Identity And Locality In Early European Music, ... -

By the 12th century, identity shifted toward language and courtly status. The of Southern France wrote in Occitan , a language distinct from the Northern French Langue d’oïl used by the Trouvères .

In the early medieval period, identity was primarily religious and regional. Before the Carolingian push for "Gregorian" reform, Europe was a patchwork of local liturgies. To hear was to be in Milan; Mozarabic chant signaled the unique Christian identity of the Iberian Peninsula under Visigothic and later Islamic influence; Beneventan chant defined Southern Italy. Identity and Locality in Early European Music, ...

As we move into the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, locality became tied to the "School." The in Paris became the intellectual hub of the musical world, defining an "educated" identity through the birth of complex polyphony. To sing organum was to identify with the cutting-edge scholasticism of the University of Paris. By the 12th century, identity shifted toward language

In early Europe, music functioned as a "sonic border." It defined the limits of a king’s reach, the walls of a monastery, and the shared language of a village. Identity was not a broad, abstract concept but a lived, heard experience. To hear a specific cadence or a particular vernacular poem was to know exactly where you stood on the map of Christendom. Before the Carolingian push for "Gregorian" reform, Europe