Oh.

To begin our study of music as an expression of culture, we will start with the
origins of contemporary history in Europe, the medieval period,

the years, 400 to fourteen hundred.

It can be difficult to conceptualize this era since it is such a long span of time
during which there was so little cultural evolution that historians have chosen to
throw it together under a single heading.

The Dark Ages is another label given to this period, with countless movies
capitalizing on romanticized medieval fantasies full of noble knights, damsels in
distress and evil warlords bent on mindless pillaging. How accurate is this image?

From an historical perspective, the Middle Ages are situated between the classics
of the Greco Roman period and the European Renaissance,

both of which are regarded as prolific times of cultural advancement and artistic
expression. This is where the middle part comes in. This period is bookended by two
better or more culturally productive times in history. Is this really an era
without any culture?

This, you know, radio. Tom.

Cristiani.

If we could step back in time and take a snapshot, this society would certainly
look bleak for most as much as 85 percent of the population. It was a peasant's
life of manual labor and farming, inspired by the desperate hope of growing enough
food to survive another year. These

days were spent in the fields, tending crops with hand tools. And at night, workers
retire to humble huts where the few livestock they tended to share their meager
indoor space. Children did not attend school, instead learning the basic skills of
survival from their parents. Minister, Senator.

Illness, famine or attack were an ever present threat so that the average lifespan
of a medieval peasant was only around 30 years

and this only intensified in the waning years of the medieval period when the
bubonic plague or the black death killed almost a third of the population of Europe
in a span of only five years. Living conditions were largely a product of the
feudal system, which is a social order based on controlling land and resources.
Wealthy land owners or lords passed out their holdings to land managers, who in
turn granted small plots to serfs or peasants who worked the land and provided food
for the rest of society in exchange for the opportunity to farm. Serfs were
indentured or unfree and tied to the land,

as you saw in that tape involving the state of the sea.

The resulting society was decentralized and scattered, with pockets of peasant
families congregating in villages or larger estates governed by a local manager.
Within this hierarchy, virtually no one was educated since reading, writing, music
or other cultured pursuits would have seemed unimportant to a society organized
around conquest. In either case, almost no one would have really had the time to
worry about being creative.
In the Catholic Church, there was an entirely different culture, largely removed
from the violence and squalor of the period. Men or women who took religious orders
and dedicated their lives to the church lived in autonomous compounds called
monasteries for men or convents for women.

These communities were havens for prayer, meditation, reading, writing, learning
and even music.

Moreover, since virtually everyone in Europe was also a Christian, the church was
both a political and a spiritual body and wielded immense cultural power. Even so,
this long effort did not begin under the leadership of the Christian church in the
centuries of the ad period. When the Roman Empire dominated the political
landscape, Christians were a rebellious cult subject to harsh judgment and even
persecution.

As a result, they became quite clever, meeting in secret and developing an array of
coded symbols and communications to spread their message, a fact that would later
color the art of the church.

The cultural shift, which led to the era of the Catholic Church in Europe began on
October 27 in the year 312, when the Roman emperor Constantine the Great, was
struck by what he believed to be a sign from God while preparing his troops for
battle, he saw the symbol of the cross hovering above the sun. After winning in
combat, he converted to the Christian faith and a year later issued the edict of
Milan granting Christians religious freedom law. Your know,

Constantine went on to establish church dogma and to solidify Christianity as a

powerful cultural force. When the western side of the Roman Empire finally
collapsed a century and a half later, the church was already heavily entangled in
the politics of the day so that it was easy for Christianity to fill the power gap
left by the loss of a centralized government.

By that time, virtually everyone had converted to Christianity so that even those
with high social standing were also subjects of the church. This gave the pope or
the leader of the Catholic Church ultimate power in all things by proxy. The clergy
or the administrators of the church exercised great social influence over all of
society, rich or poor, since all Christians were required to tithe or donate at
least 10 percent of their income. The Catholic Church amassed great wealth in this
period.

As evidenced by the many Gothic cathedrals that were erected across Italy and
France, grand foreboding monuments which still stand today.

As you consider the image, which is the cathedral in Rense, France, noticed the
size of the structure relative to the people. What impact would such a massive and
ornate building have had on a lowly medieval peasant? Certainly, it would have been
awe inspiring, as it still is today.

To this point, it is important to consider that a medieval Christian would have

held very fundamental views even regarding the afterlife, as the real and very
literal destination of the soul. This only increased the cultural influence of the
church, which was seen as God's messenger on Earth, the path whereby people could
ensure their place in heaven. As Europe progressed through the medieval period and
most of society was broken into warring city states, the church benefited from a
well-organized and profitable social network governed by a hierarchy of powerful
officials. As a result, virtually all medieval culture is sacred or based on church
dogma.

One of the most notable examples of Catholic art is the great body of illuminated
manuscripts, printing technologies were still many centuries into the future, so
books were written and copied completely by hand, a task given to the monks of the
church as shown in the image on the screen. This process was undertaken with great
skill and care, with intricate illustrations adorning the text.

The beauty of these works is even more inspiring when we consider that every
element from the animal skin parchment to the quills, the ink and metallic pigments
were handmade by a team of artisans. It could take months or longer just to produce
a single book.

These artifacts also reveal significant cultural and aesthetic trends of the era.
First, illuminating from the Latin Iliamna or to light was intended to elevate the
words making them more significant or sacred, a practice that would eventually
extend to music. Secondly, not only was art produced in service to religion, but it
was only practiced by the most educated members of society or the monks of the
Catholic Church. It was an intellectual activity. Creativity, as we conceptualize
it today as a form of personal expression, really did not exist. Lastly,
illuminated manuscripts are littered with symbols and icons, which were an
innovative solution to the fact that no one outside of the church would have been
able to read. Pictures replaced words and communicating meaning to the masses. In
fact, according to the aesthetics of the day, it was believed that the soul could
be elevated simply by being in the presence of a religious symbol. There was no
need for the viewer to actually understand what they were seeing or hearing.

This directly influenced music like reading people at large were not expected to
understand music. Instead, the purpose was to frame words and make them important.
There was no imperative to also make them meaningful or even intelligible. The idea
that listeners engage personally or on an emotional level with music was not really
a goal. Rather, hearing the powerful words of the Bible, comprehensible or not,
would have been enough to uplift the soul.

In the early years of the Catholic era, musical activities were likely rare.

Music has been a prominent aspect of Greco Roman celebrations and was therefore
regarded as an ecstatic expression of paganism, something which would have been
highly taboo for a brand new fledgling religion.

Those people who were unfortunate enough to live in the early centuries of this
period probably had little music, maybe a roving singer from time to time if they
were lucky, but otherwise things were rather quiet, musically speaking. Eventually,
singing emerged out of a practical need. Monks had a daily schedule of prayers and
devotions which require the memorization of many pages of text. Around the year 400
or so, it is believed that they began to intone words as an aid to memorization.
Although these recitations were very simple, they added a musical impetus to the
words and eventually evolved into a large body of plainchant or monophonic melodies
sung to liturgical or biblical texts. Like many other aspects of the church plane,
chants would have been a mystery to most of society since they were sung in Latin
and ancient language only learned or used in the monasteries for modern listeners.
There's an added element of mystery to medieval plane chants in that they are
virtually all anonymous, as if emerging from some spiritual source. However, this
too is a product of practical issues. Medieval culture was focused on work and
communal effort as a means of survival. The idea of individuality was not sensible,
considering the daily challenges of life. People were identified with their social
purpose or cultural standing much more so than their own individual personhood.
Further. For many centuries, plane chants were passed down through singing as an
oral tradition rather than being written down. And so we're not considered the
source of individual authorship. Over time, Plainchant became ubiquitous in the
Catholic Church with melodies designed for each part of the mass and special chants
for holy days and celebrations before a system of musical notation was developed
around the 10th century. Melodies vary greatly by region, but there are several
features which are common to all of them. First, the texture is monophonic, meaning
there is a single line of melody only. Second, there are no specified durations or
rhythms. Singers likely took their cues from the words in terms of pacing. In
addition, pitches were chosen according to the church modes, which are patterns of
intervals or scales no longer used in music today, meaning the melodies will sound
directionless and meandering to modern ears. Lastly, playing chants are sacred or
created by and for the church. The Plainchant record RMV dates from around the 6th
century, although it was not written down until much later and it's typical for the
time.

Oh.

It is written on a sacred text from the Bible, taken from the offertory or the
blessing of the bread and wine in the Catholic communion ceremony. It is sung by a
male choir, as was common, although women in convents had more freedoms than their
counterparts outside of the church. They were generally relegated to needlework and
other handcrafts rather than music or scholarly pursuits. Another interesting
feature is the use of melisma or strings of pitches sung to a single syllable of
text. Stretching out the words in this manner makes them virtually incoherent,
demonstrating that medieval music was not intended to spark a personal connection
for the listener. Further, given that the words are in Latin plainchant, probably
just sounded like beautiful noise to most people in the period as may also be the
case for you.

I mean, this is something to the church, this level of impersonality did not
diminish the importance of the words or the significance of delivering them. I
mean, you have. Try to imagine listener hearing these chants today, the music
probably sounds somewhat strange and foreign and so overly simple that it may even
be a little bit boring to listen to after a while. But it's important to realize
how this is a reflection of the culture in which it was created. I think the
medieval period is inspiring because within this chaotic culture where most people
were living a pretty crappy life, there was still beauty to be found. Yes, it is
religious and probably something that many of us don't relate to directly and some
of us maybe do. But the idea that these people strove for beauty, even in the face
of all of the odds that were stacked against them, is something that I really like
about the medieval period of.

More.

To you?

You.