French-texted Songs at the Council of Constance: Influences, Paths of Transmission, and Trends

Abstract

Any discussion of polyphonic French-texted songs at the Council of Constance inevitably runs into the term 'Ars subtilior', a term coined by Ursula Günther in 1963 to describe the flamboyant and rhythmically complex musical polyphony of the late fourteenth century. Yet, definitions of this term based upon style, notation, or intertextuality are fraught since invariably they can be applied to repertoires long before or after the Great Schism of the Western Church. I propose to invert this historiographic conundrum by arguing that certain French-texted songs might be better understood as cultural manifestations of the Great Schism that ended with Council of Constance. Patterns emerge when one considers how these songs functioned socially, culturally and above all politically.