Middle Ages Music Known as Plainchant aka Gregorian Chant
Pope Gregory I is famous for, in the 6th century AD, standardizing the form of monastic choral music known as chant. This form, known as plainchant or alternatively as Gregorian chant, essentially served as the standard vocal music for church services (mainly Masses or for the Divine Office) held throughout the Church (mainly Europe) for the whole of the Middle Ages. Plainchant consisted of Scriptural verses chanted by the members of the choir, usually monastics. Plainchant was a single line of music, no overlapping lines as in polyphonic music. It was monophonic but could consist of lines of great range and variation. From simple melodies with a single pitch to highly elaborate melodies consisting of long, flowing lines plainchant was anything but plain and boring. In fact, it was considered one of the greatest expressions of human art and helped to nurture and flower the Christian faith for centuries. Its purity of sound and the unison manner in which the choirs sang every single note produced a most compelling experience for those listening to the marvelous wall of sound. As Wilson notes, Gregorian chant was the height of medieval music: sacred rather than secular, it gave the Church a powerful way to influence and inspire souls seeking the way to Heaven in a very uncertain time in Europe.

The Roman Empire had essentially crumbled to pieces by the 5th century. Charlemagne conquered the barbarian tribes threatening the stability of what was becoming Christendom by the end of the 8th century, and on Christmas Day in 800 AD he was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope for having saved the See of Peter from the barbarian threat (Laux). By introducing a political stability that had been missing in Europe, Charlemagne was also able to reinforce the foundation that Gregory had laid for the rise of sacred music during the medieval era.

Plainchant consisted of the chanting of verses in Latin. Singing hymns had been part of the Jewish tradition and it was certainly noted as being part of the Roman rite of Christian services by the 3rd century when Hippolytus described its usage upon certain feast days in the Church (Hiley).

St. Anthony, a Christian monk from Egypt, introduced the recitation or singing of the psalms in a continuous manner, with his monks going through all 150 Psalms every week throughout the course of the year. Antiphons were introduced around the same time by St. Ambrose towards the end of the 4th century AD. The Schola Cantorum was founded in Rome the following century to help develop the musical talents of the Church (Grout).

Sts. Augustine, Benedict and Gregory all used some form of plainchant in their approaches to guiding religious services. Benedict was responsible for developing the rule of the Divine Office, in which plainchant figured predominantly. Pope Gregory was responsible for codifying the liturgy and the use of plainchant in the Mass. He took over the Schola Cantorum and...…God and this is why it caught on so well in the Middle Ages: it was a time when faith was needed, when faith was wanted, and when faith was supported and nourished by leaders in the Church (Laux).

However, as the Middle Ages came to an end and great wealth following the Crusades began to flow into Europe, materialism and a thirst for riches started to push the faith to the margins. Sacred plainchant was supplanted by more and more secular music and the great musical artists of the later centuries, from Mozart to Beethoven to Brahms to Wagner, all produced mainly secular pieces. The sacredness of music that existed in the Middle Ages was lost to a new, emerging world of modernism in which the focus of men’s affairs was on themselves rather than on God. The purity of expression and simplicity of soul and mind that existed in plainchant, in Gregorian chant, in the hymns of Hildegaard von Bingen, was displaced.

Still, plainchant is not forgotten and the resurgence of the Latin Mass in the Church in recent years has also brought back a resurgence of the Latin chant that accompanied the celebration of the Mass in the Old World. Today one can enter into a Catholic Church where the Tridentine rite is celebrated and hear, if a choir is singing, the old plainchant of centuries ago—alive and well and uplifting one’s heart and mind to the heavens.









Works Cited

Grout, Donald. A History of…