Språkvetenskapliga fakulteten, LILAe

Kalendarium

Oxford, Bodleian Library, Manuscript Douce 308 is a large book with a complex mixture of contents, including Old French narratives in verse and prose relating to love, dancing, jousting and tourneying, and a section of over 500 songs arranged by genre into seven sections. The latest scholarship places the manuscript's copying in Lorraine, probably in Metz, in the early part of the fourteenth century, where it remained for a considerable part of its history. Its songs make Douce 308 one of the most extensive trouvère collections, but its lack of musical notation means that it has not been fully incorporated within musicological scholarship, whether on monophony or polyphony, and whether on thirteenth or fourteenth century music. This presentation will argue that for the decades either side of 1300, Douce 308 proves to be a valuable musical source, regardless of its lack of musical notation. The central place of song in the leisure activities detailed in Douce 308 shows the power and potential of music to mediate important existential realities of court life, and to focus contemplation of the here-and-now of both itself and its future in the hereafter.