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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 June 2025
Crux de Telcz (Crux of Telč, or Kříž z Telče) was one of the most prolific scribes of late medieval Bohemia, active in the second half of the fifteenth century. In various roles, Crux contributed to several dozen manuscripts, which present an extraordinarily broad range of contents in various genres. This study analyses items with musical notation and the texts of sacred and secular songs in manuscripts copied or used by Crux. These are chiefly notated records of monophonic and polyphonic cantiones with texts in Latin and Czech, and to a lesser extent plainchant melodies belonging to the realm of Latin liturgical repertoire. Yet one of Crux’s manuscripts (Třeboň A 4) also bears witness to an early use of white mensural notation in Bohemia. In recent years, it has been possible to refine Crux’s biography substantially, with the result that most of his musical copying activities can be shown to have been made in the period while he was active as a teacher. His manuscripts thus offer important insights into ways in which sacred songs and new polyphonic works were disseminated in the fifteenth century, chiefly within literate and pedagogical circles.
This study was written as part of the project ‘Old Myths, New Facts: Czech Lands in the Center of 15th-Century Music Developments’, under the auspices of the Czech Science Foundation, project number 19-28306-X. I would like to thank Cody M. Perk for proofreading and linguistic assistance with this text.
1 Czech poems are published in Jan Lehár, ed., Česká středověká lyrika [Czech medieval poetry] (Prague, 1990), with critical comments and literature until 1990; Latin texts are published in Guido Maria Dreves, ed., Cantiones Bohemicae: Leiche, Lieder und Rufe des 13., 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts, Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi 1 (Leipzig, 1886); for a more recent edition of Czech and Latin texts, see also Brigitte Böse and Franz Schäfer, eds., Geistliche Lieder und Gesänge in Böhmen, vol. II: 1420–1475, Bausteine zur Slavischen Philologie und Kulturgeschichte, Reihe B, Editionen, Neue Folge, 14 (Cologne, 2000); Crux’s manuscripts were consulted by Zdeněk Nejedlý, especially when analysing secular poetry written and transmitted by university students, see Zdeněk Nejedlý, Dějiny předhusitského zpěvu [History of Pre-Hussite Chant] (Prague, 1904), Počátky husitského zpěvu [Beginnings of Hussite Chant] (Prague, 1907), Dějiny husitského zpěvu za válek husitských [History of Hussite Chant during Hussite Wars] (Prague, 1913); the unchanged text of these three books was published as Dějiny husitského zpěvu [History of Hussite Chant], 6 vols. (Prague, 1954–6).
2 The Compacts of Basel was an agreement between the Council of Basel and the Utraquists (moderate Hussites) from 1437, which in fact legalised communion under both kinds, ‘sub utraque specie’; on practical aspects of coexistence of Utraquism and Catholicism, see Robert Novotný, ‘Bi-confessionalism in Post-Hussite Bohemian Towns and Its Legal Regulation’, in Conflict after Compromise: Regulating Tensions in Multi-Confessional Societies in the Fifteenth Century, ed. Dušan Coufal and Adam Pálka, Forschungen zur Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Mitteleuropa 61 (Dresden, 2024), 149–67.
3 Lucie Doležalová and Michal Dragoun, eds., Kříž z Telče (1434–1504): Písař, sběratel a autor [Kříž of Telč: Scribe, Collector and Author] (Dolní Břežany, 2020); Lucie Doležalová, with contributions by Michal Dragoun and Kimberly Rivers, Passionate Copying in Late Medieval Bohemia: The Case of Crux de Telcz (1434–1504), Prague Medieval Studies 1 (Prague, 2021); Michal Dragoun, Adéla Ebersonová and Lucie Doležalová, eds., Středověké knihovny augustiniánských kanonií v Třeboni a Borovanech [Medieval Libraries of Augustinian Canonries in Třeboň and Borovany], 3 vols. (Dolní Břežany, 2021).
4 Part of the material in the current article has been published in Czech: Jan Ciglbauer, ‘Notované rukopisy z třeboňské knihovny s důrazem na písařskou a sběratelskou činnost Kříže z Telče’ [Manuscripts from the Třeboň Library with Musical Notation, with Special Focus on Activities of Kříž of Telč as Scribe and Collector], in Dragoun et al., eds., Středověké knihovny, 1: 145–54. The current article is focused exclusively on Crux and offers more detailed analysis of items with musical notation.
5 Lucie Doležalová, ‘II. Životopis’ [Biography], in Doležalová and Dragoun, eds., Kříž z Telče, 21–31, at 21–4; Doležalová et al., Passionate Copying, 25–8.
6 Jaroslav Kadlec, ‘Oldřich Kříž z Telče’ [Oldřich Kříž of Telč], Listy filologické, 79/1 (1956), 91–102, and 79/2 (1956), 234–8 at 92, n. 4.
7 Lucie Doležalová, ‘II. Životopis’, in Doležalová and Dragoun, eds., Kříž z Telče, 21–31 at 24–31; Doležalová et al., Passionate Copying, 30–1.
8 See collected bibliographies for Crux’s manuscripts looked at in this study in Dragoun et al., eds., Středověké knihovny, 2: 1149, 1203, 1254 and 1048; see also n. 1 above.
9 Dreves, ed., Cantiones Bohemicae, 20 (‘stammen aus der Feder des Frater Crux de Telcz, die – nomen est omen – allerdings geeignet ist, den Leser zu kreuzigen’).
10 Michal Dragoun, ‘Křížova “knihovna”’ [Crux’s ‘Library’], in Doležalová and Dragoun, Kříž z Telče, 33–46 at 34–5; for a detailed codicological analysis of Třeboň A 4 and A 7, see Dragoun et al., Středověké knihovny, 1148–9 and 1202–3, respectively. Through a detailed codicological analysis and comparison of watermarks and colophons, Dragoun has found that most of the contents of Třeboň A 7 was written c.1450 and a few following years (with small additions from 1477). The colophons relate to places where he was a teacher before 1460. Třeboň A 4 comes from the same time, but it has additional colophons and texts related to the Prague University (from c.1459). Where not specified otherwise, Crux was the scribe of both musical notation and song texts.
11 In the following lines I will give a selective summary of the newest relevant details about Crux’s life, as published in Doležalová et al., Passionate Copying, 25–43.
12 Since ‘Žďár’ has the meaning of a place or tract of land acquired by burning forest cover, there are several places called ‘Žďár’ originating from the times of the colonisation of Bohemian regions covered with dense woods in the Middle Ages.
13 Prague, Národní knihovna [National Library], XIII G 18, fol. 42r, ‘scriptus per me Crucem de Telcz in Sobieslavia in scolis dum fui pro socio’ (‘written by me, Crux de Telcz, in Soběslav at the school where I was assistant teacher’). Available at manuscriptorium.com (accessed 13 April 2024).
14 For an overview of the repertoire as well as discussion on ‘sociorum’, see Mráčková, Lenka [= Hlávková], ‘Części mszalne z określeniem “sociorum” w kodeksie Speciálník: Studium polifonii końca XV wieku w Czechach’ [The Parts of Mass Ordinary Called ‘sociorum’ in the Speciálník Codex: A Study of Late Fifteenth-Century Polyphony in Bohemia], Muzyka, 49/3 (2004), 89–110 Google Scholar.
15 Horyna, Martin, ‘Vícehlasá hudba v Čechách v 15. A 16. století a její interpreti’ [Polyphonic Music in Bohemia in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries and Its Performers], Hudební věda, 43/2 (2006), 117–34Google Scholar, at 125–6.
16 Ryszard Wieczorek mentions an annotation ‘ad socios’ in a source from Poland that is not in the setting ‘ad voces equales’, see Musica figurata w Saksonii i na Śląsku u schyłku XV wieku [Polyphonic Music in Saxonia and Silesia at the End of the Fifteenth Century] (Poznań, 2002), 104.
17 Blanka Zilynská, ‘The Conflict over Confession and Power at the University of Prague in the 1450–60s’, in Conflict after Compromise: Regulating Tensions in Multi-Confessional Societies in the Fifteenth Century, ed. Dušan Coufal and Adam Pálka, Forschungen zur Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Mitteleuropa 61 (Dresden, 2024), 168–82.
18 As long as he was a member of any clerical community, he would have needed to participate in communal liturgies at Mass and the Divine Office.
19 The role of music in late medieval German schooling has been described on the basis of extensive source studies in Klaus Wolfgang Niemöller, Untersuchungen zu Musikpflege und Musikunterricht an den deutschen Lateinschulen vom ausgehenden Mittelalter bis um 1600, Kölner Beiträge zur Musikforschung 54 (Regensburg, 1969), 581–648; an analysis of the standards in Czech schools using the example of Český Krumlov is found in Horyna, Martin, ‘Hudba a hudební život v Českém Krumlově do poloviny 16. století’ [Music and Musical Life in Český Krumlov until the Mid-Sixteenth Century], Miscellanea musicologica [Prague], 31 (1984), 265–306 Google Scholar.
20 Hana Pátková, Bratrstvie ke cti Božie: Poznámky ke kultovní činnosti bratrstev a cechů ve středověkých Čechách [Brotherhood to the Honour of God: Notes on the Cultic Activities of Brotherhoods and Guilds in Medieval Bohemia] (Prague, 2000), 36–42.
21 Horyna, ‘Vícehlasá hudba v Čechách’, 118–19.
22 On the genesis of the manuscript Vyšší Brod 42, see Jan Ciglbauer, ‘The Scribe(s), Genesis, and Use of the Manuscript Vyšší Brod 42’, in Vyšší Brod 42: A Unique Music Source from Pre-Hussite Bohemia, ed. Hana Vlhová-Wörner, Prague Medieval Studies 4 (forthcoming).
23 See respectively, Ian Rumbold, ‘Hermann Pötzlinger und seine Musiksammlung. Der Mensuralcodex St. Emmeram als Zeugnis der zentraleuropäischen Musikpraxis um 1440’, in Musikalische Repertoires in Zentraleuropa (1420–1450): Prozesse & Praktiken, ed. Alexander Rausch and Björn R. Tammen, Wiener Musikwissenschaftliche Beiträge 26 (Vienna, 2014), 65–81 at 65; Ian Rumbold and Peter Wright, Hermann Pötzlinger’s Music Book: The St Emmeram Codex and Its Contexts, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music (Woodbridge, 2009), 143–77; and Schmitz, Arnold, ‘Ein schlesisches Cantional aus dem 15. Jahrhundert’, Archiv für Musikforschung, 1 (1936), 385–423 Google Scholar, at 386; München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, clm 5023 was compiled in 1495, by Johannes Greis, rector scholarium at Benediktbeuern.
24 Sigurd Kroon, ed., A Danish Teacher’s Manual of the Mid-Fifteenth Century (Cod. AM 76, 8⁰), vol. 1: Transcription and Facsimile, Skrifter utgivna av Vetenskapssocieteten i Lund 85 (Lund, 1993); Britta Oldrik Frederiksen, John Bergsagel and Inge Skog, eds., A Danish Teacher’s Manual of the Mid-Fifteenth Century (Cod. AM 76, 8⁰), vol. 2: Commentary and Essays, Skrifter utgivna av Vetenskapssocieteten i Lund 96 (Lund, 2008).
25 Cantiones in the sources listed below are catalogued in Cantio.cz.
26 Dragoun et al., Středověké knihovny, 2: 1202–43.
27 Hiley, David, Western Plainchant: A Handbook (Oxford, 1993), 326–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
28 Rhombic notation is rhythmless staff notation typical of the Czech Lands; it evolved from the Messine chant notation and became dominant in Bohemia from the fourteenth century onwards. For its genesis and promotion in Bohemia, see David Eben and Susan Rankin, ‘Using the Past as Model: Musical Scripts in Books of the Prague Diocese’, in Sounding the Past: Music as History and Memory, ed. Karl Kügle, Epitome musical (Turnhout, 2020), 75–100.
29 According to Michal Dragoun, Crux was not the scribe responsible for this pair of Advent responsories. He wrote the responsories for St Dorothy, see Dragoun et al., Středověké knihovny, 2: 1149.
30 In Austria the cult of St Dorothy is connected with the Augustinian canons (Seckau, Vorau), see, for example, the manuscript Vorau, Augustiner-Chorherrenstift, 333 (Vorau, 1299), edited by Gionata Brusa as Der ‘Liber ordinarius Voraviensis’, in Cantus Network - semantisch erweiterte digitale Edition der Libri Ordinarii der Metropole Salzburg, Wien/Graz 2019 (last updated 18 April 2019), gams.uni-graz.at/o:cantus.vorau (accessed 13 April 2024). According to the statute of the Reczek College of the Prague University from 1438, the feast of St Dorothy was celebrated in the college’s liturgy, but apparently only with proper chants for Mass. Therefore, responsories for Matins would not be necessary: ‘In die vero Catherine missam et vesperas, in diebus autem Barbare, Dorothee, Margarethe … missas tantum’ (‘Mass and Vespers on the feast of St Catherine, but on the feasts of Barbara, Dorothea, Margaret … only Mass’); for the most recent edition, see František Šmahel and Gabriel Silagi, eds., Statuta et Acta Rectorum Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis: 1360–1614, Documenta Historica Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis 1 (Prague, 2018), 310–23, at 317. Sources for liturgy at the St Wenceslaus college have not survived.
31 Třeboň A 4, fol. 408v, ‘Cum rex regina glorie cristusi infernum genitrix de mundo celum intraret’.
32 The love song Jižť mne všě radost ostává belongs to a few secular compositions in Old Czech from the fourteenth century. It is preserved in three fifteenth-century sources without any significant territorial, institutional or chronological connections; see František Mužík, ‘Závišova píseň’ [Záviš’s Song], Sborník prací Filosofické fakulty Brněnské university (series F), 14/9 (1965), 167–82, at 173; for the edition of text, see Lehár, Česká středověká lyrika, 244–6; for the author of the composition, see Vlhová-Wörner, Hana, ‘Záviš, autor liturgické poezie 14. století’ [Záviš, Author of Fourteenth-Century Liturgical Poetry], Hudební věda, 44 (2007), 229–60Google Scholar; on his identity, see also Ciglbauer, Jan, ‘Antiphon oder Cantio? Auf der Suche nach der Identität des mitteleuropäischen geistlichen Liedes’, Hudební věda, 53 (2016), 117–28Google Scholar, at 123–5.
33 Jaromír Černý, ‘Cantio’, in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 2nd edn, Sachteil vol. 2 (Kassel, 1995), col. 389–93; Jan Kouba, ‘Od husitství do Bílé hory (1420–1620)’ [From Hussite Times until the Battle of White Mountain], in Hudba v českých dějinách, 2nd edn, ed. Jaromír Černý et al. (Prague, 1989), 85–146; see also Lenka Hlávková and Pavel Kodýtek, ‘Mensural Songs of the Manuscript Vyšší Brod 42 and a Landscape of the Late Medieval cantio in Bohemia’, in Vyšší Brod 42: A Unique Music Source from Pre-Hussite Bohemia, ed. Hana Vlhová-Wörner (forthcoming).
34 Vyšší Brod, Cisterciácké opatství, knihovna, 42 (1410); Praha, Národní archiv, fond Archiv kolegiátní kapituly vyšehradské, 376 (olim V c C4, c.1460); Hradec Králové, Muzeum Východních Čech, Hr-6 (olim II A 6) [The Franus Gradual] (1505); Prague, Knihovna Národního muzea, XIII A 2 (1512); Chrudim, Regionální muzeum, 12580 (Latin Gradual; 1530). Digital images of all these manuscripts are available at Melodiarium Hymnologicum Bohemiae, melodiarium.musicologica.cz; lists of cantiones and full-text transcriptions of text can be found on Cantio.cz (accessed 13 April 2024).
35 Stefan Rosmer, Der Mönch von Salzburg und das lateinische Lied, Imagines Medii Aevi 44 (Wiesbaden, 2019); Jan Ciglbauer, ‘Cantione Bohemicae: Komposition und Tradition’, PhD diss., Charles University, Prague (2017); Reinhard Strohm, ‘Sacred Song in the Fifteenth Century: Cantio, Carol, Lauda, Kirchenlied’, in The Cambridge History of Fifteenth-Century Music, ed. Anna Maria Busse Berger and Jesse Rodin (Cambridge, 2015), 755–84; Brewer, Charles, ‘The Songs of Johannes Decanus’, Plainsong and Medieval Music, 20/1 (2011), 31–49 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
36 On Dominator est iam natus, see Böse and Schäfer, eds., Geistliche Lieder und Gesänge, II: 354–5.
37 As first noticed by Antonín Škarka, ‘Nové kapitoly ze staré české hymnologie’ [New Chapters from Old Czech Hymnology], Sborník filologický, 12 (1942), 37–114, at 51, 61–2; see the edition of the entire text in Böse and Schäfer, eds., Geistliche Lieder und Gesänge, II: 351–2; Jan of Příbram (died 1448) was an important theologian, master at the Prague university; he belonged to the moderate stream of Utraquism and opponents of radical Hussites.
38 See the edition in Hana Vlhová-Wörner, ed., The Jistebnice Kancionál: MS. Prague, National Museum Library, II C 7, Critical Edition, vol. 2: Cantionale, Monumenta Liturgica Bohemica 3 (Chomutov, 2019), 162–4 and 166–8, respectively.
39 According to Dragoun, ‘Křížova “knihovna”’, 35, n. 18, the script in Probleumata enigmatum and the next song, In natali domini, is the work of another hand; Crux only annotated minor textual corrections and the text of further strophes.
40 On Petrus Wilhelmi de Grudencz, see Jaromír Černý, ‘Petrus Wilhelmi de Grudencz: Neznámý skladatel doby Dufayovy v českých pramenech’ [Unknown Composer of Dufay’s Time in Czech Sources], Hudební věda, 12 (1975), 195–238; Jaromír Černý, ed., Petrus Wilhelmi de Grudencz: Magister Cracoviensis; Opera Musica (Cracovia, 1993); Gancarczyk, Paweł, ‘Petrus Wilhelmi de Grudencz (b. 1392) – a Central European Composer’, De musica disserenda, 2/1 (2006), 103–12Google Scholar; recently also Paweł Gancarczyk, Petrus Wilhelmi de Grudencz i muzyka Europy Środkowej XV wieku [Petrus Wilhelmi de Grudencz and the Music of Central Europe in the Fifteenth Century] (Warsaw, 2021).
41 Kraków, Biblioteka Jagiellońska, 2464; for an edition of the musical contents, see Charles E. Brewer, ed., Collectio cantilenarum saeculi XV. Rkp. Biblioteki Jagiellońskiej Kj 2464, Źródła do historii muzyki polskiej [Sources for the History of Polish Music] 30 (Kraków, 1990).
42 Rumbold, ‘Herrman Pötzlinger’; Rumbold and Wright, Music Book.
43 Ciglbauer, Jan and Gancarczyk, Paweł, ‘Manuscript RC 4 from the Silesian Museum in Opava and an Unknown Song by Petrus Wilhelmi de Grudencz’, Muzyka, 62/2 (2017), 99–105 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
44 Ciglbauer, Jan, ‘Habent sua fata libelli: Das Lübecker Troparium und mögliche musikalische Interessen des Simon Batz von Homburg’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 73/3 (2016), 220–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 229; at that time, a Latin text with the acrostic ‘Petrus’ (Pneuma erumpnosi telluri rei veneremur spem), set loosely to the melody of Nun bitten wir den heiligen Geist, appears on the inner side of the front cover of the Lübeck troparium; however, the connection with Batz was not found; see ibid., 226–7.
45 Ward, Tom R., ‘Music in the Library of Johannes Klein’, in Music in the German Renaissance. Sources, Styles, and Contexts, ed. Kmetz, John (Cambridge, 1994), 54–73 Google Scholar, at 54–5 and 68–70.
46 Ústí nad Orlicí, Státní okresní archiv, A 3, see Gancarczyk, Paweł, ‘Changing Identities of Songs by Petrus Wilhelmi de Grudencz’, Hudební věda, 54/1 (2017), 5–24 Google Scholar, at 9.
47 Zilynská, ‘The Conflict over Confession’, 170–5.
48 This stage of the tradition has been analysed by Horyna, Martin, ‘Die Kompositionen von Peter Wilhelmi von Graudenz als Teil der spätmittelalterlichen Polyfonie-Tradition in Mitteleuropa und insbesondere im Böhmen des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts’, Hudební věda, 40/4 (2003), 291–328 Google Scholar.
49 Another version is found among the Italian laudae in the manuscript Bologna Q15, see M. Jennifer Bloxam, ‘“La Contenance Italienne”: The Motets on “Beata es Maria” by Compère, Obrecht and Brumel’, Early Music History, 11 (1992), 39–89, at 43–5; for a facsimile, see Bologna Q15: The Making and Remaking of a Musical Manuscript, ed. Margaret Bent, 2 vols. (Lucca, 2008), no. 180.
50 Hradec Králové, Muzeum Východních Čech, Hr-7 (olim II A 7), fol. 235v (page 470); Jaromír Černý et al., eds., Historical Anthology of Music in the Bohemian Lands (up to ca 1530) (Prague, 2005), 230–1.
51 Černý, ed., Petrus Wilhelmi. Magister, 47.
52 Codex Speciálník, fols. 43v–44r (pages 86–7).
53 Some of the oldest partbooks are known as the Glogauer Liederbuch, Kraków, Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Mus. 40098 (1477–82). A more precise denotation with respect to the source’s character and provenance is the ‘Żagań partbooks’, suggested by Paweł Gancarczyk, ‘Memory of Genre: The Polytextual Motet in Central Europe and Its Two Traditions’, in Sounding the Past: Music as History and Memory, ed. Karl Kügle, Epitome musical (Turnhout, 2020), 141–55, at 142.
54 Dragoun et al., Středověké knihovny 3, 1252–97, no. K55.
55 Ibid., 1047–67, no. K35.
56 Doležalová et al., Passionate Copying, 3538.
57 Compare the text in Lehár, ed., Česká středověká lyrika, 144–5, 306.
58 Johannes Janota, ‘Salve festa dies (deutsch)’, in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, 2nd edn, vol. 8 (Berlin, 1992), col. 549–50.
59 Dragoun et al., Středověké knihovny, nos. K25, T177, K40 and K56.
60 Zsuzsa Czagány, ‘Tractatus ex traditione Hollandrini cod. Pragensis I.G.1 (Trad. Holl. XI)’, in Traditio Iohannis Hollandrini, ed. Michael Bernhard and Elżbieta Witkowska-Zaremba, vol. 4., Veröffentlichungen der Musikhistorischen Kommission 22 (Munich, 2013), 145–225.
61 Michael Bernhard and Elżbieta Witkowska-Zaremba, ‘The Teaching Tradition of Johannes Hollandrinus’, in Traditio Iohannis Hollandrini, ed. Michael Bernhard and Elżbieta Witkowska-Zaremba, vol. 1., Veröffentlichungen der Musikhistorischen Kommission 19 (Munich, 2010), 148–54.
62 This text is also copied in Třeboň A 7, fols. 215r–218r.
63 Jaromír Černý, ‘Středověký vícehlas v českých zemích’ [Medieval Polyphony in the Czech Lands], Miscellanea musicologica [Prague], 27–8 (1975), 9–110, at 27–8.
64 Karlheinz Schlager, ed., Alleluia-Melodien, vol. 2: Ab 1100, Monumenta Monodica Medii Aevi 8 (Kassel, 1987), 468/785, 449/775, 46/587, 331/716.
65 Margaretha Landwehr-Melnicki, Das einstimmige Kyrie des lateinischen Mittelalters (Regensburg, 1954), Mel. 58; Detlev Bosse, Untersuchung einstimmiger mittelalterlicher Melodien zum Gloria in excelsis deo, Forschungsbeiträge zur Musikwissenschaft 2 (Regensburg, 1955), Mel. 8, 7a.