Music Of The Medieval Era In The Western Church

The Middle Ages in the West saw the gradual dominance of the Roman rite over the local rites that had developed before the ninth and tenth centuries. Musically this entailed the spread of Gregorian chant. Later centuries saw the development of polyphony. In the late Middle Ages, the preaching service of Prone became the model for Reformed worship. The Standardizing of Worship In the early years following Christianity's recognition, each metropolitan center developed its own liturgy and practices within the sphere of its cultural influence and under the leadership of the bishops of Antioch, Alexandria, Byzantium, Jerusalem, Milan, and Rome. Later developments of the Mozarabic liturgy in Spain, the Gallican liturgy of northern Europe, and the Celtic liturgies in Britain resulted from the missionary expansion of the Western church centers. Each liturgy was sung with its own traditions of cantillation, so that we have historical records of the development of Antiochian chant, Coptic cha…