5

Secular Song

Secular song undoubtedly played an imponant role in_med_ieval s~ciety,

but relatively little of it has been presen1ed. Extant h_1sto~1cal evidence
suggests secular song and poetic creativity flourished mainly in France and
Germany during the Middle Ages.

MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

I
Secular song was stylistically more diversified than Gregorian chant, and
it had several distinguishing traits. ( 1) Like chant, it was notated monophon-
ically. Although pictorial evidence suggests that secular songs may have
been performed with some kind of improvised instrumental accompaniment,
the manuscripts contain only single-line notation. (2) Unlike chant, it was
metrical and mostly in triple meter. (3) It had stronger and more regular
rhythms and employed recurrent short rhythmic patterns. (4) It ,had clear
phrase and sectional structures with repeated sections and refrains. (5)
Secular song generally employed the traditional church modes, but it also
used extensively the major (Ionian) and minor (Aeolian) modes. (6) It was
generally syllabic. (7) It was mostly in vernacular languages, unlike the
Latin of Gregorian chant. (8) Secular songs dealt with a wider range of
subjects than plainsong.
Performers
Minstrels of a low social order were calledjongleurs in France, Gauk/er
in Germany, ~n_d gleemen in England. They roamed Europe in the Middl_e
Ages, entertammg the feudal courts with juggling, card tricks, trained ant·
mals, and songs composed by others. Although neither poets nor composers,
24
 Srcular Son8 :ZS

they were important musically because they kept alive and disseminated the
large body 'o f secular song literature.

FRENCH SECULAR' SONG

The largest body of medieval secular song came from two ~lasses of
French poet-composers: troubadours and trouveres, both terms meaning
"finders." They were educated and cultured noblemen, mostly residents in
the feudal courts.

Poetic Types Troubadour and trouv~re poetry is classified according to the following
subject categories: (1) canso, a love poem; (2) sin,entes, a satirical poem;
(3) planh, a plaint or lament on the death of an eminent person; (4)
pastourelle, a song, often in dialogue form, between a knight and shepherd-
ess; (5) chanson de toile, a spinning song; (6) enueg, a s~tirical poem; (7)
aube, the song of a friend watching over lovers ·unti1 dawn; (8) ten.so or
jeu-parti, a poem in dialogue; and (9) chanson de geste, an epic chronicle,
the most famous of which is the eleventh-century Chanson de Roland.

Genres and The lines of distinction among the numerous song forms are less clearly
Forms defined than those among the poetic types, and there is considerable diversity
of structure within each type. Recurrent sections of text and melody, called
refrains, were common to several forms. One of these, which carried over
into later polyphonic music, was the virelai, constructed according to this
formula:
phrase 1 2 3 4 5
text a b c d a
melody A b b a A
(Capital letters indicate the refrain.)
Another popular form was the rondeau, with the following sectional
plan:
phrase - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
text a b c a d e a b
melody A B a A a b A B
The ballade employed several different structures but was similar to the
virelai and rondeau in the use of refrains .

Troubadours The troubadours flourished in Provence in southern France from the end
of the eleventh to the end of the thirteenth centuries. Approximately 2,600 -
26 History uf Wrst~m Music

d . h e been preserved · Some important trou-

poems and some 260 melo ies av ca 'll0O-ca. 1150), Bemart de Venta-
badours were Marcabru of G~scony (B~melh (ca. 1140-ca. 1200), Guiraut
dom (ca. 1130-{':a. 1200), Guaut de d Born (ca 1145-ca. 1215).
Riquier (ca. 1230-<:a. 13 00) ' and Bertran e ·

. h d . northern FranCe Slightly later than the trou-

Trouveres The trouveres flour1s e m d 420 of them have been
. 2 130 are extant, an 1 ,
badours. Of therr po_ems, ' . . t trouveres were Conon de Bethune
preserved with melodies. Some IIDpO~~ 1180-1200), King Thibaut IV of
(ca. 1160-1220), Blondel de Neslel H. II (ca 1245-ca 1288 or ca. 1306),
Navarre (1201-1253), and Adam de ah a :ote .a mediev~l play with music
the last and most famous trouvere, w o w
entitled Jeu de Robin et de Marion .

GERMAN SECULAR SONG

French troubadour and trouvere songs were the models for German
poet-<:omposers, minnesingers and meistersingers, from the twelfth to the
sixteenth centuries.

Minnesingers Toe minnesingers ("love singers"), who flourished from the twelfth to
the fourteenth centuries, produced a literature of German poetry and song
(Minnelied) dealing with a variety of subjects, including those of a quasi-re-
ligious nature. Minnelieder were usually in duple meter. The most typical
form was a structure in three melodic sections, AAB (called bar form), in
which a melodic phrase (Stollen) was sung, then repeated with a different
line of text, and this was followed by a different melodic phrase (Abgesang).
The principal minnesingers were Walther von der Vogelweide (ca. 117(}-ca.
1230), Neid.hart von Reuental (ca. 1180-ca. 1237), Heinrich von Meissen
(nicknamed "Frauenlob"; ca. 1250-1318), Wizlav von Rligen (ca. 1265-
1325), and Heinrich von Morungen (d. 1222).

Meistersingers The successors to the minnesingers were the meistersingers (master

singers), who flourished in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and who were
members of middle-class guilds rather than the aristocracy. Their music,
called Meistergesang, was created according to strict rules. Bar form was
the standard structure. Among the principal meistersing~rs were Konrad
Nachtigall (ca. 1410-ca. 1484), Adam Puschmann (1532-1600), and Hans
Sachs (1494-1576), the most famous of all, who was immortalized in
Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Niirnberg (1862-1867).
 Stt:ufar Soni 27

OTHER COUNTRIES

The development of secular song was negligible outside France and

Germany. In England, the Anglo-Saxon classes of scops (resident minstrels)
and gleemen (traveling minstrels) produced a limited song literature, little of
which has been preserved. In Italy the nonliturgical religious lauda, a song
of praise to the Virgin, was composed in the Italian ballata fonn, which ·
corresponds to the French virelai (AbbaA). In Spain a similar form, the
cantiga, also extolled the Virgin and employed the same sectional structure,
which in Spain was called villancico.

LATIN SECULAR SONGS

A sizable literature of Latin so~gs, called conductus, was created from

the _ten~ to the early thirteenth centurie.s by vagrant students and minor
clerics called goliards. Conductus dealt with a variety of subjects: love,
drinking; political satire, ribald the~es, and humorous paraphrases of
Gregorian chant. A famous conductus is The Song of the Sibyl from the early
Middle Ages.

Scores and Troubadour song: NAWM 7

Recordings Trouvere song: · NAWM 9; NSI 4
Minnelied: NAWM 10
I

Meistergesang (by Hans Sachs): NAWM 11

. .!/, '
Laucla: HAM 21
Cantiga: HAM 22
English song: HAM 23 ,,