Codex Montpellier

The manuscript was discovered by the organist Felix Danjou in 1847. It is now kept at the medical faculty of the Montpellier University Library ( French Montpellier, Bibliothèque Inter-Universitaire, Section Médecine, H196 ), standard abbreviation RISM : F-Mo H196; accepted by musicologists abbreviation: Mo. The code was drawn up around 1300, presumably in Paris . It contains 345 polyphonic plays (some are duplicated), mainly in the motet genre, written between 1250-1300. Observations of differences in notation in the (extensive) code allow musicologists to draw important conclusions about the evolution of medieval music in the 13th century.

The texts are varied in content: paraphrases of St. Scriptures (sometimes with a cautionary accent), metric prayers (especially prayers addressed to the Virgin, such as the Latin motet No. 53 Ave virgo regia / Ave gloriosa mater / Domino ), typical courtyard (“knightly”) lyrics, pastorals, rarely dance and feast songs (an example of the latter is the French motet No. 319 On parole / A Paris soir et matin / Fresse nouvelle ).

Contains eight "notebooks" ( lat. Fasciculi ). The main content is Ars antiqua polytext motet .

1. ff.1-22. Liturgical polyphony Ars antiqua - organisms and conducts .
2. ff.23–62. Triple Motets ( cantus firmus + three counterpointing voices): 16 French and 1 Latin
3. ff. 63–86. 11 double motets (cantus firmus + two counterpointing voices), for mixed texts (Latin and French).
4. ff. 87–110. 22 latin double motets.
5. ff. 111–230. 100 French double motets (two in Provencal).
6. ff.231–269. 75 French two-voice motets.
7. ff. 270–349. 39 double motets - French, Latin and pasta. Perhaps of a later origin than notebooks 2-6.
8. ff. 350–397. 42 double motets for French, Latin and Franco-Latin texts. Perhaps of a later origin than notebooks 2-6.

After compiling the main body of the collection by an unknown scribe, additions to notebooks 3, 5, and 7 were made.

The vast majority of musical plays of the Montpellier Code does not contain attribution. Identified (for the most part, in the rank of a hypothesis) Perotin (in the first notebook), Adam de la Al and Pierre de la Croix .

• Rokseth Y. Polyphonies du XIIIe siècle: le manuscrit H196 de la Faculté de médecine de Montpellier (Paris, 1935–9) (facsimile, sample transcription, scientific commentary).
• The Montpellier Codex, ed. H. Tischler. 4 vls. Madison, WI, 1978–85 (transcription of the entire code, separate edition of texts with translation into English, scientific commentary).

• Jacobsthal G. Die Texte der Liederhandschrift von Montpellier H.196 // Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, III (1879), 526–56; IV (1880), 35–64, 278–317.
• Ludwig F. Die 50 Beispiele Coussemaker's aus der Handschrift von Montpellier // SIMG 5 (1903–4), 177–224.
• Kuhlmann G. Die zweistimmigen französischen Motetten des Kodex Montpellier. Würzburg, 1938 (publication and scientific discussion of Notebook 6).
• Apfel E. Anlage und Struktur der Motetten im Codex Montpellier. Heidelberg, 1970.
• Wolinski M. The Montpellier Codex: its Compilation, Notation and Implications for the Chronology of the Thirteenth-Century Motet. Diss., Brandeis U., 1988.
• Ars antiqua: organum, conductus, motet. Ed. by Edward H. Roesner. Farnham; Burlington: Ashgate, 2009. ISBN 9780754626664 (collection of articles from different years).

• Montpellier Codex Electronic Facsimile (snippets)
• DIAMM ( Codex Incipit List, with bugs and omissions)
• Edition of the code by Tishler. Volume 4 (fragment)