Daily Medieval

Henry V (16 September 1386 - 31 August 1422) was King of England from 1413 until his death. For a time, in his youth, he was at Queens Colle...

William IX, Duke of Aquitaine and Gascony (1071 - 1127), also Count of Poitiers, had a shaky start in life. He was the son of Duke William V...

Troubadours originally referred to their songs as vers , but over time developed a set of several different specific types of composition. T...

The word " troubadour " was masculine, and the feminine form was "trobairitz" (both singular and plural). The term was r...

In the years 1100 - 1350, a type of musical performer arose called a troubadour. They did not call themselves troubadours; that term was fir...

There were two  "Johns of Garland" whose careers get conflated in the 13th century. One was the philologist and grammarian, discus...

Edward Caernarvon (princes were named for the location of their birth) was born 25 April 1284 to Edward I and Eleanor, Countess of Ponthieu....

William I, Duke of Aquitaine, founded Cluny Abbey in 910. Built in the Romanesque style, it had a basilica that was the largest in the world...

Abu Yūsuf Yaʻqūb ibn ʼIsḥāq aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ al-Kindī (801-873CE) is called the Father of Arab philosophy. Born in Kufa and educated in Baghdad, he...

Somehow, in 770 posts on this blog, I never talked about Eustache Deschamps before. He was an extremely prolific poet who lived from 1346 un...

The 14th century French poet Eustache Deschamps said “at royal courts everyone wants to play the trumpet, gittern, and rebebe.” You know wha...

The Peasants Revolt of 1381 was an uprising against...let's say "government overreach." It was not a simple protest, however. ...

Of the countless people who lived in the Middle Ages and accomplished things—writing, building, etc.—a very few are remembered by name. One ...

When priests and monks prayed the Canonical Hours, praising God through hymns was considered an important part of the experience. We are for...

[Mindful of the tragedy at Notre Dame of Paris on 15 April, 2015, I re-present this post from 2012.] In the post on the  Las Huelgas Code...

From a feast at the University of Rochester Most readers of this blog will be familiar with the Boar's Head Carol. The version we...

Much of the medieval attitude about music and its forms came from Boethius (c.480-524 CE). In his de institution music [Latin: "On th...

Treatise on Musical Intervals, by Jean de Muris Jean de Muris was mentioned in the post on Ars Nova as the author of Ars novæ musicæ [...

from Italian manuscript J. IV.115, an example of Ars Nova notation Beginning in the early 1300s there was a change in musical style, an...

Fauvel holds forth.   A 14th century manuscript is an amazing example of a "multi-media" piece of fiction. The story? It...