2006/01/01 by John Haines · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Architecture and Art History Studies #Art #Computer science #Craft #Historical and Literary Studies #Literature #Music education #Music history #Musicology #Musicology and Musical Analysis #Style (visual arts) #The arts #Variety (cybernetics) #Visual arts
paper · doi:10.1525/jm.2006.23.3.375
openalex publication_date 2006/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
ABSTRACT For the 13th-century music writer known as Anonymous IV, the craft of music writing was a primary literary concern, though one virtually ignored by previous modern writers on music. The importance of music writing to Anonymous IV is evident from the variety and quantity of references in his treatise, many of which are found in its central second chapter. This information-rich chapter includes a history of music notation and a miniature handbook for music scribes. The Anonymous is indebted to the then recent surge in production of how-to manuals of all kinds; his miniature handbook for music scribes partakes of their style and vocabulary. This practical work of Anonymous IV is tied to the revival of Euclidean geometry in the liberal arts curriculum at Paris. The specialized geometric terms he uses are attested in numerous sources, including student handbooks from the university. It is possible that the anonymous writer came under the spell of Roger Bacon, also an Englishman at the University of Paris in the late 13th century, whose writing and pedagogy reveal several similarities with the music treatise of Anonymous IV.