"Est fatuum spernere". Hipótesis sobre una pieza del códice de Las Huelgas

Abstract

Until very recently, the piece Fa fa mi fa /Ut re mi ut from the Las Huelgas manuscript from Burgos, known as the “solfège exercise”, was considered an unicum in this codex. Using the information provided by the work’s text, this article aims to determine its context and origin, demonstrating how the piece, copied around 1340 in the manuscript, makes reference to “Cadurcensis virgins, golden nuns and exhorts them to sing polyphony, which leads me to relate it to the “golden” nuns from the French city of Cahors (from La Daurade Abbey or perhaps that of La Lum-Dieu). Moreover, I believe that, more than a solfège exercise, it is a defence of polyphony, related to the condemnation of the latter that arose after 1320 and which was sanctioned by the pope from Avignon John XXII, who was precisely born in Cahors. The piece probably enjoyed some fame, as its survival in three versions seems to indicate, and it soon became known in Spain due to the smooth cultural relationship between the kingdoms on both sides of the Pyrenees, including the cosmopolitan Navarre, the place of origin of the nuns that founded Las Huelgas. The inclusion of this work in the Codex Las Huelgas could be considered an assertion of the power of internal legislation and the independence of the Burgos monastery in relation to the papacy’s guidelines and the orders of its own General Chapter.