JEAN DES MURS AND THE RETURN TO BOETHIUS ON MUSIC (original) (raw)

Abstract

The Musica speculativa of Jean des Murs played a key role in renewing interest in the teaching of Boethius in the fourteenth century. We argue that this treatise is much more than a summary of the Boethian De institutione musica in presenting its core teachings as fully consistent within an Aristotelian theory of knowledge. Two versions of its prologue (1323 and 1325 respectively) are examined together with their relationship to Jean's Notitia artis musicae (1321) and the innovative significance of its mathematical-style presentation of the teaching of Boethius about proportions with its appeal to clear diagrams. We aim to guide the modern reader through the thought patterns and diagrams of Jean des Murs, demonstrating why the Musica speculativa was so widely studied in the later Middle Ages. The two different prologues are presented in English translation for the first time.

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References (14)

  1. W-Z, p. 176; Meyer, p. 142: 'iam tempus est huius figurae misteria et inclusa mirabilia extrahere sigillatim'.
  2. W-Z, p. 176; Meyer, p. 142: 'Sed haec figura quasi unum chaos, in quo latitant plures formae, potest satis rationabiliter appellari.' Chaos is the Latin version of the Arabic ‫ﻕ‬ ‫ﻭ‬ ‫ﺱ‬ (qaws), which means 'arch' or 'bow' or 'arc of a circle' and is also the name of the con- stellation Sagittarius. (Thanks to Charles Burnett for this elucidation in London and email of 26 June 2018.)
  3. Boethius, De institutione arithmetica, II.54, p. 173 in Friedlein's edition. 47 Bellissima reports that the ancient Greeks used the sequence fourth, tone, fourth. See F. Bellissima, 'Propositions VIII.4-5 of Euclid's Elements and the Compounding of Ratios on the Monochord', BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics, 30 (2015), pp. 183-99, at p. 193.
  4. Meyer, p. 175, n. 63, notes that understanding this caused difficulties and, in certain manuscripts, phrases had been added to clarify matters.
  5. II.14 W-Z, p. 194; Meyer, pp. 174: 'ut auris habeat consonantiam iudicare, quam prius ignorabas'.
  6. For an interesting discussion of a fourteenth-century explanation of this tetrachord see J. Bates and S. McCoy, 'Mercury's Tetrachord', Early Music, 10 (1982), 213-15.
  7. II.
  8. W-Z, p. 194; Meyer, p. 174: 'et informatione intellectus et sensus, miraberis circa sonorum consonantias apparentes, tunc mirabiles consonantias naturales iudicabis tunc mirabiles consonantias naturales iudicabis'.
  9. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1095 b 20 = Aristoteles latinus, XXVI.1-3 Fasc. 3: 'Multi qui- dem igitur omnino bestiales videntur esse, pecudum vitam eligentes.'
  10. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1119 a 15 = Aristotelis latinus XXVI.1-3 Fasc. 3: 'Quecumque autem ad sanitatem sunt vel ad bonam habitudinem delectabilia existen- cia, haec appetet mensurate, et ut oportet, et alia delectabilia non impedimenta hiis exis- tencia, vel preter bonum, vel super substanciam.'
  11. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 980 a 27 = Aristotelis latinus XXV, 2: 'Causa autem est quod hic maxime sensuum cognoscere nos facit et multas differentias demonstrat.'
  12. Aristotle, Politics, 1338 a 28 (= ps.-Thomas Aquinas [Peter of Auvergne], In Politicorum, L. VIII.1. I 1115): 'Quapropter Homerus in poemate suo ita inquit. Sed quale est vocare ad mensam opipare paratam. Deinde nominas quosdam alios, subdit et citharoedum, qui omnes demulceat. et alio loco ait Ulyxes, optimam esse degendi rationem, quando laetis hominibus convivae audiunt citharoedum sedentes per ordinem.'
  13. Cf. Boethius I.1 (ed. Friedlein, p. 178): 'Musica naturaliter nobis esse conjunctam, et mores vel honestare vel evertere.'
  14. Cf. Boethius I.1 (ed. Friedlein, p. 180): 'Unde Plato etiam maxime cavendum existimat, ne de bene morata musica aliquid permutetur.'