Music prohibitions and regular reformation: the case of the canons of San Salvatore
(2017) Annual Medieval-Renaissance Music Conference — Location: Prague (4.July.2017)
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- Abstract
- The idea of reformation has occurred all through the Church history with such a frequency that it has been considered as one of its structuring criteria. Beyond theological issues, one of its major purposes has certainly been to overhaul the religious behaviors and practices of both the clergy and the lay people. It has long been observed that the regulations produced during these reformation processes often implied restrictions – or even prohibitions – to the use of polyphony (or at least to specific kinds of polyphony). Whereas the implications of this “musical skepticism” have mostly been discussed from the moral and devotional points of view, they prove to be more complex and varied. Indeed, the control of musical activities can be motivated by many other requirements, whether they are material (e. g. to restrict expenses), social (e. g. to maintain the community’s cohesion) or ritual (e. g. to define liturgical spaces, times and structures). Furthermore, these regulations do not apply homogeneously since their implications and limitations depend on many factors such as the hierarchical status of the committed individuals, the religious status of the targeted activities, or the juridical status of the regulations themselves. Finally, by producing a distinction between licit and illicit musical activities, they make it possible to define an “aural idiom” that can be specifically linked with the subjected social group. Consequently, when formulated within the reformation of a religious order, a musical prohibition cannot be understood as the result of a simple cultural conservatism or aural iconoclasm. It has to be considered as a part of a wider program which scope is not only to control the behaviors of the individuals and to organize their religious activities, but also to define “aurally” their status as a community. In order to evaluate the modalities and scope this phenomenon in the reformation of a religious order, this paper will analyze the juridical documentation (statutes, ordinaries and capitular acts) provided by the Congregazione di San Salvatore, an Italian congregation of reformed Augustinian canons initiated at the end of the Papal Schism which eventually became an important example for the regular canonic "arctior vita".
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Thoraval, F. (2017). Music prohibitions and regular reformation: the case of the canons of San Salvatore. Annual Medieval-Renaissance Music Conference, Prague. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/246701