A new edition of the motet collection from the Chansonnier de Noailles (BNF fonds français 12615) raises various questions, the first of which is ‘why?’ The motets have already been published elsewhere, in particular by Hans Tischler in The Earliest Motets (to circa 1270): A Complete Comparative Edition. Moreover, the motets in this manuscript are well known to have been written without differentiation between longa and brevis, with many scribal mistakes and many unica.

The book starts with an extensive introduction which presents the Chansonnier. After some introductory words describing the motet collection and mentioning what is known about the history of the codex, Gaël Saint-Cricq begins by justifying his five-year project: he mentions the existing textual and musical editions of the manuscript and shows the ways in which his approach is new. In sum, he explains that the texts and music of the motets in the Chansonnier de Noailles have never before been published in ‘a single, coordinated, comprehensive critical edition’ (p. xvi). Before that, the acknowledgements also partially answer our question. Saint-Cricq has worked with singers to create this edition in order to better understand their insight and expectations. The goal of this edition is therefore twofold: to provide a musical edition that is relevant both to singers and to scholars. In fact it is perfectly true that Tischler's edition is intended for musicological study and not for pratical use. But in the light of these stated aims, and given the particularity of the first three collections of pieces in the codex, a case could made that Saint-Cricq should perhaps have gone further and edited not only the motet corpus of the Chansonnier but at least the first three collections of songs and motets together.

Saint-Cricq starts with a codicological description and analysis of the Chansonnier (including the monophonic song and motet corpus, known in different branches of the secondary literature as T and N). In this part, he sets out the six collections and later additions to the codex and identifies the number of hands responsible for the text, music and illumination. From my point of view, a table would have been useful to allow a quicker understanding of his comments, clarifying the number of hands working on the manuscript in relationship to the collections and the quires. In any case, Saint-Cricq says with certainty that the first three collections (respectively the songs of the king of Navarre, the songs of the trouvères and the motets) were written at the same time or in very close succession by the same scribes and decorators. In his view, the fourth collection (Chansons et dits d'Arras) would have been part of the same project despite the new scribe and illuminator. Collection 5 (Vers de la mort) may have been copied separately but added quickly, while Collection 6 (the songs of Adam de la Halle) is different from a palaeographical and codicological point of view, and constitutes a later layer of the codex like the other additions at the end of the manuscript. In sum, in Saint-Cricq's opinion the first three collections clearly constitute a homogeneous group. Collections 4 and 5 are a second unit, bound together immediately or very soon after. He therefore confirms the conclusion of Ludwig in his Repertorium, who described the first five collections as an ‘old corpus’ of the Chansonnier. But to be cautious, Saint-Cricq slightly qualifies the view of Roger Berger and Mark Everist on this subject (respectively in Littérature et société arrageoises au XIII^e siècle (Arras, 1981) and Polyphonic Music in Thirteenth-Century France (New York, 1989)), who considered the five collections as contemporaneous with greater certainty. Thereafter, Saint-Cricq deals with the provenance and chronology of the manuscript, convincingly arguing that the first three collections were copied between the late 1260s and the late 1270s.

Like many scholars before him, Saint-Cricq describes the motet collections as a homogeneous ensemble distant from the early Parisian sources and with special links to the Chansonnier du Roi (BNF fonds français 844). But his study of the structure and composition of the collection of motets is illuminating thanks to a table that highlights two parts: the first with motets linked to the Parisian sources and a second with pieces related to more local practices (figure 1, p. xxi).

The specificity revealed in this motet collection is a group of pieces rooted in Artois and closely related to song. A section on compositional processes explains that creation through quotation is one of the characteristics of this motet collection. More than 50 per cent of the motets borrow material. These quotations and in particular those linked to song seem to have a significant impact upon the register and structure of the pieces. Moreover, particular attention is paid to the quotations by the scribes. This material is carefully highlighted with capital letters, and Saint-Cricq presents a brief study of this characteristic. He establishes a table that lists and classifies the capital letters signalling quotations to show the importance given to this material by the scribe. A very interesting element is that about half of the quotations in the motet collection which occur with the same text and music appear elsewhere in the Chansonnier. To demonstrate this self-referential practice, he studies several grouping of motets. He compares one quotation in particular (vdB 1402) which demonstrates his point very well. In my opinion, a table listing all the self-quotations in the manuscript from songs and motets would have been very helpful for further studies. He also mentions other compositional processes that appear in the Chansonnier, in particular Kurzmotetten, refrain-cento and rondeau-motets, and highlights their particularity as Artesian compositions or linked to the Parisian sources.

As far as the cantus parts are concerned, thanks to his study of the context and liturgy of Artois, Saint-Cricq is able to identify a tenor, misidentified by Tischler and unidentified by Ludwig, that reinforces the local context of these motets even more. He also explains the difference in quality between the notation of the upper voices, generally copied correctly, and that of the tenors, which contain all types of mistake. This enables him to demonstrate the scribe's vernacular culture but his lack of expertise and knowledge in tenor notation and liturgical music. He thus offers a slight qualification to the perception of Arras and the ‘high average educational level of its inhabitants’ supported by many scholars (p. xxiii). By going further, he provides a convincing context for the Chansonnier showing references to Arras and to the confraternity of jongleurs, clerics and townsmen of Notre-Dame-des-Ardents or Le Puy-Notre-Dame. He assumes that ‘The Chansonnier de Noailles appears as a compendium of the poetic and musical practice and production for the confraternity’ (p. xxxiii). But if the confraternity has a dual identity – a clerical and a lay one – and if there was a common cultural background for the inhabitants of the city, it may however seem odd that the scribe who wrote tenors lacks so much expertise. Similarly, saying that ‘the clergy participated in a veritable municipal business of entertainment’ seems a little excessive (p. xxxiii). And imagining that short dialogic motets in the Chansonnier can be sung in this Artesian context ‘within the performance of a romance, or a play, or some other dramatic form, literary or ritual, that constituted the common stage of thirteenth-century Arras’ is pleasant but very speculative and maybe unnecessary here (p. xxxv).

As we have already mentioned, Saint-Cricq's intention is to provide an edition useful to singers. He therefore concludes his introduction with a section on performance. He gives some historiographical references about the context of motets and some advice for the number of singers, the use of instrument on the cantus part, the tempo and declamation and the ornamentation.

This introduction is followed by the careful edition of the texts and translations of the motets by Elgal Doss-Quinby and Samuel N. Rosenberg. They introduce their works describing the common themes expressed in the text, especially the theme of amorous desire, generally from a male perspective. There are also some chansons de femme, pastourelles, chansons de rencontre, rondets, etc. – traditional motifs normally found in the lyrics of the trouvère. However, there is no motet with references to historico-political events or devotional content. This characteristic may seem surprising considering the assumed context of the confraternity dedicated to the Virgin. It may not corroborate the context which is otherwise so attractive. The argument put forward by Saint-Cricq that there is an unusual concentration of motets on tenors for the Feast of the Assumption is not very persuasive in the broader context of the thirteenth century.

Doss-Quinby and Rosenberg then lay out the editorial principles that guide them, following the principle of minimal intervention in the text while rendering the meaning clearly. For each poem, they propose versification which shows clearly the internal rhyme when needed, or feminine rhymes. They also take diaeresis into account in accordance with the music. This means that the principles of musical and textual edition are coherent with the goal announced in the introduction, to adhere as closely as possible to the original text. For instance, the edition distinguishes very accurately between accidentals in the source and those added editorially. The critical commentary is similarly coherent, presenting sources, cataloguing and concordances and explaining very precisely the various editorial emendations, even to the point of distinguishing between corrections is made exactly as in a concordant source and those made with the help of the concordance.

All motets are transcribed from the Chansonnier de Noailles, with other sources occasionally serving to elucidate a problematic passage. Because of the musical notation, editing these motets is very challenging and seems sometimes to be more a reconstruction that an edition. Saint-Cricq tackles these numerous ambiguities by proposing several possibilities of rhythmic resolutions or even non-mensural readings which seem the best way of rendering the ambiguities of many of the motets in a satisfactory approach. In cases where there is no mensural concordance, the ratio of notes between the tenor and the upper parts (sometimes very ornamented in this collection), the ordo patterning in the tenors (often incorrect here), and the vertical sonorities (according to the expectations delineated in theoretical treatises) should help, but problems remain. This is the reason for Saint-Cricq's use of the term ‘reconstruction’ instead of edition. However, he sticks to his position in order to ‘give a new life to the works in question’ (p. 137). For instance, motet 49, Se j'ai amé folement / HEC DIES (fol. 189r–v) is a unicum written in the manuscript without the tenor melody. The reconstruction is based on one of the standard melismas of HEC DIES in the repertory, but we do not have any further details. The polyphony is therefore highly hypothetical. And unlike Saint-Cricq, Tischler did not choose to edit this motet polyphonically.

In sum, this is a welcome new edition of the motet collections from the Chansonnier de Noailles. Gaël Saint-Cricq does not deny the problems of the edition but offers the reader a clear explanation of them. However, the state of manuscript itself requires him sometimes to go far beyond what can be known, and some of his proposed reconstructions may therefore be more useful for singers than for musicologists. Singers might also have benefited from an edition which presented the songs together with the motets from the first three collections of the manuscript. As mentioned above, they form a homogeneous ensemble, a consistent Artesian corpus thanks to the processes of composition and self-referential quotations. And more than anything, the stated aim of Saint-Cricq was to publish an edition that stays as close as possible to the text and demonstrates the wealth of these pieces.

To make one final comment, it is perhaps regrettable that the authors decided to divide the edition of the motet texts at the beginning of the book from the critical commentary at the end. It would have been useful for the reader either to have them in two separate books or to put together these two parts of the work to facilitate consultation.