Alan E.Knight
[See also: GREBAN, SIMON; LA VIGNE, ANDRÉ DE; MYSTERY PLAYS;
PASSION PLAYS; PROCESSIONAL THEATER; SAINT PLAYS; THEATER]
de Rothschild, James, ed. Le mistére du Viel Testament. 6 vols. Paris: Didot, 1878–91.
Guessard, François, and E.de Certain, eds. Le mistère du siège d’Orléans. Paris: Imprimerie
Impériale, 1862.
Lebègue, Raymond. Le mystère des Actes des Apôtres, contribution à l’étude de l’humanisme et du
protestantisme français au XVIe siècle. Paris: Champion, 1929.
Milet, Jacques. L’istoire de la destruction de Troye la grant, ed. Marc-René Jung. Forthcoming.
Wright, Stephen K. The Vengeance of Our Lord: Medieval Dramatizations of the Destruction of
Jerusalem. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1989.
HOCKET
. Primarily a compositional or improvisatory technique that creates an exciting and
unmistakable texture in polyphonic music from the mid-13th to the late 14th century,
hocket (Lat. hochetus) can also refer to an independent piece of music in which that
texture is predominant or pervasive. Either the notes of one melody may be alternately
sung by two different voices or these voices may alternate short phrases that may be
imitative of one another. Also, two or three melodies may rhythmically interlock in such
a way that much the same effect of rapid, virtuoso note-by-note alternation occurs. The
earliest extant hocketing appears in Notre-Dame two-part clausulae, three-part organa,
and conductus, while the earliest independent hocket seems to be the In seculum added to
the modally notated Madrid Codex.
In spite of Pope John XXII’s condemnation of hockets and other musical “frivolities”
in 1324–25, they can be found later among Machaut’s compositions, French chansons
and chaces, Italian madrigals and caccias, and the liturgical polyphony of the Old Hall
Manuscript. In some isorhythmic motets of the Ars Nova, hocketing highlights structural
points anticipating repetition of the tenor talea. Hockets succumbed to changing musical
tastes, metamorphosing into antiphonal melodic imitation by the early 15th century.
Sandra Pinegar
[See also: CHACE; ISORHYTHMIC MOTET; MOTET (13TH CENTURY);
NOTRE-DAME SCHOOL]
Dalglish, William. “The Hocket in Medieval Polyphony.” Musical Quarterly 55(1969):344–63.
Frobenius, Wolf. “Hoquetus.” In Handwörterbuch der musikalischen Terminologie, ed. Hans
Heinrich Eggebrecht. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1971–. 13 pp. (1988).
Sanders, Ernest H. “Medieval Hocket in Practice and Theory.” Musical Quarterly 60(1974):246–
56.
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