Byttering

Byttering (also Bytering, Bytteryng, or Biteryng; ) was an English composer during the stylistic transitional from medieval to Renaissance music. Five of his compositions have survived in the Old Hall Manuscript, where the musicologist Peter Wright contends they “form a small yet distinctive corpus of work notable for its technical ambition and musical accomplishment”. Identity and career Extremely little is known of Byttering, whose name is variously spelled as Bytering, Bytteryng, and Biteryng. The musicologist Margaret Bent has suggested he was Thomas Byteryng, though his identity remains uncertain. Byteryng was a canon at Hastings Castle between 1405 and 1408, and was a rector somewhere in London in 1414. There is no information on the composer in the Old Hall Manuscript other than that his surname is attached to several pieces. Those pieces stand out from many of the works in the manuscript by their relatively advanced stylistic traits. Music Byttering’s surviving music includes five compositions: three mass sections—two Glorias and a Credo—a motet and an antiphon. The latter, Nesciens Mater, is “famous for its remarkable camouflaging of the plainsong by means of transposition