The earliest motets : musical borrowing and re-use

This thesis examines the ways musical material are borrowed and re-used in early thirteenth century motets. This study is focused principally on the Latin motets preserved in the manuscript F (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. 29.1), exploring their interactions with related clausulae and motet versions extant in various thirteenth-century sources. The emphasis on musical borrowing and re-use facilitates a consideration of motets within an inter-generic context. The thesis also engages with issues of compositional process, genre, memory, orality, and literacy, especially changes in the uses of writing in musical transmission and composition. Debate about the chronological relationship between motets and clausulae has a long history. This thesis revisits the issue of ‘which came first?’ Some clausulae appear to pre-date their related motets. However, motets may also subsequently influence related pre-existent clausulae. The study of musical borrowing extends also to the re-working of existing motets through the creation of new texts. It is demonstrated that the major collection of early Latin motets in F includes some pieces which are actually Latin contrafacta of earlier French motets. This challenges the widely accepted theory that Latin motets must automatically have pre-dated those in the vernacular, a faulty premise from which general histories and specialist motet studies have long proceeded. In addition, there is discussion of the ways acts of musical re-use impact on versions of musical material as they are recorded in writing. A hitherto unnoticed pattern in the ordering of motets in F is revealed; as well as being organised in the liturgical sequence of their tenor chants, these motets appear to be grouped together according to the presence or absence of related musical materials recorded in the same source.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo