What were the role of the musician in the Middle Ages?

All music, architecture, poetry and learning was cultivated by the church. Composers were churchmen and musicians got their training as church choirboys. The role of music in the medieval church was to embellish or accompany prayer. It was intended to create a mood of peace, contemplation and spirituality.

the Minstrels

In all, Hildegard von Bingen, Leonin, Perotin, and Guillaume de Machaut made significant advancements in music during the mid to late Medieval Period, around 1100 to 1400.

Medieval Composers (500 – 1430)

Pérotin

Leonin’s version of the Viderunt Omnes is composed in organum duplum. The chant is held in the tenor voice and moves slowly w hile the organal voice has a melismatic line. Rhythmic modes can be easily heard in this organum. The combinations of longs and shorts give a compound meter feel.

melismatic singing. When many notes or pitches are sung to just one syllable of text. Rhythm.

While only solo sections are polyphonic, the organum remains clear when juxtaposed with the traditional, monophonic choir chant.

The organum was innovative because introduced polyphony (music composed of more than a single plainchant line). How many voices sang in a motet? … Three voices sang in a motet. Beginning in the thirteenth century, motets were sung in both French and Latin.

Gregorian chant, monophonic, or unison, liturgical music of the Roman Catholic Church, used to accompany the text of the mass and the canonical hours, or divine office. Gregorian chant is named after St. Gregory I, during whose papacy (590–604) it was collected and codified.