Secular Music in the Middle Ages — Key Points

secular music

Secular Music in the middle ages

• Secular music in the Middle Ages included songs and dance music

  • Evidence includes: writing, art, and written music

Troubadours

• Definition: poet, composer, active in Southern French courts, in the 12th-13th century.

• Their music centered around their poetry

• Femal troubadours: trobairitz

• Language: Occitan/Provencal

• Social class: Nobles and middle-class artists

• Poetry is often about courtly love

• Definition: Idolization of a higher-ranking noble woman

• Wrote also about politics, the Crusades, and dance

• Written music includes pitch, not rhythm

• Probably accompanied by instruments

Countess of Dia

• Trad. “Beatriz, Comtessa de Dia”

• Trobairitz

  • Five poems extant

  • One with music

Countess of Dia, A chanter

• About her love for a man who betrayed her

• The phrases have feelings of open endings and closed endings

• How would you describe the instrument that accompanies as a drone?

• Would you describe the music as free-flowing or strict?

  • Free-flowing

Minstrels

• Lower-class wandering musicians

• Acrobatics, stories, dances, juggling

• Instrumental music

Instrumental Music

• For dancing

  • passed down by oral tradition

  • Based on songs

• Often improvised

• When written down, no instruments specified

• Estampie: medieval dance

• Triple meter

• Strong, fast beat