Adam de la Halle

French composer and writer

• Born: c. 1250
• Birthplace: Probably Arras, France
• Died: c. 1285-1288
• Place of death: Naples (now in Italy), or possibly England

One of the few medieval musicians who composed both monophonic and polyphonic music, Adam de la Halle produced musical and literary works in virtually every genre of the thirteenth century.

One of the few medieval musicians who composed both monophonic and polyphonic music, Adam de la Halle produced musical and literary works in virtually every genre of the thirteenth century.

Early Life

With almost no documentary evidence except a few bits of information here and there in his works any account of the life of Adam de la Halle (ah-dahm duh lah ahl) must be based on educated guesses. More than likely, he was born in the prosperous town of Arras; his name appears variously as Adam d’Arras and Adam le Boscu d’Arras. His name appears most commonly as Adam le Bossu (meaning “Adam the Hunchback”), although in Le Roi de Secile (written after 1285), Adam protests that while he might be called a hunchback, he is not one at all. No records reveal the origin of the name; his family may have adopted it to distinguish itself from the other Halle families in Arras. Possibly an illustrious ancestor was a hunchback, and the family retained the appellation.

In another of Adam's works, Le Jeu de la feuillée (pr. c. 1275; The Greenwood Play, 1971), Adam de la Halle's father is named as a Maistre Henri de la Hale. In Nécrologe de la Confrérie des jongleurs et de bourgeois d’Arras, the death of Henri de la Hale's wife was recorded as 1282; the death of a Maistre Henri Bochu was recorded as eight years later, in 1290. Whether these are the composer's parents is unknown. Nécrologe also contains references to two women, either of whom could have been Adam's wife: Maroie li Hallee is mentioned in 1274; Maroie Hale in 1287. Given the possibilities for variation in an age when spelling had not been standardized, it would be difficult to choose between these two. Some scholars refer to Jeu d’Adam as evidence supporting Maroie Hale; in this work, Adam refers to his wife as still living.

Life's Work

About the rest of Adam's life, most of the clues exist in his work or in commentary about his work. There is circumstantial evidence that he studied in Paris: In Jeu d’Adam, he expresses his longing for his student days in Paris; furthermore, his contemporaries often described him as “maistre,” indicating that he completed a more rigorous course of study than he might have received in a provincial town. Adam probably returned from Paris sometime around 1270, a date suggested by two facts: He wrote sixteen jeux-partis with Jehan Bretel of Arras, who died in 1272, and Bretel referred to him in the contemporaneous Adan, a moi respondés as well educated, suggesting that the younger trouvère (narrative poet) had already undertaken a major part of his training. The jeux-partis on which he collaborated with other trouvères of Arras he also wrote one with Jehan de Grivilier indicate that Adam was a member of the Arras pui, a fraternity or professional group of “actors” or trouvères. The trouvère was a court poet whose work celebrated the authority and responsibilities of the aristocratic lord whom he served and was a composer and performer who responded to the tastes and needs of an elite audience from a closely circumscribed world. As for Adam's marriage, it more than likely took place in the early 1270'. In several poems, Adam speaks of having given up school and friends in order to marry his young wife, to whom he was deeply devoted.

Of Adam's fifty-four monophonic (for one voice only) works, eighteen are jeux-partis, on the majority of which he collaborated with other trouvères. The form of the jeu-parti involves a “questioner” who sings the first musical phrase (and therefore composes the melody) and a “respondent.” Adam is the respondent in thirteen of the sixteen jeux-partis on which he worked with Jehan Bretel, indicating that the melodies were composed by the older man. This early collaboration was to be an important influence on Adam's musical style. Scholars have noted the strong stylistic similarities between the melody of Adan, a moi respondés and the melody composed by Adam for two of his chansons (a cabaret or music-hall song), and between other jeux-partis and Adam's chanson De cuer pensieu. Adam's work shares tonality and range and phrasing with Bretel', but Adam's melodies are more formal and sophisticated. Adam's other monophonic works, the chansons, for the most part remain close to the older courtly tradition of French monophonic song.

Adam de la Halle remained in Arras for only a few years after his return from Paris, and again the evidence is suggestive rather than conclusive. His Jeu d’Adam and his Le Congé, written at about the same time (c. 1276-1277), are both farewells in which Adam declares his intention to return to Paris to continue his studies. There is some evidence that he intended to leave his adored wife in his father's care, indicating that the absence was not to be a long one; in fact, two later lyrical pieces describe his return and the joy he feels at coming back to his own land.

Jeu d’Adam is a peculiar combination of topical humor and sheer fantasy, written to amuse Adam's friends just before his departure for Paris. Lacking a fully realized plot, the rambunctious play (jeu means “game”) involves a meeting between certain townsfolk of Arras and a group of fairies on the eve of Pentecost when, traditionally, the shrine of Notre Dame is displayed beneath a feuillée, or canopy of green leaves. Much of the play is devoted to humorous allusions to real persons: gluttons, alcoholics, scolding wives, submissive husbands, a loose woman and her lovers, unethical government clerks (called “bigames”) who married more than one woman for financial gain. Even Adam's own family comes in for its share of the burlesque. His father is described as a fat, stingy bigamist who loves alcohol more than anything else. Adam even pretends to be bored with his wife, thus gaining an excuse to detail her charms, which no longer excite him. Buried not too deeply in the songs and games of the play is Adam's occasionally bitter criticism of the class warfare that was destroying the social fabric of Arras.

Structurally the play consists of spoken dialogue, exchanges of songs, dances, games, jokes, and horseplay. Probably written only for the amusement of a select group of friends and acquaintances, the play may have had only one complete performance in Arras.

At some point after his second return to Arras, Adam de la Halle left his native town once more and traveled to Italy, where he entered the service of Robert II, count of Artois, who was on a diplomatic mission for his uncle, Charles of Anjou, who was to become King Charles II of Naples. Later, Adam joined the entourage of Charles, whom he served during the wars against the Sicilians until Charles died in 1285. During his service either with Robert or with Charles, Adam wrote Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion (pr. c. 1283; The Play of Robin and Marion, 1928), apparently as a part of the Christmas entertainment for the amusement of expatriate northern French soldiers who were resting between battles.

In its most basic form, the plot of The Play of Robin et de Marion describes how the shepherd, Marion, repulses the amorous advances of a roving knight in favor of her rustic country lover, Robin. The story of a rustic maid desired by both a courtly lover and a country swain appears in dozens of pastoral lyrics popular in Adam's day. What Adam did was to dramatize a conventional story by retaining its framework (names, specific incidents, popular songs connected with the story), adding a fully realized background, and amplifying or manipulating key elements of the narrative, particularly the bergerie, a lyric piece describing songs, dances, and games indulged in by shepherds and their loves. The result is a highly entertaining theatrical piece.

Adam's original audience would have recognized the major characters from the courtly pastorals, but would also have been delighted with the realistic details incorporated into the traditional story. The knight takes his rebuff lightly instead of being discomfited; Robin is an amusingly awkward peasant whose affection for Marion is genuine; Marion is a simple lass who is nevertheless resourceful in her handling of the knight's advances. The games incorporated into the action are real games, popular at the time and still played today in some parts of France. Also, the dialogue is natural, even coarse at times.

In addition to his inclusion of naturalistic elements in the familiar plot, Adam added a number of popular songs, dances, and instrumental melodies. Although some of the dances would have been accompanied by singing alone, others were probably performed to the music of bagpipes, horns, and flutes. The sixteen melodies are short and rhythmic, and probably belong to a group of popular courtly melodies called refrains.

Among Adam's polyphonic works, the rondeaux have excited the most commentary for their characteristics that point ahead to the secularization of polyphonic music in the fourteenth century. Two of these rondeaux are typical of the thirteenth century understanding of the rondeau form, which at that point in the development of music encompassed virtually all songs with periodically recurring refrains; hence, these two are not true rondeaux in the sense that later masters would have recognized. One is a virelay (a medieval French song form featuring a refrain before and after each stanza); the other, a ballade (a medieval narrative poem, either sung or recited, containing three stanzas and an envoi).

Five motets have been conclusively identified as Adam's work; six others are said to be his on the basis of characteristics shared with the genuine motets. Adam's motets are basically conservative, and many include refrains quoted from his other works. The motets whose provenance is uncertain are written in a later style.

What Adam did after Charles's death is open to conjecture, although it is reasonably safe to assume that he never returned to Arras. There are only two pieces of evidence about his movements in later years, and those two are contradictory. The earlier piece is a posthumous tribute to Adam de la Halle, written in 1288 by his nephew, known variously as Jean Madot or Jehanes Mados (who may or may not be the Mados mentioned in Jeu d’Adam), who says that Adam left Arras to seek entertainment and company and points out that this action was foolish, since Adam was popular at home. The date of this tribute indicates that Adam died in or before 1288. The confusion comes from an English source from 1306 in which a certain “maistre Adam le Boscu” is listed among the European minstrels who have been engaged to participate in the coronation ceremonies for Edward II in 1307. “Boscu” is an unusual name, especially in conjunction with an Adam who has earned the appellation “maistre.” Clearly the possibility exists that Adam did not die in Naples, although the trouvère who was invited to England could be a younger member of the same family, even Adam's son.

Significance

Adam de la Halle's works survive in more than two dozen manuscripts, one of which is an almost complete edition of his works classified by genre. Coming as he did between traditions, Adam wrote in a variety of genres that reflected the old (the courtly lyric, the chanson de geste, the “songs of deeds”) and the new (the decidedly bourgeois Jeu d’Adam and Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion). His position in the thirteenth century is problematic for music historians for several reasons. First, he was a master of the monophonic chanson and motet, both of which belonged even then to a dying tradition. Second, he composed a body of work that combined traditional texts with innovative settings, lyric poetry with the polyphony that was becoming a force to be reckoned with in music. Finally, his dramatic creations were so far ahead of his time that nothing like them was written until decades later. In fact, it is Adam's theatrical works that are his most distinctive contribution: The prose drama Jeu d’Adam is regarded by many to be the earliest comedy in French; the musical play Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion is commonly considered a precursor to comic opera with its combination of sung and spoken parts.

Bibliography

Butterfield, Ardis. Poetry and Music in Medieval France: From Jean Renart to Guillaume de Machaut. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. A discussion of medieval music and poetry that covers Adam de la Halle and his Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion. Bibliography and indexes.

Caldwell, John. Medieval Music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978. A discussion of Western music from about 950 to 1400, with considerable attention paid to notation, which is the key to medieval musical style. The text is well illustrated with relevant examples and has an excellent bibliography and listing of manuscript sources and their locations.

Cook, William R., and Ronald B. Herzman. The Medieval World View: An Introduction. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. An examination of the Middle Ages.

Dane, Joseph A. Res/Verba: A Study in Medieval French Drama. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1986. Examines Adam de la Halle’s Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion as well as a play by Jean Bodel.

Frank, Grace. The Medieval French Drama. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1960. A comprehensive study of both liturgical and secular plays from the medieval period. An entire chapter is devoted to the plays of Adam and their theatrical and social milieu. Includes a comprehensive bibliography.

Nichols, Stephen J., Jr. “The Medieval Lyric and Its Public.” In Medievalia et Humanistica, edited by Paul Maurice Clogan. Cleveland, Ohio: Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1972. A careful analysis of the nature of the audience who patronized the medieval poet-musicians.

Wilhelm, James. Seven Troubadours: The Creators of Modern Verse. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1970. Presents seven distinct lyric voices some of them contemporaries of Adam of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries whose work shows the Christian-secular heritage of the High Middle Ages. Although Adam is not one of the featured seven, the book is valuable for the light it sheds on his artistic and philosophical milieu.