Caught in the Web of Texts: The Chanson Family Bon vin / Bon temps and the Disputed Identity of ‘Gaspart’

The sources transmitting the song Bon vin/Bon temps with its different texts are extremely varied and span around 40 years. One of the most extravagant settings is a quodlibet transmitted in I-Fc, MS Basevi 2442 (ca. 1515) and attributed to “Gaspart”. This arrangement combines the version Bon temps, je ne te puis laisser in the discantus with the version Bon temps, ne viendras-tu jamais in the altus, whereas the tenor cites another hit of the period, Adieu, mes amours. The lack of concordances means that this composition is incomplete, since the bassus part book of Basevi 2442 is missing. On the other hand, the monophonic Bayeux Chansonnier, likely compiled for the Grand Connétable of France Charles III de Bourbon-Montpensier in or around 1516, transmits a drinking song variant on Bon vin, je ne te puis laisser, whose text is cited in a quodlibet handed down in the Paris torso of the much earlier and probably Neapolitan Colombina Chansonnier (F-Pn, nouv. acq. fr. 4379). Trying to extricate the panoply of relationships amongst the different variants, the essay will also try to situate the song or songs within their wider historical contexts, also drawing on a purely textual transmission in an early sixteenth-century theatrical farce. Particular emphasis will be placed on the setting by “Gaspart”, with tentative hypotheses on a possible text and its attendant melody for the missing bassus part.