New Light on the Mid-Fourteenth-Century Chace: Canons Hidden in the Tournai Manuscript

The recent discovery of two canons in the manuscript containing the famous Tournai Mass changes the history of canonic genres. This article situates the new Tournai canons within the surviving mid-fourteenth-century canonic repertoire from Francophone regions of Europe, especially canonic chaces in the Ivrea manuscript and the works of Machaut. To achieve this, we examine current theories of canonic techniques before setting out our own analytical framework. In a departure from the dominant view informed by the use of color and talea in tenors of the fourteenth-century isorhythmic motet, we propose instead that the solus tenor can in part inform a better understanding of early strategies for planning and composing canons. Alternatively, some canons can be better appreciated from the basis of a ‘top-down’ compositional approach found principally in the song repertoire of the mid fourteenth-century ars nova. Within this analytical framework, shared principles of isoperiodicity, voice exchange, melodic permutation and melodic design across the mid-fourteenth century French repertoire point to a common stock of techniques for composing canons. The Tournai canons provide early witnesses to these techniques, although they avoid more exuberant stylistic elements such as hocket.