Scattered references are found to the use of instruments, usually trumpets, in the
liturgy, but these are always on special occasions and usually involve fanfares at the
elevation. The more common use of instruments in the church was in processions before
and after services. There is reason to believe that until the mid-16th century the organ
was the only instrument regularly accepted in the celebration of the liturgy.
The largest early secular repertory known is that of the troubadours and trouvères from
the 12th and 13th centuries. The rhythmic interpretation of this repertory, like that of
early chant, remains controversial, but it is generally accepted that they were solo songs,
sometimes sung to improvised accompaniment on instruments like fiddle, harp, or lute.
When accompanying solo songs, the instrumentalist, sometimes the same person as the
singer, would provide a prelude and postlude, add interludes between verses, and
sometimes play decorated versions of the melody as an accompaniment to the song to
enhance the performance.
French secular polyphony—motets and chansons—dates from the late 13th century.
Recent studies have presented evidence that in general this repertory was also the domain
of singers performing one to a part. In some of this repertory, each part has text—
sometimes the same poem and sometimes separate poems—but in a substantial part of
the repertory vocal performance would have required one or more lower voices to
vocalize without text while the poem was sung in the highest voice(s).
Instrumental performance of the secular repertory was also a possibility, either by an
ensemble made up solely of instruments, or by instruments in combination with voices,
either doubling the voices or substituting for them. Icono-graphic and documentary
evidence indicates that the instruments most frequently associated with courtly life were
lute, harp, and fiddle, but Guillaume de Machaut (d. 1377) states in his Voir dit that one
of his songs may be performed on organ, bagpipes, or other instruments. In two other
works, he lists dozens of instruments and implies that minstrels properly entertained on
all of them. It is not clear whether they were all equally suitable for polyphonic music,
but it does suggest that there were few distinctions about appropriate and inappropriate
instruments in courtly secular music.
Except for a small number of dance pieces (estampies), no known repertory was
written specifically for instrumental performance. Until the end of the 15th century, the
instrumental repertory associated with courtly life consisted of the vocal music,
improvised performance mostly of dance music, and, beginning in the early 15th century,
a combination of written and improvised performance of music for the basse danse, in
which one or two performers improvised while one instrumentalist played a composed
tenor line.
Timothy J.McGee
[See also: ALTA CAPELLA; DANCE; MOTET (13TH CENTURY); MUSICAL
INSTRUMENTS; RHYTHM]
Brown, Howard M. “Instruments and Voices in the Fifteenth-Century Chanson.” In Current
Thought in Musicology, ed. John W.Grubbs. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976, pp. 89–
137.
——, and Stanley Sadie, eds. Performance Practice: Music Before 1600. New York: Norton, 1989.
McGee, Timothy J. Medieval and Renaissance Music: A Performer’s Guide. Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 1985.
Page Christopher. The Owl and the Nightingale: Musical Life and Ideas in France 1100–1300.
London: Dent, 1989.
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