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Borrowing or quoting from the trouvère repertory has long been acknowledged as part of the craft of the composers of the thirteenth-century motet. Single strophes from a few trouvère chansons can be found as complete motet voices; partial strophes frame newly composed text and music in motets-entés, and many textual themes and motifs, melodic motifs and refrains can be traced to trouvère sources. Whilst this practice of borrowing can be identified because of the common texts and melodies, or texts or melodies alone, it is difficult to say to what extent other compositional practices, not dependent upon direct quotation, might have found their source and inspiration in the trouvère repertory. An examination of the monophonic chanson Bien me sui aperceuz, and the three-voice motet Se valours / Bien me sui apercheus / Hie factus est, reveals a web of interrelationships between the chanson and the motet which appears far more subtle than the practice of direct borrowing briefly mentioned above. The cryptic clues to these concealed relationships between the chanson and the motet can be found in their texts, whilst the solution is revealed in their melodies.

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