Editing Medieval music (section)

==Early medieval music (500–1000)==
{{further|Early Middle Ages}}
{{see also|List of medieval composers#(5th century) Early Middle Ages}}

===Early chant traditions===
{{main|Plainsong}}
{{See also|Gregorian chant}}
[[File:Hildegard von Bingen.jpg|thumb|upright=0.5|[[Hildegard of Bingen]], one of the best-known composers of sacred [[monophony]]]]
[[Gregorian chant|Chant]] (or [[plainsong]]) is a [[texture (music)|monophonic]] sacred (single, unaccompanied melody) form which represents the earliest known music of the Christian church. Chant developed separately in several European centres. Although the most important were [[Rome]], [[Hispania]], [[Gaul]], Milan, and Ireland, there were others as well. These styles were all developed to support the regional liturgies used when celebrating the Mass there. Each area developed its own chant and rules for celebration. In Spain and [[Portugal]], [[Mozarabic chant]] was used and shows the influence of [[Music of North Africa|North African music]]. The Mozarabic liturgy even survived through [[Muslim]] rule, though this was an isolated strand and this music was later suppressed in an attempt to enforce conformity on the entire liturgy. In Milan, [[Ambrosian chant]], named after [[St. Ambrose]], was the standard, while [[Beneventan chant]] developed around [[Benevento]], another Italian liturgical center. [[Gallican chant]] was used in Gaul, and [[Celtic chant]] in Ireland and Great Britain.

The reigning Carolingian dynasty wanted to standardize the [[Mass (liturgy)|Mass]] and chant across its [[Francia|Frankish Empire]]. At this time, Rome was the religious centre of western Europe, and northern [[Gaul]] and Rhineland (most notably the city of [[Aachen]]) was the political centre. The standardization effort consisted mainly of combining the two – [[Roman Rite|Roman]] and [[Gallican rite|Gallican]] – regional liturgies. [[Charlemagne]] (742–814) sent trained singers throughout the Empire to teach this new form of chant.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Music in the Middle Ages|last=Lorde|first=Suzanne|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=2008|location=London}}</ref> This body of chant became known as [[Gregorian chant|Gregorian Chant]], named after [[Pope Gregory I]]. Gregorian chant was said to be collected and codified during his papacy or even composed by himself, inspired by the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. However, that is only a popular legend that was spread by the Carolingians who wanted to legitimize their liturgy unification efforts. Gregorian chant certainly didn't exist at that time. It is possible, nevertheless, that Gregory's papacy really may have contributed to collecting and codifying the Roman chant of the time which then, in the 9th and 10th centuries, formed  – alongside the Gallican chant – one of the two roots of the Gregorian chant.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Medievalists.net |date=2021-07-18 |title=Medieval Music: Introduction to Gregorian Chant |url=https://www.medievalists.net/2021/07/introduction-gregorian-chant/ |access-date=2023-02-28 |website=Medievalists.net |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Murray |first=Gregory |title=Gregorian Chant According to the Manuscripts |publisher=L. J. Cary & Co. Ltd. |year=1963 |location=London |language=English}}</ref> By the 12th and 13th centuries, Gregorian chant had superseded all the other Western chant traditions, with the exception of the Ambrosian chant in Milan and the Mozarabic chant in a few specially designated Spanish chapels. [[Hildegard von Bingen]] (1098–1179) was one of the earliest known female composers. She wrote many monophonic works for the Catholic Church, almost all of them for female voices.

===Early polyphony: organum===
{{main|Organum}}
Around the end of the 9th century, singers in monasteries such as [[Abbey of St. Gall|St. Gall]] in Switzerland began experimenting with adding another part to the chant, generally a voice in [[contrary motion|parallel motion]], singing mostly in perfect [[perfect fourth|fourths]] or [[perfect fifth|fifths]] above the original tune (see [[interval (music)|interval]]). This development is called [[organum]] and represents the beginnings of [[counterpoint]] and, ultimately, [[harmony]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel.|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/122283268|title=The modern invention of medieval music : scholarship, ideology, performance|date=2007|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-03704-4|oclc=122283268}}</ref> Over the next several centuries, organum developed in several ways.

The most significant of these developments was the creation of "florid organum" around 1100, sometimes known as the [[school of St. Martial]] (named after a monastery in south-central France, which contains the best-preserved manuscript of this repertory). In "florid organum" the original tune would be sung in long notes while an accompanying voice would sing many notes to each one of the original, often in a highly elaborate fashion, all the while emphasizing the perfect [[consonance and dissonance|consonances]] (fourths, fifths and octaves), as in the earlier organa. Later developments of organum occurred in England, where the interval of the [[Interval (music)|third]] was particularly favoured, and where organa were likely improvised against an existing chant melody, and at [[Notre Dame school|Notre Dame]] in Paris, which was to be the centre of musical creative activity throughout the thirteenth century.

Much of the music from the early medieval period is [[Anonymous work|anonymous]]. Some of the names may have been poets and lyric writers, and the tunes for which they wrote words may have been composed by others. Attribution of monophonic music of the medieval period is not always reliable. Surviving manuscripts from this period include the [[Musica Enchiriadis]], [[Codex Calixtinus]] of [[Santiago de Compostela]], the [[Magnus Liber]], and the [[Winchester Troper]]. For information about specific composers or poets writing during the early medieval period, see [[Pope Gregory I]], [[Godric of Finchale|St. Godric]], [[Hildegard of Bingen]], [[Hucbald]], [[Notker of St Gall|Notker Balbulus]], [[Odo of Arezzo]], [[Odo of Cluny]], and [[Tuotilo|Tutilo]].

===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).