Preface.

...is called "Prygen" This refers to the "Baar" region or specifically the area around the St. George Abbey in the Black Forest; it seems Herodotus called it Pyrene. Its site is located between Freiburg in the land of Breisgau and Rottweil and Villingen, two magnificent towns of the Hercynian Forest The Black Forest, yet it is closer to Rottweil and Villingen than to Freiburg. Over that monastery the Reverend Father and Lord, Lord Johann Kern, presided as Abbot in my time. With him was a codex which contained various treatises on all the sciences—what the Greeks call an encyclopedia original: ἐγκυκλοπαιδίαν (enkyklopaedian).

In it were five volumes by Saint Severinus Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, the most influential musical authority of the Middle Ages on Music; furthermore, certain works of Guido of Arezzo, Berno, Wilhelm, Otto, Bishop Theoger, and John, who was later the Supreme Pontiff, the twenty-second of that name Pope John XXII, who wrote on ecclesiastical music. Through those books I was made bolder—especially through the works of Boethius, which had previously been incomplete in my possession but were there somewhat cleansed of errors. I cannot deny this, even if I found the full nomenclature of the Modes in none of them. Therefore, it was necessary to consult the Greeks besides.

Nor was that undeserved, since we ought to credit them for whatever disciplines exist anywhere. And among the other disciplines, this one [music] is entirely Greek, having all its themes and all technical terms in Greek words—except that the Latins later approached it by a more concise path and made it easier with much shorter words and technical terms, as must be shown by us in the work itself.

Therefore, I submit these things to you, Most August FATHER, together with the most reverend assembly of Cardinals, as the moderators of all ecclesiastical law, to be examined. I have truly undertaken this labor for the praise of CHRIST. Let those, therefore, to whom the flock of CHRIST has been committed, judge it. As far as I am concerned, I trust I have handled this business in such a way that all fair-minded judges will perceive that I have wished to consult Christian piety and ecclesiastical dignity from my heart. If this affection does not achieve its desires, certainly the will to increase our holy religion was praiseworthy. But enough words; the matter itself will speak.