The List of Musical Instruments : A leitmotif in medieval narration
The list of musical instruments that accompanies the scenes of collective jubilation is a leitmotif of the medieval narrative. These passages raise the question of what distinguishes the narrative topos from other recurring elements in a narrative such as motives, clichés or rhetorical topos. We will see that those allow us to go beyond the simple rhetorical ornatus in order to draw the reader’s attention to the narrative instance responsible for this terminological deployment. In the texts considered in the article, the list of instruments highlights the literary and lexical competence of the narrator who then identifies as the figure of the minstrel associated with his performance and instruments.