Transcript The Middle Ages

400-1400
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: 4001000 early period and 1000-1400
later period
 Society
was highly organized by a
rigid class system known as
feudalism.
 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)
 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)
Wars
were frequent
People worked in miserable
conditions
no vaccines or antibiotics
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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 (12th cen) compasses, windmills, eyeglasses
(13thcen) plate armor, gunpowder, paper, (14th cen)
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)

 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