Parisian nobles, a Scottish princess, and the woman's voice in late medieval song

Abstract

Perhaps the best-known songs of Antoine Busnoys are those whose texts conceal in acrostics or puns some form of the name ‘Jacqueline d'Aqueville’ (for the song texts and translations see Appendix 1).The first letters in each line of A vous sans autre (no. 2) and Je ne puis vivre ainsi toujours (no. 3) yield the acrostics ‘A Iaqveljne’ and ‘Jaqueljne d'Aqvevjle’ respectively; the first line of A que ville est abhominable (no. 4) makes a pun on the surname ‘Aqueville’; and the incipit of Ja que lui ne si actende (no. 1) forms an ambiguous series of monosyllables that can also be read as the name ‘Jaqueline’.