This book, first published in 2003, examines the relationship between poetry and music in medieval France.

Ardis Butterfield is a Lecturer in English at University College, London. She has published widely on French and English literary and musical history. Her articles have appeared in Medium Aevum and Plainsong and Medieval Music.

List of illustrations; List of tables; List of music examples; Acknowledgments; Bibliographical note; List of abbreviations; Prologue; Part I. Text and Performance: 1. Song and written record in the early thirteenth century; 2. The sources of song: chansonniers, narratives, dance-song; 3. The performance of song in Jean Renart's Rose; Part II. The Boundaries of Genre: 4. The refrain; 5. Refrains in context: a case study; 6. Contrafacta: from secular to sacred in Gautier de Coinci and later thirteenth-century writing; Part III. The Location of Culture: 7. 'Courtly' and 'popular' in the thirteenth century; 8. Urban culture: Arras and the puys; 9. The cultural contexts of Adam de la Halle; Part IV. Modes of Inscription: 10. Songs in writing: the evidence of the manuscripts; 11. Chante/fable: Aucassin et Nicolette; 12. Writing music, writing poetry: Le Roman de Fauvel in Paris BN fr. 146; Part V: Lyric and Narrative: 13. The two Roses: Machaut and the thirteenth century; 14. Rewriting song: chanson, motet, salut, and dit; 15. Citation and authorship from the thirteenth to the fourteenth century; Part VI. Envoy: The New Art: 16. The Formes fixes: from Adam de la Halle to Guillaume de Machaut; Epilogue; Glossary; Appendix; Bibliography.