Historical & Cultural Background of the Music of Middle Ages

• History


  is a chronological account of the past.
• Culture


  encompasses things like visual arts, religion, language, music, and even food.
• Culture


  being defined as a set of beliefs and values that are shared by a group of people.
• Medieval music

  • is one of the earliest music
  • pertains to the music written after the fall of the Roman empire
  • during the Middle Ages up until about the mid-1400s when the Renaissance period begins.
• Written manuscripts were very limited during this time because parchment was expensive and only the wealthy institutions had the means to have these created. These institutions were mainly the church and of course, the royalty.
• Sacred music


  pertains to music that was used within the realm of religion, more specifically, the Roman Catholic church
• Roman Catholic Church


  was a massive force during the medieval period
• Secular music


  pertained to all the music that was not sung within the contains of the church.
• Chants or plainsong

  • one of the earliest forms of Sacred Music.
  • was greatly influenced by the practice of the Jews, singing psalms in the synagogues.
  • These chants developed in different parts of Europe, all apart from each other.
• Mozarabic chant


  Spain, which strangely resembled North African music.
• Ambrosian chant


  Milan
• Beneventan chant.


  Benevento
• Gallican chants,


  Gaul
• Celtic Chants


  Britain and Ireland
• The Roman Catholic church would standardize all these chants into the Gregorian Chants.
• Royal courts also had entertainers during this time, and gypsies also traveled providing songs used mostly for social events like love songs, drinking songs, dances and even those about the ongoing crusades.
• wandering minstrels


  such as the gypsies used instruments like the early violin, bagpipes, cornets (the earlier version of today's trumpet) and the lute- a plucked string instrument that resembles the guitar.