Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

—
SUMER IS ICUMEN IN 749
of the Cartulary of Reading in the MS. Cott.
With the facsimile and its solution before
*>, VJlir^PntT'iTiui anciently applied to certain lismue.
or whencesoever it may have arisen.
^S ^.?iVw;"/ 1?^», vS. i. PP. 385-401 (London, 1819,. And will subject the Canons to the form of the Round,
them, our readers will be able to criticise the Vesp. E.V.-F.M. April 1892.'
opinions hazarded, from time to time, on the In 1855 Mr. William Chappell described the
antiquity of the Rota ; which opinions we shall MS. minutely in his Popular Music of the Olden
now proceed to consider in detail.
Time, illustrating his remarks by a facsimile of
The MS. was first described by Mr. Wanley, the MS. printed in the original colours.'' The
the famous antiquary, who, acting in the author took an intense interest in this most
capacity of Librarian to the Earl of Oxford, valuable MS. ; and, after much laborious research,
collected evidence enough to lead him to
wrote an account of it in his Catalogue of the
Harleian MSS. about the year 1709 ; assigning the belief that it was written at the Abbey of
to it no positive date, but pronouncing it to be Reading, by » monk named John of Fornsete,
by far the oldest example of the kind he had about the year 1226, or quite certainly not more
ever met with'—an assertion which must be than ten years later. For the grounds on which
received with all respect, since Mr. Wanley was he bases this conclusion we must refer our readers
not only a learned antiquary, but an accomplished
to his own writings on the subject. One of his
musician.
discoveries, however, is so important that we
In the year 1770 Sir John Hawkins mentioned
cannot pass it over without special notice. The
the Rota in the first volume of his volume which contains the Rota contains also a
History of Music, illustrating his description number of satirical poems, written in rhymed
by a copy of the Guida, in the original square Latin by Gualterus Mahap (Walter Mapes, Archdeacon
black notes, followed by a not very correct
of Oxford).^ Among these is a Satire
solution of the canon, scored for six voices, entitled Apvd avaros,^ bristling with puns, one
including those which sing the Pes. Hawkins of which closely concerns our present subject,
Imagines the term Rota ' ' to apply to the Latin and helps, in no small degree, to establish the
rather than the English ^ words ; and refers the antiquity of the Rota. The Poet counsels his
MS. to ' about the middle of the 15th century, readers as to the best course to be pursued by
on the ground that the Music is of the kind those who wish to 'move' the Roman Lawcalled
Cantus figuratus, which appears to have Courts. After numerous directions, each enforced
been the invention of John of Dunstable, who by a pun, he writes as follows :
wrote on the Caiitus niensurabilis, and died in
Gommisso notario munera snffunde,
1455.' This statement, however, involves an Statim causae subtrahet, quando, cur, et unde,
anachronism which renders Hawkins's opinion Et formae subjiciet canones rotundae.7
Ajmd avaros, 69-71.
as to the date of the MS. absolutely worthless.
Dr. Burney, in the second volume of his Now, the significance of this venerable pun,
History, described the composition as not being as a proof of the antiquity of the Rota, is very
much later than the 13th or 14th century, remarkable. In a poem, transcribed, as Sir
printed a copy of the Canon in the original Frederick Madden assures us, long before the
mediseval Notation, and subjoined a complete middle of the 13th century, Walter Mape.«, an
score, more correct than that supplied by Hawkins,
English ecclesiastic, speaks of 'subjecting Canons
yet not altogether free from errors.
to the form of (the) Round,' with a homely
Ritson referred the MS. to the middle of the naimti which proves that his readers must have
13th century ; and fancied—not without reason been too familiar with both Round and Canon,
—that neither Hawkins nor Burney oared to to stand in any danger of mistaking the drift of
risk their reputation by mentioning a date the allusion. This form of music, then, must
which could scarcely fail to cause adverse have been comimm, in England, before the middle
criticism.
of the 1 3th century. Walter Mapes bears witness
In 1819 Dr. Busby reprinted the Rota, following
Burney's version of the score, note for note,
to the fact that the first English school, as represented
by the Rota, is at least a century and a
including its errors, and referring the MS. to half older than the first Flemish school a3
the 15 th century. 3
represented by the works of Dufay, and we
In April 1862 Sir Frederick Madden wrote are indebted to Chappell for the discovery of
some memoranda on the fly-leaf of the volume, the jeu d'esprit in which the circumstance is
referring the entire MS., 'except some writing recorded.
on ff. 15-17 ' (with which we are not concerned), Turning from English to Continental critics,
to the 13th century ; and stating his belief that we first find the Rota introduced to the German
'
the earlier portion of this volume \i. e. that which musical world by Forkel, who, in the year 1788,
contains the Rota] was written in the Abbey of dcsci-ibed it in his Allgemeiiie Geschichte der
Reading, about the year 1240. Compare the Musik ; reproducing Burney's copy of the Guida,
outs in the Calendars wijh those in the Calendar
Popular Afuttc of the Olden Time, 2 vols. (London, 1855-59).
5 See Wanley's remarks, in the CattUoffve of the Harl. SIS8.
1 S» Camv