Untitled

250 MEDIEVAL SONG
that the Middle Ages should have offered different manifestations of
them.
Though the troubadours and ^
com
posers of polyphonic music (Adam de la Hale is an exception), their
art of song played an important part in the development of the motet
in the thirteenth century. We have seen already that a large number
of refrains were incorporated in motets. There are also a dozen or so
music. It seems
examples of song melodies occurring in polyphonic
clear, however, that in several of these cases the song melody has
actually been extracted from the motet. 1 The reason why the examples
of complete trouvere songs incorporated in motets can be counted on
the fingers of one hand is that the nature of the two forms was
different. The symmetry of the song melody would impose a similar
symmetry on the composer of the motet and would also create diffi
culties where the melody had to be harnessed to an existing tenor.
The introduction of a short refrain did not present the same problem.
Yet in spite of the fact that the song and the motet led an independent
existence, the influence of trouvere song on the composers of poly
phonic music is constantly in evidence. It provided a model of lyrical
. expression to which the contrapuntists were not slow to respond.
ENGLISH SONGS
The influence of the troubadours extended to England. This was
not unnatural since in the second half of the twelfth century England
was a part of the Angevin empire, which included Poitou, Guienne,
and Gascony as a result of Henry IPs marriage, before his accession,
to Eleanor of Aquitaine, the divorced wife of Louis VII of France.
Eleanor's patronage of the troubadours has already been mentioned;
her son Richard Coeur-de-Lion himself practised the art. But the very
fact of this close connexion was an obstacle to the growth of a purely
native art of song. The literary language of England was Norman*
French until the middle of the thirteenth century. In consequence
only a mere handful of English songs with music survive. Among them
is a French lai, accompanied by an English translation, which is pre
served in a manuscript at the Guildhall, London. 2 It is the song of a
prisoner who prays to be delivered. The first half of the second verse
runs:
*
For the evidence see F. Gennrich, 'Trouv&relieder und Motettenrepertoire', in
Zeitschrift fur Musikwissenschaft, ix (1926-7), pp. 8-39, 65-85.
*
Liber de antiqids legibus, fo. 160 r ; printed by F. Gennrich in Zeitschrift fur Musik-
wissenschaft, xi (1928-9), p. 346.