“Sanz Note” & “Sanz Mesure”: Toward a Premodern Aesthetics of the Dirge

Abstract

It is easy to think that something has gone wrong in the middle column of folio 5v of Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France ms. fr. 146 (see figure 9.1). At this early point in the famously lavish copy of the Roman de Fauvel made in ca. 1317, the copying of the motet Ex corruptis/In principibus seems to have been suddenly interrupted. Three voices are present: the first, beginning “Ex corruptis arboribus,” is at the top of the column and starts with a decorated initial. The second, “In principibus perpera,” starts midway through the ninth staff, but its capital letter is missing, as is that of the third, tenor voice, labeled “Neuma d’alleluia” (“melody from a [chant] alleluia”) at the bottom of the page. But it is not the missing capitals that draw the eye’s attention, since a much more vital aspect of the motet is conspicuous by its absence: there are no notes here, only empty staves. Because medieval scribes normally copied words before notes, scholars have assumed that the makers of Fauvel intended to add notation and then did not—perhaps they forgot to, or perhaps the music never arrived. As an early commentator put it, “dieser motetus fehlt” (this motet is missing).²

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy; I were but little happy, if I could say how much.

—Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing

Alas, that sweet and noble lady could not compose the third stanza, so wearied and afflicted, sad, wretched, and full of tears was she.

—Machaut, Le Livre du Voir dit¹