Middle Ages Study Guide
Middle Ages
Dates: 450-1450
1. What was going historically during this era? What was life like? The Middle Ages was a time of migrations, upheavals, and wars. People were divided by three main social classes: nobility, peasantry, and clergy.
2. Who or what had the power? Nobility
3. Who were learned or literate? Clergy
4. Who were allowed to sing in church? Men and Nuns
5. Most of the music that was notated during the middle ages was sacred or secular? Sacred. But Secular music was prominent outside of the church.
6. Was most medieval music vocal? Yes, but instruments were used on special occasions.
7. What is Gregorian Chant? Discuss its origin, texture, melody, rhythm, text. How did it receive its name? What is its purpose? The Gregorian Chant was a melody set to sacred latin texts and sung without accompaniment. It had no rhythm and it conveyed a calm, otherworldly quality. The “rhythm’ was flexible, without meter, and had little sense of beat, precise time values were not notated. It seemed as if it was a floating, almost improvisational character. The melodies moved by step within narrow ranges of pitches. Some of the texts were simple and elaborate; some were more than recitations on a single tone. Others contained complex melodic curves.
8. When chant was notated, was the rhythm notated or just the melody? Just the Melody.
9. What are church modes? The scales used to make Gregorian Chants sound “otherworldly”. Consists of seven different tones and an eighth tone that duplicates the first octave higher.
10. What is the Mass? People coming together at church to sing sacred music.
11. What is the Mass Proper? The Proper of the mass includes the scriptural texts that change daily with the liturgical calendar
12. What is the Mass Ordinary? Consists of texts that remain the same from day to day throughout the church year.
13. Who is Hildegard of Bignen? Hildegard was the a nun, the abbess of Rupertsberg in Germany, and was one
Dates: 450-1450
1. What was going historically during this era? What was life like? The Middle Ages was a time of migrations, upheavals, and wars. People were divided by three main social classes: nobility, peasantry, and clergy.
2. Who or what had the power? Nobility
3. Who were learned or literate? Clergy
4. Who were allowed to sing in church? Men and Nuns
5. Most of the music that was notated during the middle ages was sacred or secular? Sacred. But Secular music was prominent outside of the church.
6. Was most medieval music vocal? Yes, but instruments were used on special occasions.
7. What is Gregorian Chant? Discuss its origin, texture, melody, rhythm, text. How did it receive its name? What is its purpose? The Gregorian Chant was a melody set to sacred latin texts and sung without accompaniment. It had no rhythm and it conveyed a calm, otherworldly quality. The “rhythm’ was flexible, without meter, and had little sense of beat, precise time values were not notated. It seemed as if it was a floating, almost improvisational character. The melodies moved by step within narrow ranges of pitches. Some of the texts were simple and elaborate; some were more than recitations on a single tone. Others contained complex melodic curves.
8. When chant was notated, was the rhythm notated or just the melody? Just the Melody.
9. What are church modes? The scales used to make Gregorian Chants sound “otherworldly”. Consists of seven different tones and an eighth tone that duplicates the first octave higher.
10. What is the Mass? People coming together at church to sing sacred music.
11. What is the Mass Proper? The Proper of the mass includes the scriptural texts that change daily with the liturgical calendar
12. What is the Mass Ordinary? Consists of texts that remain the same from day to day throughout the church year.
13. Who is Hildegard of Bignen? Hildegard was the a nun, the abbess of Rupertsberg in Germany, and was one