page_title: Early music of the British Isles
section_title: Secular music
hierarchical_section_title: Early music of the British Isles / Medieval music to 1450 / Secular music
context_page_description: Early music of the British Isles, from the earliest recorded times until the beginnings of the Baroque in the 17th century, was a diverse and rich culture, including sacred and secular music and ranging from the popular to the elite. Each of the major nations of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales retained unique forms of music and of instrumentation, but British music was highly influenced by continental developments, while British composers made an important contribution to many of the major movements in early music in Europe, including the polyphony of the Ars Nova and laid some of the foundations of later national and international classical music. Musicians from the British Isles also developed some distinctive forms of music, including Celtic chant, the Contenance Angloise, the rota, polyphonic votive antiphons and the carol in the medieval era and English madrigals, lute ayres and masques in the Renaissance era, which would lead to the development of English language opera at the height of the Baroque in the 18th century.
context_section_description: Ireland, Scotland and Wales shared a tradition of bards, who acted as musicians, but also as poets, story tellers, historians, genealogists and lawyers, relying on an oral tradition that stretched back generations. Often accompanying themselves on the harp, they can also be seen in records of the Scottish courts throughout the medieval period. We also know from the work of Gerald of Wales that at least from the 12th century, group singing was a major part of the social life of ordinary people in Wales. From the 11th century particularly important in English secular music were minstrels, sometimes attached to a wealthy household, noble or royal court, but probably more often moving from place to place and occasion to occasion in pursuit of payment. Many appear to have composed their own works, and can be seen as the first secular composers and some crossed international boundaries, transferring songs and styles of music. Because literacy, and musical notation in particular were preserves of the clergy in this period the survival of secular music is much more limited than for church music. Nevertheless, some were noted, occasionally by clergymen who had an interest in secular music. England in particular produced three distinctive secular musical forms in this period, the rota, the polyphonic votive antiphon and the carol.
caption: O Maria salvatoris, from the Eton Choirbook
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "1496", "Image ImageLength": "2120", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2018:03:31 00:28:23", "Image ExifOffset": "232", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "382", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8546", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1496", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2120"}