YEARBOOK OF THE ALAMIRE FOUNDATION

TENOR (TRANSLATION)
Domine
tant ai amé
et desirré
bon vin vin ferré
et bon claré
et bon clapé
et les pastez
bien enpevrez
iteus est ma volentez
qar tor jorz vueill assez
DRINKING MOTETS IN MEDIEVAL ARTOIS AND FLANDERS 19
Lord,
I have so much loved
And desired
Good wine, mulled (or aged) wine,
And good rosé (or spiced) wine,
And good clapé,
And well peppered
pastries.
Such is my wish,
For always I want a lot.
In light of the evidence of the French motets under consideration here, it appears that
W2 was intended for someone whose sympathies lay with the Low Countries. In addition
to the motets that praise cil de Gant, prefer Rhine wine over French and complain
about the beer drinkers of Arras, two others also look away from France. In the
motet Qant l’aloete s’esjoist en mai, 37 a country maid fends off the narrator’s advances
by telling him slyly, A la tor de Tornai / sor la torete / serrai vostre sem plai (‘At the
tower of Tournai on the turret I will be yours without any quarrel’). The place of
rendez-vous is ludicrous; thus, the woman implies that their coming together is
unlikely. Tournai was the diocesan seat of major Flemish cities, including Ghent,
Bruges and Lille. 38 The epithet tor de Tornai calls to mind both a real and a figurative
tower. It could refer to the largest of the five towers of Tournai’s cathedral of
Notre-Dame, or to the city’s armorial seal, which consists of a silver tower with turrets
on a red background. 39 In another motet in W2, Deduisant m’aloie ier mein, 40 the
narrator comes upon a maiden along the banks of the Seine, near the vineyards of the
abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, an ancient and important producer of wine in Paris
and the Ile-de-France. 41 After he greets her, she repulses him, saying that she is not
37 MS W2, fols. 245v–246r. Text edited in STIMMING, Die altfranzösischen Motette, p. 96; music in
TISCHLER, The Earliest Motets, 1, pp. 122–132.
38 E. DE MOREAU, Histoire de l’Eglise en Belgique, Tome Complémentaire I, Texte: Circonscriptions
ecclésiastiques chapitres, abbayes, couvents en Belgique avant 1559, Cartes des diocèses, archidiaconés,
doyennés et paroisses par J. Deharveng, des chapitres, abbayes, prieurés et couvents par E. de
Moreau en collaboration avec A. de Ghellinck, Brussels, 1948.
39 My thanks to Dr. Ludovic Nys for pointing out the heraldry. See J.T. DE RAADT, Sceaux armoriés
des Pay-Bas et pays avoisinants, 4, Brussels, 1898–1903, p. 47.
40 MS W2, fol. 251v. The text is edited in STIMMING, Die altfranzösischen Motette, pp. 101–102; it is
translated in G.A. ANDERSON, The Latin Compositions in Fascicules VII and VIII of the Notre Dame
Manuscript Wolfenbüttel Helmstadt 1099 (1206), 1, Brooklyn, 1976, pp. 45–46; and the music is edited
in TISCHLER, The Earliest Motets, 1, pp. 193–204.
41 GARRIER, Histoire sociale et culturelle du vin, p. 46.