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In the Middle Ages grammar did not consist only of the rules for creating proper
utterances in a given language, it also encompassed the interpretation of written works. It is
commonly described in the Middle Ages as: “the science of interpreting the poets and other
writers and the systematic principles for speaking and writing correctly; it is the source and
foundation of the liberal arts.” 90 As Irvine demonstrates, the grammatical theory of knowledge
pervades medieval thought, influencing not only the interpretation of existing works, but what
works were collected into manuscripts and the appearance of the works on the page. 91
Grammatical theory is obviously appropriate for understanding troubadour poems as
written texts, but it is appropriate for understanding the melodies as well. The grammatical
model permeates medieval treatises on music, as modern scholars such as Bielitz and Bower
have shown. 92 Music theory treatises on how to sing plainchant correctly, in particular, base
much of their approach on the grammatical model, because, as the gloss quoted above indicates,
grammar is the foundation of the other liberal arts. Musical grammarians like Guido and John
demonstrate how melodic modal theory is a basis for musical grammar of plainchant. Even
when plainchant was not written down, it was treated in certain respects as though it were. The
melodies are considered authoritative texts not to be altered wilfully. Most studies that employ
the grammatical model explore the relationship between the words and music of plainchant; in
this dissertation I expand its use to secular melodies.
90 Glosses on grammatica from the ninth to eleventh centuries, cited in Irvine, Textual
Culture, xiii. Irvine does not supply the Latin.
91 Irvine, Textual Culture, 1-2.
92 Bielitz, Musik und Grammatik; Bower, “Grammatical Model.”
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