Timeline #1

The Fall of Rome

476

In 410 C.E., the Visigoths, led by Alaric, breached the walls of Rome and sacked the capital of the Roman Empire. The Visigoths looted, burned, and pillaged their way through the city, leaving a wake of destruction wherever they went. The plundering continued for three days. For the first time in nearly a millennium, the city of Rome was in the hands of someone other than the Romans.

Beginning of the Dark Ages

500

Migration period, also called Dark Ages or Early Middle Ages, the early medieval period of western European history

Feudalism Begins

800

Feudalism, historiographic construct designating the social, economic, and political conditions in western Europe during the early Middle Ages, the long stretch of time between the 5th and 12th centuries.

Guido of Arezzo

991

(The years are a close estimate.) Music theorist; he is credited with creating a system of precise pitch notation through lines and spaces on a staff; he advovcated a method of sight-singing using the syllables, (ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la); his treatise, Micrologus, is the earliest and best treatise on musical composition of chant and polyphony.

Hildegard von Bingen

1098

Composer of the first morality play; known as the Sybil of the Rhine; writer, composer, theologian; her counsel was sought after by rulers

Bernart de Ventadorn

1130

(The years are a close estimate.) Famous troubadour; perhaps the finest of the troubadour poets; very important musically to us because more of his music survives than any other 12th century poet.

Léonin (Leoninus)

1135

(Magister Leoninus II); Master of organum purum at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris; our information comes largely from Anonymous IV's writings

Walther von der Vogelwide

1170

Poet and Minnesinger; worked at the Viennese court; he wrote the earliest surviving minnesinger melody; his contemporaries considered him the leading composer and poet among Minnesinger

Pérotin (Perotinus)

1180

(The years are a close estimate.) Master of discant organum at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris; supposed student of Leonin; wrote 3 and 4-voice organum; his identity is regarded as speculative

"The Black Death" or Bubonic Plague

1200

Black Death, pandemic that ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1351, taking a proportionately greater toll of life than any other known epidemic or war up to that time.

Comtessa Beatri de Dia

1212

Famous female troubadour; she has left us the only surviving melody by a female troubadour (trobairitz)

Moniot d'Arras

1213

(Flourished at this time.) Trouvére; wrote in several genres and forms; monk at Arras

Adam de la Halle

1245

(The years are a close estimate.) One of the last trouvéres; wrote polyphony; studied in Paris

Philippe de Vitry

1291

Known as the "inventor of a new art," French composer, poet, theorist, and bishop; established a new tradition of mensural notation

Guillaume de Machaut

1300

(The years are a close estimate.) The leading composer and poet of the Ars Nova; his importance and innovations are extraordinary

Francesco Landini

1325

(The years are a close estimate.) Known for his cadences; virtuoso organist; blind from early age; most celebrated musical personality of the Trecento; also an instrument maker

John Dunstaple

1390

(The years are a close estimate.) The leading English composer; created a new consonant style of 3rds and 6ths that became the Renaissance style; many works destroyed during the English Reformation 1536-40; [also spelled Dunstable]

Guillaume Du Fay

1397

(The years are a close estimate.) Franco-Flemish; the first important Renaissance composer; used older medieval cadences; [also spelled Dufay]

Johannes Ockeghem

1419

(The years are a close estimate.) Bass singer; served 3 Kings; very respected; did not use much imitation; born in Northeastern France; important teacher

Heinrich Isaac

1450

(The years are a close estimate.) Franco-Flemish composer who influenced German music; court composer to Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in Vienna; served in Florence as well.

Pierre de la Rue

1452

(The years are a close estimate.) Leading composer at the Burgundian court; never worked in Italy; very famous in his day; frequent use of canon and ostinato; preferred low sonorities

Leonardo da Vinci was Born

1452

Leonardo da Vinci, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. His Last Supper and Mona Lisa are among the most widely popular and influential paintings of the Renaissance. His notebooks reveal a spirit of scientific inquiry and a mechanical inventiveness that were centuries ahead of their time.

Josquin des Prez

1455

(The years are a close estimate.) Considered by Matin Luther to be the "best of the composers of our time" and "the master of the notes;" he was said to have had no peer in music; French

Jacob Obrecht

1457

(The years are a close estimate.) Made important contributions to large-scale forms and their unity; Dutch; important composer of masses in Europe

Ottaviano Petrucci

1466

First music printer and publisher; preserved Renaissance music for us today.

Martin Luther

1483

German theologian and composer; he was the founder of the Lutheran Church

Adrian Willaert

1490

(The years are a close estimate.) Complex, continuous polyphony; strong advocate of textual expression; studied with Jean Mouton; served in Italian courts; extraordinary teacher, worked in Venice at St. Marks Cathedral

Thomas Tallis

1505

(The years are a close estimate.) English organist; taught Byrd; he was Catholic during Henry VIII's troubled years; wrote both for the Latin and the reformed English liturgies

Jacques Arcadelt

1507

(The years are a close estimate.) Dutch; worked in Rome and Paris; famous for his early madrigals and his 3 to 7-voice masses (often homorhythmic style); well published in the 16th century.

Cipriano de Rore

1515

(The years are a close estimate.) Flemish; worked in Ferrara and Parma; associated with Willaert.

Phillipe de Monte

1521

At the Viennese and Prague courts; religious; Franco-Flemish; mixed polyphony and homophony; one of the most prolific composers of the Renaissance.

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

1525

Became and icon of Renaissance music for future generations; Roman style; responded to the requests of the Council of Trent to reform Catholic church music; mostly contrapuntal liturgical music.

Italian Madrigal

1530

Madrigal, form of vocal chamber music that originated in northern Italy during the 14th century, declined and all but disappeared in the 15th, flourished anew in the 16th, The 14th-century madrigal is based on a relatively constant poetic form of two or three stanzas of three lines each, with 7 or 11 syllables per line.

Orlando di Lasso

1532

(The years are a close estimate.) Also Roland de Lassus; widely traveled; employed G. Gabrieli in 1575; over 2000 compositions in all languages; one of the most versatile and prolic composers in the 16th century.

Thomas Morley

1557

English; contributed to the development of the English madrigal; important for music publication and printing; probably a pupil of Byrd; wrote in 1597, "A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke."

Shakespeare was born

1564

William Shakespeare, English poet, dramatist, and actor, often called the English national poet and considered by many to be the greatest dramatist of all time.

Claudio Monteverdi

1567

Ahead of his time; took music into a new style ("seconda pratica" vs. the older, "prima pratica")

Canzona septimi toni

1597

From his large collection called Sacred Symphonies. 8 musical lines interacting with each other in polyphony, sometimes creating homorhythm. Split choirs.Composed by Gabrieli