The ‘modal theory’, fencing, and the death of Aubry

On 29 June 1909, a jury of six scholars decreed that Pierre Aubry (1874–1910), in his bookTrouvères et Troubadours, had stolen the ‘modal’ interpretation of medieval monophony from the young doctor Jean-Baptiste Beck (1881–1943). Aubry was to make amends for his plagiarism in two ways: first, by destroying copies of the book's first edition and issuing an emended one; second, by publishing the trial's verdict in twenty scholarly journals at his own cost. An only slightly emendedTrouvères et Troubadoursdid appear the following year (1910), but Aubry failed to publish the jury's verdict in a single journal. A little over a year after the trial, in August of 1910, he died of a fencing wound. The following year, Beck emigrated to the United States.