A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Tunsted, Simon

by Augustus Hughes-Hughes

TUNSTED, Simon, the reputed author of the treatise 'De Quatuor Principalibus Musice,' though himself born at Norwich, derived his surname from Tunstead in Norfolk, of which place his father was a native. He became one of the Fratres Minores of the Order of St. Francis at Oxford, and it was there that he is said to have taken the degree of Doctor of Theology. He appears to have been well versed in all the seven liberal arts, but, like Walter Odington, especially in music and astronomy. The only literary works attributed to Tunsted, besides that above referred to, are a commentary on the 'Meteora' of Aristotle and additions to Richard Wallingford's 'Albion'; but the work by which his name has been, rightly or wrongly, handed down to posterity is the musical one. Of this there are two MSS. in the Bodleian Library, numbered Bodley 515 and Digby 90. Owing to the former MS. being described in the old catalogue of 1697 as 'De Musica continua et discreta cum diagrammatibus,' many musical historians have believed that there are two distinct works by this author; but the only real difference is that the Bodley MS. contains the prologue beginning 'Quemadmodum inter triticum et zizania,' which the Digby MS. omits. The work itself contains warrant for both titles. From the colophon to each MS. we learn that the treatise was written in 1351, when Simon Tunsted was Regent of the Minorites at Oxford. He is said to have afterwards become Head of the English branch of his Order, and to have died in the nunnery of St. Clara, at Bruisyard, in Suffolk, in 1369. The 'De Quatuor Principalibus' treats of music in almost every form then known, from definitions of musical terms in the 'Primum Principale' down to an account of 'Musica Mensurabilis ' in the 'Quartum Principale.' This latter part is perhaps the most important of the whole work. Tunsted quotes Philip de Vitry 'qui fuit flos totius mundi musicorum.' The whole treatise has been printed by de Coussemaker. In a MS. at the British Museum (Additional 19,336) there is an epitome of several chapters of the 'Secundum Principale,' written by a Fellow of New College, Oxford, early in the 16th century.

[ A. H.-H. ]