ABSTRACT

This paper deals with a number of different points which have arisen in the course of studying certain early-fifteenth-century repertories and composers with a view to uncovering both scribal and compositional texting procedures. The principal manuscripts mentioned here are the Old Hall MS and Bologna Q15; the principal composers, Dunstaple and Ciconia. I I have cast my net rather wide, in place ifnot in time, in order to be able to include mention of both contrasts and similarities between approximately contemporary manifestations. The following observations will be 11 292

concerned first with questions of the detailed fitting of notes and syllables, based mainly on a study of the Old Hall MS, and then with some larger-scale issues connected with the isorhythmic motet.