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Mirie it is while sumer ilast is a Middle English song from the first half of the 13th century. It is about the longing for summer in the face of the approaching cold season. The author of the song is unknown; the text and melody exist incomplete on a single, damaged manuscript page, which combined with the ambiguous execution of the neumes used for the notation makes accurate reconstruction of the song difficult. It is unclear whether the song originally contained additional lines or stanzas.

Mirie it is while sumer ilast is one of the oldest traditional songs in the English language. It is one of the few examples of non-liturgical music from medieval England. The manuscript was found together with two old French songs in a book of Psalms from the Bodleian Library. It was rediscovered at the end of the 19th century and made accessible to experts in 1901. It was arranged and recorded for the first time in the 1960s by Frank Llewelyn Harrison. Its reconstruction appeared in the British horror film as The Wicker Man in 1973 and the song has since established itself in the early music repertoire.

Manuscript
Mirie it is while sumer ilast is known from only one source. It can be found together with two contemporary French songs - chant ai entendu and Mult s'asprisme - on a paper page.

It was subsequently incorporated as a flyleaf in a book of Psalms from the second half of the 12th century. It is thought the book my have been part of the library of the Benedictine Thorney Abbey in near Peterborough. This is indicated by the mention of Saints Benedict, Botolph and Æthelthryth in the litany contained in the Psalter. The bones of Botolph were kept as a relic in Thorney, while Æthelthryth was considered the patron saint of the Isle of Ely. Following the dissolution of the monastery, the psalter eventually came into the collection of the antiquarian Richard Rawlinson, who bequeathed the book to the Bodleian Library at Oxford University in 1755. There it is cataloged under the signature MS Rawlinson G. 22. [1]

The song can be found on the back of the parchment (in the direction of binding) in the right of two columns of text. The heavily yellowed parchment has holes in several places, and the lower edge of the page has been torn off so that parts of the lyrics and notation are also missing. [2] A previous and three subsequent pages, which probably belonged to the original book of psalms, were also included in the volume, but were cut out at an unknown point in time. [1]

Localization and dating On the basis of linguistic features, the manuscript with Mirie it is is dated to the first half of the 13th century and is located in the dialect area of ​​the Midlands. For this localization, among other things, the word oc (but) is important, which in this context represents an Old Norse loan word, which would coincide with the region around Cambridge. [3] EWB Nicholson put the time of writing around the year 1225. This is indicated by the gh in fugheles and soregh, which was increasingly replaced by w from around 1250 onwards.Eric Dobson objects , however, that the sound shift from Old English sang to Middle English song (by lengthening the a before ng ), as found in the lyrics of the song, could hardly have taken place in the Midlands before 1225. The loss of the final syllable -e in almost also points to a later date of writing. Dobson believes that it was more likely that it was formed between 1230 and 1240. [4]

Such dating using linguistic features is, however, complicated by the tradition of medieval songs. First of all, the manuscript is probably the writing of already existing texts. A not inconsiderable period of time can therefore have elapsed between the composition and the drafting of the manuscript. It is also unclear whose words are in the lyrics: those of the song, as the copyist heard or learned, or those of the copyist who translated a possibly foreign dialect of Middle English into his own dialect. Many Middle English song lyrics have a strong dialectal mix in their vocabulary. This implies that they may have spread across what was then England before they were put down in writing.[5] Texts created in this way cannot easily be assigned to a clearly delimited dialect or to a specific development phase of Middle English. Last but not least, there was also a linguistic gap between the spoken and the written word: In the written language, archaic forms were often retained, while they had already become lost in everyday language. Linguistic developments are therefore not necessarily reflected in written texts, especially since spoken Middle Englishshowedgreat flexibility in the use of archaisms and neologisms at an early stage. [6]

At least the age of the manuscript can also be deduced from other clues. In England, for example, the new notation was replaced by modal and mensural notation around the middle of the 13th century. The manuscript of the Sumer is icumen in canon, probably written a few decades after that of Mirie it is , is already written in mensural notation. EWB Nicholson, from whom the parchment was dated to around 1220, cites the style of the lowercase script as an indication in addition to the language of the text. [7] That would mean Mirie it is next to Ar ne kuth ich care non the earliest known song in the English language. [8th]

Author and original context Photo of the main portal of the former monastery church at Thorney Abbey The remains of Thorney Abbey in Cambridgeshire. The book of Psalms, on the cover of which you can find Mirie it is, was probably made there. As with other English manuscripts of the High Middle Ages, nothing is known about the originator of the song and the manuscript. Of the 100 or so pieces of music that have survived from England in the 12th and 13th centuries, only four can be assigned as authors to Saint Godric von Finchale and one Renaud de Hoilande. [9]Books and manuscripts changed hands frequently; as different manuscripts attest, sometimes even during their creation. These circumstances make it difficult to determine the motive for composing and writing songs or to reconstruct the context in which they were written and sung. However, almost all song manuscripts of this time come with great certainty from a clerical, monastic context, which in the case of Mirie it is is also suggested by its inclusion in the Book of Psalms. Reading and writing skills were monastic well into the 13th centuryCircles limited. The commercial production of copies by professional scribes is only documented from Paris in the middle of the 13th century and probably only slowly spread to the periphery of medieval Western Europe. [10] Edward Nicholson speculates on the basis of the two old French love songs that the writer of the manuscript was a lay choirist. [1]

Songs from England of the 12th and 13th centuries, unlike those from contemporary France, are not passed down in song books. Often they were noted on pages that were left blank in other works or, as Mirie is, integrated into such. This suggests that the writing of music in English monasteries was of little importance and was dependent on the leisure and interest of individual monks. But it could just as well be an artifact of the destruction of books and manuscripts in the course of the dissolution of the English monasteries : it is just as plausible that song collections once existed on a larger scale and that Mirie's handwriting was part of one. The writer of Mirie- As the manuscript shows, the writing was well versed in the notation of music and spoke not only Middle English but also Old French Anglo- Norman. While the two French troubadour songs […] chant ai entendu and Mult s'asprisme suggest a courtly-romantic context both in terms of language and content, Mirie it is in the vernacular is much darker, which some commentators see as a continuation of the old English poetry tradition, others as an expression Anglo-Saxon peasant life. [11] [12]

Text
Der Originaltext des Manuskripts ist in für das 13. Jahrhundert typischer Minuskel verfasst und enthält neben dem heute im Englischen gebräuchlichen lateinischen Alphabet auch die Buchstaben ƿ (Wynn), ð (Eth) und ſ (langes s), das durchgehend für das s verwendet wird. Während ð im Manuskript durchgängig den heutigen Digraph th vertritt, nutzte der Verfasser für den Laut [ w ] sowohl ƿ als auch w. Die handschriftliche Ausführung von ð hebt sich lediglich durch einen Querstrich von d ab, der im Manuskript nur sehr schwach ausfällt. Am Anfang der ersten Zeile ist Platz für den dekorierten Anfangsbuchstaben M ausgespart; dieser wurde jedoch nicht eingesetzt.

Uneindeutig ist der einem j ähnelnde Buchstabe am Ende der vierten Zeile. Er ist länger als das ansonsten im Text verwendete i. Zugleich unterscheidet er sich in seiner Ausführung von dem in den beiden französischen Texten verwendeten j, weshalb ihn Helen Deeming in ihrer Quellenedition mittelenglischer Musik als y interpretiert. An mehreren Stellen ist das Pergament durch Löcher beschädigt, wodurch Buchstaben teilweise oder vollständig fehlen. Das zweite Wort der vierten Zeile wird als weder (Wetter) rekonstruiert; in der fünften Zeile wird in Textbearbeitungen das Wort is (ist) ersetzt. Schwieriger gestaltet sich die Rekonstruktion des Wortes fast (darben, fasten) in der abgerissenen achten Zeile. Es lässt sich in erster Linie über das Reimschema ilast – blast erschließen. Edward Nicholsons Rekonstruktion des letzten Wortes als fast ist heute allgemein akzeptiert, auch weil es sich in Chaucers Canterbury Tales in ähnlichen, weltlichen Zusammenhängen findet. Es ist aber nicht die einzige plausible Ergänzung: Auch wast(e) für „vergehen“ oder „dahinschwinden“ wäre in den Augen des Linguisten Karl Reichl möglich. In dieser Bedeutung ist es allerdings erst ab dem späten 14. Jahrhundert belegt.

The original text of the manuscript is more typical of the 13th century minuscule written and contains the now in English common Latin alphabet, the letter ƿ (Wynn), ð (Eth) and s ( long s ), which is continuous for the use s. While ð consistently represents today's digraph th in the manuscript, the author used both ƿ and w for the sound [ w ]. The handwritten version of ð is only highlighted by a dash in dwhich is only very weak in the manuscript. At the beginning of the first line there is space left out for the decorated initial letter M; however, this was not used. [13]

Section of a parament with minuscule writing and staves Detail of the Mirie manuscript with the letter j-like in the fourth line of the song “and w [ed] er strong. Ey ey " Section of a parchment with minuscule writing For comparison, the execution in the text of Mult s'asprisme on the same page: The j in the text “[…] dunt jen ai tel duel e ire. JE suis. Asez me sai de […] “shows a clearly different form. The letter resembling a j at the end of the fourth line is ambiguous. It is longer than the i used elsewhere in the text . At the same time, it differs in its execution from the j used in the two French texts, which is why Helen Deeming interprets it as y in her source edition of Middle English music . [13] The parchment is damaged by holes in several places, as a result of which letters are partially or completely missing. The second word of the fourth line is reconstructed as neither (weather); the fifth line in text edits is the word is(is) replaced. The reconstruction of the word almost (starve, fast) in the broken eighth line turns out to be more difficult. It can be inferred primarily via the rhyme scheme ilast - blast. Edward Nicholson's reconstruction of the last word as almost is generally accepted today, [4] also because it is found in similar, secular contexts in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. [14] [15] However, it is not the only plausible addition: wast (e) for " perish " or "wither away" would be in the eyes of the linguist Karl Reichlpossible. However, it is only documented in this meaning from the late 14th century. [15]

Content and motives The lyrical self of the text revels in the memory of the warm season of the year ( Mirie it is while sumer ilast ), which is filled with the song of the birds ( with fugheles song ). This nostalgic look back is contrasted with the onset of bad weather and storm winds ( oc nu neicheth windes blast and neither strong ). The days have also become short; In the next sentence the singer complains about the never-ending night ( Ey ey what this is not long ). The following passage and I with wel michel wrongCan not be clearly interpreted: Does the lyrical ego quarrel with wrong suffered or committed in the past or with the fact that it has to suffer unjustly in the present? The stanza closes with the pitiful situation of the lyric self, repenting and complaining and starving ( soregh and murne and fast ). [16]

In his motifs, Mirie it is follows on from French troubadour poetry of the High Middle Ages. Above all, the reference to nature as a mirror of the soul is characteristic here. With Cercamon, for example, the first breath of autumn, the falling leaves and the changing birdsong are symbols of a past, unattainable love. [17] Similarly, the biota but are also found in other Middle English songs of the 13th and 14th centuries: Birds come about in Fuweles in the frith (birds in the woods) or Bryd one Brere (bird on a branch) already in the first line of the song in appearance; the summer will be in Sumer is icumen in (Summer has come) sung about, albeit much more euphoric than in Mirie it is. Weather change is also not an image that is limited to the song fragment from the Bodleian Library. Almost at the same time it can also be found in Man mei longe as “fair neither ofte him turneth into rene” (“nice weather often turns into rain”).

Notation As usual for the early 13th century is Mirie it is while sumer ilast in Neumen listed. This early form of notation is distinguished from the one used today primarily by the lack of time and unambiguous note lengths. It was not until the middle of the 13th century that it was superseded in England by the emerging modal and later mensural notation and was only used in the notation of sacred chants, so-called plain songs. Neumes served more as a guide than as a clear guideline for the performance of music. The rhythm of singing was mainly based on the flow of the spoken language. [18]Singers had a lot of leeway in interpretation, but at the same time they were expected to be able to interpret music without clear rhythmic guidelines. [19] [12]

Neumes are difficult to translate into modern notation, partly because they fulfill a different function than their counterparts today and modern music is based on different aesthetic principles. From a modern point of view, a “literal” interpretation of neumes leads to harmonic and rhythmic disparities and does not come close to performance practice. An approximation or approximation of then and today's listening habits can only take place at the price of a deviation or a reshaping of traditional notation. [20] [12] The transcription by Cecie and JFR Stainer shown here strictly follows the notation in the original manuscript and dispenses with the replacement of missing notes or the adjustment of pitch lengths. [21]There are also modernized versions of the Mirie melody, for example by Frank Llewelyn Harrison , which are rhythmic, but differ in their notes from the manuscript version and shorten the four notes to three at the beginning of the song. Also, where notes in the manuscript do not match those in the previous lines, they have changed pitches in order to bring about an alignment. [22] This strong intervention in or the correction of the manuscript is justified by their representatives with a lack of musical knowledge of the original author. [23] For this there is in the case of MS. Rawlinson G. 22 no clues, but in some other cases of Middle English song manuscripts. [24]

The (presumably) last, missing note for almost the end of the verse is usually reconstructed as g ', because all other lines of the song also end in g'. As an interpreter of Middle English music, Ian Pittaway considers this to be a mistake, because it contradicts the medieval sequence of consonance-dissonance-consonance. Since the song begins with a double-pricked e and the melody largely follows the Phrygian mode, the penultimate note, a slashed f, should be followed by an e '. On the basis of these basic considerations, Pittaway has made a reconstruction of the song that differs significantly from that of Harrison's more popular. [12]

Singing In addition to the notation, the structure and pronunciation of Middle English in particular represent a challenge for the reconstruction of Mirie it is. For example, whether the word ending -e was still spoken at the beginning of the 13th century or whether it had already fallen silent, probably depended on the context. Although it was omitted for some words in later stages of written English - for example in merry <  mirie or mourn  <  murne - it was probably no longer spoken in everyday life by the end of the fourteenth century, although the formal and written language retained it for some time. However, the four notes at the beginning of the piece suggest that Mirieactually when [mɪ-r̩i-ɛ] was sung. [25] [12] Thomas Duncan recognizes in the sung lyrics of Mirie it is, however, four different phonetic reduction processes, in which an unstressed e either appeared in the vowel sound (or an h ) of the following word ( elision ), in the middle of the word was omitted ( syncope ), after an i merged with this to form [ j ] ( synthesis ) or disappeared in closing syllables before a consonant ( apocope). Accordingly, the first words should have been sung as [mɪ-r̩i-tis], which corresponds to a reduction from five to three syllables. [6]

There is disagreement about whether poetry and song in Middle English followed a certain metric. For Eric Dobson and Frank Llewelyn Harrison, the transition from Old to Middle English is marked by the emergence of regular verse schemes and end rhymes. Thomas Duncan also advocates this theory and cites it as a reason for reducing the syllables of the sung text to an almost regular meter. [26] On the other hand, John Stevens sees the entire High Middle Ages as being shaped by a lack of classical metrics. Only with the rediscovery of ancient meters in the Renaissancerhymes and schemas would have had a formative influence on the lyric and thus also on the song and melody. Accordingly, Mirie it is while sumer ilast, which he uses as evidence for his thesis, is not based on a rhythm of the spoken or sung word. Rather, the melody and the song follow the natural flow of language. This authenticity is what makes the poetics and charm of this short and comparatively simple song fragment to this day. [27]

Modern reception In 1901 the first complete edition of the early music pieces contained in the Bodleian Library appeared, which also included Mirie it is while sumer ilast. The manuscripts were compiled by John Stainer, who died shortly before the edition was completed. The transcription of the pieces and their edition was therefore completed by his son John Frederick Randell and his wife Cecie Stainer ; the then head of the Bodleian Library, Edward Nicholson, took care of the commentary on the texts and the dating of the manuscripts. The Stainer's transcriptions were aimed primarily at a scientific audience and consciously refrained from adapting them to modern listening habits or from reconstructing missing notes. [19]

Mirie it is was recorded for the first time in 1965. The musicologist Frank Llewelyn Harrison had adapted the piece for viola, harp and tenor; the medievalist Eric Dobson reconstructed the text and the pronunciation. Both therefore followed her later in her songbook Medieval English SongsThe maxim outlined above, to make corrections to the edition of medieval manuscripts: Errors that had arisen through transmission, writing and lack of knowledge of the copyists should be corrected in this way. Dobson assumed a regular metric of the text and deleted syllables where he considered them to be purely written relics that no longer had a spoken counterpart. So he reconstructed a regular meter of 7a / 5b / 7a / 4b / 7b / 7b / 7a for the text and shortened Mirie to Miri for this. Harrison, in turn, reconstructed a rhythmic melody from the neumes of the original manuscript, in which he also adapted the harmonies to modern listening habits. Although Dobson advocated a critical edition of musical mediaeval sources as well, he and Harrison were equally interested in making this music playable and singable again. [28]

Harrison's and Dobson's 1965 recording, sung by British countertenor Grayston Burgess, was picked up a few years later by Gary Carpenter and John Giovanni for the soundtrack of the horror flick The Wicker Man. Carpenter built on Harrison's melody for his adaptation and enriched it with empty fifths. Carpenter deliberately broke through the harmony of Harrison's melody in several places with dissonances, which give the piece an unpolished and archaic character for ears used to modern harmonies. As a result, the title is reminiscent of Festival as it was on the soundtrack of The Wicker Manmeans, in many respects, of medieval or renaissance music; despite the modern wind instruments that Carpenter mainly used for his arrangement. In the film, the melody is used as background music for a scene in the library in which the protagonist Neil Howie learns of the existence of ancient pagan cults on the fictional Scottish island of Summerisle. [29] Festival is a separate title on the vinyl edition ; On the other hand, on the CD version of the soundtrack from 2002, the piece merges into Approach and Summer is A-comen in and forms a joint track with them.

Anglo-Saxon and Celtic traditions were an important point of reference both for the nationally oriented folk movement of the 1960s and 1970s and for the film itself. Together with Sumer is icumen in, Mirie it is is one of two medieval songs that mixes with modern folk music and British folk songs on the film's soundtrack. Regardless of the fact that both songs have been handed down from monastic contexts, they serve in the film as elements of a neo-pagan natural religion, which in The Wicker Manis opposed to the traditions and beliefs of a Christianity portrayed as conservative and repressive. Conversely, the film and its soundtrack made a significant contribution to popularizing both pieces over the long term and to anchoring them in the collective memory beyond early music and folk music. [29]

Audio samples Ensemble Belladonna: Miri it is while sumer ilast. edition raumklang, 2006. www.youtube.com - based on the melody reconstructed by Harrison Magnet & Paul Giovanni: Festival / Mirie It Is / Sumer Is A-Cumen In. Silva Screen Records, 2002. www.youtube.com - Gary Carpenters and Paul Giovanni's arrangement for the film The Wicker Man Ian Pittaway: Mirie it is while sumer ilast. IPMusic, 2018. www.youtube.com - alternative reconstruction of the melody by Ian Pittaway