An important source of 14th century musical treatises, including the Musica speculativa and the Musica practica of Johannes de Muris as well as works less certainly attributable to him, such as the Summa musicae, the Ars discantus, etc. Contains one musical composition: an attempt to construct a three-part polyphonic motet on the basis of Guido of Arezzo's method of composing by vowels.

not indicated

paper

The description of this source given in RISM indicates that it could not be found at the time of the visit of the RISM compiler. However recent information (2009) indicates that the source is available and there is no difficulty in finding it, or of obtaining images from the library. The source contains Eustache de Liège’s motet Monstrant hii versus an / Ius plectas leges /Ut queant laxis (Elizabeth Eva Leach, 2010)

RISM B/IV 1: Although this codex could not recently be found by the librarian, it is unlikely that it is lost. The present description is given after Roller's article listed below. A 14th century paper manuscript meas. 21x 15 cm. and containing 82 folios + 1 blank unnumbered flyleaf at the front. The writing is poor with many abbreviations, but the ms seems to be an important source of 14th century musical treatises, including the Musica speculativa and the Musica practica of Johannes de Muris as well as works less certainly attributable to him, such as the Summa musicae, the Ars discantus, etc. The one musical composition in the codex is a wretched piece of work, an attempt to construct a three-part polyphonic motet on the basis of Guido of Arezzo's method of composing by vowels. The table given below sums up the time values as well as pitches of the motet, which are discussed at some length in a prescriptive canon preceding the table in the ms. A further refinement is that letters written above or between words indicate pauses, the vowels of the texts themselves indicating pitch and rhythm. The only complexity, revealed in the table, is that a succession of two letter "a"s produces the pitches "fa" and "la" with the values 1 and 6 beats respectively. The three parts are related by the proportions 2, 3 and 4. Hence, with a Tr which has "ut" on middle c, the Mot will be on the G below and the T on the C below that. Similarly, the units of time are related in the proportions 1, 2 and 4, so that a whole note in the T corresponds to a half note in the Mot and a quarter note in the Tr.

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