The midwinter festival, merged into our Christmas, and the midsummer festival, corresponding to the feast of St. John the Baptist, both became connected with masses and songs common to both beliefs; the Tonus Peregrinus, sung to the psalm ‘When Israel came out of Egypt,’ already an old melody in the ninth century, is almost identical with old French secular songs, and we have already observed the adoption of vulgar melodies into ‘sequences’ and motets.
It must be remembered that for a considerable period Christianity and Paganism coexisted as tolerant companions. The former could not totally blot out the traditions, customs, conventions, ideas, and myths of classic Paganism which were rooted in the popular consciousness. ‘All through the Middle Ages,’ says Symonds, ‘uneasy and imperfect memories of Greece and Rome had haunted Europe. Alexander, the great conqueror; Hector, the noble knight and lover; Helen, who set Troy town on fire; Virgil, the magician; Dame Venus, lingering about the hill of Hörsel—these phantoms, whereof the positive historic truth was lost, remained to sway the soul and stimulate desire in myth and saga.’[69]
Associated with these myths were the traditions native to the Celtic and Germanic peoples. The very bards of whom we spoke are known to have entered the service of the church in great number, though this did not prevent their travelling from castle to castle to sing before the princes ballads in praise of their heroic ancestors. Of these epics, hero tales, strange stories of conquest and adventure the nations of central Europe possessed a rich treasure, and we hear that about A. D. 800 Charlemagne, the sovereign patron of liberal arts, ordered a collection of them to be made.
Tolerant though he was of the traditions of his people, the profane songs of love and satire, sometimes indecent, which were sung about the churches, became subjects of his censure; and no doubt the trouble they caused was but one indication of the growing antagonism between Christian and non-Christian, the intolerance of the later Middle Ages. Already Charles’ son, Ludwig the Pious, looked with disfavor upon the heathen epics. As time went on and clerical influence broadened, the personalities of Pagan tradition became associated with the spirit of evil; Dame Venus had now become the she-devil, the seductress of pious knights.[70] This again gave rise to new ideas, traditions, and superstitions; the mystic and the supernatural caught hold of the people’s fancy and were reflected in their poetry and song.
Among the earliest epics, of which the verses are extant, are fragments such as the song on the victory of Clothar II over the Saxons in 622 A. D. Helgaire, a historian of the ninth century, tells us that, ‘thanks to its rustic character, it ran from lip to lip; when it was sung the women provided the chorus by clapping their hands.’ Its Latin text is said to be merely a translation of a popular version, which would antedate the earliest known vernacular song by over two centuries. Of a more advanced type is the Song of Roland, that famous chronicle of the death of the Count of Brittany in the Pass of Roncesvalles, during Charlemagne’s return from the conquest of the Spanish march. Its musical notation was lost, but it was sung as late as 1356 at the battle of Poitiers. Though this great epic consists of no less than four thousand verses, Tiersot points out that its hero had long been celebrated in innumerable short lyrics, easy to remember, which all the people sang. Many were the epics describing the valiant deeds of Charlemagne himself, and posterity deified him as the hero of heroes in numerous strains that are lost to us. But one of which the music has been deciphered, though with varying results, is the Planctus Karoli, a complainte on the death of the great emperor (813 A. D.).[71] Then there is the quaint vernacular song in praise of King Ludwig III, celebrating his victory over the Normans (832 A. D.):
‘Einen Kuning weiz ich
Heisset Herr Ludwig
Der gerne Gott dienet
Weil er ihms lohnet,’ etc.
(‘A king I know,
named Lord Ludwig,
who serves God gladly,
for he rewards him,’ etc.)
But with isolated exceptions like this one all the early epics were written in Latin; even the early songs of the first crusaders (eleventh century) are still in that language. Their origin may in many instances have been ecclesiastical; written by some monk secluded within his monastery walls, they may never have been sung by the people; their melodies, akin to the plain chant of the church, may never have entered into the popular consciousness. Yet it is in the popular consciousness that we must look for the true origin of mediæval secular music. In folk song itself we must seek the germs of the art which bore such rich blossoms as the Troubadour and Minnesinger lyrics and which in turn refreshed by its influence the music of the church itself.