__NOTOC__ 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,

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

, England. It contains six pieces, three of them in the form of the '' estampie'', an Italian dance form of the Trecento, as well as three arrangements of

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 ...

s. Two of the motets are from the '' Roman de Fauvel''. All of the music is anonymous, and all is written in tablature. Most of the music for the ''estampies'' is for two voices, often in parallel fifths, and also using hocket technique. Most likely the instrument used to play the pieces in the Codex was the

organ Organ may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a part of an organism Musical instruments * Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone ** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument ** Hammond ...

. 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 was considered Italian and connected to the main streams of the Italian trecento in its contents and in its clear use of ''puncti divisionis'' (dots of division). However, scholarly consensus now considers the source English.John Caldwell, "Sources of keyboard music to 1660: 2. Principal Individual Sources: (vi) British Isles", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed April 21, 2007)
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The Codex is in the British Library ( Add MS 28550).

References

External links

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

GB-Lbl Add. MS 28550
Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music, University of Oxford Medieval music manuscript sources British Library additional manuscripts

Codex The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...

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References

Further reading

External links