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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture The architecture of the Church of San Marco in Venice has prompted numerous (possibly more than any other single church buiding) writings on how the architecture was adapted to enable instrumental performance and vice versa during the later middle ages. Have a look through RILM at University for books and articles relating to this. Michael Praetorius might have something to say about this aspect of instruments in his Syntagma Musica (c.1600 if memory serves, so it's a little late for you) - though I have not actually ever read the whole thing (shame on me!). If you argue that instruments were not much used in churches prior to the later sixteenth century, you instanly render much of the contemporary church iconography irrelevant. Most angels are depicted with trumptes, viols, harps and all manner of instruments. Instruments were clearly viewed as a part of the heavenly music-making. Various well-kept church accounts books from the middle ages testify to the hiring of musicians for special events, although apparrently this was less common in some areas of Europe than others. In the earlier middle ages, the dividing line between "church" and "not church" was more blurred than later. The amorphous boundary between liturgy and liturgical drama demonstrates this. As to where they stood? Apart from San Marco, I have read no studies offering real answers. In San Marco (as well as elsewhere in Venice) large purpose-built temporary staging was often erected for musicians to play from, which makes the question a bit harder. Rob Howe. PS. Have you posted this to the medieval music list at mailbase.ac.uk? >From: A S <[log in to unmask]> >Reply-To: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture > <[log in to unmask]> >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: [M-R] medieval musicians in church >Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 07:12:28 -0500 > >medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture > > >These are the only articles I've found (so far) that say much about the >'medieval musicians in churches' question, and both, unsurprisingly, say >they generally weren't allowed-- that is, they weren't supposed to be >there, although judging by protests they were. Liturgical dancing, too! Any >more out tthere? > >Anna Sander > >Unviersity of Wales Aberystwyth > >================= > >McKinnon, J.W. ‘Representations of the Mass in Medieval and Renaissance >Art.’ Journal of the American Musicological Society 31, 1978. pp. 21-52. > >Pestell, R. ‘Medieval art and the performance of medieval music.’ Early >Music 15:1 (Feb 1987), pp. 56-68. > > > >--------------------------------- >Post your free ad now! Yahoo! Canada Personals > >********************************************************************** >To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME >to: [log in to unmask] >To send a message to the list, address it to: >[log in to unmask] >To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion >to: [log in to unmask] >In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: >[log in to unmask] >For further information, visit our web site: >http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html _________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html