Any study of a historical musical period must account for relevant information
regarding the intellectual and artistical background as well as social institutions:
it is quite often that this context is divorced from the subject at hand.
Consequently, students of music are presented with an inaccurate account
of the reasons underlying most musical institutions and developments they
aspire to contemplate, with music history often treated as an abstract entity
unto itself. As in any discipline, there are logical reasons why certain
circumstances arose, resulting in significant repercussions. When a socio-musical
connection can be made, the resulting association is usually quite inciteful.
When considering the medieval era, one is faced with a problem dealing
with the great length of time that has occurred since the end of its era
as well as its broad encompassing timespan. When taking into account musical
developments, scholars have been beset by numerous problems: one of the larger
has been explaining the scanty, heavily biased evidence which has survived.
Only when musicologists begin to consult the findings of other disciplines
to support or recant their own, will some of the misconceptions and misunderstandings
of Medieval Music begin to disappear. So that an introduction of Medieval
institutions can be achieved,the following condensed generalizations recant
the historical background of Medieval Europe from the end of the Roman Empire
forward thru the growth, spread and influence of Christianity and Islam,
including the formation and disintegration of the Merovingian and Carolingian
dynasty, concluding with the Clunaic reform as well as a consideration of
Feudalism.
Modern European civilization undoubtedly grew from the vestiges of the
Roman Empire. While Roman sculpture and architecture was based upon Greek
models, manuscripts of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were unavailable to
the Romans. Greek civilization had a greater influence upon the Renaissance
than the Medieval, and shall be summarily dismissed. The Romans' influences
were numerous, including political institutions and concepts, art-forms and
architecture. Many Roman forms, such as their language, were assimilated
into other cultures as the transition to Modern Western European civilization
was made during the Medieval.
While the Romans prospered at first, by the first century A.D. emerging
symptoms of decay such as inflation and political instability caused internal
warfare, foreshadowing events which transpired during the next few centuries.
With so much internal strife occurring, nomadic tribespeople of northern
Europe and western Asia created pressures upon the open frontiers of the
empire as they sought to gain control. During the brief reign of Aurelian,
stability was momentarily achieved enabling the Romans to regain some of
their former holdings.
During this time Christianity was practiced as an underground faith, with
religious ceremonies commonly held at night in secret, as it was unsuccessfully
suppressed by the Romans. As the religion grew, Christianity significantly
advanced as to become tolerated during the reign of Diocletian (284- 305).
It remained for Theodosius (379-395) to decree Christianity to be the compulsory
religion for all citizens except for Jews. Men of social and political
prominence were quick to take advantage of the Church as they became members
of the clergy. As the Church attained extensive propertyholdings, it acquired
wealth and power, with its ecclesiastical government modeled from the territorial
organization of the Empire. Thus the central authoritative institution was
well established before the final disintegration of the Roman Empire, becoming
the sole stable element in Europe for the next millennium.
With the split of the Empire in the fifth century and the founding of
the Eastern's capital at Constantinople, the Roman Empire rapidly disintegrated.
The Byzantine Empire, able to maintain its political integrity, retained
cultural and intellectual traditions destroyed in the West, significantly
contributing to the rebuilding of Western civilization which occurred later.
With the Huns, Visigoths and Ostrogoths, Vandals and others all fighting
for control, the weaker forces were forced to retreat and reorganize into
Roman territory. A shortage of Roman troops forced the government to hire
northern mercenaries, enabling them to become citizens and gain high administrative
positions. During the reign of the incompetent Honorius (395-423), the
Visigoths subdued Roman, leaving the frontiers open to warfare and more
invasion. The Eastern Emperor Zeno, whose only authority in the West was
due to Honorius's abdication, resolved the instability by sending the Ostrogothic
prince Theodoric to recapture Italy in the hopes that he might be killed
in the process. However, Theodoric was successful, and ruled as a king of
Italy from 493-526.
Meanwhile, the Merovingian Clovis became leader of the Franks after removing
all rivals including the Alamans, Burgundians and Visigoths, establishing
the Frankish dynasty of Merovingian kings. The boundaries of the Frankish
empire were extended westward to the Pyrennes and eastward beyond the Rhine,
where the Franks were held in abeyance by Theodoric. These events determined
the prevailing social and political conditions of the next several centuries,
including the assimilation of Roman and Germanic elements at the expense
of civilization which had already been declining. Christianity spread along
with the persisting Roman influence, as Germanic peoples abandoned their
languages in favor of bastardized Latin as spoken by invaded peoples.
These "Romance languages" survived, with the areas where these languages
are still spoken corresponding to the most "latinized" portions of Western
Europe. New social classes evolved: the aristocracy, based upon their military
strength and property holdings; and the peasants, emerging from lower social
classes, who were exploited by the aristocracy, ensuring the survival of
both types.
During the sixth century the Franks became the most powerful people in
West Europe. When other kingdoms weakened the Eastern Emperor Justinian attempted
to reconquer the West. Recapturing Italy and Spain led to the exhaustion
of the Western Empire and the total destruction of civilization, enabling
the Lombards to invade Italy in 568, creating numerous petty states which
survived until the late 1800's. The vacuum enabled the papacy to become
the sole central administrative authority. The Popes became the political
leaders of Rome, holding no interest in the Empire's restoration. The Petrine
theory of papal supremacy, disputed in the East, held that the Bishop of
Rome was the supreme authority of Christendom. Finally, Pope Gregory the
Great (590-604) established the independence of the Western Church.
The creation, rise, and spread of Islamic religious fervor in the seventh
century encouraged Arabs to invade other lands under the auspices of the
Holy War of Islam (Jihad). Within a century the Moslems controlled Persia,
Afghanistan and northern Africa, and in 655 destroyed the Western Imperial
fleet, bringing the Mediterranean under Islamic control. Along with territorial
expansion, the imposition of a new culture and religion created great civilization,
firmly establishing Islam as a major religion. The Moors, after their
defeat by the Moslems, invaded Iberia, defeated the Visigoths, and soon
held almost the entire peninsula. Their raids into Gaul were checked by
Charlemagne's grandfather Charles Martel in 732. While the Moslems briefly
held Rome in 846, they were finally expelled in the early 900's.
Despite their common language, culture and civilization, the Islamic world
was unable to maintain political or religious unity. However, the contact
between Islam and the accumulated knowledge of earlier civilizations greatly
benefitted Europe. Many Greek documents were first known in Latin through
Arabic translations. In Baghdad, where Greek manuscripts were housed, translated,
and studied, contact with Oriental cultures was established via the trade
routes to India and China. The development of mathematics has been made
possible through adoption of the Arabic numeral system. In addition, significant
contributions in architecture, specifically the principles of the arch and
the dome, have been in use in Western buildings since their introduction
by the Arabs. Musically, the rich contributions of the Islamic world are
immeasurable, drawing upon a rich heritage which is shared with southern
Asia and Northern Africa. Arabs credit themselves with the invention of
measured notation and polyphony.
Meanwhile, in Europe, the aristocracy had degenerated into warlord landholders
who waged war for pleasure and profit. Coupled with the ignorance of the
peasantry, superstition bred irrationality, with hundreds of people being
executed as witches during the 7th and 8th centuries. The Church was eager
to eradicate earlier pagan religions and maintain control. While the Church
maintained a perfunctory amount of intellectual activity, serving to promote
the true faith, true "Classical" learning was forgotten. The spread of
papal influence and control went unchecked until the reign of King Charlemagne
and the "Carolingian Renaissance," the first rebuilding steps of culture.
The Carolingian dynasty reached its height under Pepin's son Charlemagne,
who allied with the Papacy, conquered/Christianized the Lombards, Saxons,
Bavarians and Avars, creating a series of military districts to organize
his holdings along his Empire's Eastern frontier from the Baltic to the Adriatic.
Charlemagne, while able to maintain control of a vast empire, was still
not able to expel the Moslems from Spain. In 799, an insurrection in Rome
forced Pope Leo III to take refuge with Charlemagne. Charlemagne attacked
Rome, reinstated the Pope and was proclaimed Emperor of the Romans. Charlemagne
then created a jurisdiction superceding that of the papacy, which was quite
beneficial for him but created problems for his successors.
Once the empire was stabilized, Charlemagne, aware of the need to educate
the ruling class and improve the educational system, founded a school at
Aix-la-Chapelle founded on the traditional liberal arts (trivium and quadrivium)
with Alcuin (735-804) as its director. Unfortunately, only grammar was studied
with any degree of thoroughness, since science and Greek philosophy were
yet unknown, and mathematics, based on Roman numerals, was impractical.
Since the study of music originated with the study of interval ratios, the
discipline was placed in the scientific quadrivium. Sounds related to numbers:
numbers and proportions were considered to regulate the universe. While
performers and composers were considered removed from the intellectual aspects
of music, they continued to evolve new types: only the "educated" who possessed
"reason" were considered to be musicians. Available to Carolingian scholars
were the works of Boethius (philosophical speculations on the nature of music
and its effects/relations to the world of humans), Cassiodorus and Alcuin.
Contemporaneous with the school at Aix-la-Chapelle, was the institution
of the monastery, where literature, liturgy and musical manuscripts were
transcribed or translated by scribes, who developed the Carolingian miniscule
which evolved into modern styles of handwriting. While few contributions
were made by these scholars, a new interest in learning generated a renewal
of Latin education.
Charlemagne's son, Louis the Pious (814-840), though well educated, was
unable to deal with the stress caused by managing an empire which was now
besought by multiple invasions of the barbarous kind. Upon his death, Charlemagne's
policy of splitting the landholdings equally among the male heirs backfired:
upon successive inheritances the estates would soon dwindle to insignificance.
The Carolingian Empire was split amongst Louis' three sons, creating a
rivalry which was resolved in Verdun (843) with Lothair, King of Italy,
becoming Emperor. The East and West chunks eventually developed into France
and Germany. The Magyars (Hungarians) invaded Europe, enabling the complete
collapse of the Carolingian Empire. The remaining Dukes or Barons of the
provincial districts which Charlemagne created ruled as equal and independent
sovereigns, reducing Europe into warring feudal states. The collapse of
military strength produced a rapid decline in papal authority, producing
a series of weak corrupt popes who brought the papacy a low state of degradation,
leaving 10th C Europe in a state of chaos.
In the latter ninth century Europe was besieged with invasions from the
Vikings, or Norsemen (Normans). The Vikings soon conquered Britain, Ireland,
and the inner regions of Europe, besieging Paris in 886. With no regard
for the Church, monasteries were an easy target for plundering. The Normans
settled in England and Northern France (Normandy), adopting the culture
of the lands they controlled. In the eleventh century, the Normans settled
in south Italy and Sicily, exploiting England and Western Europe (William
the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy in 1066). Vikings from Sweden invaded East
Europe from Kiev to the Black Sea. This created a threat to the Byzantines,
who called them Rhos (Russians), but their conversion to Christianity maintained
the dominance of Byzantine culture.
A reformation of the papacy at Clury in 910 enabled the Church to be revitalized,
with a reconstruction of the civilization corresponding with the rise of
Papal authority. A new wave of religious frenzy swept Europe during the
Clunaic reform, which grew under emperor Henry III (1039-1056). A renewal
of Christian ideals brought about many great monuments of art, but the witch-hunts
for heretics, scapegoats and undesirables began anew.
The major institution of this time besides the Church was the system known
as Feudalism, which was originated by Charlemagne as a way to control his
holdings. Feudalism was a manorial system which supported an agrarian society,
providing the people with protection and a livelihood. The only change
from Charlemagne's time was the policy of inheritance among the sons of
the aristocrats, modified to enable the eldest son to inherit the estate.
Feudalization of the Church led to the weakening of central organization,
producing constant warfare. The aristocrats benefitted from the feudalist
system: it provided them with profit and a livelihood, proving the feudalist
system worked well for aris- tocrats and peasants alike. Fortunately for
the aristocracy, someone realized that if the warfare continued, they would
probably get invaded again, so they decided to join forces and go fight
the Moslems, kicking the Moors out of Spain in 1492. These wars were known
as the Crusades. One benefit of Feudalism was that the protective courts
and castles attracted a lot of people, and when they weren't busy getting
attacked, these settlements became centers for the cultivation of literature,
music, and other secular interests.
While the above account is admittedly brief, a basic explanation of events
brings into context a significantly lengthy period of time in which many
developments and changes transpired. Given the amount of instability of
the period when taking into account all aspects, one can get a feeling for
the time by imagining what it must have been like to have lived then. Whatever
station of life, life was a game of survival, where survival of the fittest
was the law. The only way out was to drop out, tune in, shave your head weird,
become a monk or nun, live a life of solitude and meditation, memorize your
church modes (becoming able to improvise melissmas between the neumes), and
write secular songs extolling the virtuous pleasures of sex!