so-called ‘testament’, the ballade ‘Plourez,dames’. Two recordings of this song arecriticized with regard to their rendering of theemotional content. Then the scarce and oftendebated evidence about the funding andpossible memorial function of Machaut’sfamous Mass is reassessed; Leach convincinglysuggests that it may have marked his personaldevotion for the Virgin. One question remains,namely why in the Prologue Machaut omittedhis most monumental piece of music from theproud list of genres he had practised. He doesindeed allude to music sung during Mass butonly in a general demonstration of music’somnipresence, not in the sense that a grandpolyphonic Mass belonged to his own creations.The obvious explanation would be that hementions only his secular works in the Prologuebecause he intends to write in Love’s, notGod’s, honour, and because the Mass textis traditional, not of his own making. Thiswould imply, however, that Machaut made adistinction between sacred and secular works,precisely the dividing line which the authorwishes to erase in this part of her book. In asubchapter ‘The Christian Machaut’, Leachattempts to reconcile the generally more secu-larist readings in most European studies withthe religious trend in some recent American in-terpretations (p. 279 ff.). She argues that inmany of Machaut’s texts spiritual and secularregisters are fused, and that Machaut’s courtlynarratives and lyrics ‘can readily be understoodin a Christian context’ (p. 290 ff.). It is truethat in his love language he often uses meta-phors from the religious sphere, but would itnot be necessary to study first Machaut’sovertly religious texts and ideas more closelybefore interpreting his amorous works as spirit-ual quests? In the lays praising the Virgin (oneis briefly discussed on pp. 295^6) his intentionis strikingly different from that in his courtlylyrics, centred as they are on the confirmationof dogma and faith, and expressing anxietyabout his soul’s salvation.Fittingly, the book closes with a discussion of

Machaut’s commemoration in the first musicalde¤ ploration of an artist (a double ballade byDeschamps set by Andrieu) and with a surveyof his influence on the works of later poets andcomposers until the end of the fifteenthcentury, when his name began to fade intooblivion for centuries to come.Leach gives a convincing overall picture of

Machaut’s self-projection as an author and au-thority, but sometimes her admiration seemssomewhat over the top. In the famous Prologueminiature (programmatically reproduced on

the cover of her book) where the god ofLove commands Machaut to write in hishonour, the painter mayçperhapsçhave hadan Annunciation scene in mind: Amours isdepicted as a winged figure, like the archangel,and Machaut looks up from his book with agesture of surprise, like the Virgin. But to takeover an iconographic form does not automatic-ally imply taking over its meaning. The claimthat the miniature reveals ‘the sublunary virginGuillaume de Machaut [who] will generate(because he has already generated) his ‘‘son’’çthe huge book that the Prologue’s reader isholdingçwhose consoling and salvific functionis practiced by reading, hearing, and contem-plating the pages that follow’ (p. 100) is, in myopinion at least, a bridge too far. Machaut wasno doubt a very self-conscious artist, but healways presented himself as a humble worship-per of the Blessed Virgin. Could Machaut ser-iously have posed as her alter ego if he hopedfor her intercession with her Son?

Notwithstanding such exaggerations, Eliza-beth Eva Leach’s engagingly written bookdistinguishes itself as a firm step forward in thestudy of Machaut’s works and poetics. It suc-cessfully combines the methods and views ofthe various disciplines which, with some excep-tions, have mainly highlighted separate aspectsof an artistic oeuvre that should be appreciatedas an integral whole. Leach has succeeded inpresenting a rich study of Machaut’s life andworks that will certainly stir many commentsand inspire others to delve, with interdisciplin-ary tools, into the living heritage of thisintriguing philosopher of love.

JACQUES BOOGAART

Amsterdam University

doi:10.1093/ml/gcs044

The Carole: A Study of a Medieval Dance. ByRobert Mullally. pp. xviþ148. (Ashgate,Farnham and Burlington, Vt., 2011. »50.ISBN 978-1-4094-1248-9.)

In this very close study of a single dance, theemphasis is on ‘details relevant to the history,choreography and performance of the [carole]dance as revealed in the primary sources’(p. xv). The carole is the best-known dancename from the Middle Ages, and yet scholars inall fields use the term with a vague and some-times contradictory understanding of exactly towhat it refers. Even in the primary sources itis often unclear whether it means ‘dance’ ingeneral or is, asMullally claims here, a referenceto a specific dance formation and choreography.

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The author questions all of the inheritedbeliefs and reinterprets the commonly acceptedconclusions about references to carole anddance in the literature, theoretical treatises,and iconography of the late Middle Ages. Heconcludes that most of what is commonlyaccepted is incorrect, and that many of the textreferences and iconographic images thought tobe about the carole are more frequently ofother, less well-known dances. While admittingthroughout the book that the word ‘carole’ inthe primary sources refers to a number ofthings: a circle, dance in general, line dances,song, dance song, etc., he insists that there wasone specific dance called ‘carole’ and that ithad a set choreography. He posits a dance witha single formation in the round and stepsalways to the left, with a musical practice thatinvolved singing by only a soloist (i.e. no groupparticipation in the refrains), and no instrumen-tal accompaniment.There is no doubt that the sources, when taken

as awhole, are confusing and ambiguous.To sortthrough themandcome to any conclusions aboutthe various details of the carole requires acareful reading and even more careful consid-eration of context in order to separate thosethat were intended to be technically correctfrom those in which the word is used moreloosely. This is a tricky business because the de-cisions concerning which references are to betaken at face value and which are to be discoun-ted as unreliable or incorrect often seemsomewhat whimsical. The implicit danger, ofcourse, is that those decisions could be madeto support a preconceived conclusion ratherthan each citation being weighed carefully on itsownmerits.A good example of this kind of selection

involves one of the most frequently cited literaryreferences from La Mankine: ‘Such a carolehad never been seen, nearly a quarter leaguelong.’ The implication of the quote is that, atleast in this instance, the carole was a linedance. Mullally dismisses the quotation as anincorrect use of the word ‘carole’, which hesuggests was chosen because it is ‘metricallymore suitable’ than would have been thecorrect dance term, ‘tresche’ (p. 61). This maybe true, but it is not the only source that usesthe word ‘carole’ with reference to a line dance.Mullally dismisses all of them, although heallows that the music and steps for the treschewere identical to that for the carole. In fact, hebelieves that the only difference between thesetwo dances is that the carole was dancedentirely in the round whereas the tresche couldinclude both round and line.

Another case of questionable judgementinvolves the discussion of two illustrations in amanuscript of Li Restor du Paon (Ill. 3 and 6),which Mullally admits are intended to illustratethe carole mentioned in the text. One showsnine people in a circle, but the other has sixpeople in a line. His explanation for the secondillustration is that ‘the iconography does notalways give a coherent view of the dance’ (p. 95).If I follow his point correctly, he is claimingthat a contemporary artist did not know that acarole took only the round formation. Similartreatment is given to those sources that suggestinstrumental accompaniment of the carole. Forone reason or another, they cannot be trusted.

Mullally also concludes that several differenttext forms were associated with the carole, theearliest found in Guillaume de Dole and con-sisting of lines without repeats or indication ofrefrain. He believes that these more simpleforms were eventually replaced by the moresophisticated rondeau and virelai text formsthat include refrains, although he insists thatthe songs were sung only as solos and neverincluded ensemble participation by the dancersin the refrains. He singles out several melodiesthat match carole lyrics cited in the literatureand publishes four of them in his Appendix.What is interesting about these pieces is thatthey are all extremely short, having as few asthree bars of music and as many as eight. Thisclearly is not sufficient music for an entirecarole lyric, although it would be adequate fora refrain. That avenue is not pursued.

Oddly, he has overlooked the rather largerepertory of probable carols found in the Pa-risian organum source Florence, BibliotecaMedicea Laurenziana, Pluteo 29,1, which con-tains in its final fascicle over fifty Latin textswith music, preceded by an illustration of fiveclerics standing in a circle. The image certainlywould support his theory about carole forma-tion, although it contradicts his statement that‘A carole consisting entirely of men is possible,but is all but unknown’ (p. 41). The texts, how-ever, which are mostly rondeaux, are clearlymarked for responsorial singing, a performancepractice Mullally rejects.

The music chapter presents a convoluted andrather simplistic discussion of modal rhythmand its relationship to dance, which leads tocriticisms of most modern transcriptions of therepertory in the light of the dance steps. HereMullally is on extremely thin ice, both becauseof a lack of understanding of notation but espe-cially because his decisions about what thedance steps were is purely hypothetical andbased on very little evidence. For some of his in-

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formation about the dance, music, and perform-ance practice Mullally consults contemporarymusic treatises but dismisses the only theoret-ical treatise of the time with a detailed discus-sion of secular music and its performancepractices, Johannes de Grocheio’s De Musica.He had considered this treatise in an earlierarticle and pronounced it unreliable (‘Johannesde Grocheo’s ‘‘Musica Vulgaris’’’, Music &Letters, 79 (1998), 1^26). Thus he is able torestrict his theoretical reference to thosesources that mention secular music only inpassing, and does not have to reconcileGrocheio’s complicated statements. He pointsout correctly that there is no piece of musicidentified in the sources as a carole and is leftto his own conclusions by ignoring and dismiss-ing most other scholarly speculation concerningthe repertory intended to accompany thatdance. (Yvonne Rokseth’s ‘Danses cle¤ ricales duXIII

e sie' cle’, in Me¤ langes 1945 des Publications de laFaculte¤ des Lettres de Strasbourg (Paris, 1947), 93^126, for example, is neither cited nor discussed.)There is little doubt that ‘carole’ is primarily

a French term: the quantity of referencessupports that point. But the word can also befound in Italian and English sources, and afterfirst pursuing the word and its references inFrance, Mullally considers these other sources,concluding reasonably that the references arenot as strict as in French, a situation that fre-quently occurs when a word is borrowed intoanother language. The English carol, therefore,is a far less precise term, which ‘could meaneither the dance, or the song that accompaniedit, or both together, or . . . neither’ (p. 114). Hespeculates that the text ‘Maiden in the MorLay’ may be the only Middle English caroletext to survive, and concludes that by the endof the fourteenth century the carole text formwas unrelated to dancing, although he relatesthe burden and stanza form to a processionalhymn in the Sarum liturgy for Palm Sunday.The Italian use of the word ‘carola’ is found

in only a few sources, including Dante and Boc-caccio, and Mullally dismisses these referencesas not related to the French carole practice.This leads to his dismissal of the well-knownfrescoes in Siena (Martini’s ‘Effects of GoodGovernment’ in the Palazzo Pubblico) and Flor-ence (Bonaiuto’s fresco in the Spanish Chapelof Santa Maria Novella), long thought to becaroles. Instead, he claims that these are depic-tions of the dance ‘ridda’, which he believestakes the form of both a circle and line, and ismentioned in Dante’s Inferno (VII. 22^4). Icon-ography, in fact, occupies one entire chapter,with the author eliminating all images that do

not show the dancers in a round formationwith a non-dancing leader and no instruments.This certainly conforms to Mullally’s theorybut results in the curious situation in whichthe majority of illustrations do not depict thedance that is mentioned most frequently in theliterature.

This is a difficult book to follow sinceMullally often presents conclusions based onfacts he has not yet discussed. The back-and-forth nature of this kind of argument is oftenquite confusing. Further, his approach is morethan a little abrasive in the way in which hedirectly confronts all earlier scholars’ writings,discusses their errors, and dismisses nearly allas being misguided. Often the nit-picking isextreme and quite one-sided in that he acceptsexceptions to his own theories but none forthose of other writers.

Although I have found much to question, Ibelieve that this is a valuable publication. In themidst of a very tight and narrow interpretationof the word carole, it presents a number ofchallenging and perceptive ideas. RobertMullally’s book includes an excellent collectionof primary material and new ways of interpret-ation. His theories and analyses are thought-provoking and one hopes they will form the basisfor continued dialogue about the details of earlydance. The field of early dance is the richer forthis contribution.

TIMOTHY J. MCGEE

University of Toronto

doi:10.1093/ml/gcs050

‘The Temple of Music’ by Robert Fludd. By PeterHauge. pp. xvi þ 315. Music Theory in Bri-tain, 1500^1700: Critical Editions. (Ashgate,Farnham and Burlington, Vt., 2011, »65.ISBN 978-0-7546-5510-7.)

This important book is part of a series which, asthe editor Jessie Anne Owens says, offers awindow into musical culture that is ‘every bitas important as music itself ’ (p. xiii). The inclu-sion in this series on British music theory of atranslation of Robert Fludd’s ‘Templum Musi-cum’, part of his encyclopedic Utriusquecosmi . . . historia (Oppenheim, 1617^26), marks asignificant shift in musicological opinion,which to date has given Fludd fairly shortshrift. Both Barry Cooper in his ‘EnglischeMusiktheorie im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert’ (inWilhelm Seidel and Barry Cooper (eds.),Entstehung nationaler Traditionen: Frankreich^England (Darmstadt, 1986), 145^256), and morerecently Rebecca Herissone in Music Theory in

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