Dante Musicus: Gothicism, Scholasticism, and Music
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Abstract
IN recent years I have spoken several times on the subject of "Notre-Dame, University, and Music," without ever committing my ideas to paper. The fact is that I had found it quite easy to stress the coincidence of date and purpose that existed between the building of the new Parisian cathedral begun in 1163 and the composition of a polyphonic cycle for use there during the liturgical year. It was also relatively easy to point out internal and external evidence showing that the further development of that polyphony and its main outgrowth, the motet of the thirteenth century, were under the powerful cultural influence of the newlyinstitutionalized University of Paris. But it was clear to me that I was avoiding the more difficult and necessary task of recognizing the spiritual congruity and cultural continuity that must have existed between those expressions of a single society, a gothic cathedral, a scholastic approach to knowledge and faith, and the then new style of music now variously labeled Notre-Dame polyphony, or Ars antiqua. Having planned such an attempt, not without some hesitation, as an homage to Dante in the seventh centennial of his birth,' and having selected "Gothicism, Scholasticism, and Music" as a possible title, I suddenly realized I might have already found some guidance for the still uncharted progress of my writing. It occurred to me that there was a study one I had read years ago in which the relationship between "Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism" had been investigated.2 This relationship I cannot do better than quote "is more concrete than a mere 'parallelism' and yet more general than those individual (and very important) 'influences' which are inevitably exerted on the painters, sculptors or architects by erudite advisers."3 I thus realized the subconscious plagiarism of my title, a plagiarism of which I was by no mean ashamed when it became conscious. On the contrary, I was and am happy to acknowledge the author of that valuable essay as my Vergil in the present venture. I must warn my reader, however, that any easy parallelism with the parallelavoiding study of Erwin Panofsky is immediately barred by both the nature and status of mediaeval music. Mediaeval architecture was always the creation of a high-ranking and highly-cultured patron and of the architect, or a small body of master builders. Philosophy, too, was the concern of a small minority, even if we include teachers and students of logic and dialectics. But music, at least mediaeval music, had two sides, on one of which, that of sounding music, everybody seemed to have some claim, while only learned people had any knowledge of the