Tenor circles and motet cycles: A study of the Stary Sacz manuscript [PL-SS Muz 9] and its implications for modes of repertory organization in 13th-century polyphonic collections

This dissertation is a source study of a manuscript preserving so-called Notre Dame polyphony owned by the Clarist convent of Stary Sacz in Poland. As a royal foundation, the convent was an important educational center for noble and patrician women. Yet, due to some of the vicissitudes of history its culture is poorly documented; the only witnesses testifying to the medieval cultural life in the convent are several parchment books. One of them, the Muz 9 manuscript, survived in the form of pastedowns and is reconstructed in Chapter 1, providing the departure point for further discussion in the rest of the dissertation. I argue in Chapter 2 that the unique and enigmatic mis-en-page of the manuscript - motet tenors drawn within marginal red circles and separated from the other voices -encapsulates an old system of ordering compositions according to their melodic/modal qualities. While the system was universally observed for organizing the monophonic repertory of liturgical chant collected in didactic books known as tonaries, Muz 9 shows that melodic/modal criteria were also applied to polyphonic music, where the lower voices of the motets - the tenors that were drawn from chant - were organized according to the same principles as tonaries. Surprisingly, the "motet tonary" arrangement of Muz 9 provides a model for understanding several other 13th-century polyphonic collections that survive in England, Germany and Italy (CbT and sections of W2 and F), the organization of which, up until now, were considered erratic (Chapter 3). The significance of the lowest voices in 13th-century polyphonic repertories is further emphasized in Chapter 4, where I argue that the Latin motets of another Notre Dame manuscript, W2, are arranged into groups of two, according to their tenor voices. The repeated patterns of tenors suggest something about the performance practices of the motets, a topic that still generates more questions than answers for musicologists. According to the procedure in W2, two motets could be performed sequentially ("tandem motets") or separately from one another, but within the same liturgical ceremony. As Chapter 5 makes clear, the Stary Sacz repertory is bound together not only by the tonary-like arrangement of the tenor voices but also by the high quality of the poetry and common poetic techniques found in the texts of the upper voices. Because of the large number of works already attributed to one poet, I propose that Muz 9 is a collection of works by Philip the Chancellor. The collection is unique in that it gathers in one volume three types of compositions: Philip's early prototype motets, his fully developed motets, and his so-called "motetish" works.;Contrary to previous studies, which claimed Muz 9 as a French artifact, the paleographic assessment undertaken in Chapter 6 indicates that the manuscript was executed in England in the mid 13th-century. Moreover, a few elements of its filigree and handwriting suggest that it could have been written at the nascent school of Oxford, led and greatly influenced by the Franciscan intellectual Robert Grosseteste. My hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that Robert's newly developed didactic manner of indicating ancient sources in the margins of collected works matches the unique mise-en-page of Muz 9. The small size and frugal decoration of Muz 9 further reinforce a Franciscan origin for the manuscript, which could be classified as a vademecum.;Consequently, I propose a new route for the manuscript's travel, from England to Stary Sacz, and the ubiquitous Franciscan friars as the mediators between the two centers. The nature of the Muz 9 manuscript, which can be summed up as a didactic Franciscan collection of works by a celebrated poet of the time, Philip the Chancellor, matches the environment of the Stary Sacz convent - a Clarist educational center for noble and patrician women - and points to a purposeful, rather than accidental, transfer of music and poetry to the Polish nuns.