Gautier de Coincy

(b Coincy-l’Abbaye, 1177 or 1178; d Soissons, 25 Sept 1236). French trouvère. He was the author of the Miracles de Nostre-Dame and of a number of religious chansons, some of which he seems to have set to music. His date of birth is known from the Chronicum S. Medardi Suessonensis: ‘In the year 1193 Gautier de Coincy became a monk, and was 15 or 16 years old at the time’. In August 1214 he became prior of the monastery at Vic-sur-Aisne, about 16 km west of Soissons. He returned to St Médard in Soissons as abbot on 19 June 1233, where he remained until his death. The extensive learning revealed in his work and his obvious familiarity with contemporary secular song has led some writers to speculate that he spent time at the University of Paris before 1214, but this cannot be supported by documentary evidence.

The Miracles de Nostre-Dame is a massive verse narrative, some 30,000 lines in length, recounting the numerous miracles associated with the Virgin. Gautier explained that he found these stories in a Latin manuscript. No such source now survives, however, thus making it impossible to trace the origins of all the material contained in the work. It was written in two large sections, the first between 1214 and about 1222, the second between 1222 and 1233. Gautier identified himself in the work as ‘Li prior de Vi’ (Vic-sur-Aisne), indicating that his literary activities were probably confined to the years between 1214 and 1233. The popularity and importance of Miracles is attested by the fact that it survives in over 80 sources (22 with music) and inspired numerous imitations.

Perhaps following the example of the contemporary Roman de la rose, Gautier incorporated a number of songs with music into his narrative. These are set in two larger groups and one smaller one at various places in the text and are, in the majority of cases, new poems in praise of the Virgin set to pre-existent melodies from a variety of sources. The manuscripts in which Miracles is extant also include a number of similar songs (some without music) that are not part of the cycle but which nevertheless may be Gautier’s work. Gautier left no doubt about his intention of including songs within the narrative. In the text preceding the first group he said: ‘We should sing of the Virgin both day and night as the angels do. All those who sing sweetly enchant the devil and lull him to sleep. Now listen as I sing’.

Gautier is important to the music historian largely for two reasons. First, his work represents the earliest substantial collection of sacred and, above all, Marian songs in the vernacular – songs that were widely imitated in France and elsewhere throughout the later Middle Ages (e.g. Pour conforter). This is in sharp contrast to the almost exclusively secular repertory of the worldly trouvères who were his contemporaries or near-contemporaries. Second, the large number of contrafacta that use contemporary trouvère melodies would seem to indicate that Gautier made a conscious effort to put secular melodies to sacred or at least devotional use – he ‘sang sweetly’ to ‘enchant the devil and lull him to sleep’. This concern finds a parallel in the Latin verses of Gautier’s contemporary, Philip the Chancellor, who likewise set most of his poems to melodies of secular origin.

Eight of Gautier’s poems are set to trouvère melodies, the largest number being contrafacta of songs by Blondel de Nesle (Amours dont sui, Je pour iver, Qui que face); a further five draw on various other musical sources: two are based on the same conductus by Perotinus (De sainte Leocade, Entendez tuit), two on anonymous monophonic conductus (Ma viele, Talens m’est pris), one on a motet (Hui matin) and one on a sequence (Hui enfantés). Three songs that use borrowed melodies survive in one or more sources in two-part polyphonic form (Amours dont sui, De sainte Leocade, Entendez tuit), including a unique two-part setting of Perotinus’s Beata viscera. Gautier was, however, no mere musical parodist: a number of the songs that are certainly by him are set to melodies elsewhere unknown; most notable, perhaps, is the very beautiful strophic lai Roine celestre.

WORKS

Edition: Les chansons à la vierge de Gautier de Coinci, ed. J. Chailley, PSFM, xv (Paris, 1959) [complete edn except for doubtful works]

doubtful works

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MGG1 (F. Gennrich)

Abbé Poquet, ed.: Les Miracles de la Sainte Vierge traduits et mis en vers par Gautier de Coincy (Paris, 1857) [edn of complete text]

P. Meyer: ‘Types de quelques chansons de Gautier de Coinci’, Romania, xvii (1888), 429–37

F. Gennrich: ‘Die beiden neuesten Bibliographien altfranzösicher und provenzalischer Lieder’, Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, xli (1921), 289–346, esp. 314

A. Långfors: ‘Mélanges de poésie lyrique française, II–III: Gautier de Coinci’, Romania, liii (1927), 474–538; lvi (1930), 33–79 [edn of song texts]

A.P. Ducrot-Ganderye: Études sur les Miracles Nostre-Dame de Gautier de Coinci (Helsinki, 1932), 5

H. Spanke: ‘Zu den lyrischen Einlagen in den Versmirakeln Gautiers de Coinci’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, xxxiv (1933), 154

A. Långfors: Miracles de Gautier de Coinci: extraits du manuscrit de l’Ermitage (Helsinki, 1937), 337 [with facs.]

E. Lommatsch: ‘Anatole France et Gautier de Coinci’, Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, lviii (1938), 202

F. Gennrich: ‘Zwei altfranzösische Lais’, Studi medievali, new ser., xv (1942), 1–68, esp. 4

F. Gennrich: ‘Perotins Beata viscera Marie virginis und die “Modaltheorie”’, Mf, i (1948), 230 [incl. edns of De sainte Leocade, Entendez tuit]

F. Gennrich: Troubadours, Trouvères, Minne- und Meistergesang, Mw, ii (1951; Eng. trans., 1960), 28 [incl. edn of Entendez tuit]

J.H. Marshall: ‘Gautier de Coinci imitateur de Guilhem de Cabestanh’, Romania, xcviii (1977), 245–9

H.-H.S. Räkel: Die musikalische Erscheinungsform der Trouvèrepoesie (Berne, 1977), 107, 375

L. Rossi and A. Ziino: ‘Mout m’alegra douza vos per boscaje’, Cultura Neolatina, xxxix (1979), 69–80 [incl. analysis of Pour conforter]

S.N. Rosenberg and H. Tischler: ‘Chanter m’estuet’: Songs of the Trouvères (Bloomington, IN, 1981)

U. Malizia: ‘Guatier de Coinci: la volontà di rinnovare la musica lirica ne “les Miracles de Nostre Dame”’, La lengua y la literatura en tiempos de Alfonso X [Murcia 1984], ed. F. Carmona and F.J. Flores (Murcia, 1985), 319–32

U. Malizia: ‘Intorno al lessico tecnico-musicale ne “les Miracles de Nostre Dame” di Gautier de Coincy’, Congrès international de linguistique et de philologie romanes XVIII [Trier 1986], ed. D. Kremer (Tübingen, 1989–92), vi, 405–17

For further bibliography see Troubadours, trouvères.

ROBERT FALCK