The Makers and Owners of Early Fifteenth-Century Song Books in Italy: The Benedictine Contribution to the Courtly Musical Culture of the Late Middle Ages

Abstract

The ground-breaking studies of Roger Bowers, Giulio Cattin, Reinhard Strohm and others have shown that, during the fifteenth century, Benedictines of high rank or those operating under the protection of high-ranking ecclesiastics cultivated music in all its forms, including secular polyphony. Strohm encapsulates these historic phenomena when he observes that late medieval 'Benedictine houses [ ... ] liaised with trade guilds, courts and the nobility, providing refined hospitality and, at times, a worldly musical environment. [ . ..] To higher-ranking members, these orders [i.e. Benedictines and Austin Canons] allowed the pursuit of music in all its aspects'. The Benedictine reform movements of the early fifteenth century, like those originating at Santa Giustina in Padua or Melk Abbey (Austria), tried at first to curtail these activities. In the case of ltalian Benedictine monasticism, the reformist Congregation of Santa Giustina (known after 1504 as the Cassinese Congregation) spread rapidly throughout Italy after its modest beginnings in 1409. Its authorities took a strict approach to music's use and practice in monastic religious life. Statutes from just after 1444, which must in part reflect regulations implemented by Ludovico Barbo after he became abbot of Santa Giustina in 1409, prohibited all forms of measured music ('cantus figuratus') and hence much polyphony.