omes from earlier, especially 1241-1288.The contents of the Las Huelgas Codes is as follows:# 24 polyphonic ordinary movements:6 2 Kyries and 3 troped Kyries6 1 troped Gloria6 1 Credo6 1 Sanctus and 7 troped Sanctus movements6 9 troped Agnus Dei movements# 7 polyphonic propers# 31 Benedicamus Domino settings:6 7 polyphonic settings6 14 troped polyphonic settings6 10 troped monophonic settings# 31 "Prosae" (also known as "sequences"):6 11 polyphonic prosae6 20 monophonic prosae# "Modern" thirteenth-century genres:6 59 motets:I 2 four-voice motetsI 25 three-voice double motets (with two separate texts in the top voices)I 11 three-voice conductus-motets (with homorhythmic upper voices)I 21 two-part motets6 17 polyphonic conductus6 14 monophonic conductus (also known as versus)6 1 solfeggioThe prevalence of polyphony and the heavy use of tropes suggests that this convent, at least, placed a premium on up-to-date musical styles. Other convents may not have had the resources to keep up with the latest musical fashions, but small clusters of polyphonic pieces survive from sixteen different women's convents, suggesting that religious women had at least some interest, and perhaps some training, in composed polyphony.Women as ScribesWomen not only read musical books, they also copied them, at least in some instances. While no investigation of women as scribes has been published, evidence for women's roles in scriptoria has been accumulating. It is not known that women's monasteries as well as men's often had active scriptoria. Moreover, an index of colophons from France reveals a significant number of women who signed their scribal works. Though text sources naturally predominate, a few musical sources were signed by women (Colophons, passim). Similarly, though no musical sources survive in her name, Sister Lukardis of Utrecht from the fifteenth century is known to have copied musical ma...
