Ebook: The manuscript London, British Library, Egerton 274: A study of its origin, purpose, and musical repertory in thirteenth-century France

The music manuscript London, British Library, Egerton 274 (LoB; trouvère chansonnier F) is most well-known for containing the largest notated collection of songs by the early thirteenth-century theologian Philip the Chancellor. The twenty-eight Latin songs attributed to Philip in the first fascicle of the manuscript are written in a variety of poetic and musical forms, including Latin lais and conducti for one and two voices, several monophonic rondelli, several two-voice motets, and one double motet. The manuscript, however, also contains many other songs and poems. The other original fascicles of the manuscript contain mass chants (Kyries, Glorias, and sequences), a few unica Easter songs, and eighteen trouvère chansons. Later additions to the manuscript include two Latin devotional poems (without music), several palimpsests of liturgical chants, and a fascicle of processional chants. The diversity of this manuscript's contents—a mixture of liturgical, para-liturgical, devotional, and courtly songs—is its most intriguing feature.

This study of the manuscript considers the purpose that such a unique songbook would have served for its owner during the thirteenth-century. A preliminary examination of the codicological aspects of the manuscript is used to distinguish the original corpus of songs from the later additions to the manuscript. The smaller collections of songs within the manuscript are considered with respect to their organization, content, and purpose as well as in relationship to the contents of the manuscript as a whole. (Transcriptions of the unedited and unica songs are included in an appendix.) The several musical hands and notational styles found in the songbook are investigated to determine the levels of technical musical knowledge of the persons who may have used the manuscript, and a study of the small errors in the manuscript provides some indication of the types of written exemplars used by the scribes and notators of the manuscript. An analysis of the illuminated initials contained in the first two fascicles connects the manuscript to the Johannes Philomena workshop and the Brussels-Marquette Bible. Finally, the apparent patron portrait and the coat of arms in an illuminated initial provide additional evidence concerning the likely original owner of the manuscript.