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The University High School Band
The History and Theory of Music

Music in Medieval England

Manuscript of Sumer is icumen in

Before the Norman Conquest, people in Britain spoke a language closely related to German called Old English. It is not intelligible to a modern English speaker, as you can see from these opening lines of the epic poem Beowulf:

Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeod-cyninga þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

After William the Conqueror invaded from France, Old English was infused with a great deal of French and Latin vocabulary, and drifted apart from German, becoming Middle English. While still considered a separate language, Middle English is easier to understand. Here is the opening stanza of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour...

This is the English that would have been heard throughout the Hundred Years' War, and it has been preserved in a number of musical compositions as well. As the Norman rulers spoke French and Latin, these songs would have been sung by the English peasant class. These songs are sung as "rounds," meaning singers sing the same melody, beginning at different times to layer the melody over itself, creating a polyphonic texture.

Compositions

Selections from Beowulf (Old English)

Sumer is icumen in (Middle English)

Miri it is while sumer ilast (Middle English)