Medieval music consists of songs, instrumental pieces, and liturgical music from about 500 A.D. to 1400. Medieval music was an era of Western music, including liturgical music used for the church, and secular music, non-religious music. Medieval music includes solely vocal music, such as Gregorian chant and choral music, solely instrumental music, and music that uses both voices and instruments. Gregorian chant was sung by monks during Catholic Mass. The Mass is a reenactment of Christ's Last Supper, intended to provide a spiritual connection between man and God. Part of this connection was established through music. This era begins with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century and ends sometime in the early fifteenth century. Establishing the end of the medieval era and the beginning of the Renaissance music era is difficult, since the trends started at different times in different regions. The date range in this article is the one usually adopted by musicologists.
A chanson is in general any lyric-driven French song, usually polyphonic and secular. A singer specializing in chansons is known as a "chanteur" (male) or "chanteuse" (female); a collection of chansons, especially from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, is also known as a chansonnier.
Dame Maroie or Maroie de Dregnau de Lille was a trouvère from Arras, in Artois, France. She debates Dame Margot in a jeu parti, or debate song, "Je vous pri, dame Maroie." This song survives in two manuscripts, which each give separate and unrelated melodies. In two manuscripts she is credited with a fragment of a song, "Mout m'abelist quant je voi revenir." Dame Maroie is the addressee in a grand chant by Andrieu Contredit d'Arras. She was identified as the Maroie de Dregnau de Lille from whom a single strophe of a single chanson remains, "Mout m'abelist quant je voi revenir", along with its music.
"Ce fut en mai", or "Ce fu en mai", is a French trouvère song, written in the 13th century by Moniot d'Arras. Its lyrics, in Old French, describe how a man sees a knight and a maiden cavorting in a garden. He follows them, and tells them of his unrequited love; they comfort him, and he cries and commends them to God. The song is a pastourelle and chanson, and was originally accompanied by dancing and medieval instruments like the vielle. "Ce fut en mai" has recently been recorded by early music performers such as Paul Hillier and the New Orleans Musica da Camera.
Moniot de Paris was a trouvère and probably the same person as the Monniot who wrote the Dit de fortune in 1278. He was once thought to have flourished around 1200, but his dates have been pushed back.
Philippe de Rémi (1210–1265) was an Old French poet and trouvère from Picardy, and the bailli of the Gâtinais from 1237 to at least 1249. He was also the father of Philippe de Beaumanoir, the famous jurist, by his wife Marie.
Jacques de Cambrai, sometimes Jaque or Jaikes, was a trouvère from Cambrai. He composed four chansons courtoises, one pastourelle, six devotional chansons, and one Marian rotrouenge. The Berne manuscript preserves all his works, nine of them uniquely. In addition, a chanson and the pastourelle are preserved in the manuscript Oxford Douce 308 and one of the devotional songs is also copied in two other sources. The Berne manuscript notes that his Haute dame, com rose et lis was modelled on Ausi com l'unicorne sui by Theobald I of Navarre and Mere, douce creature on Quant voi la glaie meure by Raoul de Soissons. Otherwise none of his music survives, though staves for its transcription were prepared. Of all Jacques's works, only his rotrouenge, the Retrowange novelle, has no model mentioned in the manuscripts; its rubric reads only "Jaikes de Cambrai—De Notre Dame".
Robert de Castel (d'Arras) was a trouvère active in and around Arras in the late thirteenth century. He is mentioned in the Congés of Baude Fastoul, written in 1272, which place him Arras at that date. He is the addressee of the poem Robert du Chastel, biaus sire, a jeu parti by another trouvère of Arras, Jehan Bretel, which was judged by another Artesian, Gaidifer d'Avion.
Jehan de Braine was, jure uxoris, the Count of Mâcon and Vienne from 1224 until his death. He was a younger son of Robert II of Dreux and his second wife, Yolanta de Couci. His wife was Alix, granddaughter of William V of Mâcon. Jehan was also a trouvère and a Crusader. He followed Theobald I of Navarre to the Holy Land in the Barons' Crusade of 1239 and there died a year later. His widow sold her counties to the French crown.
Jocelin de Dijon was an Old French trouvère, presumably from Dijon. Two songs survive attributed to his full name and two further songs survive credited to an otherwise unidentifiable "Jocelin" in the Berne Chansonnier which may be the work of Jocelin de Dijon.
Adam de Givenchi was a trouvère, probably from Givenchy and active in and around Arras. His surname is also spelled Givenci, Gevanche, or Gievenci.
In the late Middle Ages, a cantus coronatus was a composition that had won a competition, and it or its composer been awarded a prize, often a crown. The corresponding Old French term was chanson couronnée or couronnez, which occurs is some extant chansonniers.
Ernoul le Viellede Gastinois was a trouvère of the late thirteenth century. His name may indicate that he was from the Gâtinais, but vielle could mean either "the old" or "the vielle-player".
O Maria, Deu maire is an Old Occitan song, a hymn to the Virgin Mary, unique in being both the only song from the Saint Martial school that is entirely in the vernacular and the only medieval Occitan song with extant musical notation for all its (twelve) stanzas. It dates to the 1090s and is preserved in MS f. lat. 1139 of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. It has been translated into English.
Richart de Semilli was a trouvère, probably from Paris, which he mentions three times in his extant works. These number ten in one chansonnier, and one anonymous song, "L’une est la chastelaine, devers Mont le Heri", which has sometimes been attributed to him by modern scholars, but of which most of the first strophe and music are missing.
Guillaume le Vinier was a cleric and trouvère, one of the most prolific composers in the genre. He has left compositions in all the major subgenres of trouvère poetry: chansons d'amour, jeux-partis, a lai, a descort, a chanson de mal mariée and a ballade. He wrote Marian songs and even an imaginary dialogue with a nightingale. His work can be dated with some precision: the poem "En tous tens" is quoted in the Roman de la violette, which was written around 1225.
Gautier d'Espinal was a French composer and trouvère poet of the 13th century.
Adam de la Bassée was a canon of the collegiate church of Saint Pierre in Lille, and a poet and musician associated with the circle of trouvères around Arras. Around 1280, he composed the Ludus super Anticlaudianum, a rhyming paraphrase of Alain de Lille's poem Anticlaudianus. The Ludus is conserved in one known manuscript, F-Lm 316 in the Bibliothèque Municipale Jean Levy in Lille, which may be in part a work of Adam's own hand.
Perrin d'Angicourt was a trouvère associated with the group of poets active in and around Arras. His birthplace was most likely Achicourt, just south of Arras. His surviving oeuvre is large by the standards of the trouvères, and well-distributed in the chansonniers: thirty-five (35) of his songs survive, in some case in as many as eleven different manuscripts.
