The term medieval music encompasses European music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends in approximately the middle of the fifteenth century. Establishing the end of the medieval era and the beginning of the Renaissance is difficult; the usage in this article is the one usually adopted by musicologists.
The only medieval music which can be studied is that which was written, and survived. Since...
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The term medieval music encompasses European music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends in approximately the middle of the fifteenth century. Establishing the end of the medieval era and the beginning of the Renaissance is difficult; the usage in this article is the one usually adopted by musicologists.
The only medieval music which can be studied is that which was written, and survived. Since creating musical manuscripts was very expensive, due to the expense of parchment, and the huge amount of time necessary for a scribe to copy it all down, only wealthy institutions were able to create manuscripts which have survived to the present time. These institutions generally included the church and church institutions, such as monasteries; some secular music, as well as sacred music, was also preserved by these institutions. These surviving manuscripts do not reflect much of the popular music of the time. At the start of the era, the...
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