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The Rule of St. Benedict was a group of rules written by Benedict of Nursia for monks in the monasteries to follow. Used motto "Ora et Labora", or "pray and work". -
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Charlemagne, son of King Peppin The Short expanded his father's kingdom to become the Holy Roman Empire after the Roman Empire collapsed. This also began the Carolingian Renaissance.
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The Carolingian Renaissance saw a return to Roman ideals with a more stable government due to the standardizations made by Charlemagne. This time period also saw a rise in monasteries.
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Before Guido of Arezzo, notation was mostly transmitted orally until around the 9th century. "Nuemes", or symbols above words would be used to distinguish pitch, however it wasn't exact, and a way to notate rhythm was not yet available.
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Two or more voices singing in agreeable combinations. Originally organum was improvised and not notated. It also began with only using parallel (usually fifths, as they were seen as perfect) intervals, and moving at the same rate as the original chant.
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Guido of Arezzo was a monk who innovated notation through the creation of a 4 line staff. This paved the way for how we notate music even today. He also devised a set of syllables for his students to use for sight singing, not to far off from "do, re, mi..." that we use today. The Guidonian Hand is named after him. -
The Church Modes are different arrangements of whole steps and half steps in relation to a final. These were used in Gregorian Chant. -
Sequences like "Victimae Pascali laudes" were newly written text, they were mostly syllabic, with pared verses, and a clear mode used.
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A tradition originating in France, the Troubadours were professional and (literate) amateur musicians who created mostly strophic songs using the ideas of Courtly Love, but also sometimes using their music to comment on social and political ideas. -
The Carolingian Renaissance saw a rise of monasteries, as people who had similar religious ideas and lifestyles began to live and work together. Monasteries were often their own mini villages, isolated from the rest of the world. -
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Hildegard Von Bingen is the first known female composer. She is also one of the first known composers with a large body of notated work. Hildegard was an abbess of a large monastery in South Germany. She claimed her music was a gift from God, and wrote primarily responsories usually dedicated to local Saints.
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Settings of chant, sequences, and solos written mostly in verse. Sacred songs with two voices, lower voice was referred to as the tenor. There was discant style, which was smaller groupings above the tenor, and then florid, a more melismatic style. -
Notre Dame Polyphony had the first attempts to notate rhythm. They did this through the use of rhythmic modes. In their organum, composers used clausulas. Many composers created substitute clausualas from other composers work, as they often worked closely, and improved on one another. -
Meaning "Old Art", that began with Notre Dame Polyphony in France.
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Bernart de Ventadom was a professional and famous trouvere with a large body of notated work. -
Leonin was the first "named' composer. He worked at Notre Dame and compiled the "Magnus Liber Organi", or the great book of organum.
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Perotin was most likely Leonin's student. In this piece he used Quadruplum voices, setting the solo portion of the gradual. The tenor part has longer notes while the upper voices have modal rhythm, in discant and organum style. It illustrates inspiration and progression from the previous versions, such as Leonin's and the original chant itself. -
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By this time, there were 3 voices in motets. They had 2 texts with similar topics, in Latin and/or French. -
Petrarch was a composer, with Dante as his predecessor. They both wrote in Florentine dialect.
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The Cantigas de Santa Maria were a collection of 420 musical poems written in Galician-Portuguese by the court of Alfonso the Wise. Monophonic songs, with one manuscript containing beautiful illustrations of the intsruments and diversity of the land in that time period. -
Franco of Cologne was the author of the "Ars cantus mensuarabilis". It was a treatise that explained the new rules of rhythmic notation ex.
- note shapes signified relative duration, including rests
- durations consisted of double long, long, breve, and semibreve.
There was a big rule that they had to be THREE beats because of the importance of the number in Christianity. -
A poet and composer born in North Eastern France, who is the first to have compiled all of his work and discussed his working method. Most known for his "Messe de Notre Dame". -
At this time, Italy was a collection of rich city-states such as Florence and Milan.
Madrigals of the 14th century began to emerge. -
There were many hardships in this century that impacted the music and culture such as the black plague, famine, flood, and political corruption.
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Including motets by Phillipe de Vitry, this manuscript was an allegorical poem that used satire to comment on the corrupt politics in society and the church of the 14th century. The title character is a horse with his name being an acronym for flattery, avarice, villainy, variete, envy, and lachete. -
A treatise explaining the new rules of music, separating it from the Ars antiqua period. -
Most fatal pandemic recorded in history, decreasing almost a third of Europe's population.
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The most famous composer of the Trecento, who was blinded as a child from smallpox. He was known as an organist and is known for his Balleta, Non avra ma picta -
A story that shows the various stories of a group of young people who take shelter in a secluded area to escape the plague in Florence, Italy. -
A new period, continuing the Ars nova tradition with polyphonic songs in fixed forms. There was rhythmic complexity. voices in contrasting meters, harmonies blurred, and even pieces notated into shapes.
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Meaning "New Art", the Ars nova period (coined by Phillipe de Vitry (1291-1361)), saw innovations in rhythmic notation. Both DUPLE and TRIPLE divisions were now allowed, although 3x was still seen as perfect. Note shapes remained the same value regardless of their context, which allowed for syncopation. The breve was given a smaller division, the semibreve.