MUS 175 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Ordo Virtutum, Guillaume De Machaut, Comtessa De Dia
Music of the Middle Ages
● Gregorian Chant
○ Developed by monks using form of half-sung speech called “cantilan”
while reciting psalms and scriptural passages
■ Sacred and religious
■ Cantillation: Natural raising of voice on a specific pitch
○ Menastitism
■ Living in the monastery
○ Monks were hermits
○ The rule of St. Benedict (500 A.D)
■ Called for regular repetition of prayers and scripture throughout
day and light
○ Also known as “Plainchant or Plainsong”
○ Slowly spread and developed through smaller villages where melodies
were sang in unison
■ Chants became standardized and were passed to monasteries
and convents
● Became Gregorian chant
● Allowed bond between religions to form creating unity
○ Once thought to have been composed by St.Gregory the Great (590-604)
○ Consists of monophonics singing (unison)
○ Melodies were used for the first ti
● Plainchant
○ Subject matter was always sacred, often liturgical, and the language was
latin (rarely greek)
○ Early attempts to notate chants made use of “neumes” in the form of lines
and squiggles above the text
■ Idea of music measures
○ Guido of Arezzo
■ Developed system for transcription of chants
■ Length of note did not matter because at this time it was based on
the length of the words
● Hildegard of Bingen
○ German writer, composer, visionary and mystic
■ Believed she was in special contact with the divine
● Divine inspiration
■ Meditated to connect with god
● Wrote these down as metaphorical poems
○ Named the simponies
○ Was the leader of a convent
■ Spent her entire life within the confines of the convent
■ She was one of the most prominent and powerful female leader of
the medieval church
Document Summary
Developed by monks using form of half-sung speech called cantilan while reciting psalms and scriptural passages. Cantillation: natural raising of voice on a specific pitch. The rule of st. benedict (500 a. d) Called for regular repetition of prayers and scripture throughout day and light. Slowly spread and developed through smaller villages where melodies were sang in unison. Chants became standardized and were passed to monasteries and convents. Allowed bond between religions to form creating unity. Once thought to have been composed by st. gregory the great (590-604) Melodies were used for the first ti. Subject matter was always sacred, often liturgical, and the language was latin (rarely greek) Early attempts to notate chants made use of neumes in the form of lines and squiggles above the text. Length of note did not matter because at this time it was based on the length of the words. Believed she was in special contact with the divine.
