The Liturgical Year (Church Year)

Life in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period was shaped by religion and religious beliefs in a way hardly imaginable today. In Christianity, the liturgical year (church year) consists of the two festive cycles of Christmas and Easter, which trace the central events in the life of Jesus (birth, death, and resurrection). This structured daily life like no other constant. The high feasts of the church year were each extended by several weeks of fasting and preparation (Advent and Quadragesima) and, in the case of the post-Easter period, by the inclusion of further feasts such as the Ascension of Christ (on the fortieth day after Easter) and the celebration of the sending of the Holy Spirit (Pentecost, on the fiftieth day after Easter), before the period of the free Sundays in the church year began, the number of which depended on the date of Easter. In addition, there were other “official” church celebrations such as feasts of Mary or saints, whose significance could vary depending on the diocese, as well as “individual” feast and memorial days (anniversary foundations for deceased family members or particular saints), for the liturgical-musical arrangement of which large sums of money were spent.

This strict, annually recurring sequence was determined ceremonially and musically by a prescribed liturgy and the music associated with it. This music initially consisted of an extraordinarily rich repertoire of monophonic chant melodies, commonly referred to as “Gregorian chant”. Only on special occasions was the monophony expanded into polyphony – in order to highlight the exceptional character of the respective feast (» E. Ch. Church plainsong and “music”).