Heroic Dreams - All Things Medieval

Medieval Music is a bit misunderstood. Often times people think of classical music as Medieval music - which isn’t true. Classical Music has its roots in the Renaissance and for the most part our tradition of classical music is no more than 300 years old.

Medieval music very much comes from the real medieval period which started around when rome fell (shortly before 500 AD) and around 1400 when the Renaissance began. This beginning of the Renaissance period marks the ending of the Medieval Period and so it does with the music too.

And regrettably we don’t have a real lot of musical materials from the Medieval period because writing, copying, and creating manuscripts was extraordinarily expensive and time consuming. The church is the only solid source of the materials that we have and of course the music is all religous in its intent.

What we do know of the music of the period was that there were two major types of music: the music of the commoner (secular) or what we might consider minstrel music and the music of the church.

The secular music was often in the form of poems sung to the accompaniment of an instrument such as the flute, pan flute or lute. And the music of the church was often in the form of a prayer, chant, or meditation and often just solo or multiple voices. The most popular of these musical forms is probably the Gregorian Chant which is still observed and used in monasteries to this day. It has even found a measure of popular acclaim and Chant cd’s sell quite well.

If you want to know a bit more about Medieval Music or want to try listening to some cd’s I have put together some information about it on my medieval website. It includes music to play at a medieval feast and a cd by the brilliant Hildegard von Bingen who was a genius that was hundreds of years ahead of her time.

Medieval Music is hundreds of years old but there is something about it that still strikes a chord.

Medieval Music on the Medieval website

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The Siege of Chateau-Gaillard in 1204…

Richard the Lion Hearted’s crowning masterpiece is often thought to be the castle at Chateau-Gaillard. It was a magnificent castle built in a short period of time between 1196 and 1198 and it is the prototypical castle. When we think castles and medieval things this castle, with its round towers and three concentric walls of defense exactly define what we think.

It also defines the romantic thoughts of castle in the times of the knights of the round table and Robin Hood. Richard saw it’s completion but died shortly afterward and never saw it fall. It was only a few short years (1203-1204) later that Philip, the King of France successfully took it.

It was referred to as the cheeky castle because, being built on the Seine river, on an overlook of France it was considered to be an insulting gesture to the French.

The castle had three major walls of defense and in the period of siege Philip of France methodically broke through each of these defense. In 1203 he camped his soldiers outside the castle and built ditches for cover. He then dug a mine under the first wall of defense which brought it down. The second line of defense posed a difficult problem but a flaw in the design of the castle caused its fall. There was an unguarded toilet chute that lead into a chapel inside this second line of defense. French troops entered the chute and tool control of the inner bailey.

The third line of defense, or innermost wall, was surrounded by a moat that was crossed by a natural rock bridge. The French used the rock bridge as cover to work and mine a tunnel under the wall and the final defense was broken.

The castle, with its remaining 20 knights and 120 men-at-arms surrendered to King Philip on March 8, 1204. The whole siege lasted approximately 8 months.

The whole siege encompassed many techniques that we are familiar with today and the castle, being situated on a river was assaulted both by land and by water. An interesting tactic the French used was that they built siege towers right on top of warships and then sailed these up against the castle to make assaults.

The Siege of Chateau Gaillard is one of the most famous sieges in history. It had everything that we think of when we think middle ages combat and castle sieges. Although the castle isn’t a functioning castle anymore much of it still remains and you can actually take tours of the site.

If you are interested in learning more about combat in the middle ages this siege and this castle would be a great place to start your research.

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Paraskavedekatriaphobia is the fear of friday the 13th!

And today, being friday the 13th I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the root of where this peculiar superstition came from. It, like so much of what we know, do, think, and have, is rooted in medieval times. It is quite amazing how the Middle ages were such a strong formative time for the culture we have today. The crusades, Dark ages, renaissance, philosophy, architecture, art, and so much more come to us from the Middle ages.

The real, and exact origin of friday the 13th may never be known but there are some leading theories that make a lot of sense.

Middle Ages Poster

The Knights Templar 

The most plausible origin of this fear is rooted in the political struggle for pwer between King Philip of France and the Knights Templar. On Friday, October 13, 1307 King Philip of France in an attempt to destroy the knights templar organization issued a warrant for all of them to be arrested. Thousands were hunted down, arrested, tortured and executed. From then on Friday the 13th was considered by Templars to be a very unlucky day.

The Norse Legend: There is a legend that twelve gods had a feast in Valhalla and this feast was crashed by the god Loki (this made him the 13th guest). He plotted to have the god of joy and happiness killed and when this happened the world was plunged into darkness.

The Calendar

For centuries, throughout the middle ages, and as the world grew from being village oriented to being more widespread there was a constant battle over the calendar and many kings, popes, and others attempted to enforce a uniform week/month/year calendar on the world. This caused a lot of conflict and political struggling between followers of the different systems. The inordinate fear of the number 13 may have been propaganda created by the followers of the Gregorian Calendar (it has 12 months) against the followers of the older lunisolar calendar which had 13 months in some years.

Everyone will admit that the fear of friday the 13th is an archaic and  medieval thing and it feels like something that is a remainder of the crazy middle ages. Yet while we all pretty much scoff and it and make fun of it there still is a little part of each of us that wonder if there could be something more to it!

Be careful today

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