University of Virginia Library

III. THE MEDIEVAL VIEW

The contempt for practice and the one-sided exalta-
tion of theory flow from Boethius' treatise into the
medieval philosophy of music and the arts. It is
formalized in consigning the work of the practical
musician, as of any other practicing artist, to the artes
mechanicae rather than to the artes liberales. The
mechanical arts, definable as those activities that need
the human hand for their execution, were considered
the province of the lower classes; the liberal arts,
definable as those that need chiefly the human mind
for their exercise, were the province of the free man.
Farming, hunting, navigation, medicine were thrown
together with painting and sculpture as mechanical
arts, much to the distress of the artists. The distinction
between mechanical and liberal arts goes back to
classical antiquity, but the sharpness with which
Boethius and, following him, most medieval writers on
music downgrade the performing musician seems to
express more a medieval than an ancient view. It is
well conveyed in the famous jingle attributed to Guido
of Arezzo (ca. 992-1050) that was quoted at least until
late into the sixteenth century:

(“There is a vast difference between musicians and
singers. The latter merely perform, whereas the former
understand what makes music. For he who performs
what he does not understand is a mere brute.”)

Boethius seems to have been the first to use the term
quadrivium, joining music with the mathematical arts
of arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. Without these
four disciplines the philosopher cannot find the truth.
The mathematical arts or sciences were considered the
most noble because they contained “the greater cer-
tainties of the intellect”; the language arts of the
trivium—grammar, dialectics, and rhetoric—were held
to be of a lower order due to the implied reference
to the senses and human emotions, from which spring
deception and uncertainty.

Music, as taught at medieval universities, was
accepted as a part of the quadrivium and constituted
the theoretical consideration of an art whose every
element—rhythm, melody, harmony—was reducible to
mathematical proportions. The speculative character
of the medieval concept of music is further reflected
in Boethius' division of music into musica mundana,
musica humana, and musica instrumentalis—follow-
ing ancient models—music of the spheres (macrocosm),
the harmonious conjunction of body and soul (micro-
cosm), and music properly speaking, the art of sound pro-
duced on instruments, which includes the human voice,
called instrumentum naturale (Johannes Affligemensis
[Johannes Cotto], in his De musica cum tonario [ca.

1120]; Waesberghe [1950], p. 57). The distinction sur-
vived at least into the Renaissance. Pietro Aron
differentiates between stormento naturale, the voice,
and stormento artificiale, the instrument properly
speaking (Aron, Libro II, Opp. XI).

Although medieval writers on music held with
surprising tenacity to Boethius' and Guido's views, they
could not suppress occasional marvel at the natural
talent of untrained musicians. Aribo Scholasticus (ca.
1070), one of the most original and independent medi-
eval thinkers on music, proves Man's inborn gift for
music by pointing to jongleurs who, though devoid of
all knowledge in the art of music, joyfully sing popular
songs, free of error, observing accurately the position
of tones and semitones, and ending correctly on the
appropriate final tones. While appearing to follow
Guido's definition, Aribo expands it significantly, ex-
pecting of the professional musician not only that he
master the whole science of modes and intervals, but
also that he know how to judge what is right, how
to amend what is wrong, and how to compose perfect
melodies himself (Waesberghe [1951], p. 46). Thus
Aribo includes in his definition the composer, excluded
in Boethius' definition of musicus. Moreover, in his
scheme of things he creates a place even for the
untutored musical talent by distinguishing between the
natural and the professional musician (the chapter
referred to is entitled De naturali musico et artificiali).
The terminology is related to the distinction between
musica artificialis et naturalis introduced by Regino
of Prüm (d. 950); but musica naturalis was for the latter
a vast concept encompassing the harmony of the
spheres, the human voice, and the voices of animals,
whereas musica artificialis was confined to the music
thought out by human art and ingenuity and played
on instruments (Pietzsch [1929], pp. 63-66). Aribo adds
the new element of fresh and unprejudiced observation
of musical performance, correct according to the
canons of the art, although executed by illiterate
jongleurs.

Boethius called the composer poëta, from the Greek
ποιητής, originally meaning maker, producer, contriver,
and later confined to the author of a poem. The term
poeta for composer, revealing the unity of poem and
melody, of word and tone in the medieval view, sur-
vived into the Renaissance. But as early as the twelfth
century we find the term compositor used by Johannes
Affligemensis in the combination cantuum compositor
(Waesberghe [1950], p. 119). The esteem of the com-
poser increased in medieval writings to the degree that
the compositional process was conceived to be rational
rather than, as Boethius thought, prompted by natural
instinct. Adherence to rules was taken to distinguish
a good composition from a poor one, a good composer
from a bad one. Odo of Cluny, tenth-century abbot,
in his dialogue on music, has the master say: “A rule,
certainly, is a general mandate of any art; thus things
which are singular do not obey the rules of art” (Strunk,
p. 115). A clearer subordination of individuality in art
to rules is hard to find. “Any art,” says Johannes of
Garlandia, “is a collection of many rules. The term
art derives from the word arto, artas, which is the same
as restringo, restringis, to restrict, because it limits us
and constrains us lest we do otherwise than it teaches
us” (Lowinsky [1964], p. 477).

Garlandia, the thirteenth-century theorist, speaks for
a polyphonic art, in which the plain chant serves as
cantus firmus, that is, as the basis over which the other
voice or voices sing their counterpoints. The thirteenth
century saw the emergence of polyphonic music that
emancipated itself from dependence on the Gregorian
chant. The conductus, set to freshly written texts of
a spiritual, moral, or political nature, is the first form
of polyphony in which all parts are written by the
composer himself without the aid of a cantus firmus.
At about 1260 Franco of Cologne described the com-
position of a conductus as follows: “He who wishes
to write a conduct ought first to invent as beautiful
a melody as he can, then... use it as a tenor is used
in writing discant” (Strunk, p. 155). Franco, in postu-
lating invention first, then contrapuntal elaboration,
doubtless follows Cicero's venerable division between
invention, disposition, and elocution. His precepts are
those of a craftsman, who, absorbed in producing a
beautiful piece of work, is utterly unconcerned about
the inner processes that lead to the work of art.

In a remarkable passage, Johannes Grocheo (ca.
1300) distinguishes between the composing of
polyphony based on a cantus firmus and freely con-
ceived polyphony, specifically between organum and
motet on the one hand and the conductus on the other.
The process of composing over a cantus firmus he calls
ordinare; for the projection of free polyphony he re-
serves the term componere:

(Lowinsky [1964], p. 490).

Yet, even this fine and rare distinction does not amount
to anything more than a recognition of two different
procedures by one and the same craftsman. It does not
mean recognition of two types of musician, or two
types of creativity. But it does stress, for the first time
in the theory of polyphonic music, the concept of the
“new”—as yet without showing any overt preference
for it.