Song and Da

nce
Music to 13
00
Dr. Beverly
Shangkuan-
Cheng
What was music like outside
the church?

Picture
 Music in the church Music outside of the church

Focus on music education Few read music

Music was notated. Music was seldom written down or written

about.

Most of the music remain. Most of the music has vanished.

 Music in the church Music outside of the church

Focus on music education Few read music

Music was notated. Music was seldom written down or written

about.

Most of the music remain. Most of the music has vanished.

A cappella With instruments

 Instruments
0 Fiddle
0 Psaltery
0 Transverse flute
0 Shawm
0 Pipe and tabor
Adam de la Halle

Poet-composer

Complete works were collected

in a manuscript

Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion

(The Play of Robin and Marion)
 Latin Songs
0 Latin newly composed melodies:
0 Versus
0 Conductus
0 Goliard songs – associated with wandering students
and clerics
0 Topics vary from religious and moral themes to satire
and celebrations of love, spring, eating, drinking, and
other earthly pleasures.
 Dance Music
0 Carole – circle dance that was usually accompanied by
a song sung by one or more of the dancers.
0 Estampie – instrumental dance music
 Vernacular Songs
0 Composed in medieval French, English, German,
Italian, Spanish, and various other vernacular
languages.
0 Ex. Song of Roland

0 Songs of the troubadours and trouvères

0 Love songs predominate.
0 Most are strophic, and dance songs often include a
refrain.
 Professional Musicians
0 Poet-singers – troubadours and trouvères
0 Jongleurs (from the same root as English “jugglers”) –
lower-class itinerant musicians who traveled alone or
in groups, earning a precarious living by performing
tricks, telling stores, and singing or playing
instruments.
0 Minstrel – from Latin minister, “servant”
- used for specialized musicians, many of
whom were employed at a court or city for at least part
of the year
Lyric poets traveling and singing,
mostly about courtly love

In France,
troubadours/trouvères

In Germany,
Minnesinger
European Society, 800-1300
0 Music was shaped by currents in the wider society:

0 Political developments
0 Linguistic regions
0 Economic growth
0 Social class
0 Support for learning and the arts
 Successors to the Roman
Empire (800)
0 Byzantine Empire in Asia Minor and southeastern
Europe
0 Most direct successor
0 Arab world (founding of the Islamic religion
around 610 by Muhammad)
0 Strongest and most vibrant
0 Western Europe
0 Weakest, poorest, and most fragmented
European culture owes much
to the three empires.
0 Byzantines – preserved Greek and Roman science,
architecture, and culture.
0 Arabs – extended Greek philosophy and science, fostered
trade and industry, and contributed to medicine, chemistry,
technology, and mathematics.
0 Western Europe – Through Charlemagne, learning and
artistic achievement were promoted. Charlemagne
improved education and sponsored scholarship and the
arts. Charlemagne and his son Louis the Pious made their
courts into centers for intellectual and cultural life, setting
a pattern for Western rulers that endured for a thousand
years.
Western Europe saw remarkable
economic progress and by 1300,
it had surpassed the Byzantine
Empire and the Islamic world in
economic strength.
 Following Louis’ Death
0 Empire divided
0 Western part of the Empire
became France
0 Eastern part claimed by German
kings.
0 Central kingdom emerged in
England.
Louis the Pious (r. 814 - 43)
0 Spain and Italy were divided.
Lauda
Troubadours
Trouvères

Cantiga
Minnesingers