‘Bona cadentia dictaminum’: Reconstructing Word Setting in Machaut’s Songs

A comment in the anonymous Tractatus de discantu on ‘bona cadentia dictaminum’ (good word setting) indicates that word setting was recognized by medieval musicians as an important part of the best polyphonic writing. This aspect of compositional process remains a difficult one to deal with for many repertories, however. Surviving theoretical writings of the time are silent on technical details, and it is often difficult for editors to achieve a critical perspective on manuscript copies for the assessment of their word setting. The Machaut music manuscripts present a valuable exception: they comprise six high-quality sources of the same songs that enable comparison and study of word setting-practices in a major fourteenth-century repertory. By analysing songs that survive with no or only trivial differences between the manuscript copies, I propose an editorial model for reconstructing the word setting in Machaut’s ballades, rondeaux, and virelais. Consistency criteria are also proposed as additional means for deciding between variants. The text that results from this reconstruction is used to sketch the understanding of bona cadentia dictaminum that underlies Machaut’s handling of poems in his songs.