Why am I a Composer?: Which was more important during the medieval period, sacred music or secular?


AFX Industrial (film scores)

Today I'll be looking some of the origins of music notation and also finding out if the medieval populace preferred sacred or secular music.

Secular profanity in a sacred age.

What did they really sing about in the Middle Ages? Exactly what made these people tick? If I start with a short song outline, a pastorela, it may help define the mindset of these early 12^th century ancestors of ours:

A knight riding through the green hills comes across a lovely shepherdess; he courteously proposes an indecent act.

This is typical 12^th century style. Morality at this time led stories to an often non-platonic conclusion. While the slight possibility of a knight failing to seduce the shepherdess added enough suspense to satisfy audiences again and again. That the pastorela was a highly popular format is in no doubt, as it clearly and consciously reflected a pastoral lifestyle led by all during the medieval period.

What exactly is medieval? Formed from the Latin words medium aevum 'the middle age'. Medieval as a word was first used towards the end of the 1700's to describe the period between the 11^th century and Renaissance or 're-birth' around the 15^th century. Let's look at some of the religious elements and see whether sacred or secular music held more relevance among the populace of the time.

Traditions, Troubadours & Trovères.

One of the earliest figures in liturgical church history was Gregory the great (540 - 604). Gregory had a profound impact on the music of his time, though not as a composer. Eventually becoming Pope (c. 590), he was intent on standardizing sacred music to fit with current Roman liturgy.

Around 596, sending forty Benedictine monks to England carrying liturgical books, he was to forever shape early music, the Gregorian chant was born. Three hundred years later Gregorian chant had reached its highest peak in Europe. The chant, a doxology sung as a simple monophonic line, used a notation system called 'neumes', which were a series of squiggles, symbols and lines. Eventually this so called 'neumatic' notation appeared written on staff-less pages, above the sacred text.

Shuttling forward to 1100, we find another exponent of liturgical writing, in Hildegard of Bingen. Hildegard (1098 - 1179), a nun and an artist, who, legend tells us, received her music direct from the deity, also had a profound influence on medieval music and notation. By Hildegard's time notation had progressed further still, now using the more familiar looking square note heads, on a series of parallel lines. Still, sacred music was very much an elitist entity, practiced by the wealthy and literate. The commoner's experience of the sacred was an altogether different one. Outside the sacred realm they would have encountered the 'Troubadours' and 'Trovères', traveling minstrels in a musically secular society.

The 1100s were brutal times in many ways. With a life span of around 30 years, most Europeans lived under the feudal system and were known as 'vassals'. As a vassal one would work the land, protected from attack by knights, through whom a tax was paid to a lord. Lords then looked after their knights splendidly, on the understanding that each knight shall lay down his life to protect both lord and vassal. This seemingly noble existence lead to the rise of chivalry, the epitome of medieval knighthood and the subject matter of many songs.

The carriers of these ennobling but often satirical secular songs were known as troubadours, originating from western France, one of the first was William IX of Aquitaine (1071-1127). So what did they sing about? Mainly, troubadour songs consisted of the chanson or l'amour courtois (courtly love). Courtly love sang of unattainable love, often between a knight and a noble woman. He, never sated, yearns for the object of his desire. In fact this idea dominated secular music for a century or two, echoes of which can still be found in popular music today.

Just like today, even the writers of music were often not the performers, this job fell to the jongleurs (or jugglers). Jongleurs were of a lower social class, jacks-of-all-trades who helped in the dissemination of chansons, thus enabling them to reach a wider audience. At the other end of the scale from these troubadours we find the trovères, who came from the slightly richer northern French provinces. Often trovères were aristocratic and wealthy, with the ability to write songs down; jongleurs merely provided a link between the two. Over five thousand poems are known to exist from these combined genres, although only a third have surviving melodies.

Were profane songs or those based on a sacred text more in vogue? Secular music of the time undoubtedly exploited the inexhaustible subject of unrequited love. Another early narrative form, known as chansons de toile (picture songs), often wrote of the dissatisfaction of a woman due to the absence of her lover, or indeed the presence of her husband. However, aristocratic trovères wrote about many secular subjects, such as the legends of King Arthur and other myths.

Many songs were simply profane rants, often attacking a person's physical attributes. Songs known as sirventes were also of major importance. Now accepted as 'songs of service' for the lord to whom a troubadour or trovère may serve, sirventes often painted a vivid picture of the moral code, life style and manners of the time.

Which became more important? Was sacred music too far removed from general involvement, because of the elite nature of its setting and patronage? Possibly, education during the 12^th century only ever became accessible through the church, as they had access to books, and employed learned ministers. Church scholars were certainly able to write music down, unlike the many traveling artists of the time, who relied on aural tradition to pass music on. Widespread printing did not become available until William Caxton introduced the first English text printing press in 1477. Books were unavailable, leaving most of the general population illiterate, while their experience of Christian doctrine at that time was almost purely pictorial, where illustrations from the bible existed on woodcuts only. Alas, accusations of idolatry were abundant 'Not to worship the picture but to worship from the story depicted what should be worshipped.'

Sacred music, especially during Christian liturgy, also touched on subjects many vassals would have found hard to embrace in the absence of literacy. The Planctus Marie for instance, conveys Mary's involvement in the suffering of Christ in a dramatic form. An idea far removed from the common themes of love and lust most people of this era were accustomed to. Even access to musical instruments had its limits.

During the early medieval period, we find the use of musical instruments in church was often frowned upon. Indeed even today many orthodox Jewish churches have introduced the organ only relatively recently, and some still rely on voices alone. Apart from the organ, the only other instruments widely admitted to church use were small bells or cymbala. Instruments themselves also held an idiomatic significance, the Lute and Harp were considered the noblest of instruments. Trumpets had the honour of accompanying a king's arrival or an army's presence. While the vielle, played by many jongleurs, became linked with beggars and low life characters.

Dancing was an almost daily ritual during the 12^th century, many poetic dance songs known as balada or dansa, were written for the sole purpose of dance. Often the subject matter would be joyous, the rites of spring or the simple enjoyment of life and love. Carefree banality was always at the forefront of these frivolous tunes, and it was rare for sacred sentiment to be expressed at a dance, although reflective moments were sometimes found within the jollity.

Idolatry and Illiteracy.

To answer the question, 'which was more important during the medieval period, sacred music or secular'? We also need to ask, 'to whom was it more important'? A thing only has value if the perceiver values it, after all. For the large medieval majority their illiterate haze prevented almost anything more than a superficial understanding of the Christ story. Illiteracy inadvertently led them to idolatry, and, in an attempt to make sense of the religious doctrine they were constantly bombarded with, they sought a release, which became unintentionally secular in nature.

The real opposite of the sacred is the profane. The profane steps further outside the secular in an almost mockingly irreverent fashion. We see many troubadour songs dealing with the profanity of their time and, in nearly all cases from a firmly secular viewpoint. Parallels can be drawn with today, we have the trained elite, for whom often the boundaries of music and worship become blurred. This is normal. Also normal is the 'common' industry, a musical free for all, in which secularism, or more precisely non-theistic and profane lyricism is acceptable. The larger of the two groups is of course the latter, but does this make the music more important? Even now we could argue that sacred and secular music is as equally important and unimportant today, as it was in 1170.

Mass appeal gives an item weight but does it really impart importance? Well, yes. To all those who held secular medieval music dear, who survived on the money it gave them, who found it the very centre of their world. It was beyond important. I do of course believe sacred music has, in many ways, led to all the wonderfully erudite compositions we know and love today. For the people of the 12^th century though, secular music appears to have enriched their lives in an immeasurably important way.

- David.