Scratched-out Notes, Erased Pieces, and other Lacunae in the Chansonnier Nivelle de la Chaussée

While many scholars still express doubts about whether the owners of chansonniers were musically literate, the idea that chansonniers were read, understood/appreciated, and enjoyed by their owners has steadily been gaining ground. Though the books obviously function as a repository of songs, factors such as their diminutive size and persistent, uncorrected errors argue against chansonniers’ use as performing documents. The Chansonnier Nivelle de la Chaussée (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. Rés. Vmc MS 57), however, contains many small-scale corrections and crossed-out notes. By analyzing the nature of individual corrections we can learn about the copying process of Nivelle’s principal scribe, as well as how chansonniers may have been used and understood by their owners.

The Nivelle Chansonnier also contains several instances of large-scale erasures that appear to have taken place post-binding where entire voice parts were erased. Notably, two of the four erased pieces in Nivelle are attributed to Fedé (alias Jean Sohier). Though Fedé’s career is well documented, his extant works are limited to two Magnificat antiphons from the Ferrarese court choirbook (Biblioteca Estense, Ms. α.X.1.11), and three chansons unique to Nivelle (all of which are incomplete due to large-scale erasures and the loss of Nivelle’s penultimate gathering). This article surveys Nivelle’s small-scale corrections, as well as offers a hypothesis for Nivelle’s large-scale erasures. While David Fallows has suggested that the erasure of the songs by Fedé signaled some sort of disgrace for this composer in the eyes of the original owner of the manuscript, this article advances an alternate theory. In addition, it offers an evaluation of Fedé’s secular compositional style based on reconstructions of his incomplete and erased works.