MUS 5960 Dr. Alicia Wallace Department of Music Southeastern Oklahoma State University

1. Music in Ancient
Greece and Early
Christian Rome
1
Chapter

2. Prelude
 History of Western music begins with ancient
civilizations in Greece and Rome
• few surviving works, forty-five Greek songs and hymns
• sources: writings, images in painting or sculpture, other
artifacts
• music was used in religious ceremonies, popular
entertainment, or as accompaniment to drama
• Greek music theory was passed on to the Romans, and
became the basis for Western music theory
• cultivated people were educated in music
• emperors were patrons of music

3. Prelude (cont’d)
• Decline of Roman Empire
• musical heritage of ancient Greece and Rome
transmitted through early Christian Church
 writings of Church fathers and other scholars
• Church practices spread into Africa and Europe
 picked up musical elements from different areas of
Mediterranean region
• Roman dominance led to regulation and
standardization of Christian liturgy
 organization of repertory of melodies, Gregorian chant

4. Music in Ancient Greek Life and
Thought
 In Greek mythology, music had divine origin
• music inventors and practitioners: gods and demigods
• Apollo, Amphion, and Orpheus; their music had
magical powers
 could heal sickness, purify body and mind, work miracles
• There are similarities in Hebrew Scriptures
 Extant Greek music
• Greek music primarily monophonic
 often embellished by instruments, heterophony
• almost entirely improvised
• melody and rhythm intimately linked to sound and
meter of Greek poetry

5. First Musical Notation
 Extant Greek music (cont’d)
•Epitaph of Seikilos
brief song inscribed on tombstone,
first century C.E.
close correspondence between
theory and practice
•no evidence of continuity in
musical repertory from Greek to
early Christian practice
•A tomb stele (a stone) from Asia Minor
(now Turkey), bearing an epitaph of a
kind of drinking song, with pitch and
rhythmic notation, identified in the first
lines as being by Seikilos, probably first
century c.e.

6. Music in Ancient Greek Life and
Thought (cont’d)
Close union between Greek
music and poetry
• were practically synonymous
 Plato: song (melos) made up of
speech, rhythm, and harmony
 “lyric” poetry sung to the lyre
 “tragedy” incorporates noun
meaning “the art of singing”
 other Greek words for poetry
were musical terms, “hymn”

7. Music in Ancient Greek Life and
Thought (cont’d)
 Music and ethos
• Greek philosophers believed music influenced
ethical character (etho)
• Pythagorean view: music governed by mathematical laws,
operated visible and invisible world
 human soul kept in harmony by numerical relationships
 music could penetrate the soul, restore inner harmony
 same way harmonia determined orderly motion of the planets
• legendary musicians of mythology could sway
human beings and nature

8. Music in Ancient Greek Life and
Thought (cont’d)
Music in education
• Plato and Aristotle: gymnastics disciplines body, music
disciplines the mind
• Plato’s Republic (ca. 380 B.C.E.):
 two must be balanced, certain music suitable
 endorsed Dorian and Phrygian modes, fostered
temperance and courage
 excluded other modes
 disapproved changing musical conventions
 lawlessness in art leads to poor manners and anarchy in society
• Aristotle less restrictive than Plato
 music can be used both for enjoyment and education
 negative emotions purged through music and drama
• later centuries, Church fathers also warned against certain
kinds of music

9. Music in Ancient Greek Life and
Thought (cont’d)
 Greek music theory
• modern system of music theory and vocabulary
derive largely from ancient Greek
• Pythagoras (d. ca. 500 B.C.E.) and Aristides
Quintilianus (fourth century C.E.)
 discovered numerical relationships among pitches
 developed systematic descriptions of elements of music,
patterns of composition
• Pythagoras: music was inseparable from numbers,
key to the universe
 rhythms ordered by numbers
 discovered intervals as ratios: octave 2:1, 5th 3:2, 4th 4:3

10. Music in Ancient Greek Life and
Thought (cont’d)
 Harmonic elements
• laid foundation for modern concepts: notes, intervals, scales,
modes
• defined by Aristoxenus ca. 320 B.C.E. (Harmonic Elements)
and Cleonedes (ca. second or third
century C.E.)
 intervals were combined into scales
 consonant intervals: 4th, 5th, and octave
 principal building block of scale, tetrachord
• tetrachords: four notes spanning P4th
 genera (classes) of tetrachords: diatonic, chromatic, enharmonic
 Harmonia: unification of parts into an orderly whole
• concept encompassed structure of society, as well as music
• music perceived as reflection of order in entire universe

11. Roman Music,
200 B.C.E.–500 C.E.
 First and second centuries of Roman Empire took
musical culture from Greece
• lyric poetry often sung
• music part of most public ceremonies
• Greek architecture, music, and philosophy imported into
Rome
• famous virtuosos, large choruses and orchestras, grandiose
musical festivals, and competitions
• third and fourth centuries economic decline
• music on large and expensive scale ceased
• fifth century, Roman Empire declined in wealth
and strength
 unable to defend itself against invaders

12. The Early Christian Church:
Musical Thought
 Roman Empire declined, Christian Church
gained influence
• main unifying force of culture until tenth century
• Church fathers interpret Bible, set down principles
 similar to ancient Greeks
 value of music: power to influence ethos
 held to Plato’s principle: beautiful things exist to remind of divine
beauty
 music was servant of religion
 Transmission of Greek music theory
• gathered, summarized, modified and transmitted to
the west

13. The Early Christian Church:
Musical Thought (cont’d)
 Transmission of Greek music theory (cont’d)
• Martianus Capella The Marriage of Mercury and Philology,
early fifth century
 described seven liberal arts
• division of liberal arts by Boethius
 trivium: grammar, dialectic, rhetoric
 quadrivium: geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and harmonics (music)
• Boethius (ca. 480–ca. 524) most revered music authority in
Middle Ages
 Die institutione musica (The Fundamentals of Music)
 widely copied and cited for next thousand years
 music as science of numbers; numerical ratios and proportions
determine intervals, consonances, scales, and tuning
 compiled book from Greek sources: treatise by Nicomachus and
Ptolemy’s Harmonics

14. An early-twelfth-century
drawing with fanciful
portrayals of Boethius
and Pythagoras, above,
and Plato and
Nicomachus, below.
Boethius measures out
notes on a monochord,
a string stretched over
a long wooden box with
a movable bridge to
vary the sounding
length of the string.
Pythagoras strikes bells
with hammers. The
others were revered as
authorities on Music.

15. The Early Christian Church:
Musical Practice
 Greek legacy
• Christian communities incorporated features of
Greek music
• early church leaders saw music as servant of religion
 disapproved of forms and types of music connected with
public spectacles and intimate social occasions
• desire to wean Christians from pagan past
 Judaic heritage
• elements of Christian observance derived from
Jewish tradition
 chanting of Scripture
 singing of psalms

16. The Early Christian Church:
Musical Practice (cont’d)
 Christian observances
• parallels in Jewish temple services and Mass
 symbolic sacrifice
 vocal music in worship services
 Mass commemorates Last Supper, imitates Passover meal
 singing psalms assigned to certain days
 Psalms and hymns
• earliest recorded musical activity of Jesus and his
followers
 singing of devotional songs, hymns
• psalms and other praise songs traveled from Syria to
Western centers

17. The Early Christian Church:
Musical Practice (cont’d)
 Eastern churches
• 395, division of Roman Empire
 Western Empire: ruled from Rome
 Eastern Empire: capital at Byzantium
• theological rift between Eastern and Western churches
• Constantinople remained capital of Eastern Empire for more
than 1,000 years
 flourished as cultural center
 blended elements of Western, African, and Eastern civilizations
• various Christian churches of Eastern Empire developed
different liturgies
 musical practices used in Western chant

18. The Early Christian Church:
Musical Practice (cont’d)
 Western churches
• Western Church became
Roman Catholic Church
• Fifth and sixth centuries:
diffusion of Latin liturgy and
music
 texts remain more stable than
melodies

19. The Early Christian Church:
Musical Practice (cont’d)
 Chant dialects
• regional differences, variations produced distinct
liturgies
• melodies for singing sacred texts in Latin, chant
 modern France: Gallican chant
 southern Italy: Beneventan
 Rome: Old Roman chant
 Spain: Visigothic, or Mozarabc
 Milan: Ambrosian
• local chant dialects disappeared over time

20. The Early Christian Church:
Musical Practice (cont’d)
 Gregorian chant
• Frankish monks and nuns copied
manuscripts
• repertory of melodies known as
Gregorian chant
• thousands of chant melodies
survive
• Saint Gregory writing with
scribes. Franco German school,
ivory, ca. 850–875
• See the dove on his
shoulder

21. Postlude
 Music from ancient world
• single melodic line
• vocal melody linked with rhythm and meter of words
• musical performances memorized or improvised
• philosophers believed music was an orderly system
• scientifically based acoustical theory in the making
• scales were built on tetrachords
• well-developed musical terminology
Greek heritage transmitted to the west
• through Christian church and early medieval treatises
• early Christian church music absorbed elements from
many cultures
• practices of Roman church prevailed

22. Chant and Secular Song
in the Middle Ages
2
Chapter

23. Prelude
 Two distinct bodies of song flourished in
Middle Ages: sacred and secular
• sacred: plainchant, principal element of liturgy of
Western Christian Church
• two types of secular monody: courtly and elite,
popular and traditional
• most secular music has vanished
• similarities in three repertories
• primarily monophonic
• all originated in oral cultures, for centuries performed
from memory according to formulas
• eventually written down, evolving notation

24. The Diffusion of Christianity

25. Prelude (cont’d)
 Western Christian liturgy changed and expanded
over time
• texts were relatively stable
• chant repertory more fluid
• preservation of melodies: classification into church
modes
• medieval music theory created
 Medieval song outside the Church: different types,
distinct functions
• medieval drama, religious and secular subjects
• epic or lyric in style
• twelfth-to-thirteenth-century poet-composers most artful
and refined: troubadours and trouvères

26. Western Christian Chant and
Liturgy
Plainchant: melody projects sacred and
devotional words
• shape cannot be separated from its verbal message,
or placed in worship service
• degree of musical elaboration depends on
functions and position of chant in liturgy

27. Interior view of the basilica of San Clemente,
Rome, showing the choir stalls facing each
other in front of the altar. As Christians grew
in number, they met for worship in basilicas
like this one, where sung words carried more
clearly through the large, resonant space
than did spoken words.
Saint Benedict giving the Rule
to a group of monks.

28. Western Christian Chant and
Liturgy (cont’d)
Liturgy: sacred worship
• comprised of body of texts and rites
 glorify God and the saints
 teach the Gospels
 exhort worshippers to path of salvation
• Church calendar
 yearly cycle of Bible readings
 weekly cycle of Book of Psalms
 feast days: commemoration of events or saints
 aspects of liturgy change with day or season
• two principal types of service: the Office and the Mass

29. Western Christian Chant and
Liturgy (cont’d)
Divine Office: communal reading of psalms
• Office (Canonical Hours): liturgy codified in Rule of St.
Benedict (ca. 530)
• series of eight services, specified times around the clock
 provides ritual in monasteries and convents
 prayers, recitations of Scriptural passages, song
• Office liturgies include:
 several psalms, each with an antiphon
 chant sung before and after the psalm
 all 150 psalms sung each week
 lessons (Bible reading) with music responses called responsories
 hymns, canticles (poetic biblical passages), prayers
• Matins and Vespers most important liturgically and musically

30. The Divine Office

31. Western Christian Chant and
Liturgy (cont’d)
Mass: most important service of Catholic Church
• central act is symbolic reenactment of Last Supper
• Liturgy of the Mass in three parts:
 introductory prayers
 Liturgy of the Word
 Liturgy of the Eucharist
• Proper of the Mass: variable portions
 Introit, Collects, Epistle, Gradual, Alleluia, Gospel,
Offertory, Communion, and others
• Ordinary of the Mass: invariable portions
 Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, and Ite, missa est

33. Western Christian Chant and
Liturgy (cont’d)
Oral transmission of chant melodies
• improvised within strict conventions based on
formulas
• melodies subject to change and variation
• subject of study and controversy

34. Western Christian Chant and
Liturgy (cont’d)
Notation of chant
• late eighth and ninth centuries, notation invented to
standardize performance of chant melodies
• Frankish campaign to promote uniform liturgy
and music
 consolidate and increase influence on worshippers
• legend of Saint Gregory
• fifth to ninth centuries, western and northern
Europe converted to Christianity
• official “Gregorian” chant established Frankish
empire
• important developments took place north of Alps

35. The Holy Roman Empire under
Charlemagne around 800

36. Genres and Forms of Chant
Classification of chants
• by texts: biblical or nonbiblical, prose or poetry
• manner of performance
 antiphonal: alternating choirs
 responsorial: choir responds to a soloist
 direct: sung by one choir
• musical style
 syllabic: one note per syllable of chant
 melismatic: many notes per syllable
 neumatic: two to seven notes per syllable

37. Liber Usualis
The opening phrases of the antiphon to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Salve Regina
mater misericordiae (Hail, O Queen, Mother of mercy) as notated in a modern
book of the most frequently used chants of the Mass and Office, the Liber usualis.

38. Modern Notation Transcription

39. Genres and Forms of Chant
(cont’d)
Recitation formulas
• simple melodic outlines
• can be used with many texts
Text setting: straightforwardly, ornately
• reflect Latin pronunciation
 prominent syllables set to higher note
 emphasis through melismas
• florid chants
 long melismas on weak syllables
 emphasis through syllabic setting
• melodies conform to rhythm of text and to function
 no attempt to express emotions or depict images

40. Genres and Forms of Chant
Chant forms
• psalm tone: one of eight melodies used for singing
psalms
 two balanced phrases correspond to two halves of
typical psalm verse
• strophic: same melody to several stanzas, e.g.
hymns
• free form: may be entirely original

41. Chants of the Office
 Psalm tones: formulas for chanting psalms
• oldest chants in liturgy
• easily adapted to fit any psalm
• one psalm tone for each of eight modes, and Tonus peregrinus
“wandering tone”
• sung to tone that matches mode of its prescribed antiphon
• five separate melodic elements:
 intonation: rising motive to reciting tone (tenor), used for first verse
 recitation on reciting tone
 mediant: cadence for the middle of each verse
 continues on reciting tone, second half of verse
 termination: final cadence at end of verse
 final verse leads into Lesser Doxology
• every psalm framed by different antiphon, attached to one day of calendar
year

42. Monks at the Abbey of Notre-Dame
de la Trappe in Soligny, France,
singing an Office service. They are
seated in front of the altar in two sets
of choir stalls that face each other

43. Chants of the Office
Antiphonal psalmody
• half-verses alternate between two choirs or between small
and full choir
 eventually both chants were abbreviated
• antiphons: verse or sentence with its own melody
 opening phrase of antiphon sung before psalm, entire antiphon after
psalm
 more numerous than any other type of chant, 1,250
 originally meant to be sung by a group,
 older ones more syllabic, stepwise motion, simple rhythm, limited
melodic range
Responsorial psalmody
• soloist performs verse, congregation or choir responds with
refrain
• also occurs in Office responsories

44. Chants of the Mass Proper
Antiphonal chants
• Introit
 originally a complete psalm with its antiphon
 many verses accompanied entrance procession
 opening part of service shortened over time
• Communion
 near end of Mass, counterpart to Introit
 short chant, often one scriptural verse

45. Chants of the Mass Proper
Responsorial chants
• Graduals and Alleluia, most highly developed chants
 more contemplative moments in service, no ritual action occurs
• choir and soloist in alternation (NAWM 3d and 3e)
• Graduals
 came to Frankish churches from Rome, form already evolved
 florid melodies
 melismatic formulas recur: intonations, internal cadences, terminations
• Alleluias
 also more florid
 respond text is single word “Alleluia”
 jubilus: long melisma on final syllable
 performance

46. Chants of the Mass Proper
Responsorial chants (cont’d)
• Offertories
 melismatic as Graduals
 Middle Ages, performed during offering of bread and
wine
 choral respond, two or three ornate verses sung by a
soloist
 each followed by second half of respond
 verses dropped later; respond only

47. Chant and Secular Song
in the Middle Ages
2
Chapter

48. Later Developments of the Chant
Chants of the Mass Ordinary
• originally simple syllabic melodies sung by congregation
• by ninth century, choir took over
 trained singers: new more ornate melodies
• syllabic setting retained for Gloria and Credo (longest
texts)
• Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei: 3-part sectional
arrangements
 usually performed antiphonally; half-choirs alternate statements
 final Kyrie often extended
 melismas on last syllables of “Kyrie” and “Christe”
Antiphons
• many composed for additional feasts, ninth to thirteenth centuries
• four Marian antiphons, independent compositions

49. Later Developments of the Chant
 Tropes
• expanded existing chant, three types:
 new words and music before the chant and between phrases
 melody only, extending or adding melismas
 text only, called prosula
• first type most common, Introits
• all increased solemnity of chant
• creative outlet for musicians
• interpret text; link to specific occasion
• Introit antiphon for Christmas Day (NAWM 3a) and (NAWM 6)
• trope composition flourished in monasteries, tenth and eleventh centuries
• tropes banned by Council of Trent (1545–63)

50. The earliest surviving copy of the Christmas dramatic trope Quem
queritis in presepe, in a manuscript collection from Saint-Martial
de Limoges.

51. Later Developments of the Chant
Sequences
• follow the Alleluias
• began as tropes in 9th century
 derived from melismas added at end of an Alleluia
• Notker Balbulus (“The Stammerer”; ca. 840–912)
 most famous early writer of sequence texts
 learned to write text syllables as memory aid
• important creative outlet, tenth to thirteenth centuries
 popular sequences imitated and adapted for secular genres
• banned by Council of Trent
 five sequences survive, including Victimae paschali laudes, and Dies
irae
• all are set syllabically in couplets, second line repeating melody
of first

52. Later Developments of the Chant
Liturgical drama
• type of play performed on important holy days,
near altar
• originated in troping
• Easter and Christmas plays most common,
performed all over Europe
• Quem queritis in presepe, Easter play
• music: number of chants strung together
• theatrical presentation: staged, scenery, costumes,
actors drawn from clergy

53. Later Developments of the Chant
Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179)
 Renowned visionary, composer of sacred monophony
• born to noble family, Rhine region of Germany
• consecrated to the church; vows at Benedictine
monastery
• 1150 she founded the Rupertsberg convent near Bingen
• famous for prophecies
• corresponded with emperors, kings, popes, and bishops
• preached throughout Germany
• prose works in the Scivias (Know the Ways, 1141–51);
account of twenty-six visions, books on science and
healing
• religious poems set to music: preserved in two
manuscripts in liturgical cycle
• major works: Ordo virtutum, forty-three antiphons,
eighteen responsories, seven sequences, four hymns,
five other chants
Hildegard von Bingen with
Volmar, a monk who assisted
her in recording her visions.

54. Later Developments of the Chant
 Hildegard’s Ordo virtutum (The
Virtues, ca. 1151)
• Hildegard’s most extensive work: sacred
music drama in verse with eighty-two songs
• she wrote both the melodies and poetic
verse (uncommon)
• morality play with allegorical characters
 Prophets, Virtues, Happy Soul,
Unhappy Soul, Penitent Soul
• all sing in plainchant; Devil speaks,
separation from God
• final chorus was typical of Hildegard’s
expansive melodic style

55. Later Developments of the Chant
Women excluded from priesthood
• choir took over singing; women silenced in church
• convents: separate communities of religious women
 hold positions of leadership
 participate in singing and composing
 learn to read Latin and music
• Hildegard achieved great success as prioress and
abbess, writer and composer
 songs were divinely inspired
 visions became famous, music known only locally

56. Medieval Music Theory and
Practice
 Church modes
• medieval modal system developed gradually, completed by
eleventh century
• eight modes identified by number
• finalis, final: main and last note in melody
• modes paired, share same final
 authentic: odd-numbered modes; rose above final
 plagal: even-numbered modes; circled around and went below the final
• not based on absolute pitch
• tenor, reciting tone:
 higher or lower in keeping with their range
• church modes also had Greek names
 misapplication of ancient Greek scales
• modes: primary means to classify chants
 not all chant melodies conform to modal theory
 many existed before theory developed

57. Church Modes

58. Medieval Music Theory and
Practice
Solmization
• facilitated sight-singing
• introduced by Guido of Arezzo (ca. 991–after
1033)
• set of syllables to remember whole tones and
semitones
 ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la
 syllables helped locate semitones in chant
 solmization syllables still used; do for ut, addition of ti

59. Medieval Music Theory and
Practice
“Guidonian Hand”
• visual aid to locate pitches
of system of hexachords
• joints in hand stood for
one of twenty-one notes
• other notes “outside the
hand”
• included in medieval and
Renaissance textbooks

60. Medieval Music Theory and
Practice
Stages of notation
• earlier stages: neumes placed above text
 varying heights indicate size and direction of intervals
• horizontal lines scratched into parchment
 revolutionary: musical sign that did not represent a sound
 corresponded to particular note
 neumes oriented around the line
• Guido of Arezzo: arrangement of lines and spaces
 evolved into modern staff
 pitches notated precisely
 freed from dependence on oral transmission

61. Medieval Song

62. Medieval Song
Goliard songs
• oldest written secular songs, Latin texts
• goliards: wandering students and clerics
• songs celebrate three topics: wine, women, and satire
• music does not survive in precise notation
• early manifestation of literacy
 vernacular languages gradually written down, repertories
collected

63. Medieval Song
Jongleurs, minstrels: sang secular songs
• itinerants or in service to a particular lord
• traveled alone or in small groups
 performed tricks, played instruments, dancing
• social outcasts, denied protection of the law
• eleventh century, economic recovery of Europe
 minstrels’ situation improved
 organized into brotherhoods
 later developed into guilds
Jongleur playing a fiddle while
accompanying a dancing bear, ca. 1350.

64. Medieval Song
 Troubadours and trouvères: 12th century
French poet-composers
• Troubadours: southern France,
 spoke Provençal (langue d’oc or Occitan)
• trouvères: northern France
 spoke French dialect (langue d’oïl)
 active through thirteenth century
• varied backgrounds: kings, children of merchants,
craftsmen, jongleurs
 performance often entrusted to a minstrel
• songs preserved in chansonniers
 2,600 troubadour poems survive, one-tenth with
melodies
 2,100 extant trouvère poems, two-thirds have
music
 great variety of poetic and musical structures
Troubadour Jaufré Rudel and the
countess of Tripoli in a miniature
from a French manuscript of the 13th
century.

65. Medieval Song
 Troubadours and trouvères: twelfth-century French poet-
composers (cont’d)
• important trouvère structural feature, refrain
 line or two of poetry that returns with its own music from one stanza to
another
• troubadour poetry
 wrote complaints about love, political and moral topics, songs that tell
stories, courtly love
 alba (dawn song), canso (love song), tenso (debate song)
• fine amour, “refined love” central theme
 formal, idealized love
 object was a real woman of noble birth
 adored from a distance, discretion, respect, humility
 lady depicted was lofty and unattainable

66. Medieval Song
Troubadour Bernart de Ventadorn
• Can vei la lauzeta mover (When I
see the lark beating), by Ventadorn
 Bernart de Ventadorn (ca. 1150–ca.
1180), popular poet of his time
 best preserved courtly song
 lover’s complaints, main subject
Bernart de Ventadorn, as
depicted in a thirteenth-century
manuscript of troubadour songs.

67. Medieval Song
Troubadours and trouvères: 12th century French poet-
composers (cont’d)
• typical song, or canso, structure
 most are strophic
 syllabic setting, occasional short melisma at end of line
 narrow range, sixth to an octave
 rhythm not indicated
 each poetic line receives its own melodic phrase
 phrases join to make one long melody
 variety through variation, contrast, repetition of short musical phrases
 melodic freedom, spontaneity, simplicity
• A chantar by Comtessa Beatriz de Día
 only trobairitz song to survive with music

68. Medieval Song
 Minnesinger: German knightly poet-musician
• troubadour model
• flourished between twelfth and fourteenth centuries
• Minnelieder (love songs), more abstract
 sometimes had religious tinge
• music correspondingly more sober
 some melodies written in church modes
 probably sung in triple meter
 strophic; melodic form AAB (bar form)
• written in Middle High German
 new genre: Crusade song Palästinalied (Palestine
song) by Walther von der Vogelweide
(ca. 1170?–ca.1230?)
Walther von der Vogelweide
as depicted in a fourteenth-
century Swiss manuscript.
Vogelweide means “bird-
meadow,” and his shield,
shown in the upper left,
includes a caged bird.

69. Medieval Song
 Cantigas de Santa María, honor the
Virgin Mary
• collection of over 400 cantigas (songs) in
Galican-Portuguese
• prepared 1270–90 under King Alfonso el
Sabio
(the Wise) of Castile and León
(northwestern Spain)
• preserved in four beautifully illuminated
manuscripts
• most songs relate miracles performed by
the Virgin
• Non sofre Santa María
• songs all have refrains; illustrations of
dancers Cantigas manuscripts
Illustrations from the Cantigas de
Santa María (ca. 1250–1280)
manuscript, showing musicians playing
(clockwise from upper left) transverse
flutes, shawms, pipes and tabors, and
trumpets.