The Buxheim Organ Book, the largest fifteenth-century manuscript of keyboard tablature, has never before been examined as a whole in light of musica ficta issues, although it contains far more accidentals than any contemporaneous source in mensural notation. Although tablature has been used by various scholars to examine accidentals in sixteenth-century music, studies of fifteenth-century accidentals have focussed on theoretical evidence and small groups of pieces from mensural sources. The author uses the Buxheim Organ Book to extend the investigations of accidentals in tablature back into the fifteenth century, combining the large data set provided by this manuscript with a statistical approach modelled on that of Thomas Brothers's smaller-scale study of the chansons of Binchois. Specialised computer programs are introduced, which detect musical structures relevant to the analysis of Renaissance music such as different types of cadential voice leading. These programs function as extensions to David Huron's Humdrum Toolkit. With these tools, signing practises in the intabulations are statistically compared with all of the concordances of the models. Conclusions are suggested pertaining to issues of signature accidental transmission, partial signatures, mode, and musica ficta, which can be used as a contextual backdrop for the analysis of individual pieces. The evidence provided by the accidentals in Buxheim and its concordances draws a clear picture of how a group of fifteenth-century musicians added accidentals to polyphonic music. For the first time, this study provides us with principles and guidelines for musica ficta -decisions based on actual practice.

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In this thesis I investigate transformational practices in the secular music of mid-fifteenth-century German sources. At the heart of the research are case studies of the Lochamer Liederbuch with its two sections - a song and a keyboard collection - and of the newly discovered Wolfenbüttel Lute Tablature. By analysing and comparing the different versions of pieces surviving in these and related sources I explore how they interacted and what the motivations and techniques behind their transformation were. The organist and lute player Conrad Paumann and his 'School' were central driving forces in this process, which led to numerous innovations, particularly in the development of instrumental music and its notation. I then investigate the question of the instrumental accompaniment of monophonic song and how the development of new instruments and techniques influenced and shaped the melody types in the late medieval sources. To do this, I consult the genre of Neidhart songs as an oeuvre of secular song that was cultivated and transmitted in sources from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. The network of interdependencies between repertoires enables an analysis of transformational practices in the songs of Oswald von Wolkenstein, which are influenced by the Neidhart-genre. The analysis comes full circle with reworkings of his melodies in the Lochamer Liederbuch and related sources. The study shows that vocal music and instrumental intabulations influenced each other mutually to create new repertoires and styles. Amongst the most significant insights are the findings around the WolfenbÃ1⁄4ttel Lute Tablature, which open up a field of hitherto unknown instrumental practices and playing techniques, particularly on the plectrum lute. The process of transferring intabulation techniques from the keyboard to other polyphonic instruments leads to the formulation of a coherent, 'pan-instrumental' style of solo intabulation in the fifteenth century.