While working on a project this week, I came across two things which made me think of Minotaur Hotel. I know there are a number of people on here interested in ancient culture and artifacts, so I thought I’d put up a couple of posts on here about them, and share my thoughts. Apologies for the two lengthy messages back to back!
This week, I’ve been looking at music much earlier than the period I usually focus on: I’ve been going back to the early mediaeval period. I’ve come across a few musical works which I think have some interesting similarities to some of the ancient music posted in this thread, and I thought I’d share them here. You can listen to them below. To my ear, they have a similar tonal quality, and share similar approaches to melodic devices, rhythm, and overall form. Have a listen and see what you think!
These pieces date from about 1200AD, and are European in origin. They could conceivably be British or French, although the origins are not clear. Either way, these works were written 1000 years after the Seikilos Epitaph. So how could there be any similarities in style at all?
I’ve had some fun thinking about that! I’d like to suggest that ancient styles of music actually survived much later in time than might naturally be expected, and formed the basis of this early mediaeval music. So music from this period might actually provide a window into the music of ancient cultures! Let me explain my reasoning.
It’s important to stress that 1200AD is *really early* in modern music terms. The foundation of modern Western music was in the development of detailed polyphonic writing, which took place from the mid 1300s into the early 1400s. If you think of mediaeval music, with its funky harmonies and dancing rhythms, you’re probably thinking of the style of about 1400AD. 1200AD is 200 years before that, and thoroughly outside the realm of the music known in the West today.
So what was being written back then? What happened before modern styles of Western music began to be developed?
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the early mediaeval period saw Europe mainly in a state of cultural and developmental stagnation: the Dark Ages. Knowledge was preserved in monasteries and religious centres, and consisted almost entirely of sources from the ancient world: the works of the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians endlessly copied and recopied. The approach to knowledge and learning was very different from the modern day. If someone was faced with a problem, they would most likely not look into it directly themselves, but instead see what the Ancients had written about it. If the Ancients had a solution, that was *the* solution. If they hadn’t found a solution, then there wasn’t one. The knowledge and culture of the Ancients was revered and held almost sacrosanct, and it ensured that European culture and knowledge remained largely at the same level for 1000 years.
Much has been written about this regarding scientific ideas, such as in or mathematics, or physics, or medicine. See for instance the works of the Ancient physician Galen, which predominated throughout that period, right into the Renaissance. But what about music? Wouldn’t music also have remained largely unchanged throughout this period?
If Ancient culture and knowledge was revered, I think that would extend to music as well. After all, texts and ideas of musical theory from the Ancient world – such as Pythagoras’s system of music turning – survived throughout the Dark Ages. And these were studied by scholars at the time. If such theory systems were studied and held in a position of honour, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to imagine that not only would scholars have written music using these systems, but that musical examples would have been preserved in these libraries too. These examples could have been used as demonstrations of the nature of Ancient culture, and as indications of how Ancient musical systems were put into practice. In other words, both Ancient music and contemporary examples in the same style could have been stored at monasteries.
Also, monasteries were pretty much the only places where a continuous written record was kept. Music performed outside their walls, in towns and villages, could potentially have been more progressive. But it wouldn’t have survived to reach our ears. What survives in the written record, and what informed later developments in music, is what was in the monasteries. If I’m thinking along the right lines, this would have been based on the principles and documents of Ancient cultures.
So, like other areas of culture and knowledge, I think there’s a chance that musical output also remained largely unchanged during the Dark Ages. If that’s the case, then these early musical items from 1200AD – despite being written 1000 years after the Seikilos Epitaph – could still have been written using the same musical framework. Music from the early mediaeval period could potentially give us some insight into Ancient music, despite being written a long time afterwards!