Karen GouldMOTET (13TH CENTURY)
. A musical-poetic genre composed upon a fragment of plainchant. The motet is readily
identified by its stylistic and notational differentiation of the tenor from the upper part(s).
An upper part, the motetus (or motellus), was notated cum littera (texted and in single
notes), and the tenor, which carried the plainchant, was notated sine littera (untexted and
in ligatures subject to modal rhythmic interpretation). The tenor plainchant melisma is the
structural foundation of the motet. Throughout the 13th century, tenors develop from
simple, literal repetition to more complex patterns, such as the rondeau, but it is the
relationship of the upper parts to each other and to the tenor that changed most radically.
In the closing years of the 19th century, Wilhelm Meyer demonstrated that the origin
of the motet lay in the discant clausula of the Notre-Dame School. The upper voice (the
duplum) of a clausula was notated in rhythmically significant ligature patterns (several
notes joined together in one notational symbol) because it had no text. Melodic
comparisons of clausulae and early motets showed that many were in fact melodically the
same. Thus, when a text was given to the existing duplum of a clausula, the ligature
patterns used to notate this part, now called the motetus instead of the duplum, were
converted into notation to set individual syllables of text, making use mostly of single
notes without rhythmic significance. Meyer thus was able to demonstrate that motets
arose from the practice of poetically texting the upper part(s) of clausulae, and this
explained the uneven number of syllables and irregular rhyme patterns of the poetry,
unlike any other poetry of the time.
For many early motets, a newly composed third voice, the triplum, was added, to
which the same text was applied. Such three-part (in rare cases, four-part) compositions
with rhythmically organized tenors and a single text for both upper parts are known as
conductus motets. Only a few conductus motets have French texts, the repertory being
predominantly in Latin. A three-voice motet with one text for the motetus and another for
the triplum is called a double motet. Double motets may be completely Latin, completely
French, or they may be bilingual, usually with a Latin motetus and a French triplum. The
same principles may be applied to triple motets, in which typically a fourth voice, the
quadruplum, with its own text, has been added to a double motet. The same language
almost always occurs in all parts, and most triple motets are in French.
The largest extant source of the second half of the century for motets is the
Montpellier codex, with over 300: triple motets (all French but one in Latin), double
motets with Latin moteti and French tripla, Latin double motets, French double motets
(some with secular tenors), and a few motets for which the composer is identified as
Pierre de la Croix and for others as Adam de la Halle. The use of French texts for tripla or
for both tripla and moteti of motets possibly arose in the 1230s. Fifty French-texted
motets are included in the Manuscrit du roi, which is known primarily as a source for
trouvère and troubadour chansons and was inscribed ca. 1250.
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