Early Medieval Music by Dan Russell

Daniel J. Russell
Professor Grotans
MRS 210
30 May 2008

Early Medieval Music

It is sometimes difficult to analyze the music of the early medieval age because the only pieces of evidence that we have to analyze the topic are manuscripts. Not many manuscripts relating to music from that time period are around today because the parchment used for manuscripts was expensive and the process was very time-consuming for scribes. Books were probably more important to the people of the time period, so only wealthy institutions, like the Church and some monasteries, were willing and able to produce the manuscripts for music that we still have today. Both sacred and secular music were preserved through the manuscripts of these institutions.

At the beginning of the medieval ages, notated music was reputed to be monophonic and homo-rhythmic. It appears that there was a unison sung text and there was no notated instrumental support in the beginning. Rhythm was not specified at the beginning of the era, but neumatic notations gave clear phrasing ideas. The simple chant, involving unison voice and natural declamation, was very popular during this time period, but eventually polyphony developed. Harmony, in consonant intervals of perfect fifths, unisons, octaves, (and later, perfect fourths) began to be notated. Rhythmic notation allows for complex interactions between multiple vocal lines in a repeatable fashion.

Many of the instruments that were used in medieval music still exist today, but they are in different forms now. One example is the flute. The flute was made of wood in medieval times, whereas now it is usually made of silver or other metals. The early flute could be played as a side-blown instrument or an end-blown instrument, whereas today the flute is primarily a side-blown instrument. A close relative of the flute is the recorder. The recorder has actually kept its medieval form for the most part. One of the flute's ancestors, the pan flute, was also popular in medieval times. This instrument's pipes were made of wood, and were measured off in length to produce different pitches.

Along with the wind instruments discussed above, medieval music also consisted of many plucked string instruments. Such instruments included the lute, mandora, gittern, and psaltery. The dulcimers, similar in structure to the psaltery and zither, were originally plucked instruments as well, but in the 14th century they became struck instruments with metal strings. Instruments without sound boxes, such as the Jew’s harp, were also popular in the time. Early versions of the organ, fiddle, and the trombone were also in existence.

The Gregorian Chant was developed in Charlemagne's Frankish kingdom, which encompassed modern France, Switzerland and Germany. Little is known about Church singing used in these areas before medieval times because no modern Western system of music writing had yet been invented. Charlemagne wanted the music of the Church in his kingdom to be sung like it was sung in Rome. Without written music, it was difficult for Charlemagne to get what he wanted because the music had to be learned orally, as a folk music tradition. The Frankish chant is thought to have received the name "Gregorian," after Pope Gregory, in order to give it greater authority and to ease its reception in the Frankish Kingdom. As stated earlier, not many manuscript have survived that give good detail of medieval music. This is also the case for the Gregorian Chant. There are no surviving book containing complete written repertories of the chant with music from the tenth century, but there are books from the eleventh century. Some of the earlier notations give rhythmic details, but most do not give exact pitches, so they may be interpreted in many different ways today. Pitch-defined manuscripts began to appear in the eleventh century and were well-established by the twelfth. In these, the pitches can be read without knowledge of the oral tradition, but the rhythmic details cease to be recorded.

Christianity was a dominant part of medieval culture, so an entire musical style developed just to support it. Sacred music was therefore set to the text of the Bible or at least inspired by it. This meant it was necessary for composers of sacred music to have some sort of education, a rare commodity in those days. For those who did not have the musical training and Biblical literacy needed for composing sacred music, there was the less-sophisticated realm of secular music.

The goals of sacred and secular early medieval composers were originally different. The sacred composers sought to set the Bible to music and to bring a more “heavenly” aspect to church than could be obtained by simply reading the Bible. Sacred music was originally composed to pay homage to God. Secular music, on the other hand, was composed solely for its entertainment value, whether for dance or to express love. In the early medieval times, sacred composers were formally trained in music and secular composers were usually not. So not only did the two forms of music serve different purposes, they also represented a musical separation in society between the formally trained and the untrained, or even the rich and the poor.

Even to this day this type of division still exists between those formally trained in music and those who are not. Today, however, those formally trained do not usually write sacred music, but rather what is now called “classical” music. The “commoners” of today listen to folk, rock, country, or some other type of relatively “simple” form of music, i.e., pop music. In essence, though, music has evolved from the medieval times. It is still split into those who are formally trained and those who are not. The difference is that today the division between the trained and untrained is not delineated by religion, but usually by access to a university or other formal musical education program.

As stated earlier, medieval secular music was usually passed along orally and very rarely written down, so little has survived. In fact, this is true of most folk music until the last century. Medieval musicians and composers did not feel the need to stamp the works they wrote down with their name, which would be unthinkable for any modern artist. So part of what secular music has survived from the Middle Ages is often anonymous. Often, at best, music scholars have pinned down the style of a piece to several composers and to within a decade or two.

Those who know a bit about medieval music usually think of the troubadors, trouveres, and minnesingers when they think of secular music. All were different names for essentially the same type of musician found in the medieval period throughout Europe. Troubadors were found in southern France and northern Italy, trouveres in central and northern France, and minnesingers in Germany. Troubadors, trouveres, minnesingers were usually poets first, and the music was most likely originally used just as accompaniment. The estampie, an instrumental music which was most likely used for dance, is another common form of secular medieval music. There were also medieval dramas, predecessors of the opera. The primary focus of the medieval drama was not the music, but the acting. Since secular music’s purpose was for entertainment, there was little drive to push its style to the edges during the early medieval times. Therefore, it was from sacred music, where the inspiration to please God was present, that medieval music truly evolved.

Works Cited

Fenlon, Iain. Music in Medieval and Early Modern Europe : Patronage, Sources, and Texts. Cambridge [Eng.]; New York: Cambridge UP, 1981.

Hoppin, Richard H. Medieval Music. New York: W. W. Norton, 1978.

Laughlin, Donalda. Developing Basic Musicianship Through the Study of Medieval and Early Renaissance Music. Los Angeles, 1967.

Page, Christopher, ed. Music and Instruments of the Middle Ages : Studies on Texts and Performance. Aldershot, Great Britain; Brookfield, Vt.: Variorum, 1997.

Parrish, Carl. The Notation of Medieval Music. London: Faber & Faber, 1957.

Reese, Gustave. Music in the Middle Ages. New York: W. W. Norton, 1940.

Seay, Albert. Music in the Medieval World. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1965.