The estampie (, Occitan and , ) is a medieval dance and musical form which was a popular instrumental and vocal form in the 13th and 14th centuries. The name was also applied to poetry.
Musical form
The estampie is similar in form to the lai, consisting of a succession of repeated notes. Each puncta has a pair of lines that repeat the same melody, in the form:
:aa, bb, cc, etc..
The two statements of the melody in each punctus differ only in their endings, described as apertum ("open") and clausum ("closed") by Grocheio, who believed that six puncta were standard for the stantipes (his term for the estampie), though he was aware of stantipes with seven puncta. The structure can therefore be diagrammed as:
:a+x, a+y; b+w, b+z; etc..
In an instrumental estampie, the open and closed endings of the puncta are the same each time, so that the end of the punctum serves as the refrain, in the form:
a+x, a+y; b+x, b+y, c+x, c+y, etc. He further states that this difficulty captivates the attention of both the players and listeners because of these complications. According to Grocheio, the vocal estampie begins with a refrain, which is repeated at the end of each stanza, with text and melody independent of the stanza. However, surviving songs do not include a section labeled as a refrain, so some scholars suggest that a convention must have existed for choosing lines to use as a refrain.
Scholar Elizabeth Eva Leach wrote about a poetic form of estampie through the discussion of Douce 308. In a chapter titled "The Estampies of Douce 308" from Leach's book Music and Instruments of the Middle Ages, there is a heavy discussion about how the poetic forms of estampies differ from both instrumental and vocal forms. These poetic estampies were devoid of musical notation making the form reliant on syllabic stress and enjambment to make it recognizable.
History
The estampie is the first known genre of medieval era dance music which continues to exist today. The earliest reported example of this musical form is the song "Kalenda maya", written by the troubadour Raimbaut de Vaqueiras (1180–1207), possibly to a preexisting melody. The estampie is also the earliest in compositional style that uses both vocal and instrumental music with each written in a different structure and it is the earliest example of dance evolving simultaneously with the complexity of music.
Instrumentation
Sources for individual songs do not generally indicate what instruments were used. However, according to Grocheio, the vielle was the supreme instrument of the period, and the stantipes, together with the cantus coronatus and ductia, were the principal forms played on vielles before the wealthy in their celebration.. In line with certain etymological interpretations, many draw a connection to the stamping of feet as being characteristic of the dance.
Etymology
There is contention surrounding the exact etymology of the word “estampie”. According to the OED, the name comes from the Provençal estampida, feminine of estampit, the past participle of estampir "to resound". According to Ian Pittaway, the name was given by Grocheio from the Latin, “Stantipes” or “Stantipedes”, meaning “standing/stationary feet”. However, according to Curt Sachs, the word stems from the vulgar Latin, “Stante” or “Stantiae”, translated as “delay” perhaps in relation to the repetitive nature of the musical form.
Footnotes
References
- L. Hibberd. "Estampie and Stantipes". Speculum XIX, 1944, 222–249.
- Pierre Aubry. Estampies et danses royales; les plus anciens textes de musique instrumentale au Moyen-Âge (1906). Genève : Minkoff, 1975 (reprint). .
- Willi Apel. Harvard Dictionary of Music (1970) Heinemann Educational Books Ltd.
- C. Schima. Die Estampie (1995) . See also Estampie Schima
- .