Oxford Monographs on Music- Music in Late Medieval Bruges

A look at the musical achievements of Bruges and how its people gave expression to their spiritual needs. It is based on musical sources, stylistic trends, composers' achievements and the function of musical genres, seen against a reconstruction of the socio-economic context of the art of music.



The musical achievements of the so-called `Franco-Flemish School' have attracted many writers, yet Bruges itself has still to be put back on the map of European music history. This book describes how the people of Bruges shaped their acoustic environment and gave musical expression to their spiritual needs. It is based on a scrutiny of musical sources, stylistic trends in music, composers' achievements, and the function of musical genres; all these are seen against a reconstruction, from archival sources, of the socio-economic context of the art of music - an art which, in all its various manifestations, `high' and `low', sacred and secular, courtly and civic, polyphonic and monophonic, mirrors later medieval urban culture as a whole.