Peter Woetmann Christoffersen
The Music Sections of MS Amiens 162: Copyists, Purpose, Corbie, Confréries and the Role of Antoine de Caulaincourt
Abstract (Colloque International »In Seculum Amien.s Les manuscrits musicaux d’Amiens au Moyen Âge«, November 22-24, 2007 in Amiens)
The MS is a mixed collection containing music sections as well as two incomplete missals from Corbie. Its binding was renewed in Amiens in 1826. A nearly unreadable inscription on fol. 1 describes the MS as “Missale imperfectum … officium proprium Ste Barbare … ”. This description reappears in a late catalogue from the Corbie Abbey: “Missale. Il se trouve à la fin un office de Ste Barbe pour la confrérie de cette sainte qui était dans l’Eglise de Corbie à qui Dom Antoine de Caulaincourt donna ce livre. Antoine de Caulaincourt est mort en 1536.” A reconstruction of the original order of the collection shows that this description is accurate: The volume did open with a fascicle from a late 15th century missal (“Missale imperfectum”) followed by a 14th century missal (still complete in 1826) and the music MS, which can easily be reorganized to have the vespers for St. Barbara as its final item.
From the start the contents of the music MS were carefully planned. A booklet of four fascicles contains simple music (a3 and one a2) for funerals or commemoration rites (tropes or verses for “Libera me”, five items), which probably were copied from several sources. The texts and some tunes are known from other French monastic sources from the second half of the 15th century. Before long this small manuscript was enlarged with a collection of two-part sequences. Another section was intended for monophonic music including a tonary and a mass for St. Catherine. With some pieces left unfinished the intended order broke down and music was randomly added on empty spaces and pages. All hands in the MS were trained in copying liturgical books with plainchant – the two original copyists were probably professionals – and a later hand apparently only copied the visual appearance of mensural music having no real understanding of the notation. The music MS can be dated to the years around 1500, a period when the last really independent abbot of the Corbie Abbey, Pierre d'Ottrel, took initiative for the demolition of the Abbatial and the ambitious construction of a new church.
The paper will discuss the work of the copyists and the revisions to the repertory of simple settings, the purpose of the MS and its eventual connection to a Confrérie de Sainte Barbe, and what we can deduce concerning the role of Dom Antoine de Caulaincourt in the genesis of MS 162. Caulaincourt was author of Chronicon Corbeiense, priest, cellar master and officialis of Corbie – and maîstre of a Confrérie des Saints-Innocens in Corbie in 1517.
See also Addendum 2010.
Abstract · Paper · Handout · PDF file (ca 474 kb)