Early Middle Ages

c.  500 BCE - 400 CE:   Ancient History

c.   500 BCE - 300 BCE   -  Ancient Greek artistic and philosophical heyday. 

c.   200 BCE - 200 CE      -  Ancient Rome heyday.

      Before  300 CE  -   Christian monks are writing  plainchant:  Marian antiphons (hymns to Mary)

                                      Psalm settings,  and music for parts of the Catholic Church service - 

                                      the Mass - the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo,  Sanctus, Agnus Dei - that will 

                                      eventually take shape as the Mass ordinary. 

 

      313   -  Edict of Milan - Constantine I ("The Great") legalizes Christianity.  Plainchant begins to 
                  thrive.      

      330   -  Constantine I reconstitutes Byzantium (Constantinople) as the capital of the Eastern 
                  Roman Empire.     

      376   -  Goths, fleeing the Huns, flood into the Western Roman Empire.   The Western Roman 

                   Empire begins to collapse.

 c.   400  -   Augustine of Hippo writes about early Christian music (Confessions, de Musica)

       476  -   The Germanic barbarian king Odoacer deposed the last emperor of the Western Roman 
                   Empire in Italy, Romulus Augustulus.


 c.   500 - 1000:     Early Middle Ages ("Medieval" period)

      Music in the Medieval era and through much of the Renaissance was very different than it has 

      been since the Baroque era:

      There were only eight notes to an octave, not the 13 we have today.  Instead of modern scales, 
      chords, and keys, music was written in modes.  

                                       [video - what is melismatic singing? - 1:00]


c.  700              -    Composing in harmony begins using the perfect 4ths and 5ths.  

                                        [Play Howard Goodall video - 12 minutes]

                            Notes on video about the development of musical harmony and notation

      Early medieval melismatic psalmody ....

             [play Justus Ut Palma melismatic chant - 2:25]

Psalm 92:12  

"My eyes see the downfall of my enemies; when evildoers attack me, my ears are open.
The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

Planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God.…"

c.   780 -  820   -  The establishment of the Carolingian Empire by Charles I (Charlemagne). 

  The Carolingian Renaissance. The first musical notation, neumes, is created

                               to spread Christian music throughout the Carolingian Empire.