Mensural notation

Mensural notation is the name given by 19th-century scholars to the system of indicating pitch and rhythm in music which was used from the later part of the 13th century until roughly the mid-17th.

Related Topics:
19th-century - Rhythm - Music - 13th century - Mid-17th

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Before reading further, the reader may wish to read a brief and general explanation of this notation?s components which is presented in the article Renaissance music#Theory and notation. The present article systematically explains what is shallowly glossed-over in those paragraphs.

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The beginning of what we call ?mensural? notation comes for modern scholarship with the treatise Ars cantus mensurablilis, by Franco of Cologne (c. 1280). Here are laid out for the first time known to us the precepts of a system in which note duration is indicated to the reader by note shape. This system, which probably had been under development for several decades, operated in conjunction with the rhythmic modes (also further refined by Franco) until around 1322, the date of a treatise formerly attributed to Philippe de Vitry which in part describes notational techniques used in a recent manuscript, the Roman de Fauvel. The label ?mensural? comes obviously from this notation?s ability to dictate a note?s temporal measure.

Related Topics:
Franco of Cologne - 1280 - Rhythmic modes - 1322 - Philippe de Vitry - Roman de Fauvel

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