Below are some tracks recorded by Anonymous 4, a New York-based vocal ensemble which specializes in medieval choral music - though most recently they have taken to interpreting American folk spiritiuals. There's not real way, as Benjamin Bagby may have indicated to some of you, to know exactly what music might have been sung in Canterbury Cathedral in St. Anselm's day. In the case of the monastic music below, we do have some early written music, though just what the notations indicates is the subject of much debate. Still, at this point in history the famous cathedral we see on postcards of Canterbury had yet been built. Communication in the 11th century was very slow and dangerous, and so cultural styles spread at a trickle. Still, we know that England did have an active cultural life under the reign of Saxon kinds such as Alfred the Great and Edward the Confessor, and one which became vastly richer in 1066 when the French king Guillaume conquered England and deposed Edward. Yet, even though the Anglo-Saxons kings were officially defeated by the French, we have every reason to believe that the old cultural order did not just lay down and die but, as we now see happening in Iraq, continued to offer an active and multi-fronted resistance which lasted for many generations. Insurgency and the possibility of overcoming it is precisely what we read of in Sir Walter Scott's very famous novel Ivanhoe, a piece of early-19th-century mythology if ever there was one.


You will have noted from the dates I included with the texts for our next session, that the first great medieval theologian, St. Anselm of Canterbury, lived during this time period. Over the course of his life he was given a number of administrative assignments (this was the age of the great Gregorian Reforms) which carried him ever farther west, until finally he finished his life, which he began in the wine country of northern Italy, as the archbishop of Canterbury in England. Notice also, the Marie de France, one of the most famous women writers of the Middle Ages, also lived and worked at roughly this same time and place - though as we shall see, a lot can happen in a hundred years. Marie, if that author's personal claims are not also entirely fictional, would have been a France noble woman who travalled back and forth between the courts of France and England, in particular associating herself with the court of Henry II and Elenore of Aquitaine.


Music prior to the pieces below consisted exclusively of plain chant (hear first track, Urbs Jerusalem), the kind of Gregorian chant most people associate with medieval monks. Sometime around the year 1000 harmony began to find its way into the music of the Church. By the 12th century music had taken on a whole new and exotic countenance, of which we heard a remarkable example in class today by Perotinus Magnus. But the pieces below remain relatively austere and still value the words far more then the melodies.

"Urbs Jerusalem"


"Judicii Signum"
"Dominus In Sina"
"Lectio: Revelation 21:1-5"
"Regnantum Septiterna"
Finally, you might be interested to have a look at the monastic architecture, which would have provided a context for such music. As monks and other Christians increasingly made their way into England, in addition to other cultural forms, they brought their architectural style which them. The building pictured below offers an example of the Romanesque (as opposed to the later Gothic) style, so named because the barrell vaultings generally employed in this style reminded modern scholars of the basilica plan used in official Roman building, such as civic halls and public baths.


Copford Abbey, nave exterior


Copford Abbey, apse exterior


Petersford Abbey, interior typanum


Romsey Abbey, nave


Romsey Abbey, sculptural detail