The Terms Selete and Pause in the Manuscripts of the Productions of The Seven Joys of Mary in Brussels: the Significance and the Functions

The article is devoted to an issue present in the studies of music and musical terminology in the Dutch mysteries of the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. Two terms are examined here in detail – namely, selete and pause, present in the comments of two manuscripts of the productions in Brussels of The Seven Joys of Mary, consisting of various episodes in the lives of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. The productions of The Seven Joys of Mary took place in Brussels from 1448 to 1566 and were timed to the annual procession in honor of the miraculous statue of the Virgin Mary. Analysis of the terms selete and pause is carried out with the consideration of the practice of production of the mystery theater, the peculiarities of the arrangement of the play space of the simultaneous scene, as well as the theatrical activities of the rhetoricians. A number of questions is raised in the article: whether or not there exists any connection between the selete and a particular stage setting, whether the functions of the terms selete and pause differ, how does the use of the term selete in the Brussels manuscripts correlate with the practice of production of the German Passion and Easter rites of the late Medieval period, and the term pause – with the productions of mysteries in France, what musical instruments were used, what chants and musical episodes signified the indicated terms, and also, where were the musicians placed during the performance. In the process of analysis of the manuscript text, various types of comments are revealed being of direct concern to the music of The Seven Joys of Mary. Among them there are side notes containing only selete and only pause, comments in which one of these terms is supplemented by the specification sanc of spel (singing or playing), as well as side notes indicating the musical accompaniment, but not containing the terms selete and pause. As the result of the undertaken research, a conclusion is arrived at about the polyfunctionality of the terms selete and pause in the productions of The Seven Joys of Mary and their correspondence to the traditional terms of mystery theater.