Childhood of Music
CHAPTER VII
What Church Music Imported from Greece
During the centuries when the Eastern nations were powerful the European continent was inhabited by primitive men, who had gradually formed tribes. They had rude songs, dances, and crude instruments. They used their music in religious ceremonies, to celebrate war victories and successful hunting expeditions, to sing to their sweethearts, and to accompany their work in the fields and homes, much as the American Indian did. Many manners and customs of the Anglo-Saxon (English), Teutonic (German), Norse (Danish, Swedish and Norwegian), Celtic (Irish) and Gallic (French) races may be traced back to these barbaric days, and even the beginning of national schools of music may be found.
Although a thousand years passed between the Greek musical era and the “Golden Age” of Christian Church music, much that happened in that time is hidden in darkness. The nations and tribes were fighting for existence and were developing into the nations which we know today.
Islam or the Mohammedan religion, and not Christianity, was the great influence.
Julius Cæsar (100–44 B.C.), the great Roman General, conquered Gallia (France), then invaded the land of the Teutons (Germany) and even reached England. In parts of northern Europe, one still sees the remains of great roadways, aqueducts or water works, and bridges, that the Romans built during their invasions.
In the Cluny Museum in Paris is a great hall built as a bath by the Romans. In Bath, England, the city was named for the ancient Roman baths still existing, and you can see the pipe lines which carried the water.
Dark Ages
The world at that time was not a happy place in which to live. There was constant warfare between the once powerful Roman Empire and these barbaric tribes. The poorest people were oppressed and many were slaves, bought and sold by the rich land owners and army leaders.
Into such a world was the child, Jesus, born—a world with little love for humanity, little unselfishness, little sympathy for the down-trodden and unhappy, few kind words for the poor or the sick, little justice and less mercy. No wonder that His teachings brought new life and gave hope to the people!
For several centuries following the birth of Christ, the world went through a period called the Dark Ages. Rome, the city of glorious victories and brilliant culture became the prey of the barbaric tribes—Huns, Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, Franks, Saxons, and Slavs,—until it seemed that civilization would be wiped out and people would become primitive again.
Music was saved during the Dark Ages through a small band of faithful followers of Jesus Christ, who founded a church in His name. That their music should have been made up of existing tunes and words is very natural. Jesus, himself, brought up in the religion of the Hebrews, often sang the Psalms of David. The beautiful traditional music of the Jewish synagogues found its way into the services of the early Christian Church, because many of the believers were Hebrews. Soon the Hebrew Bible texts were translated into Latin—the everyday language of the Romans, and as most of these early Christians lived in Rome, they followed the rules of music the Romans learned from the Greeks. So, our Church music was influenced both by the Hebrews and Greeks.
For about three hundred years the early Christians had to hold their services in secret, as they were punished even by death when caught, for not worshipping Jupiter and the Roman gods. They were not rich and influential, but just humble folk to whom the teachings of Jesus came as a joyous comfort. They had no beautiful palaces where they could hold services, and at the same time hide from the Roman centurions, so they worshipped in dark and secret places and could not have much music as it would have attracted the attention of their enemies. The early Christians shunned music, too, because it had been used for the wild dances and festivals of their pagan oppressors. As they were poor and uneducated, they had had little training and lacked money to buy instruments, so all in all music had a hard time to keep alive.
From what we can gather, they chanted their Psalms much as did the Hebrews and had responses which sounded like soft and monotonous droning.
As time went on emperors like Constantine, began to take away the death penalty from those believing in Christ and gradually as the Romans saw the beauty of His teachings they became Christians in increasing numbers. Many of these Romans came from the upper classes, and as Greek was the language of culture they had had a thorough Greek education and owned many instruments, so they brought their Greek musical inheritance to the growing band.
Thus, the chants composed in Rome for the kithara were the direct ancestors of our Christian hymns. These early hymns were also a bridge between the single melody line of the Orient and Greece and Rome, and the many melody lines, called polyphonic music, of Europe.
In 325 A.D., Emperor Constantine made Christianity the national religion of Rome. He also founded the Christian Church in Byzantium, later called Constantinople, and all through the Dark Ages, in many parts of Europe, the cathedrals and church schools were the only gleam of learning in a time of darkness and struggle.
After the Roman Empire reached its greatest height, in the 2nd century, it gradually grew weaker and during the 4th and 5th centuries, the Goths, Vandals and Huns drove the government from Rome to Constantinople. In the 7th century Mohammedanism rose and swept over Syria, Egypt and North Africa, and reached Spain in the 8th century.
Answering Music
It is related that St. Ignatius (49–107 A.D.) one of the early Christian fathers, had a vision in which he heard the Heavenly choirs praising the Holy Trinity, in alternating chants, and he was so impressed by it, that he introduced into the Church the idea of two choirs of singers answering each other.
In singing the Psalms of David, the Hebrews used this idea of antiphonal music. (Anti—against, phonal—sounding: antiphonal—sounding against each other.) We see it too in the Greek choruses, in the Roman kitharoedic chants (chants accompanied by the kithara), and now in the early Christian hymns. From this antiphonal music to the later polyphony (poly—many, phony—sounds: many voices or parts) is a natural step. Here again is an instance of the influence of one nation on another.
The Patron Saint of Music
Among the martyrs to the cause of the Christian faith, was St. Cecilia, a member of a noble Roman family, who was put to death for becoming a Christian about 177 A.D. She is believed to be buried in the Roman catacombs (underground burial chambers) and is the patron saint of music, and she is supposed to have invented the organ.
It was St. Ambrose (333–397 A.D.) who worked out the first system for church music and put it on a foundation that lasted for two hundred years.
Greek Modes as Models
St. Ambrose built scales modeled on the old Greek modes and they were given Greek names, but somehow the names became mixed so that the mode called by Ambrose, Dorian (from D to D on the white keys of the piano) was the Greek Phrygian; and the Phrygian (E to E) of Ambrose was called Dorian by the Greeks; F to F is the Lydian mode; G to G, the Mixolydian. These were the four authentic Ecclesiastical or Church Modes.
St. Ambrose felt it his duty to make over the church music because popular street songs had crept in with the Hebrew Psalms and Greek and Roman chants! It was much the same effect as if you entered a church and heard the organ and choir performing “Yes, We Have No Bananas.” This is a funny comparison because it is said that a part of “Yes, We Have No Bananas” is stolen from Handel’s great “Hallelujah” Chorus from the oratorio The Messiah.
About this time, schools were formed to train singers in these new hymns and church services, and a way to write down the music composed by St. Ambrose and his followers was needed. The Greek letters had been used in Rome, but now a new system called neumes appeared; this word comes from the Greek and means “breath” and the neumes simply marked where one should breathe in chanting the hymns. There were eight signs with Latin names which gave full directions when to raise and lower the voice.
The system of Neumes notation looks like our present day shorthand and was a help, though, should we use it now we would think it anything but a help.
While the Neumes writing showed how to mark the time, it had a serious shortcoming, because it did not outline the melody exactly. It indicated whether the melody rose or fell, but just how much was a question not definitely shown. An unfamiliar chant could not be sung until the notation had been worked out. It took five years for a choir singer to be able to sing the music!
When the singers sang solos, they ornamented the songs and sang anything they pleased! This made variety but it must also have caused much confusion! The people may have learned this ornamental singing of the Arab, from The Gloss. (Page 59.)
The next step was the Gregorian chant which even today is sung in the Roman Catholic Churches.
To the four authentic scales of St. Ambrose, St. Gregory who was Pope from 590 to 604 added four more called plagal. He did not invent these scales but based them on the old Greek and Ambrosian modes. To each authentic scale, he added a plagal scale starting four tones below it, and to the name of the authentic mode is added the prefix hypo.
Each authentic mode and its hypo are related.
Here is a table of these related modes, and their names:
After a painting by Garofalo, National Gallery at Rome.
Saint Cecilia—Patron Saint of Music.
(Holding a portative organ.)
After a painting by Maxence, in Paris.
Book of Peace.
| Authentic Scales or Modes (St. Ambrose’s Scales) | Plagal Scales or Modes (St. Gregory’s Scales) | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| I. | Dorian: d ef͡ g a bc͡ d | II. | Hypo-Dorian: a bc͡ d ef͡ g a |
| III. | Phrygian: ef͡ g a bc͡ d e | IV. | Hypo-Phrygian: bc͡ d ef͡ g a b |
| V. | Lydian: f g a bc͡ d ef͡ | VI. | Hypo-Lydian: c d ef͡ g a bc͡ |
| VII. | Mixo-Lydian: g a bc͡ d ef͡ g | VIII. | Hypo-Mixo-Lydian: d ef͡ g a bc͡ d |
We have marked the half-steps bc͡ and ef͡, and in every mode they fall on different degrees of the scale. This shifting of the half-steps tells us the name of the mode.
In order to try to give you a definite idea of how the church modes worked, we have written the familiar national hymn America in each mode (see page [74]). Play them, and you will see how one differs from the other.
Katherine Ruth Heyman has used a similar idea in her little book The Relation of Ultramodern to Archaic Music in explaining Greek Modes.
It took many years to establish this music and it was not until the time of Charlemagne (742–814) that it became a real system called Plain Chant or Plain-song (from the Latin, cantus planus).
Pope Gregory founded the Schola Cantorum, school of singers, at Rome, and with these trained people he tried to establish for all Christian churches, a way to sing systematically and well. They studied nine years, and everything had to be memorized, for only the leader had a song book. Books were written by hand and were hard to get. The teacher had a monochord, the instrument invented by Pythagoras, to give the pitch, for all the singing was done without accompaniment. The singing must have improved greatly after Gregory became Pope, for before his reform, music had become a stunt with no solemnity, and people in the churches waved handkerchiefs if the stunt pleased them!
America
A Long Journey
At any rate the Gregorian chant flourished and was so loved that Benedict Biscop, and other monks interested in music, came from far-off England to learn the chant invented by St. Gregory. A long journey! In 675 Biscop sent to Rome for singers and built monasteries very close to a pagan temple, where the Anglo-Saxons still worshipped the Roman Sun god, Apollo, also god of music. These he filled with beautiful relics, paintings and stained glass windows, Bibles and service books illuminated in gold and color, which he brought from Rome.
Bringing things from Rome may sound easy to you, but fancy the travel and inconvenience when there were no steamships, no railroads, no aeroplanes, but only Roman roads, which however marvelous, were long and wearisome by foot or by horse, or mule and rude wagons. This shows how much the people of Britain desired music and beauty in their church services.
Venerable Bede
About this time, there lived a man in England so loved and respected that he was called the Venerable Bede. Although music had no such variety, melody and richness as today, just see what the Venerable Bede says about it: “Music is the most worthy, courteous, pleasant, joyous and lovely of all knowledge; it makes a man gentlemanly in his demeanor, pleasant, courteous, joyous, lovely, for it acts upon his feelings. Music encourages us to bear the heaviest afflictions, administers consolation in every difficulty, refreshes the broken spirit, removes headache and cures crossness and melancholy.”
Isn’t it remarkable for a man to have said this so long ago, when scientists, today, have just begun to think that music may have a power of healing ills of the mind and of the body! Truly—“there is nothing new under the sun!”
So Bede used the plain chant of Gregory and through his influence, spread this dignified music throughout England, and wherever a monastery was founded, a music school was started.
The Venerable Bede writes that Ethelbert of Kent, King of Britain, was a worshipper of Odin and Thor, Norse gods, but he married a French Princess who was a Christian. One day, writes the Venerable Bede, forty monks led in solemn procession by St. Augustine, passed before the king singing a chant. After hearing this marvelous hymn, he became a Christian and gave permission to the English to become worshippers of Christ instead of Norse and Druid gods. This hymn which converted Ethelbert in 597 A.D. was sung thirteen hundred years later (1897) in the same place, Canterbury, by another group of Benedictine monks!
At first the songs were sung unaccompanied, but later as in the time of David, the Church allowed instruments. The lyre and the harp were used first but the cymbals and the dulcimer, somewhat like our zither, were considered too noisy.
The Venerable Bede called music made by instruments artificial music, and that of the human voice, natural music. Whether at that time the viol, the drum, the organ or the psaltery (an instrument like the dulcimer) were used in the Church, is not known positively.
After Bede’s death, Alcuin, a monk and musician, continued his work. He was appointed by Charlemagne, Emperor of France, to teach music in the schools of Germany and France to spread the use of the Gregorian chant.
A Curious Music System
In 900 A.D. an important thing happened, by which the reading and learning of music was much simplified. A red line was drawn straight across the page and this line represented “F” the tone on the fourth line of the bass staff. The neumes written on this red line were “F” and the others above or below, were of higher or lower pitch. This worked so well, that they placed a yellow line above the red line and this they called “C.” These two lines were the beginnings of our five line staff, but much happened between the two-line days and the five.
At this time people did not sing in parts, known as they are to us—soprano, alto, tenor, bass, but everybody sang the same tune, that is, sang in unison, and when men and women or men and boys sang together, the men’s voices sounded an octave lower than the women’s and the boy’s. Some voices have naturally a high range and others low, and no doubt in these plain chant melodies the singers who could not reach all the tones comfortably, dropped unconsciously to a lower pitch, and in that way, made a second part. Soon the composers made this melody in the medium range of the voice a part of their pieces instead of trusting the singers to make it up as they went along. The principal tune sung or carried by most of the singers was given the name tenor (from the Latin teneo, to hold or carry). We use the same word to indicate the man’s voice of high range.
Hucbald and Organum
Hucbald (840–930), a Flemish monk, first wrote a second part, always a fifth above or a fourth below the tenor or “subject.” (The Latin name for the subject is cantus firmus—fixed song.) Hucbald probably used the fifth and fourth because they were perfect intervals, and all others except the octave, were imperfect. There were often four parts including the cantus firmus, for two parts were doubled. This succession of fourths and fifths sounds very crude and ugly (just try the example), but these people of the Middle Ages must have liked it, for it lasted several centuries and was an attempt at making chords. This music was called organum or diaphony (dia-two, phony-sound: two sounds). As early as 1100, singers tried out new effects with the added parts and introduced a few imperfect intervals, thirds and sixths, and tried singing occasionally in contrary motion to the subject,—this was called discant from a Greek word meaning discord. Maybe at first it sounded discordant but soon it came to mean any part outside of the cantus firmus or subject. (See musical illustrations.)
Organum (IXth and Xth Centuries)
Diaphony
Discant (XIIth Century)
Example of Organum, Diaphony, Discant
There was also a kind of diaphony in which a third voice was written as a bass, a fifth below the cantus firmus, but it was actually sung an octave higher than it was written and sounded much better that way. As it was not a bass at all it received the name of false bass or faux bourdon. This was the beginning of chords such as we use.
So, Hucbald started the science of harmony,—the study of chords. Hucbald called this ars organum—the art of organating or organizing.
Hucbald also invented a system of writing music on a staff. It was not a staff such as we use today for he wrote in the spaces the initials T and S. T meant that the singer was to sing a whole tone, S, a semitone or half-step. He used a six line staff and wrote words in script instead of notes like this:
Guido d’Arezzo and His Additions to Music
The next great name in music history is Guido d’Arezzo, a Benedictine monk (995–1050), famous for his valuable additions to music.
He invented the four-line staff, using both lines and spaces and giving a definite place on the staff to each sound:
| Yellow line | C———————————— |
| Black line | ............. |
| Red line | F———————————— |
| Black line | ............. |
In the Middle Ages, the men did most of the singing so the music was written in a range to suit their voices. C is middle C, and F the bass clef.
All music had to be written by hand and the monks made wonderful parchment copies of works composed for the church services. They soon grew careless about the yellow lines and red lines, so Guido placed the letters C and F at the beginning of the lines instead of using the colored lines.
Sometimes there were three lines to a staff, sometimes four, five, and even eleven! The use of clefs showing which line was C or F, made reading of music much easier. At the end of the 16th century the question of the number of lines to the staff was definitely decided, then they used four lines for the plain chant and five for all secular music. By calling the fifth line of the eleven, middle C, two staffs of five lines resulted—the grand staff of today.
Here is a table to show you how clefs grew:
Hucbald built his scales in groups of four tones like the Greek tetrachords but Guido extended this tetrachord to a hexachord or six-toned scale, and by overlapping the hexachords, he built a series of scales to which he gave the name, gamut, because it started on the G which is the first note of our grand staff (lowest line, bass clef) and the Greek word for G is “Gamma.”
In the lowest hexachord, the B is natural, in the second hexachord there is no B and in the third hexachord, the B is flattened. Our sign (♭) for flat comes from the fact that this B was called a round B and the sign (♮) for natural was called a square B. The sharp (♯) came from the natural and both meant at first raising the tone a half-step.
Guido once heard the monks in the monastery of Arezzo singing a hymn in honor of St. John the Baptist. He noticed that each line of the Latin poem began on ascending notes of the scale,—the first line on C, the second on D, and so on up to the sixth on A. It gave him the idea to call each degree of the hexachord by the first syllable of the line of the Latin hymn, thus:
Utqueant laxis,
Resonare fibris,
Mira gestorum,
Famuli tuorum,
Solve polluti,
Labia reatum.
Hymn to St. John the Baptist
Here is a translation:
Grant that the unworthy lips of Thy servant
May be gifted with due harmony,
Let the tones of my voice
Sing the praises of Thy wonders.
We still call our scale degrees ut (frequently changed to do), re, mi, fa, sol, la. The French today use these syllables instead of the letters of the alphabet, and Guido is known as the man who originated this solmization (the word taken from the syllables sol and mi).
Where did the syllable si, the seventh degree of the scale, come from? This hymn was written to St. John and in Latin his name is Sancte Ioannes, the initials of which form the syllable si which came into use long after Guido’s time.
This system was very difficult for the singers to learn as it was quite new to them, so Guido used his hand as a guide to the singers. Each joint represented a different syllable and tone, and a new scale began on every fourth tone. Look at the Guidonian hand on the next page.
Guido was so great a teacher and musician that he was given credit for inventing much that already existed. He gathered all the knowledge he could find into a book, that was sent to the monasteries and music schools. He put in much that never before had been written down, explained many things that had never been clear, and added much that was new and useful.
Sometimes his name was written Gui or Guion. When he lived people had no last names but were called by the name of their native towns; as Guido was born in Arezzo, a town of Tuscany, he was called Guido d’Arezzo; Leonardo da Vinci, the great painter, was born in the village of Vinci; and the great Italian composer Pierluigi da Palestrina came from Palestrina.
Guido’s work was considered revolutionary and not in accord with the old ways which the church fathers reverenced. Because of plots against him, he was cast into prison. But the Pope, realizing his greatness and value, saved him. The inventors of new ideas always suffer!
Mensural Music or Timed Music
Before Guido invented it, there had been no system of counting time.
If you are studying music, you know all about time signatures and what metre a piece is in, from the ¾, ⁶⁄₈, ⁹⁄₈, ²⁄₄, ⁴⁄₄ or sign Ⅽ at the beginning of the composition, but you probably do not know how or when these signs came into use. In the Gregorian plain song and in Organum, there was practically no variety of rhythm and no need for showing time or marking off the music into measures. The accents fell quite naturally according to the words that were sung, much as you would recite poetry. But as music grew up and became more difficult, it was necessary for a chorus singing in three or four different parts, to sing in time as well as in tune, in order, at least, to start and finish together!
The first metre that was used was triple (three beats to the measure). It was called perfect and was indicated by a perfect circle,
, the symbol of the Holy Trinity and of perfection. Duple metre (two beats to the measure) was imperfect and was indicated by an incomplete circle,
. Our sign for common time (four beats to the measure),
comes from this incomplete circle. ⁹⁄₈ was written
; ¾ was
; ⁶⁄₈ was
; and ⁴⁄₄ was
.
A monk named Franco, from Cologne, on the Rhine, early in the twelfth century, invented these time signatures, and notes which in themselves indicated different time values. Hucbald’s neumes were no longer suited to the new music, and besides time signatures it became necessary to have a music language showing very clearly and definitely the composer’s rhythm.
Franco used four kinds of notes. Here they are translated into the time values of today.
Organs
In the 10th century, organs came into use in the churches, but they were ungainly and crude, sounding only a few tones, and were probably only used to keep the singers on pitch. The organ had been invented long before this, and had been used in Greece and Egypt. It was built on the principle of Pan’s Pipes and was very simple. There were many portable organs, called portatives, small enough to be carried about.
One organ (not a portative!) at Winchester, England, had four hundred pipes and twenty-six pairs of bellows. It took seventy men to pump air into it and two men to play it by pounding on a key with their fists or elbows. The tone was so loud that it could be heard all over the town. Fancy that!
During these centuries, music was growing slowly but surely. Out of organum and discant and faux bourdon, arose a style called counterpoint, in which three, four or more melodies were sung at the same time. The writing of counterpoint, or line over line, is like a basket weave for the different melodies weave in and out like pieces of willow or raffia forming the basket. Later will come the chorale, written in chords or up and down music like a colonnade or series of columns. Keep this picture in mind. (St. Nicolas Tune, Chapter XI.) The word point means note so counterpoint means note against note. The word was first applied in the 13th century to very crude and discordant part-writing. But, little by little the monks learned how to combine melodies beautifully and harmoniously and we still use many of their rules.
Gradually great schools of church music flourished in France, Germany, Spain, England, Italy and the Netherlands in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries.
Bit by bit this vast musical structure was built. It did not grow quickly; each new idea took centuries to become a part of music, and as often the idea was not good, it took a long time to replace it.
CHAPTER VIII
Troubadours and Minnesingers Brought Music to Kings and People
Except for the first few chapters in this book, we have told you of music made by men who wanted to improve it. You have seen how the fathers of the Church first reformed music, and gave it a shorthand called neumes; before that, the music laws of the Egyptians, the scales and modes of the Arab, the Greek scales which the churchmen used in the Ambrosian and the Gregorian modes. Then came the two-lined staff, and the beginnings of mensural or measured music by which they kept time. Then you saw how two melodies were fitted together and how they grew into four parts. All this we might call “on purpose” music. At the same time, in all the world, in every country, there was Song ... and never have the world and the common people (called so because they are neither of the nobility nor of the church) been without folk song which has come from the folks of the world, the farmers, the weavers, and the laborers.
The best of these songs have what the great composers try to put into their music—a feeling of fresh free melody, design, balance, and climax, but more of this in the chapter on Folk Song.
This chapter is to be about Troubadours, Trouvères, and Minnesingers, who have left over two thousand songs. In most of these, they made up both words and music, but sometimes they used new words made up for folk tunes that everyone knew, or for melodies from the plain-chants which they had heard in church; sometimes they used the same melody for several different poems, and often they set the same words to several melodies. Many of these troubadour songs and minnelieder became the people’s own folk songs.
But now you must hear of the folk who lived hundreds of years before these poet singers. Unknowingly, out of the heart and soul and soil of their native lands, they made songs and sang poetry and played sometimes other peoples’ song, scattering their own wherever they went.
From these traveling singers and players, in all countries, came the professional musicians who were minstrels, bards, troubadours, etc., according to when, where and how they lived.
The Why of the Minstrel
The people sang and played not only because they wanted to, or because they loved it, but because they were the newspaper and the radio of their time, singing the news and doings of the day. These minstrels who traveled from place to place “broadcasted” the events. No music was written down and no words were fastened by writing to any special piece. The singer would learn a tune and when he sang a long story (an epic) he would repeat the tune many times so it was necessary to find a pleasing melody, or singers would not have been very welcome in the courts and market places. These musical news columns entertained the people who had few amusements. The wandering minstrels with their harps or crwth (Welsh harps), or whatever instrument they might have used in their particular country, were welcomed with open arms and hearts.
This sounds as if these singers and players traveled, and indeed they did! They sprang up from all parts of Europe and had different names in different places. There were bards from Britain and Ireland, skalds from the Norse lands, minstrels from “Merrie England,” troubadours from the south of France, trouvères from the north of France, jongleurs from both north and south who danced and juggled for the joy of all who saw them, and minnesingers and meistersingers in Germany.
Druids and Bards
Centuries before this, Homer the great Greek poet was called the Blind Bard and he chanted his poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, to the accompaniment of the lyre, the favorite instrument of the Greeks. But when we speak of bards in this chapter we mean the poets and musicians of ancient Britain, when that island was inhabited and ruled by the Druids, 1000 B.C. We do not know when the bards first began to make music or when they were first called bards, but it is certain that for many centuries before the Christian era, these rude, barbarous people of the countries we know as Wales, England, Ireland and Scotland, had many songs, dances and musical instruments.
Look at a map of France, and see how much like a teapot it is shaped. The western part, the spout, is Brittany! As its name shows, this part of France was inhabited by the same race of people as were in Britain, they spoke the same language, had the same religion and made the same music. These people were Celts and their priests were called Druids. Much we said about primitive people is true of these early Britons. They expressed their feelings, and tried to protect themselves from Nature and human foes by means of religious rites and ceremonies in which music and dancing played the leading part.
They had no churches, but held religious services in the open under the oak trees. They piled boulders on top of each other to form altars, or built large circular enclosures of huge flat rocks, inside of which they gathered for worship, or to assist at some ceremonial in which sacrifices of animals and occasionally of human beings were made. These human sacrifices occurred once a year at the Spring Festival which was celebrated in much the same fashion as in Greece. These masses of stone are found not only in the British Isles, the most famous of which is Stonehenge (which was recently bought by an American), but there are also many of these so-called cromlechs and menhirs in Brittany.
It is curious how often men and women do the same things at times and places so completely separated that they could not have been influenced by each other, but did what was natural for them. It seems that between the state of being primitive or savage and of being cultured, mankind must pass through certain states of mind and certain bodily actions common to all men. In tracing the growth of any habits and actions of people,—in government, religion, amusements, art, music, manners and customs, and language, we find the same customs constantly repeated among different races. If you remember this point, you will be interested to watch, in this book, the difference between these experiences common to all mankind and those which later on, were caused by the influence that one race had on another through meeting, through conquest and through neighborly contact.
The bards belonged to the priesthood and were Druids. They sang in verse the brave deeds of their countrymen, praises of the gods and heroes, and legends of war and adventure, accompanying themselves on primitive harps, or on an instrument something like the violin without a neck, called a crwth. They wore long robes and when they were acting as priests, these were covered with white surplices somewhat like the gowns of our own clergy. From a bit of information handed down by the bards, we learn that in Ireland, the graduate bard wore six colors in his robes, said to be the origin of the plaid of the Scotch Highlanders; the king wore seven colors; lords and ladies, five; governors of fortresses, four; officers and gentlemen, three; soldiers, two, and the people were allowed to wear only one. Even their dress seemed important and marked the rank!
There were three kinds of bards: priestly bards who took part in the religious rituals and were also the historians, domestic bards who made music in honor of their masters, and heraldic bards whose duties were to arouse patriotism through songs in praise of their national heroes. They had to pass examinations to become bards, and the lower ranks were tested for knowledge and ability before being promoted to the higher ranks. Recently there has been a revival in Wales of the Eisteddfod, or song contests of the Druids.
“Minstrelsy,” or singing to the crwth or harp, lived on long after Druidism had been replaced by the Christian faith. Did you ever wonder where the custom came from of mistletoe at Christmas time? Or of dancing around a Maypole? Or building bonfires for May-day and St. John’s eve? Celebrating All-Hallowe’en with pumpkins and black cats? And of having Christmas trees? Well, these customs are all relics of Druidism of 2000 or more years ago.
Skalds
In the land of the fierce Vikings or Norsemen, who inhabited Scandinavia, Iceland and Finland before and during the Middle Ages, there were bards called Skalds or Sagamen. They recited and sang stories telling of their Norse gods, goddesses and heroes, Woden, Thor, Odin, Freya, Brynnhild, and of the abode of the gods, Walhalla. These ballads formed the national epics called sagas and eddas, from which Richard Wagner drew the story for his immortal music dramas, the Nibelungenlied.
Odin, who was considered a Norse god, probably was a Saxon prince who lived in the 3rd century, A.D. He revived the Norse mythology and rites with the aid of minstrels, seers, and priests. His teachings lasted until the reign of Charlemagne, a devout Christian, who put an end to pagan rites.
In the 5th century came the Saxons, Hengist and Horsa, descendants of Odin, and much of Britain fell under their rule; with them, came the skalds whose duty it was to celebrate the deeds of their lords. They appeared at the great state banquets, and also on the battle fields, encouraging the warriors with their songs of heroism, and comforting the wounded soldiers.
When the Danes, the Angles and the Jutes came to Britain in this same century, the country was called England or Angle-land. Harpers and gleemen followed in the footsteps of the Scandinavian skalds. These musician-singers went as honored guests from court to court, and received valuable presents. A popular gleeman was given the title of poet-laureate, and crowned with a laurel wreath.
The songs were taught orally and learned by heart, as there was no notation at this early date (500 A.D.). They accompanied themselves on small harps which could be carried easily. The harp was handed around the banquet table so that each guest in turn might sing a song as his share of the entertainment. Singing and composing poetry were a necessary part of a gentleman’s education.
The “Venerable” Bede (Chapter VII) wrote that “Cædmon the poet (600 A.D.) never could compose any trivial or vain songs, but only such as belonged to a serious and sacred vein of thought ... he was not practised in the art of verse. So, oft, in an entertainment, where for the sake of merriment it had been agreed that each in turn should sing and harp, as the dreaded instrument was seen approaching, he arose in shame from the supper table and went home to his house.” However, we learn that Cædmon who was a serving man, had a vision in which an angel asked him to “sing the beginning of creatures,” and when the vision had passed, he remembered the heavenly song, and thus Cædmon ceased to be shy, became the first great poet of England and was permitted to be a monk.
As the gleemen and harpers were not fighting men, they had many privileges not granted to the warriors. They passed, unchallenged, through the fighting camps, and we have any number of stories of kings and warriors disguising themselves as harpers in order to get information about their enemies. A secret service system of the Middle Ages!
In 878, Alfred the Great had been robbed of power and authority by the Danes, so disguised as a gleeman and armed only with a harp, he went into the Danish encampment. The royal minstrel was received cordially, and while the Danish king was listening to the songs, the harper (Alfred) was getting the information he needed, and soon made a surprise attack with his troops and was victorious. This is spying with musical accompaniment!
The Battle of Hastings (1066) caused great changes not only in learning, customs, language, music, other arts and politics, but in life itself. The French who, under William of Normandy conquered Britain, were leaders in composing poetry and song, and they brought over to Britain all their talents. Now romance began and with it the art of glorifying in song and verse, deeds of valor and the charms of lovely ladies. And here the troubadours and trouvères make their entrance into our story.
France had had songs of deeds and action called Chansons de Geste, which were tales of the brave Charlemagne, celebrating his victory over the invading Moors from Spain. One of the greatest of these was the Chanson de Roland. Other songs or ballads on religious, historical, chivalric, or political subjects took the place of our modern newspapers and were powerful at the courts and among the people in the towns. When a man in court circles did anything that some one objected to, one of the minstrel-poets was hired to make up a song about it, which was sung everywhere until the news was well circulated, and the person punished, often undeservedly. However it made the men of those days think twice before doing things against the rights of others, for they were really afraid of these songs that were spread among their friends and enemies.
In the Battle of Hastings, Taillefer, a famous soldier-minstrel, led the attack of the Normans, singing songs of Roland and of Charlemagne. He struck the first blow in the fight, and was the first one killed, but he went to his death singing. Tales of our own soldiers in the great war tell us the same about the need and love of music.
Chanson de Roland
The Chanson de Roland is the national epic poem of France, and dates back to this Norman period. It celebrates the death at Roncevals, of Roland, Count of the “Marsh” of Bretagne, in Charlemagne’s expedition against Spain in 778. The work is divided into three parts. The first tells of the fight between the French (Christians) and the Saracens (Spanish Arabs), of the valor of Oliver and of Roland, of the latter’s death, of Charlemagne’s miraculous victory over the Saracens. The second part is a poem not based on fact, in which Charlemagne fights Baligant, the chief of all the pagans of the Orient; the western chief is victorious over the pagan chief, who is utterly defeated and killed. This poem pictures the victory of Christianity over Paganism. In the third part, the revenge is carried further, by Charlemagne’s taking the Saracen city Saragosse, and bringing back with him to France another of the leaders, Ganelon, who was tried and condemned to death.
This is the leading French work of the Middle Ages, as it sums up the greatest idealism, and brings to us that which they considered most vital—the call of patriotism, of honor and of duty.
Great Cathedrals and Feudal Castles
About this time began the building of the great Gothic churches in France, England, and Germany. Rome had fallen, paganism had gone, and the spirit of Christianity was taking great hold of the people’s hearts. As a result of this feeling to praise God suitably the great churches which we copy even today were built.
If “architecture is frozen music,” you can understand why music and architecture developed at the same time.
This was also the age of Feudalism, when the noblemen lived in castles with moats and drawbridges, and owned vast tracts of land and whole villages. People were retainers, vassals and serfs, with no freedom and no property rights except what the lords gave them. They even had to give their masters much of the produce of the lands which they cultivated. Of course, these feudal lords besides having to be fed and guarded had to be entertained, and had to know what was going on in the outside world. So, the minstrels and bards were cordially welcomed, and wandered from castle to castle, receiving presents of money or clothes, jewelry, horses, and sometimes even houses.
What Troubadours Learned Through Crusades
Every year during the early centuries of the Christian era, hundreds of pilgrims journeyed to the Holy Land undergoing much hardship on the way. They thought through this pilgrimage to be forgiven for their sins, and win the approval of the Church, then far more powerful than the kings. Toward the end of the 11th century, Mohammedans had seized Palestine, and prevented the Christian pilgrims from doing penance or worshipping at the Holy Sepulchre. This led to a series of expeditions against the Mohammedans in Palestine in which all the Christian countries of Europe united. These expeditions were called the Crusades (1095–1271), and they have been celebrated in story and song ever since. The Crusades gave the rough uncultured men of the Western world the chance to hear the poetry and the songs of the Arabs (Chapter VI), who at that time were the most advanced in culture and arts. Although the Oriental music with its complicated rhythms must have been hard to learn, the Crusaders brought back much of real value and beauty,—a new way of singing, new subjects for poems, and two new instruments, a kind of guitar and el oud, in Europe called lute. The lute had a strong influence on popular music, for it was the most commonly used instrument for centuries.
Romance Languages
Latin had been the language of France because the Romans lived there so long, but later it became mixed with the rough dialect and speech of the Franks and other Gothic barbarous tribes and was much changed. From this mixture came rustic Latin, or Romanse rustique, and modern French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese are still called Romance languages. A new poetry was born in Provence, the south of France, and in Normandy in the north, written in this Romanse rustique, and the oldest French songs were called lais, lay or ballad. The great ruler Charlemagne collected these lais of barbarian period and the trouvères and troubadours had wonderful old songs of heroism to choose from.
In Provence they said “oc” for “yes” and in Normandy, “oui.” So, the language of the south of France was called “langue d’oc” and of the north “langue d’oui.”
Troubadours, Trouvères, Jongleurs
The troubadours, whose very name brings to mind a charming picture of romance, chivalry and adventure, were the poet-composers of Provence a land of sunshine where men were brave and courteous, and women beautiful and gracious. The words troubadour and trouvères, come from trobar, trouver, meaning to find or to invent, for these troubadours and trouvères were the inventors or composers of poems which they set to music.
They wrote their songs on the four-lined staff in square notes, without written accompaniment. The accompaniments played on the lute, the guitar, the vielle, or sometimes the harp, were probably made up by the jongleur, (joglar, jouglar, in English,—juggler) who sang the songs, had trained bears, danced and played tricks. Then as now there were composers and performers. The troubadours and trouvères were as a rule, nobles and even royalty. Five kings belonged to their number, the greatest of them were Richard Cœur de Lion, William Count of Poitiers, Alfonso, Thibaut de Champagne, and King of Navarre.
The troubadour seldom sang his own songs, as this was the jongleur’s duty. There were many more jongleurs than troubadours, and they belonged to a much lower grade of society. The jongleurs traveled from place to place, from castle to castle, with their instruments slung across their backs, and their songs in a little bag at their side. They were heartily welcomed wherever they went, but if they found the doors of the castles closed to them, they soon gathered a crowd in the public squares, where they performed to the joy of the townspeople.
Can you imagine the pleasure these strolling entertainers gave to the people who did not have motors, movies, radios, gramophones and theatres for their amusement? How happy the custodian of the castle must have been when he looked across the moat and lowered the drawbridge for the welcome minstrels!
The jongleurs grew so numerous, and their music became so poor that they were nuisances, little better than outlaws and beggars. How easily a good thing can be overdone!
In the 14th century they banded together in perhaps the first musical union on record. They appointed leaders, called kings of the minstrels or jugglers. At first they were hired by nobles and troubadours as entertainers with the rank of servants. Even the monasteries received them with joy during the early days; later they were denounced by the Church, and forbidden to enter the monasteries, for they had sung of evil things instead of lovely things and had acted unseemly. During Lent, they were forbidden to appear in public, so they wisely used that time to go to schools of minstrelsy, where they learned new songs, and tried their skill at composing. In these schools they were also taught to play their instruments. Sometimes we hear of women minstrels, who sang, played the flute, danced, and performed tricks to the endless delight of the audience. (See lining of the cover of this book.)
The jongleurs, at their best, seem to have “gotten in” everywhere,—at the courts of kings, in all the tournaments, festivals, pilgrimages, and weddings. A wedding wasn’t complete without them! At the knightly tournaments and jousts, the minstrel was a most necessary person, for, did he not take the place of newspapers, and give accounts to a waiting world of the results of the exciting tournaments?
Massenet, the French composer, wrote a lovely opera called The Juggler of Notre Dame, from one of the old miracle tales of a young juggler sheltered by the monks of Notre Dame. Everyone brought rich gifts to place at the feet of the Virgin Mary, but being a pauper, he had nothing but his songs, dances and tricks, which he offered the Virgin by going through them as best he could in front of the shrine. So shocked were the monks by his seeming lack of respect, that they wanted to drive him out! At this moment the miracle took place. The image of the Virgin came to life and stretched forth her arms protectingly to the young juggler, showing that she accepted his offering given in all sincerity and simplicity.
As all the countries of Europe took part in the Crusades, the troubadours’ songs were heard by others than the French, and their music spread rapidly. Richard, the Lion-Hearted, King of England, was a famous Crusader and a troubadour of skill. He invited jongleurs over from France, one of whom, Blondel de Nesle, became his devoted companion during the Crusade of 1193, and saved Richard’s life. Richard was taken captive by Leopold, Duke of Austria, and was cast into a dungeon. The English did not know where to look for their monarch, but Blondel undertook the search, going from place to place, singing songs which he and the king had written together. One day as he sang, from the tower of a castle came a voice which he recognized as Richard’s, singing the same song! And soon the royal troubadour was released.
The Troubadours
This new art of poetry and song was called “The gay science of chivalry and love-service.” Indeed many of the poems about knightly adventure were addressed to some fair lady, real or imaginary, known or unknown. Curious as it may seem, the names of most of these songs came from the Arabian, because the Europeans met them during the crusades and during the Arabs’ conquests and roamings in Europe.
The names tell you what the songs were about. Chanson and canzo both mean song, and we see these names today on our concert programs. There were story telling songs called the chansons de toile, songs of linen, which told of the lovely damsels at work weaving, of their beauty, and of their thoughts, for the women of castle and cottage alike wove the cloth out of which the clothes were made. Then, they had dramatic songs and dancing songs called estampies (from which comes our word stamping); the reverdies, or spring songs, to celebrate the Spring festivals; the pastorelles in which the heroine was always a charming shepherdess; the sera or serenade, an evening song; the nocturne, a night song, and love songs were often sung under the beloved ladies’ windows! The alba was a morning song. The sirvantes, or songs of service, sung in praise of princes or nobles, or telling of public happenings were important. These were often accompanied by drums, bells, pipes and trumpets.
We have debating societies in our schools and colleges, and questions of the day are discussed in the newspapers, but in the troubadours’ day, debates were made into songs, sung by two people, and were called tensons. Many curious and rather foolish questions were made the subjects of these songs.
Sometimes these popular songs found their way into the Church, and were made into fine church music, and sometimes a bit of melody from the Church went through the hands of a troubadour poet and was turned into a rounde, ballata, sera, or pastorella.
This poetry and song of Provence lasted until the middle of the 14th century, for in the twelve hundreds the revolts against the abuses of the Church rose to such seriousness that massacres took place, towns were destroyed and many nobles and troubadours lost their lives.