All the songs in this group have been shown as being written before (or right around) 1700 A.D. Any background notes on each will help with verification sources and give any additional historical information.

We need songs for this group! Know of more songs that should be here?

The term Medieval music includes European music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the tall of te Roman Empire (476 AD) and ends approximately at the middle of the 15th century.

Guido d'Arezzo was a monk and music teacher. He also developed names for six notes based on a popular Latin hymn called Ut queant laxis. Guido used the first two letters of the first words in each line to name the corresponding notes: ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la.

·The troubadours (from the south of France) and the trouvères (from the north of France) were professional, aristocratic poet-musicians. They composed songs about love and nature. They often accompanied themselves on a lute, harp, fiddle or recorder. Typical subjects of trobaudors song were war, chivalry and cortly love.


·The language of the trobaudors was occitan.
·The language of the trouvères was Old French.
The period of the trobaudors corresponded to the flowering of cultural life in Provence which lasted through the 12th century and into the first decade of the 13th.


·Minstrel or jogleurs travelled from town to town, and from castle to castle, entertaining the people, in return for money and food

GREGORIAN CHANT  It is a simple monophonic sacred song, with unison voice, natural declamation and without instruments.

Gregorian chants are classified into three melodic types based on the number of notes  notes sung to each syllable.

·Syllabic chants hace primarily one note per syllabe

·Neumatic chants, two or three notes per syllabe

·Melismatic chants can be from five or six notes per syllabe to more than sixty.