We begin our Early Sacred Music course with a general discussion of Gregorian Chant. How did the chant arise and become the standard for Christian worship in the Middle Ages?

The video below is a supplement to the course and concerns Unit 1. The Early Sacred Music course covers the history of music and culture from the Jerusalem Temple through the Middle Ages. The full curriculum with recorded videos, assignments, art galleries, quizzes, and more is offered on this site through the Circle of Scholars. The course is designed for students in high school, upper middle school, homeschool, classical education, and Christian education. It is also appropriate for adults with an interest in the topic.

Gregorian Chant can be seen as a paradigm for the sacred music of Christianity. Sacred texts were set to specific melodies. We find the chant in the oldest manuscripts (dating from the 10th century) containing musical notation designed to show a specific melody. This music was used by monastics as the basis for their daily life of prayer and sung worship, and the manuscripts demonstrate that the same texts were sung to the same melodies throughout Western Europe. Gregorian Chant continues to form the basis of worship for many communities in our own time.

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