Roman de Fauvel

Roman de Fauvel, (French: “Romance of Fauvel”), French poem by Gervais du Bus that, in addition to its literary value, is a crucial document for the history of music. The poem condemns abuses in contemporary political and religious life. Its hero is the fawn-coloured (French: fauve) stallion Fauvel, the letters of whose name are the initials of the cardinal sins.

A manuscript of the poem dated 1316 and lavishly illuminated (preserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris) has 130 musical works interspersed in the narrative, representing a remarkably rich anthology stretching back over 150 years. Some are in their original form, some adapted to fit the new context, and some, containing topical references, were presumably written specifically for the Roman. Five pieces by the French composer Philippe de Vitry are among the earliest examples of music in the Ars Nova style, which Vitry helped to initiate.

A modern edition of the poem was made in 1914–19 by A. Långfors. The music was transcribed into modern notation by Leo Schrade in Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century, vol. 1 (1956).