(Jacobus Leodiensis; ca. 1260-after 1330). Author of the Speculum musice and other works on music theory. Little is known about Jacques’s life. He has been identified with one Jacobus de Oudenaerde, a canon of Liege and, in 1313, a professor at Paris. Jacques’s early education in music was in the theories of Franco of Cologne and later Boethius, whose De institutione musica he studied at Paris. It was there that the Speculum musice was begun, an encyclopedic discussion of speculative music (five books, in which he draws upon the authority of Plato, Boethius, Isidore, Guido d’Arezzo, and John of Afflighem, as well as Aristotle, Robert Kilwardby, Peter Comestor, Johannes de Garlandia, and Franco of Cologne), ecclesiastical chant (one book, treating both Boethian and Guidonian modal theory), and measured music (one book, describing the genres of discant composition and discussing notation). The last two books of the Speculum reveal connections with Liege sources and might have been composed in that city. Book 7 was composed chiefly to refute the teachings of the Ars Nova school on rhythm and notation, vindicating such traditional theorists as Franco of Cologne and Magister Lambertus. Overall, Jacques’s work is the most cogent and complete statement of the theory and practice of the Ars Antiqua. The Speculum musice was formerly attributed to Jehan des Murs, but many of its doctrines contradict Jehan’s teaching.
Tony Zbaraschuk
[See also: ARS ANTIQUA; ARS NOVA; FRANCO OF COLOGNE; JEHAN DES MURS; JOHANNES DE GARLANDIA; MUSIC THEORY]
Jacques de Liege. Speculum musicae, ed. Roger Bragard. 7 vols. Rome: American Institute of
Musicology, 1955-70.
World History
