Music and Musicians at the Collegiate Church of St Omer
Crucible of Song, 1350–1550

Offers unparalleled insight into the function of music in worship, ritual and society in late medieval Europe.

Andrew Kirkman (Author)

9781108839723, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 September 2020

320 pages, 16 b/w illus. 1 map
25 x 17.6 x 3 cm, 0.74 kg

Music played an exceptionally important role in the late Middle Ages - articulating people's social, psychological and eschatological needs. The process began with the training of choirboys whose skill was key to institutional identity. That skill was closely cultivated and directly sought by kings and emperors, who intervened directly in recruitment of choirboys and older singers in order to build and articulate their self-image and perceived status. Using the documentation of an exceptionally well preserved archive, this book focuses on music's functioning in an important church in late Medieval Northern France. It explores a period when musicians from this region set the agenda across Europe, developing what is still some of the most sophisticated music in the Western musical tradition. The book allows a close focus not on the great achievements of those who cultivated this music, but on the personal motivations that shaped their life and work.

Dedication
Acknowledgements
List of plates
Note on editorial policy, currency and dates
Prologue: Saint-omer and the growth of urban power
1. The maîtrise
2. Identities and career patterns
3. Masters and master singers
4. The organs
5. The bells
6. Loose canons? Music and the craft of ecclesiastical power
Epilogue. A cloistered art: connoisseurship and private music-making
Appendix. Documents pertaining to the suppression of benefices for the upkeep of the master and choirboys
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Choral music [AVGC8], Medieval & Renaissance music [c 1000 to c 1600 AVGC2]