legacy with the sketchy biographical framework just outlined, and so we have no reliable chronology of
his work.
Lacking the evidence on which to base a strictly documentary chronology, historians have had to
construct a stylistic chronology—that is, a chronology based on our ideas about the evolution of Josquin’s
style. And here we have to contend not only with the absence of facts but with the presence of myth. It is
no wonder that many mistakes have been made and many agonizing reappraisals necessitated. We are still
nowhere near a wholly reliable chronology and unlikely ever to reach it.
EX. 14-5 Josquin des Prez, Pater noster, mm. 1–17But the ultimately encouraging thing about mistakes is that one learns from them. The history of
Josquin chronology has not yet produced a good Josquin chronology, but it has yielded a number of
excellent cautionary tales. They tell us more about ourselves, and the way in which we come to know