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  • Magister Jacobus de Ispania, Author of the ‘Speculum musicae’ by Margaret Bent
  • Constant J. Mews
Bent, Margaret, Magister Jacobus de Ispania, Author of the ‘Speculum musicae’ (Royal Musical Association Monographs, 28), Farnham, Ashgate, 2015; hardback; pp. xvii, 211; 16 b/w illustrations, 7 music examples; R.R.P. £70.00; ISBN 9781472460943.

This book is an unfinished detective story about the author of the Speculum musicae, a vast exposition of music theory dating from the early fourteenth century. It was edited in seven volumes by Roger Bragard between 1955 and 1973, as the work of Jacobus Leodiensis or Jacques de Liège. All we know for certain about its author is that he was called ‘Jacobus’, a name spelled out by the opening initials of each of its seven books, which cover the principles of both plainchant and polyphony. Margaret Bent is to be congratulated for drawing attention to a work most often known for its criticism, in Book VII, of the new notational methods being promoted by certain of his contemporaries, namely Philippe de Vitry and Johannes de Muris. In consequence, the author’s reputation, such as it is, is that of a cultural conservative: enthusiastic for the achievements of thirteenth-century musicians like Franco of Cologne and Petrus de Cruce, cantor at Amiens, but critical of the greater flexibility of expression, known as the ars nova, gaining ground in the early fourteenth century. Who wrote this remarkable magnum opus? [End Page 194]

Bent makes clear from the outset that she is not studying its arguments, but rather the implications of a single new piece of evidence, namely its attribution to a certain ‘Magister Jacobus de Ispania’, in the inventory from 1457 of the books of Matteo da Brescia, a canon of Vicenza who had died in 1419. The Speculum survives only in two fifteenth-century manuscripts, both Italian. Bent’s major concern is to focus on the fragility of the identification proposed by Roger Bragard, based on three passages in Book VI about melodic practices in certain secular churches of Liège. She also questions the argument of Karen Desmond that he might be a theorist called Jacobus from Mons, and a canon of Liège. The only other city Jacobus mentions is Paris, where he says he studied Boethius, presumably in the 1290s. After examining the limited number of figures called ‘Magister Jacobus de Yspania’, Bent proposes that the author is the illegitimate son of Enrique, brother to Alfonso el Sabio of Castile, born c. 1267/68 in southern Italy and then raised in England, by his aunt, Eleanor of Castile, who seems to have assisted with granting him the title of Master from Oxford (where he was at Oriel College) and numerous benefices, rising to become Chamberlain of the Exchequer of Receipt 1317–23, a royal debt collector as it were, often having to request dispensation as a classic pluralist canon. None of these records refers to any expertise in music. Bent suggests that during periods when he seems to be overseas (1291–97, 1309–11, and 1326–28) he was on the continent studying the theory and practice of music. She does not explain why Jacques should have singled out on three occasions chants performed by secular churches at Liège, beyond pointing out that these allusions do not imply he was born there.

Bent observes the admiration of Jacobus for Petrus de Cruce, a composer and cantor at Amiens in the early fourteenth century, also known to Guy of Saint-Denis. While she mentions Guy’s treatise on chant, she is unaware that the opening initials of each chapter of its first book spell out ‘Guido’, in exactly the same way as Jacobus opened his treatise. Another way of interpreting ‘Hispania’, proposed by Rob C. Wegman in a forthcoming study posted on academia.edu, is that it refers to Hesbaye, a region of Brabant that was one of the archdeaconries of Liège. Bent mentions in passing that there was another Jacobus de Ispania, a canon of Amiens, who unsuccessfully tried in 1326 to become cantor at Châlons, but rejects the possibility that this could be the author of the Speculum...

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