of song].

As one might expect of a passage that has at least one phrase of Greek,
along with several Latin words and phrases whose meanings were not entirely
obvious, this passage inspired a lively response on the part of medieval com-
mentators. Its musical implications are underscored particularly forcefully
by a passage from Leiden F. 48, a commentary that was formerly attributed
to Martin of Laon. (See gloss I. In the glosses here: the base text appears in
normal type, interlinear glosses in italics within angle brackets, and marginal
glosses in italics within square brackets.)

Gloss I. Leiden, UB, Voss. lat. F. 48 (s. IX, ca. 850), fol. 22v:
(268) Hactenus de iuncturis; nunc de fastigio videamus. qui locus apud
Graecos peri prosodion <id est de accentibus> appellatur. hic <locus> in
tria discernitur: unaquaeque enim syllaba aut gravis est aut acuta aut
circumflexa; et ut nulla vox sine vocali est, ita sine accentu nulla. et est ac-
centus, ut quidam putaverunt, anima <pulcritudo> vocis et seminarium
musices <matheries musices: id est, musicae artis>.
[Tonus id est cantus id est emissio vocis. accentus autem exaltatio vel depositio
eius unde accentus quasi ad cantus dicitur.]

In the sentence beginning et est accentus . . . , the anonymous commenta-

tor glosses the word anima (soul) with pulcritudo (pulchritude or beauty); and
seminarium musices becomes for him the matheries musices, id est musicae artis:
the very stu or substance of music, that is, of the musical art. He concludes
with a marginal commentary on the theory of accent introduced by the term,
tonus: Tonus, that is cantus, which is the projection of the voice. Accent is its
elevation or deposition; whence accent is called ad cantus [for the purpose of
song], so to speak. In this passage it is hard to tell whether music or gram-
mar is the primary referent, so complete is the interweaving of elements from
the two disciplines.
Let us now move into the domain of music as a harmonic discipline and
examine two examples of the treatment it received in the hands of Carolingian
 Some Thoughts on Music Pedagogy in the Carolingian Era 43

commentators, starting with book IX, De Harmonia, of Martianus Capellas

De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii. Two of the core manuscripts for the com-
mentary connected to Martin of Laon (Leiden F 48 and Besanon 594), both
dating from the ninth century, have a rather extensive marginal comment
opposite sections 932 to 935 of Martianuss text. The text itself reads as in
gloss II.

Gloss II. Besanon, Bibliothque Municipale, 594 (s. IX, 3rd quarter);
fol. 78:
[Primo <facis> materiam in animo simul cum gravitate aut etiam cum acu-
mine. Ergo si libet tibi, ut ex gravioribus tropis alterum formes, praeparandum
est opus aut fistula aut fidibus et caetera, aut etiam voce, similiter fide acutis.]

First [you compose] the (melodic) material in your mind, with both depth
and height together. Thus, if you wish to form another (melody?) from
the lower tropesif the work has to be prepared for an organ or stringed
instrument, etc., or even for the voiceyou must likewise form it for the
stringed instrument from the higher tropes.

What the glossator seems to say in this reading is that if one adapts a melody
to instruments or composes a new melody, one must employ both low and
high pitches. This would support Martianuss words in section 932, which
one sees in text V(a):

Text V(a). Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, book IX

(ed. Meibom, Antiquae musicae auctores septem Graece et Latine [Amster-
dam, 1652], II: 180):
932: Hi sunt igitur soni, qui modulationem apt & cum ratione com-
ponunt. Constat autem omnis modulatio ex grauitate soni uel acumine.
Grauitas dicitur quae modi quadam emissione mollescit; Acumen uer,
quod in aciem tenuatam gracilis et erectae modulationis extenditur.

These, therefore, are the sounds with which melody [modulatio] is aptly and
rationally composed. Every melody consists of depth or height of sound.
That which is called depth soothes by a certain relaxation of the mode;
height is that which is projected in the sharp compression of a high, thin
melody.
44 Charles M. Atkinson

This reading is supported, or at least not contradicted, by the glosses of

both John Scottus and Remigius on section 932. John simply explains the words
mollescit (= dulcescit, sweetens), acumen (= altitude, height), in atiem (= in
acumen vocis, in the sharpness of the voice), and erectae (= acute, high).
Remigius glosses the sentences of section 932 as follows (see gloss III):

Gloss III. Commentary of Remigius of Auxerre from Lutz, ed., Remigii

Autissiodorensis Commentum in Martianum Capellam, II: 332:
CONSTAT AUTEM OMNIS MODULATIO EX GRAUITATE SONI id est ex inae-
qualibus, UEL ACUMINE. Omnis modulatio ex inaequalibus constat. Si
enim aliter fuerit, iam non erit modulatio. GRAUITAS DICITUR QUAE
MODI id est soni QUADAM EMISSIONE id est descensione, remissione vel
productione MOLLESCIT dulcescit, remittitur.

EVERY MELODY CONSISTS OF DEPTH OR HEIGHT OF SOUND that is, of un-

equal [varying] sounds. If it were not so, it would not be a melody. DEPTH
SOOTHES sweetens, lowers, BY A CERTAIN RELAXATION i.e., descent, lower-
ing or stretching out OF THE MODE i.e., of the sound.

Remigius interprets the word modus in the lemma as sound, not trope,
and makes no reference to a melodic adaptation or new composition such as
that found in the Anonymous commentary.
But there is yet another passage in Martianus with which this gloss can
be associated. It is section 935 of De nuptiis, in which Martianus sets out the
fifteen tropes or transposition scales for the first time. This section appears
in text V(b).

Text V(b). Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, book IX

(ed. Meibom, Antiquae musicae auctores septem Graece et Latine [Amster-
dam, 1652], II: 184):
935: Tropi vero sunt XV, sed principales quinque, quibus bini tropi
cohaerent. id est, Lydius, qui cohaerent 50/,5$)/3 et 50%2,5$)/3.
Secundus Iastius, cui sociatur 50/)!34)/3 et 50%2)!34)/3 . Item Aeo-
lius, cum 50/!)/,)7 et 50%2!)/,)7 . Quartus Phrygius cum duobus
50/&25')7 et 50%2&25')7 . Quintus Dorius cum 50/$72)7 et
50%2$72)7 .
 Some Thoughts on Music Pedagogy in the Carolingian Era 45

There are fifteen tropi: five principal ones, and a pair of tropi attached to each
of them. There is the Lydian, with which the hypolydian and the hyperlydian
are conjoined; the Ionian, with which the hypoionian and the hyperionian
are conjoined; the Aeolian, and with it the hypoaeolian and the hyperaeolian;
the Phrygian, and with it the hypophrygian and the hyperphrygian; and the
Dorian, with the hypodorian and the hyperdorian.

In her book Harmony and the Music of the Spheres, Mariken Teeuwen
relates gloss II to the theory of the fifteen tropes, translating the commentary
as follows:

First [you compose] the (melodic) material in your mind, at the same time
for both the high region and the low region. Thus, if it pleases you to form a
dierent (melody) out of the lower modesthe work has to be adapted for
a flute or stringed instrument et cetera, or even for the human voicethen
[you can make] the same (melody) for a high string.

If Teeuwens interpretation and translation are correct, this comment might

possibly be one of the earliest references to two-part parallel organum. My
translation results from my assumption that the comment is upon section 932,
and that modus in Martianuss text (as given here) is taken as an alternate for
sonusrather than tropuswhich is how it appears in the Paris manuscript
(BNF, lat. 8671) of the same commentary. Unfortunately, there is no cue in
either Leiden F 48 or Besanon 594 to indicate the section of the main text to
which this comment pertains. Moreover, nothing like it appears in the com-
mentaries of John Scottus and Remigius of Auxerre for either section 932
or 935. For the present, the comment must remain a tantalizing mystery
perhaps the medieval equivalent of The Lady or the Tiger.
This example is a reminder that discovering what was taught about music
in Carolingian schools is not a simple matter, and it has other implications as
well. The case of gloss II is one in which our own knowledge does not extend
as far as that of the students to whom this passage was taught. Inasmuch as
their teacher (the glossator) would have presented it to them as he intended,
for them the proper referent of the gloss in question was undoubtedly not
a mystery. And if it was, in fact, being used as a note of instruction on the
composition of two-part organum, it shows us that in certain instances the
glosses could go beyond explicating the classical text and into the realm of
contemporaneous practice.
The interface between classical text and contemporaneous musical prac-
tice is further emphasized in our last example, from the glosses on Boethius,
46 Charles M. Atkinson

De institutione musica, book IV. This is a gloss appearing in the ninth-century

manuscript clm 14523 of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, a source from the
monastery of St. Emmeram, reproduced as gloss IV.

Gloss IV. Commentary in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, clm.

14523 (s. IX, St. Emmeram), on Boethiuss wing diagram illustrating
Modi, quos eosdem tropos vel tonos nominant, ed. Bernhard and
Bower, Glossa maior III, appendix I, 365:
Diagram in Friedlein, ed., Anicii Manlii Torquati Severini Boetii De insti-
tutione musica libri quinque [Leipzig, 1867], 343, descriptio II (fig. D21 in
Bower, Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius: Fundamentals of Music [New
Haven: Yale University Press], 156):
HYPERMIXOLYDIUS. . . . (D21): Autenti proti primitus incipit in parhypate
meson genere diatoni diapente proportione. Deinde in hypate meson
descendit transito semitonio. Deinde in lychanos hypaton tono transit,
post hoc iterum redit tono in hypate meson. Deinde remigrat iterum
in lychanos hypaton per tonum et inde se deflectit in proslambanome-
nos duobus tonis et dimidio. Plagis proti incipit ubi autenti desinit, i. in
proslambanomenos, et inde cadit tono inferius. Ex hinc iterum surgit in
proslambanomenos et vadit inde in lychanos hypaton chromatico genere.
Post hoc transit in proximum hemitonium ad hypate meson a lychanos
hypaton eiusdem generis, i. chromatici, tono distans, et exinde redit ite-
rum ad lychanos hypaton chromatice, et inde flectens in proslambano-
menos desinit. [My stresses in the preceding. Translated into pitches (but
ignoring the chromatic genus), this becomes:
Protus autentus: F E D E D A
Plagis proti: A G A D E D A]

Commenting on Boethiuss wing diagram of the modes or tones in book

IV, chapter 16, this author states that: The beginning of the Autentus protus
starts on the parhypate meson in the diatonic genus in the diapente propor-
tion. He continues his description by saying that it then descends by semi-
tone to the hypate meson, then by tone to the lychanos hypaton, following which
it returns to the hypate meson. It moves back to the lychanos hypaton by tone,
and then descends to the proslambanomenos by two tones and a semitone.
Following this the glossator gives a similar description of the plagis proti. I
 Some Thoughts on Music Pedagogy in the Carolingian Era 47

have rendered his descriptions of both in Pseudo-Odos letter notation at the

bottom of gloss IV.
Clearly, this gloss has nothing to do with the ancient Greek tonoi as de-
scribed in Boethius. It is important nevertheless: first, because of the termi-
nology it employsAutentus proti and plagis protiand second, because it
describes these by means of melodic incipits. Both are important components
of a new theory of tonus in the Carolingian era, that of the so-called church
tones or modes. The theory and practice of these would become one of the
most important preoccupations of Carolingian schoolmasters and choirmas-
ters in the years to come.
What I hope to have shown in this essay is that both grammatical and
musical texts of antiquity, as exemplified here in the works of Martianus
Capella and Boethius, did indeed become objects of study in Carolingian
schools. Starting with manuscripts from the first part of the ninth century,
we see that Carolingian schoolmasters such as Martin of Laon and Remigius
of Auxerre, made concentrated attempts to understand and explain concepts
such as accentus, seminarium musices, sonus, tropus, etc., on their own terms, as
they had been understood in antiquity. At the same time, their commentaries
could not help but reflectand in turn influencethe milieu in which they
were written and the directions in which musical thought was heading. As
these glosses show, I believe, the study of grammar and the study of music
in Carolingian schools were closely intertwined. Both informed each other
and both were to prove important ingredients in the musical ferment of the
Carolingian period and beyond.

NOTES
This chapter is based on my presentation at the Baltimore conference, Reading and
Writing the Pedagogies of the Renaissance: The Student, the Study Materials, and the Teacher
of Music, 14701650, at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, 24 June
2005. It is expanded in my book, The Critical Nexus: Tone-System, Mode, and Notation in
Early Medieval Music, American Musicological Society Studies in Music 6 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2009).
1. Alfred Boretius, ed., Admonitio generalis (789), MGH, Leges II, vol. I: Capitularia
Regum Francorum, no. 22, 5262. On Alcuins possible role in its conception, see Hartmut
Mller, Institutionen, Musikleben, Musiktheorie, in Neues Handbuch der Musikwissen-
schaft 2, ed. Hartmut Mller and Rudolf Stephan (Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 1991), 13640.
2. There is a problem with the text at this point in the document. Strictly translated,
the beginning of the second sentence of the text should read: Emend well the psalms, notes,
chants, calculation, grammar through the individual monasteries or bishoprics and catholic
booksa reading that has troubled several scholars, myself included. John Contreni, The
48 Charles M. Atkinson

Carolingian Renaissance: Education and Literary Culture, The New Cambridge Medieval
History, vol. II (ca. 700ca. 900), ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1995), 70957, makes a tacit emendation of his own, combining the first two
sentences (see 726). In his translation, the first part reads: Let there be schools for boys,
teaching the reading of Psalms, Tironian notes, chant, reckoning and grammar, which has
the advantage of capturing the broader sense of the Latin verb legolegilectum. Although it
has been taken as early evidence for musical notation (for example, in Kenneth Levy, Char-
lemagnes Archetype of Gregorian Chant, Journal of the American Musicological Society 40
(1987): 130; see esp. 1112; and Levy, From Aural to Notational: The Gregorian Antipho-
nale Missarum, Etudes grgoriennes 28 (2000): 519; see esp. 13), or as a reference to Tiro-
nian notes, as in Contrenis translation above, the word notas in the principal manuscript
of the Admonitio is qualified by a gloss connecting it with the notarius, a secretary, implying
that the boys should also be taught how to write (cf. David Hiley, Western Plainchant: A
Handbook [Oxford: Clarendon, 1993], 364). For a somewhat dierent reading of this pas-
sage see James Grier, Admar de Chabannes, Carolingian Musical Practices, and the Nota
Romana, Journal of the American Musicological Society 56 (2003): 4398, see esp. 6365.
Unless otherwise indicated, all translations in this essay are my own.
3. This reference to emended books may be an allusion to the Institutiones of Cas-
siodorus. In section 2 of the preface, Cassiodorus says that the recruits of Christ, after
they have learned the Psalms, should study the divine text in corrected books [in codicibus
emendatis]. He continues: The books should be corrected to prevent scribal errors from
being fixed in untrained minds. Later he devotes an entire chapter (bk. I, chap. 15) to the
care with which the emendation of the scriptures should be made, saying that this type of
correction, in my opinion, is the most beautiful and glorious task of learned men (istud enim
genus emendationis, ut arbitror, valde pulcherrimum est et doctissimorum hominum negotium
gloriosum). The Latin text, with my emphasis, is from R. A. B. Mynors, Cassiodori Senatoris
Institutiones (Oxford: Clarendon, 1937), 4, 42; the translation is by James W. Halporn, Cas-
siodorus: Institutions of Divine and Secular Learning and On the Soul (Liverpool: Liverpool
University Press, 2004): 106, 139.
4. The translations into English here are from Franois Louis Ganshof, Alcuins Revi-
sion of the Bible, in The Carolingians and the Frankish Monarchy, trans. Janet Sondheimer
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971), 2840, here 29.
5. Alfred Boretius, ed., Karoli epistola de litteris colendis (780800), MGH, Leges II,
vol. I: Capitularia Regum Francorum, no. 29, 7879. Cf. Leopold Wallach, Alcuin and Char-
lemagne: Studies in Carolingian History and Literature, Cornell Studies in Classical Philol-
ogy 32 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1959), 202204. Wallach thinks that it was written
ca. 794800, and that its chief author was Alcuin. Cf. also Donald Bullough, Europae
Pater: Charlemagne and his Achievement in the Light of Recent Scholarship, The English
Historical Review 85 (1970): 59105. The document was initially addressed to Baugulf, Ab-
bot of Fulda, but was later issued as a circular letter under the title De litteris colendis.
6. Translation from Leo Treitler, Reading and Singing: On the Genesis of Occidental
Music-writing, Early Music History 4 (1984): 135208; reprinted in With Voice and Pen:
Coming to Know Medieval Song and How it was Made (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2003), 365428. The passage is on pages 135 and 365 respectively.
7. On this document see in particular Gnther Glauche, Schullektre im Mittelalter,
Mnchener Beitrge zur Medivistik und Renaissance-Forschung 5 (Munich: Arbeo Ge-
sellschaft, 1970), 17; and Contreni, The Carolingian Renaissance, 726. Glauche feels that
this passage is a call not just for the study of literature (litterae), but of the liberal arts
altogether.
8. Citt del Vaticano, Pal. lat. 1252, quoted from Lynn Thorndike, Elementary and
Secondary Education in the Middle Ages, Speculum 13 (1940): 405.
 Some Thoughts on Music Pedagogy in the Carolingian Era 49

9. Franz Brunhlzl, Der Bildungsauftrag der Hofschule, Karl der Grosse: Lebenswerk
und Nachleben, vol. 2: Das geistige Leben, ed. Bernhard Bischo (Dsseldorf: L. Schwann,
1965), 2841, see esp. 30. In a letter to Charlemagne from late 796 or early 797 (Alc. epist. 121
in MGH, Epist. Kar. Aevi, IV: 17677), Alcuin states: Ego vero Flaccus vester secundum
exhortationem et bonam voluntatem vestram aliis per tecta sancti Martini sanctarum mella
scripturarum ministrare satago; alios vetere antiquarum disciplinarum mero inaebriare
studeo; alios grammaticae subtilitatis enutrire pomis incipiam; . . . In another letter, an
unknown bishop (Arno?) tells Alcuin that he should oversee instruction, and names gram-
mar, reading, and study of the Bible as subjects (Alc. epist. 161 in MGH, Epist. Kar. Aevi, IV:
260, ll. 13.). In Brunhlzls view, such witnesses tell us that Alcuins poem 26 also depicts
the court school itself.
10. Contreni, The Carolingian Renaissance, 726. Gunzo made a visit to St. Gall in
965 in the company of Otto I. He was derided by a young monk (possibly Ekkehard II) for
using the accusative instead of the ablative case at one point in his conversation. He took his
revenge in a letter to the monks at Reichenau, belittling his St. Gall critic and demonstrat-
ing his own learnedness. On this see Max Manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur
des Mittelalters, vol. 1: Handbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, vol. 9, sec. 2, pt. 1
(Munich: C. H. Beck, 1911): 53136; the letter is summarized on pp. 53334.
11. See the entries for these libraries in Paul Lehmann, Mittelalterliche Bibliothekska-
taloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1918), vol. 1.
12. MGH Poet, I: 54344; cf. Glauche, Schullektre, 1112.
13. Detlev Zimpel, ed., De institutione clericorum libri tres, Freiburger Beitrge zur
mittelalterlichen Geschichte 7 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1996).
14. Leonard Boyle, O.P., Vox paginae: An Oral Dimension of Texts, Unione Interna-
zionale degli Istituti di Archeologia, Storia e Storia dellArte in Roma Conferenze 16 (Rome,
1999); Boyle, Tonic Accent, Codicology, and Literacy, in The Centre and its Compass: Stu-
dies in Medieval Literature in Honor of Professor John Leyerle, ed. Robert A. Taylor et al.
(Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, 1993), 110; Boyle, The Friars and Reading in
Public, in Le vocabulaire des coles des Mendiants au moyen ge, ed. Maria Candida Pacheco.
CIVICIMA: Etudes sur le vocabulaire intellectuel du moyen ge IX (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999),
815.
15. On the Scolica enchiriadis as a pedagogical text, see Max Haas, Die Musica enchiri-
adis und ihr Umfeld: Elementare Musiklehre als Propaedeutik zur Philosophie, Musik und
die Geschichte der Philosophie und Naturwissenschaften im Mittelalter, ed. Frank Hentschel,
Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 62 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 20726.
16.
6. Marie Elizabeth Duchez, La reprsentation spatio-verticale du caractre musi-
cal grave-aigu et llaboration de la notion de hauteur de son dans la conscience musicale
occidentale, Acta Musicologica 51 (1979): 5473; Duchez, La reprsentation de la musi-
que: Information daction et expression structurelle dans la reprsentation de la musique
occidentale traditionnelle, Actes du XVIIIe Congrs des Socits de Philosophie de langue
franaise, Strasbourg, Juillet 1980 (Paris: C.N.R.S., 1980), 17782; and Duchez, Description
grammaticale et description arithmtique des phnomnes musicaux: le tournant du IXe
sicle, Sprache und Erkenntnis im Mittelalter: Akten des VI. Internationalen Kongresses fr
mittelalterliche Philosophie (Bonn, 1977), Miscellanea Mediaevalia 13, no. 2 (Berlin: Walter
De Gruyter, 1981): 56179.
17. In her dissertation on the ars musica in ninth-century commentaries on Martianus
Capella (Harmony and the Music of the Spheres, Mittellateinische Studien und Texte 30
[Leiden: Brill, 2002], 16283, esp. 18283), Teeuwen notes that the oldest layer of glosses to
both Martianus Capellas De nuptiis and Boethiuss De musica can be dated to the second
third of the ninth century. As pointed out by Louis Holtz (Donat et la tradition de lenseigne-
ment grammatical, Etude sur lArs Donati et sa diusion [IVeIXe sicle] et dition critique:
50 Charles M. Atkinson

Documents, Etudes et Repertoires publis par lInstitut de Recherche et dHistoire des

Textes [Paris: C.N.R.S., 1981], 32026), the transmission and glossing of Donatuss Ars
grammatica begins even earlier in the century.
18. On this passage see Matthias Bielitz, Die Neumen in Otfrids Evangelien-Harmonie:
Zum Verhltnis von geistlicher und weltlicher Musik des frhen Mittelalters, sowie zur Entste-
hung der raumanalogen Notenschrift, Heidelberger Bibliotheksschriften 39 ([Heidelberg]:
Universittsbibliothek Heidelberg, 1989), 100103.
19. Description and bibliography in Claudio Leonardi, I Codici di Marziano Capella,
Aevum 34 (1960): 6768; and in Teeuwen, Harmony, 8898, and pl. 1.
20. Cf. Leonardi, I Codici, 1314; Cora Lutz, Martinus Laudunensis, Catalogus
translationum et commentariorum [hereafter CTC]: Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin
Translations and Commentaries. Annotated Lists and Guides, ed. Paul Oskar Kristeller,
F. E. Cranz, et al. (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1971), 37071;
John Contreni, Addenda to CTC 3 (1975), 45152; Jean Praux, Le commentaire de Mar-
tin de Laon sur loeuvre de Martianus Capella, Latomus 12 (1953): 43759; and Teeuwen,
Harmony, 3341 and 14850, but 8898 for description and bibliography of Leiden, Univer-
siteitsbibliotheek, Voss. Lat. F. 48. Both Contreni and Teeuwen express strong reservations
as to the putative authorship of Martin. Teeuwen hypothesizes that the commentary, which
she refers to as anonymous, may have been the product of a group of scholars collected
at the courts of Louis the Pious (reg. 813/14840) and Charles the Bald (reg. 840877); see
Teeuwen, Harmony, 14850. I refer here to the earlier attribution to Martin of Laon primar-
ily because Leonardifollowing Praux (Le commentaire de Martin de Laon), Lutz, and
othersemploys that designation in his manuscript descriptions.
21. Cf. Leonardi, I Codici, 1314; Lutz, Martinus Laudunensis, CTC 2 (1971),
37071; Contreni, Addenda to CTC 3 (1975), 45152; and Teeuwen, Harmony, 8898, for
description and bibliography of the Leiden manuscript, and 98103 for description and
bibliography of the Besanon manuscript. Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek, Voss. Lat. F.
48 was written ca. 850, probably in Auxerre, according to the sources listed in Teeuwen
(Harmony, 8889). Besanon, Bibliothque Municipale, MS 594, dates to the third quarter
of the ninth century, and was apparently copied at the abbey of Saint-Claude in Saint Oyan
(Teeuwen, Harmony, 9899).
22. Cf. Teeuwen (Harmony, 304305, and 315). My translation results from my as-
sumption that the comment is upon section 932, and that modus in Martianuss text (see
text V(a) here) is taken as an alternate for sonusrather than tropusas it appears in the
Paris manuscript (BNF, lat. 8671) of the same commentary. Unfortunately, there is no cue
in either Leiden F 48 or in Besanon 594 to indicate the section of the main text to which
this comment pertains.
23. Martianus Capella, ed. Marcus Meibom, Antiquae musicae auctores septem Graece et
Latine (Amsterdam: Apud Ludovicus Elzevirium, 1652), II: 180. I use Meibom here because
his text for this section of the treatise is the same as that found in the two manuscripts.
Related to this and the following discussion, consider the gloss on Boethius, De institutione
musica I,8, which presents the definition of sonus, as it appears in the eleventh-century
manuscript Paris, BNF lat. 16201:

SONUS CASUS VOCIS dicitur, i. exitus vel emissio vel processio de gravi in acutum, vel
de acuta in gravem, vel talis vocis terminatio, que sit apta melo (Michael Bernhard
and Calvin Bower, ed., Glossa maior in institutionem musicam Boethii, Verentlich-
ungen der Musikhistorischen Kommission 911 [Munich: Bayerische Akademie
der Wissenschaften, 19931996], I: 164, gloss I,8,3).
24. William Stahl, Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts, 2 vols. (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1971/1977), 2: 361, translates the last two sentences as follows:
 Some Thoughts on Music Pedagogy in the Carolingian Era 51

Moreover, all musical movement (modulatio) consists of lower- or higher-pitched tones. A

low pitch has a soothing eect because of the slackening of its sound; a high pitch, on the
other hand, is due to the tightening and raising of the music to a thin and shrill sound.
25. Cora Lutz, ed., Iohannis Scotti Annotationes in Marcianum (Cambridge, Mass.: Me-
dieval Academy of America, 1939), 206. I have emended her reading of MOLLESCAT dulces-
cat to MOLLESCIT dulcescit following the readings of both Dick and Willis, as well as her
own of Remigius.
26. On equal and unequal sounds as necessary components of melody, cf. the gloss
on Boethius, De institutione musica I,3 that appears in two tenth-century manuscripts
from Einsiedeln (MSS 298 and 358). For the lemma QUOCIRCA SONI QUOQUE PARTIM SUNT
AEQUALES, PARTIM VERO SUNT INAEQUALITATE DISTANTES (Therefore, some sounds are
also equal, while others stand at an interval from each other by virtue of an inequality),
they oer the following gloss (see Bernhard/Bower, Glossa maior I,125, gloss I,3,150):
equales soni inequales
__
_____________ __
__
Astiterunt reges terre et
(Antiphona I ad Matutinum in Feria VI in Parasceve; Corpus antiphonalium Ocii 3,
1506. Astiterunt is recited on G, terre et on b-flat, G, and F).
27. Teeuwen, Harmony, 304305, and 315.
28. The same text appears in the upper margin of fol. 178 in the manuscript Munich,
Bay. Staatsbibl., clm 14272, as a gloss to the Alia musica. Cf. Chailley, Alia musica, 21011.
 4
Medieval Musical Education
as Seen through Sources Outside
the Realm of Music Theory%
SUSAN BOYNTON

As Dolores Pesces and Charles Atkinsons contributions to this volume dem-

onstrate, treatises on music theory and the other liberal arts, along with their
commentary traditions, can tell us a great deal about the character of musical
learning in the Middle Ages. For the most part, however, these texts do not
oer much insight into the social context and institutional setting of practi-
cal musical training, the roles and responsibilities of teachers, the practical
organization of instruction or the times and places in which it took place. For
such pragmatic aspects of medieval musical education one must often turn to
materials outside the corpus of music theory, such as customaries and glossed
hymnaries, that oer insight into our pedagogical past.
Monastic customaries constitute the single most important source for
reconstructing the process by which students in the central Middle Ages
learned to read and sing. Varied in length and scope, these texts contain
a wealth of information on all aspects of life in a monastery, including in-
numerable details on the performance of the liturgy. Customaries are not
snapshots of monastic life, in that they may oer recommendations for the
 Medieval Musical Education Outside Music Theory 53

organization of a monastery rather than recording the reality of any single

institution. Nevertheless, the account of monastic communities in many cus-
tomaries is so detailed as to appear to be descriptive as well as prescriptive.
For the present purpose of studying medieval musical education, customaries
reflect teaching methods that seem to have been common to a great number
of dierent institutions, as is suggested by a comparison with didactic texts
of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
Monastic customaries show that the musical education of child oblates
was an integral part of their larger monastic formation, which consisted of
learning appropriate behavior by imitating the older monks. The divine oce,
which occupied most of the hours of each day, aorded oblates and novices
the opportunity to learn not only how to sing and to read, but also how to
hold themselves, as well as how to bow and to process. Another aspect of the
liturgy that had to be learned was the order in which monks sang and read,
which was based on a hierarchy determined by the date of entry into the
monastery. Moreover, performing in the liturgy required so much study and
rehearsal that it formed the core of monastic education.
Customaries oer extensive information on monastic teaching schedules,
the pedagogical methods employed, and the roles of monastic ocers responsi-
ble for training children to perform in the liturgy. Teachers worked closely with
the child oblates in several daily sessions during which the chant was learned
by ear, first by listening and then by repeating after their teachers, as is stated
in a Cluniac customary written by Ulrich of Zell in the late 1070s: the boys sit
in chapter, and learn the chant from someone singing it before them. Read-
ing and singing were taught by the same person, frequently the armarius, or
librarian. The armarius corrected the liturgical books, looked after the library,
and was ultimately responsible for the education of oblates as well as for the
organization of the liturgy. However, the armarius was too busy to administer
all of the requisite teaching, so child oblates were trained first by an assistant
before the armarius listened to their chants and readings. It is apparently for
this reason that the early eleventh-century customary from Fleury refers to a
librarian who is also the teacher (armarius qui et scolae praeceptor vel librarius),
but it was actually the assistant to the cantor who taught the chant:
For assistance [the precentor] is given a brother of demonstrable talent who
is called the succentor. For the master of the school is the guardian of the
children. Careful in every study of chants and in daily practice, he arranges
the definitions of the tones and dierentiae of the psalms, and is accustomed
to propel to the chapter those who treat the divine oce negligently.
54 Susan Boynton

TABLE 4.1. Manuscript sigla of eleventh-century continental hymnaries

with Latin glosses.

F1 Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Chigi C.VI.177 (10501060,

Farfa)
F2 Farfa, Biblioteca del Monumento Nazionale, MS A.209 (end of the eleventh
century, Farfa)
N Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 7172 (ca. 1050, Narni)
Su Montecassino, Archivio dellAbbazia, MS 420 (second half of the eleventh
century, Subiaco)
B Brescia, Biblioteca Queriniana, MS H.VI.21 (first half of the eleventh century,
Santa Giulia of Brescia)
M1 Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Rossi 205 (10641080,
Moissac)
M2 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS DOrville 45 (last quarter of the eleventh century,
Moissac)
D Paris, Bibliothque Nationale de France, MS lat. 103 (ca. 1050, St. Denis)
G Paris, Bibliothque Nationale de France, MS lat. 11550 (10301060, St. Germain-
des-Prs)
C Amiens, Bibliothque Centrale Louis Aragon, MS 131 (ca. 10401050, Corbie)
H Huesca, Archivo de la Catedral, MS 1 (third quarter of the eleventh century,
Languedoc or Aquitaine)
Si London, British Library, MS Add. 30851 (ca. 1050, Silos)

As Margot Fassler has shown, in the Liber tramitis (which reflects customs
at the abbey of Cluny between 1027 and 1048), the role of the armarius is
expanded to absorb functions previously fulfilled by the cantor. Thereafter,
as far as one can tell from customaries, the duties of the armarius and cantor
appear to have been combined.
The close connection between librarians and teachers may account for
the annotation of liturgical hymnaries with glosses to help students under-
stand and memorize hymn texts as they learned the melodies. Elementary
education consisted of learning to read and sing the psalms and hymns. An
early prescription for this first phase of training appears in the Murbach Stat-
utes of 816, preliminary acts to the synod of Aachen that described the school
reforms of Abbot Atto of Reichenau. These statutes stipulated that students
should begin with the psalms, hymns, and canticles, proceed to the Benedic-
tine rule, and from there to the scriptures and patristic writings. Study of the
liberal arts (including the theory of music) could begin only after mastery of
these fundamental texts had been achieved.
The hymns role in monastic education is reflected in the variety of
glosses on the hymns that were transmitted in manuscripts of the eleventh
 Medieval Musical Education Outside Music Theory 55

century and later (see table 4.1). Glosses on the psalms and canticles in this
period seem to have fulfilled a pedagogical function as well, but they tend to
be lengthier texts derived from patristic psalm-commentaries, and do not
reflect the same diversity of approaches as the hymn glosses, nor do they vary
as much by geography as the hymn glosses.
The glosses in the twelve manuscripts listed here can be grouped into sev-
eral general categories pertaining to lexicon, grammar, syntax, encyclopedic
knowledge, scriptural references, meter, textual criticism, style, doctrine, and li-
turgical theology. F1, F2, N, and Su contain substantially the same set of lexical
glosses along with some grammatical ones. The northern Italian manuscript B
transmits a distinctive set of glosses that are primarily lexical, with a few gram-
matical and theological glosses. The two hymnaries of Iberian provenance (H
and Si) are distinct from the other manuscripts, each containing a unique set of
lexical and grammatical glosses. The two hymnaries from Moissac (M1 and M2)
transmit essentially the same lexical and grammatical glosses as well as a few
longer encyclopedic glosses. DGC contain the most complex tradition, includ-
ing all gloss types and some categories not found in the other manuscripts.
As the first Latin poetry that monks learned, hymns presented new chal-
lenges of vocabulary, syntax, and word order, and glossators found diverse
means by which to meet these challenges. (See appendix: Glosses on Primo
dierum omnium.) A synoptic transcription of glosses on just the first two stro-
phes of Primo dierum omnium, the hymn for the oce of Matins on Sundays
in winter, furnishes examples of almost all the types of commentary used to
explain hymn texts in eleventh-century manuscripts. The first gloss precedes
the text of the hymn proper, acting as an introduction to the rhetorical con-
struction of the hymn, attributing it to Ambrose of Milan and identifying
the underlying symbolism of Sunday as the Lords Day, which allegorically
signifies the Resurrection. The glosses on primo and quo are all grammatical
in nature, identifying the use of the ablative and the implied superlative in the
word primus. Lexical glosses provide more common equivalents for relatively
unusual words. Here, the lexical glosses on words such as extat, conditus, con-
ditor, pulsis, procul, torporibus, and otius constitute a basic vocabulary lesson
and also manifest the tendency to exploit common words for the purpose of
introducing synonyms. For instance, the word pulsis is glossed variously with
fugatis, eiectis, preiectis, abiectis, and expulsis, in some cases with two dierent
terms in the same gloss.
A more complex type of linguistic gloss is known as a syntactical gloss be-
cause it points to or explicates an aspect of a texts syntax. Syntactical glosses
56 Susan Boynton

are represented here by a passage that points out the link between the first two
strophes of the hymn (because the first strophe in its entirety is a dependent
clause) and rephrases it in prose by recasting the word order: This versicle is
joined to those above. For such is its sense, but the order of words is: On the
first of all days on which the world was made, or on which Christ arose, and
liberated us from death, let us all rise, having driven torpors far away, that is,
having repelled laziness and sleepiness from us. This kind of syntactical gloss
is found only in the three Northern French manuscripts D, G, and C.
Another type of commentary found only in these three manuscripts is
the theological gloss, which includes interpretations of the kind applied to
biblical exegesis. A tropological or moral interpretation of the hymns mean-
ing gives rise to the gloss all the faithful on the personal pronoun nos. The
passage beginning One who hastens to the Divine Oce about to be cel-
ebrated can be seen as a form of liturgical theology, associating the meaning
of the hymn with act of performing the night oce. The subsequent gloss,
found only in C, refers both to the allegorical association of Sunday with
the Resurrection and to its eschatological sense as a weekly prefiguration of
the Last Judgment. Similarly, the gloss on the word prophet is exegetical
in character, citing several psalm verses in allusion to King David, who was
thought in the Middle Ages to be the author of the entire book of Psalms.
Interpreting the psalmody of the oce typologically, as a nocturnal quest for
God following the example of David, the gloss cites psalm 118 in an echo of
the Rule of Benedict. The variety of purposes and genres represented within
this small sample of glosses shows the complexity of the various manuscript
traditions and suggests that the hymns were subject to commentary on vari-
ous levels of study.
While glossed manuscripts of Latin school texts have traditionally been
considered direct witnesses to medieval teaching methods, their pedagogical
function has been called into question. Some scholars, particularly specialists
in the glossed manuscripts of Anglo-Saxon England such as Michael Lapidge,
have challenged the assumption of a close connection between glossed manu-
scripts and the actual practice of teaching. Others, such as Gernot Wieland,
maintain that the glosses were references for teachers. Liturgical manu-
scripts are fundamentally dierent from the literary manuscripts that have
been the focus of this debate, and therefore the distinctions between the
categories of classbook and library book developed by Lapidge and Wieland
do not apply to chant-books such as hymnaries with Latin glosses. Hymnaries
were a record of a monasterys hymn repertoire for the use of the monas-
 Medieval Musical Education Outside Music Theory 57

tic ocial in charge of chant. The fact that the armarius/cantor directed the
scriptorium as well as teaching singing supports the theory that the glosses
in hymnaries served a pedagogical purpose or at least reflect the methods
used by teachers.
Glossed hymnaries could have been used by students for individual study
as well. Prescriptions for liturgical training in monastic customaries from
the eleventh and early twelfth centuries indicate some use of hymnaries and
other books in private study. A Cluniac customary from the 1080s, and an
early twelfth-century one from Fruttuaria, both provide for silent reading
practice, or the memorization of psalms and hymns, during the celebration of
Mass. The latter text also mentions the use of books by some oblates during
their lesson: no one looks at the book there, except a boy who is so old that
he cannot learn otherwise; and if there are two of them, they take a board,
put it between them, and place the book on top of it. Novices, who could
arrive at the monastery with literacy skills, could make even more extensive
use of books. The Fruttuaria customary notes that novices were lent a psalter
and hymnary which they could keep for up to a year, presumably to facilitate
their memorization of the psalms and hymns.
After memorization during the initial stages of liturgical training, the
hymns also formed a component of more advanced grammatical education.
The various didactic functions of the hymns are reflected by the presence of a
wide range of glosses in eleventh-century liturgical manuscripts, attesting to
the central role of language and literacy training in liturgical education, and
the important place of liturgical texts in the study of grammar.

APPENDIX
GLOSSES ON THE FIRST TWO STROPHES OF PRIMO DIERUM
OMNIUM, FROM H, M 2 , SU, F 1, F 2 , B, D, G, AND C.
Primo dierum omnium [1 On the first of all days
quo mundus extat conditus [2 on which the created world exists
uel quo resurgens conditor [3 and on which the creator, rising again,
nos morte uicta liberat [4 liberates us, death having been vanquished,
pulsis procul torporibus [5 and by night let us seek the holy one
surgamus omnes ocius [6 with torpors driven far away,
et nocte queramus pium [7 let us all quickly rise
sicut prophetam nouimus. [8 just as we know the prophet (did).

In hoc hymno quem sanctus Ambrosius In this hymn, which St. Ambrose
pulchra satis serie composuit, in prima sui composed in quite beautiful wording, in its
58 Susan Boynton

parte exortationem habet, non petition- first part there is an exhortation, not a
em. Est autem de die resurrectionis Do- petition. And it is composed about the
mini compositus, quem diem dominicum Resurrection, which we call the day of the
uocamus, quia in ipso Dominus diabolum Lord, since on that very day the Lord
destructa morte triumphauit, atque suum triumphed over the Devil, death having
releuauit atro de funere corpus. Hortatur been destroyed, and unveiled his body
autem nos in hac die resurrectionis Do- from black death. And he exhorts us on
mini, ltis animis et expeditis gressibus this day of the Resurrection of the Lord
occurrere, et ad laudem Dei surgere to hasten with cheerful minds and ready
{DGC} steps and rise to the praise of God.

1] PRIMO: scilicet die {B}; Primus su- 1] THE FIRST: That is, day; Primus is a
perlatiui gradus est et ideo hic superlative and therefore here
iungitur genitiuo {G D} it is joined to the genitive

2] QUO: die {H}; in {B}; id est in quo 2] WHICH: day; on [the day]; that is, on
{DGC} which
EXTAT: est {B}; id est omnis machina EXISTS: is; that is, every engine of things
rerum {DG}
CONDITUS: creatus {B}; factus CREATED: created; made
{DGCM2}
QUO: id est in quo {DCG} WHICH: that is, on which

3] CONDITOR: factor {H}; creator {B}; 3] CREATOR: maker; creator; that is,
id est Christus per quem facta sunt omnia Christ, by whom all things have been
{DGC} made

4] NOS: omnes fideles {H} 4] US: all the faithful

MORTE: id est eripit a dominio diaboli, qui DEATH: that is, having conquered
ad mortem captiuum tenebat genus [death], he wrested us from the dominion
humanum uicta [id est superata {DC}] of the Devil, who was holding the human
{G}; in diabolo principe mortis qui mors et race captive in death; in the Devil, the
inferus appellatur {DGC} prince of death, who is called death and
infernal

5] PULSIS: fugatis, eiectis {H}; preiectis 5] DRIVEN OUT: put to flight, ejected;
{M2}; abiectis {Su}; eiectis id est abiectis thrown out; ejected, that is thrown out;
{FB}; id est expulsis {DCG} that is, expelled
PROCUL: longe {M2B}; a longe {HDGC} FAR AWAY: far; from afar
Hic uersiculus ad superiora coniungitur. Est This versicle is joined to those above. For
enim talis sensus, sed uerborum ordinatio: such is its sense, but the order of words is:
Primo omnium dierum quo mundus est On the first of all days on which the
factus uel in quo Christus surrexit, et nos a world was made, or on which Christ
morte liberauit, surgamus omnes procul arose, and liberated us from death, let us
pulsis torporibus id est pigriciis et all rise, having driven torpors far away,
somnolentia a nobis repulsis {C} that is, having repelled laziness and
sleepiness from us
 Medieval Musical Education Outside Music Theory 59

TORPORIBUS: pigriciis {HB}; pigritia TORPORS: laziness; aversions; aversions

{M2}; id est pigritia {F}; in pigritia {Su}; and weariness
fastidiis {DG}; fastidiis, tediis {C}

6] SURGAMUS: Qui ad celebrandum 6] LET US ARISE: One who hastens

diuinum otium uel obsequium festinat, to the Divine Oce about to be cel-
necesse est ut a se omnem somnolentiam et ebrated or to obedience, must cast out all
torporem repellat. Aliter Dominum quem somnolence and slowness from himself.
querit, inuenire non poterit {GD}; Otherwise the Lord whom he seeks, he
Dominicus dies plenus sacramentis est will not be able to find; Sunday is full of
enim in conditione rerum primus om- sacraments, for it is in the foundation of
nium dierum, quia in illo factus est, et things, the first of all days, since it is on
sicut doctores dicunt mundus finietur in that day that the world was made, and
ipso. Octauum enim est in ordine dierum similarly the learned say that the world
in quo Christus a mortuis significat will end on that same [day]. For [the fact
autem illius diei gaudium qui non habet that] it is the eighth in the order of days
finem in quo omnes resurgemus. Unde on which Christ [rose] from the dead
vi. psalmus pro octaua scribitur: Domine signifies the joy of that day which has
ne, quia totus de illa ultima generali res- no end, on which we shall all rise again.
urrectione cantatur. Qui ad celebrandum Whence the sixth psalm is written in
diuinum obsequium surgere festinat place of the eighth: Lord, lest you, since
necesse est ut a se omnem somnolentiam it is entirely sung concerning that last
et torporem repellat. Aliter Deum quem general resurrection. One who hastens
querit inuenire non poterit {C} to the Divine Oce about to be cel-
ebrated must cast out all somnolence and
slowness from himself. Otherwise the
Lord whom he seeks, he will not be able
to find
OCIUS: uel otius {M2}; id est citius QUICKLY: that is, rather rapidly; rather
{FSu}; citius {B}; celerius {DG}; celerius, speedily; rapidly, speedily
uelocius {C}

7] NOCTE: in uigiliis noctis {GD} 7] BY NIGHT: in the vigils of the night

QUERAMUS: id est per orando {H}; LET US SEEK: that is, through praying;
inuestigemus {GD} let us search out
PIUM: Deum {M2B}; Dominum {HGD}; HOLY: God; the Lord; that is, the Lord
scilicet Dominum {C}

8] SICUT: dixisse {H} 8] JUST AS: he is said to have said

PROPHETAM: Dauid: Media nocte PROPHET: David: I arose in the
surgebam {H}; id est Dauid {GDC}; middle of the night; that is, David; The
Dauid sanctus propheta ubique maxime holy prophet David is said everywhere
introducitur Dominum in nocte qusisse, to have sought the Lord at night, just he
sicut ipse dicit, Memor fui nocte nomi- himself says, Lord, I was mindful of your
nis tui Domine, et item, Media nocte name at night,1 and also, I was rising in
surgebam. {GD}; Dauid sanctus ubique the middle of the night2; holy David is
introducitur maxime Dominum in nocte said everywhere to have sought the Lord
60 Susan Boynton

quesisse sicut ipse dicit: Memor fui in at night, just as he himself says: I was
nocte nominis tui, et item Media nocte mindful of your name at night, and again,
surgebam, et inuocat Extollite manus I was rising in the middle of the night,
uestras in sanctam, et item Memor fui and he invokes Raise your hands to the
tui super stratum meum, unde et holy,3 and again I remembered you
beati Gregorii de quodam legimus qui on my bed,4 whence we also read of St.
postquam aliquantulo sopore corpus Gregory about a certain person who, after
reficisset circa mediam pene noctem he had refreshed his body with sleep for a
surgebat, et uigilans orabat. Qui tandiu little while, arose around the middle of the
hoc fecit donec facta est uox a Deum night and, keeping vigil, was praying. He
dicens quid peccatum suum ei Dominus did this so long that a voice was heard from
dimisset {C} God saying that the Lord released him
from his sin
NOVIMUS: fecisse {M2}; scimus {GD}; WE KNOW: [him] to have done; we
quesisse {B}; scilicet quesisse {C} know; to have sought; that is, to have
sought

Notes to Appendix
1. Psalm 118.55.
2. Psalm 118.62.
3. Psalm 132.2.
4. Psalm 62.7.

NOTES
1. The most recent overview of the customaries as a genre is Isabelle Cochelin, Evo-
lution des coutumiers monastiques dessine partir de ltude de Bernard, in From Dead
of Night to End of Day: The Medieval Cluniac Customs, ed. Susan Boynton and Isabelle
Cochelin (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 2966.
2. See Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin, The Sociomusical Role of Child Oblates
at the Abbey of Cluny in the Eleventh Century, in Musical Childhoods and the Cultures of
Youth, ed. Susan Boynton and Roe-Min Kok (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University
Press, 2006), 324. On the hierarchical structure of monastic communities, see Isabelle
Cochelin, tude sur les hirarchies monastiques: le prestige de lanciennet et son clipse
Cluny au XIe sicle, Revue Mabillon n.s. 11 (2000): 537.
3. See Susan Boynton, Training for the Liturgy as a Form of Monastic Education,
in Medieval Monastic Education, ed. Carolyn Muessig and George Ferzoco (Leicester: Leic-
ester University Press, 2000), 720.
4. Pueri sedent in capitulo, et per aliquem praecinentem cantum addiscunt (Patro-
logiae, ed. J.-P. Migne [Paris: Migne, 1853], 149: 687).
5. Anselme Davril and Lin Donnat, ed., Consuetudines Floriacenses Antiquiores (Sieg-
burg: Schmitt, 1984), 17.
6. Ibid., 15: Huic frater probabilis ingenii solatio datur qui succentor nuncupatur.
Nam scole magister est acceptor infantum. In omni studio cantilenarum et cotidiana cura
tonorum dinitiones et psalmorum distinctiones providus disponit et divinum ocium
negligenter tractantes propellare in capitulo solet.
7. Margot Fassler, The Oce of the Cantor in Early Western Monastic Rules and
Customaries: A Preliminary Investigation, Early Music History 5 (1985): 2951; Peter
Dinter, Liber tramitis aevi Odilonis abbatis (Siegburg: Schmitt, 1980), 23839.
 Medieval Musical Education Outside Music Theory 61

8. Actuum praeliminarium synodi primae aquisgranensis commentationes sive Statuta

Murbacensia (816), in Consuetudines Saeculi Octavi et Noni, ed. Josef Semmler (Siegburg:
Schmitt, 1963), 442: [. . .] ut scolastici, postquam psalmi, cantica et hymni memoriae com-
mendata fuerint, regula, post regulae textum liber comitis, interim uero historiam diuinae
auctoritatis et expositores eius necnon et conlationes patrum et uitas eorum legendo magi-
stris eorum audientibus percurrant. Postquam uero in istis probabiliter educati fuerint, ad
artem litteraturae et spirituales se transferant flores.
9. See Susan Boynton, The Didactic Function and Context of Eleventh-Century
Glossed Hymnaries, in Der lateinische Hymnus im Mittelalter: berlieferung-sthetik-
Ausstrahlung, ed. Andreas Haug, Monumenta Monodica Medii Aevi: Subsidia IV (Kassel:
Brenreiter, 2004), 30129.
10.
0. For a complete account of the typology, see Susan Boynton, Glosses on the Of-
fice Hymns in Eleventh-Century Continental Hymnaries, The Journal of Medieval Latin
11 (2001): 126. The categories are loosely based on Gernot Wieland, The Latin Glosses on
Arator and Prudentius in Cambridge University Library MS Gg.5.35, Studies and Texts 61
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1983), 16189.
11. F1 and F2 , both from the abbey of Farfa, are more closely related to each other than
to N and Su, but the four central Italian manuscripts can be characterized as a distinctive
textual tradition.
12. For complete descriptions of the manuscripts, see Susan Boynton, Eleventh-Cen-
tury Continental Hymnaries Containing Latin Glosses, Scriptorium 53 (1999): 20051;
Susan Boynton and Martina Pantarotto, Ricerche sul breviario di Santa Giulia (Brescia,
Biblioteca Queriniana, MS H VI 21), Studi medievali 42 (2001): 30118.
13. The medieval attribution of all the Psalms to David is a venerable tradition estab-
lished already in Judaism: see, for instance, Esther M. Menn, Sweet Singer of Israel: David
and the Psalms in Early Judaism, in Psalms in Community: Jewish and Christian Textual,
Liturgical, and Artistic Traditions, ed. Harold W. Attridge and Margot E. Fassler (Atlanta:
Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 6174. Most Christian commentators on the Psalms also
associated the figure of David with the entire book of Psalms, an assumption that is attested
in the third century, when the psalms were taking on increased importance in Christian
worship, a role that was greatly enhanced by the influence of desert monasticism. For a brief
discussion of this development, see James McKinnon, The Book of Psalms, Monasticism,
and the Western Liturgy, in The Place of the Psalms in the Intellectual Culture of the Middle
Ages, ed. Nancy van Deusen (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 4358.
14. The gloss combines psalm 118.62 as found in Regula Benedicti XVI.4 with psalm
118.55, which is not cited in the Rule.
15. A. G. Rigg and Gernot Wieland, A Canterbury Classbook of the Mid-Eleventh
Century (the Cambridge Songs Manuscript), Anglo-Saxon England 4 (1975): 11330; Mar-
tha Bayless, Beatus quid est and the Study of Grammar in Late Anglo-Saxon England, in
History of Linguistic Thought in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Vivien Law (Amsterdam: Ben-
jamins, 1993), 67110.
16. Michael Lapidge, The Study of Latin Texts in late Anglo-Saxon England: the Evi-
dence of Latin Glosses, in Latin and the Vernacular Languages in Early Medieval Britain,
ed. Nicholas Brooks (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1982), 99140.
17. Gernot Wieland, The Glossed Manuscript: Classbook or Library Book? Anglo-
Saxon England 14 (1985): 15374.
18. Ordo Cluniacensis per Bernardum scriptorem saeculi XI, in Vetus Disciplina
Monastica, ed. Marquard Herrgott (Paris: Osmont, 1726), 204: Solis pueris conceditur in
choro legere ad missam, cum in crastino debent esse duodecim lectiones, aut cum praevi-
dent aliquam lectionem collationis, vel huiusmodi; aut si aliquis eorum est novitius, poterit
psalmos suos firmare ad utramque missam, dum tacet conventus (Boys alone are allowed
62 Susan Boynton

to read in choir at mass when there are going to be twelve lessons the next day, or when
they prepare some lesson for the collation, or something of this kind; or if an of them is a
novice, he shall be able to study his psalms at both masses, while the community is silent).
Consuetudines fructuarienses, 1: 21: Infans qui in refectorio legit non debet cum aliis in
scolis canere causa prouidendae lectionis, et ad missam potest legere, quod nulli aliorum
tunc licet nisi pueris nouiter psalmos uel ymnos discentibus (The child who reads in the
refectory must not sing with the others in choir on account of the reading to be prepared,
and he can read at mass, which is not permitted to any of the others at that time except for
boys learning psalms or hymns for the first time).
19. Consuetudines fructuarienses, 2: 15051: Nullus ibi aspicit in librum, nisi tam mag-
nus puer sit, qui aliter discere non possit, et si duo sunt, apprehendunt tabulam et inter se
ponunt et librum desuper mittunt.
20. Consuetudines fructuarienses, 2: 265.
21. See Boynton, The Didactic Function, and Glossed Hymns in Eleventh-Century
Continental Hymnaries (Ph.D. diss., Brandeis University, 1997).
 Part Two

Renaissance Places
of Learning"
 5
Sang Schwylls and Music
Schools: Music Education
in Scotland, 15601650
GORDON MUNRO

In August 1560 the Scottish Parliament abolished the Mass and adopted
a Calvinist confession of faith. Reformation ideals had been circulating in
parts of the kingdom since the fifteenth century, but heretics were dealt with
swiftly. It was not until 1559 that the Reformers eorts were galvanized with
the return to Scotland of the formidable Calvinist, John Knox. In the midst of
political turmoil, his fiery preaching at Perth and St. Andrews led to rioting
and, within months, the Scottish Reformation was concluded. Cathedrals,
abbeys, and parish churches alike were purged of all things that were deemed
to be merely delightful and decorative, including artwork, stained glass,
organs, and polyphonic music. The eects of the Reformation were immedi-
ate and, for music and music education, disastrous: with no further need for
choristers and organists, song schools were made redundant. Of an estimated
fifty-eight pre-Reformation song schools, only two continued functioning
in the aftermath of the Act of 1560: one in Edinburgh and the other in St.
Andrews. The survival of these schools, in towns that had been primary cen-
ters of Reformation activity, suggests that it had never been the Reformers
66 Gordon Munro

intention to do away with song schools altogether, though that is in fact what
happened in the rest of the kingdom.
The Reformers education policy was outlined in their first Book of Dis-
cipline (1560), but it made no specific provision for the teaching of music.
Indeed, Reformed attitudes toward music were ambivalent. James Melville,
nephew of the leading Reformer Andrew Melville, enjoyed taking part in
musical activities at St. Leonards College, St. Andrews, in the 1570s, but later
wrote that it was the grait mercie of my God that keipit me from anie grait
progress in singing and playing on instruments; for, gi I haid atteined to
anie reasonable missure thairin, I haid never don guid utherwayes. One of
the Reformers main objectives was greater access to education. Many parish
schools, writing, Latin, and grammar schools survived the Reformation
and, in the twenty years after 1560, there was a proliferation of new schools.
Yet in the same period, only six song schools opened (including that at the
Chapel Royal). The Reformation had dealt a body-blow to music education
in Scotland.
The new Protestant regime required for its music nothing more than
simple metrical psalm tunes, and the obligatory participation of a largely il-
literate congregation necessitated a precentor to lead the singing. In those few
towns with song schools, the precentor and master of the school were one and
the same, and always male. The precentor/song school master also carried
out other church and burgh duties, including reading the scriptures before the
sermon, acting as clerk to the kirk session, and keeping the registers of births,
deaths, marriages, and of the poor. Some even acted as bailis, collecting fines
imposed by the kirk session on local sinners, including thieves and fornica-
tors. Accordingly, the appointment of a song school master was normally
carried out by the burgh council, and ratified by the kirk session. This marks
a significant shift in governance from the exclusively ecclesiastical institutions
of the pre-Reformation period. Masters might be censured by either civic or
kirk authority if the need arose. Kirk sessions were naturally concerned that
masters should live godly lives; burgh councils were more interested in their
talents as musicians and teachers. The two qualities did not always go hand
in hand: kirk sessions frequently rebuked song school masters/precentors for
their negligence or, indeed, scandalous behavior.
The leading of the congregational psalmody was the principal duty of
all precentors, and of their charges, the song school pupils. Most precentors
(especially in rural or remote areas) were unlikely to have been able to do
anything more than lead the congregation in simple unison, but singing the
 Sang Schwylls and Music Schools 67

psalms in four-part harmony was not unknown and seems to have been en-
couraged in urban parishes where the song school pupils formed what were,
in all but name, choirs. In Ayr, in 1583, the song school master and his pupils
were required to sing in the Kirk the fo[u]r partis of music. Choirs also
existed in Glasgow, Aberdeen, St. Andrews, and Stirling; other large towns
very likely followed suit. In some cases, choir stallsdowbill sett (double
seat) or commodious seattiswere specially constructed to accommodate
the singers beneath the pulpit. This evidence suggests that, despite the Re-
formers antipathy toward ornate music, they were not against choral music
in itself.
Nevertheless, the nations musical accomplishment declined to a de-
plorable level in the years after the Reformation: in the words of an act of
Parliament of 1579, the art of musik & singing . . . is almaist decayit and
sall schortly decay without tymous remeid be prouidit. This so-called act
of tymous remeid, one of the first of James VIs personal rule, legislated
for urgent action to reverse the deterioration. It required all councils of the
maist speciall burrowis of this realme . . . And . . . patronis and prouestis of
the collegis . . . To erect and sett vp ane sang scuill with ane maister sucient
and able for instructioun of the yowth in the said science of musik. The act
initiated a process of reform which was to last well into the seventeenth cen-
tury: five new song schools opened within four years of the 1579 act; and by
1633, at least twenty-five song schools (or music schools, as they later became
known) had been established. Most, if not all, burghs without a song school
made provision for music education in their grammar schools. King James
continued his policy of promoting music by making sizeable gifts toward
the maintenance of song schools in Elgin and Musselburgh; and his consort,
Queen Anne, supported the music school in Dunfermline, an ancient seat of
royal residence.
Each new song school was run by a master and, depending on its size, one
or two assistant teachers, called doctors. We have no accurate records of the
number of pupils attending song schools, but an isolated reference from 1582
to the school in the Fife town of Kirkcaldy mentions twenty pupils. While
most grammar schools educated boys only, some song and music schools also
taught girls.
In addition to their teaching salaries (paid by the burgh council; fees
for such duties as precenting were paid by the church), masters and doc-
tors were entitled to charge their pupils quarterly fees, called schollage. The
level of schollage was set by the council and varied according to the subjects
TABLE 5.1. Quarterly schollage for tuition at song/music schools in Scotland, 15931700.
Singing, Music or Singing &
Reading & Reading & unnamed Music & Instrumental Instrumental
Date Place Reading Writing Singing Discanting Writing subject Writing Music Music
a
1593 Edinburgh 6s 8d 10s 13s 4d * 20s
1597 Ayrb 6s 8d 13s 4d (spinet)
1600 Glasgowc 5s (master)
20d (doctor)
1609 Dundeed 6s 8d 13s 4d 26s 8d
1615 Lanark e **
1618 Paisleyf 6s 8d
1620 Stirling g 6s 8d
1623 Dunfermlineh 6s 8d
1626 Stirlingi **
1626 Glasgowj 10s (master)
40d (doctor)
1627 Dunfermlinek 10s
1636 Old Aberdeenl 13s 4d 20s 26s 8d
1639 Linlithgowm 10s (20s)
1641 Old Aberdeenn 6s 8d 13s 4d 20s 26s 8d 26s 8d
1646 Old Aberdeeno 6s 8d 13s 4d 20s 26s 8d 26s 8d
1646 Glasgowp 30s 40s
1647 Dundeeq 16s 8d 30s 46s 8d
1656 Elginr 6s 8d 12s
13s 4d
1662 Stirling s **
1675 New Aberdeent 30s
1680 Banu 6s 8d crown (+
arithmetic)
1694 Dundeev 14s (+
arithmetic)
1700 Stirlingw **
Notes:
No information is extant before 1593. The common unit of account in Scotland was the merk (= 13s 4d). To aid comparison, sums of merks have been
converted into pounds, shillings, and pence.
* For reading, writing, singing, and sett[ing] (= writing?) music, schollage to be set at the masters discretion.
** Schollage to be set at the masters discretion.
Higher schollage to be charged for pupils who are not the children of burgesses.
Schollage for children who live outside of the town (landward bairnes).
a M. Wood and R. K. Hannay, eds, Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh 15891603 (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, for the Corporation of
the City of Edinburgh, 1927), 106.
b J. H. Pagan, Annals of Ayr in the Olden Time 15601692 (Ayr: Alex. Fergusson, 1897), 75.
c J. D. Marwick, Charters and Other Documents Relating to the City of Glasgow AD 11751649 (Glasgow: printed for the Corporation of Glasgow, 1894), 1: cxciii.
d A. Maxwell, The History of Old Dundee Narrated out of the Town Council Register with Additions from Contemporary Annals (Edinburgh: David Douglas;
and Dundee: William Kidd, 1884), 337.
e R. Renwick, ed., Extracts from the Records of the Royal Burgh of Lanark with Charters and Documents Relating to the Burgh AD 11501722 (Glasgow:
Carson & Nicol, 1893), 122.
f R. Brown, The History of the Paisley Grammar School (Paisley: Alexander Gardner, 1875), 43.
g R. Renwick, Extracts from the Records of the Royal Burgh of Stirling AD 15191666 (Glasgow: Publications of the Glasgow Stirlingshire and Sons of
the Rock Society, 1887), 153.
h A. Shearer, ed., Extracts from the Burgh Records of Dunfermline in 16th and 17th Centuries ([Dunfermline]: Carnegie Dunfermline Trust, 1951), 140.
i Renwick, Stirling Burgh Records, 15191666, 160.
j J. D. Marwick, ed., Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Glasgow AD 15731642 (Glasgow: Publications of the Scottish Burgh Records Society, 1876), 354.
k Shearer, Dunfermline Burgh Records, 157.
l A. M. Munro, ed., Records of Old Aberdeen (Aberdeen: Publications of the New Spalding Club, 1899), 1: 6465.
m J. Ferguson, Ecclesia Antiqua, or, The History of an Ancient Church (St Michaels, Linlithgow) (Edinburgh and London: Oliver & Boyd, 1905), 251.
n Munro, Records of Old Aberdeen, 2: 1516.
o C. S. Terry, The Music School of Old Machar: From the Manuscripts of Professor C. Sanford Terry edited with an introduction by Harry M. Willsher, in The
Miscellany of the Third Spalding Club (Aberdeen: Publications of the Third Spalding Club, 1940), 2: 233.
p J. D. Marwick, ed., Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Glasgow AD 16301662 (Glasgow: Publications of the Scottish Burgh Records Society, 1881), 96.
q Maxwell, History of Old Dundee, 339.
r W. Cramond, comp., and S. Ree, ed., The Records of Elgin 12341800 (Aberdeen: Publications of the New Spalding Club, 1908), 2: 368.
s Renwick, Stirling Records, 241.
t J. Stuart, ed., Extracts from the Council Register of the Burgh of Aberdeen 16431747 (Edinburgh: Publications of the Scottish Burgh Records Society, 1872), 293.
u W. Cramond, comp., The Annals of Ban (Aberdeen: Publications of the New Spalding Club, 1893), 2: 174.
v E. Smart, History of Perth Academy (Perth: Milne, Tannahill & Methven, 1932), 134.
w A. F. Hutchison, History of the High School of Stirling (Stirling: Eneas MacKay, 1904), 246
70 Gordon Munro

studied at the school, and from one school to another. Table 5.1 summarizes
schollage rates and subjects taught during the seventeenth century. Reading
was probably taught in all Scottish schools, even if not specifically listed in
indenturesthe promotion of literacy (with, of course, the ultimate goal of
reading the scriptures) was the single greatest educational advance of the
post-Reformation era. Other subjects taught at song and music schools were
writing, arithmetic (in some places), singing, music, and instrumental mu-
sic. Children of the landed gentry (landward bairnes) were required to pay
higher fees, often twice as much as burgh children. Therefore schollage, de-
pendent on the number and social status of pupils, could greatly enhance a
music teachers salary; non-payment was rectified swiftly by the council.
There are few extant references to the actual school buildings, but those
in Old Aberdeen may have been typical: the three Rs (reading, writing, and
arithmetic) were taught in the downstairs room of the school; the upper room
was reserved for those learning vocal and instrumental music. Many song
school buildings were situated in churchyards.
The school day lasted eight or nine hours, beginning at 6 or 7 AM and
ending at 6 PM with breaks of one hour in the morning (910 AM) and two
hours at lunchtime (122 PM). Stipulated daily activities included the saying of
prayers and the catechism, Bible reading, and the singing of psalms. Metri-
cal versions of psalms, spiritual songs, and the xii Articles of the Christian
Fayth formed an important part of the curriculum in post-Reformation song
schools, not least because of their eectiveness as a means of disseminating
scripture and doctrine. Simple four-part psalm and canticle harmonizations
by David Peebles (fl. 15301576, d. before 1592), Andrew Kemp (fl. 15601570),
and others circulated in manuscript form from the 1560s onward. Peebless
106 settings were collected by Thomas Wood (fl. 15601592) in two sets of
partbooks that are now scattered among various libraries. Kemps forty-
four settings are recorded in Duncan Burnetts Music Book. Settings by
John Angus, John Black, Alexander Smith, Sharp, Andrew Blackhall, and
John Buchan also survive. Significantly, most of these composers (with the
exception of Peebles, Angus, and Sharp) are known to have been connected
with song schools during the latter part of the sixteenth century. They would
certainly have used their own psalm-settings in the churches where they pre-
cented, and in the schools where they taught.
More ambitious polyphonic music would have been taught and sung
in the larger song schools, especially those attached to former collegiate
churches, and at the Chapel Royal. Ten imitative psalms in reports
 Sang Schwylls and Music Schools 71

(mostly anonymous), and three five-voice anthems by Andrew Blackhall (b.

1535/6, d. 1609) are extant. These pieces are likely to have been performed
in the churches where the composers worked, and almost certainly in the
attached song schools.
In a diary entry for 1574, James Melville (nephew of the leading reformer
Andrew Melville) records that around the age of eighteen he was being taught
by one Alexander Smith, wha haid been treaned upe amangis the mounks in
[St. Andrews] Abbay. I lerned of him the gam, plean-song, and monie of the
treables of the Psalmes [i.e., as well as the tunes of the psalms, which were
the tenor part of four-part harmonizations]. The gam refers, of course, to
the rudiments of music; but it is also interesting that Smith was still teach-
ing plainchant fourteen years after the Reformation. This is not an isolated
reference to an apparently anachronistic subject. The following extract from
a poem by John Burel describes the festivities upon the triumphal entry of
Jamess consort, Anne of Denmark, to Edinburgh in May 1590.

Ye might haif hard on euerie streit

Trim melodie and musick sweit.
19 Thocht Philamon his braith had blawin,
For musick quho wes countit king,
His trumpal tune had not bene knawin,
Sic sugrit voycis thair did sing,
For thair the descant did abound harmony
With the sweit diapason sound. the interval of an octave
20 Tennour, and trebill with sweit sence,
Ilkane with pairts gaif nots agane, each one; possibly a
description of imitation
Fabourdoun fell with decadence, counterpoint improvised
on chant
With priksang, and the singing plane: mensural music; plainchant
Thair enfants sang and barnelie brudis, broods of children (i.e.
song school pupils)
Quho had bot new begun the mudis. who had only just begun
the moods (i.e. modes) of
mensural notation
21 Musiciners thair pairts expond,
And als for joy the bells wer rung,
72 Gordon Munro

The instruments did corrospond

Vnto the musick quhilk wes sung: which
All sorts of instruments wer thair,
As sindry can the same declair.
22 Organs and Regals* thair did carpe,
With thair gay goldin glittring strings,
Thair wes the Hautbois and the Harpe,
Playing maist sweit and pleasant springs: lively dance tunes
And sum on lutis did play and sing,
Of Instruments the onely King.
23 Viols and Virginals were heir,
With Girthorns maist iucundious, gitterns; joyous
Trumpets and Timbrels maid gret beir, drums; din
With Instruments melodious:
The Seistar and the Sumphion, cittern
With Clarch Pipe and Clarion. Clar[sa]ch? (i.e. harp);
trumpet
24 Thir notes seemd heuinly sweit and hie,
And not like tunes terrestriall,
Appollo thair appeird to be,
Thair sound wes so celestiall:
O Pan amang sick pleasant plais,
Thy rustik pipe can haue na prais.

* Regals . . . with . . . strings infers a clavichord-like instrument, rather than an

organ.
Sumphion is a Scots rendering of symphonia, which can denote several dierent
types of instruments, including drums, bagpipes, as well as hurdy-gurdy and other
string keyboard instruments.

Stanzas 19 and 20 mention descant, faburden, pricksong, and plainchant.

These subjects, along with figuration and countering, were taught to pre-
Reformation choristers in both England and Scotland. Although parts of
this poem are modeled on an earlier work by Gavin Douglas, The Palice of
Honour (ca. 1501, which also mentions descant, diapason, faburden and prick-
song), and allowing for some poetic licence (evident in the frequent use of
alliteration), Burel seems to be familiar with his musical terminology, and
 Sang Schwylls and Music Schools 73

the poem suggests these subjects were still being taught in 1590. All of them
require the singing and study of plainchantclearly, this was not anathema
in the new Calvinist Scotland, provided the chants were sung outside church
and, presumably, without their Latin texts.
These skills are also discussed in an anonymous Scottish manuscript
treatise, The Art of Music, which was compiled during the late 1570s, pos-
sibly coeval with the 1579 act of tymous remeid. It contains three sections
(mensural music, counterpoint, and proportional music) modeled closely on
the last three books of Gauriuss Practica musice (Milan, 1496), with borrow-
ings from other authors. Most of the copious musical examples are anony-
mous, some of Scottish authorship; many are based on plainchant, and even
the eight traditional psalm tones are discussed, although the author admits
that they have not been used in the reallm of Scottland send [= since] the
yeir of god ane thowsand fyvehundret fyvftie and aucht yeiris [1558]. This
passage (fol. 102v) continues, Thairfoir to draw tham heir [i.e. to discuss the
eight psalm tones] at mair len[g]th It is nocht expedient becauss thay ar not
vsit, which implies that although the eight psalm tones were no longer being
used after 1558, nevertheless the techniques described in the treatise were still
in use around the time of its compilation.
Several seventeenth-century Scottish manuscripts, compiled by song/
music school masters or children of the nobility, also contain sections on the
rudiments of music. Andrew Melville, doctor and, later, master of the music
school in Aberdeen (16171640), compiled a commonplace-book into which
he copied William Bathes singing primer A Brief Introduction to the True Art
of Musicke (1584), of which no copies are now extant. His manuscript also
contains sections of Ravenscrofts A Briefe Discourse (1614). The music books
belonging to Lady Anne Ker (ca. 16051667) and John Squyer (compiled ca.
16961701), and Robert Edwards commonplace-book (begun ca. 1635) include
tables of time-values, rests, and other musical symbols, a great sta with clefs
and note names, and The Gam-Vt, or Scale of Musick, as well as practical
advice on performance. (Lady Anne Kers music-book instructs the reader
to remember that in signeing [sic] the more notes ye singe with one breath the
better.) Robert Edward also copied into his commonplace-book diagrams of
the subdivision of the larg (i.e., maxima) and even examples of ligatures, as
well as part of a Latin music treatise, De music elementis primis (fols. 55r
51r, entered upside-down in relation to the rest of the manuscript). This is, in
fact, an incomplete copy of the music instruction section of the Pdagogus by
J. T. Freigius (Basel, 1582), which he adapted from a (now lost) De musica by
74 Gordon Munro

Conrad Stuber. Other Scottish manuscripts which contain sections on the

rudiments of music include the seventeenth-century additions to the quin-
tus volume of Thomas Woods partbooks, and the music books compiled by
Edward Millar (fl. 16241643, music teacher in Edinburgh, and master of the
choristers at the Chapel Royal) and the weill expert Louis de France (fl.
16751691, music teacher in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Glasgow).
The title page of the first book of secular music printed in Scotland, Songs
and Fancies, published by John Forbes in Aberdeen (1662), proudly announces
that it contains a briefe Introduction of Musick, As is taught in the Musick-
Schole of Aberdene by T.D. Mr. of Music. The briefe Introduction, with
Exposition of the Gamme is in fact an almost verbatim (but unacknowl-
edged) transcription of Thomas Morleys A Plaine and Easie Introduction to
Practicall Musicke (1597; 2nd edition, 1608), preceded by an illustration of the
Guidonian hand. T. D. became Thomas Davidson in the second edition
(1666). Davidson succeeded Andrew Melville (his brother-in-law) as master of
the music school in New Aberdeen (1640ca. 1674). If the didactic elements
of this book were used in the music school, no doubt the songs were too,
themselves a retrospective collection of sixteenth-century Scots partsongs
and early seventeenth-century English lute songs. Furthermore, to judge from
the books apparent popularity (it went through a second edition in 1666 and
a third in 1682), we may infer that it was widely used in other Scottish music
schools, alongside the pedagogical publications of Bathe, Morley, and Ravens-
croft, to name but three English instructional books which had made their
way north of the border.
The earliest reference to the term music school (as opposed to song
school) occurs in 1575 in Aberdeen. For a time the terms were interchange-
able: the transition from song to music school, like the establishment of
the schools themselves following the act of tymous remeid, was a gradual
process. Music school became the more prevalent term around the 1630s.
A central purpose of song/music schools was the training of youngsters to
assist in leading church psalmody; but the gradual change of name is sig-
nificant and reflects a steady shift in the curriculum to include the teach-
ing of instrumental music. John Black, who taught at the Aberdeen school
(15461587) when it was described as a music school, wrote consort music
which he would doubtless have used in his teaching. His compositions in-
clude a lesson upon the tune of psalm 50, and two further instrumental
lessons upon psalm tunes (both found in The Art of Music) have been
attributed to him.
 Sang Schwylls and Music Schools 75

The few surviving indentures of instrumental tuition in music schools

mention only keyboard and plucked string instruments (spinet, virginals,
lute, and cittern); wind and bowed string instruments are conspicuous by
their absence. Yet, if we are to believe John Burel, Anne of Denmark was
greeted by musicians playing a very varied assortment of instruments in 1590.
Tuition on organ, viol, and possibly shawm and flute, is likely to have been
available in those towns with prestigious music schools (including Aberdeen,
Glasgow, and Edinburgh) from the mid to late sixteenth century onwards.
David Cuming was master of the music school in Edinburgh (15861593) and
would have taken a leading role in the extravagant musical arrangements to
welcome Anne of Denmark to the city, as described in John Burels poem
(see above). The keyboard composer Duncan Burnett (fl. 16141652) was
master of the music school in Glasgow (in 1614, and from 1638). The contents
of his music bookkeyboard pieces by William Kinloch (fl. ?15681582),
William Byrd, and Burnett himself, consort music, and psalm-settings by
Andrew Kempwould have formed a significant part of Burnetts teaching
material.
During the seventeenth century, music secured its place in what was per-
ceived to be a rounded education for the children of upper-class families, and
many employed private music teachers. (Duncan Burnett, himself related
to the aristocratic family of the Burnets of Leys in Aberdeenshire, was for a
time employed by Sir John Maxwell of Pollok, and possibly taught music to
the children of James, First Earl of Abercorn.) However, the children of the
gentry patronized the local music school and this served to raise the prestige
of the burgh. It is recorded that the lack of a public music teacher in Stirling
(in 1699) hinders many of the gentrie from sending their childring to be
here educat, to the noe smal prejudice of this burgh. Some burghs went to
considerable expense to attract the sons of wealthy landowners: Ayrs burgh
accounts record a payment of 18 for lodging Robert Dalyells two sons on
their visit anent [= concerning] the Music School.
The lack of a functioning music school in Glasgow in 1638 was shamefully
reported as a grait discredit [to] this citie. Following the act of tymous
remeid, which entrusted the promotion of music education to the maist
speciall burghs of the realm, the establishment and support of a music school
had clearly become an object of civic pride. Under the terms of the act, it be-
came incumbent upon burghs to secure the services of well-qualified music
teachers and, on at least two occasions (in 1593 and 1631), musicians of the
Chapel Royal were employed to examine potential music school masters.
76 Gordon Munro

In the late sixteenth century there was a dearth of skilled music teachers.
The best of them are therefore found moving from one town to another on
the promise of better terms of employment. Some councils even resorted
to head-hunting, as in Stirling, where the bailies layed out for intelligence
in the most parts of the Kingdom for fitt persones to exerce that oce. As
a result, pay and conditions gradually improved across most of the kingdom
(see below). An important factor in a masters decision to move to another
burgh seems to have been the councils willingness to limit, or suppress, ri-
val music teaching. Private teachers could seriously reduce a public music
teachers income (through lost schollage), and contemporary records provide
many examples of councils keen to retain their music teacher (or attract a new
one) by guaranteeing his monopoly in the town.
After their appointment, masters were subject to continuing inspections
(visitations) by ministers and members of the kirk session or presbytery.
Schools in Aberdeen were visited quarterly. Visitations could be anxious
times for schoolmasters as they had to justify their continued employment,
not only through the merits of their teaching, but also with regard to their
doctrine and disciplineteachers were not simply required to teach music,
but also meaners, and wertew. One council even seems to have tried brib-
ing the music school pupils: in return for their cooperation and good behavior
during a visitation, they were oered four pounds of plumdemus (damson
plums).
But sometimes bribery did not work. School pupils (then as now) were
capable of gross indiscipline and even violence. In December 1612, pupils of
the music school in New Aberdeen seized the school with hagbuttis, pistol-
lis, swords and lang wapynnis and caused great deidis of oppressioune and
ryottis. The culprits were expelled and fined; the teachers were condemned
for their lack of discipline. The council deplored the fact that the school is
taken almost yearly. The cause of the annual mutiny was a council edict
dating back to 1574, which banned school holidays in the dayes dedicated
to superstitioun in Papistrie. Minor indiscipline continued and the coun-
cil eventually relented, granting several days play in lieu of the traditional
Christmas holiday. Music school pupils were also known to disrupt church
services and even funeral wakes. Due to the great insolencie of scholars
at wakes (which were often large and riotous events in any case), Aberdeen
council set limits on the number of pupils attending; but even this failed
to curb their disorderly behavior, and eventually their presence was banned
altogether.
 Sang Schwylls and Music Schools 77

350

300

250

200

Scots
per annum

150

100

50

0
1560

1570

1580

1590

1600

1610

1620

1630

1640

1650
FIGURE 5.1. Song/music school masters basic wages, 15601650.

This ban seriously aected the Aberdeen music school masters income,
since funeral wakes were very lucrative. Income from additional work such as
wakes and civic entertainments varied considerably from town to town, and
this may have been another factor contributing to the propensity of music
school masters to move from one area to another. In addition to their wages
and outside income, some school masters also received perquisites, includ-
ing free house rent and victual. Masters wages varied from place to place.
Figure 5.1 charts the rise and fall of basic salaries from 1560 to 1650. Allowing
for the eects of inflation, the chart describes a general increase in salaries
toward the end of the sixteenth centuryevidence of song/music school
masters recently acquired professional status (following the act of tymous
remeid). By now, most music school masters were earning a basic salary at
least equal to that of a skilled craftsman, and these earnings would have
been substantially augmented by schollage and other additional income. The
chart shows that basic wages continued to rise (dramatically in some cases)
during the first thirty to forty years of the seventeenth century, but tailed o
during the 1640s, the period of civil war. Significantly, wage highpoints are
contemporary with important historical events, suggesting that each in turn
stirred up the nations musical life. James VI and I returned to Scotland in
78 Gordon Munro

1617; the publication of the first harmonized psalters in Scotland (between

1625 and 1635) involved music school masters; and, in the early 1630s, Charles
Is advocacy of episcopacy and his Scottish coronation in Edinburgh (1633) in-
spired a revitalization of the Chapel Royal. Each of these three events is likely
to have caused civic and ecclesiastical authorities to review the remuneration
rates of their musician employees, with the intention of improving the quality
of local musical activity.
Thus, the history of Scottish music education during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries is closely bound up with that of church and state. Pre-
Reformation sang schwylls were attached to churches: teachers were
mostly musicians in holy orders, and the schools existed solely for the culti-
vation of liturgical chant and polyphonic music. After a period of great insta-
bility following the Reformation, song schools were reopened and eectively
secularized by being brought under burgh control. But the schools retained
some ecclesiastical connections: masters and pupils were still required to sing
in church, albeit a very dierent kind of music; and church authorities main-
tained educational and doctrinal standards. Schools (of all types) existed for
the cultivation of godly citizens.
James VIs act of tymous remeid secured the future of music educa-
tion in Scotland. The masters of music schools (as they began to be called
more widely) attained professional status. By the middle of the seventeenth
century, music school masters were well-paid and highly regarded individu-
als within their communities. They were well educated: many had university
degrees, and some went on to become ministers. Some were even trained
abroad, like Patrick Davidson, master of the music school in New Aberdeen
(1601ca. 1634), who studied in Italy (but who, intriguingly, was forced to leave
that country upon the Account of a young Princess, who was much in love
with him). Almost all music school masters and doctors were made bur-
gesses of the towns where they worked, which indicates a recognition of their
important contribution to the fabric of burgh life in early modern Scotland.

NOTES
1. Thirty Ayrshire Lollards were remitted to James IV for punishment in 1494. Be-
tween 1528 and 1558, twenty-one Scots Lutheran martyrs were burned at the stake and many
more were exiled; Michael Lynch, Scotland: A New History (London: Pimlico, 1991), 186.
2. The (conservative) estimate of fifty-eight schools assumes that song schools, how-
ever small, were attached to all twelve cathedrals and all forty-six collegiate churches in
Scotland, but does not take account of those attached to abbeys and other institutions;
 Sang Schwylls and Music Schools 79

see Donald Elmslie Robertson Watt, Ecclesiastical Organization about 1520 and Col-
legiate Churches, in Atlas of Scottish History to 1707, ed. Peter G. B. McNeill and Hector L.
MacQueen (Edinburgh: Scottish Medievalists and Department of Geography, University
of Edinburgh, 1996). Payments were made to the master of Edinburghs song school in 1560
and 1564; Robert Adam, ed., Edinburgh Records: The Burgh Accounts (Edinburgh: printed
for the Lord Provost, Magistrates and Council, 1899), 306, 481. Alexander Smith is de-
scribed as doctor of the Sang Scole in the Abbay [of St. Andrews] in May 1560; David H.
Fleming, ed., Register of the Minister[,] Elders and Deacons of the Christian Congregation of
St Andrews . . . 15591600 (Edinburgh: Publications of the Scottish History Society, 1889),
39. Andrew Kemp was master of the song school in St. Andrews shortly after the Reforma-
tion, according to Thomas Woods marginal note in the first copy of the altus volume of his
partbooks; GB-Lbl Add. MS 33933, p. 134.
3. James K. Cameron, ed., The First Book of Discipline (Edinburgh: St. Andrew Press,
1972).
4. Robert Pitcairn, ed., The Autobiography and Diary of Mr James Melvill, Minister
of Kilrenny, in Fife, and Professor of Theology in the University of St Andrews (Edinburgh:
Publications of the Wodrow Society, 1842), 29.
5. See John Durkan, Distribution of Lowland Schools before 1633, in Atlas of Scot-
tish History to 1707, ed. Peter G. B. McNeill and Hector L. MacQueen (Edinburgh: Scottish
Medievalists and Department of Geography, University of Edinburgh, 1996).
6. A statute of 1565 mentions the preceptor [= master] of the bairns of the Chapel
Royal; James Beveridge and Gordon Donaldson, eds., Registrum Secreti Sigilli Regum Sco-
torum (Edinburgh: Her Majestys Stationery Oce, 1957) vol. 5, pt. 2, 15 (no. 2528). (The
Chapel Royal operated in Stirling Castle until 1612 when it moved to Holyrood Palace,
Edinburgh.) The other song schools were located in New Aberdeen, Dundee, Old Aberdeen,
Glasgow, and Perth; Gordon Munro, Scottish Church Music and Musicians, 15001700
(Ph.D. diss., University of Glasgow, 1999), 81, 122, 80, 213, 123.
7. Women seldom feature in this history, except in documents relating to private mu-
sic tuition among the middle and upper classes. There is a unique reference to the temporary
appointment of a female precentor in Elgin in 1681, who served as maister of the music
school following the death of the previous incumbenther husband; William Cramond,
comp., and Stephen Ree, ed., The Records of Elgin 12341800 (Aberdeen: Publications of
the New Spalding Club, 1908), 2: 407. During the seventeenth century, women were oc-
casionally permitted to keep venture schools (for girls), and music was sometimes taught
by them as part of the curriculum, for example, Christian Cleland taught singing, playing,
dancing, sewing, embroidery, and French in Edinburgh in 1662; see Marguerite Wood, ed.,
Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh 16551665 (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd,
1940), 220, 296.
8. This body is the lowest, parish level of Presbyterian church government, made up
of the minister and elected elders of the congregation.
9. For example in Ban, 1692, and Elgin, 1697; see William Cramond, comp., The An-
nals of Ban (Aberdeen: Publications of the New Spalding Club, 1891), 1: 165, and Cramond
and Ree, Records of Elgin, 1: 352.
10. Disputes between the two bodies over the appointment of a precentor were rare;
see Munro, Scottish Church Music, 13940, for one such instance.
11. See Munro, Scottish Church Music, 87, 12425, et pass.
12. Upon the famous return of the exiled minister John Durie to Edinburgh in 1582,
a 2,000-strong crowd is reported to have sung psalm 124 in harmony; Millar Patrick, Four
Centuries of Scottish Psalmody (London: Oxford University Press, 1949), 61.
13. John H. Pagan, Annals of Ayr in the Olden Time 15601692 (Ayr: Alex. Fergusson,
1897), 75.
80 Gordon Munro

14. See Munro, Scottish Church Music, 83, 132, 16970, 213.
15. Thomas Thomson, ed., The Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland (Edinburgh: H. M.
General Register House, 1814), 3: 174. Here and elsewhere in this essay, italicized letters
within words (in quotations from manuscript) indicate letters which are to be supplied by
contraction signs in the original document.
16. In Cupar, Kirkcaldy, Haddington, Leith, and Ayr; see Munro, Scottish Church
Music, 132, 49, 167, 216.
17. In 1594, James VI gifted lands and revenues to Elgin town council for the specific
support of a preceptor qualified to teach music; Cramond and Ree, Records of Elgin, 2:
447. In 1589, he granted 300 merks (= 200) to Andrew Blackhall in Musselburgh for the
upkeep of a music school. I am indebted to the late Dr. John Durkan for this information
from his book to be published by the Scottish History Society, Early Schools and School-
masters in Scotland, 15601633; see also Neil Livingston, The Scottish Metrical Psalter of AD
1635 (Glasgow: MacLure and MacDonald, 1864), 21. In 1610, Queen Anne mortified the large
sum of 2,000 for the support of Dunfermlines schoolmasters, both grammar and music;
Peter Chalmers, Historical and Statistical Account of Dunfermline (Edinburgh and London:
William Blackwood & Sons, 1859), 2: 417.
18. Lachlan Macbean, The Kirkcaldy Burgh Records with the Annals of Kirkcaldy, the
Towns Charter, Extracts from Original Documents and a Description of the Ancient Burgh
(Kirkcaldy: The Fifeshire Advertiser Oce, 1908), 7173.
19. Pagan, Annals of Ayr, 75.
20. John Stuart, ed., Extracts from the Council Register of the Burgh of Aberdeen 1570
1625 (Aberdeen: Publications of the Spalding Club, 1848), 359.
21. William Orem, A Description of the Chanonry, Cathedral, and Kings College of Old
Aberdeen in the years 1724 and 1725 (Aberdeen: J. Chalmers & Co., 1791), 111.
22. See Alexander MacDonald Munro, ed., Records of Old Aberdeen (Aberdeen: Pub-
lications of the New Spalding Club, 1899), 1: 6465; William Walker, ed., Extracts from the
Commonplace Book of Andrew Melvill, Doctor and Master in the Song School of Aberdeen,
16211640 (Aberdeen: John Rae Smith, 1899), xxxvi; John Stuart, ed., Extracts from the
Council Register of the Burgh of Aberdeen 16431747 (Edinburgh: Publications of the Scot-
tish Burgh Records Society, 1872), 293; William Chambers, ed., Charters and Documents
Relating to the Burgh of Peebles with Extracts from the Records of the Burgh AD 11651710
(Edinburgh: Publications of the Scottish Burgh Records Society, 1872), 68, 386; and Robert
Renwick, ed., Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Peebles 16521714 (Glasgow: Publica-
tions of the Scottish Burgh Records Society, 1910), 30.
23. Cantus (first copy, TWC 1) GB-Eu MS La.III.483
Cantus (second copy, TWC2) GB-Eu MS Dk.5.14
Quintus (TWQ) EIRE-Dtc MS 412
Altus (first copy, TWA1) GB-Lbl Add. MS 33933
Altus (second copy, TWA 2) US-Wgu
Tenor (TWT) GB-Eu MS La.III.483
Bassus (first copy, TWB1) GB-Eu MS La.III.483
Bassus (second copy, TWB 2) GB-Eu MS Dk.5.15
The second copy of the Tenor partbook remains untraced. Only one copy of the Quintus
partbook has come to light: it may not have been duplicated.
24. GB-En MS 9447.
25. See MB 15, nos. 1327, ed. Kenneth Elliott.
26. For further information, see Gordon Munro, The Scottish Reformation and its
Consequences, in Our awin Scottis use: Music in the Scottish Church up to 1603, ed. Sally
Harper, Studies in the Music of Scotland 1 (Glasgow and Aberdeen: Universities of Glas-
gow and Aberdeen, 2000). The complete extant repertoire of Scottish psalmody will be
 Sang Schwylls and Music Schools 81

published in a forthcoming volume of the series Musica Scotica, ed. Kenneth Elliott and
Gordon Munro.
27. Psalm 21, sung according to the art of musique [= in polyphony], and a seven-part
setting of psalm 128 were performed at the baptism of James VIs first son, Prince Henry,
at the Chapel Royal in 1594; Charles Rogers, History of the Chapel Royal of Scotland (Edin-
burgh: Publications of the Grampian Club, 1882), lxxxiii, lxxxv.
28. See Kenneth Elliott, ed., Ten Psalms in Reports for Four & Five Voices, Musica
Scotica Miscellaneous Pieces Series (Glasgow: Musica Scotica, 2002) and MB 15, nos. 10 and
11. See also Jamie Reid-Baxter, Judge and Revenge my Cause: The Earl of Morton, Andro
Blackhall, Robert Sempill and the Fall of the House of Hamilton in 1579, in Older Scots
Literature, ed. S. Mapstone (Edinburgh: John Donald, 2005).
29. Pitcairn, Diary of James Melvill, 29.
30. John Burel (fl. 15901601) was an Edinburgh merchant and poet. His The Discrip-
tion of the Queenis Maiesties Maist Honorable Entry into the Tovn of Edinbvrgh appears in
Papers Relative to the Marriage of King James the Sixth of Scotland, reproduced in J. T. Gibson
Craig, ed., Papers Relative to the Marriage of King James the Sixth of Scotland (Edinburgh:
Publications of the Bannatyne Club, 1828), vol. 1. I am indebted to Dr. Jamie Reid-Baxter for
information on Burel, and advice on this poem in particular; see his article Politics, Passion
and Poetry in the Circle of James VI: John Burel and his surviving works, in A Palace in the
Wild: Essays on Vernacular Culture and Humanism in Late-Medieval and Renaissance Scot-
land, ed. Luuk A. J. R. Houwen, Alasdair A. MacDonald, and Sally L. Mapstone (Leuven:
Peeters, 2000) and his forthcoming Complete Works of John Burel (Edinburgh: Scottish
Text Society). Given Burels apparent acquaintance with music, perhaps he himself had
at one time been one of the barnelie brudis, / Quho had bot new begun the mudis (see
stanza 20).
31. See Rigols and Clavicembalo in Graham Strahle, An Early Music Dictionary: Mu-
sical Terms from British Sources, 15001700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
32. See Howard Mayer Brown, Symphonia (ii) in The New Grove Dictionary of Music
and Musicians, 2nd edition, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 2001), 24: 801.
33. See Jane Flynn, The Education of Choristers in England During the Sixteenth
Century, in English Choral Practice, 14001650, ed. John Morehen, Cambridge Studies in
Performance Practice 5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 182. These skills
are listed in Bishop William Elphinstones revised foundation statute for Kings College,
Aberdeen in 1505; Cosmo Innes, ed., Fasti Aberdonenses: Selections from the Records of the
University and Kings College of Aberdeen 14941854 (Aberdeen: Publications of the Spalding
Club, 1854), 60. Square-note (also cited by Flynn) is not listed as a skill to be learned in
pre-Reformation Scottish song schools. Pricksong refers to the study of mensural nota-
tion, and figuration to the rhythmic singing of chant as a basis for improvisation. Fabur-
den, descant, and countering are dierent methods of improvising upon a plainsong cantus
firmus.
34. See Priscilla Bawcutt, ed., The Shorter Poems of Gavin Douglas (Edinburgh: Scot-
tish Text Society, 1967; 2nd edition, 2003). The Palice of Honour was reprinted in Edinburgh
in 1579 (Edinburgh: John Ross)Burel may have worked from this edition.
35. GB-Lbl Add. MS 4911; see Kenneth Elliott, Music of Scotland 15001700 (Ph.D.
diss., University of Cambridge, 1959), 26573, and Judson Dana Maynard, An Anony-
mous Scottish Treatise on Music from the Sixteenth Century, British Museum, Additional
Manuscript 4911 (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1961).
36. See David McGuinness, Syncopation in English Music, 15301630: gentle daintie
sweet accentings and unreasonable odd Cratchets (Ph.D. diss., University of Glasgow,
1994), 38; and Helena Mennie Shire, Andro Melvills Music library: Aberdeen 1637, Edin-
burgh Bibliographical Society Transactions 4, no. 1 (1955).
82 Gordon Munro

37. Andrew Melvilles Commonplace-Book, GB-A MS 28; John Squyers Music-Book,

GB-Eu MS La.III.490; Lady Anne Kers Music-Book, GB-En MS 5448; Robert Edwards Com-
monplace-Book, GB-En MS 9450. See Elliott, Music of Scotland, for detailed accounts of
these and other sources of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Scottish music.
38. Johann Thomas Freigius (15431583), a pupil of Glarean, taught Stuber (ca. 1550ca.
1605) at Freiburg University in the early 1570s. See Anthony F. Carver, Stuber, Conrad in
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edition, ed. Stanley Sadie (London:
Macmillan, 2001), 24: 618. According to the entry for this manuscript in the National Li-
brary of Scotland Catalogue of Manuscripts Acquired Since 1925 (Edinburgh: Her Majestys
Stationery Oce, 1989), 7: 160, the music treatise is attributed to Conrad von Zabern,
but this is probably a misreading of Conradus stuberus which appears on fol. 54v. (I am
grateful to Miss Katy Cooper for drawing my attention to this manuscripts entry in the
Catalogue of Manuscripts.)
39. Thomas Woods Partbooks, quintus volume, EIRE-Dtc MS 412; Louis de Frances
Music-Book, GB-Eu MS La.III.491. For further information on Louis de France, see Munro,
Scottish Church Music, 104105, 18892, 23032. Edward Millars Music-Book (dated
1626, now lost) has been described by William Cowan in Bibliography of the Book of Com-
mon Order and psalm book of the Church of Scotland, 15561644, Papers of the Edinburgh
Bibliographical Society 10 (1913): 53100; Edward Millars Commonplace-Book (dated 1643,
also known as the McAlman Manuscript), GB-En MS 9477. Again, see Elliott, Music of
Scotland, for detailed accounts of these sources.
40. See Charles Sanford Terry, John Forbess Songs and Fancies, Musical Quarterly
22, no. 4 (1936): 40219. The sole surviving copy of the 1662 edition is housed in US-SM.
41. See Munro, Scottish Church Music, 100103.
42. William Meldrum is styled magister scole musice; John Maitland Thomson, ed.,
Registrum Magni Sigilli Regum Scotorum (Edinburgh: H. M. General Register House, 1886),
4: 633 (no. 2360).
43. MB ix, no. 30; MB xv, nos. 81 and 82.
44. In 1675 an Edinburgh music school master taught, privately, the viola da gamba
described even then as a musical instrument not ordinar; Louise B. Taylor, ed., Aberdeen
Council Letters (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1961), 5: 317. See W. Forbes
Gray and James H. Jamieson, A Short History of Haddington (facs. repr., Stevenage: SPA
Books, 1944), 130; Pagan, Annals of Ayr, 75; Cramond and Ree, Records of Elgin, 2: 398;
Wood, Edinburgh Records, 16551665, 220; David Robertson, comp., South Leith Records:
Compiled from the Parish Registers for the years 1588 to 1700; and from Other Original Sources
(Edinburgh: Andrew Elliot, 1911), 11.
45. Munro, Scottish Church Music, 16263.
46. Duncan Burnetts Music-Book is discussed in Elliott, Music of Scotland. Music
by Burnett appears in Kenneth Elliott, ed., Early Scottish Keyboard Music . . . Together with
a Short Selection of Scots Airs for Cittern and for Violin (London: Stainer & Bell, 1958; 2nd
edition, 1966) and Kenneth Elliott, ed., Early Scottish Music for Keyboard (Glasgow: Musica
Scotica, forthcoming).
47. This fact is proven by the number of Scottish music manuscripts owned or compiled
by members of the nobility; see Elliott, Music of Scotland.
48. See Elliott, Music of Scotland, 352; and Munro, Scottish Church Music, 22122.
49. Quoted in Andrew Fleming Hutchison, History of the High School of Stirling (Stirling:
Eneas MacKay, 1904), 246.
50. George S. Pryde, ed., Ayr Burgh Accounts 15341624 (Edinburgh: Publications of
the Scottish History Society, 1937), 220.
51. James D. Marwick, ed., Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Glasgow AD 1573
1642 (Glasgow: Publications of the Scottish Burgh Records Society, 1876), 388; quoted in
Elliott, Music of Scotland, 352.
 Sang Schwylls and Music Schools 83

52. Munro, Scottish Church Music, 3738, 14445.

53. See Munro, Scottish Church Music, 195 et pass.
54. Hutchison, High School of Stirling, 246.
55. For example in Kirkcaldy (1582), Edinburgh (1618), Old Aberdeen (16651698), and
South Leith (1692); see Macbean, Kirkcaldy Burgh Records, 7172; Marguerite Wood, ed.,
Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh 16041626 (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd,
for the Corporation of the City of Edinburgh, 1931), 16364; Munro, Records of Old Aber-
deen, 1: 123, 160, 164; 2: 62, 7980; and Robertson, South Leith Records, 181.
56. H. F. Morland Simpson, ed., Bon Record: Records and Reminiscences of Aberdeen
Grammar School (Edinburgh: Ballantyne Press, and Aberdeen: D. Wylie & Son, 1906), 79;
Munro, Records of Old Aberdeen, 2: 38.
57. John Stuart, ed., Extracts from the Council Register of Aberdeen 13981570 (Aberdeen:
Publications of the Spalding Club, 1844), 370. See also Shona Maclean Vance, Godly Citi-
zens and Civic Unrest: tensions in schooling in Aberdeen in the era of the Reformation,
European Review of History 7, no. 1 (2000): 12337.
58. Munro, Records of Old Aberdeen, 1: 217.
59. That is, harquebusan early kind of portable firearm; see the Oxford English
Dictionary, s.v. hackbut.
60. Simpson, Bon Record, 4142.
61. Stuart, Aberdeen Council Register, 15701625, 31314.
62. John Stuart, ed., Selections from the Records of the Kirk Session, Presbytery and Synod
of Aberdeen (Aberdeen: Publications of the Spalding Club, 1846), 16.
63. John Stuart, ed., Extracts from the Council Register of the Burgh of Aberdeen 1625
1642 (Edinburgh: Publications of the Scottish Burgh Records Society, 1871), 274.
64. Elgin kirk session requested the masters of the grammar and song schools to disci-
plin their disciples that trublit the kirk in November 1599; the following month the session
conceded ten days play to the scholars, and again in 1604; see Cramond and Ree, Records
of Elgin, 2: 75, 130.
65. Munro, Scottish Church Music, 9596.
66. Victual here refers to staple foods such as wheat, peas, beans, meal, etc.; Miscel-
lany of the Maitland Club, 2: 41.
67. See Munro, Scottish Church Music, 36973. This comparison is based on the
findings of Alex J. S. Gibson and Christopher Smout in Prices, Food and Wages in Scotland
15501780 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 361.
68. This is a curious and, admittedly, rare spelling from a document of 1537 referring to
the song school in Aberdeen; Cosmo Innes, ed., Fasti Aberdonenses, 413.
69. See Vance, Godly Citizens, 125.
70. An example, albeit from the late sixteenth century, is William Struthers, a man
of some learning: he was music school master in Glasgow from 1577, and later became a
minister in Glasgow and Edinburgh; John Durkan, Early Song Schools in Scotland, in
Notis musycall: Essays on Music and Scottish Culture in Honour of Kenneth Elliott, ed. Gordon
Munro et al. (Glasgow: Musica Scotica, 2005), 129.
71. C. E. Guthrie Wright, Gideon Guthrie: A Monograph Written 1712 to 1730 (Edin-
burgh and London: William Blackwood & Sons, 1900), 12223.
 6
A Proper Musical Education
for Antwerps Women$
KRISTINE K. FORNEY

In recent years, scholars have uncovered diverseand contradictoryevi-

dence about the social mores and attitudes that shaped womens values and
activities at various societal levels and geographic locales throughout Europe.
The Low Countries, and especially the commercial center of Antwerp, pro-
vide a rich case study with which to trace changing values throughout the
sixteenth century, from the onset of the Reformation through the Counter-
Reformation, toward a musical education for Antwerps women. Archival
and literary evidence, iconographic depictions, and extant musical sources
enhance our view of the music young women were encouraged to study, what
music they liked to perform, and the level of achievement they could meet. In
addition to solo music for voice, keyboard, and strings for entertainment
largely secular genresdevotional songs figured prominently in the musi-
cal training of northern girls, for whom some musical ability was generally
expected. Although Neoplatonic thought praised music along with feminine
beauty as valued attributes for young women, contradictions do arise.
Two instructional manuals for young women can be particularly associ-
ated with Antwerp. The first is De institutione feminae christianae (Antwerp,
1523) by the Spanish-born humanist Juan Luis Vives, who settled in Bruges
after teaching in England. This tract, written for the English queen Catherine
 A Proper Musical Education for Antwerp's Women 85

of Aragon while Vives was teaching at Oxford, was issued in more than forty
editions and was available to young schoolgirls in Dutch, French, Italian,
German, Spanish, and English. Vives believed that the sexes were funda-
mentally equal in their ability to learn and that an education was the key
to avoiding lust and evil pleasures. He followed earlier conservative writers,
however, in warning that dancing and music inflamed the passions; therefore,
women should not make a public display of either. As for singing, he suggests
only honest, serious, and decent songs. Giovanni Michele Bruto, a member
of the Italian community in Antwerp, also wrote an influential treatise on
education for women; in it, he quoted the legend of the sirens to warn against
the ravishing but dangerous combination of musical ability and beautyone
that might invite comparison to a whore. Bruto admits that most men are of
the opinion that to a gentlewoman of honor and reputation, it is a grace and
ornament if she becometh expert to sing and play upon divers instruments;
still, he promotes total abstinence from music for women, leaving the vice to
people who are riotous and idle. These warnings were sounded even louder
in Italy, where attitudes were generally more conservative: Pietro Aretino
declared in 1537 that the knowledge of playing instruments, of singing, and
of writing poetry, on the part of women, is the very key which opens the
doors to their modesty, and Cardinal Pietro Bembo admonished his young
daughter in 1541 that playing an instrument is a thing for vain and frivolous
women.
Despite these cautions, historian Ludovico Guicciardinis famous study
of the Low Countries reveals that music-making permeated Flemish burgher
life. He claimed that Belgians are indeed true masters . . . of music; they
have studied it to perfection, having men and women sing without learning,
but with a real instinct for tone and measure, they also use instruments of
all sorts which everyone understands and knows. In Antwerp, one can see
at almost every hour of the day weddings, dancing, and musical groups . . .
there is hardly a corner of the streets not filled with the joyous sounds of in-
strumental music and singing. Guicciardini provides a detailed and highly
opinionated assessment of the women of the Low Countries and especially
Antwerp (given in full as document 1 in appendix A), claiming that views
about them were very liberal and that these women were involved not only in
managing their houses, but also in their husbands businesses. He found the
women of Antwerp, however, too domineering for his tastes, suggesting that
the women governed everything and struck all bargains, which, coupled with
86 Kristine K. Forney

FIGURE 6.1. Cornelius de Zeeuw, Family Portrait (1564) (Mnster, Landesmuseum).

the natural desire that women have to rule, makes them too imperious and
troublesome. We will see that the spirit of Antwerps women was not easily
dampened by the admonitions of Vives and Brutoor even Erasmus, who
will be discussed later.
Guicciardinis gender-inclusive remarks about music-making are sup-
ported by rich evidence linking Antwerp women with the keyboard instru-
ments for which the city was so famous. Virginals appear in household inven-
tories, and one popular type of virginal built therethe so-called mother
and child, or double virginal, was clearly designed as a household teaching
instrument. I have discussed elsewhere several paintings that very realisti-
cally depict Antwerp-built virginals, with their peculiar hexagonal shape,
each played by a young girl or woman. These include portraits of well-known
bourgeois families in Antwerp: the Van Berchems, painted by Frans Floris in
1561, with a matriarchal figure at the virginal; the Moucheron family, depicted
by Cornelius de Zeeuw in 1563 with a young daughter at the keyboard; and
the Wedding of the Painter Joris Hoefnagel (ca. 1571), painted by Frans
Pourbus the Elder and showing a woman playing virginal accompanied by
a lute. Another little-known family portrait painted by de Zeeuw (figure
6.1) oers more evidence for our study: the family is identified by crests in
 A Proper Musical Education for Antwerp's Women 87

FIGURE 6.2. Detail of Cornelius de Zeeuw, Family Portrait (1564) (Mnster,

Landesmuseum).

the background as the merchant Hendrick van den Brouck with his wife
Catharina van Wesembeke, posing with his brother and three children.
In this painting, the youngest son holds a music book with a Dutch-texted
monophonic line, very probably a psalm (figure 6.2), while his ten-year-old
sister accompanies him on a hexagonal virginal in the style of those built by
Antwerps Joes Kareest. De Zeeuws care with details in this painting, includ-
ing the rich tapestry, clothing, the identifiable emblems on the instrument as
well as the music book, suggests a realistic setting. We shall return shortly to
the issue of what the young girl might be playing.
These paintings raise questions about a bourgeois girls opportunities for
musical studies, about the level of achievement she might have attained, and
about the repertoire she might perform. Some young girls from well-to-do
merchant families had the benefit of private tutoring. The Antwerp archives
preserve several such contracts. For example, in 1560 the Genoese merchant
Antonius Picquenoti Salvago hired Jan de Nackere (alias van Rumst), organ-
ist of St. Andrews Church, to instruct his two daughters, Cornelia and Marie,
in music, presumably on the spinet and lute. Another contract, given as
88 Kristine K. Forney

document 2 in appendix A, confirms that schoolmaster Jan van den Bossche

was hired in 1577 by the Milanese merchant Gian Battista Compostin to
tutor his daughter in reading, writing, rhetoric, arithmetic, and in playing
the harpsichord. This contract further specifies that young Franchoise was
to learn a repertoire of dances including allemandes, galliards, passemezzi,
rondes, and branles. These basic skills enabled a merchant-class girl to assist
her future husband in the daily workings of his business and to entertain his
clients with her musical talents (see appendix A, document 2).
Already in the late Middle Ages, Netherlandish merchants had recog-
nized the importance of universal elementary-level reading and writing skills
for their children; they developed two school systemsone communal, the
other independentwhich provided a basic primary education to the citys
boys and girls. In 1522, with the Reform quickly taking hold across northern
Europe, the Antwerp school teachersmen and women alikeformed the
guild of St. Ambrose, which was carefully governed by local church authori-
ties. Guicciardini praised the citys teachers guild for providing an excellent
education, noting there are enough schools . . . to teach the youth bonnes lettres
. . . there are also here . . . various schools in which one teaches the French
language to girls as well as to boys. Teachers gave instruction in reading,
writing, arithmetic, Dutch, and French, while some specialists taught Span-
ish, Italian, and music. For example, Franois Werneix, an organist living
near the English Bourse, was certified in 1577 to teach Dutch, French, reading
and writing, as well as singing and playing. Other musician-guild members
included Symoen Moens, a sixty-year-old teacher of various subjects who
also joined the St. Lucas guild of harpsichord builders in 1552; Hans van
den Bossche, the harpsichord tutor previously mentioned who also authored
an arithmetic book; and Jacomyna van Aerde, a schoolmistress who taught
Dutch, reading, writing, and singing. We will see shortly that other teach-
ers in Antwerp were influential in shaping the attitudes of Antwerps youth
toward music.
The records of the schoolteachers Guild of St. Ambrose confirm that its
members regularly held elaborate musical services at its altar in the Church
of Our Lady; the guild generally employed the choir master, organist, bell
ringer, carilloneur, choirboys, and between eleven and sixteen singers for
performance of a polyphonic mass on the feasts of St. Ambrose (4 April)
and St. Martha (24 July). Figure 6.3 reproduces a typical pay-record from
the guild, this one from 15371538, noting seventeen singers for the mass as
well as payments to the organist and to Heer Christophel for celebrating the
FIGURE 6.3. Pay record (15371538), Rekenboeck van de gulde de schoolmeesters,
Guild of St. Ambrose, Antwerp (Antwerp, Kathedraalarchief).
FIGURE 6.4. Een bequaem Maniere om Ionghers soetelijck by sanck te leeren (Antwerp,
1571), title page (Rare book collection, Brussels, Bibliothque royale de Belgique).
 A Proper Musical Education for Antwerp's Women 91

mass. Payments are noted as well for festivities on St. Ambrose day and for
St. Thomass eve. From at least 1570 on, the guild celebrated a yearly requiem
on the feast of St. Thomas of Canterbury (29 December) with at least sixteen
singers, and also adopted a new patron, St. Cassionus, whose feast day (13
August) was celebrated with the city wind band and a bass instrument. There
was apparently a harpsichord at their altar, which was repaired and tuned on
several occasions, and organ was used regularly as well. The membership of
the guild, from 1575 on, was nearly equal in numbers of men and women,
each specializing in particular subjects and in the instruction of either boys or
girls. Table 6.1 in appendix B summarizes the extensive musical celebrations
of the schoolteachers guild from 15221600.
With this level of music patronage by Antwerps teachers, how then did
music figure into the basic curriculum of Antwerps communal schools? An
ordinance of 1560, given as document 3 in appendix A, specifies the goals of
the guild, noting that the children, boys and girls alike, shall learn to read
and write, to speak various languages including Dutch or French, Spanish
or Italian, English, High German, Latin, Greek, and arithmetic; the girls to
learn to sew, the boys to play on instruments. Despite this sexist division
of studies, girls too were encouraged to learn vocal and instrumental music,
especially dances.
Throughout northern Europe, the strengthening Reform movement
gave rise to new forms of devotional music. In Antwerp, both the commu-
nal schools and the special Sunday schools, established in 1546 by Emperor
Charles V to educate the citys orphans and poorboys and girls alikewere
required to teach the catechism, and they apparently did so through music.
A booklet issued in 1571 by Franciscus Sonnius, Bishop of Antwerp, reflects
a Counter-Reformation attempt to compete with the widely disseminated
teachings of Calvin and Luther. Titled A suitable manner for youth to learn
sweetly through song (Een bequaem Maniere om Ionghers soetelijck by sanck
te leeren, figure 6.4), this one-gathering booklet included metric, monophonic
settings of the Lords Prayer (TGhebet des Heeren, figure 6.5), the Ave Maria
(Die Enghelsche groete, figure 6.6), the Credo (Het Gheloove, figure 6.7), and the
Ten Commandments (Die thien gheboden, figures 6.811), all in the vernacular.
(See table 6.2 in appendix B.) Through this small book, Antwerps youth eas-
ily committed to memory the basic Christian doctrine, and possibly acquired
some musical literacy while doing so. Sonnius had been a participant at the
Council of Trent from 1546 to 1551, and worked zealously to combat Calvinism
through a number of pedagogical publications. As Bishop of Antwerp, Son-
FIGURE 6.5. TGhebet des Heeren, opening, from Een bequaem Maniere (Antwerp, 1571)
(Rare book collection, Brussels, Bibliothque royale de Belgique).
 A Proper Musical Education for Antwerp's Women 93

FIGURE 6.6. Die Enghelsche groete, opening, from Een bequaem Maniere (Antwerp, 1571)
(Rare book collection, Brussels, Bibliothque royale de Belgique).

nius had a list compiled of heretical books in Latin, French, and Dutchthe
Index expurgatorius, issued by Christopher Plantin, the newly appointed arch-
typographer to Emperor Philip. Sonnius further convened in 1571 the Coun-
cil of Mechelin: this body decreed that each parish must establish a school that
used textbooks in dialogue formalterum teutonice, alterum latineand stu-
dents were required to learn the Lords Prayer, the Credo, and the Ten Com-
mandments, sung in the vernacularin other words, the core contents of Een
FIGURE 6.7. Het Gheloove, opening, from Een bequaem Maniere (Antwerp, 1571)
(Rare book collection, Brussels, Bibliothque royale de Belgique).
 A Proper Musical Education for Antwerp's Women 95

FIGURE 6.8. Die thien gheboden (ierste, tweede), from Een bequaem Maniere (Antwerp,
1571) (Rare book collection, Brussels, Bibliothque royale de Belgique).

bequaem maniere. Another edict allowed priests to give a short sermon in the
vernacular before the Holy Sacrament. This was in keeping with the Council
of Trents proclamation that, while the mass shall not be said in the vernacular,
the mysteries of the sacrifice should be explained to congregants.
Both Lutheran and Calvinist doctrine included musical settings of these
basic religious texts. A setting of the Ten Commandments appeared in 1526
in a Strasbourg cantique composed by Wolfgang Dachstein; this formed the
melodic basis for Calvins setting, Oyons la Loy que de sa voix. Antoine Sau-
FIGURE 6.9. Die thien gheboden (derde, vierde, vijfde), from Een bequaem Maniere
(Antwerp, 1571) (Rare book collection, Brussels, Bibliothque royale de Belgique).
FIGURE 6.10. Die thien gheboden (seste, sevenste, achtste), from Een bequaem Maniere
(Antwerp, 1571) (Rare book collection, Brussels, Bibliothque royale de Belgique).
FIGURE 6.11. Die thien gheboden (negenste, thienste), from Een bequaem Maniere
(Antwerp, 1571) (Rare book collection, Brussels, Bibliothque royale de Belgique).
 A Proper Musical Education for Antwerp's Women 99

nier, a Swiss pastor who became the principal of schools in Geneva, set his
spiritual song (chanson spirituelle), Adore un Dieu, le pere tout-puissant, to
the timbre of Claudin Sermisys Au boys de dueil; this contrafactum was first
published in 1533 and was widely distributed in France, Switzerland, and the
Low Countries well into the seventeenth century. Clment Marots metri-
cal version of the Ten Commandments, Leve le cueur, ouvre laureille, was first
printed in 1545, but rather than replacing, it joined Sauniers Adore un Dieu in
Huguenot chansonniers. Luther published two settingsa long and short
versionof the Commandments; each expressed in four textual lines and set
to the same four musical phrases. Although the Ten Commandments were
essential to the education of children, whether Protestant or Catholic, singing
them in a rhymed, metrical setting seems to have been first associated with
the Reform, and in one case in 1561, with the image-breaking in Montauban,
in southwestern France. The Ten Commandments are set in the metrical
rhymed couplets to a two-part melodic formula in a lilting, dance-like triple
meter. Since the Flemish text lines are not the same length, there are several
slightly melismatic passages.
There were certainly precedents for singing other liturgical texts in the
vernacular to popular tunes. From the earliest publication of Flemish psalm-
settings (Souterliedekens) by Symon Cock in 1540, psalms were sung to well-
known secular melodies, including Dutch folk songs, French chansons, and
dance tunes. A group of songs of praise, mostly canticles, appears in the
last book of the polyphonic Souterliedekens by Clemens non Papa, issued in
1557 by Tielman Susato. These additional texts that follow the last psalms
include Flemish versions of the Pater noster, Ave Maria, two versions of the
Credo, and all the canticles, mostly sung to secular tunes, many from the
1544 Antwerp Liedboek (see table 6.3). Indeed, the Pater noster, Ave Maria, and
two Credos were all to be sung to the same tune: Het ghinghen drie ghespeel-
kens, a story of three young musicians who wandered barefoot into the forest
amidst the sleet and snow. Scholars agree that the Souterliedekens, or Flem-
ish psalm-settings, served both Catholics and Protestants alike. Erasmus
confirms that the psalms and other prayers were sung in Flemish before the
Reform, as early as 1480 in the houses of the lay sisterhoods, or Beguines.
And while the Ten Commandments setting by Saunier and a French setting
of the Pater noster were banned by the Council of Toulouse in 1540 as heresy,
the Souterliedeken publications never suered this fate. The tunes in Son-
niuss songbook, required instruction for all Antwerp students and teachers,
100 Kristine K. Forney

seem not to have been drawn from these earlier models, but may well have
a secular musical basis. The Flemish texts in Een bequam vary from the Cle-
mens publication and therefore do not fit the timbres suggested there. The
Ave Maria (or Enghelsche groet) from Sonniuss book, however, evokes the
melodic contour of Marots Salutation anglique, with similar phrase-openings
and cadential formulas.
The religious climate changed after the brief Calvinist rule of Antwerp
between 15811585; a new ordinance of 1588 stipulated that all students were
to learn the Pater noster, Benedicite, and Confiteor in Latin, and each morning,
should kneel and sing or read the Veni sancte spiritus with a versicle and col-
lect, and each evening as they leave, sing a song in praise of the Virgin (Laudes
diva virginum) or the hymn Christus qui lux es et dies in Latin (document 4
in appendix A).
Schoolchildren certainly knew songs for the Virgin from the popular
Marian Salve or lof service that was held nightly in the Antwerp Cathedral.
The Advent hymn Christe qui lux es et dies was sung polyphonically from 1530
on in Antwerp, and used also as a timbre for the Te Deum text in the Clem-
enss Souterliedeken collection previously cited (see table 6.3); no music was
provided for the tune in the print, suggesting it was known to all. Students
were also expected to sing the Pentecost sequence Veni sancte spiritus, which
they had undoubtedly heard in monophonic and polyphonic settings.
The publication of the small religious tract Een bequam maniere gave
way to more elaborate pedagogical books: one in particular from 1591 pro-
vides four-part musical settings of the same and additional texts, as shown
on table 6.2 in appendix B. Die Christelycke Leeringhe was issued in several
versionswith and without musicby Rutgeert Velpius in Brussels. His
preface made clear that this book was a memorization aid for the catechism;
he explained that the songs should replace the harmful ones heard in shops,
on the streets, and from the bell towers. He noted that the main tune is in the
Superius, and students should first read, then sing the Pater noster and Ave
Maria, followed by one of the other six prayers. He suggested that when this
was done six times a week, children and families would learn, through sweet
song, to be good, Christian, God-fearing people.
One of the key figures in setting a music curriculum for Antwerps chil-
dren was Franciscus Donckers, a canon at the cathedral and scholaster of the
citys schools. Donckers was described in the Antwerpsch Chronykje as a big-
oted and cruel man who had no tolerance for Protestants among the teach-
ers. He ordered that persons who died without confession and taking of
 A Proper Musical Education for Antwerp's Women 101

Communion should be hung on gallows as food for ravens. Ironically, he

himself died suddenly on 4 February 1572 without last rites, and some fa-
vored this fate for him. The inventory of Donckers goods notes many music
books among his possessions. (See table 6.4 for a list of his music books.)
These include six volumes bound together of Clemenss masses (from those
issued individually by the Phalse press); a chant-book (Liber musicus scriptus
antiquus); four volumes of Musyck boexken in four parts (almost certainly the
four volumes of Souterliedekens by Clemenss disciple Gherardus Mes, pub-
lished by Susato in 1552), and a print of three-part music by Grard de Turn-
hout, choirmaster at the Antwerp cathedral from 15621571. Given his musi-
cal interests, it seems likely that Donckers, with supreme authority over the
Antwerp schools and a music collector himself, and Turnhout, as a composer
and head of the Cathedral musical establishment, may have masterminded
this musical publication of sacred monophonic songs.
Grard de Turnhouts Sacrarum ac aliarum cantionum trium vocum (Leu-
ven, 1569) is of particular interest here, for it is a pedagogical volume including
twenty Latin motets, two chansons spirituelles, and eighteen chansons, which,
according to Turnhouts preface, he wrote in the time he could snatch from
. . . daily tasks as choirmaster at the Antwerp Cathedral. The three-voice
motets may well have served the Antwerp Cathedral just after the 1566 plun-
dering of its library; indeed, the archives of the Cathedrals Confraternity
of Our Lady note regular payments for the evening lof service to a duo or trio
from the 1540s on. While few works from Turnhouts collection have a specific
liturgical function, this repertoire could have served for a variety of services
sponsored by the confraternities, as well as for home devotions. Indeed, the
dedication of this collection to Antwerp merchant and city notary Adrian
Dyck praises the recipients knowledge and love of music, and suggests: May
you find it [this book] a solace to your home, and that a most urbane one.
The collection includes table blessings and hymns of thanksgiving as well as
a setting of the very popular chanson spirituelle, Susann un jour, to be discussed
later in this study. The voicing in the Turnhout collection varies, but most
pieces include soprano- and alto-range voices, possibly suggesting the involve-
ment of women or boys. It is commonly accepted that publications of bicinia
and tricinia were intended for teaching purposes, and this volume provides
for both upright Christian training and musical instruction.
More evidence that bicinia and tricinia were meant as pedagogical works
for young women is found in an Antwerp music book by Jean de Castro:
Sonets avec une chanson . . . a deux parties (Antwerp: Phalse, 1592; repr. 1610).
102 Kristine K. Forney

Castro dedicated this collection to Marguerite and Beatrice Hooftmans,

daughters of a prominent Antwerp merchant. In the dedication he claimed
that the two-part music was a proper and appropriate gift to refresh your
spirits, worn and fatigued from your private and domestic duties, taking up
at times the lute, at times the spinet . . . deigning to lend your sweet voices
to these songs, so that you will be rightly called (by those of your station)
Marguerite and Beatrice in music unsurpassable. (The complete text and
translation of the dedication appears as document 5 in appendix A.) It is
notable as well that these two accomplished women had skills on lute and
keyboard as well as singing.
The musical education of Antwerps youth was surely influenced by
Adrian Scholiers, succentor of the Antwerp Cathedral, headmaster of its
Latin school, and master of the schoolteachers guild in 15561557. Scholiers,
like Donckers, was an avid collector of music books: one volume he owned
included twenty-one music titles of polyphony (only the Bassus part books
are extant) dating from 1551 to 1560. The original binding in brown calfskin
is stamped in gold on the front SUCCENTOR, and on the back ADRIANI.
SCOLASTICI. Among the notes on the flyleaf is one that reinforces the view
that music was not an idle pastime but one that served God.

SUCCENTOR
Musica non lasciviae: sed laudando Deo
Ad excitandis ad virtutem Ingenijs
Mitgandesques curarum molestijs
coelitus donate est.
Music is not given for idle pleasures but to the praise of God, by kindling
virtue, the wits, and lessening the cares of sorrows.

While this inscription clearly specifies music that is not lascivious, most
of the titles are chanson collections for three or four voices, published variously
by LeRoy and Ballard, du Chemin, and Fezandatall of ParisGranjon of
Lyons, and Susato in Antwerp. Only the last few titles in the volume support
the inscription: these include Pseaulmes LXXXIII de David (Beringen, 1554),
with four-voice settings of many prayers, including the Ten Commandments,
by Louis Bourgeois; and Proverbes de Salomon (Le Roy and Ballard, 1558), four-
voice chansons. Also bound in the volume are the only known publications
a book of motets and one of chansonsby the elusive composer Barthlemy
Beaulaigue, who reportedly was a fifteen-year-old choirboy at the Cathedral
of Marseilles. While Scholiers may have been taken in by the excitement sur-
 A Proper Musical Education for Antwerp's Women 103

rounding this child prodigy and aspiring church musician, modern scholars
now believe the claims to be a hoax created by publisher Robert Granjon and
Guillaume Guroult of Lyons.
Beyond a basic religious education through music, controlled by the
church authorities and the schoolteachers guild, the young women of suc-
cessful merchant families were expected to have social skills in singing and
playing instruments for family music-making and to entertain their husbands
clients. I have written previously about the extant records from Antwerps
School of the Laurel Tree, headed by schoolmaster Peter Heyns. These
registers demonstrate that young women, aged thirteen to sixteen from diver-
gent social and economic backgrounds, studied reading, writing, arithmetic,
French, Dutch, classical and modern literature, the domestic arts of sewing,
knitting, and lace-making, as well as music. The pay records from the 1580s
list all extra fees, including textbooks, singing lessons, and harpsichord-tun-
ing services. Records show that at least sixteen young womenthe daugh-
ters of merchants of leather, wool, nails, wine, fish, as well as sugar bakers,
studied music at the Laurel Tree. Students had their harpsichords tuned at
least twice a year, and in one case, four times, at a cost of three stuivers per
tuning. The fees for singing lessons were substantially higher: Maeyken
Scheppers, daughter of a merchant from Bruges, paid eighteen stuivers for
each half month of lessons.
Among the textbooks listed in student records is the Tragdie dAbraham,
which undoubtedly refers to the neoclassical play LAbraham sacrifiant, by
Thodore de Bze. The introduction to this popular play alludes to musical
performances of the choruses throughout. Although no tunes are provided,
the text structures match those found in the French metrical psalter on which
Bze collaborated with Marot, and the songs themselves are reminiscent of
psalm texts, suggesting they might have been intended to be sung to the well-
known psalm tunes. For example, the first chorus, The Song of Abraham and
Sara, derives from psalms 8, 135, and 136.
Another text cited frequently in the Laurel Tree records was La guirlande
des jeunes filles, by schoolmaster Gabriel Meurier; this book was first pub-
lished in 1580 and reprinted many times. Its two-column format, in Dutch and
French, was meant to instruct in languages, but, as noted earlier, the dialogue
and multiple-language format was required for all textbooks in Antwerp from
1571 on. In the dialogue on amusements, reproduced as document 6 in appen-
dix A, eight girls discuss some technical aspects of keyboard playing. Lucie
asks if anyone can do divisions and finger them properly. They note that the
104 Kristine K. Forney

instrument is out of tune and missing strings, after which they turn their at-
tention to the clavichord and proceed to tune it, loosening one string by a half
step and raising another by the same interval. The dialogue continues with a
discussion of which kind of chanson they should sing: one student cautions
against lascivious songs, but she admits she likes rustic chansons.
Their dialogue presumes some reasonably advanced knowledge of key-
board improvisation and of instrument care. This text also promotes good
Christian values in the discussion about singing a chanson. Franoise admon-
ishes the group to guard against singing a lascivious or worldly chanson, and
Lucie suggests a pious song. But Franoise, who also suggested a pretty song,
says she prefers a rustic song and they soon tire of the game. The dialogue
implies that the girls knew both worldly and pious songs; indeed, the writ-
ings of Erasmus, some years earlier, point to the growing problem of young
girls and music:

It is customary now among some nations to compose every year new songs
which young girls study assiduously. The subject matter of the songs is usu-
ally the following: a husband deceived by his wife, or a daughter guarded
in vain by her parents; or a clandestine aair of lovers. These things are
presented as if they were wholesome deeds, and a successful act of profli-
gacy is applauded. Added to pernicious subject matter are such obscene
innuendoes, expressed in metaphors and allegories, that no manner of
depravity could be depicted more vilely. Many earn a livelihood in this oc-
cupation, especially among the Flemish. If laws were enforced, composers
of such common ditties would be flogged for singing these doleful songs to
the licentious. Men who publicly corrupt youth are making a living from
crime, yet parents are found who think it a mark of good breeding if their
daughters know such songs.

La guirlande is but one of many pedagogical dialogue books from the

era; although their primary purpose was to teach languages, with French
and Dutch texts set side by side, the topics of the conversation books of-
ten turned to entertainment, music, and upright values. Henri Vanhulst
has recently shown a similar topic under discussion in La montaigne des pu-
celles/Den Maeghden-Bergh, a 1599 publication by the Leiden schoolmistress
Magdaleine Valry. In it, the Maistresse cautions her student, Emerence,
against playing dances on the keyboard, claiming they are too worldly and
not in praise of God. She suggests instead playing devotional songs (quelque
Canticque/Pseaume ou honneste Chanson/eenighe Lofsanck, Psalm oft eerlicke
Liedeken), noting that one hears daily the Psalms of David on organ. A dis-
 A Proper Musical Education for Antwerp's Women 105

cussion ensues of music in the Old Testament and particularly the psalms,
after which the teacher proclaims that music is a powerful force that can
move hearts to praise God. Later in the text, Philippe notes that because his
daughter willingly sings chansons spirituelles, he will send a spinet for her to
practice them on.
It seems clear that young girls were encouraged to play devotional music,
rather than secular songs and dances, on their keyboard instruments. Lyons
poet-musician Eustorg de Beaulieu (ca. 14951552) confirms that pious songs
were not only meant to be sung, but also to be played. A letter of 1543 invites
Clment Marot to visit Beaulieu, where he played sacred songs and psalms
in Marots translation:
I still have my clavichord
On which I play the sacred songs crystallized by you:
Which in my opinion were your finest achievement.
Often too I take my harp from its hook,
And I hang it around my neck
To play Psalms and Chansons on it
To the tunes that God taught me . . .

Beaulieu confesses to the errors of his youth in the preface to his Chrestienne
resjouyssance, claiming he too often sang abominable [worldly] songs. . . .
And I even studied them with too great an interest and played them on many
musical instruments, even though it greatly dishonored God and the said art
which is so honest and praiseworthy. Some echoed the Platonist ideal of the
power of music ennobling the spirit, including the Calvinist music publisher
Tielman Susato. In the preface to Susatos Dutch-texted Musyck boexken
(1551), which included settings of the Souterliedekens by Clemens non Papa,
Susato claims to have left out those songs whose unfair words encourage
vice, continuing:
Avoid all unfair and indecent words, which put this noble art to shame
and which could tarnish and corrupt the young . . . because music is an
exceptional heavenly gift, created by God and given to humanity, not in-
tended for dishonest or rash misuse, but mainly to praise Him thankfully,
to eschew melancholy, to dispel trouble, to alleviate heavy minds, and to
gladden worried hearts.

The secular songs in this collection do include a number of courtly love songs
mostly lovers lamentsbut also many zotte liedeken, or songs drawn from
the Flemish folklore that ridicule human folly, which can be read, Timothy
106 Kristine K. Forney

McTaggart claims, as an attack on dissolute ways or an incitement to join

in. While Susatos own songs are fairly inoensive, other, more lewd texts
did find their way into this collection.
What repertoire then did Antwerps young girls perform on their key-
board instruments? Did they learn the indecent French and Flemish songs
that filled the publications from the citys presses? Or did they rise to the
challenge of playing uplifting, pious music? We have little evidence to an-
swer these questions, as there was no keyboard music published in the region
until after 1600. I have shown elsewhere that young musicians (or their tu-
tors) might have followed the guidelines for preparing keyboard intabulations
laid out in the widely disseminated treatise Musica getutscht by Sebastian
Virdung. This instruction book, which demonstrates how to intabulate a
vocal work into French lute and German keyboard tablature, was published
in Antwerp in French (1529) and two Flemish editions (1554, 1568). These
Antwerp editions substitute the secular Flemish song Een vrolic wesen by
local composer Jacques Barbireau for Virdungs own sacred Lied based on
three Marian responsories. The resulting intabulation of Een vrolic wesen is
considerably more idiomatic to keyboard than was the Virdung original.
Rather than encouraging readers to play his own intabulation from the trea-
tise, they are invited to transcribe another composition into the tablature
using Virdungs work as a model.
There is, however, one source that reinforces the repertoires and values we
have discussed: the Susanne von Soldt manuscript (GBLbm Add. MS 29485)
is a collection of thirty-three keyboard pieces copied by a Flemish scribe and
signed by the twelve-year-old Susanne von Soldt in 1599. Susanne was born
in England to Flemish merchant-class parents who fled Antwerp after the
Spanish fury of 1576. Alan Curtis believes this manuscript was copied on the
continent, since the dances included were very popular there in the 1570s and
1580s, including the Pavane dAnvers. It is notable that this repertoire (listed in
table 6.5) fits nicely the dance types mentioned in the contract discussed ear-
lier for the young girl who studied allemandes, galliards, passemezzi, rondes,
and branles. One of the most widely circulated dances is the Galliarde qu
passa, which underwent many intabulations for lute and cittern as well as key-
board, all of them based on Filippo Azzaiolos four-voice romantic serenade,
Chi passa per questa strada. Two dances can be associated with England,
however, where young Susanne lived: Pavana Bassano and Galliarde Bassani
are likely arrangements of dances by wind-player Augustine Bassano, active
in England.
 A Proper Musical Education for Antwerp's Women 107

The manuscript further presents ten psalm-settingsamong the earliest

keyboard arrangements of the psalms and the oldest known from the Dutch
psalter. The melodies used stem from the Genevan psalter and are clearly
audible, set unadorned in the top voice. They are simple, four-part, block-
chord settings with an all-too-frequent cadential clichindeed, the style is
more appropriate to accompany singing the psalms than as solo instrumental
music. Curtis notes that some of these settings are of high musical valuein
particular Psalm 130, Wt de diepte o Heere, with its familiar dropping-fifth
opening, includes elaborate figurations. Some of the Genevan melodies
derive from Gregorian chant; for example, Susanne would have heard the
well-known Easter sequence Victimae paschali laudes while playing her ver-
sion of Psalm 80, Ghij herder Israels wylt hooren. This melodic basis was surely
preferable for our pious girl than the tune more frequently associated with
this psalm in the Souterliedeken repertoire: Den lustelijcken Mey, included in
the 1544 Antwerp songbook. H. Colin Slim has shown one other keyboard
intabulation of this psalm using the tune Den lustelijcken mey, in a very secular
painting of Apollo and the Muses, redacted circa 15551560 by Maarten van
Heemskerck.
In addition to the psalm-settings, several selections in the manuscript
provide a moralizing theme that is appropriate for our young Susanne. The
Almande de la Nonette sets one of the most popular tunes of the era: the story
of a young girl who does not wish to become a nun. By the time our pious
Susanne was playing this dance, however, she surely knew it as well by one or
more of the religious contrafacta the tune had spawned, including a Geuzen
song of the rebellious Flemish and Dutch noblemen who fought to preserve
religious rights during the Eighty Years War (15681648). She could also
have known the tune through its many intabulations for lute and cittern,
most published by Phalse in Leuven. Another dance tune that circulated
in Susannes time as a Geuzen song was the Almande Brun Smeedelyn; based
on a well-known Flemish song (Bruynsme delijn ghy zijt seer hups en fijn), it was
intabulated for cittern and issued in several four-part consort arrangements.
But considering that Susannes family fled the Low Countries during the war
against the Spanish, she might well have known this tune as well by its rebel-
lious contrafactum.
Susannes manuscript also included an arrangement of the Dutch tune
Tobyas om sterven gheneghen, the text of which draws on the biblical story of
Tobit or Tobias, who prayed for death rather than believe he had broken a
commandment by stealing a young goat. Part of the Protestant Apocrypha,
108 Kristine K. Forney

&b C

&b C b b

Vb C .

Vb C

?b C b

& b C . # b b
i
b b
? C b
b

&b

&b .


. .
Vb J

. #
V b . J J J J j

?
b

b
& b # I
J
I I I I

? . #

b

FIGURE 6.12. Comparison of Lassos Susanne un jour and keyboard arrangement

(British Library, Add. MS 29485).

this story underscores the value of prayer in daily life as well as parental re-
spect and the reward of good work, all of which are valued principles for the
young.
The longest and most elaborate work in Susannes manuscript is a set-
ting of Orlando di Lassos well-known chanson spirituelle of feminine chastity,
Susanne ung jour, based on the story of Susanna and the Elderslikewise
considered to be apocryphal by the Protestantsa work celebrating our Su-
sannes namesake. This chanson was in wide circulation by the time it was
 A Proper Musical Education for Antwerp's Women 109

copied into Susannes manuscript, but its first publication was not only in
Paris (LeRoy and Ballard, 1560) but simultaneously in Antwerp, where it
was a unique addition to the 1560 edition of Le quatroisiesme livre, issued by
Susato. In this keyboard arrangement, the familiar cantus firmus is buried
in the inner parts, as it is in the original five-part chanson, but the voicings
of the vocal model are largely preserved, as running scalar passages decorate
the melodic lines throughout and written-out trills elaborate each cadence.
Figure 6.12 compares the first seven measures of the vocal model with the
keyboard arrangement; giving us a sense of the level of musical achievement
that a young Renaissance girl such as Susanne von Soldt might have attained
in her keyboard studies.
Throughout this study, we have seen how music served as a pedagogical
tool to shape the values and principles of young northern women, through
both singing and playing instruments, a perspective that is strongly supported
by iconographic evidence. We have also noted, however, that the prevailing
attitudes toward women and learning in the Low Countries were considerably
more liberal than in other parts of Europe, notably Italy. While the onset of
the Reformation brought a renewed expectation of propriety and piety for
girlsProtestant and Catholic alikethe social forces around them pre-
sented contradictory influences. Guicciardini viewed the young women of
Antwerp as strong-minded and willful, and they certainly were significant
consumers of the newest music that appeared in print. Whether the music
they studied consisted of devotional chansons spirituelles or bawdy Flemish
songs, merchant-class women were apparently musically literate and even ca-
pable of making arrangements, performing divisions, and improvising. More
than this, the teachers of Antwerp were significant consumers of polyphonic
music, and most had at least basic music training through which they could
impart their lessons. We should wish for so much from our students and
schools today.

APPENDIX A: LIST OF DOCUMENTS

DOCUMENT 1

Louis Guicciardini, La description de tous les Pais-Bas (Antwerp: Plantin,

1582):
pp. 5152: Les Belges sont aussi les vrais Maistres & restaurateurs de la
Musique: ce sont eux qui lont remise sus, & reduite sa perfection: Layans
110 Kristine K. Forney

si proper & naturelle, que homes & femmes y chantent comme leur instinct
par mesure; cecy avecq grand grace & melodie: tellement quayans depuis
conjoing lart ce naturel il sont telle prevue, & par la voix, & par instrumentz
de toutes sortes, que chacun voit & sait . . .
pp. 5354: Quant aux femmes de ce pays outr ce quelles sont (comme
jay dict) belles, & propres, & bien avenantes, sont encore fort gentils, cour-
toises, & gracieuses en leur actions: veu que commenans ds leur enfance
converser (selon la coustume du Pays) librement avec chacun, par ceste fre-
quentation elles deviennent plus hardies en praticquant les compaignies, &
promptes parler & en toute chose; mais avecq ceste si grande libert &
license, elles gardent severement le devoir de leurs honnestetez, allans non
seullement par ville pour le mesnagement, & aaires de leur maisons; ains
encore aux champs, avec peu de suite, sans pour cela encourir blasme, ny en
donner occasion de soupcon. Elles sont sobres, & et fort actives & soigneuses,
se meslans non tant seulement des aaires domestiques (desquels les hommes
par dea ne sempeschent, & soucient pas beaucoup) ains vont aussi achepter
& vendre & merchandises & biens; & se mectent & a la main & la langue s
aaires propres aux hommes: & cecy avec telle dexterity, esprit, & diligence,
quen pluseiurs endroictz (si comme en Hollande & Zeelande), y joint le desir,
& convoitise que les femmes ont de commander, les rend sans doubte part
trop inperieuses, & maistrisantes, & souventesfois excessivement fieres, &
desdaigneuses.
p. 165: Les femmes ont en Anvers plus de privilege quen autre part de ce
pays: entant que par toutes les autres contres, & villes, les femmes sont obli-
ges aux debtes de leurs marys, comme les marys ceux de leurs femmes. . . .
Mais en ceste ville dAnvers, si la femme ne fait trafic de merchandise, ainsi que
sont plusieurs part dea, elle nest tenu aux debtes de son mary. . . . Il est vray
que la femme ne peut sobliger, si elle nest autorise de son mary, saulf celles
qui exercent librement le trafic de merchandise, & qui achepent, & vendent
hors de leur boutique.

DOCUMENT 2

Tutorial contract between Jan van der Bossche and Gian Battista Compostin,
2 January 1577 (Antwerp, Stadsarchief, Notarissen 525, fol. 27):
Sr. Jehan Baptista Compostin, geboren tot Milanan . . . ende Jan van
der Bossche, schoolmeester. . . . Den voirscreven Jan van den Bossche . . . sal
 A Proper Musical Education for Antwerp's Women 111

wesen Franoise Compostin te leerene lesene, scryven ter redelickiewys . . .

oick te leeren den nomberen van cyeren ende opde clavicimable spleen vyf
of sesse vierscheyden allemanden, dry oft vier vierscheyden galliarden ended
rye passeneden, dry oft vier ronden oft branden . . .

DOCUMENT 3

1560 Ordinance of the Guild of St. Ambrose (Antwerp, Archief van de OLV-
Kathedraal, Scholastria 25, fol. 75):
. . . de kinderen oft yonghers zoo wel knechtkens als meyskens instituc-
eren ende leeren lesen ende schryvan alderhande tale ende sprake die sy kun-
nen oft weten het zy duyts oft wals spaensch oft italiaens Enghels hoochduyts
latyn gricx ende alle andere hoedanich syn sullen moghen oock rekenen ende
cyferen de meyskens te leeren naeyen de yonghers spelen op instrumenten
ende in alle cyville manieren ende doctrinen ynstrueeren . . .

DOCUMENT 4

1588 Ordinance of the Guild of St. Ambrose (Antwerp, Archief van de OLV-
Kathedraal, Scholastria 25, fol. 25v):
Item oock smorgens inder scolen gecomen voesende singen oft lessen
Veni sancte spiritus op haere knien met een versikel ende a collecte . . . ende
dergelycks tsavonts al eer sy uytgaen Laudes Diva virginum ofte Christus
qui lux es et dies int latyn oft eenen Pater noster ende Ave maria voor de
ongeleerde.

DOCUMENT 5

Sonets avec une chanson, contenant neuf parties lune suivant lautre . . . a deux
parties (Antwerp: Phalse & Bellre, 1592):
A VERTEUSE ET DISCRETTES JEUNES DAMOYSELLES, MARGUERITE ET
BEATRICE HOOFTMANS SEURS GERMAINS.
Ne pouvant (verteusses & discrettes Damoyselles) pour autre meilleur
moyen que par lindustrie de lestant au quell il a pleu ce bon Dieu map-
peller vous faire paroir le grand desir que jay tousjours eu & aurai ma vie
durante vous faire quelque service aggreable, a faict que me suis aventur
vous consacrer ce mien labeur (qui de soy ne marmite beaucoup cause de sa
112 Kristine K. Forney

petitesse vous estre oert) qui sont Chansons, Stanses, Sonets, Epigrammes
deux parties tant seulement par moy mis en Musicque, lesquelles mont
semblbien propres & convenables vous presenter, pour avecque icelles la
fois recreer voz Esprits lass & recreuz de voz aaires prives & domestique,
vous priant tantost prenant le Luth, tantost lEspinette en voz blanches, polies
& delicates mains, deigner marier voz doucettes voiz lharmonie dicelles,
ce que causera & bon droit quon vous appellera Marguerite & Beatrice (je
parle de celles de vostre qualit) en la Musicque les non pareilles. Au surplus
fin deviter la notte dimportunit feray fin ceste vous priant que cestuy
mien petit ouvrage soit defendu de lombre de voz bon graces, celle fin quil
puis voler asseurement par les perilleux destroits de ce present siecle, priant le
Souverain vous donner en sant, longue & heureuse vie. De oz bonnes grace
humble Serviteur, Jean de Castro.
TO THE VIRTUOUS AND GENTLE YOUNG MAIDENS, MARGUERITE AND BEA-
TRICE HOOFTMANS, COUSINS GERMAN.
Unable (virtuous and gentle maidens) by any better means than by exer-
cising the profession to which it has pleased God to call me, to show you the
great desire I have always had and will have forever to render you a pleasant
service, I have therefore ventured to dedicate to you this little work (which in
itself is so small as to be unworthy to be oered to you). These are Chansons,
Stanzas, Sonnets, and Epigrams that I have set to music for only two parts,
which seemed to me proper and appropriate to present to you. With them you
may refresh your spirits, worn and fatigued from your private and domestic
duties, taking up at times the lute, at times the spinet in your white, polished
and delicate hands, deigning to lend your sweet voices to these songs, so that
you will be rightly called (by those of your station) Marguerite and Beatrice
in music unsurpassable. In order not to seem importunate, I conclude this
address, praying you to keep my little work in your good graces, so that it can
confidently fly through the perilous straits of our era, and praying to God
to give you long, happy and healthy lives. Your good graces humble servant,
Jean de Castro.
(Translation by Jeanice Brooks.)

DOCUMENT 6

Gabriel Meurier, La guirlande des jeunes filles en franois & flamens. Het Krans-
ken der jonghe Docters in Fransoys ende Duytsch (Antwerp: J. van Waesberghe,
1580):
 A Proper Musical Education for Antwerp's Women 113

CHAPTER XVI: DIVERSE JEUX

CORNEILLE: Allons jouer sur lepinette.
Laet ons op de klaversimable gaen spelen.
Let us play on the spinet.
LUCIE: Scavez vous fredoner & passager des doits?
Cont ghy crillen ende loopkens metter vingheren doen?
Do you know how to do divisions and move the fingers?
ALISON: Linstrument est discord, & ny a corde ni cordon.
Tinstrument is ontstelt, ende daer en is snare noch snaerken op.
The instrument is out of tune, and there are no strings.
FRANOISE: Jouons donc sur le manicordion.
Laet ons dan op de klavecoorde spelt.
Lets play then on the clavichord.
CORNEILLE: Lentez ceste corde demi ton.
Leeght dese snare eenen halven toon.
Loosen this string a half tone.
EMERENCE: Retendez cete autre un ton.
Stelt dese andere eenen toon hoogher.
Tighten this one a tone higher.
LUCIE: Qui chantera une chanson?
Wie salder een liedeken singen?
Who will sing a chanson?
CORNEILLE: Moi, si me voulex preter loreille.
Ick, wildy my ghehoor gheven.
Me, if you wish to lend me an ear.
FRANOISE: Gardez vous bien de chanter chansons lascives & mondaines.
Wache u wel oncuyssche, ende wereltsche liedekens te singhen.
Guard against singing a lascivious or worldly chanson.
SIMONETTE: Que chanterons nous puis?
What sullen wy dan singhen?
What can we sing then?
FRANOISE: Une belle chanson.
Een fraey Liedeken.
A pretty song.
LUCIE: Chantons quelque cantique spirituel.
Laet ons eenich geestelijc liedeken singen.
Lets sing a spiritual song.
FRANOISE: Le chant rural me plait mieux.
Den boeren sanck behalt my best.
A rustic song pleases me more.
CORNEILLE: Jen suis laste, batons nous quelque autre jeu.
Ick bens moede. Laet ons met eenich ander spel vermaken.
Im tired of this. Lets amuse ourselves with another game.
114 Kristine K. Forney

APPENDIX B: TABLES
TABLE 6.1. Music patronage by the St. Martha and St. Ambrose Guild, 15221600.

x = payment made to singers, but amount is not specified

? = no payment noted for this year
+ = musicians in addition to the numerical total
[ ] = total derived from context in documents

YEAR FEAST SINGERS

1522 St. Lazarus 16
St. Ambrose 14
Requiem 14
1523 St. Ambrose 16 (Zielmisse)
St. Martha [16]
1524 St. Martha 17
1525 St. Martha 11
1526 St. Martha 13
1527 St. Martha 16
1528 St. Martha 14
1529 St. Martha 14
1530 St. Ambrose 14
St. Martha 14
1531 St. Ambrose x
St. Martha 16
1532 St. Ambrose x
St. Martha x
1533 St. Ambrose x
St. Martha x
1534 St. Ambrose x
St. Martha 13
1535 St. Ambrose x
St. Martha 13
1536 St. Ambrose ?
St. Martha 14
1537 St. Ambrose x
St. Martha 17 (+ choirboys)
1538 St. Ambrose 17
St. Martha 16 (+ choirboys)
1539 St. Ambrose 17
St. Martha 18
1540 St. Ambrose 17
St. Martha 16
1541 St. Ambrose 16
St. Martha 15
15421547 [Records lacking for St. Martha]
1542 St. Ambrose 13
1543 St. Ambrose [20?]
 A Proper Musical Education for Antwerp's Women 115

YEAR FEAST SINGERS

1544 St. Ambrose 14
1545 St. Ambrose 18
1546 St. Ambrose 16
1547 St. Ambrose [21]
1548 St. Ambrose [23]
St. Martha 17
1549 St. Ambrose [22]
St. Martha 19
1550 St. Ambrose 20
St. Martha 19
1551 St. Ambrose 19
St. Martha 21
1552 St. Ambrose 19
St. Martha 22
1553 St. Ambrose ?
St. Martha 19
1554 St. Ambrose 22
St. Martha 21 (+ choirboys)
1555 St. Ambrose 20
St. Martha 21 (+ choirboys)
1556 St. Ambrose 20
St. Martha 17 (+ choirboys)
1557 St. Ambrose 21
1558 St. Ambrose 21
1559 St. Ambrose 18
St. Martha 18
1560 St. Ambrose 18
St. Martha 17
1561 St. Ambrose 21 (+ choirmaster)
St. Martha 21 (+ choirmaster)
1562 St. Ambrose 21
St. Martha 18
1563 St. Ambrose 20
St. Martha 18
1564 St. Ambrose 22
St. Martha 22
1565 St. Ambrose 21
St. Martha 22
1566 St. Ambrose 20
St. Martha 19
1567 St. Ambrose 20
St. Martha 18
1568 [Records lacking]
1569 St. Ambrose 16 (+ Grard de Turnhout
and choirboys)
(continued on next page)
116 Kristine K. Forney

TABLE 6.1. (continued)

YEAR FEAST SINGERS

1570 St. Ambrose 21 (+ Grard de Turnhout
and choirboys)
St. Martha 21
St. Thomas 21
1571 [Records lacking]
1572 St. Ambrose 19 (+ Grard de Turnhout
and choirboys)
1573 St. Ambrose x
St. Thomas x
1574 St. Ambrose 18
St. Thomas 16
1575 St. Ambrose 17
St. Thomas 15
1576 St. Ambrose [17]
1577 St. Ambrose [15]
1578 St. Ambrose 12
St. Thomas 14
1579 St. Ambrose 18
St. Thomas 18
1580 St. Ambrose 12
St. Thomas 13
15811585 [No music payments recorded]
1586 St. Ambrose x
1587 St. Ambrose [11]
St. Thomas [12]
St. Cassianus x
1588 St. Ambrose [10] (+ bass player; motet
with organ)
St. Cassianus x
1589 St. Ambrose 10 (motet with organ)
St. Cassianus 12 (motet with organ)
1590 St. Cassianus 15 (motet with organ)
1591 St. Ambrose 12
St. Cassianus 15 (choirboys with organ)
1592 St. Ambrose 12 (choirboys with organ)
St. Cassianus 13 (choirboys with organ)
1593 St. Thomas x
St. Cassianus 9
1594 St. Ambrose 11
St. Cassianus 9 (motet with organ)
1595 St. Ambrose [10]
St. Cassianus 12
1596 St. Ambrose [10]
St. Cassianus 10
1597 St. Ambrose [10]
St. Cassianus 10
 A Proper Musical Education for Antwerp's Women 117

YEAR FEAST SINGERS

St. Thomas x
1598 St. Ambrose 12
St. Cassianus 12
1599 St. Ambrose ?
St. Cassianus 11
1600 St. Ambrose 12
St. Cassianus 6

TABLE 6.2. Musical catechisms from Antwerp.

Een bequaem Maniere om Ionghers soetelijck by sanck te leeren, tghene dat alle kersten
menschen moeten weten (Antwerp: Weduwe van Ameet Tavernier, tot behoef ende cost
van Antoni Thielens, 1571).

Contents:
TGhebet des Heeren (Our Father)
Die Enghelsche groet (Hail Mary)
Het Gheloove (Creed)
Die thien gheboden (Ten Commandments)

Text of Die thien geboden in rhyme:

Boven al bemindt eenen Godt,
By zynen name niet en sweert ijdelijc noch en spot,
Viert die heylighe daghen alle gader,
Eert vader ende moeder,
Met wille oft met wercken enslaet niemant doot;
En steelt oock niet al zijdy bloot,
Schout overspel en alle oncuyscheyt,
En gheest gheen getuych der valsheyt,
En begheert ooch niemants bedde ghenoot,
Noch niemants goet tzyn cleyn oft groot.

Die Christelycke Leeringhe in zoete ende lichte Muzycke met vier partyen (Brussels:
Rutgeert Velpius, 1591). Superius.

Contents:
Het Ghebet des Heeren (Our Father)
Die Engelsche groete (Hail Mary)
Het Gheloove (Creed)
Die thien Gheboden (Ten Commandments)
Die acht Salicheden (Eight Beatitudes)
Die Gheboden in ryme (Ten Commandments in rhyme)
Die Seven Sacramenten (Seven Sacraments)
Van de Duechden (On the Virtues)
Van den Sonden (On the Sins)
118 Kristine K. Forney

TABLE 6.3. Canticles, other texts, and timbres from Souterliedekens III
(Susato, 1557).

Den lofsanck Esaye (Isaiah 12, for Monday Lauds)

Timbre: Het was een clercxken ghinc ter scholen
Ezechias lofsanck (Isaiah 38.1020, for Tuesday Lauds)
Timbre: Ghi lustighe amoureuse geesten
Den lofsanc van Anna (1 Samuel 2.110, for Wednesday Lauds)
Timbre: Alle myn ghepeyns doet mi soe wee (Antwerp Liedboek, no. 3)
Moyses ende der kinderen van Israel sanck (Exodus 15.119, for Thursday Lauds)
Timbre: Die mey staet vrolyck in sinen tyt met loouerkens ombehangen
Des prophete Abracucx ghebet (Habakkuk 3.219, for Friday Lauds)
Timbre (dance tune): Het quam een ruyterken wt boschayen (Antwerp Liedboek,
no. 30)
Moyses lofsanck (Deuteronomy 32)
Timbre: O bloeyende iuecht
Den lofsanc der drie kinderen: Anania, Azaria, and Mizael (Daniel 3.57)
Timbre (dance tune): Const ic die Maneschyn bedecken
Den lofsanc Zacharie (Luke 1.6879, Benedictus)
Timbre: Een oudt man sprack een tonck meysken aen (Antwerp Liedboek, no. 19)
Den lofsanc der glorioser maget ende moeder ons Heeren (Luke 1.4655, Magnificat)
Timbre: Conditor alme siderum
Symoens lofsanck (Luke 2.2932, Nunc dimittis)
Timbre: Iesu salvator seculi
Den lofsanck Augustini ende Ambrosij (Te Deum)
Timbre: Christe qui lux (tune not given)

OTHER TEXTS: (all sung to the timbre: Het ghinghen drie ghespeelkens goet, in Antwerp
Liedboek, no. 39)
Den Pater noster (Vader ons die bist in hemelryck)
Den Ave Maria (Maria vol van gracien)
Die articulen des kersten gheloofs
Credo in Deum (Ick gheloof im God vader almachtich)
Credo in spiritum (Ick gheloof in God den heylighen ghest)
 A Proper Musical Education for Antwerp's Women 119

TABLE 6.4. Books belonging to Franciscus Doncker, scholaster

in Antwerp (d. 1572).

Sex thomi missarum clementis non papa in uns volumine

[= mass-volumes by Clemens non Papa from these:]
Missa Virtute magna, 4vv (Leuven, 1557, 1558)
Missa En espoir, 5vv (Leuven, 1557, 1558)
Missa Ecce quam bonum, 5vv (Leuven, 1557, 1558)
Missa Gaude lux donatiane, 5vv (Leuven, 1557, 1559)
Missa Caro mea, 5vv (Leuven, 1557, 1559)
Missa Languir my fault, 5vv (Leuven, 1557, 1558, 1560)
Missa Misericorde, 4vv (Leuven, 1556, 1557, 1563)
Missa Pastores quidnam vidistis, 5vv (Leuven, 1559)
Missa A la fontaine du prez, 6vv (Leuven, 1559)
Missa Quam pulcra es, 4vv (Leuven, 1559)

Liber musicus scriptus antiquus

[= unspecified chant-book]

Libri musicus trium vocum M. Gerardi a Turnhout

[= Sacrarum ac aliarum cantionum trium vocum (Leuven, 1569)]

Vier musyckboeken met vieren

[= Het eerste, tveeste, derde Musyck Boexken met vier (Antwerp, 1551) OR
Souterliedekens VVIII, Musyck Boecken 811 met vier by Gherardus Mes
(Antwerp, 1561), incomplete]
120 Kristine K. Forney

TABLE 6.5. British Library Add. MS 29485 (Susanne van Soldt MS).

Dances
Pavana Bassano
Pavane dan Vers [dAnvers]
De quadre pavanne
Pavane Prymera
De frans galliard
Galliarde qu passe [based on Azzaiolos Chi passa per questa strada]
Galliarde Bassani
De quadre galliard
Almande de symmerman
Almande de La nonette
Almande Brun Smeedelyn
Almande prynce
Almande de amour
Almande trycottee
Almande
Allemande Loreyne
Brande Chanpanje
Brabanschen ronden dans ofte Brand

Psalm Settings
Psalm 9: Heer ich Wil U Wts Herten gront
Psalm 16: Bewaert mij Heer Weest
Psalm 23: Myn God Voet mij myh Herder ghepressen
Psalm 36: Des boosdoenders Wille seer quaet (and Psalm 68: Staet op Heer toont U
onversacht)
Psalm 42: Als een Hert gejaecht
Psalm 50: Godt die der goden Heer is sprechen sal
Psalm 51: Ontfarmt U over jij arme Sondaer (and Psalm 69: Ich bydde U Helpt mij o God)
Psalm 80: Ghij Herder Israels Wylt hooren
Psalm 100: Ghij Volcheren des aertrijcx
Psalm 103: Myn siele Wylt den Herre met Lof
Psalm 130: Wy di diepte o Heere

Other
Susanna Vung Jour (based on Lassos Susanne un jour, a5)
Tobyas om sterven gheneghen
Preludium
One untitled work
 A Proper Musical Education for Antwerp's Women 121

NOTES
This chapter elaborates on ideas presented in my earlier study of music and women,
Nymphes gayes en abry du Laurier: Music Instruction for the Bourgeois Woman, Musica
discliplina 49 (1995): 23167.
1. In particular, Vives seems to follow Paolo Cortese, De cardinalatu libri tres (1510);
see especially the chapter De vitandis passionibus deque musica adhibenda post epulas
(How passions should be avoided, and music used after meals). On this treatise, see Nino
Pirrotta, Music and Cultural Tendencies in Fifteenth-Century Italy, Journal of the Ameri-
can Musicological Society 19 (1966): 12761.
2. Juan Luis Vives, De institutione feminae christianae, bk. 1, chap. 10: Selle chant,
que ce soit doulcement, & chansons honnestes, graves & decentes.
3. Bruto, La institutione di una fanciulla nata nobilmente (Antwerp: Plantin, 1555), also
published in French and in an unauthorized English version which is generally attributed
to Thomas Salter, A mirrhor mete for all mothers, matrons and maidens (London: Edward
White, 1579). Bruto wrote this as an epistolary address for the daughter of Sylvester Cat-
taneo, an Italian merchant in the north.
4. Pietro Aretino, Lettere, 1: 105; cited in Alfred Einstein, The Italian Madrigal (Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press, 1949), 1: 94.
5. Delle lettere di M. Pietro Bembo; cited in William F. Prizer, Cardinals and Cour-
tesans: Secular Music in Rome, 15001520, in Italy and the European Powers: The Impact of
War, 15001530, ed. Christine Shaw (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 25354.
6. Lodovico Guicciardini, Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi (Antwerp, 1567); this quote
cited from a London edition, The Description of the Low Countries (London, 1593), 14243.
7. For example, the estate of Jour. Heylwige Bachgrach, widow of Jooris Kesseler,
included a virginal (Antwerp, Stadsarchief, Notarissen 465, 1576, fol. 205).
8. For images of several double virginals from Antwerp, made by Martinus van der
Biest (1580) and Hans Ruckers (1581), see Jeremy Montagu, The World of Medieval and
Renaissance Instruments (London: David & Charles, 1976), 12527; the Ruckers virginal is
in the Metrropolitan Museum of Art, image available at www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/
renk/ho_29.90.htm (accessed 11 June 2008).
9. Edwin Ripin has been able to link these instruments to Antwerp through their
decorations and mottoes in Joes Kareests Virginal and the Flemish Tradition, in Key-
board Instruments: Studies in Keyboard Organology, 15001800, ed. Edwin Ripin (Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 1971; repr. New York: Dover, 1977), 6775.
10. I have discussed these, with images provided, in my Nymphes gayes, esp. 156
60.
11. This identification is confirmed by Angelika Lorenz, in an article formerly posted
at www.lwl.org/LWL/Kultur?landesmuseum/kdm/1819jahrhundert/1998_2001/2000_04/
index2_htm (accessed 12 October 2007). The painting is now held in the Mnster Landes-
museum; the museum purchased this artwork from the private collection of Jack Gold,
Surrey, in a Sotheby sale of 12 July 1972.
12. While the music appears faked in this book, the text seems to begin Den Heer.
I have not been able to identify which psalm text this might be.
13. This is noted in an inventory of the Salvago house, which had a spinet (espinette
dict clavisymbele) and a lute; given in Lon de Burbure, Uittreksels uit de Archieven der
Stad en der Kerken van Antwerpen, 11001796 (MS, Antwerp, n.d.), 3: 3, drawn from the
Notarissen 465 collection of inventories.
14. Guicciardini, Descrittione, 16768.
15. Antwerp, Archief van de OLV-Kathedral (AKA), Capsa 14, Dominorum 26 (Scho-
lastria 15401629), fol. 11v: Franois Werneix poortere geboren van Voerme in Vlanderen
122 Kristine K. Forney

oudt Lij jaren woenende by dEngels huys sal leeren duyts, franois, lessen ende scryven,
singen ende spleen . . . geadmitteert penul. May anno Lxxij.
16. Ibid., fol. 10: Symon moons oudt Lx jaren gheboren van tsavonteyloo by Brues-
sele en poortere deser stadt, woonende inde coppen ganck, leerende duytsch, wals, lessen,
schryven, rekenen ende cyeren. Moens is registered as a clavicembalemaker, as noted in
P. Rombauts and T. Van Lerius, Liggeren . . . der Antwerpsche Sint Lucasgilde, 2 vols. (An-
twerp: Bagerman, 18461876), 1: 179.
17. Hans van den Bosche oudt xviij jaren gheboren poortere, woonende met syn
ouders inde Coepoortestrate . . . leerende alleene rekenen, schryven, cyeren, ende boeck-
houden, in AKA, Capsa 14, Dominorum 26, fol. 9.
18. Ibid, fol. 45r: Jacomyna van aerde . . . duyts, lessen, scryven, ende singhen.
19. AKA, Rekenboeck van de gulde de schoolmeesters, 15701600. Payments are noted
in 1591 to the city players (fol. 167r), in 1587 for singing the motet with the organ (fol. 132r),
and in 1598 for a double motet (fol. 263r).
20. In 1576, for example, there were eighty-eight schoolmasters and seventy school-
mistresses (ibid.).
21. The first was in Socratic dialogue, issued while a canon at Utrecht in 1554.
22. Index expurgatorius libroum (Antwerp: Plantin, 1571).
23. Carlo de Clercq, Kerkelijk Leven, in Antwerpen in de XVIde eeuw (Antwerp:
Mercurius, 1976), 5763.
24. Chapter VII: The virtue of the Sacraments, in The canons and decrees of the sacred
and oecumenical Council of Trent, ed. and trans. James Waterworth (London: Dolman, 1848),
available at http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/trentall.html (accessed 11 June 2008).
25. Melody in Johannes Zahn, Die Melodien der deutschen evangelischen Kirchenlieder
(Hildescheim: Olms, 1963).
26. See Dorothy Packer, Au boys de dueil and the Grief-Decalogue Relationship in
Sixteenth-Century Chansons, Journal of Musicology 3 (1984): 21, 23.
27. Sensuyvent plusieurs belles & bonnes chansons que les chrestiens peuvent chanter en
grande aection de cueur. Adore un Dieu was the first piece in the volume; see Packer, Au
boys de dueil, 1954.
28. Calvins settings, Oyons la Loy que sa voix and Nous a donne le createur, and his
Creed, Je croy en Dieu le Pere, were printed in Aulcuns pseaulmes et cantiques mys en chant
(Strasbourg, 1539). Both borrow their music, the song of the commandments from a Stras-
bourg cantique, probably composed by Wolfgang Dachstein and published by Kopphel in
1526, and the Credo from a melody by Matthaus Greitter in Teutsch Kirchenampt (1525).
29. Packer, Au boys de dueil, 42. According to Packer and Samuel F. Pogue ( Jacques
Moderne: Lyons music printer of the sixteenth century, Travaux dhumanisme et Renaissance
101 (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1969), 23839), Moderne issued a small book in octavo and of
only four folios entitled Chanson nouvelle. Composee sur les dix commandements de Dieu
extraicte de la saincte scripture (ca. 15301540).
30. Souter liedekens ghemaect ter eeren Gods, op all die Psalmen van David (Antwerp:
Symon Cock, 1540).
31. Het Antwerps Liedboek. 87 melodieen op teksten uit Een Schoon Liedekens-Boeck
van 1544, 2 vols., ed. K. Vellekoop et al. (Amsterdam: Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziek-
geschiedenis, 1975), no. 39. No music is given in the Souterliedekens print for this tune,
suggesting that it was well known.
32. Pierre Bayle, Oeuvres diverses I (The Hague, 1727); quoted in Bernet Kempers,
Die Souterliedekens des Jacobus Clemens non Papa. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des nie-
derlndischen Volksliedes und zur Vorgeschichte des protestantischen Kirchengesanges.
Literaturverzeichnis, Tijdschrift der Vereeniging voor Noord-Nederlands Muziekgeschiede-
nis 12, no. 4 (1928): 26466.
 A Proper Musical Education for Antwerp's Women 123

33.
3. See Henri Vanhulst, Les Les ditions de musique polyphoniques et les traits musi-
caux mentions dans les inventaires dresss en 1569 dans les Pays-Bas espagnols sur ordre
du duc dAlbe, Revue belge de musicologie 31 (1977): 6071.
34. Packer, Au boys de dueil, 4243 notes a Catholic collection of cantique spirituelle
from 1700, destined for les missions et les catechisms, which included a version of Sau-
niers Adore un Dieu.
35. See my Music, Ritual and Patronage at the Church of Our Lady, Antwerp, Early
Music History 7 (1987): 157.
36. Het sevenste Musyck Boexken (Souterliedekens IV) (Antwerp: Susato, 1557).
37. Antwerpsch Chronykje (p. 237), cited in Caroline Bouland, The Guild of St. Am-
brose, or Schoolmasters Guild of Antwerp, 15291579, Smith College Studies in History 36
(Northampton, Mass.: Smith College, 1951), 38.
38. Lon de Burbure, 2: 330. Antwerp Stadarchief, Inventaire de mobilier et livres
delaisss par le chanoine, escolatre et scelleve de lveque, Francois Doncker. In addition to the
music books described, Doncker had a copy of De Imitatione Christi, attributed to Gerson,
and also works of Clment Marot.
39. The booklet was produced at the expense of Antonis Thielens, who had served
previously as editor for a music book issued by Christopher Plantin: Valentini Gre Enger
Pannonii, Harmoniarum musicarum . . . prima pars (Antwerp, 1569).
40. For a modern edition of this collection, see Grard de Turnhout, Sacred and Secu-
lar Songs for Three Voices, ed. Lavern Wagner, Recent Researches in the Music of the Renais-
sance 910 (Madison: A-R Editions, 1970).
41. On the rebuilding of the Cathedrals music collection after 1566, see Forney, Mu-
sic, Ritual, and Patronage, 3240.
42. Of the Latin works, four are based on the Canticle of Canticles; five are drawn
from various liturgical texts, and others are devotional in nature, including several table
blessings and the all-time favorite chanson spirituelle, Susann un jour.
43. The dedication is translated in the preface by Lavern Wagner to Turnhout, Sacred
and Secular Songs, 10.
44. These include settings of the two well-known Clment Marot texts: O souverain
pasteur (prire avant le repas) and Per eternal (prire aprs le repas), set as well as Clemens
non Papa and Tielman Susato, among others.
45. See Peter Bergquist, ed., Orlando di Lasso: The Complete Motets. XI: Liber motettar-
um trium vocum (Munich, 1575); Novae aliquot, ad duasv oces cantiones (Munich, 1577), Recent
Researches in the Music of the Renaissance 103 (Madison: A-R Editions, 1995); and Lawrence
Bernstein, French Duos in the First Half of the Sixteenth Century, in Studies in Musicology
in Honor of Otto E. Albrecht, ed. John W. Hill (Kassel: Brenreiter, 1980), 4387.
46. This print is edited by Ignace Bossuyt as part of the Jeann de Castro Opera omnia
(Leuven: University Press, 1993). I would like to thank Jeanice Brooks for providing me with
her translation of this dedication.
47. The volume is in the British Library, with the shelfmark K.8.1.4.
48. The inscription is not grammatically correct, suggesting that perhaps one of the
Latin students added it to the volume, rather than Scholiers himself. I would like to thank
Alejandro E. Planchart for his assistance with this text.
49. Mottetz nouvellement mis en musique a 4, 5, 6, 7, & 8 parties (Paris: Granjon, 1559);
Chanson nouvelles . . . a4 (Paris: Granjon, 1559).
50. Frank Dobbins, Music in Renaissance Lyons, Oxford Monographs on Music (Ox-
ford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 25253.
51. Forney, Nymphes gayes. On Heyns see also Maurits Sabbe, Peeter Heyns en de
nimfen suit den Lauwerboom, Bijdrage tot de Geschiedenis van het Schoolwezen in de 16e
eeuw (Antwerp: Vereninging der Antwerpsche Bibliophilen, 1929).
124 Kristine K. Forney

52. Antwerp, Plantin Moretus Museum, M394, Rekenboek Peter Heyns, 15761582;
and M 240, Rekenboek Peter Heyns, 15801584.
53. Ibid.; sample entries are reproduced in Forney, Nymphes gayes.
54. This play was first published at Geneva in 1550, and reprinted many times, includ-
ing an edition in 1580 at Antwerp by Soolmans.
55. Christiani matrimonii institutio, in Opera omnia, V: 71718; cited in Clement A.
Miller, Erasmus on Music, The Musical Quarterly 52 (1966): 34748.
56. One of the most famous teaching dialogues from the Low Countries is Seer
gemeyne Tsamencoutingen/Collocutions bien familiers, published in 1543 by the Brussels
schoolmaster Jehan Berthout. In the books first chapter, we find evidence of young boys
singing duos in the mass, as discussed above, and of the general musical knowledge assumed
of the young; only at the very end does the dialogue confirm that girls too learned singing
and other musical skills. On this dialogue, see Ren Lenaerts, Het Nederlands Polifonies
Lied in de Zestiende Eeuw (Mechelen: Het Kompass, 1933), 15359.
57. Henri Vanhulst, La musique et lducation des jeunes filles daprs La montaigne
des pucelles/Den Maeghden-Bergh de Magdaleine Valry (Leyde, 1599), in Recevez ce mien
petit labeur: Studies in Renaissance Music in Honour of Ignace Bossuyt, ed. Mark Delaire and
Pieter Berg (Leuven: University Press, 2008), 26978.
58. I would like to thank Prof. Vanhulst for providing me a copy of his article prior
to its publication.
59. Jay oultre encore mono jeu de Manicorde O les Chansons Divines par toy
confictz: O as ouvr mon gr mieulx quonq feis. Soiuvent aussi je pren du croc ma harpe,
Et je la pendz mon col en escharpe Pour y jouer et Psalmes et Chansons Selon que Dieu
ma instruict en leur sons. Letter from Eustorg de Beaulieu to Clment Marot, Thierrens,
May 1543; cited in Dobbins, Music in Renaissance Lyons, 51.
60. Translation by Eugene Schreurs in the preface to the facsimile editions of Het
ierste Musyck Boexken (Antwerp: Susato, 1551), ed. Eugeen Schreurs and Martine Sanders
(Peer, Belgium: Alamire, 1989), Superius, p. 6.
61. Timothy McTaggart, Susatos Musyck Boexken I and II: Music for a Flemish
Middle Class, in Music Printing in Antwerp and Europe in the 16th Century, Colloquium
Proceedings, Antwerp, 2325 August 1995, Yearbook of the Alamire Foundation 2 (Leuven
and Peer: Alamire, 1997), 30732.
62. See Livre plaisant, 1529 & Dit is een seer Schoon Boecxke, 1568, with an introduc-
tion by John Henry van der Meer, Early Music Theory in the Low Countries 9 (Amsterdam:
Knuf, 1973); and Sebastian Virdung, Musica getutscht: A Treatise on Musical Instruments,
ed. and trans. Beth Bullard, Cambridge Musical Texts and Monographs (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1993).
63. I have published a comparison of this intabulation and the original song in my
Nymphes gayes, 17374.
64. Bullard edition of Virdung, Musica getutscht, 14 (see above, note 62).
65. She was baptized on 20 May 1586, according to Alan Curtis, ed., Nederlandse
Klaviermuziek uit de 16e en 17e eeuw, Monumenta Musica Neerlandica 3 (Amsterdam: Ve-
reniging der Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 1961), xxi.
66. This work was first published in Il primo libro de villotte . . . a quarto voci (Venice:
Gardano, 1557) and reprinted many times thereafter. The vocal version was never published,
as far as I know, in the north.
67. The inclusion of this pavane/galliarde set, not known in printed intabulations,
possibly calls into question the preparation of this manuscript in the Low Countries. Ar-
rangements of a pavane/galliard set by A. Bassano for keyboard and lute appear only in
English manuscripts, according to Denis Arnold and Fabio Ferraccioli, in David Lasocki et
al., Bassano, in Grove Music Online. See Oxford Music Online: www.oxfordmusiconline
 A Proper Musical Education for Antwerp's Women 125

.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/53233pg1 (accessed 8 June 2008). I have not been able

to check the music of the Susanne van Soldt manuscript against these other sources.
68. The settings are based on the Dathenus translation, De Psalmen Davids, published
in Rouen, Ghent, and Heidelberg in 1566. Alan Curtis, ed., Dutch Keyboard Music of the
16th and 17th Centuries (Amsterdam: Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis,
1961), xxvii.
69. See Piere Pidoux, Le Psautier Huguenot du XVIe sicle, vol. 1: Les mlodies (Basel:
Brenreiter, 1962).
70. Curtis, Dutch Keyboard Music, ix.
71. Het Antwerps Liedboek. 87 melodieen op teksten uit Een Schoon Liedekens-Boeck
van 1544, 2 vols., ed. Kees Vellekoop et al. (Amsterdam: Vereniging voor Nederlandse Mu-
ziekgeschiedenis, 1975), 1: 2829. Den lustelycke mey was used for monophonic settings
of this psalm (Symon Cock, 1540) as well as polyphonic ones, including that by Jacobus
Clemens non Papa, in Souterliedekens II (Antwerp: Susato, 1556), given here as psalm 79,
Ghi die condt Israel.
72. H. Colin Slim, On Parnassus with Maarten van Heemskerck: Instrumentaria and
Musical Repertoires in Three Paintings in the U.S.A., Part II, Musica disciplina 52 (1998):
181232.
73. John Wendland, Madre non mi far Monaca: The Biography of a Renaissance Folk-
song, Acta musicologica 48 (1976): 185204.
74. Wendland gives the various versions, including the Geuzen song Maraen, hoe
moogt gy spies en lans verheen tegen God, published much later in the famous Nederland-
sche Gedenck-clanck (Valerius, 1626). One of the most popular contrafacta of the Allemande
nonette was Von Gott will ich nicht lassen, on which Bach wrote a chorale; according to
Wendland, Madre non mi far Monaca, 191, this text was first published in Frankfurt in
1572 and widely disseminated in Lutheran song books.
75. Howard M. Brown, in Instrumental Music Printed before 1600: A Bibliography
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965), lists six intabluations: four for lute
issued by Phalse (156312, 15687 15747, and 15846), and two for cittern (15784, published in
Strasburg; and 1582 5 by Phalse).
76. In his Instrumental Music Printed before 1600, Brown gives four sources, including
two cittern arrangements published by Phalse (15696, 15703). The tune was first printed in
the famous Susato Danserye (1551) for four-part ensemble, but without its title.
77. The contrafactum was entitled Een nieu liedeken vande Berchse soldaten, hoe sy de
stadt aen Parma vercochten, sung to the tune of Bruynsmadelijn. The text is available at www
.dbnl.org/tekst/_geu001geuz01_01/_geu001geuz01_01_0153.htm (accessed 8 June 2008).
78. The tune on which this is based is in G. A. Brederos Groot Lied Boeck of 1622, but
was clearly in circulation well before that publication.
79. On this Lasso edition, see my Orlando di Lassos Opus 1: The Making and Mar-
keting of a Renaissance Music Book, Revue belge de musicologie 3940 (19851986): 3360.
Kenneth Levys study on the Susanne complex does not recognize this Antwerp publica-
tion, in Susanne un jour: The History of a 16th-Century Chanson, Annales musicologiques
1 (1953): 375408.
 7
Juan Bermudo, Self-instruction,
and the Amateur Instrumentalist'
JOHN GRIFFITHS

The pedagogy of learning to play musical instruments embodies techniques,

intellectual systems, and values that reveal a great deal about the cultural con-
text in which instruction takes place. The advent of printing in the sixteenth
century provided the opportunity for a new kind of music book and a new
system of learning instrumental performance. Early in the history of music
printing, the pedagogical possibilities of the new medium were recognized
by the Valencian courtier Luis Miln and applied by him to El maestro (The
teacher), his 1536 anthology of music for vihuela, the Spanish guitar-shaped
lute. In advertising that his book would follow the same manner and order
that a teacher would bring to a beginning student: showing him progressively
from the beginning everything of which he might need to know, Miln estab-
lished the role that tablature books came to play in musical self-instruction
not in the intellectual comprehension and appreciation of music, but in the
mechanical dimension of music performance. From a contemporary point
of view, manuals of this kind thus tell us a great deal about the otherwise
undocumented practices of music teaching and music teachers in the Early
Modern period.
Twenty years after El maestro, the Franciscan friar Juan Bermudo pub-
lished a much more extensive treatise on musical instruments and instru-
 Juan Bermudo, Self-instruction, and the Amateur Instrumentalist 127

mental music, his Declaracion de instrumentos musicales (1555). This was the
first sixteenth-century Spanish book concerning instrumental music whose
primary objective was not to transmit a performance repertoire but to educate
instrumentalists in matters beyond musical practice. It was not an anthology
of tablature, but a treatise on many aspects of the history, science, and art
of music, formulated with a clear educative aim for instrumentalist readers
of diverse backgrounds, both amateurs and professionals. In contrast to El
maestro, self-instruction using Bermudos text leads principally to instrumen-
talists deepening of their musical understanding. At the same time, Bermudo
gives very practical advice on many matters that help us connect his theo-
retical concerns to the commonplace reality from which we construct musics
social history. My interest in this study is to focus on Bermudos contribution
to our understanding of learning to play musical instruments as one of the
day-to-day musical experiences of Renaissance urban life. Intertwined with
this practicality, of course, is Bermudos unequivocal intention of oering
the instrumentalist a pedagogical pathway toward achieving the status of the
Boethian musicus.
The essence of Bermudos advice for instrumentalists is that they should
learn by assimilating techniques derived from vocal music. This reinforces
the undeniable centrality of vocal polyphony in sixteenth-century musical
thinking and the close interconnection between vocal and instrumental mu-
sic. Bermudo views the appropriation of vocal polyphony by vihuelists and
keyboard players as a natural and normal part of an integrated musical world.
I wish to emphasize this point in an attempt to neutralize the propensity to
see instrumental and vocal music as distinct branchesas part of the ongoing
process of restoring the balance that existed between instrumental and vocal
music in Renaissance musical experience. Regarding instrumental music as
either peripheral or subsidiary is a legacy of modern historiography and does
not accord, at least in quantitative terms, with what I understand to have been
the soundscape of Renaissance cities and towns.
It also helps us to understand what Bermudo is talking about if we do not
consider instrumentalists to be a completely distinct category of musician. No
doubt some of Bermudos readers would have included clerics who frequently
heard or participated in the singing of vocal polyphony, but whose domestic
recreation included playing the clavichord or vihuela. William Byrd likewise
epitomizes the professional Renaissance musician who traversed both areas.
We thus need to keep in mind that many master polyphonists were also lu-
tenists or keyboard players, that many musicians primarily known to us as
128 John Griths

lutenists were composers of fine vocal polyphony, and that in urban societies,
many peoples experience of vocal polyphony was principally through the solo
instrumental medium.
With nearly every new document that surfaces in my archival investiga-
tions in Spain and Italy, the place of instrumental music moves closer into
vocal territory, and the old line separating the center from the periphery
becomes increasingly blurred. The ever-sharpening picture reinforces the
centrality of instrumental music and practice in sixteenth-century musical
culture, and the breadth of its social penetration: whether used at court or
domestically, for recreation or entertainment, or as a pedagogical or composi-
tional tool, the lute and other plucked instruments were a central part of the
sixteenth-century soundscape. This radiated outward from the very center of
mainstream musical activity, assisted by the lutes multiple roles as a trans-
mitter of vocal polyphony, a vehicle for spiritual and moral education and so
for self-improvement, and as a personal symbol of cultural achievement. Not
only did many nobles throughout Europe aspire to the model of Castigliones
lute-playing courtier, but the combination of class interaction and the print-
ing press empowered the literate urban professional classes to emulate these
same models from a few rungs further down the social ladder.
My exploration and Bermudos text, then, revolve around the pedagogy
that assisted the expansion of courtly musical practices into the urban sphere.
In the geographical areas that interest me most, the penetration of courtly art
music into urban society appears to have been quite significant. I estimate,
for example, that Spanish violeros may have built over a quarter of a mil-
lion instruments during the course of the sixteenth century, and we learn
from surviving printing contracts that instrumental music was printed in
extraordinarily large editions of 1,200 to 1,500 copiesprint runs that surpass
any other known kind of Spanish book production. Both pieces of evidence
point to widespread instrumental practice in urban society, demonstrated
through a correspondingly high level of consumption of musical materials.
My contribution to the discussion of Renaissance musical pedagogy is thus
primarily concerned not with the training of a professional elite, but peda-
gogy directed at amateurs. And because this phenomenon coincides with the
advent of printing, it also concerns self-instruction.
As implied above, Renaissance self-instruction literature is likely to mir-
ror the real practice of master-to-student teaching, but there are many avail-
able models and we cannot be sure. The absence of adequate documentation
of unwritten pedagogical practice is thus a severe limitation toward achieving
 Juan Bermudo, Self-instruction, and the Amateur Instrumentalist 129

anything like a holistic view of past instrumental pedagogy. We can but ac-
knowledge the role of unwritten pedagogical practice, even though we cannot
resuscitate the voices of the many teachers who gave one-to-one instruction
or who worked in the numerous privately operated music schools in cities
and large towns. We know very little about what they did, and the methods
they used. At the same time, there is probably a certain degree of congru-
ence between oral and print pedagogies, and we can only be reassured by the
indications given by writers such as Luis Miln who confirm their desire to
replicate real-life practice in their published manuals.
Learning an instrument requires the acquisition of physical, mechanical
skills, as well as the assimilation of the key stylistic elements of the music that
is being learned, unless this can be taken for granted as a priori knowledge.
Sixteenth-century students of solo instruments who had not had the experi-
ence of singing vocal polyphony are likely to have needed some guidance with
musical style. In contrast to the dominant instrumental pedagogy of the last
250 years, Renaissance instrumental pedagogy in Spain and Italy focuses
substantially on musical style and assumes that good technique will follow
automatically. The printed vihuela books, although aimed at the beginner as
well as the accomplished player, pay little more than lip service to mechanical
matters. None of them include specifically technical exercises, although brief
technical exercises are interpolated in numerous Italian lute manuscripts,
generally working manuscripts that belonged to individual owners.
The development of tablature notation is intimately connected to the
proliferation of lute music and also, to a lesser degree, to the proliferation
of keyboard instruments. In eect, playing by numbers brought the perfor-
mance of sophisticated polyphonic music within reach of the musically illit-
erate, and the pedagogical challenges that concern us were defined as much
by the notation as the music itself. Tablature is not dicult to learn and in
addition to its simplicity, it is graphically compact and an ideal way of writ-
ing music in score. It is probably no accident that the invention of tablature
coincided with the emergence of music printing, and authors and publishers
were quick to exploit the enormous social potential: some three hundred tab-
lature books were issued during the sixteenth century. For the first time, high
quality music was within reach of the bourgeoisie: a broad sector of society
with limited musical experience gained easy access to art music in an easily
intelligible format. No doubt, some of the great charmers of the era would
have known the odd piece of Josquin, Arcadelt, or Francesco, and with only
the flimsiest musical knowledge acquired through tablature editions, would
130 John Griths

have been able to feign an inflated level of cultural refinement in order to ap-
proximate Castigliones model courtier.
Returning now to Juan Bermudo, I wish to consider one short passage
from the Declaracin de instrumentos that is well known to instrumental schol-
ars, a pithy 400-word coda to his discussion of intabulation technique on fol.
99v, at the end of chapter 71: Some concluding advice on intabulations. It
is worth revisiting in the present context because of its pedagogical import.
In one of his rare moments of succinctness, following chapters of laborious
and detailed explanation of intabulations, Bermudo cuts to the chase as if
to say: now if you really want to be a good vihuelist, heres what you have
to do. It is a simple and rational recipe, based on instrumental emulation
of vocal polyphony. Mechanical skills are completely ignored. Instead, Ber-
mudo advises his reader to learn through intabulating (moving progressively
from the simple to the complex), to absorb the compositional technique of
vocal composers, and to use this knowledge for creating ones own works
(fantasia extemporization), the pinnacle of sixteenth-century instrumental
achievement.
In preceding chapters on intabulations, Bermudo teaches how to copy
polyphony into score, how to place the music to achieve the best match be-
tween music and instrument, and how to translate the mensural notation
into tablature. He does not advocate simply playing by numbers, but stresses
implicitly that the process of self-instruction involves becoming intimately fa-
miliar with the music through copying and analysis. In this respect, he reveals
an anity to Vincenzo Galilei in his concern for the integrity of the vocal
model and the use of intabulated polyphony for study possibly more than for
performance. Bermudos insistence on first making a score, in order to be
able to predict problems likely to arise in intabulating, diers from contempo-
raries such as Bartolomeo Lieto, who recommends intabulating each contra-
puntal voice directly from the bass upward without the intermediary stage of
making a score. Other musicians, such as Cosimo Bottegari, who were first
and foremost interested in producing intabulations to use as solo songsby
singing one of the original voices and converting the remaining voices into a
simple accompanimentdo not operate with a pedagogical imperative and
are more pragmatic than fastidious. The alternative that became both easy
and common due to the explosive upsurge in tablature printing in the 1540s
was, of course, to buy a book of tablature prt a porter.
Bermudo first instructs players to seek out and intabulate music com-
posed in two parts:
 Juan Bermudo, Self-instruction, and the Amateur Instrumentalist 131

The music with which you should begin to intabulate will be villancicos
(first duos, then in three parts) of homophonic music in which all the voices
usually sound at once. Intabulating these requires little eort because, as
the notes in each voice have the same value, the ciphers in each bar will
be equal in number. For those who might wish to take my advice: these
intabulations are not for performing because they are not artful music, so
do use them to train your ear. Homophonic villancicos do not have strong
enough musical foundations to develop and cultivate good taste in inven-
tion. Use them, therefore for practice and for learning how to intabulate;
they are not worth more.

Even if Bermudo is dismissive of these simple pieces, the student stands

to learn not only the mechanics of intabulation, but also the fundamentals
of counterpoint. Although never mentioned explicitly, Bermudo takes for
granted the pedagogical benefit accruing from copying the music into score
and intabulating it: this part of the process is possibly the most important of
all in terms of the assimilation of compositional style and technique. What-
ever the musical quality of these two-voice works, they are also good technical
exercises as they demand accurate finger placement, controlled plucking, and
linear fluidity.
Very few two-part villancicos of the kind that Bermudo recommends
survive in polyphonic sources, and not a single example was included in any of
the vihuela books published during the sixteenth century. The closest piece
is a setting in Fuenllanas Orphnica lyra of Si amores me han de matar, which is
attributed to Mateo Flecha; but this duo turns out to be identical to the tenor
and bass voices of an anonymous five-part setting in the so-called Cancionero
de Uppsala. It is impossible to determine which of the versions might have
given rise to the other: the five-part version could have been created by adding
voices to the duo, or Fuenllana could simply have extracted the lowest two
voices from the five-voice work, although this scenario seems less likely to me.
Not homophonic (as Bermudo recommended), Si amores me han de matar is of
the same imitative style as most of the other two-part music conserved in the
printed vihuela tablatures, settings of the Benedictus, Pleni, and Et resurrexit
from masses by Josquin and Mouton, along with other liturgical fragments
by Morales and Guerrero.
The three-part homophonic villancicos to which Bermudo refers are
likely to be works such as those in the old style by Juan del Encina and other
composers who figure alongside him in sources such as the Cancionero de
Palacio, as well as later pieces in the same style. Playing intabulated three-
132 John Griths

part homophonic works taught players to understand triadic harmony and

chordal progressions and cadential formulas long before the development of
a vocabulary to explain them. Triads were possibly understood as physical
hand-positions as much as theoretic constructs of superimposed intervals,
although it is likely that by Bermudos time players of plucked instruments
practiced a form of basso continuo, either reading from the bass part or entirely
by ear.
The second step in Bermudos method refers to the new style of imitative
three-part villancicos that emerged in Spain during the second quarter of the
century:

Having derived some kind of benefit from the above villancicos, the player
should seek out the villancicos of Juan Vsquez which are of high quality,
and works by an interesting author named Baltasar Tllez. The works of
this studious and wise composer possess four qualities that warrant report-
ing here: firstly because they are attractive and each voice can be sung in its
own right . . . as if it might have been written to be sung alone. From this I
infer the second quality: that their attractiveness makes them easy to sing
and play. Thirdly, they should have many well-placed suspensions as these
sound good on the vihuela. The last condition is that the music should have
a narrow range and the voices should not be far from one another when
each homophony is sounded.

The printed vihuela books include large number of this kind of villancico, in-
cluding many that embody exactly the qualities for which Bermudo praised
the works of Baltasar Tllez. The greatest number of surviving works of this
kind are the three-voiced villancicos by Vsquez, included in his Villancicos i
Canciones of 1551.
From three-part music, Bermudo moves to works of greater sophistica-
tion in four voices, music of greater length and complexity. He speaks of this
music with great reverenceof its inexplicable beauty, a source of wisdom
and spiritual edification. In this light, as well as for their range of solutions,
he also extols Morales, Josquin, and Gombert for the variety displayed in text
setting. The prominence he aords these three accords with the prevalence of
their works in the surviving instrumental sources, not only the Mass sections
that he recommends, but also large numbers of motets, chansons, madrigals,
and Spanish secular works that make up such a high proportion of the reper-
toire. His closing remark about the music of Gombert no doubt arises from
the composers thicker textures and more pervasive imitation:
 Juan Bermudo, Self-instruction, and the Amateur Instrumentalist 133

Among the Masses of the eminent musician Cristbal de Morales you will
find much music to intabulate, music of so many good qualities that I am
incapable of describing it. He who lends himself to this music will not only
gain wisdom, but also contemplative devotion. Only few composers possess
these qualities, and attain variety in text setting. And among these few, the
above-named author is one. Among the foreign music you might find, do
not forget that of the great Josquin, who founded music. The most recent
that you should intabulate is the music of the excellent Gombert. Due to
the diculty of intabulating it satisfactorily on the vihuela, for being so
overflowing, I put it in last place.

Having laid out this ground plan, Bermudo gives little further guidance.
Making intabulations according to the methods he elucidates in the preced-
ing chapters produces arrangements that sit well under the fingers because
they make good use of open strings and the standard vocabulary of chord
configurations. His further advice deals only with a few secondary small-
scale matters, such as how to deal with unisons between polyphonic voices.
Vincenzo Galilei gives much more painstaking detail in Il Fronimo about
maintaining polyphonic integrity in intabulations. Otherwise, there is a high
level of agreement between these two authors whose pedagogical principles
are closely aligned. They share the view, for example, that it is advantageous
that lutenists be able to read and comprehend mensural music. In content,
however, Galilei addresses his treatise to more accomplished players, perhaps
a reflection of a more sophisticated Florentine readership, unless this is an im-
pression that stems from his use of classical master-pupil dialogue format.
The conclusion of Bermudos chapter establishes the tight nexus between
intabulation and instrumental composition, and the need to have fully assimi-
lated all of the preceding steps before attempting to create ones own music.
This is one of the most frequently quoted sentences from the entire treatise:

Beginners err greatly in trying to impress with their own fantasies. Even
if they were to know counterpoint (at least as well as the aforementioned
composers) they should not be in such a hurry, so as not to do it with bad
taste.

The point is clear, vocal music is the instrumentalists model; however,

we might be equally critical of Bermudo for not going far enough. It seems
as though his pedagogy is one of imitation by absorption. He gives no direct,
concrete guidance on how to proceed from intabulation to fantasia: whether
it is by direct imitation, by analogy, by osmosis, or simply by drinking from
134 John Griths

the fountain of knowledge. As Philippe Canguilhem has observed, Galilei has

a similar diculty explaining satisfactorily in Fronimo how amateur players
built the bridge between intabulation and fantasia. The most detailed at-
tempt to teach fantasia improvisation is, of course, Santa Maras Arte de taer
fantasia of 1565. Using highly systematic pedagogy, Santa Maras oers the
most comprehensive and eective method for learning how to extemporize
imitative counterpoint. Despite its great excellence, the one vital element that
Santa Mara eschews along with every other sixteenth-century writer I have
consulted, is that of musical structure. While Santa Mara reveals very clearly
how to make all variety of imitative entries, he did not go so far as to oer a
strategy for composing a fantasia. Perhaps there did exist an unarticulated
belief that the only way for the instrumentalist to assimilate the rhetorical,
poetic, and narrative dimensions of contemporary musical discourse was, in
fact, through intabulations.
The congruence between Bermudos writings and those of other authors
who ventured to discuss early instrumental music suggests him to be an accu-
rate reporter of established pedagogical practice. If we put him into a broader
context, he aims at the curioso taedor or inquisitive player, and oers a more
intellectualized approach to playing than would have been the experience
of those who taught themselves by way of published tablature anthologies.
At the same time, Bermudo oers these players the opportunity to learn
skills that will help them move outside the confines of what was available in
print.
Beyond Bermudo, however, and beyond the theoretical literature, there
is other evidence about the way that lutenists and keyboard players acquired
musical knowledge. Musical sources still contain a great deal of additional
information that can be interpreted within our discussion of pedagogical
practice. On the one hand, instrumental parodies of vocal works such as
Vincenzo Galileis Fantasia sopra Anchor che col partireas one emblematic
exampleoer a window onto the nexus between intabulation and fantasy;
and at the same time, lute manuscripts in particular are full of brief, fragmen-
tary pieces that were probably intended to be memorized and incorporated
into improvised works during performance. Named clausula, final, tirata, and
so forth, they are highly suggestive of a practice of extemporized composition
that relied, at certain strategic points, on the ability to invoke preexisting
memorized materials, especially openings, cadential formulas, and codas.
Some Italian lute manuscripts from the late sixteenth century contribute
significantly to a growing body of evidence that supports the notion of extem-
 Juan Bermudo, Self-instruction, and the Amateur Instrumentalist 135

porized fantasia involving the real-time assembly of works using certain pre-
fabricated components. Some of these materials possibly record the activity
of their compilers as either teachers or pupils, and are likely to help us further
illuminate pedagogical practice, perhaps bringing us closer to understanding
unwritten practices relating both to compositional process and the way that
urban amateurs became musicians.

NOTES
1. Luis Miln, Libro de Musica de vihuela de mano. Intitulado El maestro. El qual trahe
el mesmo estilo y orden que un maestro traheria con vn discipulo principiante: mostrandose
ordenadamente desde los principios toda cosa que podria ignorar para entender la presente obra
(Valencia: Francisco Diaz Romano, 1536).
2. Juan Bermudo, Comiena el libro llamado declaracion de instrumentos musicales . . .
(Ossuna: Juan de Leon, 1555; repr. as Documenta Musicologica 11, ed. Macario Santiago Kast-
ner [Kassel: Brenreiter, 1957]).
3. Bermudo has been studied by numerous scholars over the last half century. Par-
ticularly significant are the contributions made by John Ward, Le problme des hauteurs
dans la musique pour luth et vihuela au XVIe sicle, in Le Luth et sa Musique, ed. J. Jacquot
(Paris: CNRS, 1958), 17178; Robert Stevenson, Juan Bermudo (The Hague: Martinus Nij-
ho, 1960); Maria Teresa Annoni, Tuning, Temperament, and Pedagogy for the Vihuela
in Juan Bermudos Declaracin de instrumentos musicales (1555) (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State
University, 1989); Wolfgang Freis, Becoming a theorist: the growth of the Bermudos
Declaracin de instrumentos musicales, Revista de Musicologa 18 (1995): 27112; and Paloma
Otaola, Tradicin y modernidad en los escritos musicales de Juan Bermudo: del Libro primero
(1549) a la Declaracin de instrumentos musicales (1555) (Kassel: Reichenberger, 2000).
Recently, Dawn Espinosa has published a parallel SpanishEnglish version of Bermudos
discussion of the vihuela as Journal of the Lute Society of America 2829 (19951996), and
my own practical manual, Taer vihuela segn Juan Bermudo (Zaragoza: Institucin Fer-
nando el Catlico, Seccin de Msica Antigua, 2003), is an attempt to produce a manual
for modern players based on Bermudos pedagogy.
4. The first book of Bermudos treatise is entitled Alabanas de Msica (In praise
of Music) and is written in the tradition of a classic laus musicae, heavily dependent upon
Boethius. Chapters 2 and 3, for example, are devoted to the Boethian divisions of music,
while chapter 5 explains the dierences between the Boethian tri-fold categorization of
musicians, lamenting the paucity in contemporary Spain of musicians worthy of the title
of musicus: En nuestra Espaa ay infinidad de cantantes, muchos Buenos cantores, y pocos
msicos (In Spain today, there are infinite singers, many good composers, and very few
musicians) (Declaracin, fol. 5v).
5. On this topic see particularly Howard M. Brown, The Importance of Sixteenth
Century Intabulations, in Proceedings of the International Lute Symposium Utrecht 1986, ed.
Louis Peter Grijp and Willem Mook (Utrecht: STIMU Foundation for Historical Perfor-
mance Practice, 1988), 129; Hlne Charnass, La rception de la musique savante dans
le monde des amateurs: les receuils de cistre au XVIe sicle, in Atti del XIV Congresso della
Societ Internazionale di Musicologia: Transmissione e recezione delle forme di cultura musi-
cale, ed. A. Pompilio et al. (Turin: Edizione di Torino, 1990) 3: 5967; and more recently
John Griths, The Lute and the Polyphonist, Studi Musicali 31 (2002): 7190.
6. This figure is estimated by assuming, conservatively, that the 170 violeros known
to have been active in Spain during the sixteenth century might represent only one tenth
136 John Griths

of those who really existed, and that each of them worked for an average of twenty years
producing ten instruments per year: 170 10 20 10 = 340,000.
7. See John Griths, Printing the Art of Orpheus: Vihuela Tablatures in Sixteenth-
Century Spain, in Early Music Printing and Publishing in the Iberian World, ed. Iain Fenlon
and Tess Knighton (Kassel: Edition Reichenberger, 2006), 181214.
8. The prefatory matter of these books is examined in John Ward, The Vihuela de
mano and its Music, 15361576 (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1953).
9. Many examples are noted in Victor Coelho, The Manuscript Sources of Seventeenth-
century Italian Lute Music (New York: Garland, 1995).
10. De ciertos avisos para la conclusin del cifrar.
11. Vincenzo Galilei, Fronimo Dialogo di Vincentio Galilei fiorentino nel quale si con-
tengono le vere et necessarie regole del Intavolare la Musica nel Liuto (Venice, 1568); repr.
as Fronimo Dialogo di Vincentio Galilei nobile fiorentino sopra larte del bene intavolare et
rettamente sonare la musica . . . (Venice: Scotto, 1584), trans. and ed. Carol MacClintock,
Musicological Studies and Documents 39 (Neuhausen-Stuttgart: American Institute of
Musicology & Hanssler-Verlag, 1985). See also the recent monograph by Philippe Canguil-
hem, Fronimo de Vincenzo Galilei (Paris: Minerve, 2001).
12. Bartolomeo Lieto Panhormitano, Dialogo quarto di musica dove si ragiona sotto un
piacevole discorso delle cose pertinenti per intavolare le opere di musica . . . (Naples: Matteo
Cancer, 1559).
13. Cosimo Bottegari, Il libro de canto e liuto / The Song and Lute Book, ed. Dinko Fabris
and John Griths (Bologna: Forni, 2006); modern edition: The Bottegari Lutebook, ed. Carol
MacClintock (Wellesley: Wellesley College, 1965).
14. La Msica que aveys de comenar a cifrar: sern unos villancicos (primero dos,
y despues a tres) de Msica golpeada, que, commnmente dan todas las bozes junctas. Para
cifrar estos quasi no ay trabajo: porque (como los puntos que dan unos con otros sean de
ygual valor) las cifras en los compases vernn yguales en nmero. Quien quisiere tomar mi
consejo: destas cifras no se aproveche para taer: porque no es Msica de cudicia, y no se
haga el oydo a ellas. Los villancicos golpeados no tienen tan buen fundamento en msica:
que sean bastantes para edificar, y grangear buen ayre de fantesa. Pues tmense para ensa-
yarse, o imponerse el taedor en el arte de cifrar: que no son para ms.
15. Three such pieces are copied in F:Peb, Chansonnier Masson 56, fols. 72v75, ed-
ited in Vilancetes, cantigas e romances do sculo XVI, ed. Manuel Morais, Portugaliae Musica
Serie A, 47 (Lisbon: Fundao Calouste Gulbenkian, 1986), 3031.
16. Miguel de Fuenllana, Libro de Musica de Vihuela intitulado Orphenica lyra (Seville:
n.p., 1554), fol. 2. The anonymous five-voice setting is in Villancicos de diversos autores, a dos,
y a tres, y a quatro, y a cinco bozes (Venice, 1556), edited in Maricarmen Gmez, El Cancionero
de Uppsala (Valencia: Generalitat Valenciana, 2003), 34044.
17. One possible interpretation of Luis Zapatas famous anecdote from the 1530s or
1540s concerning the playing of Luis de Narvez who was of such great musical ability that
over four polyphonic voices in a book was able to improvise another four (de tan extraa
habilidad en la msica que sobre quatro voces de canto de organo de un libro echaba en la
vihuela de repente otras quatro) is that the vihuelist was playing what was later called
basso continuo (Miscelnea, chap. 15, in Pascual de Gayangos, Memorial Histrico Espaol 9
[Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1859], 95).
18. Despus que por estos villancicos estuviere el taedor en alguna manera in-
struydo: busque los villancicos de Ivan vazquez que son Msica acertada, y las obras de
un curioso msico que se llama Baltasar Tellez. Las obras de este estudioso y sabio author
tienen quatro condiciones, para que en este lugar dellas haga memoria. La primera, son
graciosas, que cada una por si se puede cantar, y con tanta sonoridad que parece averse
hecho aposta para cantarse sola. De adonde infiero la segunda condicin, que sern fciles
 Juan Bermudo, Self-instruction, and the Amateur Instrumentalist 137

de cantar, y taer: pues que son graciosas. La tercera es, que tienen muchas falsas bien dadas:
lo qual suena en la vihuela muy bien La ultima condicin es, que es Msica recogida ni anda
en muchos puntos, ni se aparta mucho una boz de otra al dar del golpe.
19. Juan Vsquez. Villancicos i Canciones, ed. Eleanor Russell, Recent Researches in
the Music of the Renaissance 104 (Madison: A-R Editions, 1995).
20. En las missas del egregio msico Christoval de Morales hallarys mucha Msica
que poner: con tantas, y tan buenas qualidades que yo no soy suciente a explicarlas. El que
a esta Msica se diere, no tan solamente quedar sabio: pero devoto contemplativo. Pocos
componedores hallareys, que guarden las qualidades, y dierencias de las letras. Y entre
los pocos, es uno el sobredicho autor. Entre la msica estrangera que hallareys buena para
poner: no olvideys la de el gran msico Iusquin que comen la msica. Lo ltimo que aveys
de poner sea Msica del excelente Gomberth. Por la dicultad que tiene para poner en la
vihuela, por ser derramada: la pongo en el ltimo lugar.
21. Mucho yerran los taedores, que comenando a taer: quieren salir con su fante-
sa. Aunque supiesse contrapunto (sino fuee tan bueno como el de los sobredichos msicos)
no avan de taer tan presto fantesa: por no tomar mal ayre.
22. Canguilhem, Fronimo de Vincenzo Galilei, chap. 3: De la mise en tablature a la
fantaisie: lexample dAnchor che col partire, 95121. Galileis limitation is the impossibility
of moving from a discussion of the process of intabulation to the conceptual appropriation
of formal and compositional strategies from one genre into the other.
23. Toms de Santa Maria, Libro llamado arte de taer fantasia (Valladolid, 1565);
trans. Warren. E. Hultberg and Almonte C. Howell as The Art of Playing Fantasia (Pitts-
burgh: Latin American Literary Review Press, 1991).
24. This is discussed further in the preface of John Griths and Dinko Fabris, eds.,
Neapolitan Lute Music: Fabrizio Dentice, Giulio Severino, Giovanni Antonio Severino, Fran-
cesco Cardone, Recent Researches in the Music of the Renaissance 140 (Madison: A-R Edi-
tions, 2004).
Perspective 2
 8
The Humanist and the
Commonplace Book:
Education in Practice&
ANTHONY GRAFTON

At the core of learning, in early modern Europe, was a single complex set
of practices. Scholars described it, often, in organic terms. Every student
learned from Seneca that we should follow . . . the example of the bees,
who flit about and cull the flowers that are suitable for producing honey,
and then arrange and assort in their cells all that they have brought in.
Seneca grounded this plea for the creative exploitation of multiple sources,
naturally, with a well-chosen quotation: These bees, as our Virgil says, pack
close the flowing honey, and swell their cells with nectar sweet. Yet as he
also taught, extensive borrowing from others, when carried out correctly,
meant the transformation, and not the reproduction, of the sources used:
we could so blend these several flavors into one delicious compound that,
even though it betrays its origin, yet it nevertheless is clearly a dierent thing
from that whence it came. When Macrobius later explained to readers of
his Saturnalia that he had done this in his own work, he appropriated Sen-
ecas image and played with it, insisting that such bees produce a distinctive
new form of honey; Macrobius thereby oered his more learned readers
142 Anthony Grafton

the thrill of recognizing the exact nature of the practice Seneca had recom-
mended.
In the Early Modern period, one literary technology in particular em-
bodied this ideal of the beehive: the notebook, in all its gloriously complex
and indecipherable forms. And this was, of course, a classical revival. The
humanists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries knew that the elder Pliny
had dictated endless excerpts to his secretaries, who in turn had organized
them into the 160 commentarii which the younger Pliny had described as of
extraordinary value, and that these practices had underpinned the rich eru-
dition of one of their favorite books, the elder Plinys Natural History. More
importantly, they appreciated that great ancients had seen the making of good
notes as a form of mental discipline. As Macrobius wrote, the actual practice
of arrangement, accompanied by a kind of mental fermentation, which serves
to season the whole, blends the diverse extracts [in a notebook] to make a
single flavor. No wonder that Brutus had spent the eve of the decisive battle
of Pharsalus excerpting Polybius, or that Augustus had excerpted examples
of good behavior from histories and sent them o to those whose conduct
needed improvement.
It has long been known that the ideas and practices of humanism helped
to transform music in the Renaissance. Theorists used the methods of human-
ist philology to reconstruct the qualities of ancient music, with all its dramatic
eects. They also drew on the methods of classical rhetoric to give an account
of how music in their own time aected individual listeners. Composers and
singers, meanwhile, set the poetry of humanists from Petrarch onward to
music. Sometimes, as in the performances of the Florentine Camerata, theory
even helped to generate new musical practices, with dramatic eects. And one
feature of Renaissance musical practice in particular demands comparison
with the literary methods that every educated person mastered in school. The
Renaissance, in music, was the great age of the musical commonplace book:
the anthology that circulated, first in manuscript and then in hundreds of edi-
tions in print, reshaping musical lives and tastes just as the humanist school
reshaped literary lives and tastes. This essay is meant to oer a general account
of commonplacing, as thousands of young men and a sma