Espérance, or: New Insights into the Origins of the Chansonnier de Bayeux

Abstract

This essay tries to shed new light on the origins and the early cultural milieu of the "Manuscrit de Bayeux" (ParisBNF 9346), one of two monophonic chansonniers compiled around 1500. It begins with a careful assessment of new or newly appraised documentary and codicological evidence and a discussion of critical biographical events of its likely patron, Duke Charles III de Bourbon-Montpensier (1490–1527), and then proposes a new dating and account of the circumstances of the manuscript’s origins. This enables a reframing of this important source within its most plausible historical and cultural context, setting the stage for a critical examination of its poetical and musical content.

Keywords

• 15th-century
• 16th-century
• bourbons
• chansonniers
• heraldry
• illumination
• manuscripts
• monophony
• orality
• polyphony