Byttering (also Bytering, Bytteryng, or Biteryng; ) was an English composer during the stylistic transitional from

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

music. Five of his compositions have survived in the ''

Old Hall Manuscript The Old Hall Manuscript (British Library, Add MS 57950) is the largest, most complete, and most significant source of English sacred music of the late 14th and early 15th centuries, and as such represents the best source for late Medieval English ...

'', where the musicologist Peter Wright contends they "form a small yet distinctive corpus of work notable for its technical ambition and musical accomplishment".

Identity and career

Extremely little is known of Byttering, whose name is variously spelled as Bytering, Bytteryng, and Biteryng. The musicologist

Margaret Bent Margaret Bent CBE , (born Margaret Hilda Bassington; 23 December 1940) is an English musicologist who specializes in music of the late medieval and Renaissance eras. In particular, she has written extensively on the Old Hall Manuscript, English ...

has suggested he was Thomas Byteryng, though his identity remains uncertain. Byteryng was a

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western can ...

Hastings Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west ...

Castle between 1405 and 1408, and was a

rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

somewhere in London in 1414. There is no information on the composer in the ''Old Hall Manuscript'' other than that his surname is attached to several pieces. Those pieces stand out from many of the works in the manuscript by their relatively advanced stylistic traits.

Music

Byttering's surviving music includes five compositions: three

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

sections—two '' Glorias'' and a ''

Credo In Christian liturgy, the credo (; Latin for "I believe") is the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed – or its shorter version, the Apostles' Creed – in the Mass, either as a prayer, a spoken text, or sung as Gregorian chant or other musical setti ...

''—a

motet In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Margar ...

and an

antiphon An antiphon (Greek ἀντίφωνον, ἀντί "opposite" and φωνή "voice") is a short chant in Christian ritual, sung as a refrain. The texts of antiphons are the Psalms. Their form was favored by St Ambrose and they feature prominently ...

. The latter, ''Nesciens Mater'', is "famous for its remarkable camouflaging of the

plainsong Plainsong or plainchant (calque from the French ''plain-chant''; la, cantus planus) is a body of chants used in the liturgy, liturgies of the Western Church. When referring to the term plainsong, it is those sacred pieces that are composed in La ...

by means of transposition and migration". His motet is a substantial three-voice

isorhythm Isorhythm (from the Greek for "the same rhythm") is a musical technique using a repeating rhythmic pattern, called a ''talea'', in at least one voice part throughout a composition. ''Taleae'' are typically applied to one or more melodic patterns o ...

ic piece and his best known work, ''En Katerine solennia/Virginalis contio/Sponsus amat sponsum''; it was almost certainly written for the wedding, on 2 June 1420, of

King Henry V Henry V (16 September 1386 – 31 August 1422), also called Henry of Monmouth, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1413 until his death in 1422. Despite his relatively short reign, Henry's outstanding military successes in the ...

and

Catherine of Valois Catherine of Valois or Catherine of France (27 October 1401 – 3 January 1437) was Queen of England from 1420 until 1422. A daughter of Charles VI of France, she was married to Henry V of England and gave birth to his heir Henry VI of Englan ...

. The four-voice ''Gloria,'' No. 18 in the ''Old Hall MS,'' is one of the most complex

s of the early 15th century, and represents what was probably the extreme of stylistic differentiation between English and continental practice. Canons in continental sources are extremely rare, but there are seven in the ''Old Hall MS,'' and Byttering's is the only one with the standard arrangement of the same tune in all four voices.

Works

Editions

* *

References

Citations

Sources

* * * * *

External links

*
Works by Byttering
in the Medieval Music Database from

La Trobe University La Trobe University is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Its main campus is located in the suburb of Bundoora. The university was established in 1964, becoming the third university in the state of Victoria an ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Byttering 14th-century composers 15th-century composers 14th-century births 15th-century deaths English male classical composers Medieval male composers