Whatever the apparent setting, when Chaucer describes the use of music at great festivities, it is the musical practice he knows from the English court and from Court he had visited on the Continent which is his source. In the Legend of Good Women, Aeneas is welcomed by Dido in Carthage at a great feast, where there were instruments, songs and gladness which reminded him of the ‘dancing chambers’ which had been his in Troy. In the same work, the ill-fated wedding between Philomena’s sister Progue and the perfidious Tereus, there is much revelling, song and dance; at a further wedding [illustration 2], between the unhappy Hypermnestra and Lino, the palace of Egiste resounds to the sound of minstrelsy and amorous marriage songs. At the mismatched marriage in Pavia between the elderly Januarie and fresh young May, described in the Marchantes Tale, again there was a great feast with loud minstrelsy at every course. Another Italian wedding, between the Marquis of Saluzzo and the (unsuspecting) Griseldis is planned ‘With many a soun of sondry melody’. Again at a wedding, this time between Custance and King Alla, in pagan Northumberland, the festivities include music, though Chaucer tantalisingly declines to give further details about ‘Who bloweth in a trompe or in a horn’. Quite different was the wedding of Saint Cecilia, who, according to the Second Nonnes Tale, while the organs played, prayed that she might remain a maiden.
Occasions and Customs
Feasting invariably has a musical accompaniment. In the Squieres Tale, at the Feast to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Tartar King Cambinskan’s reign, minstrels stand before his high table, playing ‘deliciously’; when he rises, the minstrels go before him, accompanying him to his chamber, where they perform so well on divers instruments that it is ‘lyk an heven for to here’; dancing follows. Theseus, in the Knightes Tale, arranges lavish entertainment to accompany the jousts to determine the fates of Palamon and Arcite. Although Chaucer at first teases us by making ‘no mencioun’ of the minstrelsy, dancing and singing at the Feast, he refers again twice to dancing and to minstrelsy, and again twice to the trumpets and clarions, along with pipes and nakers, which make ‘blody sounes’ in battle [illustration 3]; finally, in a great musical flourish marking the (momentary) triumph of Palamon, the two elements, courtly and military, are brought together and we hear simultaneously ‘The trompes, with loude minstralcye’. In the Knightes Tale, music is used for procession also, as when the mighty Theseus, Governor of Athens, rides with all his army and with ‘victorie and with melodye’. At a much lower level, in the Canterbury Tales Prologue, we hear the brawny Miller, appropriately playing the bagpipes to bring the pilgrims out of town.
Many other occasions and customs needed their music. The arming of a Knight, for instance, as we find it in the strange adventure of Sir Thopas: the would-be warrior summons minstrels and jesters to ‘tell tales’ (which might be sung or recited), while he is being prepared to fight the giant Sir Olifant. The way to celebrate May Day is shown us, in the Knightes Tale, by Arcite, who, having returned to Athens in disguise and risen to high office, on Mayday morning rides into the countryside to gather May blossom and foliage; he sings aloud in the sunshine, ‘May, with alle thy floures and thy grene...’, three rather stumbling lines in all, which constitute a rondeau refrain. His song is referred to as a roundel a few lines later, and we may suppose that he went through the complete piece (theoretically thirteen lines long), the complete text of which is not given.
The Hunt, also, would not be complete without the sound of horns [illustration 4]: in the Book of the Duchess, the Master of the Hunt sounds a great horn three times to initiate the chase; previously, a hunter was heard trying out his horn, to see if it gave out a clear or a muffled sound. Theseus, too, sets out ‘With hunte and horn’. On a much less dignified level, the country folk, pursuing the fox who has snatched the cockerel Chantecleer, in the Nonne Preestes Tale, shout and yell and, to increase the din, puff and blow in trumpets (bemes) of brass and of boxwood, and in horns made of bone.
Performance
The close interest Chaucer took in musical performance is borne out by some unusually sharp and detailed descriptions of instruments and of instrumental technique. Pandarus advises Troilus to moderate the expression of his love: if the best harper alive were to play very loud on the best-sounding harp [illustration 5], with full strokes, using all five fingers at once, no matter how sharp and pointed his nails, the result would merely stupefy the listener. The harp is certainly the instrument which most appeals to Chaucer, and for good reason, for the small minstrel harp was most commonly used by singers for self-accompaniment, and was also a basic ingredient when small instrumental ensembles were formed.
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