(b Reutlingen, c1285; d 1359 or 1360). German theorist. He apparently served as a parish priest and schoolmaster in Reutlingen besides holding a chaplaincy at the Marienkirche. He is named as a priest in 1329. Two years later he purchased a patronage in Unterhausen. In 1338, as a result of the strife between Ludwig of Bavaria and the pope, he was banned from celebrating Mass for ten years. In May 1359 he made a grant for the support of the St Nikolaus-Kapelle in Reutlingen. His death must have occurred sometime during the next year, for in April 1360 his nephew sold his patronage.
Spechtshart is best known for the pedagogical work Flores musicae omnis cantus Gregoriani, which he wrote in 1332. Of lasting influence, it was revised in 1342, and published for the first time in 1488. The treatise, partly in verse, is divided into four large chapters covering solmization, the monochord, intervals and the ecclesiastical modes; the division of the monochord is the first complete determination of the chromatic scale on that instrument.
A second musical work, the Chronicon Hugonis sacerdotis de Rutelinga ad annum MCCCXLIX, is the chief source of music and information of the mid-14th-century German flagellants (see Geissler lieder). The melodies included by Spechtshart are typical of earlier pilgrim songs, and, although they show influences of the verse forms of the Italian laude, their litany-based structure is rather primitive when compared with the varied forms of their Italian counterparts. In addition, he wrote two non-musical works: the Forma discendi, an introduction to logic and dialectic, and the Speculum grammaticae.
Flores musicae omnis cantus Gregoriani (Strasbourg, 1488): ed. C. Beck, Bibliothek des Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart, lxxxix (Stuttgart, 1868) [with parallel Ger. trans.]; 1332 and 1342 manuscript originals ed. K.-W. Gümpel (Wiesbaden, 1958)
Chronicon Hugonis sacerdotis de Rutelinga ad annum MCCCXLIX, RU-SPsc O XIV, 6; ed. K. Gillert, Königliche Akademie der wissenschaftlichen Forschungen, xxi (Munich, 1881) [edns. of musical portions only: P. Runge, ed.: Die Lieder und Melodien der Geissler des Jahres 1349 (Leipzig, 1900/R), 23–42; A. Hübner: Die deutschen Geisslerlieder (Leipzig, 1931)]
F.G. Gayler: Historische Denkwürdigkeiten der ehemaligen freien Reichstadt … Reutlingen vom Ursprung an bis zu Ende der Reformation 1577 (Reutlingen, 1840), 22–3, 39, 162–3, 616
R. Eitner: ‘Hugo von Reutlingen’, MMg, ii (1870), 57–60
K. Bihlmeyer: ‘Hugo Spechtshart von Reutlingen, ein Geschichtsschreiber und Schulmann des 14. Jahrhunderts’, Historisch-politische Blätter für das katholische Deutschland, clx (1917), 257, 281
H.J. Moser: Geschichte der deutschen Musik, i (Stuttgart, 1920, 5/1930), 103, 116, 120–21
CECIL ADKINS