Nobody in our modern times was able to figure out which medieval English monarch was hiding behind the nickname Roy Henry. There is certain amount of certainty among specialists that it was one of the kings with the name Henry, probably either Henry V who ruled from 1413 to 1422 or his father Henry IV, who was a king of England from 1399 to 1413.
Two compositions that reached our modern times came from the best source for English music of the late Medieval era. It is called Old Hall Manuscript. Today Old Hall Manuscript is considered the largest, most complete and most significant source of English sacred music of the late 14th and early 15th centuries.
The reason why, we are not certain which Henry wrote the music is that both kings were alive at the time. Henry IV, also known as Henry Bolingbroke, was fading slowly at the time when the music was composed. He did not have the reputation of an accomplished musician as his son which still does not allow us to exclude him completely. Besides, his music could have been compiled later.
But if the music was compiled later, that means that it could be Henry V who ruled from 1413 to 1422. Naturally, the scribe would call him Roy even if he was not exactly a king when the music was composed. Most of musicologists think, this Henry V is the most possible composer of this music anyways. Even great William Shakespeare alluded to this.
Recent research shows that compositions were written for the death of Duke Clarence, who was a brother of Henry V. Whoever Roy is, hj seems to be a famous composer because the music itself is skillfully written. It is extremely lucky that the compositions and Old Hall Manuscript survived at all, because most of catholic sacred music manuscripts were destroyed when Henry VIII disbanded monastic communities and confiscated their property from 1536 to 1541.
Not all famous troubadours were of aristocratic origin. Some of them had came from lower class families like great composer and poet Giraut de Bornelh. He was born around 1138 in Limousin and started writing music and poems at quite an early age. Soon his fame spread around and his fans gave him for his skills a very prestigious name - Master of the Troubadours.
And Giraut was a Master, indeed. He invented the new, light style of troubadour’s music, won a lot of poetical debates. We got a rare chance to observer his contribution because around ninety poems and four of his melodies survived to our modern times.
When another great troubadour Raimbaut of Orange unexpectedly died, Giraut created one of his best pieces - a lament on the Raimbaut’s death. This song became famous, especially during Third Crusade. Giraut accompanied Richard the Lionheart and his own patron Aimar V of Limoges and even stayed in the Holy Land for a while. Specialists say, that it is quite possible that Giraut made a piligrimage there even before the beginning of the Third Crusade. He lived a long life and died in 1215.
Once upon a time, or to be more precise, in the eleventh century there was a woman full of wisdom and numerous talents. Seeking the answers, Popes of Rome, kings and statesmen and even some Catholic saints visited her for just a piece of advice. Many abbots and abbesses asked her for prayers and opinions on various matters. Her name was Hildegard of Bingen.
She traveled widely and was the only woman in Middle Ages who had her preaching tours. Hildegard is the first composer with existing biography and she wrote an opera which did not survive to our days. It is easier to say what she did not do. I believe, she showed her genius in everything. In addition to creating music, Hildegard was visionary, artist, author, counselor, linguist, naturalist, scientist, philosopher, physician, herbalist, poet, activist.
Hildegard was the tenth child from the family of free nobles in Germany. She was born in 1098 and did not have a robust health. Since her childhood till the end of her days, Hildegard was experiencing visions. She could predict many things or simply describe something that would only happen in future. Many centuries later we can only guess whether Hildegard was a true psychic or had telepathic abilities. But in the medieval times, her parents, due to her unusual abilities offered her to a church under the care and tutelage of a highly popular nun Jutta.
These were happy times for Hildegard, because a couple of centuries later, she would definitely be burnt in a fire accused to be a witch like Jeanne d’Arc. After passing of Jutta who had many followers, Hildegard was elected to be a leader of her sister community or as they called it then - “magistra”.
Hildegard thought that her visions were some kind of instructions from God. She confided in Jutta, telling her about the visions, but she was still in doubt whether she should record them. But when suddenly she became gravely ill, she overcame her fear and was more open about her visions that continued to get throughout her life. In the end accounts of them were compiled in three books and the work was still in progress when she passed away in 1179.
In addition, to creating music, poetry and writing, Hildegard wrote many medical, botanical and geological works. She was the first woman in Europe to write about feminine sexuality and the first to describe scientifically origin of female orgasm. There is no use to go through accounts of her books and treatises, because one blog entry would not be enough for that. She founded several monasteries and was respected throughout all medieval Germany. She remained at the level of beautification and her name was was taken up in the Roman martyrology at the end of the sixteenth century. There were four attempts to canonize her as saint, but the process was never completed. Yet, she is considered a saint in the whole nation of Germany. Her feast day is September 17.
It is practically impossible to write one short blog entry about life and death of famous troubadour Raymond Lull. This actually requires a big book. First of all, this guy was a real genius living in the barbaric medieval times. Second, he reminds me more of a hero from some sci-fi movie. And, it is strange to me, that there is no movie about him, while there are so many dumb films out there. I don’t even know where to start, but I will give it a try.
Let’s start that he was not just any troubadour hanging around the royal courts and singing about love from afar or other chansons. He was the first in many things. For example, he was a pioneer of computation theory - his works had a great influence on German polymath Leibniz. He, probably wrote a first European romantic novel and the first major work of Catalan language literature. Recently surfaced manuscripts show him to have anticipated by several centuries prominent work on elections theory. He was also a great philosopher and poet - and he made quite an impression on later philosophers, including Schopenhauer. And he was a tireless traveler, making sea voyages even at the very old age until the end of his life.
Raymond Lull was born into a wealthy in Palma on the island of Majorca, somewhere around 1232. Majorca is one of the Balearic islands, which are a part of Spain. Raymond received great education, he spoke fluently Latin, Catalan, Occitan and Arabic and was chosen as a special tutor for James II of Aragon. He was a dedicated troubadour: he led a troubadour’s life even after he married in 1357 and had two kids! Career wise, he was doing fine - he became no less than a senechal of king James II of Majorca.
But somewhere in the middle of his life he started to have visions. This pushed him to a religious conversion, close to what happened centuries later with Leo Tolstoy. In 1265 he had a religious epiphany, became a member of Franciscan monastic order, and for almost a decade became almost a hermit. During these years, he wrote works on botany, alchemy, theology, and a first European romantic novel. He never entered any monastery and did not become a priest. He just remained a secular Franciscan for the rest of his life.
What happened next? Then he invented numerous machines for all purposes. One of his inventions - a proto-computer could generate a large number of combinations of ideas. His invention was an early attempt to use logical means to produce knowledge. Lull’s ideas were further developed in sixteenth century by Giordano Bruno and by and by Gottfried Leibniz in the seventeenth century. A priori, Raymond Lull is considered to be a founding father is a founding father of computer science, because his system of logic was the beginning of information science.
Spanish inquisitors were scared of his works and inventions. Great inquisitor of Aragon thought of Raymond Lull as his personal enemy and sent numerous complaints to Rome. As a result, Pope Gregory XI banned some of Raymond Lull’s writings. Yet, the impact of Raymond Lull system of logic went through the centuries unbruised. It was so ahead of times that even famous Jonathan Swift created a character in Gulliver’s Travels who generates knowledge by combining words at random. Swift does not mention Lull by name, but that passage can only be a parody of his method.
Well over his fifties, Raymond Lull made endless travels in Europe and North Africa. He got an idea to unite Judaism, Christianity and Islam into one faith, which was a pure heresy at these times. During his travels, In 1297 Lull met great philosopher Duns Scotus, after which he was given the nickname Doctor Illuminatus. Lull was prototype of a modern pacifist and never advocated violence or brutal wars. Close to the end of his life Raymond Lull achieved the impossible - all major European universities accepted his idea about linguistic education and set up the chairs of Hebrew, Arabic and Chaldean. Almost simultaneously Sorbonne, Salamanca, Bologna, Oxford and Papal Court introduced linguistic studies going along with Lull’s ideas.
Overall, given a chance, Raymond Lull would probably live to be a hundred years old. He had unusual strength and health and traveled non-stop till he was 82 years old. In 1314 he traveled to North Africa for the last time and was stoned by an angry crowd in the present day northern Ageria. He still managed to survive and even get back to his island of Majorca, where he died in 1315.
