Iacobus de Ispania (James of Hesbaye; died after 1330) was a music theorist active in the southern Low Countries who compiled '' The Mirror of Music'' ( la, Speculum musicae) during the second quarter of the 14th century. Before the discovery of his full name, scholars designated him Jacques de Liège ( la, Iacobus Leodiensis). The ''Speculum musicae'', the longest surviving medieval work on music, was previously attributed to

Jean de Muris Johannes de Muris ( – 1344), or John of Murs, was a French mathematician, astronomer, and music theorist best known for treatises on the '' ars nova'' musical style, titled '' Ars nove musice''. Life and career For a medieval person primarily kn ...

Edmond de Coussemaker Charles Edmond Henri de Coussemaker (19 April 1805 – 10 January 1876) was a French musicologist and ethnologist focusing mainly on the cultural heritage of French Flanders. With Michiel de Swaen and Maria Petyt, he was one of the most eminent d ...

, until it was discovered that the initial letters of each of the seven books of the treatises spell out the

acrostic An acrostic is a poem or other word composition in which the ''first'' letter (or syllable, or word) of each new line (or paragraph, or other recurring feature in the text) spells out a word, message or the alphabet. The term comes from the Fre ...

IACOBUS. Further research associated him with the

diocese of Liège In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

, and suggested that he studied in

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in the late 13th century before returning to Liège to complete the final two books of his treatise. Smits van Waesberghe associated him with Iacobus de Oudenaerde, professor at the

University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

and canon of Liège, while he has also been identified with the Iacobus de Montibus mentioned in another manuscript. The discovery of an attribution of the ''Speculum'' to a ''Iacobus de Ispania'' initially suggested that the author had come from Spain ( la, Hispania), possibly identifying him with a James of Spain known to have worked in

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in the 14th century, suggesting that the connection with Liège was spurious. Further research demonstrated that ''Ispania'' more likely refers to

Hesbaye The Hesbaye ( French, ), or Haspengouw (Dutch and Limburgish, ) is a traditional cultural and geophysical region in eastern Belgium. It is a loamy plateau region which forms a watershed between the Meuse and Scheldt drainage basins. It has be ...

, and brought forward further evidence of the author's association with Liège. Of the seven books of ''Speculum musicae'', the last has received the most attention by recent scholars for its long argument against an unnamed "doctor musicus" (apparently of the Vitrian or a related Ars nova school) and the rhythmic innovations Jacobus was seeing in his time.

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Medieval Treatises on Music
14th-century writers Belgian male classical composers Belgian music theorists People of medieval Belgium 14th-century composers Medieval male composers 14th-century people of the Holy Roman Empire Medieval music theorists {{medieval-composer-stub

See also

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