Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, handschriften-Inkunabelsammlung, Musica Ms F (1509-1525): an examination of the repertorial, codicological, and political significance of a unique source of parody masses, with a modern edition of the manuscript and its models

Part I of the dissertation is a comprehensive study of an important music manuscript dating 1509-25 in the Bavarian State Library in Munich (MunBS F), one of a collection of sixty-one manuscript sources of polyphony known as the “Alamire complex”, produced in the Low Countries in the early sixteenth century. A detailed examination of the codicological features of the manuscript, including its structure, scribes, and extensive decoration, provides new evidence of its intended recipient. Although it was thought to have been commissioned as a gift for Henry VIII of England, closer scrutiny of the manuscript reveals that it was almost certainly intended specifically for a woman, in all probability Henry’s wife, Katherine of Aragon. The staunch support given Katherine throughout her reign by her nephew Charles V and her sister-in-law Margaret of Austria, rulers of the Low Countries in this period, strengthens that probability. Due most likely to the complex politics of the moment, the manuscript never reached Katherine, but ended up in Munich, possibly in the possession of Charles’ cousin William IV, Duke of Bavaria. A review of the manuscript’s contents of seven settings of the Ordinary of the Mass reveals that while the central one of these is a cantus firmus Mass, the other six are all parody Masses, arranged symmetrically around the former. Since it can also be demonstrated that all of the composers of these works and of the models on which they are based had an association with the royal court of France during various years between 1481 and 1518, it appears that the six parody Masses are among the earliest known examples of that genre. This provides new support for the hypothesis that the parody Mass had its beginnings at the French court. In the subsequent discussion of scholarship on the genre, work that began in the late 19th century, the emergence of this hypothesis in the literature of the 1960s-1980s is shown to have been decisive for an understanding of the genre’s place in the development of the polyphonic Mass Ordinary. Following this discussion of scholarship is a large section that focuses on the parody procedures used in the Masses, and analyzes each in detail to determine specifically how its composer manipulates his model to create the Mass. There is a significant variety in the procedures, which can be reduced in very broad terms to four predominant techniques, attributable, though not exclusively, to particular composers. In Moulu’s two parody Masses, Missa ‘Missus est Gabriel’ and Missa ‘Paranymphus’, the opening phrases of each voice of the model are used at the beginning of the Mass, changing to a use of relatively small segments of the model for the remaining movements. These smaller segments of borrowed material are used most often at the beginnings of phrases, which then continue with newly composed music. In Richafort’s Missa ‘O genitrix’, linear material from the model is used in the outer voices of the Mass movements, creating a structural framework to contain newly composed sections in the inner voices. Theses sections are given rhythmic configurations from the model which are sometimes transformed mensurally, yet still retain the original note values. In the anonymous Missa ‘Adiutorium nostrum’, large sections of the model are used within the Mass relatively unchanged, or with minimal alterations of rhythm and pitch duration, and are linked by shorter sections of newly composed music. This results in a clear identification of borrowed material and a distinctly derivative character. This Mass also makes use of ghost-text, wherein the composer chooses to underscore certain sections of text in the Mass with sections of borrowed music containing important underlying words in the model, creating an implied textual overlay. Finally, in Gascongne’s Missa ‘Myn hert altyt heeft verlanghen’ large sections of the model are used with some alterations of rhythm and pitch duration, but the borrowed phrases are also expanded with newly composed material. Lines of the model are placed in the outer voices and in the Tenor, while an entirely new voice is added in the Countertenor. The first half of the dissertation concludes with appendices of additional data concerning the manuscript and the Alamire complex, as well as a family tree of the Burgundian and early Hapsburg dynasties. Part II of the dissertation consists of a modern edition of the manuscript and its models, preceded by a full critical report and followed by the bibliography