Musical Culture in the World of Adam de la Halle. Ed. by Jennifer Saltzstein

Adam de la Halle has long been regarded as one of the most important musical and literary figures of thirteenth-century Europe. For music historians, Adam sits at an important historical juncture as the most prolific of the last generation of trouvères (northern French poet-composers) and the first known composer to write vernacular polyphonic songs of the kind that would remain popular well into the fifteenth century. Among literary scholars, Adam is known as the author of some of the earliest vernacular dramatic works and for his influence on other writers in the thirteenth century and beyond. As Jennifer Saltzstein points out, he was arguably ‘the most prolific and important artistic voice of thirteenth-century France’ (p. 1).