Extant manuscripts are the principal medieval testimony to the art of monophonic song. Literary texts and archival materials, a few theoretical works, and numerous visual representations provide helpful perspective, but our path to the poets and singers lies through the efforts of scribes, and the myriad problems in interpreting what they tell us cast a long shadow over all research on monophonic song. The essays gathered here represent the principal themes and issues that have occupied scholars of late medieval monophonic songs over the last half century: their place in history and society, the role of women as composers and performers, poetic and musical structures, styles, and genres, relationships between poems and melodies, written and oral transmission, and performance practices. Studying how each of these themes is played out across repertoires, cultures, decades, and locations offers a rich and variegated panorama of the practice of song in late medieval Europe.

Essays on important topics in early music. Christopher Page is one of the most influential and distinguished scholars and performers of medieval music. His first book, Voices and Instruments of the Middle Ages (1987), marked the beginning of what might be called the"Page turn" in the study and performance of medieval music. His many subsequent publications, radio broadcasting (notably the series Spirit of the Age) and performances and recordings with his ensemble Gothic Voices changed the perception of and thinking about music from before about 1400 and forged new ways of communicating its essence to scholars as well as its subtle beauty to wider audiences. The essays presented here in his honour reflectthe broad range of subject-matter, from the earliest polyphony to the conductus and motet of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the troubadour and trouvère repertories, song and dance, church music, medieval music theory, improvisation techniques, historiography of medieval music, musical iconography, instrumental music, performance practice and performing, that has characterised Page's major contribution to our knowledge of music of the Middle Ages.

This groundbreaking anthology brings together for the first time the works of women poet-composers, or trouveres, in northern France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Refuting the long-held notion that there are no extant Old French lyrics by women from this period, the editors of the volume present songs attributed to eight named female trouveres along with a varied selection of anonymous compositions in the feminine voice that may have been composed by women. The book includes the Old French texts of seventy-five compositions, extant music for eighteen monophonic songs and nineteen polyphonic motets, English translations, and a substantial introduction.

" I]nvaluable for musicologists and troubadour scholars interested in knowing about the 'whole song', and it also provides an excellent introduction to troubadour music for the historian, philologist or, indeed, anyone with a passing interest." David Cashman, Parergon

"It is a down-to-earth treatment of the discernible facts, ordered according to the type of evidence that survives. It is a book to sober up the discipline." Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, Times Literary Supplement

" A] welcome guide for the growing number of performers wishing to recreate these magical treaures from the medieval Midi." Donna Mayer-Martin, Notes

The Music of the Troubadours is the first comprehensive critical study of the 315 extant melodies of the troubadours of Occitania. It begins with an overview of their social and political milieu in the 12th and 13th centuries, then provides brief biographies of the 42 troubadours whose music survives. The four manuscripts that transmit this music are described in detail, with attention to their genesis in the overlapping roles of composers, singers, and scribes.
To examine the poetic traditions within which the troubadours composed, Aubrey discusses genre, versification, and poetic style. An in-depth analysis of melodic forms and styles reveals traits of individual composers and offers a broad view of the chronological development of the music of the troubadours. Performance practice issues such as rhythm, ornamentation, chromatic inflections, and the use of instruments are explored, thus helping modern performers to bring these ancient treasures to life again."

L'important recueil de poesies conserve dans Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 308, copie vers 1310, est le seul chansonnier des trouveres dont les pieces soient classees par genre, de preference a d'autres criteres. Sous la rubrique "Ci en comancent les balletes" sont regroupes cent quatre-vingt-huit textes anonymes, destines a la danse bien que la musique n'y figure pas. Les ballettes ont joue un role determinant dans le developpement du lyrisme medieval, notamment dans la genese des formes fixes a refrain du XIVe siecle. Compose principalement de pieces uniques, le recueil qu'editent Eglal Doss-Quinby, Samuel N. Rosenberg, et Elizabeth Aubrey illustre une tradition lyrique elaboree en Lorraine, contemporaine du grand chant courtois des trouveres, mais que n'avaient pas reconnue, au XIIIe siecle, les compilateurs de chansonniers conventionnels. Precedee d'une introduction examinant avec methode les problemes de definition que pose le repertoire, cette edition critique rigoureuse est systematiquement enrichie de la traduction anglaise des ballettes et, pour vingt-six chansons, de la musique qui leur revient et a ete identifiee dans d'autres sources manuscrites.