Module description
Performing the Middle Ages is a new module that explores medieval music through its ritual, social and spatial contexts. Covering a wide range of musical repertories, from sacred chant, love songs of the troubadours and trouvères, to the polyphonic art songs of Machaut, this course considers how medieval men and women experienced their sounding world, and how they used musical experiences to define the sense of the self, time, place, the community and the sacred. Taking a thematic rather than a strictly chronological approach, the module will focus on three locations in which music and sound played a key role. These will include: the liturgy and devotional rituals of the cathedral, monastery and private chapels; the city and civic performance, with special focus on Florence, Paris and Jerusalem; and music associated with the aristocratic courts of France and England. These locales embrace some of the most famous repertories of the period, including Gregorian chant,songs of Hildegard of Bingen, and related repertories of liturgical drama and organum; the love-lyrics of the troubadours and trouvères; the polytextual motet; trecento art song and laude; lyric interpolated romances such as Jean Renart's Roman de la Rose. In addition to working with standard scores and secondary bibliography, the module will explore primary evidence including household archives and inventories, literary accounts of music-making and sound in chronicles of the crusades, in Arthurian romances and Dante's Divine Comedy; we will also explore objects, architecture and artworks of the period in relation to performance cultures, with field trips to collections at the National Gallery and British Museum; finally, students will have the opportunity to perform some of the repertories studied, as a means to deepen their understanding of the topic. No prior experience of medieval music is necessary for this class. Students will acquire both a broad knowledge of some of the most beautiful music of the Middle Ages, and a deeper understanding of medieval culture and its people.
Assessment details
Short analysis, 30% [1000 words]
Essay, 70% [3000 words]
Educational aims & objectives
To introduce students to a range of musical repertories and primary sources, from the 9th to 14th centuries, includ ing both vernacular and sacred traditions of Western Europe; - to work with a range of primary and secondary materials to enable students to locate music in original performance environments, with focus on spaces of the court, church and city in the Middle Ages. - to relate medieval evidence to a broader theoretical literature relating to the psychological, emotional and cognitive effects of sound in the experience of space, and in the formation of individual and communal identity. - to use active performance of repertories studied as an investigatory tool. - to teach students basic technical skills for reading early music notation; to introduce students to basic palaeography of medieval music manuscripts; to develop vocabulary and analytical skills to enable stylistic evaluation of genres studied. - to broaden students' methodological approach to the study, analysis and interpretation of music. - to foster interdisciplinary approaches to music, with particular emphasis on evidence from literature, art and architectural history, sound studies, history of devotion. - to build transferable skills for analysis and interpretation of a range of specialised source materials, and to develop skills to integrate and synthesize different kinds of evidence. - to encourage eventual independent application of skills acquired throughout the semester, through carefully supervised individual and group assignments and presentations, involving opportunities for peer and self - assessment and for development of interpersonal skills.
Learning outcomes
The module will broaden students' musical knowledge base: by the end of the module the student will be familiar with a broad range of medieval musical repertories, including chant, early vernacular song and drama, early polyphony, and other repertories up to and including ars nova motets and chanson. - by the end of the module, students will have acquired and applied skills for interpreting a wide range of primary evidence, including music, literature and art and architecture; the module will also demonstrate models for synthesis of evidence, which students will develop in small, supervised assignments throughout the semester, and will consolidate in a final independent project and presentation. - by the end of the module, students will have skills to transcribe, sing and describe basic medieval notations, and will have basic skills to describe and navigate music manuscripts; students will also be versed in the stylistic features of genres studied. - the module will prepare students to apply and adapt knowledge and critical skills gained throughout the semester in new contexts; for example, it will prepare students to judge and evaluate music and source material previously unseen, though similar to that covered during the semester, as a component of the final examination. - group assignments and the final class symposium will expand students' skills for work with others, and will offer experience of the value of tackling demanding questions/problems collaboratively. - by the end of the module, students will have had experience in integrating approaches/methodologies from across fields of music studies (musicology, ethnomusicology) and disciplines (medieval art history and architecture, literature, musicology).
Teaching pattern
Combination of lecture and seminars.