Music from the Monk of Salzburg
Epitaph of Guillaume Dufay
The Singer and the Emperor: Charles IV and Heinrich von Mügeln in Prague
The Luxembourg dynasty is among the most prominent but also least understood of late medieval Europe, at least from a musicological perspective. Its domain included the county of Luxembourg, straddling modern-day Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and France, and, more importantly, the crown of Bohemia (since 1310). The court of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV (r. 1346-1378) has long been acknowledged as a cultural beacon. Charles founded Prague University (1348); his prodigious building programme in and outside Prague was the catalyst for the “Bohemian” Gothic style. Having been brought up – like his father, John, famous for being Guillaume de Machaut’s first known patron – in French-acculturated circles and a frequent visitor to western Europe, there can be no doubt that he was familiar with the complex musical styles cultivated in France, England, Italy, and the Low Countries at the time. However, there is so far no evidence of them at his court. Rather, Charles was a patron of the late Minnesinger, Heinrich von Mügeln (d. after 1371). It is difficult not to see a political programme behind 
Charles’s musical and other cultural choices; it will be the purpose of this project to chart the reasons behind these decisions, and to reveal the discourse of power that underpins them. The project will be able to rely on a rich body of ongoing scholarship from History and Art History, and to a lesser extent from Germanic Studies (the latest monographs dedicated to Heinrich of Mügeln are Haustein 2002 and Volfing 1997). Promising leads from a musicological perspective are the neglected sources of sophisticated French-style polyphony from Silesia (Brewer 1984, Gancarczyk and Hlávklová 2013), supplemented by recent work on the liturgical reforms implemented by Charles IV (Eben 1992). In addition, we have the voluminous literary output of Mügeln, and the literary works of the Emperor himself, supported by archival materials in Prague. This and the preceding project will for the first time put Salzburg and Prague into a comparative perspective both within the German and Slavic-speaking world of the time, and in relation to eastern, western and southern Europe.
Charles’s musical and other cultural choices; it will be the purpose of this project to chart the reasons behind these decisions, and to reveal the discourse of power that underpins them. The project will be able to rely on a rich body of ongoing scholarship from History and Art History, and to a lesser extent from Germanic Studies (the latest monographs dedicated to Heinrich of Mügeln are Haustein 2002 and Volfing 1997). Promising leads from a musicological perspective are the neglected sources of sophisticated French-style polyphony from Silesia (Brewer 1984, Gancarczyk and Hlávklová 2013), supplemented by recent work on the liturgical reforms implemented by Charles IV (Eben 1992). In addition, we have the voluminous literary output of Mügeln, and the literary works of the Emperor himself, supported by archival materials in Prague. This and the preceding project will for the first time put Salzburg and Prague into a comparative perspective both within the German and Slavic-speaking world of the time, and in relation to eastern, western and southern Europe.
Bibliography:
Brewer, Charles. “The Introduction of the Ars Nova into East Central Europe: A Study of Late Medieval Polish sources” (diss. City University of New York, 1984).
Eben, David. “Die Bedeutung des Arnestus von Pardubitz in der Entwicklung des Prager Offiziums”, in Cantus Planus (Papers read at the 4th Meeting, Pécs 1990). Budapest: MTA, 1992, 571-577.
Gancarczyk, Paweł and Lenka Hlávková (ed.). The Musical Culture of Silesia before 1742: New Contexts – New Perspectives. Frankfurt: Lang, 2013.
Haustein, Jens (ed.). Studien zu Frauenlob und Heinrich von Mügeln. Festschrift für Karl Stackmann zum 80. Geburtstag. Freiburg, Schweiz: Universitätsverlag, 2002.
Volfing, Annette. Heinrich von Mügeln, “Der meide Kranz”: A Commentary. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1997.
Savoy, Cyprus, Italy: Court Cultures in the Early Quattrocento
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