Knowra Medieval music Medieval music Medieval music is music composed or performed in Europe from roughly the fifth to the fifteenth century. It includes sacred and secular traditions, from monophonic chant to increasingly complex polyphony.
Gregorian chant : A tradition of unaccompanied liturgical chant used in the Western Christian Church. Its monophonic melodies form a central sacred tradition of medieval Europe.
Hildegard von Bingen : A twelfth-century German abbess, writer, composer, and visionary. Her surviving chants show how distinctive melodic invention could work within sacred practice.
Roman Catholic liturgy : The formal rites and prayers of the Western Christian Church. Liturgical services provided the setting and repertory for much medieval sacred music.
Guillaume de Machaut : A fourteenth-century French poet and composer who wrote both sacred and secular music. His works demonstrate the sophistication of late medieval French composition.
Renaissance music : European music from roughly the fifteenth through the sixteenth centuries, marked by expanding polyphony and changing styles. Its later conventions contrast with medieval modes, textures, and notation.
Neumes : Early musical signs that indicate melodic movement and, in later forms, specific pitches. They preserve melodies from before staff notation became standard.
Troubadour : A medieval Occitan poet-composer who created and performed songs, especially about courtly love. Troubadours shaped a major tradition of secular song in southern France.
Carolingian Renaissance : A cultural and educational revival promoted under the Carolingian rulers in the eighth and ninth centuries. Its reforms helped standardize chant across the Frankish lands.
Messe de Nostre Dame : A fourteenth-century polyphonic setting of the Ordinary of the Mass attributed to Guillaume de Machaut. It is a landmark example of a unified polyphonic Mass cycle.
Monophony : Music consisting of a single melodic line, with or without accompaniment. It provides the baseline against which medieval polyphonic developments stand out.
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