The music theory sources of the early and central Middle Ages show that the main preoccupation of western thinkers was with practical music, specifically music as the vehicle for the liturgy of the Church. They were thus at odds with Boethius’ approach to music. The shift in Emphasis evident in Isidore’s Etymologies has already been mentioned; it is even more apparent in his De ecclesiasticis officiis (ed. Lawson 1989), which deals with music from a liturgical point of view. Nevertheless, even though there was a fundamental dichotomy between Boethian theory and the requirements of the post-Roman West, Boethius was to some extent assimilated by western Europe’s earliest post-Classical theorists in the Carolingian period, who applied him to western plainchant: he provided the vocabulary for music theory, while they provided the model for its use. The music that Boethius described, however, had nothing to do with church music. Until about the ninth century there was no real modal organization in western chant. It was the Carolingian thinker Aurelian of Reome who, in his Musica disciplina of c. 840-c. 850, first described a modal organization of western plainchant in writing (ed. Gushee 1975). Aurelian assumed that Boethius was relevant to plainchant and adopted the names of the ancient Greek tonoi for the new western modes. Others followed his example, including the tenth-century author of Alia musica (ed. Chailley 1968), who appropriated Boethius’ table of octave-species for each tonos to furnish names for his own modal octaves, in the process inverting Boethius’ layout.
Carolingian music treatises focus above all on the rudiments and classification of ecclesiastical music (“Gregorian chant’’) and thus have limited scope for philosophical material. Where this does occur, it is largely peripheral and draws mainly on sources such as Cassiodorus and Isidore. At the same time as scholars were writing such treatises, others were commenting upon Boethius, Macrobius, and Martianus Capella. Many of these commentaries and glosses - which are now beginning to be studied - deal with the cosmological aspects of the source texts.
Perhaps the most sophisticated integration of philosophical thought with practical music during the central Middle Ages is to be found in the music treatises written by a group of monks and clerks working in Salian Germany (1024-1125): the ‘‘south-German circle’’ of music theorists (McCarthy 2008). These scholars were among the foremost intellectuals of their age, making valuable contributions in disciplines such as theology, liturgy, history, chronology, astronomy, and geometry, as well as frequently playing leading roles in contemporary ecclesiastical politics. Abbot Bern of Reichenau (d. 1048) was the founding father of this circle: his teaching was modified by his pupil Herman of Reichenau (1013-1054) and absorbed by figures such as William of Hirsau (d. 1091), Aribo (fl. 1070-1078), Frutolf of Michelsberg (d. 1103), and Theoger of Metz (c. 1050-c. 1120).
For the south-German circle music was a reflexion of natural order. Its theory was practical, growing out of the emphasis placed upon proper regulation of the liturgy by the Gorze monastic reform movement. Frutolf of Michelsberg summed it up thus in his treatise entitled Breviarium de musica: ‘‘music is the science of singing well through long reflexion and constant practice’’ (ed. Vivell 1919). It is the science of commanding correctly all the elements affecting the performance, analysis, and composition of Gregorian chant, the primary vehicle of the opus Dei and the liturgy of the Latin West. This definition of music represents a subtle and important reworking of Boethius, for whom only the criticism of music was a worthwhile pursuit: the ideal musician was now he who practised flawlessly because he understood completely. Thus Theoger of Metz was described as ‘‘excellently skilled in all disciplines of the liberal arts, consummate in music and outstanding in its performance’’ (Trithemius, Annales Hirsaugienses, 1511-1514). The central importance of music to intellectual life required that it be a true reflexion of God’s divinely ordained universe. Thus, for the south-German circle, music’s cosmological and philosophical aspects merged with its more practical aspects.
Bern of Reichenau incorporated Neoplatonic thought into music theory in his treatise Prologus in tonarium (written between 1021 and 1036; ed. Rausch 1999). Bern emphasized the significance of the number four, which was vital to the cosmological exposition of Timaeus, and which validated the theory of the four modes having their final notes (D E F G) in the tetrachord of the finales (D E F G). He wrote that ‘‘from its [the tetrachord of the finales] four notes, the origin of all modes or tones can be seen to proceed,’’ just as the fabric of the Platonic universe proceeds from the four elements. This statement also hints at the important Platonic concept of unity. Bern used Macrobius (who had glossed Plato with the influential comment that unity was the fount and origin of all numbers) to argue that the tetrachord of the finales was also the fount and origin of the modes. His arguments, retaining their Neoplatonic terminology, were developed by later members of the south-German circle, notably William of Hirsau and Theoger of Metz. They took care to situate the Neoplatonic imagery in a Christian context, as they were doubtless aware of the potential dangers of ‘‘pagan literature’’ (a contemporary topos of some influence).
The response of the south-German circle to the Platonic inheritance also involved the conscious use of Platonic metaphors. The idea of ‘‘generation’’ was particularly important, with the theorists using verbs like generare and procreare to describe the natural origins of musical phenomena: for example, Herman of Reichenau declared that the two octaves of the monochord ‘‘are not said to be born twice, but that those already born, in the manner of the seven days of the week, are repeated or renewed’’ (Musica 1; ed. Ellinwood 1936). Elsewhere, Aribo criticized a faulty technical description of the monochord as ‘‘perverse’’ because it confused the natural order of the monochord ‘‘which never departs from her own nature’’ (drawn from Timaeus 50bc), while praising his own alternative description in avowedly Platonic terms (ed. Smits van Waesberghe 1951). The use of such natural imagery by these thinkers mirrors a wider contemporary trend toward metaphors of generation and growth. It also points to a growing expression of Platonic thought in a Christian context and the personification of natura. A number of contemporary authors employ the idea of an artificer behind creation: Bern of Reichenau describes an artifex natura (Prologus in tonarium 4) and Theoger of Metz a creatrix natura (Musica 8, ed. Lochner 1995), while the widely read German author Honorius Augustodunensis (c. 1080/1090-c. 1156) speaks of a similar artisan who made the universe ‘‘like a great zither upon which he placed strings to yield a variety of sounds’’ (Liber XII questionibus 2). The south-German theorists, therefore, sought to combine the practical and philosophical aspects of music because they believed practice to be a reflexion of nature. This characteristic distinguished them from other European thinkers. The important Italian music theorist Guido of Arezzo, for example, chose to ignore the philosophical aspects of music in his treatises (Micrologus, Regule rithmice, Prologus in antiphonarium, and Epistola ad Michahelem; ed. Smits van Waesberghe 1955; Pesce 1999), commenting that Boethius was useful to philosophers but not musicians. Conversely, eleventh - and early twelfth-century French scholars such as Bernard and Thierry of Chartres, William of Conches, and Bernard Silvestris were more exclusively cosmological in their discussions of the Neoplatonic aspects of music: this is true of William of Conches, for example, in his glosses on Timaeus (ed. Jeauneau 2006). The distinguished teacher Hugh of St Victor (c. 1096-c. 1141), in his Didascalison of c. 1130 (ed. Buttimer 1939) described music as a liberal art encompassing both practical and intellectual aspects. In doing this he was following the example of the German theorists who articulated most coherently an understanding of music that must have been widespread among the educated in the central Middle Ages. Yet Hugh’s pupil, Richard of St Victor, reverted to the exclusively impractical Boethian classification of music as a liberal art a few years later in his Liber exceptionum (ed. Chatillon 1958).
World History
