| Summary: | This article explores the contentious issue of oral and written transmission in thirteenth-century French song by looking at a selection of early jeux-partis that share their melodies with other songs. It argues that acts of contrafacture were sometimes carried out using written exemplars, or when written transmission was occurring. First, it is asserted that melodic variance could result from both written and oral transmission. Second, evidence for ephemeral written exemplars of jeux-partis and their models is discussed. Finally, it is shown that for one contrafact jeu-parti and its model, some of the melodic variants must have resulted from errors in the process of copying the songs. The melodic variants show that scribes and performers continually engaged with the two songs during their reception, indicating that knowledge of contrafacture persisted several decades after the songs were originally composed.
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