Research Article: Medieval Europe 814-1450: Music

Music was a very important part of sacred and secular daily life in the Middle Ages. It was a major component of all religious services in which prayers were chanted, including the Mass services attended each week by all Christians and the canonical office hours observed several times each day by clergy and monks; it also served a less formal religious role in the devotional songs of the laiety. Music for the sacred services, known as plainchant, is by far the largest surviving repertory of music from the period, consisting of thousands and thousands of compositions from all over Europe. The complexity of the music varies from simple settings that resemble heightened speech to extremely elaborate melodies with wide ranges. Some are for soloists, others for choir, and some for an alternation of choir and soloist.

Music in the secular (that is, non-religious) world took a number of forms, and...
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