so-called testament, the ballade Plourez,

dames. Two recordings of this song are

criticized with regard to their rendering of the
emotional content. Then the scarce and often
debated evidence about the funding and
possible memorial function of Machauts
famous Mass is reassessed; Leach convincingly
suggests that it may have marked his personal
devotion for the Virgin. One question remains,
namely why in the Prologue Machaut omitted
his most monumental piece of music from the
proud list of genres he had practised. He does
indeed allude to music sung during Mass but
only in a general demonstration of musics
omnipresence, not in the sense that a grand
polyphonic Mass belonged to his own creations.
The obvious explanation would be that he
mentions only his secular works in the Prologue
because he intends to write in Loves, not
Gods, honour, and because the Mass text
is traditional, not of his own making. This
would imply, however, that Machaut made a
distinction between sacred and secular works,
precisely the dividing line which the author
wishes to erase in this part of her book. In a
subchapter The Christian Machaut, Leach
attempts to reconcile the generally more secularist readings in most European studies with
the religious trend in some recent American interpretations (p. 279 ff.). She argues that in
many of Machauts texts spiritual and secular
registers are fused, and that Machauts courtly
narratives and lyrics can readily be understood
in a Christian context (p. 290 ff.). It is true
that in his love language he often uses metaphors from the religious sphere, but would it
not be necessary to study first Machauts
overtly religious texts and ideas more closely
before interpreting his amorous works as spiritual quests? In the lays praising the Virgin (one
is briefly discussed on pp. 295^6 ) his intention
is strikingly different from that in his courtly
lyrics, centred as they are on the confirmation
of dogma and faith, and expressing anxiety
about his souls salvation.
Fittingly, the book closes with a discussion of
Machauts commemoration in the first musical
de ploration of an artist (a double ballade by
Deschamps set by Andrieu) and with a survey
of his influence on the works of later poets and
composers until the end of the fifteenth
century, when his name began to fade into
oblivion for centuries to come.
Leach gives a convincing overall picture of
Machauts self-projection as an author and authority, but sometimes her admiration seems
somewhat over the top. In the famous Prologue
miniature (programmatically reproduced on

the cover of her book) where the god of

Love commands Machaut to write in his
honour, the painter mayperhapshave had
an Annunciation scene in mind: Amours is
depicted as a winged figure, like the archangel,
and Machaut looks up from his book with a
gesture of surprise, like the Virgin. But to take
over an iconographic form does not automatically imply taking over its meaning. The claim
that the miniature reveals the sublunary virgin
Guillaume de Machaut [who] will generate
(because he has already generated) his son
the huge book that the Prologues reader is
holdingwhose consoling and salvific function
is practiced by reading, hearing, and contemplating the pages that follow (p. 100) is, in my
opinion at least, a bridge too far. Machaut was
no doubt a very self-conscious artist, but he
always presented himself as a humble worshipper of the Blessed Virgin. Could Machaut seriously have posed as her alter ego if he hoped
for her intercession with her Son?
Notwithstanding such exaggerations, Elizabeth Eva Leachs engagingly written book
distinguishes itself as a firm step forward in the
study of Machauts works and poetics. It successfully combines the methods and views of
the various disciplines which, with some exceptions, have mainly highlighted separate aspects
of an artistic oeuvre that should be appreciated
as an integral whole. Leach has succeeded in
presenting a rich study of Machauts life and
works that will certainly stir many comments
and inspire others to delve, with interdisciplinary tools, into the living heritage of this
intriguing philosopher of love.
JACQUES BOOGAART
Amsterdam University
doi:10.1093/ml/gcs044

The Carole: A Study of a Medieval Dance. By

Robert Mullally. pp. xvi 148. (Ashgate,
Farnham and Burlington, Vt., 2011. 50.
ISBN 978-1-4094-1248-9.)
In this very close study of a single dance, the
emphasis is on details relevant to the history,
choreography and performance of the [carole]
dance as revealed in the primary sources
(p. xv). The carole is the best-known dance
name from the Middle Ages, and yet scholars in
all fields use the term with a vague and sometimes contradictory understanding of exactly to
what it refers. Even in the primary sources it
is often unclear whether it means dance in
general or is, as Mullally claims here, a reference
to a specific dance formation and choreography.

399

The author questions all of the inherited

beliefs and reinterprets the commonly accepted
conclusions about references to carole and
dance in the literature, theoretical treatises,
and iconography of the late Middle Ages. He
concludes that most of what is commonly
accepted is incorrect, and that many of the text
references and iconographic images thought to
be about the carole are more frequently of
other, less well-known dances. While admitting
throughout the book that the word carole in
the primary sources refers to a number of
things: a circle, dance in general, line dances,
song, dance song, etc., he insists that there was
one specific dance called carole and that it
had a set choreography. He posits a dance with
a single formation in the round and steps
always to the left, with a musical practice that
involved singing by only a soloist (i.e. no group
participation in the refrains), and no instrumental accompaniment.
There is no doubt that the sources, when taken
as a whole, are confusing and ambiguous.To sort
through them and come to any conclusions about
the various details of the carole requires a
careful reading and even more careful consideration of context in order to separate those
that were intended to be technically correct
from those in which the word is used more
loosely. This is a tricky business because the decisions concerning which references are to be
taken at face value and which are to be discounted as unreliable or incorrect often seem
somewhat whimsical. The implicit danger, of
course, is that those decisions could be made
to support a preconceived conclusion rather
than each citation being weighed carefully on its
own merits.
A good example of this kind of selection
involves one of the most frequently cited literary
references from La Mankine: Such a carole
had never been seen, nearly a quarter league
long. The implication of the quote is that, at
least in this instance, the carole was a line
dance. Mullally dismisses the quotation as an
incorrect use of the word carole, which he
suggests was chosen because it is metrically
more suitable than would have been the
correct dance term, tresche (p. 61). This may
be true, but it is not the only source that uses
the word carole with reference to a line dance.
Mullally dismisses all of them, although he
allows that the music and steps for the tresche
were identical to that for the carole. In fact, he
believes that the only difference between these
two dances is that the carole was danced
entirely in the round whereas the tresche could
include both round and line.

Another case of questionable judgement

involves the discussion of two illustrations in a
manuscript of Li Restor du Paon (Ill. 3 and 6 ),
which Mullally admits are intended to illustrate
the carole mentioned in the text. One shows
nine people in a circle, but the other has six
people in a line. His explanation for the second
illustration is that the iconography does not
always give a coherent view of the dance (p. 95).
If I follow his point correctly, he is claiming
that a contemporary artist did not know that a
carole took only the round formation. Similar
treatment is given to those sources that suggest
instrumental accompaniment of the carole. For
one reason or another, they cannot be trusted.
Mullally also concludes that several different
text forms were associated with the carole, the
earliest found in Guillaume de Dole and consisting of lines without repeats or indication of
refrain. He believes that these more simple
forms were eventually replaced by the more
sophisticated rondeau and virelai text forms
that include refrains, although he insists that
the songs were sung only as solos and never
included ensemble participation by the dancers
in the refrains. He singles out several melodies
that match carole lyrics cited in the literature
and publishes four of them in his Appendix.
What is interesting about these pieces is that
they are all extremely short, having as few as
three bars of music and as many as eight. This
clearly is not sufficient music for an entire
carole lyric, although it would be adequate for
a refrain. That avenue is not pursued.
Oddly, he has overlooked the rather large
repertory of probable carols found in the Parisian organum source Florence, Biblioteca
Medicea Laurenziana, Pluteo 29,1, which contains in its final fascicle over fifty Latin texts
with music, preceded by an illustration of five
clerics standing in a circle. The image certainly
would support his theory about carole formation, although it contradicts his statement that
A carole consisting entirely of men is possible,
but is all but unknown (p. 41). The texts, however, which are mostly rondeaux, are clearly
marked for responsorial singing, a performance
practice Mullally rejects.
The music chapter presents a convoluted and
rather simplistic discussion of modal rhythm
and its relationship to dance, which leads to
criticisms of most modern transcriptions of the
repertory in the light of the dance steps. Here
Mullally is on extremely thin ice, both because
of a lack of understanding of notation but especially because his decisions about what the
dance steps were is purely hypothetical and
based on very little evidence. For some of his in-

400

formation about the dance, music, and performance practice Mullally consults contemporary
music treatises but dismisses the only theoretical treatise of the time with a detailed discussion of secular music and its performance
practices, Johannes de Grocheios De Musica.
He had considered this treatise in an earlier
article and pronounced it unreliable (Johannes
de Grocheos Musica Vulgaris, Music &
Letters, 79 (1998), 1^26 ). Thus he is able to
restrict his theoretical reference to those
sources that mention secular music only in
passing, and does not have to reconcile
Grocheios complicated statements. He points
out correctly that there is no piece of music
identified in the sources as a carole and is left
to his own conclusions by ignoring and dismissing most other scholarly speculation concerning
the repertory intended to accompany that
dance. (Yvonne Rokseths Danses clericales du
e
XIII sie'cle, in Me langes 1945 des Publications de la
Faculte des Lettres de Strasbourg (Paris, 1947), 93^
126, for example, is neither cited nor discussed.)
There is little doubt that carole is primarily
a French term: the quantity of references
supports that point. But the word can also be
found in Italian and English sources, and after
first pursuing the word and its references in
France, Mullally considers these other sources,
concluding reasonably that the references are
not as strict as in French, a situation that frequently occurs when a word is borrowed into
another language. The English carol, therefore,
is a far less precise term, which could mean
either the dance, or the song that accompanied
it, or both together, or . . . neither (p. 114). He
speculates that the text Maiden in the Mor
Lay may be the only Middle English carole
text to survive, and concludes that by the end
of the fourteenth century the carole text form
was unrelated to dancing, although he relates
the burden and stanza form to a processional
hymn in the Sarum liturgy for Palm Sunday.
The Italian use of the word carola is found
in only a few sources, including Dante and Boccaccio, and Mullally dismisses these references
as not related to the French carole practice.
This leads to his dismissal of the well-known
frescoes in Siena (Martinis Effects of Good
Government in the Palazzo Pubblico) and Florence (Bonaiutos fresco in the Spanish Chapel
of Santa Maria Novella), long thought to be
caroles. Instead, he claims that these are depictions of the dance ridda, which he believes
takes the form of both a circle and line, and is
mentioned in Dantes Inferno (VII. 22^4). Iconography, in fact, occupies one entire chapter,
with the author eliminating all images that do

not show the dancers in a round formation

with a non-dancing leader and no instruments.
This certainly conforms to Mullallys theory
but results in the curious situation in which
the majority of illustrations do not depict the
dance that is mentioned most frequently in the
literature.
This is a difficult book to follow since
Mullally often presents conclusions based on
facts he has not yet discussed. The back-andforth nature of this kind of argument is often
quite confusing. Further, his approach is more
than a little abrasive in the way in which he
directly confronts all earlier scholars writings,
discusses their errors, and dismisses nearly all
as being misguided. Often the nit-picking is
extreme and quite one-sided in that he accepts
exceptions to his own theories but none for
those of other writers.
Although I have found much to question, I
believe that this is a valuable publication. In the
midst of a very tight and narrow interpretation
of the word carole, it presents a number of
challenging and perceptive ideas. Robert
Mullallys book includes an excellent collection
of primary material and new ways of interpretation. His theories and analyses are thoughtprovoking and one hopes they will form the basis
for continued dialogue about the details of early
dance. The field of early dance is the richer for
this contribution.
TIMOTHY J. MCGEE
University of Toronto
doi:10.1093/ml/gcs050

The Temple of Music by Robert Fludd. By Peter

Hauge. pp. xvi 315. Music Theory in Britain, 1500^1700: Critical Editions. (Ashgate,
Farnham and Burlington, Vt., 2011, 65.
ISBN 978-0-7546-5510-7.)
This important book is part of a series which, as
the editor Jessie Anne Owens says, offers a
window into musical culture that is every bit
as important as music itself (p. xiii). The inclusion in this series on British music theory of a
translation of Robert Fludds Templum Musicum, part of his encyclopedic Utriusque
cosmi . . . historia (Oppenheim, 1617^26 ), marks a
significant shift in musicological opinion,
which to date has given Fludd fairly short
shrift. Both Barry Cooper in his Englische
Musiktheorie im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (in
Wilhelm Seidel and Barry Cooper (eds.),
Entstehung nationaler Traditionen: Frankreich^
England (Darmstadt, 1986 ), 145^256 ), and more
recently Rebecca Herissone in Music Theory in

401

Copyright of Music & Letters is the property of Oxford University Press / USA and its content may not be
copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written
permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.