John Hanboys, also John Hamboys and possibly J. de Alto Bosco (

fl. ''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...

1370), was a medieval musical theorist from England.

Biography

Very little is known of the life of Hanboys. He may have come from one of the villages of Little or Great Hautboys in Norfolk. In the attribution of one version of the treatise ''Summa super musicam'' he is called 'doctoris musice reverendi'. It has been assumed that because he was called 'reverend', may have been a

monk A monk (; from , ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a man who is a member of a religious order and lives in a monastery. A monk usually lives his life in prayer and contemplation. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many reli ...

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders in the Catholic Church. There are also friars outside of the Catholic Church, such as within the Anglican Communion. The term, first used in the 12th or 13th century, distinguishes the mendi ...

, but this uncertain.P. M. Lefferts, ed., ''Regule, by Johannes Hanboys'' (University of Nebraska Press, 1991), p. 31. Traditionally authors followed the earliest biographical source

John Bale John Bale (21 November 1495 – November 1563) was an English churchman, historian controversialist, and Bishop of Ossory in Ireland. He wrote the oldest known historical verse drama in English (on the subject of King John), and developed and ...

's ''Illustrium maioris britanniae scriptorum'' (''Summary of the Writers of Britain'') (1548), which uses the spelling 'Hamboys' and indicates he received a liberal education from an early age, but was chiefly devoted to the study of music. That he was eloquent and accomplished, and after studying for many years in 'the school of his land' he was given the degree of doctor of music. He adds that he was 'the most noted man of his day in England' and that he came to prominence in 1470 in the reign of

Edward IV Edward IV (28 April 1442 – 9 April 1483) was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in England ...

(r.1461-83). If he did hold a doctorate of music it was probably one of the first from Oxford or Cambridge, although the common assertion in older literature that it was the first held from Oxford is not clear from the sources, and Bale may simply be expanding his biography from the title 'doctoris musice', which could be read as 'learned in music'.D. M. Randel, ''The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music'' (Harvard University Press, 1996), p. 351. More recently

Brian Trowell Brian Lewis Trowell (21 February 1931 – 12 November 2015) was an English musicologist and the Heather Professor of Music at the University of Oxford. Prior to his post at Oxford, he was the King Edward Professor of Music at King's College Lond ...

has argued that he can be identified with J. de Alto Bosco, the Latin title of a musician mentioned in the motet '' Sub Arturo plebs'', which is probably from a century earlier, in the 1370s. It is possible that Bale only knew the ''Summa'' from a later edition and so may have assumed the period of authorship to fit with that or he may have conflating him with fifteenth-century composer and theorist

John Hothby John Hothby (''Otteby'', ''Hocby'', ''Octobi'', ''Ottobi'', 1410–1487), also known by his Latinised names Johannes Ottobi or Johannes de Londonis, was an English Renaissance music theorist and composer who travelled widely in Europe and gaine ...

(d. 1487).

Work and influence

Following Bale, Hanboys is traditionally identified as the author of a (now unknown) volume of music and, more securely, of an important musical treatise ''Summa super musicam continuam et discretam'', a theoretical work on music that discusses the origins of

musical notation Musical notation is any system used to visually represent music. Systems of notation generally represent the elements of a piece of music that are considered important for its performance in the context of a given musical tradition. The proce ...

and mensuration from the thirteenth century and proposes several new methods for recording music. It discusses the differences between the ''

ars antiqua ''Ars antiqua'', also called ''ars veterum'' or ''ars vetus'', is a term used by modern scholars to refer to the Medieval music of Europe during the High Middle Ages, between approximately 1170 and 1310. This covers the period of the Notre-Dam ...

'' and developing ''

ars nova ''Ars nova'' ()Fallows, David. (2001). "Ars nova". ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. refers to a musical style which flourished in the Kingdom of ...

'' styles of music and proposes the expansion of the mensural system to a total of eight figures.P. M. Lefferts, ed., ''Regule, by Johannes Hanboys'' (University of Nebraska Press, 1991), pp. 38-63.

Notes

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hanboys, John English composers English Renaissance composers Year of death unknown English music theorists Year of birth unknown English male classical composers