Editing Medieval music (section)

===Liturgical drama===
{{Main|Liturgical drama}}
Another musical tradition of Europe originating during the early Middle Ages was the [[liturgical drama]].

Liturgical drama developed possibly in the 10th century from the tropes—poetic embellishments of the liturgical texts. One of the tropes, the so-called Quem Quaeritis, belonging to the liturgy of Easter morning, developed into a short play around the year 950.<ref name="Broadview Anthology">{{cite book |last1=Fitzgerald |first1=Christina M. and John T. Sebastian |title=The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama |date=2012 |publisher=Broadview Press |location=Peterborough, Ontario |isbn=978-1-55481-056-7 |pages=21–22 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=brkQikAlWTMC |access-date=16 May 2020}}</ref> The oldest surviving written source is the Winchester Troper. Around the year 1000 it was sung widely in Northern Europe.<ref>{{cite web |title=Winchester Troper |url=https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/winchester-troper |website=British Library |publisher=Corpus Christi College, Cambridge |access-date=16 May 2020}}</ref>{{Failed verification|date=May 2020|reason=Contrary to claiming the Winchester Troper was sung in Northern Europe, the source says "The tropes – new phrases added into Gregorian chants – show the adoption in England of a way of singing widely practised in northern Europe by the 11th century."}}

Shortly,{{Clarify|date=September 2018}} a similar Christmas play was developed, musically and textually following the Easter one, and other plays followed.

There is a controversy among musicologists as to the instrumental accompaniment of such plays, given that the stage directions, very elaborate and precise in other respects, do not request any participation of instruments.{{Citation needed|date=September 2018}} These dramas were performed by monks, nuns and priests.{{Citation needed|date=September 2018}} In contrast to secular plays, which were spoken, the liturgical drama was always sung.{{Citation needed|date=September 2018}} Many have been preserved sufficiently to allow modern reconstruction and performance (for example the ''[[Play of Daniel]]'', which has been recently recorded at least ten times).