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GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 355
an instrumentalist, either with them or on the organ bench, sustain
ing or reinforcing the lowest part. Perhaps in some places singers
in the stalls on either hand will be maintaining the tenor: they will
know the tune and will not need special books, and the metrical
pattern of the tune needed for singing in the motet will be controlled
by the hand or baton of one of the singers at the lectern. Manuscripts
are known (the Madrid manuscript in particular) in which the upper
parts are given without the tenor, and a practice such as that sug
gested (which is frankly hypothetical) would account for the existence
of such incomplete part-books. But it was not long before the motet
went out from this cradle into the wider range of choral singing on
other occasions, not only in the church but also in the banqueting
hall. French texts (which should often be more accurately described
as Anglo-French, Anglo-Norman, or Norman-French) soon began
to make their appearance for one or both of the upper voices, and
still later on for the tenor. We shall return to these in the next
chapter.
SOURCES OF THE PERIOD
To the list given at the head of Chapter X must now be added the
following: 1
Montpellier, Bibl. Universitaire, H 196
Bamberg, Ed. IV 6
Turin, Bibl. reale, vari 42
Paris, Bibl. Nat. fr. 146
12615
British Museum, Add. 27630
Worcester, Chapter Library, Add. 68, fragments ix-xxxv
British Museum, Add. 25031
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Lat. liturg. d 20
Hatton30
New College 362
Of these manuscripts the first six are the most extensive: they are all
French in origin. The seventh (Brit. Mus. Add. 27630) was probably
written at Indersdorf in Bavaria. The others are all of English origin,
but no large anthology of motets written in England has survived
intact; there are traces of three collections of a hundred or so, of
which the oldest is probably that listed in Brit. Mus. Harley 978.
The music of this has all disappeared, though much of it can be re
constructed from other sources; but the titles remain. It contains the
1 Other manuscripts, shorter or of minor importance, will be found listed in vol. Hi.