chanson de geste. Grocheio provides more information than any other source about the
performance practice of the epic. Cantus versicularis refers to French chansons organized
by syllable count and rhyme scheme, that is, the songs of the troubadours and trouvères.
Cantus coronatus refers to particularly distinguished and elevated examples of cantus
versualis, the grands chants courtois.
Under the term cantilena, Grocheio provides us with our best descriptions of popular
dance forms, distinguishing rotundellus (rondeau), stantipes (estampie), and ductia
(carole), the latter two with both vocal and instrumental forms. He provides a useful
distinction between dance forms in which all parts of the song are dependent on the
refrain (i.e., rondeau) from those that have additional music not dependent on the refrain
(i.e., virelai and ballade). The instrumental ductia and stantipes are articulated by
alternating phrases called puncta (each with first and second endings) with the refrain and
are best played on the vielle.
For polyphonic music, Grocheio discusses the motet, organum, conductus, and hocket,
describing a successive compositional process in which first the tenor voice is organized
and then upper voices are built one at a time over the tenor.
Grocheio peppers his treatise with fascinating comments on the social functions of
musical forms; for instance, girls and youths in Normandy sing rondeaux at festivals and
banquets, stantipes turn the souls of the rich from depraved thinking, motets are not
suitable for common people, who do not understand their subtleties, but should be
performed for the learned.
Lawrence Earp
[See also: CANTUS CORONATUS; CHANSON DE GESTE; DANCE; MUSIC
THEORY; PUY; TROUBADOUR POETRY; TROUVÈRE POETRY]
Grocheio, Johannes de. Die Quellenhandschriften zum Musiktraktat des Johannes de Grocheio, ed.
Ernst Rohloff. Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1972.
——. Johannes de Grocheo: Concerning Music (De musica), trans. Albert Seay. 2nd ed. Colorado
Springs: Colorado College Music Press, 1973.
Page, Christopher. “Johannes de Grocheio on Secular Music: A Corrected Text and a New
Translation.” Plainsong and Medieval Music 2(1993):17–41.
——. Discarding Images: Reflections on Music and Culture in Medieval France. Oxford:
Clarendon, 1993, pp. 65–111.
Stevens, John. Words and Music in the Middle Ages: Song, Narrative, Dance and Drama, 1050–
- Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp. 429–34.
GUEBWILLER
. Originally a civil bourg attached to the nearby abbey of Murbach, Guebwiller (Haut-
Rhin) was granted its independence in the 13th century and soon built ramparts, which
served the city well against routiers in 1376 and Armagnacs in 1445. The church of
Saint-Léger is a fine example of early Rhenish style. The Romanesque façade with two
dissimilar towers is decorated with Lombard arcading and has a sculpted typanum of
Christ enthroned. A porch extends across the entire west side; above it are two levels of
arcades, the lower one blind, and a gable with a criss-cross pattern similar to that at Saint-
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