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'SUMER IS ICUMEN IN' 403
it is also provided with Latin words, 'Perspice Christicola' (thought
by some experts to be older than the English), not to mention that the
composer was presumably a monk of Reading, or possibly of its cell
at Leominster in Herefordshire. 1
As to its date, Madden gave the first expert palaeographical opinion
in 1862. In assigning it to 1240 and not later he was in agreement with
an estimate of the mid-thirteenth century made previously by Ritson
and Chappell, and subsequently by Maunde Thompson and many
other experts. Some interest has been aroused in recent years by an
ingenious attempt 2 to assign a later date (about 1310), and to dispute
the necessary connexion with Reading. But the arguments used in
support of this thesis, and an accompanying suggestion that the
have not
original composition was in duple time instead of triple,
found favour: and they have been completely refuted by Schofield.
Sumer is icumen in' was (by modern standards) so far in advance
of any other medieval music known up to twenty-five years ago that
its existence was long regarded as an insoluble mystery.
It is still in
many ways unique, but as the rediscovery of thirteenth-century music
proceeds, other pieces come to light which are worthy to take their
place beside the Reading rota. 3
Among these are 'Beata viscera'
and Tuellare gremium' 4 5
from Worcester, with 'Triumphat hodie'
and the four-part 'Marionette douce', 6 the original provenance of
which is not known. Perhaps the most effective of these later dis
7
coveries is 'Alleluia psallat', which has been reconstructed from two
Worcester manuscript leaves at Oxford, in the Bodleian Library and
Magdalen College respectively the latter now returned to its original
home at Worcester.
The division between sacred and secular is a commonplace with us.
But in the Middle Ages this dichotomy was unknown, as is shown by
the story of the motets and by such things as the 'sacred' words
written for 'Sumer is icumen in*. Such intelligent comments as were
uttered in medieval times upon this topic are mostly confined to the
texts and seldom deal with the music, hocket alone being a general
1
B. Schofield, 'The Provenance and Date of "Sumer is icumen in",' in The Music
Review, ix(1948), p. 81. See also Nino Perrotta in Musica Disciplina, ii (1948), p. 205, and
Handschin, loc. cit., p. 69.
2 *
Manfred F. Bukofzer, "Sumer is icumen in" a Revision'. University of California
Publications in Music (1944), ii, no. 2, p. 79.
8 See p. 351.
4 See p. 384.
5 See p. 398, n. 3.
8
Oxford, New College, MS. 362. Recorded in The History of Music in Sound, 11,
7
side 20.
Recorded ibid.