Mysticism in Medieval Christian Music Theory

Throughout much of the history of Christianity, Christians have been called on to be mystics. That is, every Christian soul should experience a direct relationship with God and Christ.

In the Middle Ages, music was regarded as an instrument of spiritual perfection and played a major role in the Christian mystical quest. The core of medieval Christian music was plainsong (or plainchant, or simply chant), unaccompanied, rhythmically free-flowing vocal music on sacred texts.

God as the Word was symbolized by the words and music of the sacred chants. It is traditionally believed that under Pope Gregory I (the Great), who reigned from 590 to 604, the Catholic church established the dogma that liturgical chant was perfect and unalterable.

However, originally each Christian region employed its own distinctive music in the services. After several centuries of internal struggling, the church finally standardized its chants in the form of the Roman-or, since much of the Roman repertory was modified and finalized in France, the Franco-Roman-version, which came to be known as Gregorian chant (Gregorian chant may actually have been named for Pope Gregory II, who reigned from 715 to 731).

In the 9th century, an ex post facto justification for the unification of the chants evolved as a legend according to which Gregory the Great had received the chants from the Holy Ghost, who, in the form of a dove, had whispered the melodies into Gregory's ears. Therefore, the chants, coming directly from God, had to be regarded as perfect and unalterable.

Medieval Christian chants were not separable from their ceremonial context and purpose. The chants were musical prayer (that is, sonic communications with God), a form of heightened speech that united the faithful through music in the articulation of devout thoughts.

Monks and worshipers sang the chants-rhythmically free, melodically "pure" (simple, shaped by the liturgy), and textually sacred-to liberate the spirit, to gain freedom from the self through the revelation of the divine. The unison texture symbolized unanimity among themselves and with God.

Christians built cloisters and huge cathedrals (representing God's universe) with incredibly sensitive acoustics so that when monks and worshipers chanted sacred texts, the singers and listeners would lose consciousness of their individual identities while being completely engulfed by, and merged with, the reverberating word of God.

Cosmic Music System
The most influential medieval music theorist in the Christian world was Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (c. 480-524), who adapted Greek, especially Pythagorean, music theory for the people of his own time in his book De institutione musica ("The Principles of Music").

In that book Boethius analyzes music as a branch of mathematics and as an exemplification in sounds of the fundamental principles of order and harmony in the universe. He divides music into three categories, all theoretically based on the same mathematical relations.

Musica mundana ("cosmic music") is the harmony of the macrocosm and includes the music of the spheres (ethereal music believed by the Pythagoreans to be produced by the vibrations of the celestial spheres) and the orderly mathematical relations underlying the behavior of the heavenly bodies and the earth.

Musica humana ("human music") refers to the harmony of the microcosm and includes the ways in which cosmic orderly relations are exemplified in the body and soul of humankind.

Musica instrumentalis ("instrumental music") denotes audible music produced by the human voice and other instruments and includes the idea that music, especially through the acoustic ratios of music intervals, exemplifies the principles of cosmic order.

To Boethius (and the many generations of medieval Christian music theorists whom he influenced), musica instrumentalis is a heavenly gift bestowed on humankind and, as an imitation of musica mundana, a vehicle through which humans can more nearly approach and reflect the image of God.

A practical consequence of such theorizing was the medieval Christian belief that properly constructed music was a revelation of God and thus a means by which to achieve, by devoutly performing or listening, the experience of a direct (mystical) relationship with him.
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Bukofzer, Manfred F. "Speculative Thinking in Mediaeval Music." Speculum: A Journal of Mediaeval Studies (April 1942).

Grout, Donald Jay, and Claude V. Palisca. A History of Western Music. 5th ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996.

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 2nd ed. London: Macmillan, 2001.