figure of the early 13th century. His achievements profoundly influenced the course of
Western music. The music theorists Johannes de Garlandia and Anonymous 4 mention
“Magister Perotinus,” but only the latter lists seven of his musical compositions and
chronologically places him as “the best discantor” among other singers, composers, and
notators working in Paris from the late 12th to late 13th century. Anonymous 4 credits
Pérotin with the polyphony found today at the beginning of each of the three major extant
Notre-Dame sources (W1, F, and W2): the Graduals Viderunt omnes and Sederunt
principes, both for four voices, and adds to the list threepart polyphony for the Alleluia
Posui adiutorium and Alleluia Nativitas, and three conductus, the three-part Salvatoris
hodie, the two-part Dum sigillum, and the mono-phonic Beata viscera. On the basis of
stylistic affinity with these works, several other works in the Notre-Dame sources have
been credited to him. Anonymous 4’s statement that Pérotin made many clausulae and
edited, revised, or shortened Léonin’s Magnus liber organi has led many to attribute to
him one or more of the series of independent discant clausulae that survive in W1 and F.
Petrus, succentor (subcantor) of the cathedral ca. 1207–38, has been proposed as the
most probable identity for Anonymous 4’s “Perotinus optimus discantor,” partly because
responsibility for the daily services at the cathedral would have fallen to the succentor
rather than the cantor, whose post had become largely administrative. Petrus’ dates seem
to correlate with Anonymous 4’s description of Léonin’s Magnus liber organi, which he
stated was in use until the time of Pérotin, while Pérotin’s “book or books” were used in
the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris up to Anonymous 4’s own time, probably the
1280s. Hans Tischler and others have maintained, however, that Pérotin lived ca.
1155/60–1200/05, largely on the basis that ordinances issued in 1198 and 1199 by Odo
de Sully, bishop of Paris, sanctioned performance of three- and fourpart organum at
Notre-Dame during Christmas Week. That Pérotin’s composition of the four-part
polyphony for Viderunt omnes and Sederunt principes might have elicited these decrees
can only be conjectured. The dating of Pérotin’s polyphony is particularly important to a
history of the musical style of the period. If it dates generally before 1200, that would
mean that the rhythmic modes and their notation as well as the discant clausula and
consequently the early motet were well advanced at the very beginning of the 13th
century.
Sandra Pinegar
See also: ANONYMOUS 4; CLAUSULA; LÉONIN; NOTRE-DAME SCHOOL;
ORGANUM; PHILIP THE CHANCELLOR; RHYTHMIC MODE]
Pérotin. Works, ed. Ethel Thurston. New York: Kalmus, 1970.
Tischler, Hans. “Perotinus Revisited.” In Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music: A Birthday
Offering to Gustave Reese, ed. Jan LaRue. New York: Norton, 1966, pp. 803–17.
Wright, Craig. Music and Ceremony at Notre Dame of Paris, 500–1550. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989, pp. 288–94.
The Encyclopedia 1357