With Voice and Pen: Coming to Know Medieval Song and How it Was Made
Leo Treitler
Abstract
This book contains seventeen essays, in the form of chapters, which trace the creation and spread of song (cantus), sacred and secular, through oral tradition and writing in the European Middle Ages. The book examines songs in particular — their design, their qualities and character, their expressive meanings, and their adaptation to their communal and ritual roles — and explores the chances for, and the obstacles to, our understanding of traditions that were alive a thousand years ago. Ranging from c.900 (when the written transmission of medieval songs began) to 1200, the book shows how the e ... More
This book contains seventeen essays, in the form of chapters, which trace the creation and spread of song (cantus), sacred and secular, through oral tradition and writing in the European Middle Ages. The book examines songs in particular — their design, their qualities and character, their expressive meanings, and their adaptation to their communal and ritual roles — and explores the chances for, and the obstacles to, our understanding of traditions that were alive a thousand years ago. Ranging from c.900 (when the written transmission of medieval songs began) to 1200, the book shows how the earlier, purely oral traditions can be examined only through the lens of what has been captured in writing, and focuses on the invention and uses of writing systems for representing these oral traditions. Each of the seminally influential essays presented as the book's chapters has been revised to take account of recent developments, and is prefaced with a new introduction to highlight the historical issues.
Keywords:
song,
cantus,
sacred,
secular,
oral tradition,
communal roles,
ritual roles
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2007 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199214761 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2008 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199214761.001.0001 |
