YEARBOOK OF THE ALAMIRE FOUNDATION

20
MARY E. WOLINSKI
one of those Parisians with whom he is accustomed to dally (Ne sui pas, ce vos plevis,/
de ceus de Paris / dont vous jouez a har). 42 She thereby implies that Parisian women
have loose morals.
It appears that the manuscript W2 was created for use in a court. The presence
of rhythmically notated polyphony indicates that the anthology provided music for
services by skilled chapel singers, capable of singing all kinds of polyphony. The
substantial collection of French motets about courtly love, eating and drinking reveal
a recreational side to the singers’ performances, as well. On the whole, the chants of
the organa belong to the liturgy of Paris, which, paradoxically, was the liturgy of the
French royal court. However, the presence of the motets discussed above suggests
that the manuscript was not intended for a Parisian patron, but, rather, for someone
from the Low Countries.
There were several important courts in this region, but which of them would
have paid highly trained singers to perform sacred polyphony throughout the liturgical
year according to the ritual of Paris? The court of Burgundy is known to have
used Paris liturgy, 43 but in the thirteenth century it was not yet connected with the
Low Countries. Avery strong candidate is the county of Flanders, headed by Margaret
of Constantinople, who reigned from 1244 to 1278. Orphaned at the age of four, she
and her older sister Joan were raised in Paris at the court of Philip Augustus. From
her upbringing, Margaret’s culture was French and Flanders, like Burgundy, was a
vassal of France. Therefore, it is plausible that French liturgy and polyphony were
used at her court. This remains a hypothesis until we can know more about the court’s
liturgy and the nature of its chapel personnel. Nevertheless, thanks to the French
motets, we now know that W2 was not made for France, as had been believed for the
past hundred years.
42 Le hary appears to have had sexual connotations and faire le hari was a euphemism for making love;
see BALDINGER, Dictionnaire étymologique de l’ancien français, H, col. 165. Therefore, the last
word of the motet probably should read hari. STIMMING, Die altfranzösischen Motette, p. 102,
changed har to devis. Although ANDERSON, The Latin Compositions, 1, p. 46, edited it as haris, he
translated the last line as ‘Whom you treat like mad dogs’.
43 C. WRIGHT, Music at the Court of Burgundy, 1364–1419: A Documentary History, Henryville –
Ottawa – Binningen, 1979, p. 149.