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Medieval Music: Instruments, Styles, and Performers
A plain overview of medieval music: church chant and early polyphony, secular song and dance tunes, the main instruments, and who played and sang them.
Life and Learning
Music and Entertainment
Songs, dance, jesters and court amusements.
Medieval Jesters: Entertainment and Social Commentary
How jesters entertained at feasts, fairs and courts, what they did in performance, and why their freedom to mock the powerful was limited and risky.
Medieval Music and Art: A Study of its Evolution
How musicians and instruments appear in medieval manuscripts, carvings and paintings, what those images reveal, and why they need careful reading.
Medieval Music and Dance
Dance in the Middle Ages at courts, festivals and villages: how circle dances, line dances and instrumental tunes worked together, and what we really know.
Medieval Music and Dance: A Look at Courtly Entertainment
Music and dance at medieval courts: the carole and later stately dances, minstrels hired for feasts, and how lavish entertainment advertised a lord's status.
Medieval Music and Dance: A Look at the Courtly Entertainment
The love songs of troubadours and trouveres: their themes of longing and service, how they were performed, and how they fit evenings of court entertainment.
Medieval Music and Dance: A Study of its Evolution
How medieval music changed from plainchant to early polyphony and written notation, and why so little dance survives from the same centuries.
Medieval Music and Dance: A Study of the Art of Performance
How medieval minstrels, waits and traveling players worked: where they performed, who paid them, what they offered, and how their status varied.
Medieval Music and Dance: The Influence of Islam
A cautious look at how Islamic music may have shaped European instruments and song through Spain and Sicily, and where scholars still disagree.
Medieval Music: A Study of the Art of Music-Making
How medieval singers and players learned their craft: song schools, memory, early notation, minstrel training and how composers actually shaped new pieces.
Medieval Sport: A Study of the Art of Competition
A plain overview of medieval sports: archery, wrestling, village ball games, tournaments and board games, who played them, and what the sources can and cannot tell us.
The History of the Medieval Falconry
How hawking became a noble pastime in medieval Europe: the birds used, how they were trained, what they said about rank, and how falconry fit into hunting culture.
The History of the Medieval Jester
What is actually known about medieval fools and jesters: natural and professional fools, the cap and bells, the Feast of Fools, and which popular stories are legend.
The History of the Medieval Pageant
How processions, royal entries and mystery plays on wagons worked in medieval towns: who paid, who performed, and what the surviving records can and cannot show.
Troubadours and Trouveres
Who the troubadours of southern France were, what they wrote, how their songs worked, how the northern trouveres followed them, and what survives of their music.
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Learning and Science Schools, universities, stars and maps. Food and Drink What people ate and drank, from peasant pottage to noble feasts. Dress, Festivals and Folklore Clothing, holy days, customs and legends. Literature and Legends Poems, sagas and tales told across the Middle Ages. Science and Technology Alchemy, astronomy, ships and the tools that changed work. Women in Medieval Society Work, law, family and religious life for medieval women. Poets and Authors Writers of the medieval world and those who shaped how it is remembered. Medieval Lives Typical lives of a peasant, a knight and a monk. Courtly Love and Ideals Love, chastity and etiquette in noble circles. Elements, Humors and Senses Medieval theories of matter, the body and perception. Medieval Worldview How medieval people thought about time, seasons, life stages and fate. Universities, Oxford and Cambridge How universities arose and how Oxford and Cambridge took shape. Everyday Life Details Homes, hygiene, childhood, marriage and death in ordinary medieval lives.