Guest Author - Helen B. Wharton

All music in Medieval Europe fell into one of two categories: Religious Music, also known as Church or Sacred Music and Non-religious Music, otherwise known as Secular Music. These two categories are clearly divided by class and education.

Religious Music
Sacred music was originally written for one purpose, to set the Bible to music. This single concept implies that the musician is educated and can read the Bible, as well as musical notation. Since only nobility and clergy could read, a class distinction can also be inferred for the writers of sacred music.

Gregorian Chant is definitive religious music of the Medieval Period. It began with reading the Bible aloud and using a singing voice instead of a speaking voice. Whether it is performed by one voice or many, only one note is sung at a time, there is no harmony. Although the musical form is simple the effect can be very moving and inspirational. Picture a choir singing in a Gothic Cathedral and you get a sense of what I mean.

During the Twelfth Century composers starting adding additional notes to be sung at once. At first the second note was just an octave above or below the first, soon other notes, of the key the music was written in, were added.

Today, with very few exceptions, the composers of Classical music are professionally trained and educated, but the class distinction is blurred. People of any class can be trained to write and/or enjoy Classical music.

Secular Music
Today the music that people enjoy varies from Rock, Pop, Country, Hip-Hop,and Easy Listening to Classical and everything in between. All of these, with the exception of Classical, would be the counterpart of Medieval Secular Music.

Certainly, people who write popular music today may be educated, at least in music, but it is not a given. During the Medieval Period Secular Music was the music of the common folk and its purpose was to entertain; songs to sing, music to dance to.

Since very few people at the time could read and write, Secular Music tended not to be written down. It was passed orally from person to person, place to place, and from one generation to the next.

People who played Secular Music would have been taught to play by ear, that is to say they could play the instrument but probably did not read musical notation. Even if they had been able to read it, written music would have been prohibitively expensive. It was not until the advent of the printing press, during the Renaissance, that printed music became more affordable and readily available.