The music of the Bohemian Middle Ages

Czech Music, July, 2006 by Lukas Matousek

Today we are seeing ever more interest in historical or "early" music and its "authentic" performance. This has been moving successively further and further back into history, so that the initial interest in the Baroque period has led to the Renaissance period and now we are reaching the Middle Ages. There are perhaps two main impulses behind the present admiration for this era of musical history. One is fascination with non-musical aspects of medieval culture, admiration for Gothic and Renaissance architecture, the fine art of these periods and their literature. (It is paradoxical that Gothic architecture often tends to be associated with Baroque music, so that concert performances of great Baroque works are more often given in Gothic cathedrals than in Baroque churches, while various films about Gothic architecture are given Baroque background music). The second impulse is the growing interest in sacred and liturgical singing, and above all Gregorian chant (plainchant). More generally (maybe prompted by the "heroic" stereotype of chivalry) there is a now established fashion for displays of swordsmanship and brawls in "period" costume accompanied by "period" music. From here it has been but a step to concerts of Medieval and Renaissance music in "period" costume, although one must inevitably wonder about the notion of "period" when programmes cover 300 years a major cultural transition.

It needs to be remembered first and foremost that the Middle Ages represents and extremely long period (roughly a thousand years). Originally the term was supposed retrospectively to cover a rather despised "middle" era between Antiquity and the Renaissance with its ideal of recovering and resuming continuity with the Classical World. Pejorative connotations apart, the Middle Ages indeed differed its in ideals from Antiquity and the Renaissance. The music of the Middle Ages (as we see it today) differs markedly from the music of the Renaissance and it is as peculiar to lump them together as to lump together Renaissance and Baroque music or Baroque music with musical Classicism.

The whole period between Antiquity and the Renaissance was the era of the rise and consolidation of feudalism, in terms of the social hierarchy, political entities and state formation, and at the same time of the emergence of the universal (European) supremacy of Christianity governed by the Roman Church. The Europe of this era saw the emergence of a society in which culture and art flourished in a way that had no equivalent elsewhere in the world. Music was a part of this culture, and it was precisely in the Middle Ages--the second half--that music was changing and evolving (above all with the birth and development of polyphony) in a way that has had no parallel in the later course of music history. It is only a slight over-statement to say that all subsequent development has been simply the elaboration of the impulse given by the Middle Ages. The fact that by contrast the concept of composition as we know it today began to form only in the Renaissance period (another reason why Medieval and Renaissance music cannot be lumped together) has created distortions of perspective and makes it even more important that we should try and understand Medieval movement in its own historical context, free of modern constructs and imposed categories.

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

The Bohemian Lands (or Czech Lands as they came to be known in the modern period--in Czech there is no distinction!) were an integral political part of Europe in the Middle Ages, and in the High Medieval Period (which will be the focus of this article), often enjoyed a political influence that extended beyond Central Europe. Here it is essential to remember that in the Middle Ages territorial boundaries and groupings constantly changed according to the power and holdings of particular rulers and so extensive foreign territories often came under the control or influence of the Bohemian state (Bohemia, Moravia and part of Silesia), sometimes for very long periods of time. We should also be aware that in the Middle Ages the borders between states were not as unambiguous or closed as they are today and that there were other "borders" and "cross-border communities" that undoubtedly had a great influence on the diffusion of culture in Europe. These included the boundaries of church territories (dioceses, and archdioceses), and the spheres of influence of religious orders organised at international level. Close contacts between the monasteries of individual orders definitely played a major role in the "transmission" of cultural influence over great distances, while on the other hand geographically neighbouring areas might have different kinds of liturgical music. The Cistercians and Premonstratensions were quite tightly bound to their centres in France (Citeaux, Premontre), the Minorites and Poor Clares in the Bohemian Lands belonged to Bavarian-Bohemian-Polish provinces, while the Benedictines had looser ties and so on. In the period of emerging Bohemian statehood, the Czech Lands were influenced by the general political and cultural developments taking place in the rest of Europe. In the 9th century Christianity reached Bohemia and what is known as Greater Moravia from the West, with the line of influence reaching back via the Bishopric of Passau and Regensburg to the Frankish Empire. In the third quarter of the 9th century (863--885), Byzantine influence and a liturgy in the Slav language reached Greater Moravia for what was to be a short period through the mission of Constantine and Methodius (It is interesting that in the 14th century Charles IV tried to revive the eastern liturgy in Old Slavonic not just by donation to the Sazava Monastery but also by founding the Monastery "Na Slovanech"--"At the Slavs" in Prague.) Christianity had at this early stage gained a greater hold in Moravia than in Bohemia (where the Premyslid Prince Borivoj accepted baptism only at the end of the 9th century), and so pagan sources evidently continued to play more of a role in musical culture in Bohemia in the subsequent century. With the disintegration of the Greater Moravian Empire in the 10th century the power of the Premyslids was on the rise, and with it came a renewal of ties with Western Europe. At the end of the 10th century the Premyslids (who were to rule until the 14th century) consolidated their grip on Bohemia and Moravia with the slaughter of the rival Slavnikovci (995) and later Vrsovci clans. From this time on, the power of the Christian Church grew rapidly. Bishoprics were set up in Prague (973) and later in Olomouc (1063), and a plethora of monasteries and other church institutions followed. While in the 11th century pagan ceremonies still survived, the 12th century saw the complete victory of Christianity, which was henceforward the main source of universal ideology. Until the mid-14th century, when Charles IV managed to get an Archbishopric for Prague (1344), the Bohemian church was subordinated to the diocese (and later archdiocese) of Mainz, where the princes of Bohemia even had to go to have their coronations recognised. In the 13th century the power of the Czech Premyslids (successively Wenceslas I, Premysl Otakar II and Wenceslas II) increased to the point where they came to influence the politics of all Europe, and this naturally opened up many channels for cultural influence. Another political highpoint for the Bohemian Lands, also bringing cultural stimuli from the outside, was the reign of the Bohemian King and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV (whose father was a Luxemburg and whose mother a Premyslid) in the 14th century. After his death (1378), conflicts and crises overtook the church, political life and society in general. Musical culture in Bohemia, which by this time had evolved a distinctive identity, had many different layers and was responsive to trends in Europe as a whole, was severely hit by the explosion of the Hussite Revolution in the first half of the 15th century.