Reception and recomposition in the polyphonic conductus-cum-caudis: The Metz fragment

A membrane fragment in the Bibliotheque da la Ville de Metz (reserve precie ux, MS 732bis/20) contains parts of four works (Premii dilatio, Ego reus co nfiteor, Sursum corda and one as yet unidentified composition), of which th ree are known from the Florence manuscript (Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, MS Pluteo 29.1). The notation, decoration and handwriting of the fragment suggest that the manuscript from which they were taken dates from c. 1300. The notation of the fragment clearly distinguishes between longae and breve s in passages cum littera; in sine littera sections, the graphic presentati on of ligatures reveals attempts to reflect changing concepts of notational precision from the last quarter of the thirteenth century. The Metz fragme nt is therefore analogous with other late thirteenth-century redactions of conducti. Although all four compositions in the Metz fragment are in three parts, concordances for two of the works from earlier thirteenth-century so urces are in two parts only. While normal practice in the late thirteenth-c entury transmission of the conductus was to strip away voices, the versions of Ego reus confiteor and Sursum corda in the Metz fragment added a new th ird part to a two-part original. Such a practice was more typical of the mo tet repertory, and in this as well as its use of mensural notation the Metz fragment shows how the conductus was beginning to approach the composition al priorities of the motet c. 1300.