Estampie and Stantipes (Lloyd Hibberd)

Medieval Academy of America

Estampie and StantipesAuthor(s): Lloyd HibberdReviewed work(s):Source: Speculum, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Apr., 1944), pp. 222-249Published by: Medieval Academy of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2849072 .

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ESTAMPIE AND STANTIPES BY LLOYD HIBBERD

AMONG many problems still obscure in the music of the late Middle Ages, one of the most fascinating is that of the music performed by instruments alone. There is ample pictorial and literary evidence of a wide variety of instruments - many of them brought back from the Orient by the crusaders - known in Europe from about the twelfth and still in use through the sixteenth century. Yet although it is indisputable that these were freely employed for purposes of duplication, sub- stitution and accompaniment (often probably improvised) in the primarily vocal repertoire, very few documents of purely instrumental music (i.e., music without text') are preserved from the period anterior to the fifteenth century - largely, no doubt, because the art of musical notation was possessed only by the clergy, and the church had as yet no acknowledged place for performance by instruments alone.2

In the earliest extant documents of purely instrumental music, an important place is held by the estampie, a form variously mentioned in connection with voices, instruments, and dancing, in the sources of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Unfortunately some confusion reigns in the accounts of modern musicol- ogists not only as to the etymology of the name but as to the character of the music itself. The principal points of uncertainty are: (1) to what extent the estampie represented a vocal, and to what extent an instrumental form of music; (2) to what extent it served as a dance, and to what extent an instrumental solo piece; and (3) to what extent it is to be identified with a type of music called stantipes, which is described by the musical theorist Johannes de Grocheo.

The present article attempts a reexamination of what appears to be all the known data in the hope of clarifying (as far as is now possible) the nature and evolution of the estampie during the two centuries of its traceable existence from the late twelfth to the late fourteenth century. Apart from etymological implications, the data comprise:

(1) The composition Kalenda maya (ca 1200), by the troubadour Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, which is the oldest example and the only one for which both text and music are preserved.3

I How far early textless music may represent music intended for vocalization rather than for instrumental performance, it is impossible to say. However, assumptions in favor of the latter medium seem preferable except in the case of part music in which some of the parts have texts and others do not (e.g., the early organa and conductus), and in the case of later (sixteenth century) textless pieces designated 'per cantare e suonare,' etc. Specification for particular instruments is very rare before the seventeenth century.

2 The appearance of instruments in the church appears to have occurred (and been protested) on and off from early times. The recognition of the organ as the sole instrument proper to church use (for accompanying the chant) appears to date from the thirteenth century (Thomas Aquinas, Council of Milan) although the earliest liturgical pieces for that instrument alone are not found until the fifteenth century. See. W. Apel, 'Early German Keyboard Music,' The Musical Quarterly, xxii (April, 1937), 210-237.

Both text and music are found in Paris,BibliothkqueNationale,fondfrangais 22543,fol.62.The com-

222



Estampie and Stantipes 223

(2) Nineteen estampie texts without music, preserved in the Douce Ms 308 of the Bodleian library at Oxford University; these seem to have been written by a single author in Lorraine about 1320.

(3) Eight estampies royales without text, preserved in Ms fonds francais 844 of the Paris Bibliotheque Nationale; the Ms belongs to the early fourteenth century but the repertoire is probably from the thirteenth.

(4) Eight istampite without text in the late fourteenth century Add. Ms 29987 of the British Museum.

(5) Discussions of the estampida in two fourteenth-century treatises on poetry, the Leys d'amors and the Doctrina de compondre dictatz.

(6) Passing references to the estampie elsewhere in the contemporary literature. (7) Descriptions of the stantipes in the treatise of Johannes de Grocheo (ca

1300). Of the two most recent general histories of music covering the period in ques-

tion, that of Gustave Reese makes some distinction between the estampie and the stantipes,l while that of Paul L'ang identifies the two.2 In consequence of this di- vergence of learned opinion, it seems wise to defer the discussion of the stantipes until all the material on the earlier estampie has been considered. From the etymological point of view there seems to be no doubt as to the equivalence between the Provengal estampida, the French estampie (hereafter generally employed as the most familiar form) and the Italian istampita, which Diez3 also identifies with the Middle High German stampenie and which Meyer-Lllbke traces to the Germanic stampjan.4 The forms estampie and estampida represent the respective past parti- ciples of the jointly French and Provengal verb estampir, to resound, a verb which probably appeared in the latter tongue first.5

plete text (five stanzas in all) is given in C. Appel, Provenzalische Chrestomathie (6th ed., Leipzig: 0. Reisland, 1930), pp. 89-90, as well as in E. Lommatzsch, Provenzalisches Liederbuch (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1917), 173-175. The melody is transcribed in G. Adler, Handbuch der Musikgeschichte (2d ed., Vienna, 1929), 190.

1 Gustave Reese, Music in the Middle Ages (New York: Norton, 1940), 226. 2 Paul LAng, Music in Western Civilization (New York: Norton, 1941), 107. F. C. Diez, Etymologisches Wdrterbuch der romanischen Sprachen (5th ed., A. Scheler, Bonn: A.

Marcus, 1887), p. 576. 4 W. Meyer-Luibke, Romanisches etymologisches Worterbuch (3d ed., Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1935, p.

679. Diez (loc. cit.), points out that if this word is connected with the mediaeval Latin stampare or the Old High German stamphon (to press or crush), then the resultant Provengal form should be estampada. The Provengal estampar (to emboss) is given by Diez but with no connection to music, poetry, or dancing.

5 Paul Meyer, Les derniers troubadours de la Provence (Paris: Librairie A. Franck, 1871), p. 81. Ac- cording to G. Paris, Les origines de la po4sie lyrique en France au moyen-dge (Paris: Imprimerie Na- tionale, 1892), p. 43, 'Le pr. estampida, d'ou l'it. stampita, l'anc. fr. estampie, est aussi [like espringuier from springan] d'origine allemande; mais l'allemand n'emploie pas les mots de cette famille comme termes de danse (l'anc. all. stampie ou stampenle vient du frangais).' According to Paul Meyer (op. cit., p. 81) 'le terme m8me estampie ne paralt pas plus ancien en frangais que la seconde moitie du xrsi siecle.' Usages in the sense of -noise, idle chatter,' etc., - as in 'estampidas e rumor sai qu'en faran entre lor menassan en la taverna,' quoted in F. Raynouard, Lexique roman (Paris; Silvestre, 1838) I, 435- shed no light on the estampida as a poetic or musical form and may be disregarded in the present study.



294 Estampie and Stantipes

Generalizations concerning the poetic form of the estampie are difficult to make, not only because of the variety of structure shown in the few extant examples, but also because of the vagueness and brevity with which this form is treated in the contemporary discussions of poetic technique.' Thus the Leys d'amors, a col- lection of rules for the composition of troubadour poetry compiled under the di- rection of Guillaume Molinier between 1324 and 1356, remarks merely that: 'Es- tampida sometimes refers to music for instruments, in which case we are not concerned with it. But sometimes it refers not only to the music but also to the text, which is based on love and homage like that of the vers and the chanson. And then it may occupy a place in this study. Such minor forms may have an envoy (tornada) or not, or one may, in the place of an envoy, repeat the opening or closing stanza.'2

The other poetic source, the anonymous Doctrina de compondre dictatz from the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, is more dogmatic in asserting that the estampida should have four stanzas (coblas), a refrain (responedor), and one or two envoys, as well as a new melody,3 and adds that the estampida is so named because it takes on more 'vigor' in reciting or singing than does any other song.4

Turning to the examples themselves (i.e., the texts of Kalenda maya and of Douce 308), we find that the subject matter is usually unrequited love, that the number of stanzas varies from three to five (ten of the nineteen in Douce 308 having four stanzas), and that these are most often bipartite, with the second section either of the same length or slightly longer than the first. The stanzas - which may be from about four to some thirty lines and are often constructed on a single rhyme - are rarely of identical structure even in the same estampie. The number of syllables in the line varies from two to about twelve, although it would appear that the four- or five-syllable line was generally chosen as a basic type.5 The most striking feature, however, is the apparent absence in the preserved specimens of either the refrain or the envoy specified by the Doctrina.6

1 It is not even listed in the Regles d'en Ramon JVidal, as given in P. Meyer, 'Traites catalans de grammaire et de poetique,' Romania, vi (1877), 341 if.

2 'Estampida . . . ha respieg alcunas vetz quant al so desturmens et adonx daquesta no curam. Et alqunas vetz ha respieg no tant solamen al so ans o ha al dictat, quom fa damors o de lauzors a la maniera de vers o de chanso. Et adonx segon nostra sciensa pot haver loc. Aytals dictatz no principals podon haver tornada o no e pot hom en loc de tornada repetir la una cobla del comensamen o de la fi.' (Leys d'amors, in A. F. Gatien-Arnoult, Monumens de la littUrature romane [Toulouse, 1841], I, 350.

a 'Si vols far estampida, potz parlar de qualque fayt vulles, blasman o lauzan o merceyan, quit vul- lus; e deu haver quatre cobles e responedor, e una o dues tornades, e so novell' (P. Meyer, Romania, vi, 357).

4 'Stampida [sic] es dita per co stampida cor pren vigoria en contan o en xantan pus que null autre cantar.' Ibid., p. 358.

6 The complete texts of the Douce 308 estampie8 are printed in W. 0. Streng-Renkonen, Les estampies frangaises (Paris: H. Champion, in the series Le8 clagstques franQai8 du moyen dge, 1930). For further discussion of the texts see ibid., pp. iii-xiii, 46 ff.

6 Prof. L. F. Solano of Harvard University - to whose kindness the writer is much indebted for reading the present article and for a number of helpful suggestions - points out, however, that something of the peroratory function of an envoy is occasionally to be found in the concluding lines of the final stanza itself, as, for example, in that of Kalenda maya:




As to the musical structure, we find in Kalenda maya, as well as in all the purely instrumental estampies and istampite, a consistent use of what Friedrich Genn- rich' calls the lai-sequence form, which comprises a series of double versicles such that the first musical phrase (punctus, or punctum), employed for the opening portion of the text, is repeated for the second portion, the second punctum for the third and fourth portions, and so on, producing the musical scheme a a, b b, c c, .... In the case of Kalenda maya, the fourteen lines of each stanza are distributed as follows: the first punctum extends through lines 1 to 3 and is repeated exactly for lines 4 to 6; the second punctum is employed for the long line 7 and again, but with a different termination, for line 8; and a like modification occurs with the third punctum, which is set first to lines 9 to 11 and then to lines 12 to 14. Unfor- tunately Kalenda maya, as has been already pointed out, is the only composition designated as an estampida for which both text and music have survived, and there is no way of ascertaining from the other estampie texts how many puncta would have been required or how the text would have been distributed. None of these texts exhibits a stanza form which would appear, by regular pairing of lines or repetition of ideas, to be particularly suited to double versicle setting.

Of the instrumental estampies without text, those of Paris B.N. 8442 comprise four to seven puncta each, and strictly observe the first (ouvert) and second (clos) endings in all puncta, with the added formal device of employing the same ouvert and the same clos for all puncta of a particular estampie, while the istampite of B.M. Add. 299873 are each constructed of four or five puncta (here called 'prima' ... 'quinta pars') which are more extensive and of a more elaborate melodic style than those of the Paris estampies but which show the same characteristic of a common ouvert and a common clos for all puncta.4

Dona grazida, Quecx lauz' e crida

Vostra valor qu'es abelhida; E qui us oblida, Pauc li val vida,

Per qu'ie us azor, don' eyssernida; Quar per gensor vos ai chauzida, E per melhor, de pretz complida,

Blandida, Servida

Genses qu'Erecx Enida Bastida Fenida

N'Englas, ai l'estampida (E. Lommatzsch, op. cit., p. 175).

1 Gennrich's somewhat arbitrary classification is set forth in his Grundris8 einer Formenlehre des mittelalterlichen Liede8 (Halle: M. Niemeyer, 1932) and is summarized in Gustave Reese, op. cit., 219- 230.

2 All transcribed in Pierre Aubry, Estampie8 et dan8e8 royales (Paris: Librairie Fischbacher, 1907). 8 Transcribed, several of them completely, in Johannes Wolf, 'Die Tainze des Mittelalters,' Archiv

fur Musikwig8en8chaft (hereinafter AfMw), i (1918-19), 24-42. 4A word needs to be said about the rhythm of the e8tampie8. We are without contemporary state-




The fact that no preserved examples of either music or texts for estampies show evidence of the refrain or the envoy leads one to suppose that these specifications as found in the Doctrina, may have represented a special and relatively late mutation in the form. From the point of view of the text, at least, such a mutation is neither impossible nor unlikely, for, quite apart from the simple invention of them by the poet himself, the insertion of a refrain borrowed from some other poem could be made, and such borrowings appear to have been fairly frequent among the troubadours.' And from the point of view of the music it should be observed that the borrowing of musical refrains was characteristic of the contemporary chanson avec des refrains,2 and the motet ente'.3 When it used a refrain, the estampie must have approached a rondel type of structure,4 possibly one of the more complicated types such as the virelai, or, as it came to be known to the Italians, the ballata, which is described by Antonio da Tempo (ca 1332) as possessing a refrain (represa, or repilogatio) that opens and closes each stanza (stantia), the stanza itself comprising two verses (pedes or mutationes) which rhyme and are sung to the same melody, and a volta which is in the same meter (and, preferably, rhyme) and which is sung to the same melody as the refrain.5

ments as to the meter of this form, and although (owing to a certain ambiguity characteristic of musical notation in the thirteenth century) Kalenda maya has been transcribed variously in both duple and triple meter, the latter seems preferable. The Paris 844 estampies are clearly in triple, while in those of London 29987 there is some variation. The istampite Cominciamento di gioia (AfMw, i, 26-27) and Palamento (ibid., 35-37) are transcribed by Wolf as being in 6-8 throughout all five puncta. In the other examples, however, there are various changes from 6-8 (divisio senaria imperfecta) to 4-8 (divisio quaternaria) and vice ver8a, not only between puncta but even within a punctum. There is no reason to question Wolf's transcriptions, and the metric variety is perhaps best explicable as a sign that the istampite here are concert pieces and no longer actual dances. See below.

1 See, A. Jeanroy, Les origine8 de la poe8ie lyrique en France au moyen dge (Paris: E. Champion, 1925), 102-106.

2 See G. Reese, op. cit., 221 3 Ibid., 317-318. 4 On the rondel types (rondeau, virelai or ballata, ballade) see Gennrich, op. cit., 61-95, also Reese,

op. cit., 221-225. 5 'Ballata quaelibet dividitur in quatuor partes, scilicet quia prima pars est repilogatio quae vulgari

ter appellatur repre8a, quod idem est dicere quam repilogatio sive repetitio. Secunda pars appellatur prima mutatio, tertia pars appellatur secunda mutatio. Et appellantur mutationes eo quod sonus incipit mutari in prima mutatione, et secunda mutatio est eiusdem tonus et cantus, cuius est prima. Vulgariter tamen appellantur pedes. Quarta et ultima pars appellatur volta, quae habet eandem so- noritatem in cantu, quam habet repilogatio sive represa. Vocatur autem prima pars ideo repilogatio, quia de consuetudine approbata a tanto tempore, citra cuius non extat memoria, est quod statim finito cantu alterius voltae vel omnium verborum alicuius ballatae cantores reasumunt et repilogant ac repetunt primam partem in cantu et ipsam iterate cantant. Et istae ballatae et omnes aliae possunt fieri cum pluribus partibus eiusdem qualitatis et quantitatis, quae vulgariter appellantur stantiae et possunt diversificare rithimos [sic] in pedibus sive mutationibus, non tamen in voltis.... Mihi magis placet . . . quod omnes ballatae habeant similem consonantiam in repilogatione et volta simul, et similem in mutatione sive pedibus mediis simul' (A. da Tempo, Delle rime volgari, ed., G. Grion, Bo- logna, 1869, pp. 117-119). Da Tempo makes no mention of the estampie. An example of a (polyphonic) ballata by the chief composer of fourteenth-century Italy, the Que8ta fanciulla of F. Landini (ca 1325-97) is to be found in Reese, op. cit., p. 368. The scheme is:




If we modify the musical scheme of the double versicle form previously given for the estampie by the addition of the letters x and y to indicate the ouvert and clos endings, we have the following scheme for the instrumental estampies of Paris 844 and London 29987: ax, ay, bx, by, cx, cy. . .. This scheme would, of course, have to be abandoned, in favor of a regular rondel type of melody, or at least modified, in order to accommodate a refrain as required by the definition in the Doctrina. How the modification would be achieved is, in the absence of docu- mentary evidence, a matter of speculation. On the one hand, a newly created melody or a borrowed one could be inserted for the refrain; or else the first punctum of the original melody could be used for the refrain - and probably also for such parts of the stanza as had the same meter as the refrain (as with the volta of the ballata) - while the second punctum could be employed for the couplets (like the pedes of the ballata). As far as the envoy is concerned, since this occurs only at the end of the poem and is usually about half the length of the stanza, it could adopt a corresponding portion of the stanza melody, or possibly have its own punctum1. In any case not more than two or three puncta would seem to be necessary for the form as described by the Doctrina unless subsequent stanzas were sung to new puncta between recurrences of the refrain. Whether this was the case does not appear,2 and this whole hypothetical reconstruction of the estampie from a lai-sequence to a rondel type would be idle fancy did not some such attempt seem to be required in order to explain the discrepancy between the refrainless extant examples and the description given in the Doctrina. Moreover, it is also useful in connection with Grocheo's account of the stantipes, as we shall see. But before proceeding to that account, we must consider a few additional facts about the estampie as revealed by passing mention in the contemporary literature.

Text: 1 2 8 4 5(1) 6 7 8 9(1) Rime: A b b a A c c a A Music: a b b a a b b a a

represa pedes volta represa pedes volta represa

8tantia I stantia II

This particular example does not have the verto and chiuso endings for the pedes (here called 'secunda pars,' b b above) shown in other ballate of Landini. See L. Ellinwood, The Works of Francesco Landini (Cambridge: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1939), e.g., p. 40. It may be added that although the common ouverts and c01s for all puncta of an instrumental estampie, as in Paris 844 and London 29987, involve musical recurrence, they hardly constitute a true refrain of the rondel type.

I The tornada or envoy being an appendage rather than an integral part of the poetic structure of a poem, it may be dismissed from further consideration. According to the Leys d'amors (338), one or two tornadas could be added to any poem ('quen tot dictat pot hom far una o doas ... tornadas').

2 Regarding the general problem of the relationship between poetic and musical structures, H. J. Chaytor points out that it is impossible, in the case of troubadour poetry, to draw 'any conclusions as to the construction of the stanza from the tune attached to the poem. In a few cases, a long and symmetrical stanza is conjoined with a tune of corresponding symmetrical development; but we constantly find stanzas which miay be divided according to rule attached to tunes which present no melodic repetition whatever; and, on the other hand, we have tunes divisible into pedes and coda upon stanzas which have no relation whatever to this form' (The troubadour of Dante, London: Oxford Press, 1902, xxxi-ii).




From various passages in the writings of the times, we find the estampie mentioned as a song, as in the quotation from the Doctrina already given,' reference by the Minnesinger Boppe ('ze doenen singen alle stampenien'),2 and a passage in the Decamerone of Boccaccio (ca 1350).3 We also, however, find it treated. as apparently purely instrumental music, especially with reference to performance on one4 or more viellas,5 as in the following excerpt from the Messe des oiseaux by Jean de Conde (ft. 1300-1350):

iiii menestreil de viele Ont une estampie nouviele Devant la dame vi8l6e.6

It even appears in connection with the keyboard repertoire of the time.7 And, finally, it seems clearly to have been a dance, as the following passage from Frois- sart (1337-ca 1410) shows:

1 Whether the estampie was ever cultivated purely as a form of poetry without music is uncertain. Music is clearly specified in the Doctrina passage and in the Leys d'amorm; and Streng-Renkonen (op. cit., p. vii) points out that the Douce 308 texts are accompanied in the manuscript by a miniature de- picting 'quatre jeunes filles battant des mains, probablement pour marquer la cadence de la musique.' Unfortunately he does not mention whether they appear to be singing.

2 Quoted in H. J. Moser, 'Stantipes und Ductia,' Zeitschrift fur Musikwissen8chaft (hereinafter ZsfMw), ii (1919-20), 197.

3 'L'ora del mangiare ... venuta, essendo ogni cosa dal discretissimo siniscalco apparecchiata, poiche alcuna stampita ed una ballatetta o due furon cantate, lietamente, secondo che alla Reina piacque, si misero a mangiare. E quello ordinatamente e con letizia fatto, non dimenticato il preso or- dine del danzare, e gli stormenti [stromentil e con le canzoni alquante danzette fecero' (Decamerone Giornata v, Proemio, ed., Magheri, Florence, 1827, iII, 16).

4 In another passage from the Decamerone: 'con una sua vivuola dolcemente sono alcuna stampita e cant6 appresso alcuna canzone' (Giornata decima, novella vii, ed. Magheri, v, 62).

5 The viella (viuola, vivuola, vielle) was an early bowed instrument of whose strings (normally five in number) one was generally employed as a drone (bordunus), although on occasion it too could be fingered and an extension of the range to two and a half octaves (G to d") produced. See the description by the late thirteenth century theorist, Jerome of Moravia in E. de Coussemaker, Scriptorum de musica medii aevi . . . (Paris: A. Durand, 1864) i, 153.

6A . Scheler, Les dits et contes de Baudoin de Cond6 et de son fils Jean de Cond6 (Brussels, 1866-67), iII, 20. See also the reference to the 'dui joglar di Fransa' in connection with the account of Raimbaut de Vaqueiras and Kalenda maya below.

I In a letter (1388) to the Vicomte de Roda, King John i of Aragon requests that a musician, John the organ-player, bring with him the book containing the estampidas and other pieces which he plays on the exaquier, a keyboard instrument with strings whose exact nature is unknown, and on the organ ('lo llibre on te notades les estampides [sicl e les altres obres que sab sobrel exaquiere los orguens'; quoted in F. Pedrell 'Jean I. d'Aragon, compositeur de musique,' Riemann Festschrift, Leipzig: Max Hesse, 1909, p. 232). In this connection reference should be made also to the three freely-invented pieces which are found, along with motet transcriptions, in the Robertsbridge Codex (British Museum, Add. Ms 28550), dating from about 1935 (facsimiles in H. E. Wooldridge, Early English Harmony, London: B. Quaritsch, 1897, I, plates 42-43; transcriptions, not wholly reliable, ibid., ii, 89-108). These pieces each contain four or five puncta of which only the first punctum has the ouvert and cos endings, so that Wolf, in his commentary on Grocheo's discussion of the stantipes (see below), remarks of them 'so kann es sich, will man deren Formen nach der Definition unseres Traktates identifizieren, nur um ductia oder nota handeln' (Sammelbdnde der internationalen Musikgesellschaft, i, 1899-1900, p. 98). Cf., also, however, J. Handschin's rondel amplification of this form in 'tber Estampie und Sequenz' ZsfMw xII (1929), 8-9.




La estoient Ii menestrel, Qui s'aquittoient bien et bel A piper, et tout de nouvel, Bones danses, teles qu'il sceurent. Et si trestost que cesse eurent Les estampies qu'il batoient, Chil et chelles qui s'esbatoient Au danser sans gaires atendre, Commenchierent leurs mains A tendre Pour caroler.'

Apart from the etymological suggestion that it may have been (or at least originated as) a stamping dance, there appears to be no evidence preserved as to the steps of the estampie. We do not even, indeed, know to which of the two main categories, according to Curt Sachs,2 of mediaeval dance-the chain or ring dance (chorea, carole, carola, corola, Reigen) or the couple dance (ballatio, danse, danza, dansa, Tanz) it belonged. From the distinctions in nomenclature and in structure between the estampies and the danses royales of Paris 844,3 it would seem that the estampie was not a danse. Yet it is to be observed that, in addition to its generic use for couple dance, the name 'danse' (dansa) was also used for a specific type of troubadour song.4 Consequently, if we accept the possibility of some such special meaning for 'danse' in this Ms, then we need not rely on an ancient crutch of scholarship - i.e., the hypothesis that contemporaries did not know how to use their own terms correctly or consistently - in our attempt to relate the estampie more closely to the couple dance than to the ring dance or carole,5 an attempt which receives support from the antithesis implied between the estampie (as a danse) and the carole in the Froissart quotation given above, from the fact that

1 Jean Froissart Poesies (ed., A. Scheler, Brussels: V. Devaux, 1870-73) i, 911. So also in the passage from the early fourteenth century pastourelle (anonymous):

Et Marot par cortoisie je te prie mon meffait pardone moi. je ferai une estampie si jolie: balle un petit, je t'an proi.

(K. Bartsch, Altfranzosische Romanzen und Pastourellen, Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, 1870, p. 153.)

2 Curt Sachs, World History of the Dance (New York: Norton, 1937), pp. 269 ff. 3 The two danses in this Ms have only three puncta instead of the four to seven found in the es-

tampies there. Moreover, the second danse is lacking in the double ouvert and clos endings, although the single ending is alike for all three puncta. 4 See post, p. 245, note 6.

5 A better crutch is the 'poetic licence' assumption that literary enumerations do not necessarily imply that the items are mutually exclusive, an assumption requisite in the present case in order to explain the separate listings of estampie and danse such as is shown in the following passage from the Roman du Comte d'Anjou by Jehan Maillart (ca 1316):

Li auquant chantent pastourelles Li autre dient en vielles Chancons royaux et estampies Dansses, notes, et baleries.

(Quoted in AfMw i, 17.)




the verb 'baller' is associated with it in the fourteenth century Pastourelle (see ante p. 9299, note 1) as well as from two other circumstances, one having to do with the text, and the other with the music.'

In the first place, the refrain seems to have played an important part in the carole,2 and although (as we have seen) it is specified for the estampie in the Doctrina, it is absent (as we have also seen) in all the actual examples of estampie texts and music - a circumstance which would suggest that the estampie at least originated as a couple rather than a ring dance. In the second place, it is the couple dance to which instrumental accompaniment was most proper, perhaps in part because this type seems to have been more generally pantomimic than the carole3 and frequently to have required so much of the dancers' attention for step and gesture that, even if vocal accompaniment was used, only the spectators could sing.4 In the carole, on the other hand, singing was characteristic, even though instruments were not excluded.'

Despite the above emphasis on a distinction between danse and carole, the types are hard to differentiate exactly and were not free from mutual influence.6 In fact 'it is certain that the fourteenth century no longer distinguished sharply among them,'7 and the whole speculation as to whether the estampie should be considered a danse or a carole would be futile if it were not for the convenient explanation it offers for the fact that the earliest preserved dance pieces without texts (Paris 844) are estampies. For if the estampie was a couple dance, then the textless estampies in Paris 844 and London 29987 appear to represent that interesting stage where the singing has not merely passed from the dancers to the spectators but has probably been dropped altogether and the purely instrumental accompaniment has become indispensable.8

One more item of information about the estampie seems to be implied in the 1 Pierre Aubry ('La musique de danse au moyen Age,' Revue musicale No. 12, June 15, 1904, p.

311) discusses the estampie as a carole, but since he apparently recognizes no distinction between chain and couple )dance, and cites no specific evidence, we may suppose that he is using carole for any type of dance song.

2 'Ce qui caract6risait surtout les caroles, c'etait le chant qui les accompagnait. II y avait un des danseurs, le plus souvent, meme dans les caroles mixtes, une des danseuses, qui "chantait avant," et le autres "r6pondaient," c'est-A-dire reprenaient le refrain' (G. Paris, Les origines de la potsie lyrique en France au moyen dge, p. 45).

3 Sachs, op. cit., pp. 274-275, 279-280. 4 Ibid., pp. 285-286. 5 Loc. cit. So also G. Paris, who points out (op. cit., p. 44) that, 'la carole frangaise est independante

de la ffite et generalement de tout instrument: c'est essentiellement une danse aux chansons oil on se tient par la main.'

I 'The dance leader conducts the Reigen [i.e., carole]; he also conducts the Tanz [i.e., danse]. The Tanz is glided, and the Reigen too; jumping, stepping, moving to and fro - all these movements are to be found in both Reigen and Tanz' (Sachs, op. cit., p. 270).

Ibid., p. 271. 8 The examples of the carole, on the other hand, would be preserved as vocal music under the names

of their texts, and would not be immediately recognizable as dance music save in rare cases of pre- scription such as the thirteenth century 'Cantilena de chorea super illam quae incipit Qui grieve ma comtise . . . ' given in A. W. Ambros, Geschichte der Musik (2d ed., Leipzig: F. E. C. Leuckart, 1880) ii, 241-242.




statement of the theorist Robert de Handlo (1326)' that, along with other secular forms, the estampie makes use of all sorts of breves and semibreves (i.e., short notes).2 To what extent these were the product of improvised ornamentation it is of course impossible to say exactly, but there is ample evidence that melodic embellishment, as well as contrapuntal, was practiced in both vocal and instrumental music.3 In this connection it is of interest to notice that, except for the fact that a few instruments (bells, organ pipes, stringed instruments) could ob- tain certain very high tones (presumably as harmonics) beyond the range of the human voice,4 the only respect in which the theorists of the Middle Ages ad- mitted that instruments could surpass voices is found in a passage in Anonymous iv (ca 1280) which says that more than three currentes (rapid notes, i.e., what were later to be systematized as semibreves and minimae) were not to be employed by the hurman voice but could be performed by stringed instruments.5 Anonymous is probably referring to the viella, whose bowed technique apparently gave it greater agility in execution than the voice possessed.

Having established the characteristics of the estampie in so far as they appear from contemporary evidence, we may now consider the stantipes - known to us only through the account of Johannes de Grocheo - in order to determine how closely it corresponds to the estampie. In addition to the provocative similarity of the names estampie and stantipes, there are several reasons for believing that these names denoted essentially the same thing. The first of these is chronology, for Grocheo's treatise (ca 1300) falls about midway between the earliest (Kalenda maya) and the latest (London 29987) examples of the estampie and may be not much earlier than the theoretical explanations given in the Doctrina and in the Leys d'amors. More cogent reasons lie in the following facts: (1) both the estampie and the stantipes clearly belong to the field of secular monophonic music; (2) each is referred to as appearing in both the vocal and instrumental repertoire; and (3) as fourteenth-century vocal forms both are described as having a refrain and thereby partaking of the rondel type of structure (like the ballata), while as instrumental forms they lack the refrain and possess instead a double versicle (sequence type) structure with puncta having ouvert and clos endings. Moreover, as instrumental forms both are most frequently associated with the viella.

1 With the exception of Grocheo's discussion of the stantipes (see below), the only other reference in the theoretical treatises is a vague mention of the 'stampania sive stampetum' in the early fifteenth century anonymous Breslau University Library Cart IV, Qu. 16 (see J. Wolf in AfMw, i, 336).

2 'Ab hoc siquidem modo proveniunt Hoketi omnes, Rondelli, Ballade, Coree, Cantifractus, Es- tampete, Floriture, et universe note brevium et semibrevium que sub coelo sunt, que semibreves, breves atque longe, in hoc modo quinto comprehenduntur' (Coussemaker, op. cit., i, 402).

On the subject of improvised ornamentation in this period, -see E. Ferand, Die Improvisation in der Musik (Zurich: Rhein Verlag, 1938), pp. 250-257 and passim.

4'Ulterio processu [i.e., the extreme extension of intervals by octave duplication] quidem raro, procedunt usque ad triplex diapason, quamvis in communi usu se habeat in instrumento organorum, et ulterius aliorum instrumentorum et hoc numero cordarum vel fistularum; vel prout in cimbalis bene sonantibus.' (Coussemaker, op. cit., i, 362).

B 'Si quatuor currentes pro uno brevi ordinentur, sed hoc raro solebat contingere; ultimi vero non in voce humana, sed in instrumentis cordarum possunt ordinari' Ibid., p. 341.




The superficial objections to identifying the stantipes with the estampie are based in the first place on strict etymological grounds, and in the second place on the questions of rhythm and of the 'difficulty' attributed by Grocheo to the stantipes, as well as on the possibility that the stantipes may have served as a concert piece rather than as a dance. For, despite what has just been referred to as the 'provocative similarity' between the names 'estampie' and 'stantipes,' nevertheless the latter, as it stands, is not satisfactorily to be related etymologically to the estampie-estampida-istampita group. There is, of course, the possibility that metathesis of p and t has taken place producing stantipes as a corruption of *stampites, the m becoming n before t. This etymology, doubtful at best, would be slightly more convincing if Grocheo had used the form *stantipa rather than stantipes. In any case, the fact that, according to Paul Meyer,' 'il n'y a pas trace d'une forme de poesie latine appelee stampita,' suggests that stantipes, if indeed etymologically connected with estampie, represents a Latinization from an original in one of the vulgar tongues.2 On the other hand, Curt Sachs, basing his etymology on da Tempo's description of the ballata given earlier here, contends that 'Stantipes is ... a pleonastic formation: a pes which, because it was irregular, bore the name stantia.'3 In what way the pes was 'irregular' is not made clear by Sachs, and there is no evidence given either by Sachs or by da Tempo that stantia (actually the usual term for stanza or strophe) was especially applied to an 'irregular' pes. Sachs's solution would not be satisfactory to account for the origin of any word-form of widespread usage, but since (as has been pointed out) Grocheo seems to be the only person to have used this term, it probably represents his own peculiar rendition of 'estampie' in what Lang calls his 'learned makeshift Latin!'4 and in forming it he may indeed have been influenced by its structural kinship to the ballata, a kinship already suggested by the Doctrina's description of the estampie and reencountered in Grocheo's discussion of the vocal stantipes as we shall see. As for the remaining problems, while it is true that Grocheo nowhere refers to dancing explicitly in connection with the stantipes, it is quite possible, as will appear, that dancing is implied in the classification Cantilenae under which Grocheo groups the stantipes. This question, together with that of the difficulty of the stantipes and that of its possible function as a concert piece rather than as a dance, are best treated subsequently in conjunction with a close examination of Grocheo's treatise to which we now turn.

1 Les derniers troubadours de la Provence, p. 81. 2 H. J. Moser's contrary opinion that 'Estampie (fr.), istampita (ital.), stampenie (mhd) durften

also Ableitungen von der mlat. Urform stantipes sein, nicht stantipes umgekehrt die gelehrte Latini- sierung eines Volksbegriffes' (ZsfMw, ii, 196) is influenced by his private etymology (from 'stans' and 'pedibus,' or 'stante' and 'pede') and his special theory, which, ignoring the Froissart quotation given above and relying on the quotations from the Decamerone and from the Messe des oiseaux as well as the 'difficulty referred to by Grocheo, claims that, unlike the ductia, the estampie-stantipes 'kein Tanz- sttick gewesen ist,' but rather an instrumental solo piece for 'konzertmassige Vortrag' performed 'stehendes Fusses vor der sitzenden Zuhorerschar des Hofes' (ibid., pp. 195-196). This etymology has not been accepted and Moser's interpretation is much too narrow to account for all the data on the estampie and stantipes. 3 World History of the Dance, p. 290.

' Music in Western Civilization, p. 107.




The musical treatise of Johannes de Grocheo (ca 1300) presents the earliest extant discussion of popular music and therefore deserves special attention.' The author, after explaining that the classification of music differs in various coun- tries, goes on to state that he is describing the practice among the citizens in the Paris of his day.2 In contrast to most of his contemporaries, he discards the Boethian concepts of musica mundana (the Pythagorean 'music of the spheres') and musica humana (the harmonious functioning of the soul and body3) neither of which is concerned with what has later been understood as music - and simply divides all music (in the modern sense of the term) into three great fields: (1) Popular Music ('simplex music'='musica civilis'='musica vulgaris'); (2) Art Music ('musica composita'='musica regularis'='musica canonica'='musica mensurata'); and (3) Liturgical Music ('musica ecclesi- astica') .4 Of these the second and third are of no direct concern to the present study and we shall confine ourselves to what Grocheo has to say about Popular Music, in which he first distinguishes between vocal ('in voce humana') and instrumental music (in instrumentis artificialibus').'

The vocal forms of Popular Music, according to Grocheo, are of two general types: Cantus (comprising the cantus gestualis or chanson de geste, the cantus coronatus,6 and the cantus versicularis or vers) and Cantilenae (comprising the cantilena rotunda or rotundellus - i.e., rondeau - the stantipes and the ductia). Apart from the possession of a refrain by the Cantilenae and apparently not by the Cantus, what distinguisbes the two classes from each other is made clear neither by Grocheo nor, to the present writer's knowledge, anyone else. According to Curt Sachs, the Cantilenae were 'short, catchy, dance songs repeated over and over again,'7 and it is quite possible that in this treatise, at least, by Cantilenae are meant dance songs and that by Cantus are meant songs with which there was no dancing.8 And although Grocheo lists (without describing) another form

1 The treatise is printed, with parallel German translation, in Johannes Wolf, 'Die Musiklehre des Johannes de Grocheo,' Sammelbdnde der internationalen Musikgesellschaft (hereinafter SbIMG), I

(1899-1900), 65-130, to which the subsequent page citations refer. In the present article the quotations have been emended in accordance with the textual exegesis to be found in Hermann MUller, 'Zum Texte der Musiklehre des Johannes de Grocheo,' SbIMG, iv, 361-368.

2 SbIMG, i, 84. 3 Ibid., 82 4 Ibid., 84-85. 6 Ibid., 90. The following characteristics are summarized from pp. 90-96, ibid. 6 'Cantus coronatus ab aliquibus simpliciter conductus dictus est' (SbIMG, I, 91). Like conductus

(see L. Ellinwood in The Musical Quarterly, xxvii, April 1941, 165 ff.), cantus coronatus seems to have been a fairly general term. Indeed Jean Beck, in specific reference to this passage in Grocheo, says 'dans ce genre du Cantus coronatus il faut comprendre les Chansons courtoises, le Sirventois, Debats, et Jeux partis et les Chansons de croisade .. . et les Chansons pieuses.' (J. Beck, Corpus cantilenarum medii aevi, le Chansonnier Cang6, Philadelphia. 1927, ii, [69]).

7 World History of the Dance, 288. 8 There is, of course, the possibility that Cantus, in Grocheo's treatise, stands for courtly airs and

Cantilenae for folksongs. However - since he cites (p. 91) the cantus gestualis as suitable for workers and the middle classes ('civibus laborantibus et mediocribus') but the cantus coronatus as being cultivated by kings and princes ('regibus et principibus terrae') and, on the other hand, the instrumental stantipes (a cantilena in its vocal form) as keeping the minds of the rich people from impure thoughts (see post p. 238, note 1.) - it would be difficult to maintain a theory of social distinctions between Cantus and Cantilena.




called cantus in8ertum vel cantilena excitatal - in which particular case, at least, any putative distinction between a cantu8 and a cantilena is obscured by the ap- plication of both names to the same form - nevertheless the hypothesis just suggested receives support from the fact that it is only in conjunction with Cantilenae that Grocheo mentions dancing. Moreover, when we consider that the three kinds of Cantilenae are the rondeau (which da Tempo speaks of as a dance2), the ductia (which Grocheo himself refers to in connection with danc- ing3), and the stantipe8, it is difficult not to think that dancing of the last mentioned as well was implied in its classification with the first two.4

For the purpose of ascertaining how closely the texts of the vocal stantipe8 may have resembled those of the vocal e8tampie as set forth in the Doctrina, brief attention must be given to Grocheo's references to poetic structure. The prosodic terms used by Grocheo are: versiculus, versus, responsorium (refractorium, refractus) and additamenta (parte8). Of these, versiculus obviously denotes the single line, while versus denotes the grouping of lines into a stanza.5 In the Can- tilena forms, all of which begin with a respon8orium or refrain,6 the versus comprises both the refrain and the couplets (additamenta).7 Grocheo's responsorium therefore apparently corresponds to the represa (repilogatio) of da Tempo and to the responedor of the Doctrina, and his additamenta to da Tempo's stantiae and the Doctrina's coblas. Unfortunately, Grocheo does not indicate the presence of an envoy, nor does he make any distinction corresponding to the pedes (mutationes) and volta, although something of the sort may be implied when he differ- entiates the rondeau - which has the same meter (concordant) and rhyme (consonant) for both additamenta and refrain8 - from the stantipes and ductia,

1 P. 94. 2 'Possunt etiam appellari rotundelli, quia plerumque cantantur in rotunditate corrheae sive balli et

maxime per ultramontanos [i.e., the French], op. cit., p. 135. 3 'Ductia vero est cantilena ... quae in choris a iuvenibus et puellis decantatur,' p. 93. 4 Despite the definition of Sachs and the implications of Grocheo's treatise, it must be remarked

that if there is any distinction between Cantus and Cantilena as Grocheo employs them, it does not appear to represent a universal distinction. The use of the term cantilena is apparently infrequent; Margarete Appel gives the following listings and comment: "'c. liet daz men singet et componitur a cantis et lenis"; "c. in genere est omnis modulatio cuiusque mesurae ac modi existat ... (et) hoc vocabulo cantilenae omnium cantationum mensuralium vocabuntur diversitas"; "c. est cantus parvus cui verba cujuslibet materiae sed frequentius amatoriae supponuntur." Allen diesen Beispielen ist gemeinsam die Betonung der Verwandtschaft bzw. Identitiat dieses Begriffes mit cantus and der Hin- weis darauf dass cantilena in die Hauptsache nicht ftir eine bestimmte Kompositionsgattung ge- braucht wurde, sondern wie cantus einen Sammelbegriff darsteilt fUr alle mUglichen musikalischen Formen' (including monophonic and polyphonic music, sacred and secular), M. Appel, Terminologie in den mittelalterlichen Musiktraktaten, Berlin diss., 1925, p. 67.

6 ersus . . . ex pluribus versiculis efficitur,' p. 94. 'R?esponsorium vero est, quo omnis cantilena incipit et terminatur,' p. 95. 'In ductia etiam et stantipede responsorium cum additamentis versus appellatur,' loc. cit.

8 'In rotundello [additamenta] vero consonant et concordant in dictamine cum responsorio' (p. 95). The meaning of this passage is not quite clear, owing to the use of the words consonant and concordant and the doubt as to whether the former as well as the latter is to be associated with the text (dictamen) as referring to the words only, rather than to the music. In a purely musical sense, Grocheo elsewhere (p. 73) defines concordantia as melody and consonantia as harmony ('Principia




in both of which 'some of the additamenta have the same rhyme and meter as the refrain and others do not." From this statement it seems possible that in the vocal 8tantipes and ductia, those additamenta which did have the same meter and rhyme as the refrain corresponded to the volta of da Tempo's ballata, while those that did not corresponded to its pedes. In any case, as in the description of the vocal e8tampida given in the Doctrina, it appears that there is some resemblance between the structure of the vocal stantipe8 and that of the ballata; and although in the absence of preserved examples or of more minute specifications we cannot say definitely that the vocal estampie and vocal 8tantipe8 were identical with the ballata, nevertheless there is, at least, no real objection on textual grounds, to identifying Grocheo's stantipe8 with the Doctrina's estampida, although the former is more generous in allowing an indeterminate number of stanzas2 as contrasted with the four coblas demanded by the latter.

Grocheo gives, as definition of the vocal 8tantipe8: 'that form of Cantilena in which there is a difference between the couplets (parte8, i.e., additamenta) and the refrain, both with respect to the rhyme of the text and with respect to the melody, like the French ones Alentrant damor8 or Certe8 mie ne cuidoie. Moreover this kind of Cantilena holds the attention of youths and maidens on account of its difficulty and keeps them from impure thoughts.'3

The reference here to the 'difference' in rhyme (and melody) between the couplets and the refrain, if taken to mean a complete independence between the two, contradicts Grocheo's other statement, already quoted, that in the stantipe8 (and ductia) some of the couplets do rhyme, -though others do not. If, however, the present passage is taken to mean merely a partial difference (i.e., in those addimenta which do not rhyme) then Grocheo's two statements are reconcilable both with each other and with the similarity to the ballata and e8tampie structures already pointed out. In this respect no further clarity is obtainable since Grocheo makes no more mention of prosodic structure or of subject matter

autem musicae solent consonantiae et concordantiae appellari. Dico autem concordantiam, quando unus sonus cum alio harmonice [i.e., suitably] continuatur, sicut una pars temporis vel motus cum alia contracta est. Consonantiam autem dico, quando duo soni vel plures simul uniti et in uno tempore unam perfectam harmoniam reddunt'); and although his exact meaning when applying these terms to the text alone is not certain, analogy would suggest that, as a purely poetic term, concordantia (i.e., melody) denotes correspondence as to accents and number of syllables (i.e., meter) while consonantia denotes rhyme. According to the schemes for the rondeau given by Reese (op. cit., pp. 222-223) its additamenta usually employ the same music as does the refrain. But Grocheo specifies elsewhere that he calls a rondeau only one which has a different melody for the partes (additamenta): 'Nos autem solum illam rotundam vel rotundellum dicimus, cuius partes unum habent diversum cantum a cantu responsorii vel refractus' (p. 92). From this statement, and the use therein of the word cantus it seems likely that in the previous passage concordantia refers to meter rather than melody.

1 'In ductia vero et stantipede different quaedam [additamenta] et alia consonant et concordant' (p. 95). Cf. also Note 4 below.

2 'In ductia etiam et stantipede ... numerus [versuum] non est determinatus sed secundum volunta- tem compositoris et copiam sententiae augmentatur' (p. 95).

3 'Illa [cantilena] in qua est diversitas in partibus et refractu tam in consonantia dictaminis quam in cantu, sicut gallice Alentrant damors vel Certes mie ne cuidoie. Haec autem facit animos iuvenum et puellarum propter sui difficultatem circa hanc stare et eos a prava cognitione devertit' (p. 93).



q36 Estampie and Stantipes

even to establish any textual difference between the stantipes and the ductia. As to the nature of the 'difficulty' here ascribed to the vocal stantipes, no hint

is given by Grocheo as to whether it is an attribute of the text, or of the music. As we shall see, when this author describes the instrumental stantipes he specifies that the latter's difficulty has to do with the melody, and one is tempted to assume that this is likewise the difficult feature of the vocal stantipes. It may also, however, - if we assume that Grocheo's classification of the stantipes as a Can- tilena implies that it is a dance song - have been true of the steps of the dance. Certainly it seems likely that involved, and perhaps vigorous dance steps (see above the 'vigoria' ascribed to the estampida by the Doctrina) would exert a more compelling hold on the attention of youth than would reconditeness of text, or melodic and rhythmic elaboration in themselves. One has only to watch the 'jitterbugs' of today to conclude that complication in the steps of a dance can become so absorbing as hardly to leave room for vagrant or 'impure' thoughts. If this supposition that the steps were difficult be correct, then it offers some reason for supposing that the stantipes was a couple rather than a chain dance; and further support is given in its implied distinction from the ductia - which was certainly a chain dance (see definition below). In this respect the stantipes seems allied to, if not actually indentifiable with, the estampie.

Grocheo follows his definition of the vocal stantipes with that of its fellow, the vocal ductia, which he describes as 'a Cantilena which is light and rapid in [melodic ?] ascent and descent and which is sung in ring dances by youths and maidens, like the French one Chi encor querez amoretes. This kind of Cantilena governs the hearts of maidens and youths and keeps them from vanity and is said to prevail against the passion called love."

In the immediate context no further distinction is made between stantipes and ductia; and after the interesting remark that with both Cantus and Cantilenae the text is usually created first and then fitted to an appropriate melody (new or old he does not say),2 Grocheo makes the important announcement that 'these things may be said concerning the musical forms which are performed by the human voice. Now we may proceed to the instrumental forms.'3

From this statement - as well as from the reference to a text (dictamen) in connection with them - it is perfectly clear that what has been said so far by Grocheo concerning the stantipes and ductia has to do with them as vocal forms.

1 'Ductia vero est cantilena levis et velox in ascensu et descensu, quae in choris a iuvenibus et puellis decantatur, sicut gallice Chi endor querez amoretes. Haec enim ducit corda puellarum et iuvenum et a vanitate removet et contra passionem quae dicitur amor (haec reos) valere dicitur' (pp. 93-94). A foot- note by Wolf (p. 94) to 'haec reos' gives: 'He reos. In der Luicke-zwischen beiden W6rtern ist eine Rasur zu erkennen.' With respect to the same passage, Miller (SbIMG iv, 366) says: 'Die Stelle ist im Manu- skript unverstandlich; ich vermute, dass der des Griechischen vielleicht unkundige Abschreiber mit dem Worte "eroticus" (oder erotis?) der Vorlage nicht fertig zu werden wusste.'

2 De modo igitur componendi cantum et cantilenam nunc dicamus. Modus autem componendi generaliter est unus, quemadmodum in natura. Primo enim dictamina loco materiae praeparatur, postea vero cantus unicuique dictamini proportionalis loco formae introducitur' (p. 95).

" 'De formis igitur musicalibus, quae in voce humana exercentur, haec dicta sint. De instrumen- talibus [formis] vero nunc prosequamur' (p. 96).



Estampie and Stantipes 9Z37

In Grocheo's subsequent discussion of instrumental forms we find these names again, but with somewhat different characteristics.

Grocheo precedes his discussion of the forms of instrumental music with the observation that, because of their superiority in obtaining accurate pitch, the stringed instruments are the best, especially the viella, upon which all types of music were played,' and lists as the favorite forms of instrumental music the cantus coronatus, the ductia, and the stantipes. Dismissing the cantus coronatus from further consideration, Grocheo now redefines the ductia as follows: The ductia is a textless piece with a proper [i.e., regular?] beat. I say 'textless' because although it may be performed by the human voice and represented by notes, it cannot be set down by title [per litteras] since it does not have words or text. But I say with a true beat because the stresses measure it and the movement of the performer, and they inspire the human soul to move gracefully according to that art which is called dancing, and they measure its movement in ductias and chorea8.2

The statement that the ductia, though textless, 'may be performed by the human voice and represented in notes' is somewhat obscure; but it seems to mean that, although lacking words, the instrumental ductia had a singable melody,3 with a simple dance rhythm which could be set down in the two usual and unequivocal note-values of the period, the longa and brevis, and perhaps was not subjected to ornamentation with smaller note-values such as the semibrevis and minima whose value had not yet been established with exactitude.4 There is here perhaps an implied contrast to the 'difficult' melody which we shall find ascribed to the instrumental stantipes. Grocheo further points out that the parts of the ductia (like those of the instrumental stantipes) are termed puncta and that the number of puncta in a ductia is usually three although some 'imperfect' ductiae and stantipedes, as well as the ductia Pierron, have four (see post 242, note 1). -As a piece of purely instrumental music, the stantipes is defined by Grocheo

1 'Inter quae [instrumenta] instrumenta cum chordis principatum obtinent.... In eis enim subti- lior et melior soni descriptio propter abbreviationem et elongationem chordarum. Et adhuc inter om- nia instrumenta chordosa visa a nobis viella videtur prevalere.... Bonus autem artifex in viella omnem cantum et cantilenam et omnem formam musicalem generaliter introducit' (pp. 96-97).

2 'Est autem ductia sonus illiteratus cum decenti percussione mensuratus. Dico autem illiteratus, quia licet in voce humana fieri possit et per figuras representari, non tamen per litteras scribi potest, quia littera et dictamine caret. Sed cum recta percussione, eo quod ictus eam mensurant et motum facientis et excitant animum hominis ad ornate movendum secundum artem, quam ballare vocant, et eius motum mensurant in ductiis et choreis' (p. 97).

3 It is, of course, possible that Grocheo means that the textless ductia actually was vocalized, although this method of performance can hardly have been the principal one since this passage occurs in the section on instrumental music in Grocheo's well-ordered treatise. Tbat, in this passage, Grocheo seems to differentiate, by mentioning them separately, between the ductia and the chorea (carole, chain dance) does not necessarily imply that the instrumental ductia was no longer itself a chain dance - possibly a special type thereof - as was the vocal ductia (see ante p. 234, note 3). At all events, as has been pointed outI, by the fourteenth century and perhaps already in Grocheo's time, the chain dance and the couple dance were not longer entirely separate types.

4 Grocheo does mention the semibrevis, but merely as an unspecified portion of the brevis (p. 105). He does not list the minima at all.



9.38 Estampie and Stantipes

as 'a textless piece having a difficult melody and differentiated by the puncta. I say "having a difficult" etc., because on account of its difficulty it holds the attention of the performer and even of the spectator, and often diverts the minds of the rich from improper thoughts. I say "differentiated by the puncta" because it is lacking in the beat (percussio) which is in the ductia, and is comprehended only by distinguishing its puncta."

The number of puncta in the stantipes Grocheo sets at six or seven, specifying among the latter the 'difficult pieces of Tassynus,'2 and with the remark that 'to compose ductia and stantipes is to set out the music in puncta with beats proper to the ductia and stantipes'3 he brings his whole discussion of Popular Music to a close in order to turn his attention to the forms of Art Music (motet, organum, and hocket),4 and then Liturgical Music, both of which, of course, lie outside the scope of the present study. Nevertheless, owing to Grocheo's curious method of frequently explaining the other forms by reference to the stantipes, ductia and cantus coronatus, the remaining portions of his treatise contain certain slight additions to our knowledge of the stantipes and ductia. The most significant statements there encountered are to the effect that the concept of ecclesiastical modality, proper to Gregorian chant, does not apply to part music or to secular music (including, of course, the stantipes and ductia).5 Again, the stantipes and

1 'Stantipes vero est sonus illiteratus habens difficilem concordantiarum discretionem per puncta determinatus. Dico autem habens difficilem etc., propter enim eius difficultatem facit animum facientis circa eam stare et etiam animum advertentis, et multotiens animos divitum a prava cogitatione devertit. Dico etiam per puncta determinatus, eo quod percussione, quae est in ductia, caret et solum punctorum distinctione cognoscitur' (pp. 97-98).

2 p. 99. The sentence (loc. cit.) 'Huius modi autem dtantipede8 res cum 7 chordis vel difficiles res Tassyni' - rendered as 'Solcher Art Stantipeden aber sind Stticke mit 7 Saiten oder die schwierigen Stiicke des Tassynus' by Wolf and uncorrected by Miller - is obscure.Whether there was a 7-stringed viella or other instrument of large range (the 15-stringed cithara mentioned by Grocheo p. 85?) for which particularly difficult 8tantipede8 were written, we do not know. As has been said, the usual number of viella strings was five, according to Jerome of Moravia (see ante p. 228, note 5) and to another close contemporary Elias Salomo (in M. Gerbert, Scriptore8 ecclesiastci de musica, St Blasien, 1784, Im, 20). That the reference here is to some pieces by one Tassin, known to have beea a ministerallus at the French court chapel in 1288 (G. Adler, Hand buch der Musikgeschichte, Vienna, 2d ed., 1929, p. 256), seems certain; but the only preserved pieces attributed to Tassin - the short melodies comprising only one or two puncta and transcribed in AfMw i, 22) - could hardly have been considered 'difficult' unless embelished with improvised ornamentation.

8 'Componere ductiam et stantipedem est sonum per puncta et rectas percussiones in ductia et stantipede determinare' (p. 99).

4 'Quid igitur sit ductia et stantipes et quae earum partes et quae earum compositio, sic sit dictum. In quo propositum de simplici seu vulgari musica terminatur. De musica igitur composita et regulari ser- monem perquiramus' (loc. cit.).

6 'Describunt autem tonum quidam dicentes eum esse regulam, quae de omni cantu in fine iudicat. Sed isti videntur multipliciter peccare. Cum enim dicunt de omni cantu, videntur cantum civilem et mensuratum includere. Cantus autem iste per toni regilas non forte vadit nec per eas mensuratur. Et adhuc si per eas mensuratur, non dicunt modum per quem nec de eo faciunt mentionem' (p. 114). 'Non enim per tonum cognoscimus cantum vulgarem, puta cantilenam, ductiam, stantipedem . . . ' (p. 115). 'Dico etiam cantum ecclesiasticum ut excludantur cantus publicus et praecise mensuratus, qui tonis non subiciuntur' (p. 116).




ductia are mentioned as making use of chromatic alteration (musica falsa). The remaining citations are less clear, and none of them specify whether it is the vocal or the instrumental stantipes or ductia that is referred to. In addition to analogies between the sections of certain liturgical forms and the puncta of the stantipes and ductia,2 there is a description of the Antiphon which informs us that it often concluded with a melismatic neupma or cauda like the modum with which the viella players brought the stantipes and the cantus coronatus to an end.3 This statement, along with the remark that the relatively elaborate chants such as the Respond and the Alleluia were sung in the manner of the stantipes and cantus coronatus, leads one to suppose that the two last possessed a rather florid type of melody, apparently in contrast to a simple type found in the ductia, to whose performance that of the (syllabic) Sequences and the Credo are here likened.4

1 The following passage in Grocheo discusses musica falsa with respect both to harmonic intervals and to the stantipes and ductia, but does not imply that the harmonic intervals occur in these two forms. Nowhere does Grocheo suggest that the stantipes or the ductia was anything but monophonic (i.e., a single line of melody): '[To the diatonic tones of the hexachordal system]' the moderns, indeed, have added, for the setting down of harmonic intervals and of stantipedes and ductiae, something else, which they have called "musica falsa," since those two signs b and ~, which used to designate the intervals of the semitone or tone in the case of b [flat as] fa [i.e., the perfect fourth in the hexachord beginning on f; and b natural or] 4 [as] mi [i.e., the major third in the hexachord beginning on g), they now make to designate the same on all other degrees so that where there was a semitone they amplify it to a tone by the use of h in order that a good melodic or harmonic interval may be created. And likewise where a whole tone was encountered they reduce it to a semitone by the use of a b.' ('Moderni vero propter descriptionem consonantiarum et stantipedum et ductiarum aliud addiderunt, quod fal- sam musicam vocaverunt. Quia illa duo signa scilicet b et 4, quae in b fa 4 mi tonum et semitonum designabant, in omnibus aliis faciunt hoc designare, ita quod ubi erat semitonus, per h illud ad tonum ampliant, ut bona concordantia vel consonantia fiat. Et similiter, ubi tonus inveniebatur, illud per b, ad semitonum restringunt' (pp. 88-89). This passage does not mean that chromatic alteration was primarily a phenomenon of instrumental music, as has occasionally been argued (especially by Arnold Schering, e.g., Studien zur Musikgeschichte der Friihrenaissance, Leipzig: C. F. Klahnt Nachf., 1914, p. 47 and pas8im) but rather one which is characteristic of secular music (including stantipes and ductia) and all part music, as distinct from Gregorian chant. See the present writer's article 'Musica Ficta and Instrumental Music' in The Musical Quarterly, xxvIa (April, 1942), 216-226.

2 'Pater noster est cantus habens duas partes ad modum puncti ductiae vel stantipedis (p. 128). 'Communio . . . cantatur . . . quasi ad modum puncti clausi ductiae vel stantipedis' (p. 129).

3 'Cantus autem iste [i.e., antiphona] post psalmos decantatur et aliquotiens neupma additur puta post psalmos evangelistas. Est autem neupma quasi cauda vel exitus sequens ad antiphonam, quemadmodum in viella post cantum coronatum vel stantipedem exitus, quem modum viellatores appellant' (P. 122).

4 'Responsorium autem et alleluia decantantur ad modum stantipedis vel cantu8 coronati et devo- tionem et humilitatem in cordibus auditorum imponant. Sed sequentia cantatur ad modum ductiae, ut ea ducat et laetificat . . . ' (p. 126). 'Credo in deum est cantus leviter ascendens et descendens ad modum ductiae [cf. ante p. 936, note 1] parum differens in partibus. Dico autem parum differens, etc., eo quod habet plures partes in cantu consimiles' (p. 127). Unfortunately for our clear comprehension of these analogies, we find the ductia, as well as the stantipes, associated with the cantus coronatus ('Offertorium ... cantatur ad modum ductiae vel cantus coronati,' p. 127), while the very nature of the cantus coronatus [cf. ante p. 233, note 6] is obscured by being referred to in one place as melodically ornate ('Hymnus est cantus ormatus plures habens versus. Dico autem ornatus ad modum cantus coronati, qui habet concordantias pulchras et ornate ordinatas,' pp. 119-120) and again, as making use of long notes ('cantus coronatus . . . ex omnis longis et [brevibus?] perfectis efficitur,' p. 91. 'Kyrie eleison . .. cantatur tractim et ex longis et perfectis ad modum cantus coronati,' p. 125).




With these somewhat unsatisfactory references, the limits of our knowledge of the stantipes and ductia are reached. Of the data on the instrumental stantipes perhaps the most interesting item (and the most cogent reason for identifying the stantipes with the estampie) lies in the fact that here, as in the textless estampies, the form of the lai-sequence type based on puncta with ouvert and clos endings,' is contrasted with the rondel type for the vocal stantipes (and properly also for the estampie text, according to the Doctrina). A certain stum- bling block to identifying stantipes and estampie, however, seems to be presented by the question of the 'difficulty' attributed to the melody of the instrumental stantipes by Grocheo. Whether this was a matter of awkward intervals, unusual chromaticism, florid writing, or rhythmic complexity is not explained; and the fact that none of the extant estampies (not even the much later istampite in London 29987) is more difficult in any of these respects than other contemporary music, has led to some hesitancy in identifying stantipes and estampie, and has caused some modern writers to suppose that the stantipes, at least as a sonus illiteratus, was not a dance2 but an instrumental concert piece.3 If one accepts

1 'Punctus [sic] autem est ordinata agregatio concordantiarum harmoniam facientium ascendendo et descendendo duas habens partes in principio similes, in fine differentes, qui clausum et apertum communiter appellantur. Dico autem duas habens partes, etc., ad similitudinem duarum linearum quarum una sit maior alia. Maior enim minorem claudit et est fine differens a minori,' p. 98).

2 Curt Sachs's assertion - based, from all one can tell, on no evidence but Grocheo - that 'Stan- tipes and ductia were considered difficult ... which seems to explain why apparently none of these songs [i.e., stantipes and ductial was danced any longer' (World History of the Dance, p. 290) is un- founded as far as the ductia is concerned, since nowhere does Grocheo imply that the ductia was difficult. Again, according to Sachs (ibid., p. 991) Grocheo 'seems to dismiss the stantipes as a dance . . . when he denies to it the recta percussio which the ductia possesses. This passage is not clear. Grocheo's sentence in which he states that the stantipes 'is determined by the periods, because it lacks the rhythm which we find in the ductia and can be recognized only by the difference in the periods [i.e., puncta]" does not seem to make sense. It cannot possibly mean that the stantipes has no rhythm - to be without rhythm, according to Grocheo, does not mean percussione carere (without time), but non ita praecise mensuratum esse (not in exact measure). All that he says is that it lacks the rhythm which we find in the ductia. The rhythm of the ductia, however, is percussio recta, and the passage immediately becomes clear if we translate this expression not as 'correct rhythm' but as 'even rhythm' in the sense of the later mensural theory, as expounded by Grocheo himself, according to the concept minima [Sachs must mean brevis] recta=two semibreves. And indeed, those sustained melodies, which according to Grocheo's definition must be and have been called stantipedes [cf., discussion below concerning the Harley 978 pieces, to which Sachs apparently is referring] make it obvious that we are dealing with dance pieces, which are, moreover, in percussio non recta, in triple time.' Quite apart from the hypothecation of percussio recta and non recta as terms for duple and triple meter, Sachs's interpretation, though ingenious, is not convincing. Nor is Sachs's suggestion (op. cit., p. 291) for convert- ing into 12-8 meter Wolf's renderings of the London 29987 istampite (cf. ante p. 225, note 4). On the other hand, if one accepts 'beat' rather than 'rhythm' (or 'meter') as the meaning of percussio, and therewith recta percussio as denoting a relatively regular and marked accent, such as is usually found in dance music, then Grocheo's entire discussion, does make sense namely that the instrumental stantipes can be followed - and, if it was a dance, possibly even more specifically, you can know at what point in the steps you ought to be - only by keeping track of the phraseology, since the beat was not so clear and marked as it was in the ductia. The estampie Sachs treats as a somewhat different dance which 'perhaps ... developed from a fusion of the ductia, nota, and stantipes of the preceding century' (p. 293), remarking that 'rhythmically the estampie [i.e., those preserved in Paris 844 and London 29987] corresponds exactly to the stantipes of the preceding century' (loc. cit.). Some confusion




the interpretation already given that the textless ductia was a piece which re- tamed a simple melody capable of being set down in the usual note values, then one is entitled to suppose that the difficulty of the stantipes may well have lain, in part at least, in its use of smaller time values than were as yet susceptible of exact notation, time values which may have been the result of improvised ornamentation. Ornamentation of this sort has already been referred to in connection with Handlo's statement, and could have been applied to any of the preserved estampies, creating, for example, genuimely 'difficiles res Tassyni' out of the unim- pressive Choses T"ssin of the Montpellier Codex. How far such elaboration would render the estampie or stantipes incompatible with dancing is uncertain. Embel- lishment of the melody - especially in conjunction with intricacies in the dance steps - would undoubtedly necessitate the passing of the musical performance to other persons than the dancers themselves, and might lead to the givimg up of singing entirely, in favor of a purely instrumental accompaniment. But to assume that, even with the loss of a strongly marked beat as well, this would necessarily lead to the abandonment of dancing altogether, seems unwarranted. Elaborate melody may be accompanied by quite simple as well as quite complicated dance steps as the patrons of the modern dance hall daily illustrate. And even if the difficult instrumental stantipes described by Grocheo did serve often, if not necessarily always, as an instrumental solo rather than as a dance, there is good reason, on grounds already set forth (chronology, name, and rondel form for vocal piece versus sequence form for instrumental piece) for assuming that Grocheo's instrumental stantipes represents a development from the older estampie rather than an independent form.

As has been said earlier, there are no pieces preserved which bear the name stantipes. However, Johannes Wolf has attempted to identify certain compositions as stantipes, ductia and nota on the basis of the number of puncta prescribed by Grocheo. Among these are three textless compositions from the mid-thirteenth century British Museum Harley Ms 978.' All are in two parts, and although Grocheo does not treat of any of the forms of Popular Music as part music, there is reason to suppose that the stantipes and its companions were subjected, occasionally or often, to the addition of parts, just as were the other originally monophonic forms of the time, such as the rondeau and ballata.

The first of these Harley pieces Wolf has denominated stantipes on the basis of its possession of six puncta. However, these here actually represent a melody of only three puncta which is placed in the lower part and then repeated (puneta 4-6)2 against new note-against-note counterpoint in the cantu superor. The ouvert and clos endings appear for each punctum in the lower voice (only) although the puncta are written out in full to accommodate the continuous counterpoint of the upper part. The uniform and explicit trochaic rhythm (first rhythmic

of chronology seems to be present here, for (as Sachs observed, p. 292), the estampie was already in existence (Kalenda maya, ca 1200) possibly a century before GrocheoWs stantipes, ductia, and nota.

3 H. J. Moser in ZsMw, i, 194-206. 1 All are transcribed in AfMw, I, 19-20 2The dlos of the sixth punctum differs from that of the third.




mode, transcribed in 3-4 meter I J j I., etc.) suggests that this example has not progressed very far toward losing its dance rhythm. And in no sense could either upper or lower melody, as it stands, be considered difficult, even from a thirteenth-century point of view.

The second piece is identified by Wolf with Grocheo's nota. What this type of composition was is somewhat obscure, for Grocheo nowhere classifies it, and indeed his only mention thereof is in the passage on the proper number of puncta (namely three) for the instrumental ductia, where he says that 'pieces with four puncta are sometimes called notae but can be considered as an imperfect ductia or (imperfect) stantipes." As in the preceding piece, extension of the form occurs through repetitions of the original melody; but this time it is achieved by trans- posing the cantus inferior of pumcta 1 and 2 and employing it, against new counter- poinlt, as cantus superior for puncta 3 and 4. Again the puncta are written out in full. In the first punctum the ouvert and clos are identical with each other; and so also in the third, in which it is the beginnings and not the endings which are different. The second-and fourth puncta are regular.

Although it has only five puncta, instead of the six or seven proper to Grocheo's stantipes, Wolf applies this designation to the third of the Harley pieces, quali- fying it as a stantipes imperfecta.2 Here it is the cantus inferior of the first punctum alone, which provides the basic material for the other four, since it is repeated in the lower voice against new counterpoint for punctum 92, then transposed and used as cantus superior for puncta 3 and 4, and finally, with slight rhythmic variants, for the last punctum as well. The recurrence of the clos endings; and the similarity of the ouverts - features absent elsewhere in these Harley pieces are exhibited between puncta 3 and 5 of this last composition.

The foregoing analysis has been deemed necessary because of the fairly widespread assumption that these pieces represent the stantipes and nota as described by Grocheo. As a matter of fact, and quite apart from the irrelevant circumstance of possessing an added discant part, they do not very closely correspond to Gro- cheo's description. However, the specification of exactly six or seven puncta3 probably represents an arbitrary preference of Grocheo's4 and is hardly a point of fundamental importance; and since the Harley pieces are quite like the Choses Tassin, etc., the Paris 844 estampies and Kalenda maya in their simple melody,

1 'Sunt tamen aliquando notae vocatae 4 punctorum, quae ad ductiam vel stantipedem imperfectam reduci possunt' (p. 98). Obviously Grocheo does not consider it an important form of music. Else- where in the literature of the period the nota (note, notula) is mentioned a number of times in connection with both vocal and instrumental performance, and even as a dance (see passage in F. Gennrich, Grundriss . . ., p. 167). In the examples given by Gennrich (ibid., pp. 167-174), the use of the se quence type of structure with ouvert and clos endings shows a certain consanguinity with the stantipes, although as Gennrich points out 'die von Grocheo angegebene Anzahl der Abschnitte [i.e., four] stimmt mit der der Denkmltler nicht tiberein' (ibid., p. 174).

2 AfMw, i, 12, 8 The only examples with so many puncta are the first in Harley 978 and the third estampie in Paris

844, both of which have six, and the fourth estampie in Paris 844, which has seven. 4In any case Grocheo apparently regards the numbers 6 and 7 as specially significant (ef. pp. 78, 86

in SbIMG, i).




clear rhythm, and ouvert- and clos structure, there seems to be no sound objection to considering them all as possible estampies or stantipedes, as fragments thereof, or at least as musically indistinguishable from them.

In attempting to trace, as a concluding section to this study, the course of development of the estampie-stantipes (hereafter simply estampie) we are immediately faced with the problem of determining whether it was primarily a vocal or primarily an instrumental form. The latter view has received preference at the hands of most scholars, partly from a slighting of the data on the vocal aspect,' and partly from what appears to be the weight of evidence. Yet it seems advisable to consider this evidence again, and, above all, to bear in mind that although a particular type of composition may, at a given period, belong predominantly to one medium, it may have originated in quite another. A relatively modern case in point is the concerto, which originated apparently as a composition for voices with instruments (Viadana, G. Gabrieli) but which in more recent times has come to be used for purely instrumental pieces.

Now according to passages already quoted from the Leys d'amors, the Messe des oiseaux, from Froissart and Jehan Maillart - all of the middle or late fourteenth century - as well as on the basis of the following passage in the Glosse to the Documenti d'amore of Francesco Barberino (1264-1348) contrasting the 'inventio verborum' in general with the 'precompositi soni' of the stampita, it seems fairly certain that by this time the estampie was principally an instrumental form:2 'In former times, every verbal creation which was set to the previously- composed melody of a caribus, nota, stampita or the like, was called a consonium. Nowadays such texts adopt the name of the melody or its composer.3

And, at the opposite chronological terminus, there is the account of the creation of Kalenda maya, whose text was composed by the troubadour Raimbaut de Vaqueiras (fl. 1180-1207), upon request, to the tune of an estampida which

1 Thus Pierre Aubry, for example, in his preface to Estampies et danses royales (p. 9) dismisses Grocheo's entire discussion of vocal music (including, of course, the vocal stantipes and the problem of accounting for its rondel type of structure) with the remark 'nous n'en dirons rien ici.' And Fried- rich Ludwig in Adler's Handbuch der Musikgeschichte (p. 260) simply mentions the estampie-stantipes as a 'sonus illiteratus.'

2 To the above one might add the evidence afforded by the presence of the textless istampite of Lon- don 29987, dating from about 1377 or after, i.e., a generation later than the discussions of estampie texts.

8 'Consonium antiquitus dicebatur omnis inventio verborum que super aliquo caribo, nota, stampita, vel similibus componebantur, precompositis sonis. Hodie verba talia nomen soni vel sonum fabri- cantis secuntur' (quoted in 0. Antognoni, 'Le glosse ai doc. d'amore,' Giornale defilologia romanza, iv,

1881, p. 96). Unfortunately this is the extent to which Barberino mentions the slampita. As to the mysterious caribus, little seems to be known apart from the statement in the Leys d'amors (p. 350) that is was a form (the earliest known, apparently) of purely instrumental music, and a vague reference in Dante's Purgatorio; see discussions in L. Biadene, Varieta letterarie e linguisliche (Padua: Fratelli Gallina, 1896), pp. 47-59, and also in G. A. Scartazzini, Enciclopedia dantesca (Milan: U. Hoe- pli, 1896), i, 320. The adoption of the name of the composer seems to have taken place in the Choses Tassin discussed above,




had just been played by 'dui joglar di Fransa' on the viella.1 From this account it has been supposed2 that the estampie originated as a purely instrumental composition and only later came to be a vocal piece. Such an inference on so slight a basis is open to question for the following reasons. In the first place, Raimbaut's adoption, for his Kalenda maya poem, of a pre-existent melody - performed on this occasion (though not necessarily on others) by instruments alone - no more denies, in itself, the existence of an earlier text to that estampida that would the creation by a modern versifier of a new text to the latest Cole Porter tune just rendered (without vocal refrain) by the dance band of a Broad- way night club. As a matter of fact, a melody so similar to that of Kalenda maya as to suggest that the two are variants of the same occurs in three thirteenth- century Mss with the French text Souvent souspire.3 Which of the versions is the older is not known, but it is not impossible that Souvent souspire (or even some other) was the original text - omitted upon that particular occasion- of the tune to which Raimbaut wrote Kalenda maya.4 All that the description of the composition of Kalenda maya really tells us is that this estampida text was written to a preexistent estampida tune which at the moment had just been performed by two French viella players - whether in unison or with an added discant part we know not - a tune which may perfectly well have already possessed a text, i.e., have been a song.

Indeed, the creation of a vocal dance form through the addition of a text to a dance which was originally purely instrumental, if assumed to be customary in the case of the estampie, would reverse what seems to be the usual evolution as revealed by anthropological research. For, according to Curt Sachs, 'time beating and melody are not the first sound accompaniments of the dance. Imita- tion of animal movements and the involuntary expression of emotion by repro- ducing the appropriate animal sounds preceded all conscious sound formation';5 and from its origins as 'a pleasurable motor reaction, a game forcing excess energy into a rhythmic pattern,'6 either with or without a special objective (e.g., as a hunting charm), 'the dance joins up with the highly systematized organism of life and takes from it a law of form.'7 To the animal cries - or, in the case of the

1 The account is given in C. Chabaneau, Les bio.graphies des troubadours en langue provenale (Tou- louse 1885), pp. 87-88, and concludes with the opening of Kalenda maya followed by the comment 'Aquesta stampida fo facha a las notas de la stampida quel joglar fasion en las violas.' On the connection of Kalenda maya with the popular May fetes, see A. Jeanroy, Les origines de la poesie lyrique . . p. 88.

2 E.g., by Pierre Aubry, Estampies et danses royales, pp. 5-7. 3 The five verses of this anonymous song (Rayn. 1506) are given in H. Spanke, Altfranz&sische Lie-

dersammiung (der anonyme Teil der Handschriften K N P X), Halle: Niemeyer Verlag, 1925, No. xxix, pp. 58-60, along with the music, ibid., 417-418. The music is transcribed in Adler, Handbuch der MIusikgeschichte, p. 191.

4Professor Solano believes, however, that the language of Souvent souspire would date this particular version of the text as late rather than early thirteenth century.

5 Curt Sachs, op. cit., 175. The animal dance is cultivated by the Andamanese, for example, one of the most primitive races in the world today (see ibid., pp. 12, 15) and 'many of the tribes believe that they first learned to dance from animals,' ibid., p. 79.

6 Ibid., p. 55. 7Loc. cit.




equally primitive imageless dances, the 'dull aspirated and humming sounds of dark coloring and with few overtones which, with mystic power, seem to lead away from everyday life" - percussive reenforcement of the rhythm is added, first with the stamping of the foot, clapping of the hand, and gradually other noisemakers (rattles, etc.).2 However, 'a melodic instrumental music in the full sense appears as a dance accompaniment surprisingly late.... Instrumental dance melody is not a development from instrumental rhythmic music but rather . . . the instrumentalizing of dance songs. In all probability, the first songs to be instrumentalized are those for which the words have been forgotten.'3 Indeed the melodic accompaniment to dancing was at first always sung.4 Among the Andamanese, for example, 'the ordinary dance is always accompanied by song, and all the songs are composed for the dance. Indeed there are no songs except dance songs,' and 'although the statement that every song is composed for the dance is no longer strictly true of the later cultures, dance and song nevertheless remain very close.'5

In view of this evidence on the evolution of dance music in general, it seems wisest to assume concerning the estampie that at some obscure period in the Middle Ages, it originated, either in Provence or possibly in northern France ('dui joglar di Fransa'), as a dance song, the structure and subject matter of whose original texts is unknown to us. From the scarcity and brevity of reference to it in the troubadour literature, from the stamping implication in its name and the vigoria mentioned by the Doctrina, it would seem to have been of popular rather than courtly origin. By about 1200, when we find the first information and the oldest example (Kalenda maya), we discover it to be performed, on occasion at least, by instruments alone. Whether the estampies so performed nevertheless normally possessed a text (Rayn. 1506 ?) or whether the primitive bond between song and dance had in this case become sufficiently loosened so that estampie melodies were already primarily instrumental pieces to which only occasional texts such as Kalenda maya were set, is uncertain. Nor can it now be determined to what extent Kalenda maya and Douce 308 resemble in subject matter and structure the original type of estampie text, or to what extent the estampie was ever cultivated as a form of poetry without music.

Although the Douce 308 texts comprise stanzas of irregular structure which bear no obvious mark of either sequence type of setting (actually found in Ka- lenda maya and the textless estampies) or of rondel structure with refrain, yet according to Grocheo and the Doctrina, the vocal estampie by the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century appears to have adopted a refrain and thereby to have become allied in structure to the Italian ballata (Fr. virelai).6

1 Ibid., p. 175. 2 Ibid., pp. 177-178. 3 Ibid., p. 181. 4 Ibid., p. 182. 5 Ibid., pp. 1&2-183. 6 According to da Tempo, at least some of the ballata8 were still dance songs ('tales ballatae can-

tantur et coreizantur, op. cit., p. 117). In this connection, too, there is an interesting passage in the Ley8 d'amor8 concerning the dan8a, a merry dance song, which treated of love and was sung to a more rapid tempo than the ver8 or chan8on ('deu tractar damors e deu haver so joyos et alegre per dansar no pero ta lonc coma vers ni chansos mas un petit plus viacier per dansar,' p. 342). Properly the dan8a is




As a dance, we have no real information on the estamp.ie, but its name implies that it was once a stamping dance, and the attribution, a century or more later, of difficulty (including the steps?) by Grocheo and of vigoria by the Doctrina suggest that as a dance it long preserved its lively character. From this evidence - as well as from the circumstances that it is contrasted with the chain dance by Grocheo and Froissart, and that with the exception of Kalenda maya its music is all textless - one is inclined to classify it as a couple rather than a chain dance, although the adoption of a refrain, which is a characteristic of the chain dance, in the late thirteenth century may imply the adoption also of some other features of the chain dance, exemplifying, perhaps, that amalgamation of elements from both types which had taken place by that time. To the end of its known history (late fourteenth century) the estampie appears to have continued, occasionally at least, in use as a dance, as the oft-cited passage from Froissart shows.'

a graceful piece with a single refrain and three couplets ending in the same meter and rhyme as the refrain, as well as a tornada, which is like the refrain ('Dansa es us dictatz gracios que conte un refranh so es un respos e solamen, e tres coblas semblans en la fi al respos en compas et en acordansa e la tornada deu esser semblans al respos,' p. 340). Like the ballata, the opening of the couplets, however, should not rhyme with the refrain ('el comensamens de cascuna cobla ... devon esser del tot divers dacordansa del respos,' p. 342). Nevertheless, our author complains that singers of his time could not give the dan8a the [type of ?] melody appropriate to it, but changed it into a rondeau [!1 by adding 8emibreve8 and minimae as in motets ('Enpero huey ne usa hom mal en nostre temps daquest so quar li chantre que huey son no sabon apenas endevir en un propri so di dansa. E quar noy podon endevenir han mudat lo so de dansa en so de redondel am lors minimas et am lors semibreus de lors motetz,' p. 842). It should be added that some confusion arises between the evidence of this source and Sachs's differentiation of the couple danse (dan8a, dan8e, ballatio) from the chain or ring dance (chorea, carole) since in the Ley8 d'amor8 the distinction is made between the dan8a and the bal, terms of the chorea- carole stem being absent. Discussion of the bal in the Ley8 d'amor8 is confined to the following passage: 'Some make bal8 in the manner of the dan8a, with a refrain and several stanzas; but the bal is different from the dan8a, for the dan8a has no more than three stanzas besides the refrain and tornada, and the bal has ten stanzas or more. Again, there may be another difference since the bal has a more precise and lively melody and is more suitable for singing with instruments than the dan8a. In addition, there is still another difference, since one commonly composes the words of the dan8a and then puts them to music; with the bal it is the opposite, for one first composes an instrumental piece and then makes the poem, which treats of love or praise or other worthy matters as the author wishes ('Item alqu fan bals a la maniera de dansa amb un respos et am motas coblas. Pero bals es divers de dansa, quar dansa no ha mays tres coblas estiers lo respos e la tornada. E bals ha x coblas o mays. Encaras pot haver autra diversitat quar bals ha so mays minimat e viacier e mays apte per cantar amb esturmens que dansa. Encaras ha autra diversitat quar hom comunalmen fa et ordena lo dictat de dansa e pueysh li enpauza so. El contrari fay hom leumen en bal quar hom primieramen trobal so amb esturmens, e pueys aquel trobat. Hom fa lo dictat de bal tractan damors o de lauzors o dautra materia honesta segon la volontat del dictayre' p. 348 f.). From this it appears that the dansa, far from being allied to the bal, as it would seem to have originally been according to Sachs's classification, is here perhaps closer to the carole, by reason of its association with singing. The passage just cited is followed immediately by the definitions of the garip8 and e8tampida given earlier, and, although it is not made clear in the text, the fact that these last two forms are likewise especially associated with instruments, leads one to suppose that they may be types of, or at least allied to, the bal.

1 The subsequent history of the estampie is completely obscure. The word occurs occasionally in later times (e.g., 'Der andern Art Balli oder Ballette seynd, welche keinen Text haben: Und wenn dieselbigen mit Schallmeyen oder Pfeiffen zum tantze gespielet werden, so heist es stampita' in M. Praetorius, Syntagma Mu8icum, Teil in, Wolfenbiittel 1619; reprint, E, Bernoulli ed., Leipzig: C. F




From the purely musical point of view, the estampie on its first appearance is *associated with instruments, usually the viella.' And from the Leys d'amors, Barberino and other sources, as well as from the relatively large proportion of textless estampies among the few extant instrumental compositions of the period, it would appear that the estampie became, toward the end of the thirteenth century primarily an instrumental piece, with the creation of texts for it (or vice versa) of secondary importance. According to the examples preserved, the instrumental estampie retained the original sequence (double versicle) form, comprising three to seven (but usually four or five) puncta, each of which made use of an ouvert and clos formula common to all puncta of the estampie. Even though the latest examples (London 29987) possess more extended puncta than the earlier ones, it may be said that the instrumental estampie remains conservative in form. That it apparently did not undergo the mutation to rondel type of structure as did its vocal homonym may perhaps be explained by the fact that the refrain is basically a choral (i.e., vocal) manifestation. Moreover, the troubadours were interested in producing a variety of poetic rather than of musical structures; and consequently it would be the vocal rather than the instrumental estampie to which they would apply their innovations.

How soon and how often the estampie enjoyed the privilege of an added part we cannot tell, although the evidence of Harley 978 from about the middle of the thirteenth century renders it not unlikely that one of the 'dui joglar di Fransa' who performed the estampida for Kalenda maya was engaged in providing (improvised?) discant to the other's melody.2 In any case, the musical interest of the estampie seems to lie less in the contrapuntal than in the melodic embellishments, for it is in the latter that the 'difficulty' stressed by Grocheo no doubt consisted. Unfortunately for modern research, these melodic embellishments appear to have been the result of improvised ornamentation, and the data on such procedure, though incontrovertible, are, in so early a period, too vague for us to evaluate them.3 But though its exact nature eludes us, its general signifi-

Kahnt, 1916, 31). But whether it stands for anything like the form we have been discussing must be regarded as doubtful.

I But also: Guis dou tabor au flahutel Leur fait ceste estampie

(Jehan Erars, Pa8tourelle, in K. Bartsch, Altfranzo-usche Romanzen und Pastourellen, p. 258). 2 It is even possible that the two players performed the puncta antiphonally, in the fashion of a 8e-

quence (see Handschin, ZsfMw, xii, 1). 8 The fact that improved ornamentation was practiced in this period has already been pointed out.

But since our knowledge of its precise nature is dependent upon pedagogic discussions of the subject or upon our possession of both plain and ornamented versions of the same piece, and since both of these desiderata are extremely rare before the sixteenth century, our efforts to conceive what the 'difficult' melody of the estampie was like are seriously hampered. Some idea, however, may perhaps be obtained from the motet transcriptions in keyboard tablature found in the Robertsbridge Codex (see ante p. 228, note 7) as well as from the illustrations (vocal) in the early fourteenth century De diminu- tione contra puncti (Coussemaker, op. cit., iIa, 62) and in the treatise (1336) of Petrus dicta palma ociosa (SbIMG, xv, 1914, 504 ff). As for the assumption by Wolf (AfMw, i, 12 ff) and others that, as notated, the London 229987 istampite represent already embellished versions, and the consequent attempts to derive a simplified 'original' from each, one must say that the procedure is tempting but unconvincing.




cance should not. For with this melodic elaboration there apparently comes a certain obscuring of the rhythmic beat (percussio) Which marks a transition away from the original dance type toward the freely autonomous concert piece.1

Indeed, the most important point about the estampie is neither the possibility of its having originated as an instrumental form, nor its indisputably prominent role in the preserved repertoire of early instrumental music. Nor is it in the evidence it offers of progress toward a so-called 'instrumental style of melody.2 Rather does its chief significance lie in the circumstances that: (1) it is the earliest type of composition found in both vocal and instrumental literature which shows a decided difference in structure for each medium; (2) as apparently a favorite dance for improvised ornamentation, it seems to present the traceable beginning of that embellishment of instrumental dance tunes which produced the rich collections of instrumental variations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; (3) and finally, it-is the earliest example of a dance from which - apparently side by side with its continued use for dancing (Froissart) - there seems to evolve, through a complication of the melody and obfuscation of the original dance beat, something approaching an instrumental concert piece, perhaps the first type of music consistently intended for this particular artistic purpose. This last stage may well have been attained by the compositions in London 29987, where the istampite - whether or not they were themselves still intended as actual dance pieces - are indistinguishable from their companions, the 'descriptive' pieces, La Manfredina and the Lamento di Tristano.3 In the estampie, therefore, we have what appears to be the earliest instance of that process of abstraction and stylization later exemplified in the case of the allemande - which arose out of the late fifteenth-century Tanz4 and is mentioned as 'one of our most ancient dances" in the late sixteenth century but continues to be played,

1 Moser (ZsfMw, ii, 186-198) sees evidence of concert performance in the phrase 'devant la dame' from the Messe des oiseaux quotation given earlier, and in the distinction between performer ('faciens') and auditor ('advertens') in Grocheo's definition of the instrumental stantipes (see ante p. 238, note 1).

2 Without going into exhaustive arguments against the notion that florid embellishments, chromatic alterations, frequent leaps and all other divagations from the melodic procedures of the simplest type of Gregorian chant are ipso facto evidence of 'instrumental style,' one may point out the general resemblance between the thirteenth-century estampies and other (vocal) music of the time. Indeed, the two melodic features which are, by and large, found far more often in instrumental tban in vocal music, namely persistent activity without pause and the continuous reiteration of the same note- values or motives and/or the same melodic intervals, are relatively infrequent in the thirteenth- century estampies. It is certainly rash to regard Kalenda maya as representing a peculiarly instrumental type of melody when it is by no means certain that this melody (more or less as it stands) was not originally that of a song (Rayn. 1506?). And the same is true of the Harley cantus inferiores or the Paris estam pies, any of which may one day turn up in an earlier Ms with a text. The Choses Tassin, on the other hand, show certain reiterations of intervals and certain monotonous rhythms which are more generally found in instrumental than in vocal music, and the persistence of the same figurations over several measures is even more true of the London istampite.

3 Strictly speaking, the designation of the Lamento di Tristano and La Manfredina as 'descriptive' pieces is gratuitous. They may, of course, be arrangements of songs bearing those names, but Curt Sachs (op. cit., 294) thinks that as they stand, they are 8altarelli (i.e., dances) with fanciful titles.

4Sachs, op. cit., pp. 331-332. 6 Thoinot Arbeau [Jehan Tabourot] Orchesography (1588) translated by C. W. Beaumont, London:

C. W. Beaumont, 1925, 109.




though not usually danced any longer in 1636,1 and eventually loses its dance character entirely (through melodic and rhythmic complication) in J. S. Bach- and even more recently and conspicuously in the case of the courtly minuet of seventeenth century,2 which becomes more rapid and difficult or impossible to dance to in some of the later works of Haydn and Mozart (e.g., in the latter's great E-flat major and G minor symphonies of 1788), and loses its identity completely in the monumental scherzos of Beethoven.

1 'L'Allemande est une dance d'Allemagne, qui est mesuree comme la Pavanne; mais elle n'a pas este si usitee en France que les precedentes [i.e. presumably the passamezzo and pavane just described] . . . on se contente auiourd'huy de la iouer sur les instrumens sans la dancer, non plus que la Passe- mezze, si ce n'est aux Balets.' (M. Mersenne, Harmonie universelle, Paris: Seb. Cramoisy, 1636, Traits B de la voix, pp. 164-165; Harvard College Library copy).

2 Louis xiv and Lully appear to have been responsible for the late seventeenth-century transmuta- tion of the primitive minuet into a courtly dance whose popularity lasted for about a century. Ac- cording to Sachs 'in 1767 the minuet appears for the last time in the index of a dance manual ... and was out of favor . ... Nevertheless it was still taught in the nineteenth century' (op. cit., p. 398).



Documents

Estampie and Stantipes (Lloyd Hibberd)