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Motetus Medieval polyphony in its manuscripts
Edition

Sumer is icumen in

Anonymous · London, British Library, Harley MS 978, f. 11v

Edited by

Monique Rio

St Cecilia Press, 20-Jun-2016

Licences

Edition: CC BY 4.0

MEI files: CC BY 4.0

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Manuscript

f. 11v. The boxes are indicative zones drawn by hand for Motetus, not a transcription.

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London, British Library, Harley MS 978, f. 11v. Image: British Library, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. · reading room

Score

On the score

Realised by rule
not notated in the edition or the manuscript; grey on pale, widely striped bands, in the score view only

Select a note, a zone on the page or a zone above to see which bars and which manuscript staff go together. The links come from matching the underlaid words only.

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The score view

Melody voice n begins the notated melody from its first note at the moment voice 1 reaches entry mark n; accompaniment voice 2 begins the accompaniment line when accompaniment voice 1 reaches its mark 2; the accompaniment repeats without break under one full statement of melody voice 1, and every voice stops where melody voice 1 ends.

The realised voices are produced mechanically by that rule from the edition’s entry marks. They are shown in grey on hatched bands and are notated neither in the edition nor in the manuscript.

The zones

Indicative image zones on London, British Library, Harley MS 978, f. 11v, drawn by hand for Motetus. They mark areas of the image only: they are not a transcription and make no claim about the notation.

Which bars of the edition belong to a manuscript staff was decided ONLY by matching the underlaid English words visible at the start and end of each manuscript text line against the syllables of the edition's lyrics. Notes were not read from the manuscript. Every edition event (note or rest) between the first and last matched syllable of a line is linked to that line's staff zone. Line breaks may fall inside an edition bar; bar numbers always refer to the edition.

The text-to-staff assignment assumes that the notes of each manuscript staff are the ones whose syllables are written beneath it. This assumption was not verified by reading the notation.