English

Abstract Summaries of the various language-repertories begin with the case of English, noting that French had been the main language of the upper classes since the Norman Conquest of 1066 but that English had a growing literature particularly since the time of Chaucer in the fourteenth century. In discussing the surviving fragments, it becomes increasingly clear that English song of the time suffered cataclysmic losses over the years. But this leads to a consideration of the Bedyngham song we must continue to call O Rosa bella. Arguments are advanced, following the studies of Alexander Erhard, that the original text must have been English (though no known source of the song or any of the pieces based on it was copied in England) and that the original form was a ballade. Tentatively it is proposed that the original text was a poem by John Lydgate which beautifully matches the shape and style of Bedyngham’s music.