Carmina Anglica

New sounds of polyphonic music as well as gothic as a style we invented on the continent, but soon (at the beginning of XIII c.) they can be found in Britain. Many musical genres of that time (rondellus, conductus, motet) were well known and popular on both the banks of the English channel. But English versions were quite apart from French originals and counterparts.

Motet in France in XIII c. usually had a melody taken from a Gregorian chant in Latin in its tenor, while upper voices (motetus, triplum and quite rare quadruplum) were often in French and dedicated to secular subjects. English motet “Vide miser et iudica/Vide miser et cogita/Wynter” turns this scheme upside down. Its tenor is in Middle English and apparently secular, while upper voices are in Latin and devotional and penitential by nature. Motet “Orbis pium primordium/O bipertitum peccatum” is not a motet per se, but a conductus-motet, something in between these two genres.

Musically English polyphony of XIII-XIV also differs for the continental one. Less ornamental, more restrained and homogeneous. As an architecture English gothic music has at least no less Romanesque influence than its continental counterpart.