Music

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521382960.017

16 - Music

from PART III - SPIRITUAL, CULTURAL AND ARTISTIC LIFE

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008

Gareth Curtis

Edited by

Christopher Allmand

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Christopher Allmand: Affiliation:
University of Liverpool

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Summary

all the evidence we have decrees that music permeated every walk of fifteenth-century life, from popular and aristocratic entertainment to religious and civic ritual. The range of types involved must have been formidable – vernacular music reflecting the activities and preoccupations of the common people, including also music for popular religious worship and popular drama; the ‘official’ music of the Church, especially the unaccompanied plainchant melodies supposedly hallowed by the pen of Pope Gregory the Great, and passed down through subsequent generations; music for all manner of festive occasions, ranging from the most functional of fanfares to the specially commissioned major work; music for the fifteenth-century nobleman, often designed less to help him while away the hours than to demonstrate the splendour of his establishment, the refinement of his taste and the personal piety with which he lavished resources on his chapel. Music was sung or performed on instruments, executed by individuals or groups, played by ear, improvised or read from notation; as a branch of the quadrivium, it even became a cerebral pursuit, in which sound might give way entirely to philosophical and mathematical speculation.

Keywords

musical education isorhythmic motet English Mass cycle vocal parts religious worship musical skills

Type: Chapter
Information: The New Cambridge Medieval History , pp. 319 - 334

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521382960.017 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 1998

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16 - Music

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