The Robertsbridge Codex (1360) is a music manuscript of the 14th century. It contains the earliest surviving music written specifically for keyboard.

The term codex is somewhat misleading: the musical section of the source comprises only two leaves, bound together with a larger manuscript from Robertsbridge

Robertsbridge

Robertsbridge is a village in East Sussex, England within the civil parish of Salehurst and Robertsbridge. It is approximately 10 miles north of Hastings and 13 miles south-east of Tunbridge Wells...

, Sussex

Sussex

Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...

, England.
It contains six pieces, three of them in the form of the estampie

Estampie

The Estampie is a medieval dance and musical form, it was a popular instrumental style of the 13th and 14th centuries.-Musical Form:The estampie consists of four to seven sections, called puncta, each of which is repeated, in the form...

, an Italian dance form of the Trecento

Trecento

The Trecento refers to the 14th century in Italian cultural history.Commonly the Trecento is considered to be the beginning of the Renaissance in art history...

, as well as three arrangements of motet

Motet

In classical music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions.-Etymology:The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is motectum, and the Italian...

s. Two of the motets are from the Roman de Fauvel

Roman de Fauvel

The Roman de Fauvel, translated as The Story of the Fawn-Colored Beast, is a 14th century French poem accredited to French royal clerk Gervais du Bus, though probably best known for its musical arrangement by Philippe de Vitry in the Ars Nova style...

. All of the music is anonymous, and all is written in tablature

Tablature

Tablature is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches....

. Most of the music for the estampies is for two voices, often in parallel fifths, and also using hocket

Hocket

In music, hocket is the rhythmic linear technique using the alternation of notes, pitches, or chords. In medieval practice of hocket, a single melody is shared between two voices such that alternately one voice sounds while the other rests.In European music, hocket was used primarily in vocal...

 technique. Most likely the instrument used to play the pieces in the Codex was the organ

Organ (music)

The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

. Formerly the date of the Codex was presumed to be around 1330, but more recent research has suggested a later date, slightly after mid-century.

The manuscript used to be considered Italian and connected to the main streams of the Italian trecento

Music of the trecento

The Trecento was a period of vigorous activity in Italy in the arts, including painting, architecture, literature, and music. The music of the Trecento paralleled the achievements in the other arts in many ways, for example, in pioneering new forms of expression, especially in secular song in the...

 in its contents and in its clear use of puncti divisionis (dots of division). However, scholarly consensus now considers the source English.

The Codex is in the British Library

British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

 (additional manuscript 28550).

Media

Further reading

• John Gillespie, Five Centuries of Keyboard Music. New York, Dover Publications, 1965/1972. ISBN 048622855X

External links

• Medieval Music Database (La Trobe University)
• Sheet music of Robertsbridge Codex estampies