450 1450 A.D.

Middle Ages

Around 450 the Roman Empire

began to disintegrate.
This was the beginning of the dark
ages.
Life was hard and full of migrations,
upheavals, and wars.
In the later Middle Ages churches
and monasteries were constructed,
towns grew, universities were
founded.

 This was a time of three social classes:

NOBILITY
PEASANTRY
CLERGY

NOBILITY

Nobles were
sheltered within
castles surrounded
by moats.
The men were
often knights
during war time.
In peace time,
they amused
themselves with
hunting, feasting,
and tournaments.

Peasants

Peasants the majority of people

lived miserably in one-room huts.
Many were serfs, bound to the soil
and subject to feudal overlords.
Homes were damp and cold. The
entire family shared two rooms.
For protection, there were no
windows.

Clergy

Monks in monasteries held a

monopoly on learning; most people
including the nobility were
illiterate.
The church was the center of
musical life.
Musicians were priests and worked
for the church.
An important occupation in
monasteries was liturgical singing.
Women were not allowed to sing in
the church.

Cathedrals

Music in the Middle Ages

Most medieval music was vocal.

The church frowned on instruments.
Around 1100, however, instruments
were used increasingly in church.
The organ was most prominent.
At first it was primitive and could only
be played by hitting it with your fist.
It was so loud that it could be heard
for miles around.

Organ

Organ
from
the
900s.

Gregorian Chant

The music of the church was

Gregorian chant.
It is a single line (no harmony) sung
by many to convey a calm quality.
It represents the church.
It has flexible rhythm, without meter,
and little sense of beat.
Exact rhythm is uncertain, because
precise time values were not
notated.
Free-flowing rhythm gives the chant
a floating, improvisational feeling.

 The melodies moved by step and

were sung in Latin, the language of
the church.
At first, the melodies were passed
on by tradition, but as the numbers
grew to the thousands, they were
notated to ensure uniformity.
The earliest manuscripts were from
the 800s.

The
composers
of
Gregorian
chant
remain
almost
completely
unknown.

Secular Music

Besides Gregorian chant in the

church, there was much music
outside of the church, too.
The first music that has survived in
notation was composed during the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries by
French nobles called troubadours.
Many of the songs they sang have
been preserved because nobles had
clerics write them down.
Some 1,650 melodies have been
preserved.

 During the Middle Ages, wandering

minstrels performed music and
acrobatics in castles, and towns.
They had no civil rights and were on
the lowest social level. It was a
tough life.
Without newspapers, the music of
the minstrels was an important
source of information.

 For centuries music had just a single

melodic line.
But sometime around 700 900
monks began to add a second
melodic line to Gregorian chant.
At the beginning, it was usually
improvised.
Listeners at that time must have
been surprised!

Churches
were getting
more
elaborate as
was the
music in the
church.

Polyphonic Music

Polyphonic music (music with more

than one part) was developed mainly
in Paris at the Cathedral of Notre
Dame.
Using precise rhythms, this was the
first time in music history that
notation indicated precise rhythms as
well as pitches.
Soon music had more than two
voices. Music with three parts began
to develop, although the range was
still small and hollow sounding.

Fourteenth Century

Secular music became more

important in the lives of the people
in the 1300s.
This was due to many factors
including the Hundred Years War,
the black plague (which destroyed
of the population of Europe), the
weakening of the feudal system,
and the fighting of the Popes in the
Catholic church.
The changes in musical style were
so many that this era was named
the time of new art.

Guillaume de Machaut

Guillaume de Machaut was a priest,

but spent most of his life working
with the noble families of France.
Machaut travelled to many courts
and presented beautifully decorated
copies of his music to the nobles.
Because of this, his music has
survived for us to enjoy today.
This piece you are hearing (The
Agnus Dei) is possibly the finest
composition known from the Middle
Ages.

Agnus Dei

This piece is from a Mass, which is a

sacred piece of music.
It is written in four voices, some of
which are doubled by instruments.
The Agnus Dei is a prayer for mercy
and peace and is solemn and
elaborate.
It is in triple meter.
This piece is based on Gregorian
Chant, but you can hear how much
this idea has developed.

Agnus Dei

Like the chant it is based on, it has

three sections.
The form for this piece is: A B A
In Machauts time, music was meant
to appeal to the mind as well as to
the ear!
Although this sounds so different to
us today, it is pleasing to our ears.

Notre Dame