And there is more to it than this, for dancing is practised to reveal whether lovers are in good health and sound of limb, after which they are permitted to kiss their mistresses in order that they may touch and savour one another, thus to ascertain if they are shapely or emit an unpleasant odour as of bad meat. Therefore, from this standpoint, quite apart from the many other advantages to be derived from dancing, it becomes an essential in a well ordered society.

Thoinot Arbeau, Orchesography (1589), trans. Mary Stewart Evans
(Images from Dover edition of Arbeau)

SCA Medieval and Renaissance Music Homepage

What's New?

If you have any suggestions or contributions for this page, please write me at lindahl@pbm.com, or suggest a link.

There is a mailing list for this topic, with web-based subscribe/unsubscribe and an archive. This page is a subpage of the Society for Creative Anachronism Arts and Sciences homepage.

Early Music

Western European music in the SCA period has long been studied under the name `early music.' There are many groups which perform such music and many sources should be available in a good library. In addition, there is Usenet newsgroup, rec.music.early, which covers this topic. You may also obtain this newsgroup via a mailing list.

Songs / Minstrels / "Bardic Arts"

In the SCA, you'll often find solo music performances lumped in with poetry, juggling, and other performances arts under the term "Bardic Arts". These areas are covered on their own page, the Minstrel Homepage. Almost all of the music material there is repeated here.

Dance Music

Dance Music is mostly covered in the SCA Dance Homepage.

On With the Show...

Introductory Materials
Mailing lists:
- The early music mailing list (also known as rec.music.early)
  - Search past postings to rec.music.early (also here)
  - Other interesting files in the rec.music.early archive
- Medieval and Renaissance music mailing list (highly academic)
- PERFORM -- Medieval Performing arts (also highly academic)
- The SCA Minstrel Mailing List
- Suggest a link.
Primary & Secondary Sources on the Web
- Medieval Music manuscripts online - a curated list
- Medieval music manuscripts from spielleut.de
- Translations of historical performance texts
- 15th century French chansons
- 300 printed anthologies from the 16th century at the RISM UK site
- Early Music Online (16th century facsimiles)
- Computerized Mensural Music Editing Project
- The Italian Madrigal (1580-1605)
- The Laborde, Mellon, Copenhagen, and Wolfenbuettel chansoniers (all late 15th century)
- Tratado de Glosas (Diego Ortiz, c1519-c1570) (no translations)
- The Troubadours (H.J. Chaytor, 1912)
- Bowed Strings Iconography Project
- Books in the Universal Library
  - The Notation Of Polyphonic Music, 900-1600 (Willi Apel)
  - Contrapuntal Technique In The Sixteenth Century
  - Popular Music Of The Olden Time
  - Five Centuries Of Keyboard Music
  - Trails Of The Troubadours by Raimon De Loi
  - Tonality And Atonality In Sixteenth Century Music by Edward E.Lowinsky
  - The Stringed Instruments Of The Middle Ages by Jeffrey Pulver
  - The Stringed Instruments Of The Middle Ages by Jeffrey Pulver
  - Some British Collectors Of Music C 1600 1960 by A.Hyatt King
  - Sixteenth Century Polyphony A Basic For The Study Of Counterpoint by Arthur Tillman Merritt
  - Seventeenth Century Songs And Lyrics by John P. Cutts
  - The Rhythm Of Twelfth Century Polyphony by William G. Waite
  - MUSIC IN MEDIEVAL BRITAIN by FRANK LI.HARRISON
  - Music Literature Outlines Series I Music In The Middle Ages And Renaissance by Harold Gleason
  - Mediaeval Music by Robert Charles Hope
  - Keyboard Music From The Middle Ages by Gerald Stares Bedbrook
- Llibre Vermell de Montserratt
- Bringing Live Music back into the Living Room (about 1/2 pre-1600)
- Varietie of Lute-Lessons (London: Thomas Adams, 1610) by Robert Dowland (PDF at shipbrook.net)
- The First Set of English Madrigals to 3, 4, 5, and 6 Voices (London: Thomas Fiste, 1598) by John Wilbye (PDF at shipbrook.net)
- A Musicall Dreame, or the Fourth Booke of Ayres (London: Simon Waterson, 1609) by Robert Jones (PDF at shipbrook.net)
- Early English Musick, 1385-1714 (a chronology of composers and works)
- Texts on Music in English (Medieval and Early Modern)
- The Dowland Lute MS (with transcription)
- The Copenhagen Chasonnier (15th century, commentary in Swedish)
- Adam de la Halle: Le Jeu de Robin et Marion (with commentary in french)
- Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum (music theory texts in Latin)
- The Medieval Music Database
- The Cantigas de Santa Maria and The Cantigas de Santa Maria for singers
- Medieval Melodies for Filking
- The Music of Thomas Ravenscroft (c. 1609-1614) (5 books)
- Thomas Deloney's Works (d. 1600)
- Sixteenth Century Ballads
- The Keyboard Music of William Byrd (1543-1623)
- Robert ap Huw's manuscript
- Troubadour Melodies Database
- Lyrics of the Troubadours
- Papal Patronage and the Music of St. Peter's, 1380-1513 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995) by Christopher A. Reynolds
- English Lute Songs
- Suggest a link.
- Ornamentation: a few pages from Conforto's Breve et facile maniera d'essercitarsi ad ogni scolaro
MIDI files and modern editions
- Tree Editions (mostly Renaissance Lute, guitar, and cittern etc. music)
- Arenai (French Renaissance music)
- A collection of music/lyrics from the Middle Ages
- Early music MP3s on Classical Guitar and Early music recordings on lute and early guitar
- Early Music MIDI files * More Early Music MIDI files * Fac-similé.org (medieval through Baroque editions) * Free Choral Music (some early music)
- Directory of sheet music from Early Music Chicago
- Choral Public Domain Library (some Medieval/Renaissance material)
- Aeolian Consort free sheet music (some Renaissance)
Instrument-specific resources: Lute (also here), hurdy-gurdy, pipe and tabor, viola da gamba, recorder, crumhorn, harp, lyre, ancient lyre, bagpipe, (hammered) dulcimer, rebec, and citole .
Academic Organizations / Societies
- Records of Early English Drama (REED)
- Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society
Other
- The Portuguese Early Music Database
- pre-1050 Northern European instruments
- The Known World Choir Mailing List
- The Hyms and Carols Website, including: Ancient English Christmas Carols (1400-1700) * Ambrose of Milan (ca. 340-397) * Aurelius Clemens Prudentius (348 - ca. 413) * Henry Suso (1295-1366) * Piae Cantiones (Finnish medieval collection) * St. Bede the Venerable (ca. 632-735) * Martin Luther (1483-1546) * Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676) * Philipp Nicolai (1556-1608) * Thomas Tallis (ca. 1505-1585)
- Search CDs to find composers/tunes, at medieval.org and freedb.org
- A short (English) summary of a (French) dissertation on musica ficta
- Article: Music for the Lute, Guitar, and Vihuela (1470-1799)
- An introduction to recorders in the Middle Ages
- Gregorian Chant
- A Singer's Guide to Medieval/Renaissance Music (bibliography)
- A bibliography of a-capella music (mostly 16th century)
- A short bibliography of early music-related materials
- Stefan's Florilegium collection of Performance Arts messages
- Suggest a link.
Vendors: see the Juried Merchants List Music & Dance Index
- How to build a portative organ (advertisement)
- House of Musical Traditions (not moved over yet)
- The Medieval Lyric (inexpensive resource with accompanying audio CDs)

Non-Western Music and Dance

I don't have that much good information on non-Western dance or music, but there are a couple of sources of middle-eastern info on the Web.

Finally, there is a generic homepage for music-related resources at Indiana.

Return to the Society for Creative Anachronism Arts and Sciences homepage.

Who else has links to this page?

Gregory Blount of Isenfir (Greg Lindahl)