6 posts tagged “medieval”

I went through more manuscripts and found more interesting personalities from so called Dark Ages.

In my previous post I mentioned that Medieval women worked a lot on illumination. Manuscript illumination affords us many of the named artists of the Medieval Period including Ende, a tenth century Spanish nun; Guda, a twelfth century German nun; Claricia, twelfth century laywoman in a Bavarian scriptorium. Hildegard of Bingen is a particularly fine example of a German Medieval intellectual and artist. She wrote "The Divine Works of a Simple Man", "The Meritorious Life", sixty-five hymns, a miracle play, and a long treatise of nine books on the different natures of trees, plants, animals, birds, fish, minerals, and metals. From an early age, she claimed to have visions. When the Papacy supported these claims by the headmistress, her position as an important intellectual was galvanized. The visions became part of one of her seminal works, which consists of thirty-five visions relating and illustrating the history of salvation. The illustrations showing Hildegarde experiencing visions while seated in the monastery at Bingen, differ greatly from others created in Germany during the same period. They are characterized by bright colors, emphasis on line, and simplified forms. While Hildegard likely did not pen the images, their nature leads one to believe they were created under her close supervision.

After passing of Jutta who had many followers, Hildegard was elected to be a leader of her sister community. Then she was still in doubt about her visions. But then Hildegard decided that her visions were instructions from God. She confided in Jutta about the visions, who could not keep this secret and told it to several other people. Yet, Hildegard would not record her predictions and visions. Only when suddenly she became extremely sick, she overcame her fear and was more open about her visions that she continued to get throughout her life. Her work on vision was always in progress. In the end accounts of visions were compiled in three books and stopped only in 1179 with her death.

Hildegard founded several monasteries and was respected throughout all medieval Germany. Among her heritage there are many medical, botanical and geological works, poems, plays and music. Amazingly, she was the first woman in Europe to write about feminine sexuality and the first to describe scientifically origin of female orgasm. She remained at the level of beautification and her name was was taken up in the Roman martyrology. But never was formally canonized by Rome. Nevertheless,  for Germans she was and would remain Saint Hildegard and she is highly popular there even today.

Some would call Hildegard of Bingen who lived in early medieval period a polymath or a Renaissance woman who was ahead of her time. But I would call her a true psychic, who also had unusual telepathic abilities. In the barbaric times of the eleventh century, seeking the answers, Popes of Rome, kings, queens, statesmen and clerics and even some canonized in future Catholic saints visited her just to hear her predictions and prophecies. Here is what I found during my research for a local web analytics company.

She was quite a popular figure of her times, like a big rock star, if we compare her to our modern times. All we have to say is that she was the only woman in Middle Ages who had her preaching tours! She was not just a visionary, she was also a famous composer, artist, author, counselor, linguist, naturalist, scientist, philosopher, physician, herbalist, poet, activist of her times.

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We know much more about Philippe de Vitry. We even know that time of his birth and death: October 31, 1291 - June 9, 1361. Philippe de Vitry was a French composer, music theorist and poet. He was an accomplished, innovative, and influential composer, and may also have been the author of the Ars Nova treatise.

He was born in Paris. At online funeral home directory we found very sketchy biographical details of his life. Given that he is often referred to in documents as "Magister," he is thought likely to have studied at the University of Paris. Later he was prominent in the courts of Charles IV, Philippe VI and Jean II, serving as a secretary and advisor; perhaps aided by these Bourbon connections, he also held several canonries, including Clermont, Beauvais, and Paris, also serving for a time in the antipapal retinue at Avignon starting with Clement VI. In addition to all this, he was a diplomat and a soldier, and is known to have served at the siege of Aiguillon in 1346. In 1351 he became Bishop of Meaux, east of Paris. Moving in all the most important political, artistic, and ecclesiastical circles, he was acquainted with many lights of the age, including Petrarch and the famous mathematician, philosopher and music theorist Nicole Oresme. De Vitry died in Paris.

At the court of Charles, after Charles became king of Naples, Adam wrote his Jeu de Robin et Marion, the most famous of his works. His shorter pieces are accompanied by music, of which a transcript in modern notation, with the original score, is given in Coussemaker’s edition. His Jeu de Robin et Marion is cited as the earliest French play with music on a secular subject. The pastoral, which tells how Marion resisted the knight, and remained faithful to Robert the shepherd, is based on an old chanson, Robin m’aime, Robin m’a. It consists of dialogue varied by refrains already current in popular song. The melodies to which these are set have the character of folk music, and are more spontaneous and melodious than the more elaborate music of his songs and motets.

Musicologists consider Le Jeu de Robin et Marion and Le Jeu de la feuillée forerunners of the comic opera. An adaptation of Le Jeu Robin et Marion, by Julien Tiersot, was played at Arras by a company from the Paris Opera Comique on the occasion of a festival in 1896 in honour of Adam de le Hale.

Adam de la Halle, also known as Adam le Bossu which is translated into English as Adam the Hunchback was a French-born trouvère, poet and musician, who broke with the long-established tradition of writing liturgical poetry and Catholic funeral music to be an early founder of secular theater in France. Researches say, that he was born around 1237 and they are positive that he died in 1288.

Adam’s other nicknames, “le Bossu d’Arras” and “Adam d’Arras”, suggest that he came from Arras, France. The sobriquet “the Hunchback” was probably a family name; Adam himself points out that he was not one. His father, Henri de le Hale, was a well-known Citizen of Arras, and Adam studied grammar, theology, and music at the Cistercian abbey of Vaucelles, near Cambrai. Father and son had their share in the civil discords in Arras, and for a short time took refuge in Douai. Adam had been destined for the church, but renounced this intention, and married a certain Marie, who figures in many of his songs, rondeaux, motets and jeux-partis. Afterwards he joined the household of Robert II, count of Artois; and then was attached to Charles of Anjou, brother of Charles IX, whose fortunes he followed in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Italy.