The manuscript Reg. lat. 1490, at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, is one of the few trouvère songbooks outside of France. Produced in Arras in the early fourteenth century, it contains 299 French melodies composed between the late twelfth and late thirteenth centuries. The trouvère tradition is rooted in an oral culture where composition, memorization, and performance thrived without the necessity of written support. Melodies were subject to constant modification—whether by performers adapting them in practice or by notators, consciously or unconsciously, altering them in transcription. The versions handed down to us thus reflect a multilayered process of authorship.

By combining traditional and digital methods, my aim is to identify recurring melodic traits in the melodies of B.A.V., Reg. lat. 1490, analyzing compositional techniques, melodic features of genres, and scribal characteristics specific to this source. This will help shed light on the various factors that shaped the transmission of these melodies. Once we can associate melodic features with a particular author, geographical setting, or manuscript tradition, we can restore the musical and cultural context of these melodies in performance—ultimately deepening our understanding of the aesthetics of medieval courtly lyric, which remains profoundly distant from our own.