Vernacular dedicatory motets in fourteenth-century France

This study suggests that three French-text motets from the fourteenth centu ry refer to specific living women, named by the liturgical context of their tenors. These motets link upper-voice amatory texts in French with tenors taken from chants for virgin martyrs, a combination not seen elsewhere in t he motet repertory. After considering how virgin martyrs differ from other female saints, and some of the ways saints are used in late-medieval art an d literature, the conclusion is drawn that these motets are most likely to celebrate not a martyred saint but a living namesake. Two motets can be lin ked to Agnes de Navarre, wife of Gaston Febus, count of Foix and Bearn, and one to Lucia di Bernabo Visconti, onetime fiancee of Louis II of Anjou. Th ese dedicatory connections support previously-known connections of their re spective manuscript repertories: the Ivrea codex with the French royal cour t and with Gaston Febus, the Chantilly codex with the claimants to Sicily o f the second Angevin house and with Visconti Milan.