The Bayeux Manuscript is an illustrated manuscript comprising one hundred three songs, collected by Charles III, Duke of Bourbon at the beginning of the 16th century and composed in the late 15th century, that is a few decades after the end of the Hundred Years' War. It is stored at the Bibliothèque nationale de France with designation Fr. 9346.
The Bayeux Manuscript is one of the only two secular monophonic French musical manuscripts from around 1500. The songs are largely of a popular and pastoral nature, unlike the courtly love songs of the previous century.
Songs
Hellas, ma dame
Ma fame m'ayme
Au feu, au feu
Je trouvay la fillette
Tres doulx penser
Celle qui m'a demandé
Puisque Robin j'ay a nom
Je le lesray
Triste plaisir
Mais que ce fust le plaisir d'elle
En despit des faulx medisans
En ce premier jour de mai
Vecy le may
Adieu mes amours
Et qui la dira, dira
Le Roy Engloys
La belle se siet au pié de la tour
A mon jardin croist la fleur souveraine
Jamais amoureux
M'erme je n'ay point
Dessoubz la branche
Triste et pensif suis
Dieu la gard, la bergerotte
Baisés moy
L'aultre jour
References
Further reading
Théodore Gérold, Le Manuscrit de Bayeux, texte et musique d'un recueil de chansons du XVe siècle, Publication de la faculté des lettres de l'université de Strasbourg, Librairie Istria, Strasbourg, 1921
External links
Espérance, or: New Insights into the Origins of the Chansonnier de Bayeux
The Bayeux Manuscript ed. Theodor Dumitrescu
16th-century manuscripts
Medieval music manuscript sources
Chansonniers (books) Music illuminated manuscripts
