"The merit of the troubadours in furthering the progress of music as an art was that they liberated melody from the fetters of calculation, gave it the stamp of individuality, and bore it on the wings of fancy into the domains of sentiment. They had the further merit of introducing new and peculiar changes of time, which, apparently irregular, were really forcible, symmetrical, and original. It is also more than probable that the troubadours received new ideas in regard to melody from the East; as they found among the Arabs not only a different system of tones, but many fanciful vocal ornaments then unknown in Europe, and which they introduced in their own songs on their return from the Crusades. But as harmony was in that day yet undeveloped, the flowing vine of melody received little support from it, and therefore often appears weak. The rules of composition were then highly complicated and ill classified, yet they were well understood by the best educated troubadours; and though their earlier songs were stiff, closely resembling the Gregorian chant in form and style, in some of the latter ones we find graceful melodies that leave little to be desired, and that possess more real variety and individuality of character than do the words attached to them."
It is not a far cry from France to Germany across the Rhine, and the chanson of the troubadour soon found its counterpart in the minnesong of the fatherland. The era of the minnesinger has been divided into three periods. The first, whose beginning is not definitely fixed, ended near the close of the twelfth century. The second period comprised the last decade of the twelfth century and the first half of the thirteenth. It was the golden age of the minnesong, the age of Wagner's "Tannhäuser" and the great Sängerkrieg at the Wartburg Castle, the age of the Landgrave Hermann, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Walther von der Vogelweide. This time has been made alive for us by the genius of Wagner, whose contest in "Tannhäuser" introduces the actual personages of the real story. The third period was that of decline. The fourteenth century saw the gradual decrease of feudal power, and the burghers and artisans dared to do what had hitherto been reserved for their lordly masters. Thus the minnesong was supplanted by the meistersong, and the meistersinger became the musical lawgiver of Germany.
The songs of the meistersingers were somewhat stiff and formal, yet not lacking in melody, as that used by Wagner as the theme of his march goes to show. Perhaps no better description of a meistersong could be given here than that sung by "Kothner" in expounding the "Leges Tabulaturæ" to "Walther von Stolzing":—
Each mastersinger-created stave
Its regular measurement must have,
By sundry regulations stated
And never violated.
What we call a section is two stanzas;
For each the self-same melody answers:
A stanza several lines doth blend,
And each line with a rhyme must end.
Then come we to the "After Song,"
Which must be also some lines long,
And have its especial melody,
Which from the other diff'rent must be.
So staves and sections of such measure
A mastersong may have at pleasure.
He who a new song can outpour
Which in four syllables—not more—
Another strain doth plagiarize,
He may obtain the master prize.
In Germany, too, flourished the folk song. Who wrote the old volkslieder no one knows, but many of them have been preserved to us. The "Limburg Chronicle" contains a number in use between 1347 and 1380, and the "Locheimer Liederbuch" is a collection dated 1452. H. de Zeelandia, in his "Lehrcompendium," gives many in vogue in the first half of the fifteenth century. The essential features of the volkslieder are clearness and symmetry of melody and firmness of rhythm. The early ones also display a constant tendency to escape from the fetters of the ecclesiastical modes. In fact to them is due the final development of modern tonality.
The German church music of the time, from which developed the chorale, was founded on the volkslied. The familiar example of "Isbruck, ich muss dich lassen," set in four parts by Heinrich Isaak in 1475, and adapted after the Reformation by Dr. Hesse as "O Welt, ich muss dich lassen," was but the continuation of the practice of Heinrich von Laufenberg, who in the fifteenth century set sacred words to secular tunes continually. This brief review of the state of music in Germany in the time of the Netherlands school shows us that the volkslied and the meistersong were the ruling powers, and that there was as yet no foreshadowing of the mighty art which has since developed in the land of the Teutons.
In these days existed also the musical guilds which were the forerunners of the continental town orchestras. As far back as the thirteenth century the strolling musicians began to gather in towns, and there they formed societies for the protection of their common interests. Some of them became town pipers, and in the fifteenth century some were made town and corporation trumpeters. One result of the work of the guilds at this time was that musicians began to acquire some of the rights of citizenship. The guilds were accustomed to place themselves under the patronage of some noble, who selected from the guild a "piper king." It was his business to see that "no player, whether he be piper, drummer, fiddler, trumpeter, or performer on any instrument, be allowed to accept engagements of any kind, whether in towns, villages, or hamlets, unless he had previously enrolled himself a member of the guild." At irregular intervals a court was assembled, consisting of a mayor, four masters, twelve ordinary members, and a beadle, whose business it was to mete out punishment to guild offenders. These guilds were simply the musical protective unions of the day. Outside of the German nations, where these guilds did not exist, the ordinary musician was a stroller, with hardly any legal rights and no consideration. His occupation was regarded as menial, and the servants of the knights treated him with contempt. The jongleur who played the accompaniments for the troubadour, or even sang his songs when the master had no voice, was regarded as a servant and nothing more. The idea of any musician being entitled to the consideration of an artist, except the great church composers, would have been scouted.
In England the strolling musician was represented by the minstrel and the waits, and his status was about the same as it was on the Continent. In a somewhat better case were those who were under the protection of some prince or noble. For instance, the children of the chapel ate in the chapel hall with the yeomen of the vestry and were well cared for. They were the young students of choir singing, instructed by a master of song, who was appointed by the dean of the chapel. These children we find as a part of the household establishment of Edward IV., who died in 1483.
The musicians of the Church were in much better circumstances. As far back as the time of William the Conqueror we find that Hereford Cathedral had endowments which included support for seven choristers. We find similar endowments granted to St. Gregory's in 1363; to Wells in 1347; to the collegiate churches of Southwell, in Nottinghamshire; to Beverley, in Yorkshire, and Westminster. At Oxford, New College had an endowment for sixteen choristers, and Magdalen, All Souls', and St. John's had similar funds. Nearer to Okeghem's day the famous Dick Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, in 1424 founded an endowment for choristers in the Church of St. Michael Royal, which he built. Nevertheless, the first recorded case of a salaried organist is that of Leonard Fitz Simon, organist of Trinity College, Oxford, about 1580, at 20s. per year.
Here are two examples of the popular music of the early times,—the first a song by King Thibaut of Navarre, and the second the first part of the old meistersong used by Wagner in "Die Meistersinger":—