ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates how some features of technical ability involved in descanting were highly prized by musicians during the first half of the sixteenth century, so much so that a competitive attitude seems to have been fostered among descanters. It concerns the trouble that Cornish, a singer in the Chapel Royal from c.1495, apparently had with another musician who was much in favour at the court. Although the poem has been analysed by Nan Cooke Carpenter, the chapter proposes a reading that better addresses its musical metaphors, demonstrating that they are based not only on written, but also on improvised, musical practices. The contention in Cornish's Treatise is between 'Music', which requires 'true sounds', and 'Information', who has wronged 'Truth'. Throughout the Treatise Cornish makes use of Boethius's definition of a true musician, one who uses reason to judge musical practice.
