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putting the manuscript foliation first, a stroke, then the Beck foliation preceded by a B; so the
first folio on which Folquet’s songs appear is written 188/B178. 86
The pages are divided into two columns; staves are provided for the first stanzas of each
song. As in manuscript R the poems are written without regard for line breaks, except insofar as
puncta are used to indicate ends of verses in the words. In the troubadour section, especially,
the scribe left considerable blank space for the later copying of stanzas absent from his exemplar.
The musical notation consists principally of virgae written on four-line staves. The scribe used
mostly C and F clefs, rarely G clefs, and he indicated many more accidentals than the scribes of
the other manuscripts: in addition to commonly-used b-flats, a few b-naturals, e-flats, and f-
sharps are indicated. 87
The first gathering of troubadour songs opens with the songs of Folquet. Unfortunately,
the miniature, probably of Folquet, has been removed and with it, the first four verses of “Sitot
me sui” on the recto and much of “Tan m’abellis” on the verso of folio 188/B178. Likewise, the
removal of the initial on the verso of folio 189/B179 has removed the first two stanzas of “En
chantan” including the music. The last stanza appearing with this song appears unrelated to the
rest of the song as it appears in other manuscripts. The manuscript attributes five songs to
Folquet, as shown in Table 1.3, and transmits the second stanza of one song “Greu feira”
anonymously in a section consisting of stanzas with staves. The second song in the collection,
“Quant par la flor,” is actually by Bernart de Ventadorn.
86 Aubrey, Music of the Troubadours, 39, n. 47. To further complicate matters, the
foliation in the manuscript is fairly recent and does not reflect the earlier gathering structure
evident from the numbers between the columns. Haines, “Musicography,” 48-53.
87 Haines, “Musicography,” 122.
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