Chapter 28. Sung medieval Latin verse as performance

Abstract

This essay surveys the performance of monophonic Latin song from the fourth to the thirteenth centuries, investigating the type of songs performed and the range of performance occasions across the period. The focus is primarily on written accounts of song but the characteristic features of surviving medieval melodic traditions are also considered in relation to the training and status of those who created and performed songs. It is argued that the types of Latin songs performed from late antiquity through to the central Middle Ages remained broadly stable but that the forms that songs took were determined by varying historical circumstances. It is also argued that traces left by Latin song in the historical record were shaped by shifting evaluations of song. This survey seeks fresh perspectives by working across conventional boundaries in histories of Latin song, extending backwards beyond music historians’ traditional concentration on recovering and analyzing notated repertories first recorded in the ninth century, looking to trace continuities between late antique and medieval practices, and seeking to establish the range of sung performances of Latin verse at three moments in time.