The Middle Ages

1. The Middle Ages 400-1400

2. The Middle Ages • Age between “the glorious present and a glorious past” • Glorious past = classic antiquity • Ages = because so much time passed 400-1400 • Broken into two periods: 400-1000 early period and 1000-1400 later period

3. Society: • Society was highly organized by a rigid class system known asfeudalism. • Kings and Queens ruled over a specific amount of land and granted land only to a small number of noble families. • Most of the population worked in servitude (virtually slaves)

4. Rise of the Middle class • As the forests cleared, people established small villages and towns. These became central for trade and commerce. • Common man could now sell goods • The feudal system breaks down and gradually the boundaries of many European countries that we know today were established (more or less)

5. Life was not easy • Wars were frequent • People worked in miserable conditions • no vaccines or antibiotics

6. Some bright spots • Spread of Christianity • Education becomes more widespread (universities were established) • New towns were the centers of trade and commerce (cultural exchange) • The arts – music, painting, poetry, sculpture, and architecture flourished; the church often paid for the arts • Invention heavy wheeled plow (acres of land could be cultivated, increase in food production) • Invention of the stirrup enabled soldiers to fight from horseback • Invention of spinning wheel, the wheelbarrow, mechanical clock (12thcen) compasses, windmills, eyeglasses (13thcen) plate armor, gunpowder, paper, (14thcen)

7. General Characteristics of Medieval Music • A large quantity of music from this period survives. • Most of the surviving music was designed for use in the Christian (Roman Catholic) liturgy, known as liturgical music • Music is mainly composed for voice • Also had folk songs, work songs, dances and instrumental pieces, though not much has survived in notation • Later in the Medieval Period secular song and polyphony rise. Secular song = non-religious (gave rise to other song topics (love, dancing, political, loyalty) Polyphony = more than one line sounding at the same time (gave rise to harmony)

8. The Music: Plainchant • Plainchant –vocal music for church services, also known as Gregorian Chant after Pope Gregory I • Characteristics – monophonic – only one line of music is performed at a time. • May be syllabic = one note for every syllable of the text or melismatic = large number of notes sung to a single syllable • Sung to modes • Flowing rhythm with no clearly defined beat