(Lat.: ‘songs of Beuren’).
The title given by Johann Andreas Schmeller to his complete edition (1847) of the poems in an early 13th-century German manuscript (now D-Mbs Clm 4660) that had come in 1803 from the Benedictine abbey of Benediktbeuern, about 50 km south of Munich. Since then the manuscript has been known by that title even though it is now generally agreed that it probably did not originate in Benediktbeuren and may have come from Seckau in Carinthia or the Tyrol. The manuscript is perhaps the most important source for Latin secular poetry of the 12th century; there are in addition some Latin sacred lyrics, German poems, liturgical plays and a satirical ‘Gamblers' Mass’. Several of the poems have music in unheighted neumes – a style of notation that is relatively rare at so late a date. The melodies must, for the most part, be reconstructed from concordances in the St Martial and Notre Dame repertories. Orff's cantata Carmina burana is based on poems from the manuscript but does not use any of the original melodies. For facsimile see Sources, MS, §III, 2, fig.21.
H. Spanke: ‘Die Codex Buranus als Liederbuch’, ZMw, xiii (1930–31), 241–51
W. Lipphardt: ‘Unbekannte Weisen zu den Carmina Burana’, AMw, xii (1955), 122–42
E. Brost: Carmina Burana (Heidelberg, 1961)
W. Lipphardt: ‘Einige unbekannte Weisen zu den Carmina Burana aus der zweiten Hälfte des 12. Jahrhunderts’, Festschrift Heinrich Besseler, ed. E. Klemm (Leipzig, 1961), 101–26
P. Dronke: ‘A Critical Note on Schumann's Dating of the Codex Buranus’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, lxxxiv (1962), 173–83
B.A. Beatie: ‘Carmina Burana 48–48a: a Case of Irregular Confacture’, Modern Language Notes, lxxx (1965), 470–78
B. Bischoff, ed.: Carmina Burana: Faksimile-Ausgabe (Munich, 1967)
A. Hilka, O.Schumann and B. Bischoff, eds.: Carmina Burana (Heidelberg, 1930–70)
G. Bernt: ‘Carmina Burana’, Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. K. Ruh and others (2/1977–)
C. Fischer and others, eds.: Carmina Burana: die Lieder der Benediktbeurer Handschrift: zweisprachiges Ausgabe (Munich, 1979)
M. Korth and others, eds.: Carmina Burana, lateinisch-deutsch: Gesamtausgabe der mittelalterlichen Melodien mit der dazugehörigen Text (Munich, 1979)
A. Groos: ‘Carmina Burana’, Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. J. Strayer (New York, 1982–9)
G. Steer: ‘“Carmina Burana” in Südtirol: zur Herkunft des clm 4660’, ZDADL, cxii (1983), 1–37
P.G. Walsh: Love Lyrics from the Carmina Burana (Chapel Hill, NC, 1993)
B. Gillingham, ed.: Secular Medieval Latin Song, i: An Anthology; ii: A Critical Study (Ottawa, 1993–5)
For further bibliography see Early Latin secular song; Goliards; and Sources, MS, §III, 2.
THOMAS B. PAYNE