The Middle Ages and Renaissance: Summary

The cultural rebirth that occurred in Europe from roughly the fourteenth through the middle of the seventeenth centuries, based on the rediscovery of the literature of Greece and Rome.

an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters.

two or more of the eight systems of pitch organization used in Gregorian chant.

make a continuous low humming sound.

refers to a musical style which flourished in France and the Burgundian Low Countries in the Late Middle Ages: more particularly, in the period between the preparation of the Roman de Fauvel (1310-1314) and the death of the composer Guillaume de Machaut in 1377 (whose poems were a large inspiration for Johannes Ciconia).

the set of texts of the Roman Rite Mass that are generally invariable.

This contrasts with the proper (Proprium), which are items of the Mass that change with the feast or following the Liturgical Year.

is the musical technique of writing music that reflects the literal meaning of a song.

a plucked stringed instrument with a long neck bearing frets and a rounded body with a flat front that is shaped like a halved egg.

church music sung as a single vocal line in free rhythm and a restricted scale (plainsong), in a style developed for the medieval Latin liturgy.

a medieval dance and musical form, it was a popular instrumental and vocal form in the 13th and 14th centuries. The name was also applied to poetry (Bellingham 2002).

(in medieval music) a form of early polyphony based on an existing plainsong.

a thirteen-line poem, divided into three stanzas of 5, 3, and 5 lines, with only two rhymes throughout and with the opening words of the first line used as a refrain at the end of the second and third stanzas.

noun: motet; plural noun: motets a short piece of sacred choral music, typically polyphonic and unaccompanied.

Sacred Motet.

During the Renaissance, the motet became a popular type of polyphonic music that used three or four voices. The composers set the music to sacred Latin texts for use in religious services or as part of this

a part-song for several voices, especially one of the Renaissance period, typically arranged in elaborate counterpoint and without instrumental accompaniment. Originally used of a genre of 14th-century Italian songs, the term now usually refers to English or Italian songs of the late 16th and early 17th c., in a free style strongly influenced by the text.

a generic form of music in the late Renaissance and very early Baroque eras

also known as Saint Hildegard and Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary, and polymath.

a medieval French poet and composer.

He is one of the earliest composers on whom significant biographical information is available.

a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance.

an Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music and the best-known 16th-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition

an English composer and organist. He became organist of Winchester College in 1598, moving to Chichester Cathedral.

His works are chiefly vocal, and include madrigals, anthems and services

an English Renaissance composer, lutenist, and singer. He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as "Come, heavy sleep", "Come again", "Flow my tears", "I saw my Lady weepe"

a French violinist and composer. Caroubel was born in Cremona. He lived in Paris from 1576 and collaborated with Michael Praetorius at the court of the Duke of Brunswick at Wolfenbüttel