A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Cotton, John

COTTON, John, the author of a treatise on music, dating from the latter part of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century. There exist five copies in MS., at Leipzig, Paris, Antwerp, the Vatican Library, and two at Vienna. A sixth copy, used by Gerbert, who published the treatise in 1784, was destroyed in the fire at St. Blasien in 1768. In the Paris and Antwerp copies the authorship is ascribed to Cotton or Cottonius, two of the others bearing the title 'Joannis Musica.' Gerbert quotes an anonymous work ('De Script. Eccles.'), in which reference is made to a learned English musician known as Joannes; and the dedication of the book, which runs 'Domino et patri suo venerabili Anglorum antistiti Fulgentio,' bears out the assumption that its author was English. It has been variously proposed to ascribe its authorship to Pope John XXII, and to Joannes Scholasticus, a monk of the monastery of St. Matthias at Trèves, but the above theory is probably correct. The treatise is valuable as explaining the harmonic system of the period in which it was written. (Dict. of Nat. Biog.)

[ W. B. S. ]