The Yoxford Manuscript and the Motet O amicus/Precursoris

Abstract

Abstract This chapter describes an important set of English musical flyleaves, the Yoxford fragment (Yox), and their unique motet O amicus on John the Baptist. With a chant tenor and a solus tenor, the (essential) contratenor (or second tenor) appears to be lacking, but can in fact be derived from the tenor by reconstructing a virtuosic mensural canon on the chant, vividly representing John as the forerunner of Christ. Much of this chapter is quite technical, devoted to reconstructing the presumed original form of the contratenor with its complex reversals of coloration between the lower parts. The text of the motetus both advertises this compositional conceit and obscurely instructs the performer how to retrieve it from the notation, in a translation worked out with David Howlett. Adjacent in Yox is an English source of Sub Arturo (Chapter 20) which embodies a similar (simpler) textual reference to its compositional procedure.