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244 Reviews question the view held by some historians that Duke WiUiam employed a detiberate strategy of not launching his advance across the Channel until the near end of the campaign season, in an attempt to persuade Harold that his plan to invade England had been abandoned or at least postponed until the foUowing spring. Not so, explain the satiors: while some ships of the day were equipped with oars, wind was the primary means of propulsion for sea-going vessels. Regardless of strategy, the Bastard was forced to wait for favourable winds before setting sail from France. The Battle of Hastings: Sources and Interpretations provides a wid ranging, but nonetheless succinct, appraisal of the events which led to the campaign and final engagement. The general structure of the book works weU, with effective use of maps and illustrations. Stephen Morillo's Introduction is particularly valuable in challenging some traditional perceptions. Nonetheless, future works in the Warfare in History series would benefit from the inclusion of a brief coUating conclusion. Graeme Cronin c/o Department of English University of Western Australia Page, Christopher, Discarding Images: Reflections on Music and Cult in Medieval France, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993; cloth; pp. xxiv, 222; 17 ulustrations, 18 musical examples; R.R.P. AUS$75.00. To lovers of early music the name Christopher Page is w e U known as the director of the superbly polished vocal ensemble Gothic Voices, whose recordings range from twetith-century secular songs through to fifteenth-century polyphony. His many books and articles have concentrated on medieval music, generally French, and he is recognised as a major scholar in this area of musicology. His earlier book Voices and Instruments of the Middle Ages: Instrumental Practice a Songs in France 1100-1300 (1987) has been of importance in changing our thought about the music of the troubadours and trouveres. His most recent book, Music and Instruments of the Middle Ages: Studies on Texts and Performance, is due to appear in August 1997 from Scolar Reviews 245 Press. As he has done in previous work, there Page examines various medieval texts for n e w information on matters including performance practice and string instruments. Given the publications described above, it comes as a surprise to leam that Page lectures in medieval English literature rather than in music at Cambridge University; the breadth of his reading and famitiarity with areas beyond the usual musicological domain is surely a reflection of this spanning of different disciplines. In Discarding Images, which Clarendon Press wiU re-issue in paperback later this year, Page brings this breadth of knowledge to a critique of some ideas which have informed much musicological thought on the music of about 1200 to 1500. H e writes of views of the Middle Ages which he considers to be erroneous and to have clouded understanding of the period, showing h o w such ideas arose and h o w some have been perpetuated, despite changing ideas in other disciplines and in musicology itseU. In his Introduction, Page explains his stance: T share the view, expressed by Aers and Camille, that the most exhilarating project for the medievalist is n o w to investigate the variety and complexity of the Middle Ages and to question the received generalisations that are habitually used to constitute the "medieval" period in our minds'. In Chapter 1 Page takes on the architectonic approach to tweUthand thirteenth-century polyphony which was inspired by 'cathedratism'. H e refers to its basis in the work of Panofsky and others, and shows for example that the so-called architectonic references in the treatises of medieval music theorists are not of special significance but a reflection of c o m m o n linguistic traits. Chapter 2 presents a new look at the French thirteenth-century motet and takes on issues not commonly dealt with in depth, such as its social function. In Chapter 3, Page returns to Johannes de Grocheio's classification of musical forms of thirteenth-century Paris, a subject which he has discussed in earlier publications. N o w he looks for information on the motet's audience through detaUed analysis of key terms employed by Grocheio. hi...

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