Review of 'Citation and Authority in Medieval and Renaissance Culture: Learning from the Learned': Edited by Suzannah Clark and Elizabeth Eva Leach, Boydell Press, 2005

Abstract

Fourth in the series entitled 'Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music' from Boydell Press, this Festschrift honors Margaret Bent on her sixty-fifth birthday. It is a fitting tribute to a scholar whose generosity to generations of researchers is matched by the depth of her scholarship and dedication to the discipline of musicology. This collection's sixteen essays on subjects in music and music theory of Western Europe from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries are arranged in approximately chronological order divided into three sections: "The Tradition of Music Theory," "Vitry and Machaut," and "Influence, Models and Intertextuality." The essays are preceded by an introduction by the editors and a list of selected publications by Margaret Bent. Like others in this series, this volume's production standard is high and editorial rigor has ensured its overall very good quality of presentation. Inconsistencies in the typesetting of music examples from chapter to chapter might distract some readers but all are well formatted and, especially in the case of Theodor Dumitrescu's diplomatic examples, effective.