Aurelian of Réôme (Aurelianus Reomensis) (fl. c. 840–850) was a Frankish writer and music theorist. He is the author of the Musica disciplina, the earliest extant treatise on music from medieval Europe. Events After the death of Louis the Pious, his sons Lothar, Charles the Bald and Louis the German fight over the division of the empire, with Lothair succeding as Emperor. ... Events April 20 - Guntherus becomes Bishop of Cologne. ... The Franks were one of several west Germanic tribes who entered the late Roman Empire from Frisia as foederati and established a lasting realm in an area that covers most of modern-day France and the region of Franconia in Germany, forming the historic kernel of both these two modern... Music theory is a set of systems for analyzing, classifying, and composing music and the elements of music. ... Medieval music is music of Europe in the Middle Ages. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ...

Life

Next to nothing is known about his life but what can be inferred by the treatise itself. For a time he was a member of the monastery at St Jean de Réôme, in the Côte-d'Or near the present-day town of Moutiers-St-Jean. Aurelian said in his treatise that he was a former monk of Réôme, but had been dismissed from the community for an unspecified offense; he wrote the treatise as a form of penance, both at the request of his colleagues who needed his specialized knowledge, and as an attempt to supplicate Abbot Bernard of St Jean de Réôme; whether or not he was admitted back into the monastery as a result of his writing is not known. There is a record of an abbot named Bernard at St Jean de Réôme beginning in 846, who shortly afterward became bishop of Autun; this has helped establish the date for the treatise. Côte-dOr is a département in the eastern part of France. ... Events The Moors temporarily recapture León. ...

There has been an attempt to associate Aurelian of Réôme with Aurelian, archbishop of Lyon from 876 to 895, but the evidence for this is circumstantial at best. This article is about the French city. ... Events Seiwa is succeeded by Yozei as emperor of Japan. ... Events Bohemia breaks away from Great Moravia Arnulf of Carinthia undertakes his second Italian campaign Approximate date of composition of the Musica enchiriadis, the beginnings of western polyphonic music Births Athelstan of England Erik Bloodaxe, king of Norway 933-935 (+954) Deaths Categories: 895 ...

Work and influence

The Musica disciplina is the earliest writing on music from medieval Europe, in any language, since classical antiquity. Only Isidore of Seville wrote on music before Aurelian, and his subject was the music of antiquity. Aurelian's work is the first to cover plainchant, in the period immediately after Gregorian chant became standardized in northern and western Europe, and it also has the earliest extant sample of musical notation, although the particular notational scheme he used has so far resisted definitive interpretation, and it only appears in one small section of his book. This article describes the ancient classical period: for the classical period in music (second half of the 18th century): see Classical music era. ... Saint Isidore of Seville (560 - April 4, 636) was Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and has the reputation of being one of the great scholars of the early middle ages. ... Broadly speaking, plainsong is the name given to the body of traditional songs used in the liturgies of the Catholic Church. ... Gregorian chant is also known as plainchant or plainsong, and is a form of monophonic, unaccompanied singing, which was developed in the Catholic church, mainly during the period 800-1000. ... Music notation is a system of writing for music. ...

One of the most important topics covered in the Musica disciplina, to contemporary scholars, is the eight Tones, what are today known as the church modes, although Aurelian did not use the term. As sources, Aurelian used Isidore of Seville, Cassiodorus, and above all Boethius, but the eight Tones were more likely than not imported from Byzantine music in the 8th century. Instead of giving the modes the names used by the ancient Greeks as well as Boethius (Dorian, Phrygian, etc.) he invented his own names, such as noannoeane, and noeagis; he also includes the fascinating bit that Charlemagne himself had commanded that four more Tones be added to the existing eight, making a total of twelve (it would not be until the 16th century that the remaining four modes were again defined; this occurred in the Dodecachordon of Heinrich Glarean). In music, a mode is an ordered series of musical intervals, which, along with the key or tonic define the pitches. ... Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (ca 484/490 - ca585), commonly known as Cassiodorus, was a Roman statesman and writer, serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Italy, of a family that was apparently of Syrian origin. ... There are several persons called Bo thius: Philosophers: Anicius Manlius Severinus thius - to many scholars this is the Bo thius, a late-Roman writer best known for his works in philosophy and theology. ... Strictly speaking, Byzantine music is the medieval sacred chant of Christian Churches following the Orthodox rite. ... Ancient Greece is the term used to describe the Greek_speaking world in ancient times. ... The Dorians were one of the ancient Hellenic (Greek) tribes acknowledged by Greek writers. ... Phrygian can refer to: A person from Phrygia The Phrygian language This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... A Frankish king, like Charlemagne, (center) depicted in the Sacramentary of Charles the Bald (about 870) Charlemagne (c. ... (15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. ... Heinrich Glarean (also Glareanus) (June 1488 – March 28, 1563) was a Swiss music theorist, poet and humanist. ...

A current matter of controversy is whether the Musica disciplina is a survival of a tradition of writing on music, the rest of which has been lost, or whether Aurelian was the first to attempt to codify the existing practice. Music as an intellectual discipline had only been revived in the late 8th century by Alcuin, as part of a campaign to revive all of the liberal arts of antiquity, and which was one of the most significant features of the Carolingian Renaissance. There may have been prior, lost works on music from the late 8th and early 9th centuries; but if so, Aurelian makes no reference to them. In addition, Aurelian made many mistakes interpreting Boethius; European music theory was in its infancy, and the music theory of antiquity, as passed down by Boethius, was evidently difficult to understand and apply to the tradition of chant, which was the only music Aurelian knew. (7th century — 8th century — 9th century — other centuries) Events The Iberian peninsula is taken by Arab and Berber Muslims, thus ending the Visigothic rule, and starting almost 8 centuries of Muslim presence there. ... Flaccus Albinus Alcuin (about 735 - May 19, 804) was a monk from York, England. ... The Carolingian Renaissance refers to the often-rejected but just as frequently resuscitated idea that a flowering of literature, the arts, architecture, jurisprudence, liturgical and scriptural studies occurred during and shortly after the reign of Charlemagne, that this flowering was consciously nurtured by the court, and that this flowering was...

Other topics covered in the Musica disciplina include the music of the spheres, the ethical and moral effects of music, and musical proportions; in addition he includes a narrative about the inventors of music, for example Pythagoras and Jubal. Musica universalis or music of the spheres is a medieval philosophical concept that regards the proportions in the movements of the celestial bodies - the sun, moon and planets - as a form of musica (the medieval Latin name for music). ... Pythagoras (582 BC – 496 BC, Greek: Πυθαγόρας) was an Ionian mathematician and philosopher, known best for formulating the Pythagorean theorem. ... Jubal was, according to the Bible, a son of Cains descendant Lamech and his wife Adah. ...

The book also contains descriptions of more than 100 chants; unfortunately they are verbal descriptions only, since pitch-specific notation had not developed by 850, although there have been several attempts to transcribe them and correlate them with later versions of the same chants.

References and further reading

• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1561591742
• Richard H. Hoppin, Medieval Music. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1978. ISBN 0393090906
• Jane Bellingham: "Aurelian of Réôme", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed February 27, 2005), (subscription access) (http://www.grovemusic.com)