Medieval Period

By Morgan Blacksmith
  • Period: 500 to 1450

    Medieval Period

    It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery.
  • 800

    Charlemagne over the Holy Roman Empire

    • 500-600 tunes established during his reign
    • later expanded to 3000
  • 900

    Musica Enchiriadis

    • Vox principles
    • Vox organalis (improvised)
    • Parallel
    • Oblique
    • it examines and illustrates two distinct kinds of "singing together"
  • 1030

    Guido of Arezzo's Micrologus

    • four line staff
    • relative pitch
    • sight singing
    • "Little Treatise"
    • created hexachord
    • created solmization
  • 1098

    Hildegard of Bingen (birth)

    achieved great success as a prioress and abbess of her own convent and as a writer and composer
  • Period: 1100 to 1200

    Troubadour and Trobairitz Activity

    Poet-composers who flourished during the Twelfth Century in the south of France and spoke Provencal.
  • Period: 1163 to 1225

    Notre Dame School Polyphony

  • 1179

    Hildegard of Bingen (death)

  • 1280

    Franco of Cologne: Ars Cantus Mensurabilis

    • German intellectual who came to Paris to teach around 1280
    • Franconian Mensural Notation
    • Consonant and Dissonant intervals
  • 1300

    Guillaume de Machaut (birth)

    • 1st composer in history to create secular music
    • Continued troubadour/trouvere tradition
    • 4-voice rondeau
    • Cantilena Style
  • 1323

    Ars Nova Treatise

    • associated with Philippe de Vitry
    • time
    • prolation
  • 1325

    Francesco Landini (birth)

    • 140 ballate
    • Influenced by the treble-dominated French chanson
    • From ballare (to dance), originally a song to accompany dancing
    • “Landini Cadences”
  • 1377

    Guillaume de Machaut (death)

  • 1397

    Francesco Landini (death)