Untitled

THE RHYTHMIC MODES 323
values were no longer merely hinted at but were precisely indicated.
For the present it will be sufficient if we set down the series of liga
tures in their orthodox, proper, form cum proprietate, as the
mensuralists later described them to distinguish them from their
modified shapes without propriety or with opposite propriety (sine
proprietate, cum opposita proprietate) see p. 382:
Ligatures of
two notes : Rising 3 or J f Falling %
three notes: Rise &fall ^B Rise & rise J^ or jS
Fall & fall Vt Fall&rise^fl
four notes: Rise, fall, fall 3*i or A^ t Rise rise > fall
Four rising J or f* f Four falling \\ or P\ f
Fall, rise, fall j^t. Rise, fall, rise ^S or i^f f
Fall, rise, rise 1^3 Fall, fall, rise ^ or fnj* f
t Forms so marked are not strict plainsong forms but are found in the modal manu
scripts of this period.
J In polyphonic notation fn^ is more often used for this group in a modal passage.
^4. sometimes indicates J^ J* J* as distinct from J^ J J. or J. ^ J ,butthis
will normally occur in a syllabic text, not in a melismatic modal part.
This is the conjunctiva (see next page).
Ligatures may in theory contain any number of notes: those with
five or more are merely extensions or combinations of the above
forms. In the florid or melismatic portions of thirteenth-century music
we shall meet with certain formal 'patterns' of ligatures, repeated
with more or less regularity. When this regularity reaches such a
degree as is shown in Ex. 165 it is quite certain that we are in the
presence of a notation which is systematic and intentional:
Ex. 165
Mode i
Modes